Ideas to make Conan better for roleplayers

Hey Letteofjokers,

I have moved this thread to the Conan Exiles forums, as it provides feedback on features from this game, not from the RTS Conan Unconquered. The thread will be seen regardless.

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Roleplayers and lore interpretation comes in all shapes and forms.
While I myself made mods to allow containers to hold what it is meant to, as food plates and other things, and I am not the only modder to do that, and I have a system in place in my lore mod to allow for more interactions, commerce and stuff, as before, I am not the only or the first one to do this, we have to think about something else on this:

  • Modders can do many things that core game cant, as a modder can be banned and a mod removed, specially in the case of the “kids idea”. Very sketchy thing to put in this particular game for obvious reasons. It would be a legal and social nightmare after it is done, and worse yet when the first “controversial” gameplay “trollling” start to pop up in social media. Overall, it would be a BAD idea, and would get worse very fast.

  • Not everyone is a RPer, and in my experience, many who say they are, arent. Introducing such modifications would disrupt “PvP nut gameplay”, and would introduce sources for blaming the game for a lot of loss, competitiveness flaws and overall load in the game that would make the people who care not for that question why it is done if there is so much to be “fixed” before thinking about that.

That is why this kind of thing is and always should be left to modders. They can do things for specific groups and care not about what the overall players think. If the game has something, everyone must “download it”, must “have it”, and devs must “care for it”. If modders do some niche stuff, they are the ones caring for it, only those who choose may have it, and download it.

And that being said, almost everything you cited is modded around.

I know that console players might have a problem with mods, and people who does not want to play in private servers cant use mods. Well, there is a choice to be made: You rather get what “most people will like”, or choose to join your niche group and enjoy the perks of specific gameplay.

And I think the private server and modding community in this game is amazing, excepting for some isolated cases of “AoC admin abuse”. lol

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The extra memory and the incompatibility issue about the mods for roleplay hold me off although it would be nice to play.

Additionally the lack of inbuilt roleplay content is a great loss for all mmos and sandbox games.

Conan Exiles could be alot more fun if players had actual roles. The player doesnt like it ? Just restart and build a different character with different profession, feat, attribute set. Very easy. Its pretty sad that the player interaction is extremely low if we dont play at certain servers with off game mods or log and play player against player combat game. Becasue no one needs another player for a specific task. Anyone can do anything and npcs boost anything they do.

Right now the game is pretty much Single player Age of empires game experience.

It would be very nice if we had roles, roleplay, and mix of pve and pvp content (pve-c doesnt cover that well)

About those details you have mentioned, I also agree. I would like to see my animals act the same as npc animals for example and would also mate, make baby animals. Get older. Buildings and equipment decay faster and require maintenance. Even our character could get older.

Well, yes. The game has a Single-Player mode, and requiring other people (or restarting your character) for certains tasks would kinda ruin that experience.

Locking players to a certain set of options doesn’t make them more likely to role-play. It simply forces interaction with others. When I role-play, I don’t role-play “a carpenter” or “a hunter”. I role-play a person, with a name, a history, a personality. They may also have a job or a profession, but no-one is solely defined by their job.

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Maybe FUncom learned from SOE.
When you change from a free for all system to a pigeon toed RP based game, everyone leaves.
That is exactly what happened to SWG.

We play on a few modded serves that are the best RP serves we have seen.

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When we have natural roles at a virtual realm, it allready becomes roleplay by playing the game itself and ,naturally, interacting with other players; without having to use fancy costumes, fancy names or performing a theatrical speech.

It is literally, a virtualiving experience.

( This debate around ‘forcing players to interact with other players’ reminds me Milton and his red stampler. It is creepy…Ordinary human beings do interact, socialise and communicate in real life, with the natural flow of life. We humans are social beings )

That is what I meant.

I have a splendid idea for some additional roleplay features for myself and growing body of other likeminded players. Can anyone guess what I am going to suggest here…

Some more Crom features/goodies please. :mountain_snow: :metal:

Honestly I dont even mind if we have to use the Admin Panel to spawn them like the bronze coins, volcanic plant, coloured crystals and so forth. As a console player I have no other options or recourse available to me.

“Help me Funcom…youre my only hope”.

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lNUh0uV

EDIT: That flagging game you’re playing is getting old, dude. And no, this isn’t “spam” or “vandalism”.

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Yes, we are. Which is precisely why we interact, socialize and communicate without having to be forced by some arbitrary rules. We do it in the real world and we do it in a game like Conan Exiles, too.

I’m not against adding props for roleplayers, like the ability to set up a merchant post or a tavern. But the argument that we can’t interact and socialize in Conan Exiles without some additional game mechanics is bunk.

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Where do you come from, who were you ? What are you doing for the living right now ? What is your aim ?

I give an example. I would like my character to be an explorer who was interested in flora, fauna and the folklore of peoples at the Exiled lands. He would be searching for hidden mysteries of the ancient civilisation here and if there was other things we dont know yet. This exile would be a true opportunity for my character as much as it is filled with many dangers. This would be my character. Wandering explorer, an ex scholar who comes from Turan side of Hyborea.

Backbone of a Roleplaying game is Backstory dear CodeMage. Can you please tell what would your character’s backstory be at a random roleplay game ? Who would he be, what would he be doing ?

My character’s new experinces would not be building and then upgrading and then training npc guards at roleplay. There would be more of real player to player, human interaction; based on the character’s past life and new experiences to make a living. Also if a clan I join asks me if I would like to have ‘this’ role to aid the clan, I would accept it to be a valuable member of the clan.

This is not forcing a gamer but part of the actual roleplaying session at any game we play. This requires being social with living gamers at real time. Taking responsibilities and active roles to help the players we play together.

Singleplayer experience old rpg games for pc and actual Roleplaying ; based on MUD, GURP, AD&D is not the same at all

Yes, I could. When I engage in RP in some game, that’s the first thing I do. I don’t have a RP char in Conan Exiles, because I don’t play it for RP reasons.

However, if I ever decide to engage in RP in Conan Exiles, I’ll create a character with a backstory and then play that way. That’s what RP means: you play a role. It’s not about forcing people to interact in specific ways.

That’s how you choose to play your role.

You still don’t get it, do you? Yes, you are trying to force people to roleplay in a non-RP game. If you wanted to keep debating this topic, then why did you ask the mods to close the thread where that debate was going on?

Like several of us have already explained, there’s nothing wrong with asking for mechanisms that help RP without forcing RP onto anyone who isn’t interested in it. Since you insist on asking for precisely that, there’s no nice way of saying this: if you want to play a strictly RP game, go play on a private server or go play another game.

This isn’t a strictly RP game, it hasn’t been sold as one and most of us haven’t bought it as one.

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Oh hello CodeMage.

Where and how can I possibly force anyone to do anything by simply writing and stating my own ideas at the forums ? (I hope that was a joke).

Take a look at the name of this thread. It is about Roleplaying. ( ‘Ideas to make Conan better for roleplayers’ ) I leave comments about roleplaying. We are actually speaking about Multiplayer and Roleplay.

I simply asked you what would you roleplay when playing with other gamers. What is the reason for the negative attitude ? It was a simple and positive question. Are you against players speaking about roleplay or are you against the posters who do not share the same ideas with you ?

Why dont you go whatever you wish to do at a private server same as you tell me then ? Why do you comment at a Multiplayer-Roleplay related thread and then target my response to the Original poster ? (You are not a multiplayer nor roleplay gamer as you have allready mentioned)… Please Go play at singleplayer Co-Op with your friends and please stop harrasing other players’ posts about Multiplayer and Roleplay. (as well as pvp)

Bless you.

No, I’m against people who repeatedly call other people “antisocial” and “creepy” because they don’t share the same ideas :wink:

I’m not “targeting” your response to the original poster. I was following the thread because it looked interesting, and then you started doing your “you guys are antisocial” shtick again.

What the…? Where did I say I’m not playing multiplayer? I even told you explicitly that I’ve been playing PVE and PVE-C since release and haven’t used single-player for anything more than designing builds.

As for “not being a roleplay gamer”, what I said is that I’m not playing Conan Exiles as a RP game, not that I don’t play RP games.

If you think that reacting to being called “antisocial” or “creepy” just because I don’t share your idea of RP is somehow “harassment”, then go ahead and flag it.

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Absolutely. I’ve already decided who my character for Cyberpunk 2077 will be. I know enough of the setting, and now enough about the character creation options, that I know what my options will be, so I know who my “V” is going to be.

I’m also currently considering my options for Baldur’s Gate 3. I have several character ideas, all of whom started as a person with a background. Most of them could be represented by a variety of character classes. Some of them even by more than one race.

I think Divinity: Original Sin 2 had the best solution ever to the companion(/main) characters: the player could choose the class for each of them when recruiting, but they would still be the personalities they were. Red Prince the fighter was still the Red Prince in the game world, interacting with people and making decisions just like Red Prince the cleric or Red Prince the ranger would’ve done. Ifan Ben-Mezd the wizard was the same person as Ifan Ben-Mezd the knight would’ve been, fighting for the same cause, liking the same things, hating the same people, etc.

That’s what role-playing means to me. Not playing “a fighter” but The Red Prince. Not playing “a hunter” but Ifan Ben-Mezd. My Conan Exiles character, Kat, was a thief before becoming an Exile. But as an Exile, she has to learn things she would never have learned as a thief. Our background may tell us what we know and what we can do when we start, but ideally, it does not limit us to what we can learn.

I mean, Conan the Cimmerian was a barbarian warrior who became a thief who became a mercenary who became a pirate who became a tribal chieftain who became a guard captain who became a king (with various other stuff in between, and repeating a few of those). During his career he picked up a lot of skills, from archery to reading dead languages, from commanding a sailing ship to riding a yak. He was not locked into the skill sets of a barbarian, or a thief. Nor did he restart and forget his original skills when moving from one career to the next.

His role in the stories was being Conan.

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Using SWG as an example of why changing from a free for all system to an pigeon toes RP game isn’t a fair example to be fair.

Yes, SWG was a free for all system however you couldn’t cap out all of the trades and skills, you the player went down the path you wanted to go down to create the role you wanted. The players left because SOE looked at the game, wrongly decided that the player base wanted to play as Luke rather than Uncle Owen and in a single patch completely destroyed everyone’s play styles and said regardless of what you wanted, these are your choices and oh, we’ve also changed the combat mechanics again so everything you have equipment wise is now useless. Really popular skill trees like Performer and Beast Master just got deleted which ripped a whole section from the community and since a Doctor role used to give players buffs, this was deemed as promoting drug use so also went. It had the potential to be the best MMO and never recovered. If you look for the interview with John Smedley about it he talks at length about how the dev’s got it wrong and rather than responding to the player feedback they went almost for a complete write without any play base input and only realised how wrong it was when they had committed it and couldn’t go back.

Interestingly WOW are going through this themselves with Shadowlands and the reception the combination of new mechanics and resetting player levels has been received in their community.

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Role play is a such a toxic term and ironically you can’t put it into a game.

You say "the is a RP… " and part of the player base recoil in horror because they think it’s people demanding they talk in some Oldie English and follow some unwritten code of conduct which isn’t for them.

What drives RP and get’s it into a game is content. Content you can use with or without any RP elements and that’s easy to do - you’re just encouraging interactions which happen in every game anyway - clans negotiate truces, alliances and borders with other clans all the time. Players find a way to tax other players or offer bounties / information / items for a cost without seeing it as RP and at the same time the same mechanics are used by players to roleplay their character quite happlierly.

If you wanted to add skills or roles in Conan, the easiest way would be to use religions at character creation to give a boast. This is already hinted at with religions but they are very limited as to what perks they give and you can change which negates how special they are. If you wanted to add crafting traits make a player choice the crafting line they prefer and give them the bonus to thralls using that workstation. T1 becomes T2 etc. Lock that choice to the character and it penalises no-one but allows players to access high end content earlier in some cases for their specialisation. Player A gets to craft better armour than you but you could get armour almost as good if you get a top end thrall etc.

You had to cap every on to try to become a Jedi. Before the dark times, before the NGE.

Your lack of points to max everything was so you could choose. I maxed Ranger & rifleman. The left over points were used for what ever.
I was one of the first 5 rangers on Kettemoor. My toon remained that way until the NGE. Never changed a thing. Years of fun, adventure and I got very, very rich.

If we had not burnt our SWG discs, we would be playing the EMU instead of Exiles.

We did not have to roll play. It was built in to what ever you decided to be.
As an Antarian Ranger we protected the young Jedi.
Escorted them thru Dathmoor to the village and charged nothing.

Since then we have not found this experience anywhere.

SOE said that they got rid of ranger because we were only 2% of he player population.
We the 2% fed the galaxy. Brought the elite mats to the builders.

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SWG was maybe the best MMO game I’ve ever played (doc / rifleman). Whether that was chatting to people while macroing Doc buffing them at a space port or adventuring or even going to your “local” bar at the end of the night to watch dancers so your wounds healed, it was just fun. The day of the NGE my group all just sat around not knowing what to do or how to play; a time before social media and extended contacts so we logged out and no-one played again after that. I did check back to our town a couple of times and it had gone from a busy hub to an empty ghost town… not one person about and all the buildings just as we’d left them.

The jedi thing was why it was special. It was so hard to unlock the class that when one appeared people stopped what they were doing and just wanted to grab screenies. People playing jedi couldn’t flaunt it because as soon as a NPC saw them, they went on the bounty boards and other players came to hunt them down.

It is the only game I genuinely miss playing even after all these years.

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Conan himself answers those questions for you all:

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