This is false as far as being ignored on big changes. The thrall limit was one of the big limitation adds, and there was a menu setting for it.
Thrall feeding is also a setting in main menu, another big addition that could of screwed SP players if it weren’t.
So something as big as a building piece limit would more than logically follow that path, and would be a in game menu setting, which would alleviate SP players worries.
1 Like
So far Single-Players have been lucky with added limitations, but I don’t think we should take it for granted that such luck will continue by default. It’s because some Single-Players have been actively championing for SP stuff on the forums that Funcom has made those limitations optional.
So that’s why I’m here, now, making noise on behalf of Single-Players (or specifically, on behalf of one Single Player because I won’t pretend to be speaking for all of us), so whichever limitations Funcom decides to add will be optional.
I’m sure there are self-policing private servers that have purposefully-built theme parks that would love to keep their lovingly-built playgrounds, too.
2 Likes
I can understand that.
But the most ignored group are the more casual competitve gamers. not one thing ever introduced has been culled for them. The ones who can’t play 10 hours a day. they have allleft, so they now have no voice, and we have lower pops for it. The overbulidng is a sign that the game is about playing all day, and thus the low player count for a game that has a lot, and i mean alot, of great mechanics. but the game is severely waited to playing long hours.
PVE harvest rates are 1/2 the PVP rates. And if you don’t build fast enough on PVE officials, all the spot will be land claimed to keep you from building to close.
PVP, if you can’t play 8 hours a day, you will be wiped.
So if a voice need to be on here, one is of the players who want to not have to play 10 hours a day. And by building limits, that would be a step in that direction.
4 Likes
I am back. As I promised - here is my castle for display and comparison with the theme parks. While I spent hours making screenshots of theme parks I invented a funny definition - theme parks is something no one can see in it’s entirety, for all of them are bigger than rendering distance is.
Server 1302 PVE-C.
Theme park#1, with such “art objects” as chariot racing arena, temples to non-existing gods, Nibiru starship navigation beacon, 2 lighthouses, pirate ship, dance school and replica of Maiden’s tower of city Baku and some useless walls. Owned by 2 men clan, not a biggest theme parks of their creation.
theme park#2 - built right next to theme park#1, owned by 1 girl clan who does nothing else but builds and makes tame animals. One of her theme parks. Before implementation of thrall limit all this area were crowded by elephants and warriors. Features taverns, plants enough to feed all world’s hungry, living rooms for some thralls and simply empty constructions without obvious purpose.
Theme park#3 , owned by same 2 people who own theme park#1, presumably the one where 25 vaults with costumes for thralls are built. Features a Colosseum where no one ever fights, replica of Taj Mahal, humble pyramid-like fishermen house and dozen of animal pens and wheels and may be hundred of pillars to form daisy chain around them.
If PVE was not game without environment response this useless and undefended theme parks were obliterated year ago, but Purge is too weak and without building limit they will just build and build until consume all the map.
Only way to keep those “artists” away from one’s castle is to build something around it. I would build something which claims land, but does not kill spawn if I could. I do not want to build trash like them and building a simple pillars is frowned upon.
So I ask, how do we keep theme park builders away, without becoming one?
3 Likes
Perfect example of a server i would abandom in a heartbeat. Also this screams for some building restrictions. What the hell is up with all those animal pens?
Is there other official PVE-C server, guaranteed to be free of theme parks? Or there is a way to prevent theme park before it is built?
Theme parks shown on screenshots survived for a year. Their owners even support each other by resetting decay timers by bug-use, in case one of them is absent for long.
This is problem we need permanent solution for, not reskins of brick walls and funny hats.
1 Like
Thanks for getting back to this. I looked at your base and all three “theme park” examples, and it was quite interesting.
There are several key aspects of the builds you showcased:
- They all have a big footprint, in terms of surface area.
- Most of them don’t serve any functional purpose.
- They were all built by “bad neighbor” kind of people.
I suspect that last bit is the real problem. There are many people on official servers that don’t care about how they affect other players. A server is a shared space, just like a public park or a street in real life, and people should care about their behavior and their usage of such spaces. But there are always some who don’t.
It doesn’t really matter if what these people built is functional or not, beautiful or not. There are a few screenshots in there with stuff that look really nice. There are other screenshots with stuff that looks useful. But what they all have in common is the disregard for others. Even the beautiful stuff is surrounded by random sandstone foundation spam. Even the functional stuff has unnecessary crap all around it.
So if the real problem is the lack of conscience and a bad attitude, how do we fix that? To be precise, how does Funcom fix that?
As the old adage goes, you can’t solve people problems using technology. However, you can at least mitigate those problems and limit their scope. There’s no technology that will stop people from being jerks, but that doesn’t mean that Funcom couldn’t use technology to make sure jerks don’t ruin things for everyone else on such a grand scale.
The key is what @Halk said before:
We’re all going to have different opinions on what we want to see on a server and what we don’t. And we’ll never get to agree on it. But if we impose some kind of limit on building, then we don’t have to agree on it. If I want to build a Taj Mahal replica, I should be able to build one, but that shouldn’t allow me to build 25 of them, or to build a Taj Mahal replica and a Colosseum and an Enterprise NCC-1701-D.
So there should be some kind of counter-force that puts pressure on building and makes such behavior infeasible. One possible solution would be an upkeep mechanism, with a threshold under which there is no upkeep and an exponential cost past it. Another solution would be Purges whose destructive power increases proportionally to the surface area of the bounding box of the claim. Neither of those solutions is easy to implement, but they would be quite effective.
But let’s go back to your original question: as long as there is no solution from Funcom, what can a player do?
It all depends on what specifically bothers you. Are they blocking lots of resources from spawning? Are they building too close to you? Are they building far away but you’re concerned about them deciding to build close to you in the future and would like to prevent that? None of the above? The solutions for each problem are different, and they’re not guaranteed to be effective. In some extreme cases, there isn’t even a solution other than moving to a different server.
Unfortunately, I’m not very optimistic about this stuff anymore. A proper technical solution would take a lot of effort and I don’t have high hopes of it being implemented. On the other hand, I thought the new rules would be an improvement, but they’re not as effective as I hoped. The processing time for each report is very slow (6-8 weeks, according to other players), and there is no transparency around how the rules are applied or even the outcome of any report.
In the end, while I do sympathize with you – now that I understand that “theme parks” is sort of a code name for “stuff built by jerks” – I’m afraid that the best bet, at the moment, is to find a nice private server. At least, that’s worked for me 
I stopped playing on officials and spend my time in Conan Exiles building random stuff in Single player.
I gave it a try a couple weeks ago in an official server, found a nice spot in the north, free of buildings nearby and i started building again in there, but after a weekend some guy built a giant base next to mine, turned out it was one of my neighbors, so now i have to load their ■■■■■■ base every time i want to play… the best part it that is just decoration as he already controls a large zone a bit further to the north…
I’m tired of leveling characters so i guess i’m kinda done with this, i can’t fight those clans with excesive amount of land and materials to claim the whole map without becoming one of them, i rather stop playing since everytime i try to play on a privte server it closes, admins are kind off invasive or its filled with mods that ruins it for me, i guess all that i have left is to rent my own server and develop my own mods 
So far singleplayer has been fun, i can listen to audiobooks or anything while playing conan lego without affecting anyone…
2 Likes
I am close to the same boat. I play PVP, and lately i just am not into it. I started up my private again (PS4), but oly because I forgot i had already put money in my G-Portal account. so i opened a 28 player 3 month sub. IF it picks up, i may extend. IF no, oh well, my time may be over before the new map. Assassins Creed Valhalla looks really interesting, even though it will be SP only. The trailer shows “raiding” with your clan, nd a more intuitive fighting mechanic with various duel wielding (even 2 shields!!!). Those were things I had hoped Conan would eventually deliver, But instead we have Meta build, fast travel, PVOffline, naked bombing with very very very very very rare pvp during raids game play that grows old and stale. the only enjoyment i get is leveling, but once you hit about level 40, it loses its shine quickly.
3 Likes
Both could be nice start, but I somehow from my POV see drawbacks in 1st one and good things in 2nd.
-
Farming resources is almost all the theme park builders do, besides building next Taj Mahal. This “taxation” could be fine-tuned to be impossibly high after certain limit, but it will be minor nuissance for theme park builders when it will start to be a burden for everyone else.
-
Giving more destructive power to Purge will kill two rabbits with one spade - limit theme parkers and provide variable end-game content for those who raided all dungeons ant captured all named crafters. I know people who built another castle and demolished it in hopes to pump up their purgemeter.
The transparency thing is what troubles those players, who are too busy or do not know English good enough to communicate here.
And did not for me, neither for those players I mentioned above. Private server is it’s owner’s toy. When owner is bored or pissed off it is discarded. Official servers attract people who would never set foot on a private server because of this. Which means, even if I find good private server for me, I will never meet again those people I made acquaintance before.
In short this is what this topic is bout. And making such pillar chains is what almost all people do. Theme park builders do it to claim space for future inspiration and their happy neighbors do it to not wake up inside some “artist’s” back yard one day. Sure if some particular pillars are reported their builders have to replace them by wall or anything other “legit buildings”, which can force everyone to become yet another theme park builder (if dropping the game or leaving into private are excluded).
Blaming other’s computers for what single theme park builder did is lame excuse. No amount of PC power will change useless cardboard megapolis or empty Colosseum into environment fit for adventuring or farming resources.
3 Likes
The game is a sandbox, but a server is a shared resource. There needs to be some mechanism in place to avoid the tragedy of the commons. I build large builds myself. That doesn’t mean I can’t recognize the fact that we’re all sharing the same space and that there has to be some kind of a limit that prevents me from spamming my large builds all over the map.
Yes, I am.
Hey, do you remember that until recently it wasn’t against the rules to wall in an obelisk or someone else’s base? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
It wasn’t against the rules, and yet some of us have somehow avoided doing it, because we’re not gigantic jerks. Spamming half of the map with useless crap is still not against the rules, and yet some of us somehow still avoid doing it, because we’re not gigantic jerks.
Yes, I know. I’ve often had to explain the difference here on the forums. But performance is only part of the problem.
When I say a server is a shared space, I’m not talking only about performance. Each building has a “cost”: buildings take up buildable space, prevent and redirect traversal, suppress spawns, and restrict access to whatever region they cover.
There are people who think about these things when they build, and then decide for themselves whether what they’re building is appropriate or not. And then there are people who have no consideration for any of these consequences and no consideration for others who share the server.
Yes, I’m blaming that second group of people. And I’m saying that we should have an in-game mechanism that will at least limit the scope of what they can do.
1 Like
You are referring to the now-deleted post by Tascha in the Players Helping Players forum. I still have the relevant quote saved, and it doesn’t mention obelisks:
In extreme cases, for example players preventing others from entering the game area by walling off the spawning area after character creation or completely preventing other players from playing the game in any other way, we may take action if presented with indisputable proof . Action meaning this behavior can lead to bans of the clan or players involved. In extreme cases please use contact anyone from our @community team and send them a PM to report these issues.
Regardless of the wording, you can nitpick my post all you want, but the fact is that there were things that weren’t illegal under the old rules (such as walling in someone’s base or paving over the Shattered Springs) and yet most people didn’t do them, because we don’t need rules to behave decently.
No one should tell you that you can’t let your dog’s poop lie in the middle of the park or that you can’t drink beer in the middle of the street, and yet they do. Having rules about the use of shared spaces is part of civilized behavior.
2 Likes
I see you either believe I hate theme parks for causing lags or intentionally trying to derail this into off-topic by provoking “who has longer videocard” contest.
As @CodeMage said before - it is problem of shared space first. And lack of environment’s response second. My opinion - both problems could be solved with growing Purge of adequate power.
In it current state game favors those, who plays “survival sandbox” like a Sims with infinite money. In true sandbox there should be a reaction of environment on what player does.
Oh, yes, it does. But that’s not what the rules said. The rules said “completely preventing other players from playing the game”, not “preventing other players from playing the game normally”. Which is why I only ever heard of people getting banned for blocking off the spawn area, and not for blocking off obelisks or blocking up Sinner’s Refuge or paving over the Shattered Springs or any other griefing tactic I’ve seen.
I’ve said all I have on the topic of previous rules and new rules and how a lot of people didn’t and still don’t need rules in order to be good neighbors. You can keep trying to nitpick and to pretend you don’t understand my point, but I believe it’s clear enough for all the participants of the discussion and I don’t intend to derail the discussion by further explaining it to you.
Nowhere. Which is precisely why this topic exists, because people want to discuss the fact that there are neither administrative rules nor technical limitations to help avoid the tragedy of commons on the official servers. Now that you’re up to speed, you’re welcome to join the rest of us in the discussion
2 Likes
There’s a load of paradoxes in these arguments from all sides.
We have PVE players complaining about ‘theme park’ builds. Like this isn’t PVP, so how else are you supposed to keep peeps off your doorstep?
Then we have complaints about large builds. But we’re talking about on servers that they picked because they don’t have restrictions.
This is what I’m getting.
“I want to build where I want, but I don’t want people near me. They can’t ask for the same thing.”
“I want to build what I want, but I don’t want people to build larger than what -I- think is fine.”
“I want to play PVE, but there needs to be a way to deal with unsightly/too-large builds.”
Effectively you all want to have your cake and eat it too. Understandable, I do too. And I do. But I help make the rules, I help enforce them, and I play with like minded folk.
It sounds like it would be easier for you all to find a place with the rules you want. Rather than changing the rules for thousands of players who probably enjoy them. Think about that for a minute. A good majority probably do like the building rules as they are.
I would even say most of you did too until they bit back. Now you want changes? This isn’t how that works.
Now this discussion has been going on for a month, with no consensus. You know what that means? It means it probably should be left alone.
Haven’t we had that discussion already? People don’t pick official servers “because they don’t have restrictions”. People pick official servers because they’re new to the game and the servers are official. Let’s not debate your “official servers attract scum” argument again, because you didn’t manage to convince anyone the last time, either.
Except nobody said that. Sure, you can take some of the things people here said and deliberately misinterpret them until they fit that statement, but that’s not very productive, is it?
Again, that’s a distortion and exaggeration of the argument to limit the building. If you try hard enough, you can make anything sound absurd.
Yeah, initially the whole “theme park” thing sounded like that. It turned out to be neither about builds that are unsightly nor too large. So, either you’re giving your opinion on a discussion you didn’t read – which happens a lot on these forums – or you did read the discussion and you understood what it’s about, but want to misrepresent it intentionally.
Nah, we want people to be decent when sharing a space. And a lot of them are. But it turns out that if you simply rely on people to take care of common good, well, it doesn’t work out that well. So that’s why you need rules. And you know that, because you’re talking about rules yourself.
And most people could do 30 or 35 mph on a street with a speed limit with 25 mph, just as carefully and safely. And yet it’s set to 25 mph because some d-bags weren’t careful enough.
That’s precisely how it works. People tend not to care about most problems they’re lucky or privileged enough to avoid. And when people realize they need changes, then they ask for them. “This isn’t how that works” is just another variation on “FYGM”.
Honestly, the real paradox here is that someone who keeps claiming that private servers are superior and that only scum play on officials is, for some reason, defending official servers from Big Bad Rule Changes.
1 Like
Do you want me to take the alternative stance? I can. Or I can continue playing devil’s advocate. Which do you prefer?
Lags in client are secondary problem, as we already told. It is shared map space, eaten away by safe from the Purge buildings, built for no other reason that builder likes to build huge decorations aka theme parks. Negotiations with theme park builders is as effective, as talking to a cancer.
To keep those buildings at least away from one’s home players use pillars, which triggers the rule about blocking the space for sake of blocking.
If they do not block theme park builders they will wake up inside disneyland of Barbie the Constructor.
2 Likes
Yes. What I don’t understand is why you think it’s relevant to the discussion. I don’t see anyone establishing the effect of large builds on server performance as the main problem. Did I miss that somewhere?
No, large builds are definitely not the main issue with the servers. That idea is something that’s been driving me crazy on these forums and I always get into an argument with people who believe that large builds are a problem just because they’re large.
People who build endless pillars to enlarge their claim are a problem. People who build tons of foundation spam are a problem. People who build on top of major resources are a problem. People who block off dungeons or major resources (at least on PVE and PVE-C) are a problem. I could go on, but you can see that these examples all share something, that there’s a common theme here. It’s people who build without consideration.
Now. Is there a technical solution to prevent people from building like that? I believe there isn’t, but I would be intrigued to hear well thought-out ideas. Is there an administrative solution? There might be in theory, but we’ve seen that even the current rules are lacking in practice, because it can take Funcom 6-8 weeks to address a report. To put things into perspective, that’s two freaking months.
On the other hand, there might be technical solutions that don’t prevent people from building like that, but rather limit the scope of what they do. Coupled with the current rules, it might make the official servers a better place.
To be clear, I’m not advocating for one of those poorly thought-out proposals such as “hey, let’s set a cap of maximum 1000 building pieces per player”. Whenever a “solution” like that is proposed, it’s clear that these people have never even counted the number of pieces they use. But something should be done to limit the building on official servers and that “something” should definitely not be a half-assed band-aid measure.
1 Like