I really appreciate all the communication you’ve been offering lately, especially around the Liu Fei bug and the ongoing performance concerns. I wanted to personally reach out regarding something I—and many others—really miss: the Stygian Fortress. I understand why it had to be removed, especially with the performance issues on consoles. That said, I’d like to suggest a possible path to bring it back in a performance-friendly way, perhaps as an instanced dungeon or semi-open dungeon, similar in style to the Sunken City or Midnight Grove.
Suggestion to Save the Fortress
Turn the Siege of al-Merayah into an optional dungeon:
Cave entrance or portal-style trigger to load into the fortress interior
Include a small, outdoor battlefield section for immersion before entering the main stronghold
Could feature Stygian lore, bosses, and rare loot, even tied to the Dogs of the Desert reclaiming it
Performance-Friendly Implementation Ideas
I’ve brainstormed some engine-conscious ways to improve performance if it’s ever revisited:
Distance-based Level of Detail (LOD) for fortress assets
Use of Level Streaming to load chunks only when players approach
Aggressive NPC optimization (freezing actors until aggro’d, staggered spawn waves)
Convert some cluttered visuals to baked lighting/textures
Optional zone toggle – allow players to opt in via map interaction or setting
This would preserve the amazing atmosphere and storytelling of the Stygian presence without causing major client performance degradation. Even if it came back in a smaller, dungeon-style form, I think it would go a long way for immersion, PvE content, and world-building.
Thanks for reading, and for all the work you and the team continue to put into Conan Exiles.
There’s also the fact that if you turn on Co-op, you can’t actually select the map to play on. You literally can’t move over to the map selection box. Seems to be a PlayStation issue, but not sure if it’s effecting any other platforms. Seems most of the reports are coming from PS players.
Restarted with new character and my evaluation
-Sand reapers seem quicker.
-Love access to purple smoke again
-running sucks. Combat is doable but running should get some adjustment to help us poor stamina drained schleps
Not all bugs, but this one requires progress, not perfection.
There are a few new bugs, fairly small, and this one has noticed the game is less stable than before with more random crashes (PS5).
Also, the game sometimes freezes on the new flashing light warning message.
The new content is other than interesting to this one
Compass. Meh. The appearance of it on the heads up display is very modern tacticool. However, the concept of items in inventory having utility just for being carried is appreciated.
Stamina revamp once more. Less Asthma, more smoker’s cough. Not improvement for this one, just trading one dislike for another. But others seem happy.
Al Meryah is once again ruins.
Yay? Ish…
This one also wants this to be tucked away somewhere rather than just deleted, but this one sheds no tears for it.
Also, there were several Siptah specific fixes.
This one is pleasantly surprised.
And offers owed apologies for vitriol that was proven incorrect.
Overall, this one tentatively offers this update a generally positive affirmation. Gratitude.
I agree. While stamina overall is, in my view, improved from the previous iteration, I do think that running in specific could do with some adjustment. It is very noticeable when travelling anywhere that it takes considerably more time - the bar seems to go down as fast as in the previous version, but of course now takes much longer to go back up. A small thing, and I am enjoying the stamina management in combat much more (it’s actually caught me out a couple of times, which didn’t happen at all in the previous version), but I do think the running is a little more punishing than need be.
Living settlement gots a little better with option to lock doors, please pay attention to tavern patrons this locked doors also affect them. Worker thralls still not wanting to work, when we put they on their stations they imediatelly leave and they only want to sleep and eat, no matter the time of the day. Pls make they stay at leat 5 minutes on their work and less time doing other stuff. Also consider living settlement optional. Like if i put it on a station he/she stay there, like the fighter thralls. If i place it free on the world, he/she wanders around ad do living settlements stuff. But in consistent ways, working the most of time and sleeping at night and leaving to eat just 2 or three times on a cicle.
Same as with compass and that some wants ‘‘archanophobia’’ settings… or like now already “Setting to disable blood in conan”.. because some are so sensitive to it.. i dunno conan is 18+ game, cant say to not play it if so sensitive.( For me i have phobia of worms.. so i dislike them also in game specially if starting area has to eat them sometime to survive, so what i should now gather same issue followers and make big topics so funcom removes them or readds them as butterflies? ).. and to find some where no spiders or so… but then it also goes bit again what i say about compass so meh.. but i hope my idea now is more understandable
Insisting others to accept some addons that is less needed because some is special…
But atleast thanks for explaining the reason why some would need compass, finally some fine answer! Respect to that ! As for my sentences, english is not my native, and based on that i understand 4 languages i kinda dont care, but if idea is more less understandable, like you just answered on my question, its fine then , so thanks !
I’d like to see a dungeon maps implemented. As well as the inventory bug where items bounce back and forth when trying to equip or items randomly get thrown out of inventory. Plus!! My Freya quest is STILL bugged. Is she ever going to “return home”. I’ve not even been able to complete the hunt with her yet.
Even if it wouldn’t be there for disabilities… That tantrum about it still has no reason.
They put something new, which if somebody do not want to use can simply ignore at all. There is literally no reason to even care about it if somebody do not want to use it.
Acrophobia mods are mods and not optional. If I don’t want to make the hardened steel sword, guess what, I don’t take the skill and don’t make the item.
There’s a path here. Watching you jump off it and claim to be a victim is hilarious.
As for the rest of your rambles and poorly used ellipses, I ignored them.
Just going to chime in here to say we think accessibility and choices are cool and good and you don’t have to use the compass if you don’t want to.
I also honestly really like arachnophobia options and appreciate some of the clever ways some other games have handled the option (Lethal Company, MH Wilds, Grounded, etc). Personal opinion, not that of company, etc.
@AndyB I was quite happy with the patch until now and I was already planning in my mind how I will thank you for it - because you guys deserve it …
but I started to notice that thralls started to use " disabled" pieces of furniture (chairs, beds) - which worked until now - just now a carpenter went through 3 locked doors to go sit on a blocked chair … just great…
just for the record - PC steam version , ofocial PVE server 1051
Agree. I have always been a proponents of more gore and brutality in Conan Exiles. For me, not only did the Fatalities scratch that itch, thematically they were congruent with the backdrop of the savage Hyborian Age, and when used strategically, they were quite rewarding. But I also understand and agree with the concerns raised by other members, surrounding the Fatality activating when it was, not wanted or intended, and putting players in vulnerable situations. As such, I have now long advocated that Fatalities be reassigned to a different button/key (for example the Interact button) as opposed to the attack ones.
That is the thing @KamikazeHamster; they did NOT censor them, they are just bugged. And in a few different ways. They no longer dismember, they are activating when they are not supposed to, they are now also activating when we press the Kick and Light Attack buttons, as opposed to just the Heavy Attack button as they are intended to.
I had a quick question about the Public Beta Client (PBC) and whether it helps the team catch not only performance issues but also bugs, glitches, and backend networking issues by allowing real-time monitoring of what’s happening on the server.
From my experience helping test Ashes of Creation, I’ve learned that debugging is like looking at a grid of intersecting systems—kind of like a tic-tac-toe board. A bug or glitch happens where these systems cross, and if you don’t catch it at the exact moment, finding and replicating the exact conditions can feel like guesswork because so many aspects of the code and network interactions overlap. I’m asking because I feel that having this real-time insight could also help the team see if fixing one issue unintentionally breaks something else further down the line—especially when different systems cross in unexpected places. This kind of testing on the PBC could reveal those hidden interactions before they make it into live builds.
Does the PBC allow the team to see these interactions and conflicts in real time to identify where things break after updates, including potential networking issues? I’d love to know if PBC already serves this purpose
I made a mistake, I started a new character on a broken server. Thought I’d found a unicorn in an empty abandoned server. Nope broke, played up to 20th level, no access to anything but vanilla content. So gave up, wiped the character which sucked all the wind out my sails for this… late but big hot fix.
I hope the dev spent most of this time working out the code issues because what I see for bug fixes is all the low hanging fruit.
So toured the PVE servers.
I know no one wants to be that guy, no one wants to be the HOA agent. And since no one wants that responsibility we all suffer the ToC violation on ever server that isn’t broken: well PVE anyway.
Worst one I immediately started stuttering and dropping frames at 100fps. Once I got out of the spawn in it calmed down till I was about up to the noobie river. The I lagged hard, fps dropped to 10 as someone’s summer resort spanning from the other side of the river west of the sentinels to the narrow neck span, loaded in.
I could go on about my adventures in official PVE land, but it would just be a reprise of a song played to death and we know funcom will never do anything about it. Would take too much effort and expense.
funcom, when you depend of players to be your server monitors your system fails. And we all suffer on the public servers because of it.
But over all the only change I feel, I like, and that is the stamina rework and having the exhaustion state back. Of coarse I’m glad they may have fixed the broken journey steps but that something that should have been done months ago.
Be nice if they updated the beta server; which is starting to fill up. Probably because they run so well, being nice and fresh.
The main thing about why i even started about compass, its meh to me if someone use it or no… what concerned me is that from how it looks, to add compass when there is map with player arrow that can has north west and so on.. it kinda looks like in future funcom decides to change that also… means i kinda dont want that suddenly the player location on map is gone ( talking about the white dot arrow that marks player location on map ). Because when something changes something goes away most times… if the old map reading stuff stays then i am also fine with compass updates … but the way how its added it just felt like soon there will be like actual usage for compass, to read where is home and so…
In short, if map and location and markers wont be touched i am fine with compass ..
I want the map touched, no don’t remove the player marker/arrow, but the actual map has not been update since the expansion. Needs a good make over, add more icon selects, simple colored dots, and increase how many markers I can lay down; and have the option to turn off player alter markers.
Suggestion to Save the Fortress
Performance-Friendly Implementation Ideas
).. and to find some where no spiders or so… but then it also goes bit again what i say about compass 
Respect to that ! 
As for my sentences, english is not my native, and based on that i understand 4 languages i kinda dont care, but if idea is more less understandable, like you just answered on my question, its fine then , so thanks !