In the past, in the realm of PVP there was a time when keeping bullies in check through mutual agreements was not only possible but standard. When you played in Everquest or Ultima Online in the late 90s, you were expected to conduct yourself roughly in a decent manner. Deviating from this got you labeled as a PK and that had consequences.
Over the years those consequences have diminished or been outright mitigated. In the context of Everquest, I remember trying out the Rallos Zek server where the ruleset was you could PVP anyone within a certain level range of you, and if you defeated someone, you could loot the money they had on them, and an item in their general inventory (somewhat limited). I figured it would be a general apocalypse of people killing each other left and right. It could not have been further from that.
People grouped like they did on the blue servers and when PVP happened, it was more like a friendly duel than anything else. I remember playing a Necromancer and had a Paladin come up and saying he was going to PVP me. He could have outright attacked without a word, the nature of the server allowed for that. But he didnāt want to attack me while I was in the middle of a NPC fight or afk. So we fought and after a few minutes he conceded. I let up and he congratulated me and then said if I ever wanted to group up, to send him a message. A very different experience than how I saw PVP back in a game like Diablo where people would just outright gank you or even just cheat.
But I realized something. Why would someone want enemies on a server in a game where you need friends to do even some of the most basic things? Ganking a cleric means he aināt gonna rez you if you need it in a pinch or even group with you meaning some other group is getting that role filled while you might still be looking.
There was another server however, the Sullon Zek server which had different mechanics for PVP. Instead of it being within a certain level and being everyone (free for all). It was any level past level 6 and anyone of a different alignment. Alignments were determined by deity choice and it was Good, Neutral, and Evil. You couldnāt group with opposing alignments nor could you guild with them.
When you went to a popular grouping spotā¦ the area was literally littered with corpses. Why? Because there was no incentive to be decent to players of different alignments. You couldnāt help each other, you couldnāt trade, you couldnāt even buff or heal one another. But not being able to group with each other meant they were in the way and you got nothing. In fact the mindset was that if they were camping a drop meant that drop couldnāt be used by your team. You almost had a duty to prevent that.
They even took it further and rated which alignment controlled which zone on their website, so PVP that happened was tallied and if one side dominated, they would ācontrolā that zone. It didnāt actually give any benefit, but you could see on a map where your side was in ācontrolā. That was incentive enough to say the least.
Anyone who played World of Warcraft may notice a somewhat similarity where the factions could not group, guild, trade, or even talk to one another. I remember when Blizzard announced they would be removing the ability for factions to talk to each other to prevent verbal arguements. I was thinking at the timeā¦ youāre taking Sullon Zek and ramping it up.
You see on Sullon Zek, you could still talk to each other. And there was times where you could make agreements or ācease firesā in some cases. And because it was a 3 way fight if one side was dominating too much, the other two could broker a temporary truce and be somewhat friendly.
Not in WoW. Red equals Dead. And unfortunately that sort of set the standard going forward as the game entered in to the mainstream in the mid 2000s. Of course the lack of incentives to cooperate were the biggest issue. In the days of cross realm grouping in MMORPGs and really no reason to form relationships has made cooperation irrelevant.
But what about Conan Exiles? These are small servers running on old spare PCs or virtual machines, not clustered mainframe servers. Surely some common ground can be found right?
Well yes and no. As others and myself have indicated earlier in the thread, private servers are usually pretty sane when it comes to PVP. Drama happens as it always done in competition. But its nowhere near the cut throat maliciousness you see on FC provided servers. But why does that nastiness rule the day there?
Its actually an interesting question because in the early days of PVP (25-30 years ago) it was unmoderated. I mean MMORPG rules on PVP griefing have gotten stricter over time, not more lenient. For example, when you played Everquest and looked up their community standards, they had what was called the Play Nice Policy. It basically had some specifics that were normal, donāt be discriminatory and keep your language in check and whatnot. But it also had things where you donāt do things to players that would interrupt their play. But their caveats to PVP were interesting.
āWe will not moderate situations that have a PVP solution on PVP servers.ā
So if someone is doing something you donāt like, or blocking your progress on a PVP server, you either PVP over it, or deal with it. In general it let players police themselves. Which they did, and for a long time did so effectively.
Why doesnāt that work on a Conan Server? Specifically the public ones?
This is easy, there is no resource in Conan Exiles of meaningful consequence. Zero. Stone, fiber, and wood is everywhere. Iron is nearly as common as is hide and tar and even brimstone is quite common enough. Then stuff like Eladarium, Star Metal, and Black Ice is a little more meaningful, but not quite to the level that is needed.
Quite frankly, the ability to get up to speed quickly is one of the strengths to this game in PVP, but is also a major weakness. One can roll up on a server with a few friends, and get established in the first day or two, and become a major threat to many on the server in a week. They can even do this under the radar in many cases and hit everyone in a major way. When the first sign of trouble happens, they can hide out and then try another server until things cool down and repeat the process.
The same mechanics and methods that give Newbies a shot on a PVP server also damns them to perpetual harassment from those who just want to see the world burn.
Time is the greatest resource in any game. In Conan Exiles, time is one of the most mitigated issues and therein lies the problem for PVP. In the games mentioned earlier, Everquest and Ultima Online, PVP was kept in check because time spent was a major resource you had to manage. To get to level 60 in Everquest in 2000 meant spending hundreds of hours.
Thus to make the experience more efficient, you had to group, to group you needed to be on your best behavior. Acting like a total jerk would have negative consequences that could last weeks or months on your ability to progress.
Getting your base wiped out by an angry mob in Conan is of no consequence. Even if body vaulting wasnāt a thing, it takes little to no time to reestablish. Especially when harvest rates are greater than 1.0x.
But the newbies wonāt have a chance at making it anywhere at low rates. Right? Well what chance do they have when griefers cannot be reigned in? Its been proven over 6 years that public server populations lack the ability to police themselves. In six years, the PVP servers have all failed in this regard. Either the ability to police these servers is lacking like Iām saying, or there is universal apathy, or more likely a little bit of both. In either case, the newbies are screwed either way.
But lowering the rates isnāt enough. Even at 1.0x rate it doesnāt take a crew very long to get into threatening an entire server. The availability of all resources, including the top end stuff even before the caravans is just way too high.
But unfortunately changing this at this stage of the game is an utter fantasy. I donāt even believe people would widely accept that sort of game. The idea of going six years in a game where you can go from zero to hero in a few hours suddenly being transformed into sitting in muck and crap for a few hundred hours before getting a foothold that could be taken down by enough ticked off barbarians isnāt something many want to try. But it would foster safety in numbers and it would heavily mitigate all but the most coordinated of griefers.
One thing Iāve noticed about griefers is when they organizeā¦ they can do some nasty stuff, but they donāt stay that way for long. Nasty people tend to do nasty things to each other nearly as much as they do to good people if not more. But when good people organize, they tend to stay that way a tad bit longer.
But unfortunately this is where the game is, and I donāt see it changing. Your best bet is to get a curated experience on a server ran by your fellow players. The tricky part is finding a server culture that meshes well. One of the advantages you get with public servers is its a crappy experience, but you know that going in. You just have to determine if the nastiness is acceptable or not.
