Discussing Conan Exiles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXiiZll0FmA
Whereas, for me that sums up everything wrong with the way Dennis has approached this game. It is supposed to be an openworld sandbox game - players should be free to play it how they want to, but Dennis has an obsession with trying to limit plyer freedom and make people play it the way he wants them to.
Yeah, thatâs one area we are definitely in agreement. Iâve mentioned directly to one of the devs (on discord) that I think they got the reward system backwards on the anvil. The players that are most going to enjoy doing the dungeon in full (for the challenge) are the sorts of players that will least care about the repair as a reward, and the ones that most want the repair are likely to least enjoy the dungeonâŠ
Well, that would work according to the old system.
Originally, legendary weapons were found in chests. You had to have a Skeleton Key to open a chest which was a reward for skinning a fallen, defeated boss. Chests were scattered around the world near a world boss AS WELL AS in dungeons. Now they are mostly just in dungeons.
If they put chests back in the open world near world bosses again (restoring the old system), players would have more freedom to do dungeons (or not) as they desire.
Exactly! Thatâs one of the big points that I really wish they would give back - world bosses having chests (sure, level lock them to 60 like they used to be, that would be fine too). I just want the freedom to choose which game loops I want to engage with at a particular point. I really dislike grinding the same dungeons over and over - the actual result is that I get bored of playing and would rather do something else (which is very much a result I find from many of the changes Dennis made to the gameâŠ).
Well, actually, I wish the Legendary weapon would drop from the world boss itself rather than a Skeleton key or requiring a nearby chest. AND give that world boss a greater leash to wander around quite a bit more from its spawn point (some with greater wandering than others). Like the Giant Croc just north of âNoobâ River that sits on the lake. Let him circle the lake. Or even occasionally stroll down to the shore of âNoob Riverâ. Survivors beware.
(make the Exiled Lands dangerous again)
That has been my biggest complaint about Dennis as well. He doesnât understand how players actually play the game, yet in an OPENWORLD SANDBOX GAME he demands that everyone plays the game HIS WAY (for a limited time only). And it NEVER WORKS. It just pissed off everyone, regardless of their play style.
I would love it if they did thisâŠ
Well I would counter that with: Since they were clearly mass produced they arenât very âlegendaryâ or even âuniqueâ, and if our characters are even remotely skilled at crafting (I mean, look at what we can craft after all), it is perfectly reasonable that we could, and should, be able to replicate these mass produced âlegendaryâ items. After all, if you have an entire vault filled with the bloody things you could be able to figure out how they are made. 
They moved the chests into the dungeons & away from the world bosses because players would build on or near the spot and the the chests would be unavailable/despawn.
Given that behavior, Iâm fine with how it is now.
There were other solutions available (especially since despawning the chest also likely despawns the boss) - enforcing the rules that existed at the time might have been a start, but failing that (and they usually didâŠ) they could have simply added small no build zones.
The problem with removing the chests to the dungeons is that it reduces player choice. Iâm sick of going through the same dungeons over and over, to the point Iâm contemplating uninstalling. That might seem an extreme reaction, and it is certainly not solely about this issue, but this is the impact Dennis had on the game with his desperate need to force all players to only play the way he wants.
I used to enjoy going on dungeon runs, when I wanted to do so. Now itâs just another grind that has to be performed. World bosses and dungeons were two separate game loops, providing options. Now they are one enforced game loop, becasue Dennis wants to make sure players do dungeons over and over, because thatâs what he wants. Just like he had to force everyone to use the Dye bench the way he wanted, resulting in fewer people using dyes at all, because the system is now clunkier and worse to use than before. He wanted this to be a fixed story RPG. The customers wanted it to be an openwrold sandbox survival game, because thatâs what it was advertised asâŠ
That is putting it in a nutshell. 100% correct.
If there are 10,000 players currently playing Conan Exiles, there are 9,999 different play styles. The game from early access until a few years ago, allowed that. That was one of the most attractive features of Conan Exiles - Play it your way. Currently it feels like the devs have created a Meta play through.
Also, Conan Exiles is a Unique game. I think everyone agrees that it scratches more itches for itâs players than other game do. So it would seem keeping player choice and Conan Exiles Unique Identity in tact, would be the highest priority. Not trying to turn Conan into something it isnât, and was never meant to be.
Agreed, 1000% But thatâs not what happened. You and I both know that itâs not going to get reworked, despite the no build zone being a better solution.
I think you are both correct.
Weapons, as the game has evolved, have become inconsistent at best.
Black ice two handed sword - Damage 42/51 Durability 900. Must be crafted at the Temple of Frost.
Obsidian two handed sword - Damage 45/54 Durability 900. Must be crafted in the Volcano.
Star Metal two handed sword - Damage 51/61 Durability 1200. Can be crafted at your base in your Blacksmith Bench.
Those three alone make no sense.
Add Legendary Weapons available to any level that can get one, (no matter how you get it), makes even Star Metal Weapons less attractive since Star Metal is level locked.
So pretty much every level 30 player in the game will have a Legendary weapon and never use the Frost Forge or the Volcano Forge, because - why?
Bosses that dropped the skeleton keys used to be much harder to defeat. Now, an âaverageâ player by level 20 or 30, with a thrall like Thugra or similar, can kill the boss with little risk.
Legendary weapons have to be made available to everyone. So if you want a certain sword or axe, you have the ability to receive it. Requiring Level 60, was a good requirement for Legendary weapons, you may get one, but you couldnât use it until 60. I think that is how it should be. Of course that is only my opinion. It does not take choice from a player, it does not dictate a certain play style, it is no different than Star Metal being level locked. Placing Legendary weapons behind the RNG was another mistake, in my opinion.
A lot of mistakes have been made in the development of the game as it has evolved. Some of those mistakes have made parts of the game obsolete for the most part.
So, my point being is: Lets not jump into a what they should or should not do with anything, and consider how that change will not only effect other aspects of the game, but also how it will effect your choice in how you play the game.
Making leveling a matter of a few hours to 60, was âIn my opinionâ, another mistake made.
I would like to see Conan do a lot of reversal of poor decisions, whether Inflexion will do any of that - remians to be seen I guess.
So much this.
I do recognise that it is unlikely they will go back on the many bad decisions that have been made - especially given that Dennis is still in a position of influence (honestly, finding that out has depressed me considerablyâŠ). But the only chance there is that any of these bad decisions might get reversed is if the players make clear the dislike that we have for them.
I was pretty disappointed in the patch notes overall.
With the balance of progression itself creating a situation where most players grind out 60 in a matter of a few hours and bypass the exploration and use of most of the game, they focus on balancing encumbrance?
I know getting to 60 fast was done to help the PvP brothers and sisters and I get it. They change servers a lot and they need to get to 60 fast to compete. I completely get that.
But at the same time, it decreased the experience of the game for PvE players.
Helping PvPers at the cost or PvEers or Visa Versa, is NOT a thought through solution. Itâs a band-aid, that doesnât exactly cover the cut.
So, whatâs the answer? I donât know, I just play the game and hope the Devs can figure it out.
@DanQuixote Maybe a thread of what players would like to see added, removed or reversed in this game is something that would help. A short explanation of the thought process of not detracting from player choice, not disrupting PvP play, not disrupting PvE play, I know asking both sides to consider the other, lol . Not distracting from exploration. Maybe you could get a legitimate list going. Not that you donât already do enough for the players.
I think @DanQuixote goes back to Early Access the same as I do. The game was a grind but required a lot of exploration to get to level 60. At the time there were server concerns regarding base sizes and lag presented by base size and things like that. A few years ago, during the time that base size was a concern and the lag it produced, they came out with âThe Economy Patchâ. Now to compete, you needed an even bigger base. It, along with many other decisions over the years, that âin my opinionâ were not thought through. Sorcery being the most recent decision that was poorly implemented.
I think a long hard look at past decisions and what the consequence of those decisions were, needs to be a primary focus of the Inflexion team. Balancing encumbrance of course that should be top of the list. 
The solution to the leveling speed lies in the XP settings for the server. If I were the senior admin in charge of the official servers, I would set PVE servers to slow progression, PVE-C to normal (what it currently is), and PVP to fast.
On my server that I run, itâs set pretty slow overall, with a small increase in XP for combat. Works pretty well, imo
I agree 100% with you @Onomog . The servers need to be treated differently, this is not a one size fits all game.
Actually, I started a little later, after the game was fully released. But I got to play a lot of the survival aspects of the game, and a lot of the stuff where we had to earn things and play the game to get to level 60 etc.
No. When Dennis came on board he said a lot of the right things and I was very hopeful for what the future of the game might be under his direction. He then proceded to make the game worse in almost every way - and still I tried to be supportive. For a long time I continued to defend what he was doing because he said he was doing it for good reasons, and he said that players should be patient and let things develop before judging them. This gaslighting went on for literally years.
As would I - Dennis has not done that in any way.
!00% incorrect. If you really want, I can dig back through the forums and find the threads from around the time the change was made. But if you will take my word for it, Iwill simply point out that it is not remotely realistic to require huge vats of dye - and that information came from multiple people researching and direct statemtns from a professional cloth-dyer who used to be a regular here. The realism argument with regards to the dye bench has been thoroughly debunked multiple times.
It is not simply a matter of convenience either - we can loot dyes (and still can) throughout the world, but we cannot use them at all until we take them back to the over-sized bench. Thus, all use of dyes is level-locked behind the bench - making looting them almost entirely pointless (and removing an element of the game that many of us liked - I personally liked to use the early dyes that I found in game infomr the basis of my characterâs colour scheme for the rest of the playthrough). So why was this done? The answer is simple - in Dennisâ own words ânot enough players were using the new benchâ. And why was it not being used much - becuase players didnât want to use it. So he removed that choice.
And that has been the pattern over and over again throughout his tenure on the game - players arenât playing the way he wants, therefore players must be forced to play the way he wants.
In what way is enforced repeated grinds through the same boring dungeons better than obtianing legendaries directly by defeating world bosses? The way it was done there were multiple game loops - players could choose to fight bosses to get legendaries, we could choose to go through dungeons to earn the rewards from the dungeons. But not enough players were doing it the way Dennis wanted - so as he says in the video - players should be pressured to do the dungeons over and over again. That is the opposite of choice. And it is not for reasons of realism, nor is it in anyway based in lore. It is just limiting player choice, because players werenât playing the way he wanted.
It is a good thing that you used the phrase âad absurdemâ because this argument is a strawman. I (and others) am not arguing for anything of the sort. Merely that there should be freedom of choice of different endgame loops. No one is suggesting that there should be legendaries in every camp. In fact, another of the complaints is that world bosses have been made trivial to fight (except the occasional outlier, such as Rockslide) - and that becomes the justifcation for why we should be forced to grind through the dungeon hundreds of times to face the RNG slot machine of will our few pulls of the lever (the half dozen mximum number of chests in a dungeon) actually net us something of value this time? Or have we just wasted another hour going through the same boring dungeon we didnât want to go through?
No one wants it to be arbitrarily easy to get legendary items. But it is much more reasonable to allow us to simply choose which endgame loops we want to engage with in a given session, rather than forcing us into a single loop of âkill easy world bosses for keys, then grind through the same dungeons over and over againâ.
As an additional point - another widespread complaint about Dennisâ tenure is that now loot is massively devalued by how easy it is to obtain in huge quantities. I have literally hundreds of âperfected paddingsâ of all weights and have never needed to craft a single one. I have thousands of alchemicla base, and havenât crafted any of it. I donât bother harvesting demon blood, because it is handed out as readily available loot. Just yet more elements of the game that have been removed because Dennis didnât view them as important.
I could continue providing example after example of things that have been removed from the game - serving no purpose of realism or lore or any reasoning other than they didnât seem important to Dennis. He has given that as his reasoning over and over again when players complained - he removed custom inventory sorting from the game because âno-one uses itâ (it took Inflexion to put it back, after literal years of player complaints). But this post is long enough.
So Iâll simply say - no, we are not wishing things could be easy and everything could just be handed to us. We just want back the game we paid for, where there were choices, and there was effort required to achieve the things we wanted.
Yes.
Where did you randomly pull that one out of?
Have you read the descriptions of any of them? 
Well it might âfeel rightâ to think of as a unique artifact, until you have 20+ of them in a chest. Then it clearly isnât very unique now is it?
This is a great example @cortex56. They took away that which made the âlegendaryâ, or even âepicâ quality of weapons away from them when you can made better ones at your little sandstone shack.
Completely agree. It is a complete disgrace to just âskipâ the entire experience of the entire first 59 levels of the game. That IS NOT FUN, not does it teach new players HOW TO PLAY THE GAME!
Sadly, I would not expect any of this considering that Dennis is still involved. 
I started back in Early Access. 
Well - you started before that 
If I remember rightly, you (and Alexandria, among others) were caught by Funcom before they even came up with CE. Age of Conan or even earlier⊠So you folks are even more familiar with the patterns than many of us have become.