I’m guessing we’re all going to have different opinions on the Journey revamp, and I hope mine changes, but after an hour of play I’m finding it very tedious. Feels like it’s taken what was a fairly simple and unobtrusive (maybe too unobtrusive for some who feel lost when they start playing, but I always found it good) system and turned it into micromanaging hand-holding. For me personally, I am just not feeling it and not enjoying it. But I’m going to be forced to do it if I want the rewards that are apparently buried in it? I’m a completionist, so I hate leaving things undone. But I don’t feel like doing this. And I worry it’ll be too much for new players. I still remember the joy of discovery when I first started playing this awesome game. Not sure I would have felt the same if I’d been tasked to “craft a skinning knife, skin an animal… finish that journey a few steps later… click on another journey to activate it, oh look I need to craft another skinning knife… I just did that… is my character suffering from dementia? Better make one again or it won’t let me get to the rest of the journey, I have 3 now…sigh” That’s not a natural way to learn. If feels forced. Also, seeing things like “climb fingerfang rock, talk to the mountaineer, craft climbing gear…” - I spent weeks playing initially, and never looked up a guide as I wanted to discover things like that for myself. I had no idea there were even caves or dungeons when I started, let alone that there’d by a guy at the top of a mountain who’d teach me how to make climbing gear. I was so incredibly excited when I found new stuff that made Conan Exiles seem so much bigger than I ever thought it would be. I hope you’re removing the old “Try climbing interesting places, you might find something…” tip from the loading screens, you’ve kind of removed the joy of discovery on that one. Hope you’re not going to ruin all the surprises. Also hope I will change my mind but I’m just gonna wait until Ch 3 launches before playing any more, my curiosity is already satisfied unfortunately.
New journey give some interesting loot + we got secret journeys and rewards I believe.
What I personally dislike is forcefull completion in implemented order.
When you activate journey chapter you should be able to complete steps without any particular order. Now game forces to repeat the steps you done before in order for them to count.
When you have active journey chapter it has no sense why step 4 should be done only after 1-2-3.
My problem is some of them when you complete them before time you can’t get credit, example “I started into the magic system before I chose the journey now since I found the sorcerer’s cave i can no longer get credit so that step is stalled.”
The main issues I have with the new Journey system are:
- Steps won’t complete (logging off and logging back on resolves some)
- A Journey can span 15+ levels, requiring a lot of hold time between the first skill and last skill requirements
- Steps within a journey have zero flexibility
- Since only one Journey can be active and since few can be completed contiguously, often you will be in the wrong Journey when a step is completed
- The new Journey system takes grind to an extremely boring level
- Journey rewards are rarely worth the effort while leveling
The solution is to level to 60 and do each journey one at a time, respecing as required.
Meh.
I completely disagree. So many new players I’ve come across have voiced the same concerns with the game having no direction or steps to learning the game. So they have to search through hundreds of videos hours long to find the one piece of information they are looking for, and many times they don’t even know what they are looking for.
The new Journey system, while not perfect, introduces the games basic concepts and gives new players goals to seek out as they learn the game. This isn’t a new game anymore. I doubt people joining now are trying to learn from scratch with 100s of hours of trial and error while they are being constantly killed and raided by more experienced players.
What is too much for new players is throwing them into a sandbox with no direction and expecting them to compete with players with 3k hours. Now players can learn about attack combos, aloe potions, obelisk travel, etc. while unlocking unique knowledges and materials as reward.
Are you sure you weren’t in Creative Mode when you tried to complete the step? I’ve unlocked all Sorcery feats before attempting the Journey and it worked for me.
Well most people complain not about new Journey overhaul idea which cool.
Big problem is steps do not count if you have done them before the activating right journey chapter itself.
I am talking about new characters. So, if you visit smth already, when you choose journey chapter with this particular task -it should count.
Now, game force people to make unnecessary steps again and again.
Personally i do not see BIG problem to do smth TWICE, if you really want that reward. But i see future bug possibilities because of that, some people already claim they cant complete particular steps.
True. All unlocked Journey steps should automatically activate so that you can complete them simultaneously instead of having to switch between them as you progress.
Exactly.
Case in point. Beastmaster and Outrider…
Apparently I did not have the right journey step active when I picked up a colt, nor when I picked up a pet. Removing the pet and readding to my inventory resolved the captur a pet. But I did not get credit for the colt until I went and got another one.
Additionally, sometimes a craft step is satisfied when you craft, sometimes only when you add it to your inventory, which is inconsistent and unnecessarily annoying.
Lastly, has anyone unlocked the secret of feeding a pet? Nothing I do, directly giving food, putting down a feed box, giving them food in the pen, nothing will complete that step.
I had to click on the food in the pet’s inventory to complete that step. Just placing the food in the inventory didn’t count, even when they ate one piece
A clear example of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. They could’ve maybe changed the UI a bit and added the rewards per tier of steps completed and that would’ve been a much better change than what it is now.
Unfortunately, that did not work for me, but thank you for the suggestion.
So I highlighted two points on this just to represent a point I would like to bring up. In order to unlock the Tanner Journey you have to Unlock the Tanner Knowledge. Yet step 3 in that journey is to… Unlock the Tanner Knowledge. You know, the thing you have to do in order to unlock the journey itself.
Now that I have Unlocked the Tanner Knowledge and activated the Tanner journey you will see that I have circled the first four steps. Why you may ask? Because I’ve already done all of these things. Why should I do them all again?
So, yeah I just don’t see why it was able to track step 3 (it automatically completed when I did step 2) but not track steps 1, 2 and 4.
Thank you everyone for your feedback 
Passed this over to the rest of the team as we are always working on improving the world of Conan Exiles.
I think from reading all of the above and more thought on my part, it seems the main issues with the new Journey system could mostly be resolved by introducing more “SKIP” options for steps you’ve already completed in your normal play. Whether the “SKIP” option (which I know Dennis brought up in the recent dev stream, I need to watch again now that I have more context) is a “SKIP” button next to steps you’ve already done or auto unlock of that step when completed even if that particular journey is not active or you’re a little out of order, or allowing multiple journeys to be active at once maybe (e.g. warrior, survivor, arnourer all at once) , it could all be resolved in a way that makes it feel less “railroading” and more immersive and explanatory. A lot of my frustration was because I felt I had to stick to one particular journey and not do anything else as my actions would not count if I didn’t have, for instance, the warrior journey active. So rightly or wrongly, I went around trying to get bark for the tanner journey, deliberately NOT killing anything (I’m normally an XP-craving murder hobo, lock up your rabbits and bambis!) and wondered why even though I had over 100 bark I still could not unlock the “get bark with a pick” step (turns out I had to empty my inventory of bark THEN get bark, which I am sure will get fixed). Problem is, my normal starting play style is "kick, dodge, climb, kill, get bark, kill, eat, drink, kill, go go go… doing heaps of random stuff and loving it. The new journey system stopped all that freestyle play for me and made me do chores. If I could do those things just in my normal play without going back to my chores list, they would not be chores anymore. Having more “SKIP” options solves that, and I would assume that’s being worked on so I’m hopeful the system will be good in the end. I’m sure a lot of what’s required is also just a tidy up as it’s no easy task to get a system like that working the way it’s intended at every step when there’s so much interdependency. Please give yourselves time to get this right, Funcom! I’d rather wait for a better experience than rush it.
This right here, not knowing all the things that a map offers is what makes a survival game. The journey of exploring and discovering things on your own. This new system just holds your hand in a very tight way which makes it feel more like a chore than a journey. I understand for the first 5-10 levels of the game but maybe add hints or clues instead of the full answer at later levels. (this is all of course from a new player’s perspective)
Well, I sort of agree and sort of disagree. If we have the option to turn it on or off, I think it would help. Letting players have to option to play “with training wheels” or “without training wheels” would be a nice choice to allow players to customize the experience they want.
Maybe even default the settings to “on” for civilized game settings and “off” for barbaric game settings?
I like it, I like it a lot!
Journey system was broken. It failed to introduce new players to the core mechanics of the game, or give them realistic goals to pursue. This new system is a vast improvement, it just requires better implementation to streamline the Step progress.
Conan isn’t a survival game. It’s a sandbox.