This is not another complaint. I’d like to start a frank discussion not buried in the comments of the hundreds of other posts on this forum.
I’m sorry that this is a very long post. I have over 6k hours mostly on Official PVP so many thoughts and points to bring up. I’ll try to keep it to facts but my opinions and experiences will inevitably shine through.
TLDR; here’s all the information I gathered quickly about the official servers and I ask the question because I am curious about the overall feeling about official servers and their importance.
Are the Official Servers important?
Ok so before we get into some some other stuff let’s talk some general history:
Conan Exiles was announced in 2016. With much acclaim in early access during 2017 and fully released in 2018. It was a shell of what it is now and Funcom has added much content over time to fully realize their vision. Although most of us don’t know what that vision is. The Dev Kit was released shortly after early access and was proud to support modders.
Weekly updates in the Blog were commonplace and while they did taper off slightly, that form of communication was still strong leading into 2020. Constant expansion of the game, events, surveys and contests were celebrated.
Some hiccups were inevitable with the launch and they created a partnership with G-Portal to host official servers and offer the ability to rent servers on this service provider.
Conan Exiles saved Funcom from financial ruin and by 2018 had made over $1 million in sales. This financial report is also interesting and shows what they intended from the beginning.
Due to popular demand and the over-population of official servers, Funcom increased the amount of servers multiple times since its launch; 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively.
The Dedicated Server Launcher was released in 2018 to assist players in running their own private servers and the popularity of these servers increased. In early access, there were as many as 12,000 private servers available so this was a welcome addition.
Based on early access survey results in spring 2017, the most popular servers were PVP Private Servers.
The giant Tencent fully acquired Funcom in early 2020 and prompted this survey that aligned with the companies’ monetization model. A pretty detailed post was made that echoed much of the communities’ chagrin on the matter.
After the survey results and with the announcement of Age of Sorcery in spring 2022, players were presented with the Black Lotus Bazaar and Battle Pass. Much question has come out about whether Funcom intends on releasing further DLC packs with no official response about it continuing or ending. But of course they’re still selling the packs.
Despite growth in 2021 the official servers were being affected by lack of population, they decided to trim the servers in spring of 2022. Mergers of many servers happened and with server transfers having been an option at the time, this made the server trim easier. We now have a total of 780 Official Servers with little information on what the total count was at any given time prior to recently.
What do we have now? The Exiled Lands base game with a DLC map called Siptah (despite it initially being called an expansion) that was released on May 27, 2021 as well as a total of 11 themed packs. Hundreds of mods have been lovingly developed by the community including another 2 modded maps and another in mod development. There are 3 online game modes: PVE, PVE-C and PVP available on Official and Private Servers. There is also a storyline and content development with a timeline of ages and chapters being released.
Keep in mind that this is really condensed information.
Let’s take a look at the most recent event:
As many know, during the summer months Funcom increases the decay timers for buildings and followers on official servers that helps those on vacation have peace of mind during the busy summer months away from the game.
The decay timers were subsequently reverted back to regular decay on September 1st, 2023.
An unfortunate error occurred when reverting where the decay for followers (thralls, animals and mounts inclusive) were set to a 1 day decay timer instead of the intended 10.
Funcom made the decision to roll back the official servers affected on September 3rd, 2023 to the save before the decay timer change on September 1st, 2023, effectively erasing all progress of the 2 days before the roll back occurred.
As compensation, the company boosted experience gained, gathering speed, and the thrall & pets conversion rates until September 11th, 2023.
They have also pledged to make important changes like this earlier in the week and implement improved processes to prevent such errors in the future.
**As an aside for those not aware, read this to know what you can do while you’re away to keep your decay timer up.
The Siptah problem:
Age of War was released in June 22, 2023 and a few hotfixes after. As a result, players started experiencing performance issues in the Dusk Isle of the bottom corner of the Siptah DLC (which on occasion affects the Dawn Isle as well). It is causing players to disconnect within seconds of moving in that area. So any characters having spawned or builds there are impossible to leave or reach normally. Funcom halted decay timers on all official Siptah servers and will not be rectified until the chapter 2 release of Age of War.
The Terms of Conduct, Guidelines and Procedures or ToC {NOT TOS - seriously, stop calling it that}:
The most criticism for abuse occurred during 2021 for Official Servers; land claim being the most prominent which saw all game modes speaking up. While there was a working document there was little official word on it.
Then in late summer of 2021 there was a revamp and more communication regarding the ToC including the addition of using the service Zendesk to report an array of issues.
Many were thrilled as it seemed like abuse on Officials were being taken more seriously. Action was finally going to be taken to alleviate exploiters and land claim in a streamlined, clear fashion. Initially, it was a service where you could report and receive reasonably prompt action in addition to receiving explanation for why you were actioned upon.
However, leading into the winter posts starting appearing on the forums that called out discrepancy with how reports were handled, the proof required and a call to action to correct the procedures. In addition, the General Inquiry option on Zendesk had been removed.
Clans were being actioned upon with little to no reasoning or explanation. Posts were pouring in with titles such as “What did I do”? While some could be explained after some fact-finding, Funcom was being silent on this. Closing out posts and de-listing stating that if they wanted more information to read the ToC and send all inquiries to Zendesk instead as (paraphrasing) individual suspensions and bans were not to be discussed on the forums.
In March 2022 an additional explanatory document was posted to the forums explaining Land Claim abuse and what to avoid. This was created as a result of the almost constant discussions on the matter.
From the period of winter to summer 2022 there were upwards of 4 posts per day asking about why a player or clan had been actioned on. There was so much controversy and theories from Zendesk automation to culling of Officials.
Exploits:
Exploits can happen on both Official and Private servers as well as any play mode. However, they are most prominent on Official PVP.
From early launch, Funcom had been dedicated to addressing undermeshing, combat and building exploits as well as duping. Going as far as to wipe official servers twice. The Exploit Hunters were announced and anyone could submit information regarding an exploit and possibly receive a monetary reward.
As time went on, while exploits were sometimes addressed with hotfixes and updates, less and less attention appeared to be paid to exploits. Some exploits, while may be different in the code, are still present to this day.
Undermeshing, skybasing and purposefully crashing a server are still very serious issues on Official PVP.
Despite the dupe upon release of the Age of Sorcery for bombs and addressed in a few weeks. No roll back at that time and the first hotfix making it even easier to dupe bombs within inventory. Funcom remained silent on the matter and often closed and de-listed posts on the forums. To this day there are still inventories of pre-crafted, duped bombs and mats.
The argument being that of course the spreading of information on how to exploit shouldn’t be allowed and anyone posting videos on how to do it should be damned. This still didn’t stop the exploiting and the response time was embarrassing to say the least.
Hacking:
Hacking can happen on both Official and Private servers as well as any play mode. However, it is most prominent on Official PVP.
Funcom uses BattleEye as their anti-cheat program however it doesn’t meet the mark. Most games use anti-cheat software as it is an inevitable that players are going to use injection programs to gain an advantage or disrupt play online. What separates Conan Exiles from many other games is that the addressing of cheats is not done fast or well enough.
If reporting a cheater(s) through Zendesk it can take upwards of 3 weeks to receive an automated response (paraphrased) “Hoping the situation has resolved itself” but most often requires a reply. Within 4-6 weeks the ticket is closed. But the damage was done the day it occurred or continues until either the cheater gets hit by BattleEye, loses interest or money.
Most of the actions presented by hacking are: speeding, hitbox pulling and ignoring ownership of locked containers.
Performance:
Official servers are hosted by G-Portal. It has been suggested that the server hosting is not enough to bear the brunt of the max active player count of 40 players at a time along with the loading of bases, graphic intensive items, followers and actions being performed on a server at any given moment.
Reports in the hundreds have come in from players on active servers that the AI does not perform properly and not because of programming issues itself but because of lag. This presents a host of problems such as not seeing an enemy until after it damages or kills you. Not to mention the lag that happens that throws you off of cliffs, into the green wall or lava.
Those 40 players on a maxed out server are not the only factor either. There’s the loading of information for inactive players, their inventories and remaining builds. A leftover build will not decay on its own even if the owner does not return. It can stay on a server indefinitely as long as no other player visits the vicinity.
Funcom has pledged to improve performance many times over, mostly during early access and have recently on consoles. Although not completely addressed, there have been improvements to the overall performance of the game.
Most private server owners who have spoken up have said that G-Portal is a poor service and their servers run better with other service providers.
Players from other regions:
Issues arising from this can happen on both Official and Private servers as well as any play mode. However, they are most prominent on Official PVP.
The way that the game is programmed to facilitate play and mitigate lag both server and client side allows the actions of a player, no matter their location, to “even out”. Maybe I am not explaining it properly but let me give an example:
You’re on an NA PVP Official Server and a player from another continent joins. Sometimes the player will appear to be speeding or really far away, especially during busier times. They have a poor connection. If they hit you, the game will mitigate the action and consider it -true-. Even though it looks like to YOU they are nowhere near and thus you’ve been damaged or killed. On especially laggy servers, you won’t see them at all before you’re dead.
Most visiting players from far away places know this is a thing. It’s called Ping Abuse (with or without a little help).
This has created hostility and accusations of hacking or exploiting. Disgruntled players have come to the forums to request that players from far away countries not be allowed to play other than in their region.
While there is the ping restriction in the server list, it can be bypassed by using Direct Connect. Any server IP can be found with a quick Google search.
In March of 2023 there was an update that removed Direct Connect as a way to connect to servers out of region. Players were using VPN to bypass this change then a hotfix removed the restriction.
While I’d like to think that everyone is happy to play along anyone from any region, the reality is that online play does not allow for proper mitigation of ping issues due to proximity to a server.
Official vs. Private:
Private servers are an amazing option that offer a different experience to the player base. Admins can alter the settings, install mods, monitor their players in real time and choose how they want the world of Conan Exiles to be.
However, most players that opt for Official servers choose to do so for the following:
- server will disappear without warning
- admin abuse
- favouritism
- constant changing of rules
- server modification that affects performance
- changes to the base game that go well beyond expectations
- monetization for loot, protection or perks
- overbearing control over the actions of players
- risks of player information being leaked (this has happened)
Additionally, while not a requirement most games including survival types have official servers because it is an expectation of gamers. Most big titles run on official servers or only allow it and it comes with the added expectation of proper oversight.
Bugs:
Whether it’s the Nemedian foundation catastrophe, performance problems, removal of transfers and lack of communication on if it is or is not coming back, AI pathing issues, dying while logged out despite taking all precautions, hiccups with sorcery problems like summoning corpse, thralls dying for no reason, disappearing transportory stones, or what have you.
Some might look slightly different in the coding but they remain or resurface. Some take the wind completely out of the sails of a dedicated player or clan.
If anything the most consistent thing with the game is bugs. It is a huge, complicated, intricate game with so many different services and factors that I do not envy the programmers. But it can have a huge impact on the playthrough of any person.
Communication:
As I’ve mentioned many times, Funcom jumped in with quite the bang for communicating with us. The blog posts, participation in the forums and elsewhere, the down to earth conversations and listening to us.
But it feels like it’s all but gone. We’re lucky if we get an update once a month. The communication from moderators on the forum tend to be copy and paste responses. Zendesk itself is a mess with lack of action and automated responses. Social media is more frequent but is clearly pre-prepped posts on a schedule and tone-deaf. Comments from the community are complaints.
There have been calls over the past year especially for us to see more of the company doing it’s best to be a part of the community instead of just popping in every once in awhile to announce something after it came to an overwhelming head.
It has been theorized that the game is maintenance mode and I’m sad to think about what that entails.
So I have to ask myself with all subjects presented in addition to the original question posed:
Why change the decay timers?
Why have a ToC?
Plus, a department dedicated to receipt of reports and enforcement of ToC?
Why halt decay timers on official Siptah servers?
Why provide compensation for mistakes?
…if Official Servers are not important?
Shouldn’t they have more oversight?
What needs to happen?
What would bring players back?
I definitely didn’t cover everything and I have my own ideas but let’s hear it.
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