Has crafting weapons become a makeshift solution?

Conan Exiles General Discussion Feedback
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I know I’m late to the discussion, but as a casual player, I had to craft a new sword only yesterday and was surprised by the nerf to Telith’s Sorrow. I’m not here to criticize, but rather to try and understand how this change can be seen as a positive thing.

Up until now, I’ve been using four weapons (always two-handed swords), not so much for their damage output, but because I find them extremely interesting in their essence.

1- A sword that requires me to venture into a hostile location, guarded by a gigantic undead corrupted dragon, with the possibility of defeating it and extracting its bones and horns, which will be used by a legendary blacksmith to craft it to perfection, making it a powerful and lethal weapon. Its repair relies on hunting dragons and keeping a stock of their bones available for each new journey in exile, as its durability is low.

2- A sword that demands I face the challenges of a dark dungeon, located in a dangerous place with freezing weather and the threat of undead soldiers from an extinct legion. Only after defeating the legion’s commander, Tyros the Deathbringer, and extracting his still-beating heart, I can hand it over to my best blacksmith to obtain what I consider the best sword in the game.

3- A sword made of a rare and mysterious metal that can only be extracted by venturing north and facing the challenges of giants, mammoths, and saber-toothed tigers. I must be fortunate enough to stumble upon a rare meteor that, when exploded, yields the elusive Star Metal. Repairing this weapon requires frequent visits to that region to ensure a steady supply of star metal bars. Besides being deadly, the sword boasts an incredible visual with its radiant light, showcasing its rarity and power.

4- A sword whose raw metal can only be found in one of the harshest regions imaginable: the interior of a volcano. Once you learn to survive in such a threatening environment, acquiring this material isn’t too difficult. However, this metal can only be worked in a specific forge located deep within the heart of the volcano, protected by the Exile’s most formidable soldiers. Obtaining obsidian ingots is considered one of the greatest challenges one can face. Only after mastering this incredible metal I am able to return triumphantly to my castle, witnessing the sword being delivered by the skilled hands of my most trusted blacksmith.

For me, crafting weapons is one of the most enjoyable mechanics in the game. It requires constant maintenance (I don’t use repair kits), isn’t reliant on RNG, and the creativity and intelligence behind the concept of each weapon is one of the aspects I admire most. Imagine my surprise when I realizedd that all of this has been nerfed to the ground.

Now, from what I understand, if I want a chance at the end game, obtaining my weapons boils down to:

1- I have a base between two mini bosses: a spider and a scorpion.

2- I walk for about 40 seconds and reach the scorpion. I let my thrall kill it and acquire a powerful weapon.

3- I walk for another 2 minutes and reach the spider. I let my thrall kill it and obtain another powerful weapon.

4- I return to my base, leave the weapons and any potential loot there, and repeat the monotonous, random, repetitive cycle without any excitement.

Seriously, please tell me how this could be considered an improvement for the game? I’m not saying it isn’t; I’m just desperate to understand what’s happening with this game.

I actually started believing that the game had a deadline for the new era, so whatever was ready was thrown at the players (@CodeMage brought up this possibility). Was crafting weapons too easy? Make crafting weapons more challenging! Now, rendering one of the game’s best mechanics useless just doesn’t make any sense to me.

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People wanted Legendary weapons to be… well… legendary.

Crafted weapons have been the better choice for a while now.

I don’t mind the change. Makes it actually useful to farm bosses again instead of having them there for nothing else and have the best weapons crafted at your base.

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I got it! Players wanted legendary weapons to feel truly legendary. Solution: nerf the craftable weapons and increase the damage of the legendary ones. Voila, problem solved! Are you seriously considering this a good change?

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Yes.

Do I think the current bosses and boss mechanics are good?

Not so yes. Improve the AI. Make them more of a challenge instead of HP sponges.
IMHO bosses should also instakill any thrall, so the players will have to actually fight them instead of watching their thralls kill them whilst standing in bikini armor and looking at their character’s boobs.

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All in all, most World Bosses are too easy (by design) and thus getting Legendary Weapons is too easy.

I agree that nerfing high-end material crafted weapons just feels terrible, all while buffing legendary ones making the disparity in power levels just tremendous…

It shouldn’t really be about “OH THIS IS A LEGENDARY WEAPON SO IT DOES MORE DAMAGE THAN A CRAFTED EPIC WEAPON” but instead, as you pointed out, it should be about how difficult it is to acquire a weapon.

Right now, nothing is truly difficult to acquire, but Star Metal, Obsidian, Dragonbone, and Telith all require an extra challenge; Black Ice weapons also to some extent.
Sure thing, if I get my Legendaries from Rockslide or Rotbranch, it is more challenging than from a Crocodile, Spider, or Scorpion… But they drop the same thing, and that’s the problem!

→ A Giant Crocodile or Spider should either be reworked to be more challenging, or they should drop less powerful weapons!
→ High-End craftables should be stronger than Crocodile-grade Legendaries.
→ More difficult bosses in more difficult areas should give true Legendaries that are stronger than High-End craftables.
↳ And finally, High-End craftables with a rare T4 Blacksmith (which should go back to being difficult to acquire, but they made it extremely easy) should not come close to the best Legendaries; but still due to being craftable and endlessly reproducible, they should not become better than Rotbranch-grade Legendaries.

So yeah, right now crafting is totally useless, Legendaries are broken and easy to acquire except for a few that are extremely rare thus also killing the diversity (only 1 Great-Axe with the Scythe of Thag, 1 Javelin with Riptide, 2 Katanas with Musahi and Seven Winds, 0 Claws lmao, 0 Short-Sword either…)

Good change? Nope, it is not a good change.
Was a change needed? Yes, because craftable weapons are mass-producible and let me tell you farming any material becomes trivial once you have Black Blood Tools, and for rare materials you slap an Oil of Bounty on them and you get a thousand star metal ore in one hit (exaggerated to make a point)

→ That being said, I always farmed Legendary Weapons because when you dismantle them you get Star Metal, which is much more reliable than meteor showers :joy:

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Also have to agree that playing a glorified version of Pokemon where you just tell your Pet/Thrall to kill a boss is not really the most interesting experience :rofl:

I don’t know about one-shotting thralls tho :skull: Might need another idea :melting_face:

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I’m also gonna talk about Siptah craftables a little bit… :rat:

So here, they made some weapons that are hard to acquire because you have to go in Vaults and complete the dungeon to get their recipes. They also made much harder to acquire recipes with the Delving mechanic, as what you get is random.

All of those weapons are crafted with the same recipe: Weapon Handle + Eldarium amount…

It is quite stupid to have such lazy recipes, as there literally are diverse materials from vaults that you acquire from creatures; I always take the example of crafting a Fiend Bone Shield, without a Devolved Fiend Bone, when the material exists!

I think crafted weapons should have better tought-out recipes, and they should be more powerful but with harder to acquire materials. Siptah is just a prime example, because really it doesn’t make sense for me to farm the Demon Spider vault to keep crafting Fiend Bone gear for instance :upside_down_face:
Sound like repairing Dragonbone weapons with Hardened Steel :rofl:

Now on the Exiled Lands, I have no damn clue why they “removed Fragments of Power from most crafting recipes” because it was one of those things that were actually cool to farm in order to craft stuff… Same with Khari Steel… But all those weapons are super weak in the end…

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This has made T4 blacksmiths useless.

Especially bladesmiths.

You don’t even need a T3 or T4 anymore for quicker steel reinforcements via conversion with iron reinforcements and steel fire as you can just buy supply packs at Mek’s spire for steel.

Steel used to be a huge bottleneck, now we’re drowning in it.

I agree with making Legendary weapons Legendary, this was a welcome change. But I agree with this conversation that fighting world bosses should come with great risk. They’re still easy.

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I’m 100% your statement. Same is for Black Ice weapons. In the most other end of the map in a extreme cold region the feats and the frost temple smithy is guarded by giants.

First you have to build hardened steel weapons or grind for it by killing npc (to find a damaged one). Prepare for the journey to frost temple (cold protection/warming food and a pick which can harvest black ice…). Fight against wolfes, sabretooths, giants and mammoths.

Finally you got the feat and stand in front of the frost smithy and get a punch into your face:

A hardened steel dagger with 27 dmg/15 pen / 600 dur becomes black ice daggers with 25 dmg / 14 pen / 450 dur and a frostbite buff…

Both swords got a massive nerf too. The black ice broadsword is now 100% useless. Now the ruler is the black ice longsword. Ok, before AoW it was the other way around… ;). But more than 42 dmg the player don’t get…

The sheer mockery is the downgrade of the hardenend steel shield from 42 dmg / 14 pen / 3750 dur. As black ice shield it get down to 30 dmg / 10 pen / 1875 dur after transition. WTF? Is that the reward for my challenges to come here in that ■■■■■■■■ cold place?

There is no use or sense in getting these black ice weapons any longer.

I. e. leads the much more easy way to comperable daggers to the “Vanquisher of the King Beneath” weapons (daggers/pike). All you need is 1x demon blood (needed to open the cave of King Beneath). Temperature is no obstacle and all npc can be outmaneuvered very easy. Grab the feat from the stone and run away…

Funcom nerfed the feat. You dont need any longer sandbeast bile gland. But this is even to much effort… Grinding 3 giant crocodiles is much more easier…

So well done. :+1:

Cheers!

(Edit spelling… ;))

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It’s a very poorly thought change. The Telith weapons should be among the best. Definitely. But it’s not rng dependent and you don’t need to spend time playing slot machines, so there you have it.

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Only reason to go for Black Ice Weapons would be PvP because frostbite is really annoying.
I can see a Black Ice Spear being used in PvP, but in PvE Black Ice Weapons are 100% dead.

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Of course, the way of killing world bosses to get powerful weapons MUST be in balance with the way of crafting at base after getting all the rare materials for it… But now it’s hard out of balance. end game crafting is mostly useless. if player do so, than of reasons like you explained…

Cheers!

Edit: I see the frostbite buff only from PvE (Don’t play PvP). But good point.

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I want to craft weapons with my VR headset and touch controllers. I’m looking forward to it despite people having the headset versus those that want traditional crafting menus and icons. If the blade needs to be folded, you’ll have to pound (a gesture) that metal over the anvil. If I find it, I’ll link the demo (for those with headsets).

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Honestly, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep up with this era. I came across the answer: Players wanted legendary weapons to feel truly legendary. But what makes a weapon legendary, after all? In Conan Exiles’s case, it’s simply because they gave it the name “Legendary Weapon.” Because they have nothing legendary about them: Weapons that can be looted from chests scattered throughout the world, obtained by simply defeating a mini boss (emphasis on mini) and relying on the luck of getting a good weapon. By that description, they should be called “provisional weapons that you can easily get until you forge a good one…”. But “legendary” makes they look greater! And (some) players buy it.

If players want truly legendary weapons, then include truly legendary weapons in the game. Or allow weapons to become legendary based on the player’s merit in obtaining them. To me, Telith’s Sorrow is the most legendary weapon in the game: it’s challenging to acquire, has an incredible backstory, and, not to mention, it’s fun to obtain.

If crafting weapons is as easy as some argue (and I agree), why not create a mechanic similar to epic armors? At the beginning, it would be possible to create regular weapons with their current values, even after being nerfed. But with new knowledge and, obviously, rarer resources, it would be possible to craft them in their legendary version. Just like with Pride of the Silent Legion, weapons like Telith’s Sorrow could only be crafted in their legendary form.

It seems like an obvious solution, right? So why didn’t they do it that way? Because it’s much easier to just tweak the numbers of the current weapons, even though it would completely undermine the game’s sense and logic, and announce that they turned legendary weapons into legendary weapons. And at the same time, they can be certain that many players will still support the initiative, no matter how bizarre it may be.

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crafts a Black Ice Weapon

“Look how they massacred my boy”

Boosting Legendaries to Legendary stats and nifty abilities is good.
But the challenge to get them is far from Legendary.
The only thing Legendary is the frustration of the grind to find the replacement for the one that’s running low on durability.

In Dragonbone’s defense, it now applies Sunder, which is very utile.

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It depends on what you consider to be “an improvement for the game”. There are two different points of view here, one held by the players, another by the devs.

Players want to be challenged and have fun. Devs want you to “engage” with the content and aren’t shy of forcing you to do so.

See, because the legendary weapons are now “truly legendary” – not by being unique or cool, but by dealing a shіtload of damage – they are now a must-have. And since they are now unrepairable, you have to keep engaging with the bosses and dungeons that produce them. Two birds with one stone, right?

Oh, and crafted weapons now have the “unique advantage” of being repairable.

I swear, design decisions like this should be added to the No Twinkie Database.

This is an excellent suggestion and I would love to see that happen. The only problem is that when we say “difficult”, what Funcom hears is “randomly obtained with a low drop rate”.

You forgot to explain why that’s so bad. :smiley:

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@MarcosC

This is just a perfect exaample on how disconnected Funcom is from their game.

They don’t know what is endgame anymore it seems. They don’t understand what is considered hard to get. They just put some random damage values after needing to nerf the other weapons in order to make Legendaries better.

This sickens me. I stopped playing after I saw this mess on testlive a month ago.

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Spot on. I think you hit the nail on the head with this comment.

The “legendary” weapons in this game are actually random loot with some flavor text. (Not saying the flavor text is bad, I like reading those.) And now they have great stats too, but they’re still random loot. I don’t care if I’m not allowed to take my thralls to fight world bosses, because I can kill one in a couple of minutes myself just fine.

So… how about getting the best of both worlds? Keep legendary weapons as loot from chests… but have them come out in a broken state. To get one fixed, you’d need an epic-tier blacksmith bench, as well as some rare resources - depending on the nature of the legendary, that might be composite obsidian (a reason to go to the Volcano), star metal, a heart of a hero, a fragment of power, or sacrificial blood, etc. So you’d need to work for the best-tier weapons in the game.

This would allow us to have a “high epic” tier between the regular epics (ie. star metal) and legendaries, so crafted obsidian weapons (as opposed to those looted from random Votaries), crafted black ice weapons and Telith weapons could be less powerful than true legendaries, but stronger than vanilla homemade weapons.

Also, when legendary weapons become harder to obtain and not just “a minute of poking at a big spider with daggers, grab loot, go home”, they could be repairable again. Just make repairing them more resource-intensive than regular crafted ones, perhaps requiring some of those rare materials again.

The thing that makes legendaries not legendary is the fact that we find one, use it, it breaks, and we toss it away. They’ve become disposable items, not something we’d treasure and cherish.

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Although a bit tangential, I was commenting with @stelagel how I imagine we could have a weapon/game difficulty overhaul:

You would need to have progressed through the whole research tree before being able to get a legendary weapon because you simply couldn’t kill a world boss before that.
Now, add to the above idea legendaries coming from dungeons being the best, not in terms if damage, but each with a specific trait that would make them desirable. One could greatly improve your capacity to carry weight, being like a bal-pteor weapon, other could enhance thrall damage, etc.
Telith weapons could give you the redeemed silent legion thermal resistance, for instance, setting you up to progress to the frozen North and the Volcano.

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Personally, I always thought the legendaries were way too bad, but now they’re way too good and way too easily obtained which could’ve been solved by making these extremely good items harder to obtain/rarer.

before I had an issue with how irrelevant most tiers of crafting were now they’re all useless.
What I’ve noticed is that conan is less and less about the crafting and survival with every patch released for the past 4 years i’ve been playing.

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