I Well and Truly Hate This Game/ I'm DONE

I love survival games. Love’em, love’em, but not this game. This game is more aggravating than fun. Fun can only be had if you ignore things. My and my friend’s imaginations to roleplay make this game fun. This game is a sandbox that will quickly turn to quicksand if you play it long enough.

This game is by far the most unrewarding game I have ever played. Even the ending scene to finally escape the exiled lands is less than mediocre. I have tried to persevere and overlook so many unacceptable and lopsided debacles of this game’s programming, but I can’t do it anymore.

Too Many Issues:

  1. If it isn’t not being able to get on your server, find your server… it’s…

  2. BS deaths

  3. Thrall disappearances

  4. Unexplained dismantling

  5. A bugged Purge

  6. Nonsensical game mechanics

  7. Patterned nighttime sequences (that get so dark you can’t afford to move) right when you’re trying to transport a captured thrall or some other much-needed item/reward.

7a. This is in conjunction with the fact that for some odd reason we cannot equip a torch while using a binding.

  1. The building system is crap, and unexplained. The risk of completely dismantling more than what you intended is high and irreparable oftentimes.

  2. The grind is ridiculous and obviously monotonous.

  3. The rewards are mundane and monotonous. Once you get a good weapon and armor there really isn’t any reason to acquire or use something else. All you need are repair kits and such to maintain them.

  4. The combat system leaves a lot to be desired. The weapon styles have no flair, and the player will spend more time retreating due to us (the player) always receiving more damage than they can deliver to an NPC of a higher tier. And that’s only if the game isn’t rubber-banding and disregarding the fact the player is trying to dodge.

  5. Thralls are stronger than us their owner by A LOT.

12a. And oftentimes the thrall will glitch out and not fight even when they’ve been given the proper weapon. So a player is left to retreat or fight a large group alone, which still requires a lot of retreating.

12b. Thrall A.I. is downright stupid. They can’t be programmed to fight a certain way. They don’t know how to decipher between being offensive or being passive. Unless taken from them, they will continuously use a truncheon on an enemy that is incapable of being knocked out despite the fact that they have a weapon that can kill in their inventory. There needs to be an option on the thrall radial that lets a player tell the NPC to kill or KO.

  1. During combat, NPCs ignore the player’s attacks for the sake of getting a hit on the player by any means necessary regardless if the player has the upper-hand or if the NPC is getting up after just being knocked down. That’s BS and FAKE!

  2. During combat, NPCs are constantly being pushed back out of a player’s range instead of closing the gap.

  3. There is no blocking system in the game unless you have a shield. Right!; because no one has ever blocked with a two-handed sword before, or a spear, or a hammer, etc. So a player has to rely on dodging that usually doesn’t work.

  4. There is no icon on the map to locate your pet/thrall.

  5. NPCs look like Laffy-Taffy after they’ve been killed.

  6. The targeting-system does not work properly.

  7. The endgame is not an endgame; it’s just a means to start the game all over again with a new character to go through the same grind the player just completed. That is the worst design I personally have ever played. Ultimately there is no incentive.

Anyway, that’s some of the issues I had and others that just go into more detail about the aforementioned. It was fun while it lasted… then again, maybe I’m just being nice and it really wasn’t.

5 Likes

I totally understand EVERYTHING that was said here. I appreciate the detailed format of this post as well. I stopped when one of my party members built a literal strong hold, and fortified it with the strongest building materials in the game only to have the purge come and destroy it at some ungodly hour(3 am). Like we don’t have better things to do than to be sitting up at 3 in the morning waiting on the purge! I am so sorry for your frustrations. Thank you for sharing.

2 Likes

The only good thing that came out of playing this game is that I didn’t have to spend money on it.

Yeah, this is seriously stupid. It gets even worse when you realize enemies are 100% unaffected by it.

I had my game glitch out a few times. Night didn’t get so dark, I didn’t get the gray screen when out of stamina, the sandstorm looked insanely amazing, and most of the lag I experience running around the world disappeared. It was the best time I have had playing the game.

  1. Night is dark. It’s not like this is a city and you have street lights everywhere. Try going out in the countryside sometime on a moonless night. You can’t see crap without a light source present.

7a. This one is valid. I imagine it has to do with them trying to occupy the same slot, since certain things like Shield, Torch, and Bindings are probably always in the same hand.

  1. This is primitive building. Not real world building. If you dismantle something beneath something else, odds are it’s going to collapse under it’s own weight. Solution is to not be rash while building.

  2. This is a survival game based on teamwork. If you play alone without a team, you just have to suck it up and take the grind as it is. If you play single player, adjust the gather rates to compensate.

  3. Which is the exact same as in pretty much every other game like this. Armor is armor. It serves two purposes. Keep you protected from danger, and to deal with temperature effects. It’s the same with weapons. They are meant for slashing and hacking people to bits. There isn’t a whole lot of difference to be put there.

  4. You might want to rewrite this one. An NPC that is higher tier than the player currently is supposed to do more damage than the player can. That’s why it’s a HIGHER tier.

  5. Blocking with weapons is crap. You are thinking of parrying and the like. And that isn’t as easy to do as you might think in a game without auto attacks. You have to give the weapons some kind of weight so your weapon can hit the enemy weapon and knock it aside from where it’s trying to strike you. And then you the player have to determine how the incoming attack is coming in and move to stop it.

  6. Because if this were a thing, clans would complain that clan thralls should be on the map, and it would just clutter the map and make it hard to find anything.

  7. Who honestly gives a damn? Why are you staring at dead NPCs instead of going on to kill other ones?

  8. So just don’t complete the game? There is nothing saying you have to flee the Exiled Lands and end the game. You are confusing the end of the story for the end of the game. There is no “end game”. You just continue to survive in the Exiled Lands. Not sure what else you think they should add to this.

8 Likes

It’s not that dark, and even if it was, there is no excuse for it not affecting enemies too.

2 Likes

I think you make some good and bad points here. For example, I agree with no. 7 and 7a, that it is absurd that after all this time we still cant use a Torch in conjunction with Bindings. I also agree, as Im sure do much if the player base with no. 12b, that thrall AI could be better. And finally no. 19, the end sequence is anti-climatic and could use an overhaul. However I am affraid that this is where the agreement ends for me.

Now. No. 8, the building system is fine in my books. I know it is not explained, but that is the whole point. Conan Exiles expects us to learn for ourselves, not have our hands held. If uncertainties prevail, there is an a plethora of Youtube videos which do a great job of explaining it. No. 8, there is grind yes, but coming from someone who apparently ‘loves survival games’, you should be at home with this. Heck this game has less grind than a lot of others on the market. Ark comes to mind here. No. 10, of course youre not going to use lesser grade weapons and armour anymore when you get better ones, that is standard across almost any game with a level progression system! Take Skyrim for example, once you have Dragonbone weapons and Daedric armour, youre not going to go back to using an Iron sword and Hide armour anymore are you…? No. 11, the combat system is fine. This isnt Devil May Cry. We dont need to do a triple spin takedown slash, then lean against a wall and flick our hair. Our characters are barbarians! What we have here is flair enough.

Finally, the way you have worded some of your statements are needlessly harsh and an overdose of fullblown melodrama. For example, “I well and truly hate this game” and “that is the worst design I personally have ever played”…!? Bollocks. There are plenty of players around here, myself included, who love this game, and make the most of it evey chance we get to play and enjoy it. You could have simply created a polite and constructive post offering valuable feedback, then bowed out gracefully. Instead you turned it into a big soapbox moment. Im sorry you feel that way, but for me this game is a masterpiece, and a formidable contender for Game of the Year 2018. Anyway those are my two cents. I will leave with a quote which sums up how I fell about it perfectly.

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10 Likes

No, it is. There’s a reason street lights were invented. Moonless night in the countryside? Maybe even an overcast sky so even the stars are hidden? Pitch black. Very difficult to see much beyond what’s right in front of you. It’s even worse if you were just near a light source so your night vision is shot for the next half hour or so. If the moon is out on a clear night though, you pretty much don’t need another light source if you’re not trying to do some kind of detail oriented task.

All in all, I think CE did a pretty good job of it outside of having a solution to the whole dragging a slave around at night in a rainstorm situation. (Those nighteye potions would be good for that except that they seem kind of buggy. Last time I tried one it screwed up my graphics somehow and left everything washed out long after the potion wore off.)

I agree it would be awsome if daylight affected NPCs as well. But it’s not like we currently have a particularly great stealth system to begin with. Maybe that’s something that can be worked on in the future.

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Well, good luck with whatever game you try next. Hopefully it is more to your liking.

In a country moonless night, it is hard to see, but I could still see my hand in front of my face. I can’t even see that during the nights in Conan Exiles. Plus, every night in Conan is a full moon, which tend to be very bright anyway, so I don’t know why you keep bringing up “moonless.”

In Conan exiles, the darkness at nights is closer to being deep in a cave then turning off the lights.

:roll_eyes:

Conan Exiles nights = too dark, despite having a full moon

Real moonless night = dark but can still see my hand in front of my face
Real full moon nights = very bright

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Totally dependent by your monitor and GPU settings, for example on my own PC nights are really dark in the game, on my mate’s pc I don’t even notice if it’s night at all.

And before you ask: exiting the game, on Windows, the two monitors look quite at same brightness.

Thanks for taking the time to write down your personal thoughts in a constructive way.
We’ll definitely keep an eye on this and the follow up discussions happening.

4 Likes

It’s fine the way it is, IMO. Makes torches actually useful, unlike many other games I could mention. And in the desert where the sky is clear you still get enough light to move around without one if you really need to. Risky, but there is still plenty of light to do it. If it’s so dark there that you can’t even see your own character then you probably just need to adjust your brightness settings. Or close the blinds on the window that’s shining on your screen.

If you’re in the north where it’s constantly raining, suck it up and break out the torch or wait for morning.

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Maybe the darkness is us blacking out form carrying 1000 LBs of resources on our “backs”. You know, reality.

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meehhhhh darkness, meeeh so hard. Improvised torch, torch, bone and goop torch, red mother, nighteye potions, witch mask mehhhhhh

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Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come with Glimmermoon again
Because my vision while I was creeping
With this NPC that was sleeping
And the vision that I struggled with in vain
Still remains
Within the dark of Conan

13 Likes

A partial workaround is to equip your follower with a torch. It’ll stay lit and appear in their hand even after the thrall moves it back to their inventory. I successfully dragged a thrall from the mounds back to my WoP near the aqueduct at night in the rain.

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I’m playing on a PS4 with a perfectly adjusted/tuned 4K TV. The issue does not occur with ANY OTHER game.

So am I, and I do not have it. Have you checked your environment lighting? Also, what is a ‘perfectly adjusted/tuned’ 4K screen? And what would it have to do with this? The parts of the eye needed for perceiving true blacks, and helping the brain make information from vision in darkness isn’t tied to the perception of framerate or other attributes of 4K.