Just Cause it Needs Saying Again - Decay System Needs User Pauses

Conan Exiles General Discussion
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I love Conan and I really want to be able to play on Official servers. I’ve spent a ton of time there so far – over 400 hours. But I am about to leave because I have a 2-week family vacation coming up in August. My only choices to avoid decay of all my stuff is to merge into another clan, which I really don’t want to do, since currently we have a family clan. I also can’t guarantee that I wo’t get booted from the clan and have them keep my stuff. Same problem with inviting someone random in to watch my things – they can steal things and just leave.

The bottom line is that the current decay system, while well-intentioned, is flawed. The system is too unforgiving for holidays and vacations.

I would suggest two things:

1 - decay is automatically paused around major holidays

2 - each player has a few 3-week pauses they can use, so that they can take vacation or breaks when needed.

I’m loving the game, but I will probably be off official servers for good after my August vacation, simply because of the decay system.

Thanks!

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Will you have internet access where you’re going? If so, just use an app like the one from ParsecGaming.com to remote into your home PC from a laptop (even a crappy one) and refresh your stuff every few days while you’re away. There’s also a cell phone version, but it’s rather difficult to move around in so best to use that just to refresh your main base.

Naturally, you’ll need to leave your home PC turned on, but most of the PC gamers I know tend to leave theirs on 24x7, so shouldn’t be a big deal.

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These words should be carved in stone.

Peoples complains about land claims (by active players !) peoples complain about alpha clans on PvP forming alliances and ruling as they wont the server (guys ask FC for a new game mode because this is actually the game goal: survive, build, dominate) BUT obviously people think it’s their right to occupy for 2-3 weeks public space on official servers without playing…. :sweat_smile:

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I agree, we are past the point where we need to clean everything dormant after 6 days. There should be some loosening of the Decay rules now.

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I’ll tell you what’s my right. It’s my right to be an avid gamer, to love a game and play it for 100’s of hours – a game that is progression-based, where building and grinding and gathering all matters – to play it regularly, virtually every day, and to want my hard work NOT to be lost when I take a family vacation.

Hell, it’s not even a question of it being my “right” – it’s jut a question of what makes sense. And requiring people to play at least once a week, year-round, with no regard for holidays and vacations makes no sense.

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I play since one year on the same server with my mother and, sometimes, my friends, we never had this problem following the suggestions I told you.

I add one more: destroy the bases, gives all materials/weapons/etc. to a trusted other clan to keep them until your return. It’s another common way in these cases.

Just because I supposed you want our help to solve your problem.
If you want just to speak about what makes sense… please.

There are people who think servers had to be wiped out just because it’s “unfair” for them peoples (active every day players !) occupy too many lands, uh this is not good for new players… :expressionless:

That’s what “makes sense” for them.

For me ? I play since july 2018 on the same server and I’ll die before accepting their point of view.

But I play almost every day since one year.

If I had your problem ? I’ll use one of the path I suggested you.

Becaus, just for me, it makes sense in a PUBLIC official server if I’m unable to play I leaves my lands.

Maybe you want to reply you are an active player, it’s just a temporary vacation. Right, but 2 weeks are an age in an online game. I’ve seen alpha clans change, totally new bases and peoples after 2 weeks.

And anyway when you started to play you knew the rules, so what’s the point now to complain ? I mean, even if they’ll introduce a way it will never be in time to solve your problem.

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It is not “his” problem only. It is no problem at all. But it will be a cause for many people to stop playing complete, after they realized how it works.

I do not see any problem in raising the decay value to 21 days. People who stop playing and are not in vacation most probably will not come back, no matter if the threshold is 7 days or 21. But many will be frustrated after they experience this the first time loosing all their stuff they were working 100s or thousands of hours before.

Another point is, the suggestions with remote login are not valid for console players. Moreover,with all respect , in this times we have carefully to watch our co2 emissions, it seems not to be convenient to say pcs running 24/7 is normal behaviour. This is not the case for sure!

The point, how official servers are setup is the weakness here. It has no Abo model, so if you bought the game you bought the right to play an official server.
No additional income, but continuous costs to maintain the (many many) servers.

Finally I am sure more people would play longer, if they could make a normal holiday. I am pretty sure, many will stop to play after the first loose of all. And they will not buy more DLCs for sure.

I dont know any other online game where you loose all your stuff when pausing. iI knew that decay time is one week on official servers but honestly realized what this really means after several hundreds of hours of playing time…

CE does not allow the flexibility as other mmos, thats in the base concept (many servers with little number of people) so the infrastructure is expensive. But the tuning can be made better, that is an easy fix and will not change too much, I am shure. The true problem are greedy unsocial people who block resources/places and ganking other players with full intention. This will not really be impacted when raising the threshold, because they have enough people who can refresh the decay time as they need. The disadvantages are complete on the side of solo/family group online players who cannot afford to be online 365/7/24.

And no, it is no option to use the offline modus. That is simple not the same feeling. To meet casual players play in the open world (with no chance to use admin mode) is a completet different experience.

Just my 5 cent

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locking decay around major holiday is not possible. What country’s holliday would be choose anyway for such a delimitation ? What about those who work on season ?

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The ones for the region the server is located in would seem most reasonable.

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Increasing the decay time is the only reasonable solution. Special time zones or switch on/off needs too much manual care/effort and will most probably not come. Increasing decay time is a fire-and-forget and also the cheapest solution.

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Not quite sure about that, now it’s 7 day, and people complain about that.

if it was say 10 or 12 day, complain won’t stop because “i wan’t to leave for 2 week, 3 week, a month and…”

You get the idea, it’s exponential and those who wan’t it modified only care about their own experience rather than the overall impact it would make.

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Have somebody place an explosive jar next to your base 1-2 times while you are on vacation, it resets the decay timer for that base and anything connected to it by foundations.

Discovered this by accident when I was waiting for a vault to decay. It had entered it’s decay phase and had like 10 hours left. I placed and exploded a jar and everything reset to 168 hours.

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No, I disagree. A working family father takes a holiday abroads that takes 2-3 weeks per year normally. A week ist not long enough for a holiday in spain…so 21 days is the logical consequence

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2-3 weeks? Geez, where I live that would be all of someone’s vacation time for the whole year! :open_mouth:

Another point is, the suggestions with remote login are not valid for console players. Moreover,with all respect , in this times we have carefully to watch our co2 emissions, it seems not to be convenient to say pcs running 24/7 is normal behaviour. This is not the case for sure!

This was tagged as “PC” hence why I gave a solution that will only work for PC players. Also, this is the reason why various sleep/power states exist for PCs, so that they draw minimal resources when not in high demand. Alternately, a PC user could always rent a cloud PC if they’re that concerned about such a minimal impact.

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3 weeks the whole year ? That is slavery…

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Well, we agree on that anyway! :sweat_smile:

In the USA, 3 weeks is usually after you’ve been with a company for a few years or if you’re good at bargaining during the hiring process. The normal amount for a new hire at most corporations is only 2 weeks, and 4 weeks is only for someone who has been with a company for quite a long while.

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  • blocks will survive forever
  • less resources for other players to loot
  • less space for new players (I assure you with 3 weeks decay river will be forever full of abandoned shelters )
  • lag and performance issues dued to base and base’s defences increased number

These are just the first jumped on my mind, they will lead to official server death.

Regular players may be a contained number, but new players just building a shelter, taking a look around and never login on the server after that first day of play are at least 5-6 every day.

It’s a different thing when it happens (2x anyway, not 3x) during most… “common” holiday time at least for the server location ( (like in EU in august or at the end of december first part of january) like happened the last year.

Because they are times while players are less than in the rest of the year (and it causes problems anyway for the ones still playing !).

But if you apply a 3x to the actual decay timer for all the year every PvE and PvE-Conflict server will become unplayable in just a month.

Plus let me say: why PvE and PvE-Conflict (don’t take me wrong I AM a PvE-C player) players should benefit of this when a PvP clan not online one day 100% lose his base ?

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Did not want to offend you.
I prefer my master switch and shut down the complete system. The energy-saving factor of energy-saving-plans is beeing overrated most. 100 cent are still an euro :slight_smile:

Even this is PC-Tagged, the decay time is a common problem, no matter if you are on PC or console.

Cheers :beers:

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Well they’d last 21 days instead of 7. Neither is “forever”.

Looting is already off for PvE. So that doesn’t bother me. Anyway, surely all the manly-man apex predators of PvP prefer earning their rewards in honest combat, not in looting decayed bases or offline raids, right? right? oh…

Why? Do people who had quit magically come back after, say, 18 days?

Yes there would likely be more structures on the servers until they reached some equilibrium. But a lot of performance enhancements have gone out in the last few months (and yesterday, at the latest) so maybe the game can finally afford to loosen up on those draconian decay rules?

Yes, but if they “never come back” as you put it, their structures will eventually decay no matter what. Sure, it’ll take a bit longer to happen, but once you hit the 21-days mark after implementation, you should have a rolling wave of decaying structures same as today.

PvP players losing their base to PvP mechanics has nothing whatsoever to do with the decay system.

Yes, I do think 21 days as default is too long, but 7 is too short. Ten to fourteen days would be much, much better.

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I am on a PVE server since some months. What I watch is that great bases are beeing built and stand there forever. smaller bases disappear after a while. As I am a slow but constant player with small bases, for me it does not matter if they stay there one or three weeks. And space is there more then enough. The game slows down not much if I am away far enough from big bases. I am using places noone seems interested in and there is more then enough place.
So why should I accept to pay the price ? I dont disturb anyone else (I got even some presents from another clan in the beginning) nor block i ressources or attrcative places. Nor do I care for buildings standing there one week or three…

It is more space then enough!

But I am pretty sure, after my first holiday when I come back and all the work of months is away I am done with the game.

To bring it on the point: short decay times kills the game for casual players AND PVE, it only supports hardcore players. But a compromise for instance could be:

7 days on pvp
14 days on pvec
21 says on pve

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