In the begining everything circled around survival. As a player I constantly tried to improve my chances of survival. That was my main drive. Yes, buildning, exploring and raiding also fun but not the main drive. After reaching lvl 40 the ‘survival’ element disappeared and was replaced with ‘maintenance’. It was not hard to survive, I just had to maintain my current situation. Not sure if this is intended but reaching lvl 60 has compleatly removed the survival element of the game.
Intended or not I suggest that you look into that since this game is marketed as a survival game and not a maintenance game. It is not that I feel missinformed, it’s more that playing high lvl characters is dull. Boring. Sure, there are areas that can be dangerous if not carefull but it is not as below 40 whereas it was exciting just moving about. Just maintaining the character, the base and the pets/thalls is not that exiting. Not since resouces are easily gathered at lvl 60. Gets tedious pretty quick.
When the survial element is lost the game needs something else after that. It has to transcend. A reason for players with high lvl characters to continue playing.
I also think that you should make a decision of the route since right now it is a little bit minecraft, a little bit pvp, a little bit dungeon crawl, a little bit rpg, a little bit of survival, a littel bit of story telling, a little bit exploring the world of Conan. A lot on the menu but nothing really finished imo. What kind of game are you aiming to create? Focus on that. For me it seems as you currently tries to make everyone happy at the same time. Usually risking making no-one truly happy. During early access I felt a clearer vision of the game than now.
If you decide to do nothing then I think it is a super weird design decision. The game is visually stunning and I love the Conan universe but the game itself become so boring at max lvl that at least I stop playing the game. Having a game that becomes very boring at the late game is not a very good strategy if you want to sell more dlc’s.
I dont need higher lvls. I need some in game drive to play.
All survival games turn into maintenance games, as you put it, as you get closer to max level.
Play Ark, get a Giga, you’re done with just trying to survive as you can walk through everything and then acquire whatever you want to go take on Tek.
Play 7 Days to Die, get through the first 2 weeks, you now should have a base that’s unable to be taken out and you won’t run into anything in the world that has any ability to kill you.
The saving grace for both of those games is there are multiple maps to play on and 7 Days has randomly procedural drawn maps.
This game has the steepest initial learning curve of any of the survival games I’ve ever played. But just like every other survival game at a certain point it turns into easy mode.
The dude has a point, it’s a great game, and there are people, like myself who have been plying since it was available to play. Adding in something to increase survival though, seems, I don’t know. But at lvl 60, with your thralls to craft flawless epic armor, to cook for you insane meals? Or even your alcohol. You’ve mastered the elements so yeah, you’re not just surviving anymore. You are out to conquer the land. Master of all that is before you. But at that point? What can you do really? What can any game designer do? We’re all looking for more reasons to keep playing, and I find it alluring now to play with the role players, because adding a story of your own, by means of discord. It’s added more to the game, and it’s meaningful.
This is the thing that can keep it interesting. But not in its current form.
Having only a 4 hour window where this awesome mechanic can operate whether you’re there or not seems like such a waste.
Having it run 24 hrs a day and attack only online players would mean there is always something to do.
At the moment it has a random chance to attack one of the probly over 500 players/clans that have ever joined a server. Yet there may only be 40 or so active players/clans on that server.
Such an awesome gameplay mechanic.
Such a waste that it only runs 4 hours a day on people who, by the odds, are most likely not there.
This can be said about almost any game.
Also, endgame satisfaction varies a lot from player to player.
Someone mentioned joining a PVP server if you haven’t tried that, and I would urge you to do so too.
I started in single player, then PvE-C, PvP and now I’m happily back to single player.
You can make this game pretty damn hard in single player if you tune the settings and I’ve been enjoying the heck out of it at lvl 60 for a long time.
I have my purge interval trigger to 1 minute, so a lot of my actions are tracked consistently.
Purge level is set to 6.
Purge trigger value is set to the equivalent of 7 in-game days if I do no triggering actions. Which I do of course, so I get attacked quite often.
After last patch, thrall HP got adjusted and I will have to tune some settings for that.
World bosses, at least in single player, have a more realistic HP now too.
I’ve also adjusted so I take more damage than vanilla, but it doesn’t work that well with fall damage so I need to revise it a bit.
One thing I do miss a lot though, which VASTLY extended the replayability for Fallout 4, is mods for consoles.
I still play Fallout 4 because of mods.
I’d love to have more end game content. If they made it so you could trigger the purge yourself and give you an incentive to do it. For example you could farm bones and blood to offer to your shrines, say 1per week per shrine. It could trigger a way harder purge that can give you access to a locked dungeon, via giving you a key from the last wave of the purge. Inside the dungeon there could be exclusive petskins, cosmetic pieces, legendary weapons, exclusive but limited pets. Tho make it a challenge to beat, maybe even timed. It would give end game players something to grind if they wanted and a reward that feels rewarding.
I have to agree with a lot that has been said here. Endgame is an issue in EVERY game. The way some other companies deal with it is by including boss raids, epic gear only available via those raids, and quests. Also there are factions you can earn so you wont be “hated” by npcs.
However this game is not designed to be “finished”. We all are in a state where if we complete the end game we loose everything. That’s fine in a solo game. However in pve pve-c and pvp this just isn’t realistic unless its your “grand gesture” on the way out the door.
Perhaps if there was incentive to “beat” the game and have to recreate this would work? For example, by beating the game you get access to a new armor set or weapon that is superior. Maybe a new type of building blocks? Heck even a placeable object that shows your chops like a unique statue that acts as a mini Obelisk. Each time you “win” a new level could open up new items and rewards. Yes, you would still have to restart from scratch at level 1 with nothing, but you would now be able to craft something new that shows folks you have been around the block and kicked booty =p This would really allow us to let go of the stagnation of maintenance and encourage folks to continue and beat the game.
nothing more toxic and violent than other human beings