Heading in the wrong direction when it comes to building size and decor

Conan Exiles General Discussion Feedback
1

Dear conan,

i like your game, i play it a lot and i am still enjoying it.
but ever sinds the the “official server building restrictions” came to play i have heard a lot of players being banned or scared of being banned. and though most of the rules make sens… there are a couple of core mechanics in the game that forces the players to do the opposite of what you want.

Building
i cant help to notice that there are some bad examples of how not to build your base… because yeah building a giant wall to block off lage parts of the map is bad… there are shown a couple of build ( with multiple buildings) as also being bad… this to me feels wrong to show because the game kinda dictates that you need to build a large base… a couple of examples are: T3 work stations alone take at least 3 to 4 foundations for each station, animal pens take about a 8 x 10 size (the small animal pens are oké), temple can’t be build close to each other (i made a separate post about that) and last but not least the new purge system… if you want to defend your base you need to build a wall with a singe entrance… this feature only made existence of wall bases worse. if Funcom wants to reduce the size of player bases there need to be looked at the core mechanics of the game.

now that i covered building size there are two more things that are not helping the stability of the servers and both of them are also happening because of the core mechanics that are in the game.

foundation spamming
Yes nobody likes the spamming of foundations all over the place or a large wall all around a base, because it takes a lot of processing for the server to load foundations in (that is why i always build my bases with as much ceilings and pillars and walls as possible). but i do get why players are doing it… its the cheapest en fastest way to build something… and that is the problem… there should not be rules of a maximum on building pieces but there should be a natural guidance towards using ceilings, pillars and walls more… the easiest way i think to do that is to rebalance the cost of the building parts and mainly to make foundations more expensive to build than a ceiling and pillar combined.

the last item i want to touch on is:
Use of decor items
now that we have a bazar in game the amount of decor items has grown a lot… although i like the idee of the bazar (it has some great stuff, although some what over priced most of the time), the amount of decor people now use has increased a lot.
and I’m not here saying to stop putting decor items on the market… because i do like it… but perhaps instead of making lots of single items, make some larger and more complete item. for example the large feast we had in the beginning of the bazar launce… great decor stuff but it where all loose items… why not add a item that had them all combined on that large table just to make it one asset. yeah put the items loose as well but give player the option to just use the combined one as well… and i think half of the players who bought that pack just used the table as is. same for the bushes and trees (by the way, yeah we wand larger trees that look like the trees on the map already) in stead of only giving players loose items to place why not give them a larger decor item that had everything on it.
these are just a couple of examples but you get the idea… think before you add some new decor… how is the player going to use this and is there a way you could limed the use of it (in stead of 10 loose items perhaps one big item), and yeah you could give the small items separate in the pack as well but i think less players are going to use that if the have a option to just place and forget (and will look way cooler that if you had to place it your self with the restrictions in game).

These couple of point are what i think funcom need to watch out for, because they create most of the problems out there them self’s… and instead of making rules hoping players will follow them… and making a lot of players angry… there is a other way, a more natural way of steering players in the right direction.

2

The problem is there are too many solo players building colosals they dont need. I have over 30 members in my clan on 2 servers. Both bases consist of 4500 or less building pieces total.

These bases have everythhing you need in the game and are highly decorated.

These bases have everything need to progress in the game.

With over 200 days played, I can tell you that you can have a 5 by 5 box with everything you need in it, aside from alters.

YOU DONT NEED ALL THE ALTERS :joy::joy::joy::joy:
PVE-C you need at best 3 or 4 of them.

In Pvp only 3 of them are viable.

Theres knowing how to play the game and knowing how not to play the game.

The problem is many of the players that have no idea what there doing ,have maybe 2 or 3 people in there clan with a 35000 building piece base an cause stability issues with the server.

And when an experienced player tried to reach out to them to show them better ways of doing things they get angry and upset.

And as far as decor goes, this game thrives on the roleplaying community. Thats what most of those decor items are for. Trust me , putting out no feasts on the table in pvp.

Build rules are simple. Build what you and your clan need. Dont take up more space then you need. A solo player doesnt need 5 square miles of land :joy:

3

Yes, it’s simple. But Funcom keeps encouraging bigger buildings, so the longer we play, the bigger it all gets. Some T3 crafting stations are enormous. How many storeys tall is your 5 by 5 box? Where’s your Wheel of Pain? A map room won’t fit in a 5x5 cube. Heck, some crafting stations are so tall that you need to build rooms two walls high, and I think the T3 furnace with the chimney still won’t fit.

Funcom even sells us decorative objects, such as fruit trees and hedge mazes, that ideally should be planted outside the base. The content they release is encouraging us to expand our footprint.

Then they show off those huge, beautiful castles and cities in their streams, and players aren’t allowed to even dream of such bases on public servers.

4 Likes
4

My finished base
Imgur

You don’t need animal pens. I’ve never had need of more then a small and I usually don’t have it set up. Animals are just ornamental and take up thrall space. And if you are using rocknoses to farm gold/silver, why? They are both common in world.

T3 work station are a waste of space in my opinion. Unless you are regularly outfitting a small army they aren’t really a help. They are pretty much a cosmetic.

And here in lies the rub. You’re talking PVP. I can understand having a hard shelled keep, but what about PVE? On PVE people tend to build opulent court yards full of cosmetics, and animated thralls, and torches, and…

I know people that will argue that is a misconception. As far as loading/processing a torches is worse the a foundation. A full vault is as bad as it gets.

And here is where people on PVE screw up. It isn’t foundations, it’s land claims, and it isn’t just foundations and columns that claim land. All placeables are land claims. Torches, benches, potted plants, braziers, chairs, tents, all claim land. Even placed thralls will block building. And that is the issue with spamming foundations. It’s not server lag so much as land claiming.

The #2 cause of server lag is ornamentals. I dread the new bazaar page because people will buy it all and just have to add on to their villa to show it all off. There are a couple builds on the server I’m on that look like adds for the bazaar AND ALL the DLC packs.

And these customers are why fucom will never fix the megalomaniac builds on the PVE servers. It would cost them paying customers.

There is a player on the server I’m on that has been on there for years, and never stops building. He has a full ghost clan of alts; he’s bragged about it, so he can have 100 thralls. One; just one, of his bases covers the entire top the decent of dagon. I hate having to go past it beca u s e i t takes forever to load in and I lag the entire time. And if I go west I have to go past it; or go way north or south and stay out of render range.

Thing is there are a lot of these builds, and even though 7 of 10 on my list are gone. He remains untouched.
No it’s not just me, but the same builds are being reported. Just seems kinda sus the biggest builder hasn’t been hit yet.

:100:

You know I’m pushing hard for a restrictive, automated system because this zendesk thing is more of a weapon then a tool.

3 Likes
5

While I would agree that you or I wouldn’t want them, we can’t dictate others’ preferences or needs for animal pens. Because they are allowed. Focusing more on a perceived need to have many is more apt. 1 large animal pen is adequate. I only ever have 1 small personally because sometimes I like having a pet. We usually have a base cat, we pretend to pray to it and consider it good luck for defending against raids, it’s all in jest and good fun.

Too big yes, but required for PVP if you want maximum benefit with least resources. When you’re going through 10+ kits and weapons a night, it adds up.

Absolutely a weapon; if you know how to exploit it, it becomes a tool for unfair outcomes as well.

I know many have argued that Funcom is unable or unwilling to hard code restrictions in the game for -reasons-.

But at the same time, many of those arguments became null when additional server settings were realized for private servers.

Hard building limits, in and of themselves, wouldn’t see elimination of foundation spamming, blocking of content or pathways though.

Restrictions would have to be addressed differently and many suggestions have been given inspired by other games.

6

I don’t understand the whole T3 crafting station thing. Yes they are bigger but they can still fit in a maproom sized build and you can get all of them in there if you have 3 floors 2 high. Footprint is literally the size of a maproom. It can be put in a tree even. So yeah, I’m not buying this idea that t3 crafting stations require over 20K of foundational space. That’s still just you.

As far as what FC shows in their promotions, they have always said the promotional pictures are what can be done but that doesn’t make it OK on official servers because that is shared public space. Don’t blame their marketing department on your selfish building techniques.

Finally, processing issues and buildings. Placeables and storage are the main culprits but also stacking onto singular spots (like the methods to have door frames and fences in the same spot) add to these.

3 Likes
7

It isn’t even the door frames or fences that are the problem though, it’s the doors themselves. Probably have to be coded differently because they are interactive and if I understand correctly, are considered placeables.

One of the ways we located skybases were by looking at placeable count as most are built on hatches, with or without other placeables like long tables or carpets.

8

I made 23 animals yesterday, 40 kits and filled 2 boxes worth of thralls in 6 hours. This was done with all t2 benchs aside from the t3 armorer bench. Once weve accumalated our tames we pulled up the tame camp and pain wheels.

After 200 days + in pvp and pve-c, ive wiped numerous clans without even having a base. So saying that t3 benchs are required is a false statement. My trademark is the golden bikini with the glassers.

Most pro pvp players will operate out of a 5 by 5 establishment. We were the reason they stopped server transfers :sweat_smile: In pvp the hidden man wins.

In the end it comes down to knowing how to play the game, and knowing how not too.

d127e50b-308d-464a-ae87-fbfff18754f8 (1)
d127e50b-308d-464a-ae87-fbfff18754f8 (1)1920×1080 106 KB

This base houses a very large clan, 25+ members that come and go. Has all operational benches , pain wheels, animal pens, any and all. Its built for the new purge system, due to the size of our clan we made sure to build as far from civilization as possible. Almost 60% of the this base is storage for members and the main courtyards for purges. Every inch is used. Its highly decorated. All code errors seperated as to not cause stability lag. This is a pve-c base… again houses 25+ conan players.

You do not need one this size as a solo/duo/Trio by any means.

9

You were not. It was because of issues with the coding, token (or character loss), during the transfer. I transferred many times and every 2 times out of 5 I had to contact Funcom to retrieve my lost character.

Now compound that by the Official server player base.

The staff were having to put so much work hours into resolving these token losses that it was beginning to overwhelm them.

10

:sweat_smile: Then you werent at the end of the head of the spear. When you could vault to another server with 2000 bombs and level alphas in seconds.

Trust me, people losing a couple characters held no candle to the travesty’s that were commited :joy::joy:

I can literally get everything in the game maxed and ready in 72 hours, I can level a character from 1-60 in 4 hours.

If you are crying that bad about losing stuff , you shouldnt be on pvp.

11

I was there for all of it, including transferring dp, gods, doing surges to transfer favor over to exiled lands, etc.,…

I am not crying, I am telling you exactly the reason why they halted them which does not have anything to do with you.

Also, 1 hr for leveling and 48 hrs for complete setup, barking up the wrong tree here bud.

1 Like
12

Not barking up any tree, we can both agree server transfers were an abomination :joy:

And I wasnt saying me speciafically, misworded.

I meant the 20+ man clans that were at war over almost every pvp server during transfers.

13

And I mean leveling without exploits.

14

Yes and I do what I stated without exploits.

I realize you may think that they halted transfers for PVP related imbalances but PVP is a small part of the Conan population. On average, there are 200 active players at any given time. Slightly higher if you add PVE-C.

So the rest on PVE had nothing to do with contributing to those imbalances.

It was because of the bug with transfer token losses: losing characters during the transfer process. It was a slow creeping issue that over time became an enormous one.

Sucked when you were transferring a god and bam, all preparations nullified and had to wait a day or 2 for the character to be accessible again.

1 Like
15

That im curious of, Ive got a good lvling program, how the heck are you doing it in an hour without exploits :sweat_smile: please share :hugs: pm if nessessary!

And yes, but with all due respect alot of us that lost characters to transfer, were doing shady stuff.

For instance before they patched the drawbridge glitch. Those who knew about it would port in with 5 things in inventory and push an alpha base though the ground by clipping foundations. This worked in pvp , pve-c and pve.

16

Starmetal pickaxe or bb pick on start and some ports from a friend or generous player on server. Hit black ice and/or black lotus + gradual spec to farming = 1 hr.

3-4 hrs with no help and lower grade tools.

PVP are x4 XP so those rack up quick.

I don’t exploit so I never did any drawbridge exploits; not even when I held meta locations. It’s something I always believed in and that wasn’t to cheat.

17

This exactly. People don’t know how to build, they need soccer field sized bedroom etc.

In my player’s hub there’s a rule that everyone can build - but use max 36 foundations (wedges are counted as a half of foundation), there can be a ground floor + 1 more floor above it.

Guess what, you can fit in there a guest room with decorations, entire workshop with storage room, bedroom, and lounge set on the roof for sunbathing.

We have a small town of buildings next to each other and all that is smaller than things single dudes build on official servers.

1 Like
18

I have a pen with gold/silver rocknoses and spiders. Sure, gold, silver and ichor can be found in plenty on the map. But just like trees and rocks. And yet, I still have a golem to farm them. Why? Because when given the choice, I prefer to explore the world without having to farm those manually.

19

And here I thought farming exp was nullified :sweat_smile: appreciate the info .

And Ill agree with you on the cheating part. Ill take a loss any day of the week with a handshake, but Ill never accept a loss from an exploiter :muscle:

And well a high level tool with a bounty and full encumbrance build can harvest more in a few hours than a tame pen and golems can in a month.

1 Like
20

I wish they would merge the functionalities of the stations of same level.
Example: the alchemy bench + the cauldron.
This way, instead of having to install both, we could install one or the other (depending on aesthetic preferences) but have both of their functionalities.

A smaller look with the merge functionalities would be great too.
That mod “Beyond Stations” looks really neat:

image
I haven’t used the mod, but if what I see on the picture enables to both cook and dry wood, how nice.

3 Likes