My first play session in the Age of War!

[WildCat]

And so the day has come!

Decided to go check out a few places and see how things changed!

I didn’t want to make a new character for lowbie areas but figured that my current build 0/15/10/20/10/5 would do if i’ll go without armor so would only have 120 coming from the character stats. For the weapons i picked up Two-Handed Stone Sword, Stone Daggers, Darfari Axe and later picked up Darfari Sword.

Exiles proved to be no problem so i moved all the way to the Skulker’s End. Immediately found that the Khitan Camp was gone but was half the population of the camp! Mostly archers, btw.

Turns out Darfari became way too tanky even against their own weapons! As i was doing my best not to get hit i spent more time dodging than fighting slowly chipping away their health. Btw, second heavy attack with one-handed sword is still trash and barely ever connects, had to replace it with light attack in combos.

Looks like absolutely nothing changed from the testlive client, you can dodge all day long without even thinking about stamina as it springs back up nearly instantly and when fighting 3 enemies at once you barely have any time to do a full combo anyway. Looks like the plan to make us think twice about picking up more than one enemy failed.

Also, AI really fails when you dodge too much, if you don’t exchange blows for some time they run away to their spawn point. That ridiculous, they were supposed to be helping, no?

Finally took some hits, one from an archer i finally found all the way back near dungeon entrance, 60 damage from a single arrow? Like really? Also missed a swing from Cannibal Brute, 70% health lost, if i was corrupted or had less points in Vitality that would be it. What were you talking about tension and relief? Don’t think there would any relief when someone finds themselves sent back to their sleeping bag with one swing. Also, why T3 Darfari gal kept swearing like a pirate all the time until i chopped her head off?

Decided Summoning Place to be my next target and picked up my Greater Sabretooth to be my companion. Gotta say here that my character has War Party perk so while i have 20 point in Authority it doesn’t do much.

The first problem surfaced up when i didn’t even reach the place: Rocknoses, turned out my “mighty” beast from the Frozen Wastes can’t handle the lowest of Rocknoses having to take several hits per each to kill them. As a reminder: that’s the best cat you can get and cats are “glass canon” type, yet it failed to perform.

Summoning Place used to meet guests with the barrage of arrows but appeared to be empty with barely anyone around. Watched as my “mighty” beast was slowly decimating the remaining Darfari and failing to take down T3 guys with one swipe as well as spending most of the time walking around, pouncing in the wrong direction and what not. Boredom!

Enough of Darfari, my next target was Mounds of the Dead, got rid of stupid stone weapons and took freshly crafted Star Metal Katana and Shortsword and put on my favorite Bejeweled Set i used through the entire Age of Sorcery.

Once again, the entire place appeared empty. Hey, devs, why all the capitals are empty? Sent my “mighty” beast ahead once again and watched it lost 3k health in a few seconds while barely scratching one guy’s boot. Real shame! Had to step in and it looks like even nerfed Katana does great against some of toughest guys in the game.

Finally got to test my character’s stamina, turned out it was barely enough to finish off one guy then i had to roll away and give myself a moment to regenerate. 10 points in Grit, Katana, just one one enemy at a time! Shameful!

This also when i finally felt the reduced aggro range, if previously i would have brave Cimmerian compete against each other to have the first hit on me, now they hide in their homes in hope i don’t find them. Shameful, again! That’s Cimmerians, dammit! They shouldn’t hide in the corners like little scared girls!

Got kinda careless and missed a hit from a guy with a mace, okay 200 health gone and that’s half of my character’s health, kinda unpleasant but then again, they hardly ever get a chance as i can dodge all day. If you play on a laggy / high latency server and can’t time you dodge moves, my condolences to you and R.I.P.

So, here’s my conclusions:

• tension and relief, total miss
• fun and challenging fight, total miss
• better rewards from chests, total miss, same rocks and branches
• got a suspicion they actually just deleted half of the population from the larger settlement to lower the load on server. Goal achieved?

[Bambere]

@WildCat

got a suspicion they actually just deleted half of the population from the larger settlement to lower the load on server. Goal achieved?

So they could added unwanted glow around character.

[Smoketreader]

@WildCat

better rewards from chests, total miss, same rocks and branches

I agree that for the vast majority of chests, the rewards haven’t changed at all.

The “small treasures” seem to only drop from very specific chests that are closer to high level areas, Ive yet to receive a single treasure in the beginner part of the desert. (Not counting Du’nemans chest in the Den, which is one of the more solid spots)

I hope that they keep adjusting the loot numbers going forward and introduce new treasures.

@WildCat

Finally got to test my character’s stamina, turned out it was barely enough to finish off one guy then i had to roll away and give myself a moment to regenerate. 10 points in Grit, Katana, just one one enemy at a time! Shameful!

This was precisely their intention. They wanted to make the combat more dynamic and engaging. You were forced to roll away instead of just mindlessly hacking.
I admit that for rolling, the current system doesnt really do well.

[WildCat]

@Smoketreader

This was precisely their intention. They wanted to make the combat more dynamic and engaging. You were forced to roll away instead of just mindlessly hacking.
I admit that for rolling, the current system doesnt really do well.

I would like to see what others think but for me personally it’s right the other way around! The best fights i had was to go out in the Maelstrom on Siptah’s Isle and get attacked by a dozen of creepy enemies and hack and slash at them, not allow myself to get surrounded and carefully dodge away minding my stamina trying to avoid exhaustion state. Stamina regen windows were just what they needed to try and get to me.

And Katana has such good attack animations, both light and heavy combos seamlessly flow one into another and just beg to be used this way! It feels right! Can’t do that anymore…

[Smoketreader]

Disclaimer: Im a fully corrupted authority sorcerer who mainly fights using thralls and a shortsword.

I dont do Katana, but I agree that there is a slight increase in how much attention I have to pay to a fight. But with the exception of world bosses (which got harder) I feel that combat as a whole got a whole lot easier and faster to kill the enemy.

I kinda like that, even if its now nigh impossible for me to kill certain world bosses with my current build (I dont like changing builds on the fly, that breaks immersion BAD)

[Pixelcave]

Just wanted to clarify that the rework of rewards in chests will only come with Chapter 2.

I think overall there’s a lot of confusion about what was supposed to be in Chapter 1, and what is supposed to come with Chapter 2 and 3 (except for the the main features like Purge and Siege). A clear list of what has been mentioned in the dev stream and WHEN it’s supposed to be in game, would be a really helpful reference and addition to the overall roadmap.

[stelagel]

I’ll be fast to this.
If you play alone lvl 60 then do this build

If you just started the game on exile lands you can go and retrieve legendary weapons in no time even with stone weapons . If you have lack of knowledge of the boss movements or little confidence, no problem! Either go and fight the SUPER easy skeleton on the aqueduct to gain the watchers blade, either use the progression system to gain stronger weapons and fight better. Stone weapons should be weapons that helped you just to survive on the beginning, so they nerfed them “CORRECTLY”.
Our characters now are absolute beasts and you can end the most vicious bosses SOLO in 30 seconds

So, tension reduction “success”!

[DeaconElie]

@WildCat

Looks like absolutely nothing changed from the testlive client,

It hasn’t, what hits test is going live as is, that is the issue with hard release dates.
And in my opinion poor use of the test servers.

Pets are ornamental now. Not sure how many I lost before I gave up. So a greater kamodo can be taken out by a common pink shoebill.

[forkyeah]

@WildCat

Turns out Darfari became way too tanky even against their own weapons!

Stone weapons have been reduced in damage, they are balanced against beach dwellers (imps, exiles, kappa). You will find iron weapons do well enough against darfari (assuming you spec into damage). The entire damage curve is meant to make you feel weaker from 1-59 with bladesmith crafted weapons being slightly more powerful than they were in AoS and legendary weapons can be effectively 20-50% more powerful with their various special effects.

@WildCat

The first problem surfaced up when i didn’t even reach the place: Rocknoses, turned out my “mighty” beast from the Frozen Wastes can’t handle the lowest of Rocknoses having to take several hits per each to kill them. As a reminder: that’s the best cat you can get and cats are “glass canon” type, yet it failed to perform.

Rocknoses have a crazy high amount of armor, pets dont have great armor pen so they will not do well against rocknoses. I would go as far to say that all pets are useless as you cannot add armor, or a weapon to their arsenal that can have a higher armor pen.

@WildCat

Finally got to test my character’s stamina, turned out it was barely enough to finish off one guy then i had to roll away and give myself a moment to regenerate. 10 points in Grit, Katana, just one one enemy at a time! Shameful!

Forgotten tribe members have high armor (it was either 58/68% damage reduction). Katanas do not have high armor penetration naturally, if you do not bladesmith craft or use a master weapon kit then you will swing a lot at them to bring them down. Also if you use agility and don’t max out the tree (losing 25% damage in your case) and don’t use rolling thrust (for the 25% armor pen) then they will go down even slower. With a full agility damage build I 1 shot these guys with the first heavy attack from my katana.

[WildCat]

@forkyeah

You will find iron weapons do well enough against darfari (assuming you spec into damage).

Higher tier weapons sure gonna show better results, no arguing with that!

Why stone and Darfari weapons you may ask?

That’s how the map is built, you can’t find iron on the beach except maybe one or two lone ironstones here and there. Most of the iron is placed beyond the Darfari camps and before Black Hand and Dogs of the Desert camps who use iron and steel themselves! So, if you are a new player and have no knowledge of the map and won’t go to look for the info outside the game that’s how you gonna encounter the Darfari - with stone weapons and light armor.

@forkyeah

Rocknoses have a crazy high amount of armor, pets dont have great armor pen so they will not do well against rocknoses. I would go as far to say that all pets are useless as you cannot add armor, or a weapon to their arsenal that can have a higher armor pen.

True! Really wish developers would change their mind about pets though!

@forkyeah

Forgotten tribe members have high armor (it was either 58/68% damage reduction). Katanas do not have high armor penetration naturally, if you do not bladesmith craft or use a master weapon kit then you will swing a lot at them to bring them down. Also if you use agility and don’t max out the tree (losing 25% damage in your case) and don’t use rolling thrust (for the 25% armor pen) then they will go down even slower. With a full agility damage build I 1 shot these guys with the first heavy attack from my katana.

Did you mean Edgesmith which gives the highest armor penetration bonus? Mine was craftred by a Bladesmith and has Master Weapon Kit applied and my character has extra 10% armor penetration from perk in Agility, the only thing i don’t have is Rolling Thrust.

But for me it’s less about how tough Cimmerian guys are, i mean, they are tough guys in top grade armor, they should be hard to kill! It’s more about how Agility weapons eat way more stamina than they should. I can totally understand high stamina cost for a mace or a hammer or an axe, swords are made light and balanced to allow their wielder swing them with ease. High stamina cost on something like Katana feels wrong.

[stelagel]

What you really need to understand is that their decision to nerf to the ground stone weapons was 100% correct. Every player with 200 hours in this game was jumping from stone to legendary . All the rest weapon progression was literally useless!!!
Now again it can be done, but they hope that at least the less bold will not try world bosses with stone weapons.

@WildCat

Why stone and Darfari weapons you may ask?

That’s how the map is built, you can’t find iron on the beach

The beach is for your first hour in the game ONLY. Maximum one and a half, unless you speak about a person who just started the game. So being difficult to win Darfari with stone weapons IS correct. A new player should feel the upgrade necessity, like we did when we started the game.
Iron nodes must be hard for players who just started the game, so the player will feel the need of a follower or a pet.
I don’t know when you started the game wild cat, but when i started it, it was way more difficult than now, i was building little square shelters here and then to protect my self from sandstorm and greater hyenas. When i had to farm resin and fur i was walking with extreme fear and my journey back was not certain.
That’s why i loved this game, because it was hard.
Now it’s easier way easier and the stone weapons are exactly where they belong, to your first 2 gaming days ONLY.

[WildCat]

@stelagel
Started in May 2020, good times, thanks to quarantine i finally had more free time to afford a second game and Conan Exiles went on deep discount and free weekend on Steam, got hooked up instantly.

I couldn’t handle those Darfari guys and couldn’t do anything without upgrading but couldn’t find any iron! I actually had to close the game and look for a guide on YouTube, found the guy who showed the route to a large iron field in the west behind Unnamed City, went all the way there hugging the Cursed Wall, from there i did a bit of exploring and found Sepermeru. Since i was in single player i had no competition over the chests scattered on the rooftops.

Got everything from Sepermeru! Light and heavy leather, iron and steel, silk, shaped wood, even some Star Metal ore. At this point i didn’t need Darfari anymore! All i needed at that point was Black Ice to finally get hardened steel and more Star Metal ore.

As you can see, i literally ruined my own progression.

Not sure how developers see the whole thing but now, when i have hundreds of hours in the game i see it this way:

• You get dropped butt-naked in the desert and cobble up some weapons from nearby branches and stones, that’s good enough to fight your way through the imps and butt-naked exile NPCs.
• You set your first base near the river, kill some crocs get food, some light armor but still stuck with the same weapons.
• You find Darfari camps, take their weapons and armor, learn how to make it yourself. Darfari weapons are still stone tier but better than what you started with.
• Now when you can pass through Darfari lands you find good quantities of iron and can upgrade to iron tools and weapons, can craft better armor.
• Beyond Darfari you encounter Black Hand and Dogs of the Desert who use iron and steel weapons and wear medium armor but now you are on the level with them and can progress further.
• Going beyond Dogs of the Desrt you find Nordheimers which use Hardened Steel weapons and a mix of medium and heavy armor. By this time you should be experienced enough to take on them and use their armor (which previously had high cold resistance) to progress further in the mountains and get your own Black Ice to craft your own hardened steel for better weapons and armor.
• With all that you can be confident when walking into Forgotten Tribe lands to either wrestle Star Metal weapons out of their hands or go into the dangerous wilds to look for the fallen meteors.
• From there you can go wherever you want, you should be ready for anything.

Something i did not mention in my original post but what i think is also important: while revisiting Skulker’s End i encountered a Cannibal Champion which looked like Cannibal Brute but even larger (i think) and killing that one got me a unique Darfari Axe which has twice the damage of its craftable counterpart.
Now, tell me, what would be the purpose of that unique weapon if i’d skip straight to iron or steel? If i come there with stone weapons it would be a worthy reward, if i come with steel i wouldn’t even bother picking it up.

[MarcosC]

@stelagel

What you really need to understand is that their decision to nerf to the ground stone weapons was 100% correct. Every player with 200 hours in this game was jumping from stone to legendary . All the rest weapon progression was literally useless!!!

I’m still doing it. From stone daggers to whatever legendary I find first.
They need to do something about those spiders or we will keep doing it.

[MarcosC]

@WildCat

I couldn’t handle those Darfari guys and couldn’t do anything without upgrading but couldn’t find any iron! I actually had to close the game and look for a guide

If you can’t manage Skulker’s End with stone weapons, what you need is a bow and many arrows. You need to watch out for sorcerers that have iron daggers. Those are the ones that will kill you very fast. You can take down the rest easily, even the Brutes. They are slow. Cheese the sorcerers and you will make it. Just climb something and take them out. Even if they go back to their spawn, keep firing. Flint arrows will do, you just need a lot of them. Then go to Sepermeru and loot the chests, find some armor, etc. OR go get a legendary and you’ll melt Darfaris as soon as you get it.

[MarcosC]

@stelagel

The beach is for your first hour in the game ONLY. Maximum one and a half, unless you speak about a person who just started the game. So being difficult to win Darfari with stone weapons IS correct. A new player should feel the upgrade necessity, like we did when we started the game.

If only they could grade the entire game like this. It would be awesome. You would have to upgrade gear to survive in new harder areas. You couldn’t get legendaries at all before that. I would make world bosses so hard you couldn’t dream about beating them without top tier armor and crafted weapons.
Once you got legendaries, you could finally relax. I like them OP. Extremely so. But I don’t like how easy you can get them. As endgame gear they should melt enemies in a spectacular way. But you shouldn’t be able to get them before endgame (exploration, attribute and crafting trees wise).

[WildCat]

Yep! I know this now, but me three years ago knowing nothing at all was totally overwhelmed!

[DeaconElie]

@stelagel

The beach is for your first hour in the game ONLY. Maximum one and a half,

I don’t recall seeing that in the rules anywhere.

@MarcosC

They need to do something about those spiders or we will keep doing it.

@MarcosC

If you can’t manage Skulker’s End with stone weapons, what you need is a bow and many arrows.

This. The other day I just walked through one shoting them with a legendary bow and steel arrows. If you stay out of the short agro range you can rain arrows on them and they may never react.

[rolee9309]

Make world bosses/endmage enemies have huge damage reduction or flat out resistance to low tier weapons.
I never understood how could a naked guy with a stone tied to a stick kill (in theory, because in practice it’s harder said than done )an effing ROCKSLIDE.
Or how could a stone dagger pierce through steel or star metal armored humans, like AC or the Champion without losing all the durabiltiy, because it just breaks into pieces, in one hit?
Yeah, I get it, logically you are very much capable of doing lethat wounds even with some sharp stone, but it’s a game. Why weapon tiers then?

[stelagel]

Your whole post has literally no basis at all . Darfari lands are overwhelmed of iron and you don’t even have to fight a single Darfari to gain it…
Your first necessity for iron nodes can be easily covered from these nodes. 13 iron nodes wait here with only 3 rock nose guarding them. Rock noses give you good xp and drop down easily from any armor pen weapon, i prefer mace.

Now if you fix your first iron pick the plan is easy. All you have to do is train an hyena baby now in 45 minutes only and take her with you with some iron to repair your pick…

This iron can be all yours before you even face a single Darfari on your way, it isn’t enough???

@WildCat

Started in May 2020

Take a hint then. This is how you can gain a steel tool (rng) in your very first hour of the game.

All these without killing a single Darfari and Ofcurce without even see the dogs of desert.
No matter HOW you want to make it real that stone weapons shouldn’t be nerfed, it’s wrong.
Neither the clues you use are right and for sure do not represent the experience of a player who plays 3 years now.
Stone weapons should be nerfed and it’s correct.
And as i told you…

@stelagel

Now again it can be done, but they hope that at least the less bold will not try world bosses with stone weapons.

@MarcosC

I’m still doing it. From stone daggers to whatever legendary I find first.

Ofcurce any experienced player can easily do it now too, even with this nerf .

Just for the record @WildCat!
I loved my darfari war axe with 17dmg that now it’s 8dmg. I didn’t took this nerf lightly, it bothered me too! But i understand WHY they had to do it and it’s correct.
If you ask me (?) bring back the feature to open skeleton key chests on lvl 60 and then they will do it correct again.

[speedice]

@stelagel

Now again it can be done, but they hope that at least the less bold will not try world bosses with stone weapons.

Come on dude. Naked with a stone pike or daggers is the only way to fight Boss scorpions, crocs, and spiders. It just feels right. Some days, I’ll hop into the arena and go after the undead dragon. That’s a bit challenging.

Now, a rotbranch or avalanche, no way I’m doing that naked with stone weapons. Star Metal, maybe.