I kinda like the dodgeroll and momentum changes and here's why!

Conan Exiles General Discussion
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I had taken a long break from Conan. It was probably a solid year break until the new horse update came out on PS4. My buddy and I, both low levels in the basic light armor, decided we were going to fight a dragon today for some demon blood to knock out some journey steps. We’re not the greatest players but we have fun on our official PVE server in our small 2 person clan. We kited the big red dragon to the king rhino and lost 2 fresh greater bears in around 30 seconds (they really weren’t worth bringing because they did absolutely nothing). King rhino didn’t last long either and seemed bugged to where he could only attack in 1 direction away from the dragon beating on him. Point is, my buddy and I had to do the work to beat this thing. I died 8 times and my clan mate died 11 according to the event log. King rhino died 3 times and was bugged all 3 times. That was hard! We really had fun having to dodge the attacks on time which couldn’t be blocked. Some might laugh, but we weren’t at all specced for this either. Awful weapons and armor, and everything in encumbrance and survival with 0 vit and 0 in strength just so we can haul our loot when we farm. We had fun that wasn’t there prior. The fights now, especially with big enemies, feel more engaging. We have to at the very least come in with proper tools like a shield however low quality they might be and dodge when appropriate or get severely punished… like 90% of our hp in 1 hit gone punished.

After the Dragon we decided we would go kill the Barrow King who was a joke as always, although he did hit pretty hard with 0 in vitality. Managed that boss flawlessly as one might expect. Getting confident and being in the area, we decided to go see if there were star metal nodes we could snag. That turned out to be a complete disaster, but one we still had fun experiencing.

The big cats now for low levels are very very scary (playing PVE official server). They are really fast and can 2 shot you and sometimes come out of nowhere like a real ambush predator. I love having to always watch my back when in the Savanna. Corrupted ones will 1 shot you. Anyway, we didn’t realize there were 4 sabretooth guarding the path to the Ymir religion teacher where meteors can be found. We both probably died another 13 times each trying to get our stuff and having the cats run us down each time until we started to play a little smarter. The first 1 respawned after we had killed off all of them and surprised us with more death.

Some people might read this and say it doesn’t sound fun at all. I come from the souls series as my introduction into gaming. I like games that punish stupid and sloppy. I like games that throw a challenge my way that feels rewarding once conquered even though I sometimes have to come back to it later after numerous failures. Is Conan a souls game? No. I am not comparing the two. I am only stating where my mentality comes from. PVE servers late game can get very boring. Once you’ve done all there is to do, there is little reason to stick around. Some might say leveling thralls fixes that, but it really doesn’t in my opinion. Honestly, in PVE, thralls kind of ruin the experience for me making the game far too easy. These momentum changes have really made the progression a lot slower and a lot harder/engaging for those who just want to play the game and not rush to the end. Funcom said they wanted the changes to make the exiled lands less forgiving and they were successful in doing that. I think it needs more rebalancing to maintain difficulty for maxed out characters, but the changes for me were welcomed!

EDIT: I feel I should add my reply in here. The way I understand it, the dodge is not an escape mechanic anymore. It is an evasive maneuver. You won’t be able to dodge out of range of attacks and certain attacks you won’t be able to dodge at all and will have to either block or run from as best you can.

Example: The dragons stomp with his front paws have a lot of AOE. You will not be able to dodge the AOE reliably so we brought shields to deal with that. The fire breath attack where he moves his head side-to-side can be both blocked and dodged. However, the straight fire breath and tail swipes cannot be blocked. We dodged the tail swipes and had to move out of the way of the straight fire breath to avoid that damage since it couldn’t be blocked or dodged. That is good game design in my honest opinion. We had to experiment to figure out how to deal with these attacks.

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Praise the sun, even if it’s dark and it’s name is Yog!
:slight_smile:

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I got used to the slower roll myself. I play better as a result.

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I am still able to run around, at the beginning of the game, take all the religions (i choose crom because i can learn all the others), atune all the obelisks, expert mountaineering and have some dagoon scales, to fix special fish traps, before i decide where to build. Yes i spend a lot bed rolls, but it is still possible. I think the old dodge existed to spoil us on the game. I remember when the wine cellar boss was new to me i couldn’t defeat it solo with any armor, and finaly i win it naked. It was awesome feeling, but not good for the game

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in the end (no pun intended to anyone) but yes, simply it’s a “git gud” situation.
The current roll improves you as a player, forcing you to choos wisely when and how to roll.
Is it too darksouls?
no, it’s simply good game design for a combat game

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I assume on PC then? Havnt got patch yet… still dealing with the ability to not roll more then 2 feet and almost never out of range of attacks… and god is it so ugly and weird looking.

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Well, I am not there yet. Still can’t stand the new dodge roll. Still barely playing the game, while I wait to see if they are going to give us the ability to restore some fun to dodge, for the dedicated servers. Been downloading other games to keep me occupied for now.

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I am on PS4. I truly do not mind the changes. The dodge is not an escape mechanic anymore. It is an evasive maneuver. You won’t be able to dodge out of range of attacks and certain attacks you won’t be able to dodge at all and will have to either block or run from as best you can.

Example: The dragons stomp with his front paws have a lot of AOE. You will not be able to dodge the AOE reliably so we brought shields to deal with that. The fire breath attack where he moves his head side-to-side can be both blocked and dodged. However, the straight fire breath and tail swipes cannot be blocked. We dodged the tail swipes and had to move out of the way of the straight fire breath to avoid that damage since it couldn’t be blocked or dodged. That is good game design in my honest opinion. We had to experiment to figure out how to deal with these attacks.

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So basically you like dodge that makes ton of weapons useless against alot of foes… and carrying around several weapon types to deal with it…

That doesnt sound very fun.

getting my face smashed in cause I can’t roll the extra foot with my spear, and have Rhino or elephant glued on you isnt very fun… Constantly have toss 2handed weapon in chest to grab sword and board to deal with many of enemy types isnt very …fun.

I’ll say it again, the roll need to be shorten 100%… but not how it is. This is frustrating to mess with. I mostly Bow… and even then you basiclly stuck with this bad backstep fire animation and roll on top of it. Half time, you roll 1st attack…right into next one from another player or npc.

Its in very bad spot on consoles… I really hope we get patch soon… and hopfully console user get a say in. But I doubt it.

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They are not useless. They are situational. There is a big difference there. You want to go kill a dragon? Probably best to bring some 1h weapon and a shield. I used an axe and shield. You want to go kill undead and human NPCs? Well a spear and 2h sword or maul might be good there if you like using those. I don’t understand how that is an issue.

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It would seem that I am almost your polar opposite on this issue, as I thoroughly dislike the Momentum system. In fact I cant wait for Funcom to get back from their holidays so that we can have the readjustment patch on consoles too. Because being stuck with it for the last month now has sucked the fun out of this game for me. To me the Momentum system was the worst change to this great game to date, and aside from a number of nerfs, is one of the few changes which I have outright disliked. People are free to disagree with this if they like, but to me the Momentum was system was nothing more than a nerf to movement and dodging. It has made the game so tedious just trying to navigate around my bases hallways and corridors, harvest resource nodes and while trying to grab the cliffside while base jumping. A games movement system should be crisp and responsive, not clunky and clumsy. Our character should feel like a healthy, hardened barbarian who is in peak physical fitness and agility, not like we are controling the village oaf with arthritis. And its not just me who disliked it; the Polls and feedback on this were overwhelmingly negative, revealing that 60-65% off all community members disliked the change.

Sure you can play the difficulty card. And for the record here, I am one person who would like to see NPC mobs become more challenging. While to some extent it succeeded, the ‘challenge’ it creates is based around burdening the player with movement penalties and restrictions, which are artificial, and not in the spirit of the game. This feeds into what I always say about the race to the top vs the race to the bottom. More challenge is fine, I applaud the idea. But we should accomplish this by improving enemy AI and combat abilities, as opposed to simply adding handicaps and movement abilities to players. Adjust enemies up, NOT players down.

I am counting down the days until Funcom gets back, so that we can finally have the dial on the accursed thing turned right down on consoles.

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@Croms_Faithful Different opinions are great. I understand there are many who would disagree with me. I just wanted to share my experience to maybe provide some insight into why there are those who enjoy the changes. Polls are also a funny thing, especially forum polls.

When I played ESO on PS4 NA, I would have considered myself one of the best players on the game and had a pretty big reputation for my gamertag at the time. One thing a lot of the competitive players hated, myself included, were the ESO forums. The forums were almost entirely casual players or newer players and PC players mostly with the occasional “known” player hopping in. A lot of the data the devs listened to came from forum polls which ignored the competitive veterans of the game to the point the community crashed and burned and the game lost any and all skill in its combat. 9/10 of all the greatest players were gone and what was left over was a small toxic community racing to grind for the best gear available since skill no longer mattered.

On Conan, I consider myself a casual player who can’t play every day anymore for a number of reasons hence why I play PVE and not PVP. What I’m trying to explain is that while the official forum polls might have shown an overwhelmingly negative response, I can’t help but believe the real numbers are more of an even split. The majority of console players probably don’t even read the forums. The majority of Conan’s most loyal and most competitive players are not even on the forums if I had to guess. I would take the word of players like Fly Hacks over myself and others for what would make the game healthier.

I’m glad you and I can agree that we would both like more difficulty in the AI. I disagree on what was implemented being artificial difficulty, but I’m not going to complain about the incoming changes as it really doesn’t affect a casual player like myself to the point I would quit altogether. I also should have been more clear in the title saying I like the dodgeroll and momentum changes too as I now recognize they are separate. Adjusting how fast a player can reach max speed won’t be a dramatic enough change to alter the fun I had in the fight.

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Thats the issue thou…

We went from use what ever, figure it out. Anything will work, Enjoy “your” play style. Have fun!
to… guess your ****** enjoy dieing or being hit over and over cause you showed up with wrong weapon.

Shoe Horning players into certain weapons types kinda goes away from what game was.

I get some people might enjoy showing up to Rhino fight wth spear, and finding they can no longer really dodge far enough… Sure.

AI needs adjustments at same time. You can’t change one, and just roll with it. Cause alot of stuff kinda requires you rock a shield and 1 hand if you wanna get past it. Thats my point. 1 weapon type kinda shines now in PVE, when every weapon type did.

The roll on its own basiclly screwed up the use what ever you want.

I treat it like Monster Hunter, Every weapon should work. Sure some not greatly, they should work beyond a point there doable.

Forum polls can be weird yes, but several forums have brought up the hate… As someone who has poured way to many hours in this game… its crazy how one change (2 actaully) broke so much of what was working… trying to fix something that didnt need this much fixing.
We need roll to be not as abusive.
they could have just shorten it a smedge… instead went all out on it. 2 years in.

Which is also part of my hate… we had a Conan game with Surv elements. And it was great.
Now there pushing Surv game with conan elements.
I had a game I wanted, now I have a game I don’t want. We can all look at poll and call BS.
I’m Not ******* happy after 2 years of investment.

You dont need poll for that. I’m not happy with this change. The game was fun before that. Why mess with it this much. =/
Why do I have to be one that quits the game, why can’t we just leave it when it was working fine for majority. (very few people outside PVP really had issue) No one really in PVE side wanted this change.

O well… I never get what I want anyway.

I’m happy you happy… but I’m not anymore.

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Guys simply “git gud”
Adjust yourselves, improve your combat approach.
I managed to do that, and I’m surely not a genious, so I suppose you all too can do it with a lil’ effort.
I too come from a darksoul mentality and this give me the “advantage” of knowing that situations are different, and not all kind of weapon/set ups are suitable for all fights, so I (try to) adapt, and improve myself.
This is one of the most peculiar and importatn perks is a “warrior” (just for the record: I practiced medieval fencing for over 2 decades, in Italy we have great traditions 'bout that).

I think this is the intent of ANY combat game that inserts different weapons and styles in it’s mechanics or else all weapons would be the same animations only with different cosmetics.
So even if I can agree about some tweaking here and there to make the game a lil’ more fluid, I think you’re missing the point of this momentum change:
Git
gud.

(again, no pun intended)

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You mean you can hold Block and dragon just “bumps” his head against your shield and stops fire breathing? That’s hilarious :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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I am and have been a fan of the dodge/roll change since day one. Having become fully used to it, I still have little difficulty in combat. What it did in my eyes is get rid of the boring poke-roll-poke-roll combo as well as made heavy armor useful to players again.

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I think there is merit to the complaint that it fundamentally changes gameplay after having the game for so long, despite my like of the new roll mechanic. Patches and updates typically leave core play mechanics alone or add to them rather than full replace them for many of the reasons listed above. Some people will not want to adapt to a “new game” in essence and in this case it may be a whole lot of people. I think if it had been the momentum way from the beginning, muscle memory wouldnt be an issue and a minimal number of people would argue with the system as it would just be “the game”. After the fact is a tougher pill to swallow. On consoles it may even be a bigger issue if youre like me that controller is an extension of your hand. These kind of changes can be risky and potentially put off players.

Like I said, I like the new system, but I completely understand that it may be too late to make it.

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I have to disagree on this. Before it was primarily one choice, light armor, and sonic roll with spear attacks as needed. Now each weapon has a true choice. Crowd control 2H’s, 1 v 1 shield and 1H. Daggers are now what daggers should be, a back up weapon to apply bleed, and spear is still useful if you are more of a counter pucnher who utilizes its stagger effectively. Bows are still very niche (sans the glitch being exploited everywhere) and can be used to get a shot in before NPC’s aggro, reducing the health when you do need to go in for killing blows.

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Agreed. It used to be everyone running with spears for poke-roll-poke-roll action. This has changed things up a lot.

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Also, for Bows, i like to use them as a “Go Fetch” to get my follower to aggro from a distance. Hit one of any crowd with an arrow, your thrall will run head first at the one it wants, and then i know which ones i need to fight off until it clears them all.

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