Sounds like the Age of Pets is next.
nobody is saying the game should be dark souls on crap, none of these survival systems are hard to begin with but they add to the gameplay. what is there to do in the game now? nothing, thralls have no value, crafting has no value.
There is value when it is cross-platform: OpenXR Overview - The Khronos Group Inc
It just needs to evolve and transcende.
The biggest problem of the topic of returning Conan Exiles to be more of a survival game is figuring out which elements fit and which don’t. Everyone who says they wish for it to be more survival has a different definition of what that entails and so there’s never really much of a consensus going forward.
Earlier in the thread I mentioned the issues that Conan Exiles mechanics have, I’ll link it here as a reference:
That comment further up in this thread was more or less in relation to the points brought up by the OP. But I want to go into a bit more detail and more focus on the general topic.
Lets look at the premise of the game. Its motto is: Survive. Build. Dominate.
Nothing states that better than the Intro Cinematric Trailer everyone gets to see when they boot up the game. And for our friends running the game on a HDD still or those running more mods than they should (you know who you are), they get to see much more of the intro each time. But the end of the trailer shows the following images:
Survive
Build
Dominate
The reason I bring up these pictures is it showcases pretty much everyone’s basic perception of the game. And to be honest, the game has held to this basic root structure. When you play a new character you are trying to survive. When you’ve setup enough that you’re not going to starve or dehydrate, then you start building. Once you’ve got a basic sort of base or small network there of, you begin to dominate. This is when you’re settling in to your character build you’re looking for as well as farming for the gear you wish to have. Survive is the beginning, build is preparing for endgame, and dominate is the endgame. PVP and PVE have the same steps, but PVP has a few extra considerations at each step by its very nature, but PVPers like PVEers need stone, iron, wood, and plantfiber just the same, as well as thralls and equipment, and also settle on farming dungeons and the like. So for the purposes of this topic I bring up, they are in the same boat.
But this is all Conan Exiles has ever done is held to the very basic principles. Once it starts trying to differientate from other games in the genre is where it is not working well. And in 2017, the genre was still new. It got a pass then.
Its 2024 and we still have some basic fundamental design issues.
When I say fundamental design issues, I don’t mean bugs. I don’t mean balance. If they flipped the magic switch many posters want them to flip that fixes every bug, makes the game run at 166fps (making your 60hz monitor magically overclock itself) on all systems, including the NES. As well as makes thralls and pets perfectly balanced against every content in the game.
The question will be asked. Is it really a survival game? Bug fixes and balance won’t fix this issue at all. We got to dive deeper.
I want these pictures to be seen again:
Specifically that last one.
There you see the character Ramza shown is dominating the Exiled Lands, she’s well equipped, survived many trials, and dominated and conquered her foes. When we get to this point, we might look a little different. But the end result is mostly the same. We have legendary weapons, epic armor, T4 crafting thralls, T3 buildings that protect our interests, and storage rooms and vaults full of materials, wealth, and collections.
Guess what we have in common with the naked doofus fresh off the cross?
We still have to eat and drink every 3 and 2 minutes respectfully (a bit longer due to the satiated bonus for each as well as bonuses based on location). It seems so trivial, but it is a thing we have to do. Why? Because its a survival game. We’ve built a city after hundreds of hours of play, defeated foes from other planes of existence, and dominated every enemy we come across. But God forbid if you forgot your waterskin.
If this was another survival game. One which we wouldn’t be able to build marble palaces, sprawling towers, and other crazy looking an beautiful structures. One where at best we could get a log cabin or some adobe living space. It would make sense that we would have to fight to survive while playing.
But when we’re killing demons, dragons, and other monstrous entities and building entire cities. Having to do something as trivial as drinking and eating doesn’t make much sense. We have servants, slaves, and amenities to ensure we are well fed and taken care of. We’re not living in squalor at the Dominate phase of our playthrough.
Now this isn’t to say that food and drink shouldn’t be important. It should. But it shouldn’t be survival based. It should be that we’re seeking exotic feasts and drink to match our achievements. And we kind of get that with the food buffs we do have.
Because the emphasis of Conan Exiles, I believe our food and water system should be revamped to not requiring them to survive, but requiring them to make things not so oppressive. Like at first you come off the cross and you need to find a bit to drink. Not because it will kill you (and don’t get me wrong, it makes sense in that situation) if you don’t, but because you are very unlikely to survive your first combat encounter if you don’t.
Just moving the consequence down a line a tad changes the whole survival dynamic and makes it fit with the line of progression our characters are experiencing.
For example. When you are trying to survive. You need water. Whether you find a body of water, or salvage a waterskin, you get basic water. What this does is gives you the energy to fight, run, and climb. Without a basic water buff you will find it hard to keep your stamina topped off. Then you need to get some food in your belly. This will give you a decent bonus to your health so that if you get in a scrap with the local wildlife or other exiles, you’re more likely to survive the encounter.
Without either, getting into a fight would be a near death sentence. Still need food and water to survive, but for different reasons.
But now that you’ve survived and began building, you’ve entered the next phase of your character’s progression as an Exile. You’re facing stronger and more resilient foes. You need to be tougher and more energetic. Now you need to use cooking and brewing to make stuff that’s a bit better than basic food and water. The consequences of not doing so… well isn’t as dire as not having it at all. But let’s just say the benefits are well within our best interests.
Guess what? We already introduced some survival elements we didn’t have before. I mean many of us do use advanced drinks and food buffs, but we don’t exactly go out of our way to make them in the mid levels (20-50). Now we have a decent reason to. And if the benefits last longer than the basic ones… it even incentivizes it.
Obviously keeping this line of progression for food and drink makes sense for the Dominating endgame. For the hero (or villain) who vanquishes (or controls) demons and who literally is looking to eat that dragon they killed. Only the best food and drink touches their lips. These benefits will obviously be the best in the game, having durations that last a decent while (enough to get an entire farming session in). But of course they require advanced knowledges, exotic ingredients, and so forth.
We’re still eating and drinking. And technically even in the Dominate phase you’re very much going to want to NOT ignore this due to the lack of said benefits making things quite a bit harder. But we’re changing the tone. We’re changing the reasoning. And we’re making it quite a bit more immersive.
If my character has conquered and entire region, has dozens of servants, slaves, thralls, and exotic pets. Built a palace and all the supporting structures that go with it, have a treasure coffer overflowing with jewels and gold. It doesn’t make sense to need to drink from a river or from a common waterskin.
It does make sense to have a feast and exotic drink instead.
And I’m sorry to say for those looking for a grudgy dirty play through start to finish. We’re not exactly playing that sort of survival game. We’re playing one of progression, one where characters become lords by their own hands, vanquish foes both mortal and supernatural. And well, we have all these lovely looking building materials, armors, and weapons to enjoy from various sources. Lets ham it up, but still keep the survival feeling in it.
This obviously isn’t as easy as merely changing the hunger and thirst system to something similar to Valheim and Enshrouded. There’s many systems that are entertwined that have to be addressed to ensure that it remains challenging, engaging, and not too easy or too monotonious.
For example, for end game food and drink to really matter. We’d probably want to change how gathering works in a way. Right now we smack a body, rock, or other node with a star metal quality or higher tool and get stacks of mats per swing. Its a little anti-climatic to put together epic feasts when all the materials where gathered in like 5 minutes and you have enough for weeks of continuous usage. Especially when using a tool to get meat from an animal and the amount of meat gained weighs more than 20x that of what an animal would weigh.
Instead gathering materials should have some effort to it, but not so much that you spend like 30 minutes gathering for only 5 minutes of usage. I don’t want that. No one wants that. Somewhere around every minute of effort translates to around 5 to 10 minutes of benefit would be a good basic rule to start with. Where complexity of effort per minute yields greater benefits either in ratio of time, or overall benefit for the time it is granted. Not going into utter specifics since this is already a really long comment as it is.
The Sandstorm is another thing that needs a bit of an overhaul.
Right now its a lethal event that will damage and kill those unprotected. And does nothing to those who are. That’s it.
It looks cool. From what I know and several of my veteran buddies who’ve seen real sandstorms, this one is pretty impressive for a video game. Its a shame that it functions only as something that is an obstacle until it isn’t.
The intro doesn’t show it as something that is lethal unto itself. But what follows it is. Same with some of the letters and notes left by others. There is also the whole thing of speaking with the sandstorm and it actually not wishing to kill you since it needs you to find something for it.
We have the werehyena event where we get ambushed at night. That system should work with the Sandstorm and spawn the Sandbeasts to do the same. But we still kind of want a use for the sandstorm mask and other items with similar effects.
So I propose a debuff while in the sandstorm. It reduces the duration quickly of food and drink (its literally sapping the strength from you). You also have limited vision (even more so than now). As well as the spawning of the sandbeasts.
So now you have a storm that is incredibly dangerous for those who don’t prepare. Lower level players who don’t have access to masks can survive a storm, but they have to basically run for their lives and seek shelter that is also defensible (keeping with lore). And those who are prepared are rewarded for it, but still have tough times in the storm (sandbeasts aren’t a joke when not nerfed). Wearing protection prevents the aforementioned debuffs from applying.
Finally the third thing that this survival game has that is way underdeveloped is night and darkness.
Night isn’t exactly dangerous for anyone except the newbie who doesn’t know the map very well yet. And even for them, its more of an obstacle that is an annoyance. I see many servers turn up night speed so much that its non-existent. Or servers have Pippi that lets them vote on time of day to which they vote for noon everytime the sun starts dipping. And those on servers who don’t have those options, simply don’t go out.
First of all there is some fundamental problems with night in CE. Players can’t see, but NPCs can. Now this makes sense for wolves and other nocturnal creatures, but other humans and more day oriented animals it doesn’t make much sense. I’d like to see a change to this and maybe even a rudimentary stealth system similar to Age of Conan. This way if I’m sneaking around the Mounds of the Dead at night, I’m not getting rushed by a half dozen pissed off Cimmerians I cannot even see.
But that’s not enough. We need ways of dealing with the night. Torches are good. But torches take a hand. Meaning your choice of weapons gets way too limited. In some mods I’ve seen hands free lanterns fill in this. Now… I do like the idea of a hand-held light source being the best way to see. So any handsfree device should be inferior. But you should always be able to see your character (even in complete darkness people have spatial awareness of their bodies). So a handsfree device should be just under the Wisp in effectiveness. But will give people an item in a pinch to use for climbing or whatnot.
Need to go a bit further. Night is dark. You can’t see. Meaning you can’t build, you can’t explore as effectively, and fighting is impaired. Building, Exploring, and Fighting are pretty much what the game is all about. So night is detrimental to that. Making things unfun.
So we need an incentive for night. The hunt event did this sort of. I don’t think it hit the mark very well. But I did see people complain that servers didn’t have great night settings for the event. Meaning some wanted to use the night darkness to get stuff done.
So we can expand on that. Unlike the sandstorm or hunt event. I don’t want ambushes. What I’d like to see is that different animals and monsters come out at night. With some bosses having unique loot you could only get at night. Some materials could only be harvested by creatures that come out at night, and plants and mushrooms that likewise only sprout up or bloom at night.
The idea is to encourage people to go out and explore and fight at night. Wouldn’t be a bad time for Taverns to do their patron rotation as well. So when night happens you have more chances at getting new thralls to hire and what not. Could even tie in the event system so certain events around the map happen by time of day as well.
The idea is to turn night from an obstacle to a tool and challenge people wish to seek out.
I’ve mentioned some other things in the previous comment, but these things, our Hunger and Thirst system, Sandstorm, and Day Night cycle are three major components of a survival experience and ones that Conan Exiles has fundamental designs with. If these could be addressed, it would go a long way to Conan Exiles being the survival game it was designed to be.
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You make some valid arguments, but they may serve as an example of the shortcomings of the genre as a whole rather than those of Funcom directly. If all the game offers to overcome are survival mechanics that can be conquered relatively quickly, even for a new player, then what’s to keep people playing the game? Currently, the only ways we have long-term engagement are:
A. People who play the game for a few weeks to a few months at a time, get bored, and maybe come back in a year or so to do it all over again.
B. People who like to roleplay (a small minority).
C. People who enjoy killing people so much that they hop from server to server to kill others in PvP (an even smaller minority).
Funcom clearly has a desire to keep people engaged, as shown by the addition of the battle pass system trying to force people to log on every time it updates. However, outside of that, nothing substantial has been done to address this issue.
The game would benefit from a new content system to increase long-term engagement. I outlined some ideas in my previous two posts in this thread, but those are just a few possibilities; there are possibly others. Furthermore, any increase in difficulty, including survival elements, could be welcomed. The vocal minority will always make it seem like everyone wants the game to be easier because of the negativity bias. We could be playing Barbie’s Dream Vacation, the Online Adventure, and people would still be crying on the forums that it’s too hard. The irony is that the same people who complain about the game being too hard are the ones who complain that there’s nothing left to do. In reality, no one actually wants video games to be facile; they just think they do.
Fantastic post @Taemien, thanks a lot m8! When i saw it i wanted to swear, i said omg, but i loved reading it, amazing post. You cover all the aspects leaving the harsh temperature “survival” thing. Looking forward to see an edit applying your opinion and suggestions to this matter. Please tag me i want to read it. Thanks.
As a new player sure the game has a punch. But as a Vet, i can run around naked with a weapon and kill anything in this game besides some environment spots that KoS.
Levels should just be removed, Character should transfer to other servers. Lets just face the fact, progression isnt grinding levels. it is grinding life, mats, enemies.
AI needs more unique style/skills/weapons. elements needs to be more fear factor.
World Bosses need to scare you. not because they just HIT hard.
Nothing really has changed, the game has always just been easy. you just got better. and all the areas that are alittle harder, are not worth going to.
Survival, but we also learn that new players cant play the game if they are not baby sat, kids live in easy mode, and they want easy mode.
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This would infact get you “BANNED”
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Adding on the free claws at the Den and mediocre but still effective daggers under Black Galleon.
@sirdavewolf might be able to lend some information about a private server that reverted to haunch days.
Definite long post but I do like some of these ideas.
I’d like to see the sandstorm expanded as you’ve discussed. One of the mods I use is Severe Weather + Lore Friendly Sandstorm which, on top of spawning beasts also makes the sandstorm very hot. It’s a very unforgiving combo (too unforgiving if I am honest, since you get beasts which can wreak havoc on your base but if you step a toe outside to defend, you immediately get heatstroke). I’d like to see some increased heat with the sandstorm though so even if you gave a mask, you need to be prepared for some cooling as well.
Honestly, I think one of the things that could go a long way is also making more dynamic spawns, at least out in the world, not necessarily inside the cities. Everything is too static so it’s very easy to develop muscle memory on which direction to go, which way to veer to avoid spawns, etc. Could also play well into what you discussed regarding night cycles.
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There’s going to be extremists or those who want it all handed to them everywhere.
There’s a really big thrill to getting into combat with other players that cannot happen in other ways. The blood pumps, the half second decisions, getting closer and closer to that kill and then WHAM you’ve done it. That feeling is sought after in high/hardcore PVP environments as an unwritten rule.
I love it to be honest. But I also like a balance with the other elements. I don’t always want to be fighting XD
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I really hope not. That would be a waste of an Age.
We really need an Age of Survival.
(back to the glory days)
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Then treated with new “content” that is poorly implemented and causes bugs. Of course a lot of it being gated behind what I would refer to as macrotransactions XD
Such great suggestions that go a long way in making us a part of the journey. They used to post frequently at first but dropped off sharply around 2020. Instead, they “involve” us with questionnaires to gauge how we’d feel about implementing what is now the BP and BLB. Most recently a questionnaire that I am not sure they even reviewed? Contests are abruptly announced, especially art contests, with usually less than a month for creation to submission. Then when the winners are picked they don’t even get their prize a month or more later?
Hell look at the freaking bug reports! A majority of them are blank because the damn template doesn’t work properly and it’s been a long time like this, with moderators closing posts asking the player to actually submit a bug report through the template… I saw 4 closed posts today. How tone deaf and useless -_-
The most recent donation post saw multiple comments with reasonable questions left unanswered for days outside of the weekend.
Communication has never been their strong point but damn has it ever tipped off the scales in the past year and just keeps getting worse and worse.
But all great suggestions and points. Keeping this discussion going is where we see contributions like yours and so many others.
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Absolutely artificial degrees of difficulty; queue farming crystal via sorcery or by hand.
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We all get better. But getting better and being prepared is different than having the means to do so being handfed.
I’m not going to assume any place isn’t worth going to. I spend a good majority of my PVP playthroughs scouting. I touch every inch of the map; so well acquainted with surviving the elements. Which isn’t a bother and not because I’m experienced but because it is ridiculously easy, now.
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I hate to break it to you, but you can survive, and comfortably at that, as a fresh character without doing much other than crafting only stone weapons and coarse fiber bindings. You’ll find plenty of food and water so that you will never have to worry about it. You will find plenty of gear to “level up” with even if you never build a home or crafting stations to repair any of it. So the first part, the “survive” part, that is quite simply no longer a factor. Stone daggers and coarse fiber gear with only the food you find and the weakest wraps / potions you can make by hand and you’ll be level 60 in no time and ready for dungeon grinding. He’ll, spend a little time diving and you can even buy a thrall to travel around with you. No need to knock one out and convert it, just some gold coins which are readily available.
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If you want to see my point with food and drink. Go farm dungeons and bosses for a period of 20 minutes (assuming 1.0 rates of hunger and thirst) and don’t eat or drink during that time without starting with the satiated bonus (the green ring around each meter).
You forgot:
D. People building pretty castles/villages/whatever
And this is probably at least 50% of the player base.
You’re right, I incorrectly lumped them in with RP players, a valid point.
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If you think that people who like roleplay are a small minority of the player base of this game please do yourself a favor and do a quick look at the server list and which one are A). populated and B). just how many people they are pulling. RP servers are by far the most populated servers on the game hands down.
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