Looking for brains

Conan Exiles General Discussion Players Helping Players
1

I have been visiting dozens of official and modded and non-modded non-official servers, with over 10,200 hours in Conan. I have talked with several people that have a lot of knowledge, and also with people who basically have no technical knowledge, but solidly formed opinions. My personal acquired data set has led me to believe that overbuilding and too many placeables is the number one leading cause of server issues. I do understand that there are many things that are just part of Conan from the original build, and there are issues with battleeye and the favored server hosts. However, every server that has horrible gameplay of every kind just also happens to be loaded with player built RP cities, usually right on the edge of buildable land proximal to NPC camps such as New Asagarth and Mounds and Sepermeru. Usually with multiple “medium size” and larger bases of other players all crammed together like it’s a simulation of “how many things can we cram into one render spot without crashing the game”


It is also of note that the actual builders of such massive conglomerations of role play decorative (functionally empty and useless) builds also do recognize that their server is “laggy” and “buggy” and typical call for FC to “fix it.” It is also of note that typically any discussion that centers on the topic of their builds is casually brushed aside. Despite the new very clear rules complete with photo samples, there are still highly decorative very large “bridges” and statues of Gondor and random other nonsense that imo should be relegated to private and solo maps. I have played in several well-administrated dedicated servers that DO HAVE building limits and DO NOT HAVE the same massive gameplay failure. Aside from things like turning off the aggregated inventories and Living Settlements, the build limits (enforced) do actually noticeably and provably maintain a high quality gameplay. Why is is that FC promotes “kingdom building” in their ads, and shows a massive build in the intro video that is large enough to collectively crash 3 or 4 servers at once? Why is it that players just hunker down in their self-created lagged out server and make more and more buildings and more and more placeables? a casual survey of servers such as 1727, 1521 should be all that is required to prove my point. I am not in the mood to run around taking screenshots and spend the time making tickets to get players banned when imo the problem is actually a failure to communicate. There is no zero null indication of any kind in game or easily discoverable in forums or steam that informs players that their overbuilt ego RP nonsense is a problem. Players have no idea that this is even a consideration. And, in my experience of attempting to discuss it in game, it isn’t received as important information since easier to just blame FC or the server company. And then, even if players decide to tone down their aggressive RP builds, new players will join and begin more overbuilding.

I recognize this is not as much of an issue for players with top tier internet service and mazed out high end top of the line gaming machines, or so they have told me, but in reality the server machine does have limits. Servers are not infinite resource capable super quantum computers. Apparently very few ever even consider this when they play the game.

If anyone has real data or expertise and can show me that my experiential data set is leading me to a false conclusion, please do so.

2

Not going to disagree with anything else you are saying (that all seems pretty accurate), but there is some inaccuracy to this statement. The very first pinned topic at the very top of the forums goes into this in the first section after the introduction. It doesn’t just (as some like to pretend) (not suggesting you, just an attitude I’ve encountered multiple times) cover abusive landclaim, it also specifically mentions -
Constructions leading to loss of performance both on client and server side.

It also links to the ‘Land claim abuse on official servers’ thread, which, in addition to showing multiple examples of traditional ‘land claim’, also shows examples of RP villages and large bases.

Certainly, this should be more clear (and should probably be required to have been read and ‘agreed’ to before being allowed on official servers). And, no matter how clear it is, some people will insist that they should only be bound by the exact letter and not the spirit of the rules (so, since their big RP base is not a village, nor does it have big walls, they must be fine - ignoring the opening point about causing loss of performance on client or server side).

Also, Funcom’s ads should really not show a style and size of building that is well understood, by all but the most wilfully ignorant, to be a problem.

As I say, I don’t disagree with your concerns or your approach, but just wanted to clarify that these rules do exist and can be found quite easily. (And are widely ignored anyway
)

3

This is once again trying to place blame on players for doing the very thing the game allows them to do. Neres’ post in another thread pointed it out quite well when he said “If there are technical limitations, infrastructure failures, or a lack of proper moderation and management tools, only the company has the effective capacity to resolve those issues. Assigning blame to users for problems that are beyond their control does not address the root cause; it merely shifts responsibility and weakens the relationship between the company and its community.”

Placing blame on the players for doing what the game allows them to do is incredibly silly and simply shifts responsibility where it shouldn’t. I’ve heard that doors also cause a large degree of lag, yet players build an overwhelming amount on PvP servers to act as a defense. Should players be penalized, blamed, or otherwise be unable to do so, especially with how easy it is to raid?

If player structures are really to blame, then it falls on Funcom to create solutions to this problem. It shouldn’t fall to the players to “build moderately” (and who determines what is considered moderate?), especially when FRESH SERVERS were also experiencing problems right after Enhanced released. This tells me this isn’t just a structure problem, otherwise only certain servers would be experiencing stability issues.

4

Understood, and it’s a great viewpoint. However, my point isn’t to blame players any more than devs and game design. Any focus on blaming one core group will inevitably fail to address or solve any issue. Game design must account for marketability, marketability in sandbox demands freedom, freedom is messy especially when not moderated with self-control and real information to base actions upon. The kind of method required by blaming the devs is then to severely limit gameplay by changing the actual game mechanics. The method of blaming players results in backlash and animosity. Neither method will produce functional results. The reality is, we have a game that allows a lot of freedom. The way freedom is exercised may or may not have a serious negative impact on the gameplay and stability. My request for real data or information from someone more expert than myself, which shouldn’t be difficult to find. Pointing fingers won’t help, but identifying issues and communicating actionable plans to reduce game instability can potentially help short term.

5

Fair enough, and that I can agree on. I know that giving players this much freedom has consequences, but this is why if the developers find it provides too many, they should take actionable steps to remedy said problems.

If player structures are one of, if not the, major cause of most server instability, then continuing to allow endless freedom should probably be reconsidered. While one major appeal of Conan is the ability to build like this, Official servers should probably adopt some new mechanics, such as maintenance costs, or something similar. I believe this is what Rust does in order to limit/prevent overbuilding.

Not only would adding something like this severely limit larger structures, but it could also act as a sort of “balancing” when it comes to raiding, as a bonus side effect.

6

My big question is whether or not it has ever been shown with technical data that these builds are causing issues. I know they do for me on my underspec PC and low integrity internet, but I have not seen any actual data by the number from backend sources. I have seen the typical anecdotal and fps etc type data. I have accumulated a lot of response data from players, typically when someone has entered an overbuilt location such as near mounds, when the whole server suddenly screams LAAAG in chat. This isn’t real info though. I am kind of just hoping someone has data that will get me to stfu about builds and save me the ADD stress

7

great point! When I played Wurm Online, it was pay to keep your builds, pay for landclaim (with free option for hardcore), and it made it really impossible to rationally complain about overbuilding since you had to buy every square meter of land on a monthly basis. People still overbuilt, but it is a much more simple game and not as adventurously engineered as conan, so it didn’t have nearly the impact in my remembered experience

8

I’m not aware of any detailed technical data on the topic. If anyone would know I would have to guess it would be @Xevyr - grant us your wisdom, o wise one! Is there any direct technical data showing what sorts of builds cause problems?

9

I have a weird intuitive guess in the background that builds causing lag is more like a side effect of some other actual issue that none of us can see from this end.

10

Their original assessment isn’t that far off from reality.
The number one culprit on servers performing badly is typically placeables and then a bunch of followers mixed in with them :stuck_out_tongue: buildings are typically much less of an issue as they’re very heavily optimized, but.. nobody builds empty buildings so that puts us right back to placeables..
Storage can be quite heavy on replication when you have a lot of it in one spot where a lot of players also gather, but it’s generally not as bad as rumored in some circles.

That’s a bit of a double-edged claim.. the good old saying comes to mind
 “Just because you can do something.. doesn’t mean you should”

I’m not sure why gamers like to pretend that in this context everything goes and they never have to exercise self-control and always expect the companies to limit them. :slight_smile:

Gun manufacturers don’t expect you to just randomly go around shooting people just because their product is capable of allowing you to do that and car manufacturers also don’t expect you to just constantly drive around at the max speed of what the car can do or give into other intrusive thoughts.
Similarly, while game manufacturers should try to improve things as much as they can and fix issues etc. I don’t expect them to constantly hold my hand to prevent me from doing unreasonable things that harm my own gameplay.

Official server rules are also not based on what the game is capable of.. On a good computer, in single player your huge castle might be perfectly fine, so limiting the game in that regard would take away from the game itself - which does not purely revolve around official servers - that’s why there are rules. (I feel the car analogy is yet again good here.. different roads have different speed limits and they’re not based on the capabilities of your car).

11

Much appreciated input, Xevyr. I will adapt my gameplay accordingly and hope for better results!

12

Thanks dude. Much appreciated to have the expert perspective :slight_smile:

13

I understand the line of reasoning, however the data mentioned comes from essentially opinion-based sources. Regardless of how much technical knowledge some of these people may have, it still remains within the realm of speculation. With that in mind, I also feel comfortable raising hypotheses of my own.

It may even sound like conspiracy thinking, but imagine a scenario where G-Portal could provide official servers with excellent performance, serving as a demonstration of the quality of the service they offer. The alternative chosen, however, seems to be providing official servers with only the bare minimum necessary, creating an experience that often leaves players frustrated and, as a consequence, may end up encouraging migration toward private servers — especially those promoted directly in the game’s main window.

Yes, other hosting options exist, but they do not have the advantage of appearing directly on the game’s front page. That creates a level of exposure and visibility that is difficult to ignore.

My suggestion would be a different approach: create high-performance official servers while maintaining a stable experience for all players, and offer an optional subscription for additional features, such as increasing the world object limit. Another possibility would be introducing DLCs with structurally stronger building pieces that require more materials to craft, allowing for more durable constructions without relying on excessive piece stacking — something that often increases server load.

This could generate additional revenue without harming the base experience while also helping reduce the performance issues currently affecting the servers.

14

Quoting for bibles full of truth.

The other thing that needs to present is enforcement of the policy by Funcom. Players should certainly report violation of the official server policy, but that reporting should be in addition to regular policing by Funcom. Until that starts happening, nothing will change regarding the official servers’ (lack of) performance.

15

I believe the technical data isn’t very relevant in this matter, because it seems fairly obvious that there is a connection tying the official servers to G-Portal. Likewise, it’s also clear that the developers do not want to restrict players’ freedom. At some point, however, a decision will have to be made. According to reports and opinions from people who run private servers through G-Portal, the performance remains poor even on private servers. Therefore, the choice will eventually come down to maintaining player freedom or preserving the partnership with G-Portal.

16

The 'partnership ’ with Gportal came about when the game originally released - Funcom was in financial trouble and the server provider they had lined up for CE backed out. As a result it is very likely that Funcom had to make a very bad deal with GPortal (because when one party is known to be absolutely desperate, corporations tend to take advantage
). That is why GPortal is advertised, and that is why GPortal still has the contract for the official servers despite providing poor service. Funcom is almost certainly still locked in by the deal that they had to make back then.

It does not require a conspiracy, just simple corporate greed and laziness. GPortal provides a poor service because doing so is cheap for them, and Funcom can’t back out because that would break a contract they had little choice about signing. There is no conspiracy to drive people to pay for GPortal’s private servers because, as you point out yourself, they are no better than the official ones. So all that would be achieved by trying to push people that way would be to drive people to other server providers (some of whom are capable of providing a decent service.). There is no need to attribute to malice something that can more easily be explained by incompetence. GPortal is a poor quality provider. Funcom is stuck with them. That’s the end of that story.

As for the developers ‘not wanting to restrict players freedom’ - nor should they. The server rules exist for a reason, and the constant complaints about a ‘ban meta’ show that admins do act (whether or not they get it right). If players adhere to the spirit of the rules, then they are unlikely to have problems. THe problem is that players often insist on only fiollowing the exact letter of the rules. The develpers should not have to detail every possible building offence that could be problematic as they would have to provide a million different examples (and players would still point to the screenshots and say ‘ah, but my barbican is two foundations longer and located to the left of the main tower whereas the one in the screenshot is on the right, therefore mine doesn’t break the rules ‘as the are written’’). Similarly, there have beern around a thousand threads on this forum debating building piece limits and explaining over and over why they would not work. No matter what piece limit was set, it would be possible to build a building using that exact limit that would be abusive and would cause problems, and it would be equally possible to build a building that used far more pieces and yet caused no problems at all.

Beyond which - @Xevyr has just explained that building pieces are not the real problem anyway, and that the data shows that placeables are the real problem. And I would hazard a guess that different placaeables have different ‘weight’ in terms of the load they create on server and client (those with animations, for example, probably causing more of a problem than other simpler objects). So it would likely be possible for player a to use more placeables than player b, while player b is the one causing more of a problem.

This is why the rules are deliberately written in ways that try to guide rather than setting strict (and unworkable) limits. Many players manage to follow them without dififculty. Others insist that they are not responsible for their own actions and that the devs should be required to limit everyone in order to keep them under control. It is reminsicent of the time that the (male) leader of the Welsh Assembly (devolved government) publicly announced that he would support the introduction of a curfew for all men in order to make the streets safe at night for women. Effectively, he was saying that because he can’t control himself, all men should be locked away, rather than saying that people should not commit crimes and criminals should be stopped by the people whose job it is to stop them (in that instance, the police).

The servers have rules. It is up to players to follow those rules. And if they can’t follow them, then they should be reported to the admins, who should then deal with it. The admins cannot reasonably be expected to police the several hundreds of servers proactively, as that would require hundreds of admins working 24/7 - so it remains up to players to use the report system in order to direct the admins to the problems - otherwise the cost of the official servers would skyrocket, requiring their closure or a completely different financial model.

17

The problem here is we’re now starting to compare real world consequences with video game ones, and that’s where all of this logic starts to fall apart. You go and shoot someone in real life, that’s a very different thing than “violating the ‘no surrounding an obelisk’ rule.”

While I understand rules, they’re also very different in the real world. In a game, you’re literally unable to build too close to an obelisk. This isn’t just a suggestion, but a literal limit that you cannot bypass without resorting to 3rd party software. Real life doesn’t have these same constraints, so it’s not quite a fair comparison.

Either way, this is all less about whether someone is violating a specific rule, and more about players building too large, and as far as I can tell, there’s no specific rule on that. If Funcom really wanted to, they could easily implement an actual limit to enforce that if there were one. Not saying they necessarily should, but this thread is entirely about performance hits from large structures, which you can’t exactly remove without limiting players.

If I’m on an Official PvP server and I get told “no more than 20 doors per base” because somebody believes doors create more lag than normal, I’m going to ignore that person. When raiding starts to get involved, this isn’t just a “roleplayers being roleplayers” issue, but a “I’m trying to not get my base blown up in 3 seconds” issue.

With bases being so easily broken into, players build extra to circumvent this. Is it ideal? Absolutely not, but expecting players to “build small and moderately” is just people being naive, especially when hours upon hours of work get involved. This isn’t just about people “not following the rules”, but about literally trying to keep themselves alive as much as they can.

If it’s more about placeables, then we have the other problem with efficiency, where the more established you become, or the larger your base gets, the more resources you need. The more resources you need, the more stations you need. Now apply this to PvP where oftentimes, people don’t just have a single base in order to forego the whole “putting their eggs in one basket.” Are we now going to create some arbitrary rule where people can only have a limited number of bases and a limited number of crafting stations per type, or do you think that should be left to Funcom?

18

From the Official Servers- Terms of conduct. guidelines and procedures -
“Constructions leading to loss of performance both on client and server side.”
The very first section of that pinned thread after the Introduction is ‘Official Server Building Restrictions’. Again, it is about following the spirit of those instructions not the letter.
They also provide a link to documentation about Land claim abuse on official servers, which provides multiple different examples of what you shouldn’t do.
I already explained why that cannot possibly be an exhaustive list providing every possible example, because people will still find ways to argue that their building is slightly different and therefore not covered.

No. They couldn’t. I already explained why not, and it has already been covered in exhaustive detail hundreds of times. In simple summary it breaks down to:

No, we don’t want an ‘arbitrary rule’ - that’s what you appear to be advocating for - for Funcom to set an arbitrary number (which has already been explained to be not going to work, so now that arbitrary number has to be the lowest it possibly can be - goodbye any PVP base, for starters). Instead, we are arguing that Funcom should enforce the rules they have set - and supposedly do enforce (‘report meta’)

And so you should. But if your base is causing lag on client or server side then expect to get reported. And if the admins investigate and find that your base is the cause (and not the fact that they are playing on a potato), then expect to get a suspension. Then you’ll know for a fact that what you build was indeed against the rules.

Again - the rules are clear, if people try to follow them. They may not be perfect, but they are vastly better than any more arbitrary system where players exert no self-control at all and take no responsibility at all and just rely on funcom saying ‘1000 total pieces and placables, that’s your limit’ - because player A can build perfectly reasonably with 2000 pieces without causing a problem for anyone, while player B will build with exactly 999 pieces, deliberately causing the maximum problems for everyone that they can and will then say ‘but I used less than the stated number of pieces therefore my build is fine’.

Personal responsibility, combined with reasonable enforcement, works. Arbitrary number limits don’t.

19

All of this is once again going under the assumption that every single server has players that are supposedly abusing this, when that’s not actually the case. At this point, we’re not really arguing about much if it’s really just “some buildings have issues, while others do not.” Not every single problem base is intentional, and I would even argue most aren’t.

If this is about following rules vs not, then this is such a moot topic, since every single server out there is experiencing performance problems, including private servers, and I cannot imagine every one of them have problem bases.

I fail to see how this topic suddenly came to be about “enforcing rules” when it’s very clear that’s not even the actual issue. All I’m saying is that many rules are not entirely clear, and unless Funcom has a reasonable way to enforce their rules, I’m generally always going to be against the “players should be held responsible” route. Things like intentionally blocking obelisks are one thing. Building large structures with copious amounts of placeables are another. One is intentional. The other is generally not.

tldr; every server is experiencing problems, so this isn’t a player responsibility issue.

20

Except not all of them are. I’ve seen many reports from people saying that things are working fine for them. They just get called ‘liars’ by people who pretend to have seen every server and therefore ‘know’ that ‘all servers are the same’.

Because people jumped in and started insisting that the entire problem is because ‘there are no rules’ (except there are) and ‘players aren’t responsible for building too big’ (yes, they are responsible for it - they need to read the rules and try to follow them). That doesn’t mean that is the entirety of the problem - GPortal is a big part of it, and there may be game code issues as well (though the fact that some private servers are running well, suggests this is minor). But if people are going to insist on arguing that there are no rules and players shouldn’t take any responsibility for themselves, then it is reasonable that other people might push back against those ideas.

But it is only unintentional because people have paid no attention to the rules. And, even when presented with those rules, some players insist that they don’t cover the exact situation that player has created - because they point blank refuse to consider the spirit of the rules rather than the letter, despite that point being made in the rules.

tldr; not every server is experiencing problems, players need to take responsibility for their actions. That is not the only cause, but it is the exact issue that the OP initially asked about - overbuilding and too many placeables.