Issues with the new purge, issues with combat in chapter 2

Conan Exiles PC Discussion
1

greetings!

i am a long time player of this game. i have over 2000 hours logged and it is definitely among my favorites of all time. i am also not a mindless hater like some other critics of this game. i am patient and more than reasonable. however, i need to take this time to address some issues.

i did a level 9 purge for the first time today and there were several issues that i never experienced on lower level purges. they hardly sent any battering rams to attack my gates, and when i say hardly, i mean only 1. this purge went on for over 40 minutes. we were killing and killing and killing and killing and killing and there was just absolutely no end to it. i cannot help but think this is some kind of bug where the commander just wouldnt spawn, and i was caught in a never ending loop of endlessly fighting a never ending stream of enemies.

the real problems with combat arose when they finally broke into my base. i play on my own gportal server where its just me and 2 friends, so i built a rather gigantic castle/city and theres a part behind the walls where theres a lot of room to run around. i aggroed about 15 enemies and it was utterly impossible to fight them with melee, as i will explain:

the new changes to combat in chapter 2 have been absolutely crippling. i have noticed that while attacking, if you get hit AT ALL in ANY point of your attack or combo, you get instantly interrupted, staggered, and then the enemies go to town on you. it makes fighting large groups of enemies impossible. one of them will hit you, especially considering that once an enemy starts attacking, you cannot interrupt or stagger him. he will keep swinging, and you will eat all the damage unless you roll away. combat has essentially turned into dodge roll simulator, and as i stated, fighting large groups of enemies in melee cant be done.

so far the only weapon that has some interrupt immunity is the 1 handed mace, the beginning of the combo and the second half of the combo you can eat some hits while swinging, but other than that, using any other melee weapon against groups of enemies is just swing, roll roll roll roll, swing, roll roll roll roll. i hate dark souls games and am not trying to replicate that experience.

you used to always be able to be interrupted while attacking, and i think you should be able to be interrupted. im not suggesting that you shouldnt be able to. however the way it used to work, before chapter 2, was far better, and actually allowed you to get some attacks in. now its just fighting unstoppable enemies who cant be phased as all their attacks stop your attacks dead in their tracks and prevent you from doing anything.

another problem is when you die and respawn, objects, and doors especially, take an ETERNITY to render in. closed doors become invisible. you cant open them. you cant run through them. i got stuck between 2 gates. the one behind me wouldnt render so i couldnt open it. the one in front of me had 30 enemies trying to smash it down. my options were to sit there and wait or open the door, get body blocked, overrun and killed. some of the doors finally rendered in, however 15 minutes after respawning, some doors around my base STILL did not render in and couldnt be used! ive been playing this game for years and i never remember this being an issue to this degree. the rubber banding has also gotten much, much worse. sometimes when you first log in it feels as if you are chained to the floor.

since i have my own gportal server, i was able to reset the server and force end the purge that way. i didnt want to do it, but as i said, me and my friend were mindlessly killing hundreds of enemies for over 40 minutes. the commander just would not spawn. it got to the point where so many enemies were flooding my base that they were lagging and turning invisible. getting chain hit from all directions and staggered by enemies you can hardly see or hit back. i was not going to lose thralls to this cheese.

i love this game. on paper, this purge is a really good idea. in practice, its just not working. this needs a serious revamp. the AI needs a complete overhaul. there needs to be some changes to how being interrupted/staggered works when you take a hit, especially considering that once the AI starts attacking, you cant try to hit them first and interrupt them. they will keep attacking unphased. the way it used to be was far better.

5 Likes
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There is complete uncertainty regarding the duration of the purge from the beginning to the challenge to a duel with the boss.
The impression is that the mechanism of the game gives away the random timing.
So, in my case, the purge of level VIII lasted about half an hour, I didn’t wait for the call, I went and killed the boss myself.
Level IX purge lasted no more than 7-8 minutes.
Level X purge lasted 15 minutes in one case, about 25 in another.
This is on the same base and with approximately the same number of defenders.

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i had an earlier purge where it never told me that the boss challenges me. i had thought it was going on for too long, so i would periodically check the camp to make sure the boss wasnt up. lo and behold, i had found him standing in the camp and didnt get the prompt that he challenges me. because of this, any time i do a purge, i now check the camp every few minutes to see if he spawned.

in my level 9 that went on for over 40 minutes, he never spawned once. as i stated in my post, there were so many enemies flooding my base that the lag was beyond horrible, enemies were turning invisible and were lagging all over the place. i couldnt hold out for the boss to take his sweet time to challenge me, i had to force end it by restarting my server. t4 level 20 thralls were getting swarmed by enemies that i could hardly fight due to lag, and i wasnt going to lose them to cheese.

so what youre saying is the duration of the purge is random? it could last 10 minutes, it could last an hour? does the purge settings under server settings effect the duration? if its totally random how long its going to last, this isnt a good mechanic. especially considering that the number of battering rams that attack is totally random, and if the doors arent being battered down, the AI tends to run around in circles not knowing what to do as they try to attack archers on walls above them that they cant reach with their swords.

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This is your server influence. The new purge is generally poorly optimized for servers, there are many bugs. I’m playing an offline solo game and there are no purge bugs. When a boss challenges you to a duel, a message appears on the screen for a few seconds and a trumpet sound is heard.

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yes i know that when a boss challenges you to a purge theres a message on the screen and a horn blast is heard. 99% of the time it works. one time, it didnt give me a message. thats why i always check the camp every few minutes, just to be safe, in the event that i dont get the message, which only happened one time in all my purges.

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Just by feeling - for each level there is a certain obligatory minimum number of waves, after which the purge duration is random.

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yeah i dont get it though. sometimes they last 10 minutes… sometimes 40+? do the old purge duration settings effect it?

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No way. There is no old purge, and no old settings, forget about them.

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I really do not like the Changes to Age of War. It seems like such a let down compared to Age of Sorcery. My main complaints

  1. Heavy weapons are terrible. Completing a heavy combo leaves you wide open to a counter attack. The slow speed of heavy weapons completely negates their AOE effect as mobs just circle around you.

  2. Mobs have unlimited stamina and simply run you down. Even cripple barely gives you enough time to gulp an aloe potion with the extended animation. Without cripple you have no chance

  3. The weapons do too much damage on PC health. Three dagger hits should not take a player out when they have 3 tiers of health and health armor. This is low grade iron and steel weapons used by NPC’s and not legendary or high end weapons

  4. The mob AI is nothing like the previews. You pull one mob and the entire camp is on you in seconds. If enemy mobs had a stamina pool that would be fine but they don’t

  5. I don’t see why the combat system was changed so drastically. Before it was fun, now its just tedious and unimaginative with the need for daggers or maces all the time. It’s terrible, Un flavorful combat. If Funcom is so bored that they are constantly rewriting their systems like combat, cooking, crafting, etc. then they should focus on bug fixes and more helpful updates.

3 Likes
11

This sounds like a bug to me tbh. Something (demolishers) were supposed to spawn, didn’t because of the bug, and the game got stuck waiting on that perhaps?

I recommend you make a bug report out of it.

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yes, there is an old purge. the old purge is the system that was in place before the age of war chapter 2 purge. im not saying that its still around, i was referring to the settings that effected it. as for the purge settings in the server settings menu, i just confirmed that those no longer exist.

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funny you say that, i just did. me and my friend just tried another threat level 9 purge tonight. same results: eternal purge, no commander spawn, killing enemies for what felt like a year.

he ended up dying and logging off because once you die, thats it! nothing will render in. doors will be invisible for as long as 15 minutes after respawning which prevents you from opening them. he couldnt touch the ground without rubber banding. all the enemies were invisible on his end. this happens every time you die. i ended up dying about 25 minutes after he logged off, and ive been down this road before. i just reset my server to force end the purge because i knew what would happen: objects and buildings not loading in. invisible doors that cant be opened. invisible enemies that you cant attack. im not losing thralls to this

tonight we actually got attacked by a crap ton of guys with battering rams, but the purge was just lasting forever. ive completed pretty much every threat level purge except 9 and 10. i havent even attempted a level 10 yet, and level 9’s refuse to spawn the commander. maybe tomorrow im just going to try level 10 and see if the commander spawns in, because level 9’s just arent working.

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what makes AOE attacks so useless is the fact that you can never complete the combo of, say, a one handed axe or a 2 handed hammer. if you get tapped at any moment during your attacks, you get completely interrupted and the combo ends and you have to restart from the beginning. it was never like this before chapter 2, and in my opinion, this is the worst change of them all.

tie this in with the fact that once an enemy NPC starts his attack, hitting him does not stop him. he will keep swinging, and his attacks will stop your combo dead in its tracks. it makes it nigh impossible to finish a combo when multiple targets are attacking you, and you can never pull the aoe attacks off because you are bound to get hit at some point in the combo by something when dealing with 3 or more enemies.

as i said above, im not trying to play dodge roll simulator. combat that focuses around excessive dodge rolling has always been a turn off in most games for me. thats also just not how people fought with these types of weapons historically. there needs to be a greater emphasis on standing and fighting, blocking with your shield, and even parrying with your weapon. you should be able to parry attacks with most if not all weapons.

perhaps make it so certain weapons cant be parried by certain weapons. for exmaple, a sword cant parry a mace or a hammer, but can parry other swords and axes. dodge rolling should totally be in the game and should have its situations, but overall the emphasis just needs to be taken off of dodge rolling everything. perhaps a defense penalty immediately following a completed dodge, so one doesnt just roll around a million times like a lunatic and only does it at an opportune time when they know it will take them out of harms reach.

just spit balling some ideas here. maybe someone at funcom reads this thread and takes some of what we are saying into consideration

2 Likes
16

Yes, the weapon’s hyperarmor was removed.
But the enemy NPCs seem to still have it.
World is not fair.

By the way, instead of a combo, try a series of quick strikes, for example, with a katana. Seems more effective than combos.

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dude, you cant justify this awful change. your solution is to use katana? so now i have to adhere to a meta and every other weapon is useless? if we’re going to lose hyper armor, then the NPC’s need to lose hyper armor as well. no exception.

1 Like
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My friend, I completely agree with you.
All that remains is to convince the developers.

I said about the katana because I have an agility build. You can use a series of quick strikes with any weapon, I believe. Need to try. The katana works great, I beat down the purge boss so that he doesn’t manage to land a single blow on me.

1 Like
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Human type NPCs have lost the hyperarmor also, it is harder to notice when being attacked by a group and certain weapons still have maintained good hyper armor due to no turning timing (spear and mace). While making an attack you can turn the attack after starting it and that whole phase has no hyperarmor which is very noticeable while using a 2H hammer or katana but barely noticeable while using a spear which is why a spear seems to have a ton of hyperarmor still, it just gets to part of the animation that has hyperarmor faster since it barely has any turning ability.

However, some non-human types still have stagger immunity so certain unnamed city bosses will hit you with a full combo that will interrupt your combo since your hits can’t interrupt their combo. This does make those encounters more difficult, but since they have had their health drastically reduced previously then it sort of balances out to pre age of war.

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Lol, lol, lol… And I was thinking that I am the only one who noticed this! :smiley: Yes, not only that the enemies overcrowd you all the time, sometimes when you get lucky and you are managing the fight, out of sudden some other enemy spawns right in front of you to aid those you are attacking.

I agree the enemies can’t be staggered almost at all, but you get staggered all the time. There are sword and dagger and ranged fighters who support each other - for example you are dealing with 2-3 sword fighters, out of sudden the spearman spawns behind them and ruins your combo. All of them doing insane damage even if you are at max vitality. You can not run from them, because they would sprint you to death. If you manage to run away, the fire throwing orbs would finish you anyway.

And anytime you are doing ok dealing with few of them, the rest of all in the sight is going to aggro you. It’s all about endless rolling, rolling, rolling… And being able to do nothing. :smiley:

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Yep, there is no effective combo in matter of high level purges. I just bite and dodge… Bite and dodge… The variety of the enemy fighters with different weapon types who aggro you in groups won’t let you finish any combo.

Musashi’s katana light attack stagger seems like a good option in those cases. But how about players with another weapon preferences?

1 Like
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In my humble experience, the most effective weapon now is the one that can be used to strike as quickly as possible. In principle, I can’t work with a 2h hammer, for example. I currently have 2 weapons - a katana and a Black Dragon Pike, each optimized with a swordsman part for fast strikes. Let everyone try what suits them.

1 Like