While I’ve seen a few threads made in the past few months warning the devs that it might cause a disaster on PvP servers “for obvious reasons”, I haven’t read any thread explaining really what were the exact issues. In the following thread, I won’t start a discussion about how bugs can make this feature a living hell for players (there are already too many threads explaining the bugs). I will also not assume the Devs know exactly “the obvious reasons” why this is a very bad idea on PvP servers, so I will explain in detail why this is a fundamental bad idea, design-wise:
Assuming everything works as intended, it can make a village built seeming more “lively” on PvE servers in an automated way (independently of the fact wether or not players like the feature).
However, on PvP servers, what seemed a good (or at least ok) idea becomes a very bad one. Why? Simply because on PvP servers, thralls put in the world are vulnerable at all time, including when their owners are offline. Thrall AI is far from being good enough to make Thralls skilled enough to dodge aggressive players. In short, while their owners are offline, Rare (T4) crafting thralls will be easy preys to griefers. There is absolutely No Pro to have Living Settlements on PvP servers. Players will quickly drop the ball regarding the hunt for T4 thralls as those will be killed much faster/more easily than the effort needed to acquire them.
So I see only two viable solutions to avoid such massive griefing:
Either the “Living Settlements” feature is removed from PvP servers by default (making it an option is not good enough, as players don’t have admin power on official PvP servers, and I’m pretty sure no PvP player wants to waste their time to get Rare Crafters to see them easily killed by griefers).
Or the Crafting Thralls put in the world become invulnerable (but it would make the incentive of raiding bases way less interesting, as stealing T4 Thralls are among the most interesting rewards you can get from a raid).
On a side note: having the Crafting Thralls being put in Crafting Stations was a well thought feature right from the start, as it can also be used in a smart way when you log out from the game: you can remove them from their crafting station and “hide” them somewhere, to increase the probability of keeping them safe in case of a raid when you’re offline. That makes sense in my opinion: civilians should be able to be hidden well, while soldiers are always on duty to fight potential invaders at all time.
I would finish this feedback on a positive note: I don’t think everything is bad in the “Living Settlement” system. The Thrall Worker Union Contract is a great idea in my opinion. I always felt uneasy that the only way to get thralls working for you was to capture them, put them into a wheel and make them do forced labor. I mean, even in a harsh world like Conan’s one, you might find people willing to work for you willingly, if you pay them well, right?..
I agree with you 100%.
Your post shows you are someone who actually plays the game.
The updates to Conan time and again seem to be from people who don’t really play the game themselves. Either that or they’re looney.
The other thing on a pvp server is it’s a lot of fun to raid a base and steal all their thralls, just like in the real world when raiding armies would take slaves as captives. Now I can’t put them in a safe place and they just wander around opening doors I don’t want them to open so my only choice is to put them in a room with no doors! It’s totally nuts, I’m sorry, but it’s nuts. The pvp servers are almost empty anyway, so I guess they really want them to be 100% empty? Of course all my artisan thralls have already left, flown away and are gone from my list of followers so I guess I shouldn’t worry about my thralls
@Keithoras i can think of at least one pro for the update. Now raiders cannot claim the placed thralls for loot. They can only kill them.
Also you only need 1 thrall to do what it used to take 2,3 sometimes 4 thralls. 1 alchemist can buff several cauldrons at one time when it used to take 1 per.
well they were inventory items so , they were no penalty for having several thralls in different benches, and you could put some in ourpost, now you cant. unless you ahve slots available, before you could steal , now you can still loot them in boxes if not deployed, you could get some of them back from the raider if you raid theri place or steal them from other people bases. .
nonoen in their senses will deploy a rare t4 to be a victim, easty to get thrtalls will be king.
so no , it does not fix anything, thalls are far easier to kill than it takes to get them , that itself create balance issues.
And as a pvp player…if you got pieces on the board and dkin in the game then when is it ever ok to be offline for raid hours? Never. Unless you got other people keeping watch. But now all of a sudden Mr Sweat worried about a thrall he ain’t even lost yet? Really?
The pvp game will for sure change but it changed already with sorcery so this is not much different. Yes thrall loot will no longer be a thing and I think that is good. This means offline raiding really has no benefit outside of toxicity since the servers are 4x harvest. I think the end result will be encouragement to truly pvp or simply acknowledge the state of this game’s pvp is just a toxic group of wannabe alphas types. Either way it will be refreshing refreshing to get back to basics or just refreshingly honest.
My main point was that ever since thralls got nerfed pvp players stopped worrying about losing thralls. And who doesn’t have boxes and bv’s full of extra crafters…
what you are saying and your arguments are right, but in other hand you cannot deny that the living settlements is an heresy for pvp servers.
i mean command if you are a real pvp players with experience you will never let you t4 crafters on your bench when you are not online, and they will always be hidden in some chests somewhere, and more you have experience, more probabilty there is they will not be find (well except by people using hack)
you are also right that thralls defence is a joke and non existent, and that is a problem, but still the fact to have no other choice than have crafters killed is not a progress (neither the fact that you have now to build sealed base if you don’t want your thralls to tell to everybody where your base is, and invite evrubody to have a drink),
now actual state of the game (which is sad) allow to easyly have t4 crafters on conan exiles, but on siptah it still require some work.
and as you said nerfing of fighter thralls on pvp server has led to the fact that most pvp players simply no more use fighter thralls, they just use one that they keep at base for pve contents, or if they have huge base create army that will only give them 20 mn of offline defence time at best (which is a joke). actual living seetlement will create the same effect, pvp players will simply no more use crafters; because the reality of all the change they did those last years is you no more really need crafters except an alchi for doing poison arrows, and a bs for steel reinf. and so we are going again in a reduction of what was the content of the game for comestics only.
I honestly don’t see how a thrall update is a heresy for pvp servers one way or the other. Thralls die every night in pvp servers. They also get stolen, they get despawned. They’re thralls. Who’s gonna come in here cryin about “oh my ooor thrall”? This is a joke right? You’re trollin me
well so i should be a martian as i am able to survive on pvp servers, and the worst of them, stll having thralls in box that are 3 years old (which mean that i don’t loose my thralls)
and nop i am not trolling you but giving you some arguments, but if you are fine with thralls that open your door for cosmetics reason and have fun to rebuild each day well can only say you that not the case of most of players.
anyways status of official pvp server is a near death experience, so we can enjoy a game dying.
A big par of raiders raid also for the fact to simply blow, and the fun to open a base and see inside, and find secret room, you know the usual 3-4 guys jumping on a pvp server, and not able to live long here; so just raiding for 5 days, than jumping on others servers and despawning all or making body vault before jumping elsewhere.
the fact to have no thralls in the loot will change nothing, i m sure of.
I don’t PvP and I’m not a fan of living settlements, but would thralls that could be knocked out and re-broken for a different clan be a good middle ground? Would it make raiding need to have more finesse to be careful not to kill thralls you might want?
Well… to make such reply, you surely never have been the target of a clan full of players acting like a swarm of locusts, who would go to the length of destroying every single base/outpost in a night, leaving not even a stone untouched, siphoning all your resources and stealing everything you possess anywhere on the map. You may also never have been the target of cheaters using cheats/hack to see through the walls/foundations to find all your chests and/or your character. Those are still common things - sadly - on many active official PvP servers.
Can you explain what “new paths forward” it has opened? Because I’m still searching… How could such change enables you to play more?
Your crafters being killable and not possible to hide anymore means you will have to take more time to get them back by farming each time a raid happens on your base. Not a fun way to spend your time to play. And if you want to say “Don’t use crafting thralls anymore then”, isn’t it sad to have to stop using game features (using crafters) due to a badly designed change when this should be on the contrary both an incentive for builders AND raiders?
As Azaroth said: removing rare thralls from the looting won’t change anything. If you think this will discourage raiders, you have a very naive vision on how most of the raiders mind work: many raiders do it for the fun on destroying a base. Looting Thralls is just a bonus. An interesting bonus, but not to the point where it would make reconsider raiding a base if the bonus isn’t there. Removing crafting thralls from the equation would change nothing. And no, getting back to the basics would mean coming back the original game mechanics (crafting thralls were there from the beginning). The current situation is just reducing interesting basic game mechanics for no good reason.
For one, I don’t have to place every KO on the WOP. That helps on recovery time after a raid. Two, I don’t have to build extra bases, especially just only to hold a WOP. That would mean much time wasted just to get going every day in the game. Three… ya there’s more.
I think raiders have lots of incentive to raid, especially naked (a.k.a. offline raids). That needs to be fixed, especially with all the time spent to armor up. Some more balance is needed. The quality of the battle, or for what is supposed to be a battle, is lost.
I looked at this Age as a +1 on the builder side, for recovery time.
that not the point, problem is we are no more able to hide or try to hide them, knowing that any base are a joke made of paper and can be raided and opened by someone naked in 5mn. Even the huge massive base, it s only a matter of something 30mn max to wreck totally by an experienced raid player.
but again, and this was already the trend, this change on pvp server will lead to the fact that people with experience will not even bother anymore to use crafters except the two one that i quoted previously as they are needed to give the craft ability of some needed stuffs.
so in fact it is again removing content that was existing (as crafters will be less and less used by pvp players due to change done and the problem they now create for someone that try to survive on a pvp server to others human players).
and if you want to know it even happens to me to dismount bench before raid time when i know i will not be able to play online during pvp time to not have bench lost.
for info when game was released it was possible to knock down your own thralls and even other player thralls to put them again on your wheel and make them enter in inventory again.
well it has opened some stuffs considered as not wanted by fc, it why they removed this function. but well as you i thought back to that, but will not be a total solution, as thralls wandering and opening your door is just in contradiction with the gameplay of a pvp server. i mean you want to live in a rat hole somewhere where you hide, and want to use crafters, good luck
