How do you spend your PVE endgame?

Karzak · February 15, 2021, 11:01am

Hello everyone!

I am fairly new to the game (past 2.1 update and with 150+ hours). I have enjoyed those hours (this is not a complain post) because we are playing on a private PVE server with friends and I do like building. But I already feel that I am reaching the end of the game. We have epic gear, Cimerian Berserker/Relic seeker Thralls… and we are defeating quickly remaining dungeons. We play by two to three players at the same time and have decided to remove thralls in our expeditions to slow down our progress and increase the challenge ('cause honestly with a correctly geared thrall with correct stats, all you need is popcorn to watch, no?)

Yes, I have used the wiki (and feedbacks from this forum) to help my progression (honestly I would never have star metal and other recipes otherwise just by experimenting) and what is left to the endgame feel more RNG related than challenge. And even so, it is more for the completion than really to achieve some endgame content as legendary weapons and other unique crafts feel unnecessary for the progress. This is maybe linked to the PVE side, and I will still play probably 100 hours on the game just because I like the building aspect but I feel already that I have nearly explored all options of the game. Where am I wrong? How do you spent 1000h+ on the game? Is EEWA, AoC mods are the necessary solution (Are those good)?

Thanks for your feedbacks!

idjiit · February 15, 2021, 11:22am

Play online with strangers. Play PVP (or PVE-C).

Despite what people say, PVP servers aren’t full of toxic trolls especially if you play on a private server. And you already know how easy it is to get stuff, so it doesn’t really matter if you loose it all. It’s just part of the “story”.

To me, all survival games are pretty much pointless without pvp.

Pugilist · February 15, 2021, 4:33pm

Exactly.

Though, for me, PvE is the ticket. Because I like building, helping other folks run dungeons, and slow-walking across the map after popping a decayed base.

JJDancer · February 15, 2021, 4:38pm

If you are on a private server, why not change the server settings to make it more difficult? I know some private server admins can help out here. @Narelle
Admittedly they have dumbed the game down to the point of super easy (boring) mode, but back in the day 150 hours wasn’t even enough to get you to level 60. Now leveling is a joke.

Pugilist · February 15, 2021, 5:02pm

" but back in the day 150 hours wasn’t even enough to get you to level 60. Now leveling is a joke."

Exactly.

Folks are hitting 60 without any clear idea as to how they got there and never having figured out how to play the game.

Grymm · February 15, 2021, 5:20pm

Depends @Karzak on how much you enjoy the game as such. I’ve nearly 6k hours on the game now. I have played all the way through several times solo and PvP Official and am now a dedicated follower of PvE Private Modded servers - there’s so many options out there. You could even go and rent your own server and drag in some friends, making it a semi-roleplay server.

For interest, have you found the deep, hidden caves in the lakes and seas? Gotten to all the achievements, including the highest peak? Gone through the underwater caves? There’s a lot of extra, hidden content dotted about everywhere - and in many cases, almost ridiculously hard to get to. I suspect that the Devs at Funcom drop nuggets of new things in hidden places at every update, but could be wrong (I kow they did do that sometimes way way back just 'cause they could).

Oh, and if you believe yourself bored with Exiled Lands, you can always try the fun and games shipwrecked on the Isle of Siptah.

PS: Modded servers rule!

rolee9309 · February 15, 2021, 10:12pm

I just got my new character started, catched a fighter at level 12, and she is now done and I’m 46 already…And I didn’t even visit the jungle and the nordheimer biome

Yeah, not having a taskmaster slows the convering time (default setting) but heck…I just gained 30 levels with 10 hours of playing per WEEK.

And time, craft and harvest XP rate is down to 0.1, killing XP is 0.5 (or 0.7? I don’t remember).

On the testlive feedback thread I asked where can I tone down the XP rates to 0.1 from visiting places/completing journey steps because those activities give you a lot of experience, but got no answers so far.

Funbags · February 17, 2021, 2:14am

Hording

Karzak · February 17, 2021, 9:05am

Thanks for all your feedback. I do think I understand a bit more my feelings.

First I must admit I am a PVE person. In my experience, PVP side of games can be great but reminds me too often the real life side and pettiness of people and I am playing to change my mind. I prefer when you are forced to team to defeat huge PVE content.

Second, it is just a feeling, as I have not finish the game. We have never been to the Volcano yet, done the Dagon dungeon or finish the Warmaker dungeon. I have not been to every secret caverns in the desert. But I am quite sure that we can do all this in auto-drive if we want with our existing gear and thralls.

About my feeling:

Leveling: I must say that the first hour of the game was fun with my stone sword afraid by every living thing in the Exiles. But I went with my friends building a base between Sepermeru and the Brindstone fields. And we made something crazy big for the fun of it. I was just enjoying building but tier 2 foundations and walls made me level 60 without completing any part of my journey. The leveling part of the game left then no big impression on me but I though that the challenge was then in the endgame.
Cheating my experience?
One of the biggest game difficulty as a new player is the understanding of the game mechanics. The game is rich and unexplained so you have to experiment. And I like when I am not taken by the hand. But as a new player the quantity of information to “find” by yourself is so colossal that I went to the wiki, wak4863 videos (I should call him Wak, he told me so many times that I can ) and this forum. I though that it was not reducing your experience as the challenge laid in the endgame. Probably my mistake as I have played few survival games. But again some of the (required) findings on how do make stuff in the game… I am quite sure I will have not find them.
Grind and challenge
I know that grind is a way to virtually extend the game lifetime. But to be honest I am not especially against it. Farming is part of many games and as long it rewards you with something useful, I am ok with it. As for example early Diablo III (pre 1.4), doing boss rushes to loot the proper legendary weapon that will finally allow you to finish the game in the highest difficulty (and even though with good challenge) still felt rewarding when achieving. Here, I do not feel the need to make boss rushes simply because I do not really care the rewards. Ok I will still continue to unlock archivist recipes because I have OCD but legendary weapons feel so useless. Which brings me to game and endgame challenge… Probably well balanced in solo? But in multiplayer coop with tralls and mounts… I am pushing to no longer use thralls in our dungeons but I feel kind of weird to add to yourself handicaps*. Maybe I was dreaming of vanilla WoW boss raid too much ; where you have to prepare yourself, have proper strategy and game-plan. In CE, they have chosen for (over?) challenging bosses and super strong thralls to compensate. Having a thrall with no stamina issue, no durability issue, making twice damages that I am with 20 times more hit points remove a lot of the game challenge. On a side note, farming villages from your mounts seems weirdly easy as you do much more damages and seems to take less?
Game updates
Finally, as I said I am a fairly new player and I have probably missed the “old days”. I have been to other games where I have enjoyed the challenge in early days. But either because the developers have added content and where afraid of new player accessibility or because of people complaining, they nerfed the game challenge. I know that CE had a lot of balance changes (It took me a while to understand that half of the information I was reading/viewing was out of date ) and that they probably went the same way.

*My preferred dungeon experience was when the three of us went in the Warmaker (we were just exploring, we did not knew that it was the warmaker) without thrall and with ~hardened steel gear (I was in standard Aquilonean). First the three head boss in the alley, then the first boss behind the red door, then the blue, then the green… I took us so long that all the skeleton were re-popping ^^. Then we made a key and continue the exploration. We finally arrived after traps and more shenanigans to the arena champion without any death. She then one-shot the member of our group with the key He was enable to come back to join us (and take back his equipment) and we were unable to loot his corpse for the key to go out. In the end we all died and lost our gear. But hell, it was fun and challenging and we are definitely going back without thralls (I hope).

In general, solutions for the PVE content seems indeed to add handicaps to yourself .

[Edit]
5. Lore
I do not know if I was not in the mood or if it was the way it is introduced? But I had very little interest for the lore. Most of the time a press E to interact is a new of a bazzilion emotes and understanding the lore seems secondary for my progress in the game. And usually I do like lore. I am the kind of guy to read all books in the Witcher

Reading my (too-long) post, I must emphasize again that I do like the game and will still play probably an egal amount of time just because I like the building aspect and will still want to visit the complete Exile Lands.

Karzak · February 17, 2021, 10:03am

By browsing the forum, I have found echoes also in the discussions on RNG/challenge in Hello, me again. This time I’m here to complain about the new benches thread and in Legendary Weapons - Meh. I will be glad also to have @stelagel opinion if you have time as you seem to be a hardcore PVE gamer on console (thus unmodded?)

Grymm · February 17, 2021, 1:33pm

Now that you have gotten some of the Lore under the belt, perhaps it’s a good time to start sampling PvE private servers? Check ones that, for your timezone, have numbers of players you are looking for. Drag along fellow players from your current clan, and try the PvEs out. Look for ones with interesting (and current!) mods. Many private servers have +level-mod s running so that cap of 60 becomes irrelevant. You will find servers that are amazing showcases for bases. Others might be more PvE Roleplay. There’s so much to choose from. You can even just go server hopping to see what’s out there.
Luckily I like the Conan genre and world games that have great scenery, movement and still has the risk to keep you on your toes. Have fun and good luck.

Laure · February 17, 2021, 1:50pm

I spend my “endgame” bringing the finest pve content to pvp players ! So they can actually enjoy something else than bomb farming.
Once the server is filled with too many drama magnets I consider my duty is done and I just start over on another server.

I do play pve and prefer pve, but as someone already mentioned, pvp is crucial to survival gaming. Most of my storylines need the pvp activities of other players. The risk of loosing everything and to have to grind all over again, it forces you to learn and use some pve content to help you survive and protect your belongings.

Today I showed a pvp players how to use the signs of Jebbahl Sag against some high level sand reaper queens guarding his ennemy’s base. It was fun and new to him. Can’t say the JS signs are a big part of pvp, it’s more of a rp/pve thing. It’s not optimal, but it’s fun !

So apart from collecting and hoarding, I like crafting and testing everything I craft and collect in different situations/environment.

I also like building themed bases/fortresses and train squad of thralls that have a good synergy for defense.

stelagel · February 17, 2021, 2:19pm

You had one great fortune, the greatest actually that a gamer can have in this game… You had friends to play with!!! I spent over 1000 hrs in pv, e, c, p to find friends to play with. It took me 10 months of gaming and YouTube videos to find out that there was actually a forum for this game . I have no accounts on social media because I need my free time to be free for what I wish to do . Now…

I love to build… But playing online you have to respect others too, so I only build what’s necessary, meaning map rooms, water wells, shelters, etc… The only unnecessary is the weapon museum but I love to do it because it gives me reasons to spend hours in the game I love to play. That means that I have to farm every single weapon this game has, all of them .

I like to help others… So from times to times I jump on servers to help people to farm and grow. There where a lot of times that I co admin in private servers fixing their map rooms, starter pack facilities, events, arenas, markets, labyrinths, parkur, etc…

The best and the most difficult however is to collect all the armorers. I like to have a flawless version of every single armor. Finding a purge armorer is my greatest disappointment in this game. In 2 years gaming, decades of servers private or official I count only 3 .

The truth of the game?
The game starts after lvl 60.
People spend decades of hours with iron picks or steel and when they possess black blood tools and oils they don’t farm anymore .
People prefer to take thralls in to dungeons than friends and have real fun ,( to this I envy you).
People prefer to play pve easy with low cost and pvp official .

Anyway, I said to much… So one last proposal. Play with your friends in barbaric difficulty because this way you will fall in love with this game.
Have fun m8

Caswallon · February 17, 2021, 5:43pm

Well observed! I do enjoy a bit of building but it gives lotsa levels for no actual “experiencing” of the game. I so hope that changes one day!

Exactly and this is I think what they wanted. You get to cap and then you can PvP or do the harder events/bosses in PvE. But its still hard unless you bring the Terminator Thralls which you can eventually aquire (T4 Named and fully level is what I mean by that BTW - there are several that you can modestly equip point at any 3 skull boss and just watch them kill it - it used to be so much worse as well, now they may get badly hurt if you didnt help before there hp bar hardly dipped)

I can see the appeal of PvP but personally I don’t have the reflexes anymore to survive in that (maybe 30 years ago… but not now… ) So PvE is it for me, and thankfully the best decision FC ever made was to allow and encourage a Healthy and Talented Modding community! As @Grymm says the next step is to see what others have done with the game!

The step after that is try it yourself with a server - or even a private game you tailor to your now discovered likes and dislikes?

Regardless there is a wealth of different ways you can progress in CE it really is an achievement FunCom has made and while I disagree or flat out dislike many of their decisions and (perceived) shortcomings I’ll give them that, they made something great here - I just live in fear one day they’ll over nerf it into oblivion.

thephilosophyguy · February 17, 2021, 5:58pm

I got stuck for what to do after about 500 hours on PVE Official, since then I’ve spent about 200 hours creating my own lore and stories around the map based on existing lore and the adventures of my character. I hope that some new players might stumble onto some of my indigenous constructions and journals and think they are part of the base game I should probably just re-start on a RP server, but I have so much progress and builds and experiences that I don’t want to lose it on Official…

JJDancer · February 17, 2021, 6:15pm

When Kaels came out, a few of us on 1821 joined up and did it together. It was a blast with other players vs just me and my thrall. We had some good times when there were good people all playing together. I miss that.

Laure · February 17, 2021, 10:48pm

Sorry but I took someone to Sunken City last week, thinking playing with people would be fun.
He died 5 times trying to get down to the last boss. 3 times he made the mistake to spawn at his bed near Sepermeru. I’ve waited for him 40min down there staring at that big fish head who was threatening me.

This is not my definition of fun.

I had an agenda, I needed to get out fast to farm gold for my thrall (who never die anymore jumping off cliffs), to make him a new shiny armor, because that’s what gives me joy in this game. I couldn’t get the gold that night because I chose to play with someone.

And he was just a random player trying to make friends, not an actual friend. Imagine if he was an actual friend…when he asked me to ride all the way to the noob river to listen to him playing harp, while I was busy in volcano, I would not have said no if he was a friend. Because friendship not because I find it fun.

This sum up my playtime with people. Seriously, it’s always something like that.
The only person I loved to play with is my husband, perfect synergy. But he quit because of bugs and it’s impossible to get him back playing CE, I try every 2 weeks. He’s done with that game.

I know social bugs like you need more than simple interactions with people, but please respect the choice of solo players to not make “friends” in-game and try to understand that not everyone is like you nor enjoy the same things.

“The game is better with friends” is not the absolute truth for everyone. It’s your opinion.

I’m saying all of that because lately people on my servers keep asking me to join them and do things with them claiming it will be more fun. They are people just like you, who would even ask my fb out of nowhere. I’m friendly, doesn’t mean I want to waste my precious playtime watching people run naked in circle while they are babbling on discord, nor share my personal space.

And of course they don’t take it well when I say “no thanks”, they start saying all kind of stupid things like “go play offline solo mode blargh blargh”. No, there is no server politics on solo mode, so my toons and their storylines have no reason to exist there.

And btw, you keep asking me to test things for you ingame. Imma start to charge you some $$ for the job

CodeMage · February 18, 2021, 12:03am

Ew. Just ew. That’s as bad as being on a server with a person who keeps getting drunk and having nervous breakdowns in global chat.

Yeah, the game can be fun with other people, but then you have people like that, too. It’s the occupational hazard of playing on an official server

It would be so awesome if they set aside a fraction of official servers and disabled global chat on them. Less drama, more genuine interaction between players.

Kapoteeni · February 18, 2021, 12:40pm

Survive. Build. Decorate.

Come up with bigger, more ambitious building projects, see them rise from the ground up, challenge the limits of the building system with endless creativity.

Toss in a few mods to make NPCs look more interesting, and turn the Exiled Lands into a proper nation-state.

idjiit · February 18, 2021, 12:53pm

I’m a nerd so I found the forum pretty fast and I found my first clan here, but I was only with them for like 3 weeks (they sucked). Almost everyone else I played with I met on servers.