Please for all that is Holy or Unholy change Hardened Brick

Conan Exiles General Discussion Feedback
21

Sigh. It’s really hard to discuss things with people who don’t actually attempt to understand the other side, or read carefully.

I pretty clearly and repeatedly mention 15 minutes of active time, and said several times you should be finding something else to work in during the hands off cooking time. Nobody said the hardened Becks are done in 15 minutes. It’s 15 minutes of work, not 15 minutes start to finish.

To clarify, I play on official pvp 3800, feel free to stop by my bases.

You keep talking about diminishing returns, but I don’t buy it. The best I can tell is that you spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to cram every last drop out of each furnace, so not using the full furnace is wasteful. I’d say the whole root of your problem might be that, which is why you keep talking about dividing the stone up and loading the smelters as though that’s an actual task. It’s a negligible task if you’re just sticking the same stacks in that matches evenly with what you returned with.

The only way there’s diminishing returns is if this loading process takes a long time, which seems to be the case for you. If loading is quick and simple then the active time constraint is the harvesting of the stone. Harvesting twice as much stone takes twice as much time, that’s not diminishing. I like doing batches of 2000 because it satisfies my OCD, and my local area has about 20k stone worth of boulders. Want more? Build more furnaces and make more trips, though I would say there are actually diminishing returns if you’re extending your travel time for boulders. Likewise if you’re in such a rush, build double furnaces and put half as much stone in each, it’ll finish twice as fast.

The only other thing I can suggest, beside streamlining your loading process, is to add making batches as a general part of your play routine regardless of what you’re building. You seem panicked to finish your bricks now, but I don’t experience that kind of rush. When I log on I start a batch of stone, which takes about 15 minutes. Then I go about my business, getting thralls, prepping steel, whatever. When I notice that my furnaces have turned off I do another 15 minutes to get them going again. I do this regularly, so I constantly have a stash of 5k-20k hardened bricks in storage, depending on how recently I built something. The biggest problem is the storage, which I mentioned earlier.

In the end the burn time is completely irrelevant to my process. I get 2000 bricks for ever ~15 minutes I spend actually working on bricks.

Other aspects of hardened brick that are a problem for others but don’t apply to my situation:

-Official PvE servers double the harvesting time for stone, which is the main active time sink. That’s rough. I don’t think I’d build bricks in a PvE server.

-Large clans build bigger bases and go through more resources. That results in strip mining areas and still not having enough stone, requiring stone factories in multiple areas. I play solo, so the 20-25k stone bear my base is plenty.

22

One last thing before I go to work.

I’m not sure how anybody can say “time management is non-existent” on a pvp server. It’s more important on a pvp server. If you’re in such a frenzy that you don’t even attempt to manage your time, then no wonder you’re having trouble with brick.

In short: if you need brick NOW, that means your steel reinforcements are already finished. If your steel is finished before you’ve started your brick, then you’ve already failed.

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23

Lol read the comments its that HANDS OFF time that everyone is complaining and one of the issues I suggested fixing in my OP. That is the BIGGEST problem and largest time sink. Also you did not even address the issue Hardened brick (Inferior T3) takes several times longer to process than Black-Ice (Superior T4).

secondly its not 15 mins of work becuase at best you only got 2k hardened bricks with that ACTIVE TIME which is only 133 blocks. It takes 20 mins to farm 30k iron ore needed for black-ice and anther 2 mins farming 5000 black-ice for ice and i dont have any more mining ACTIVE TIME. with hardened brick you have to do this ANOTHER 8 TIMES ACTIVELY to = Black-ice just in mining time.

Nothing you stated helps the fact it takes several times longer to make T3 over T4 to which the money out of my pocket DLC T3 materials are fundamentally a waste of time. So why buy it. Please use numbers to dispute this.

Lastly Economics teaches us that anything not in full use is a loss. There is a limit to how much a Single player can load unload and process, thus eventually Dimishing Returns. Economics 101. The second diminshing return is the making extra furnaces and not fully utilizing them which wastes Mats and the time getting more thralls. You say you play on a PVP server so your thralls get taken when raided. The DEVs themselves talked about how we should not have so many furnaces so what is the solution then?

24

Do you even play this game? What is a T4 building? Black ice and reinforced stone pieces are the same, they’re both T3.

25

Economics apparently didn’t teach you anything, you might want to take that class again.

At any rate, I don’t have any problem cranking out reinforced stone bases. You do. I tried to figure out where your problem was, and give you advice. You clearly don’t want it. So… enjoy your ugly black ice? Or whine some more. I’m good either way, swimming in hardened brick.

26

Does that even matter? you are still not addressing the issue. I guess Video proof is what you need to clear your logic. Try to argue that.

27

I might enjoy a video of you staring at your smelters for 10 minutes trying to figure out how to load them. :slight_smile:

28

Something both of you may need to clarify is if your server has a multiplier. If one of you gets 2x the resources from a single node and the other only gets 1x you’re comparisons will be off.

29

I assume we both play in PVP as he stated he did as do I so 2x which also doesnt help the Hardened Brick cuase any.

Honestly it just doesnt matter. I will not reply back to him anymore making a comparison video is beyond redundant as EVERY other poster stated it takes SIGNIFICANTLY more time and is EASIER to produce Black-Ice. He might be a troll becuase he did not understand the point of my OP either.

which was a suggestion to change Hardened Brick becuase the DLC we pay for which is Hardened Brick takes SIGNIFICANTLY longer START to FINISH time than Black-Ice. Even I started going off-topic there for a second. The troll is strong with this one.

Again my Suggestions are:

  1. Reduce brick costs in half
  2. Make brick hand crafted
  3. Reduce Hardened Brick Recipes in half
30

I agree about the difference in cost but I think you’re all missing the point. Black Ice should only be able to be used in the north and Reinforced Brick only the Desert they should both either make you hot or cold but until Funcom fix the temp system you will continue to see Black ice buildings in the desert.

31

The point is in using black ice you can build a much larger base in half the time, while using hardened bricks you spend half your day waiting for them to finish… While you are patiently waiting for bricks to finish they have already built the entire base. Which you will also need those furnace’s for your steel too which increases the number of things you need to build before you can even start production.
Hardened bricks is much more time consuming than black ice in every single way. Then add in that it takes 3 times as many bricks per foundation.

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33

How are you carying 20k stone at once? I may not have maxed my encumbrance, but i have a 31 encumbrance plus 7 from my flawless light armor for 39 encumbrance, and can only carry around 2.5k stone before encumbered.

Also how long does it take you to get 20k stone? Are you on a 1x server I have 4 furnaces and I cant keep them fully stocked with stone having to go further and further out each time until the stone respawns.

Yes once you load it in the furnace it is just a waiting game, but it is a long waiting game compared to building black ice. I can go out and farm everything i need for a large set of black ice blocks before my first 400 hardened brick is done cooking in those 4 furnaces. Short of the steel reinforcement which is the same for both.

Even looking at the recopies you can see black ice requires 5 black ice, 4 insulated wood and 3 steel reinforcements. The stone requires 15 hardened bricks. 4 shaped wood and 3 steel reinforcements. Black ice is much easier to get and faster to get then hardened bricks and it requires 1/3rd of the amount. even with insulated wood needing oil its still 10 times easier, oils is easy to get with a couple fish traps.

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34

If you take encumberance to 50, you can move at full speed while over encumbered. It’s a game changer for harvesting. While you’re at it, take survival to 20 for increased harvesting speed, that will help you get the bulk stone in a more reasonable time.

I use an upgraded acheronian pick, and carry a few master weapon repair kits with me. Building your stone factory (I really do recommend 10 furnaces) in an area with a lot of stone is important, some locations just aren’t good for it. In my area there’s about 25k stone worth nearby. Other places may have more.

I play on official pvp, so there’s x2 harvesting. PvE servers would double the stone harvesting time, which I maintain is the only significant drawback to stone, so I don’t think I would stomach it in a PvE server. Between my location, my tools, my server, and my harvesting build, it takes about 15 minutes to do 20k stone. I actually do it in two runs of 10k, but 20k is possible. You do have a maximum number of inventory slots, so even with the perk your capacity isn’t unlimited.

I want to say again that I do agree in general, black ice is easier. The biggest thing I really wanted to help people understand in this thread though was that the main complaint, the burn time, can be largely negated by reorganizing your time management. And by building more smelters of course.

You can’t decide one day “I want to build something out of brick” and expect to have it ready in a flash from scratch. If you like building in brick, you need to have a brick factory running in your background all the time. If you do, then the burn time is irrelevant, because you’re using yesterdays bricks and burning tomorrows.

Ironically, I was raided today while I was at work. The raiders blew up my other wall, and got through three layers of doors toward the inner area before giving up. My base walls are thick, since I play solo the only way to protect my bases is to make them more of a pain to raid than they’re worth. Anyway, this base was entirely made of reinforced stone. Did I have to wait for bricks to cook to replace the walls and repair the damage? No, I’m got over 10k hardened bricks (and steel and wood) spread among 4 vaults in 4 different bases. My base was fully repaired in moments.

I haven’t delayed a project waiting for bricks to burn since my very first base, where I cursed hardened brick as much as everybody else. Instead of obsessing over the obviously imbalanced numbers and relegating brick to absurdity, I adapted my play style. The result is that the only difference for me between building in brick and building in black ice, is that for brick I have to spend 15 minutes for every 2k bricks, and in black ice I have to make desert runs hacking at dead treees for dry wood, or northern trees for wood, resin, and bark to dry.

It works. Is black ice easier? Yes. Are brick costs absurd? No.

(Apologies for typos, my iPhone typing skills are weak)

35

Simple you just use “evasive roll” no I’m not kidding you just roll slowly back to the furnace because if you put on a light armor you get the full roll, and if you roll just enough stamina before it reach 0 then stop let it recover back to full, then roll again.

I do for it a whole weeks that why I know and let face it hardened brick build is too expensive.

36

Thanks that perk will help, though 20k will still not be possible with my base location. There are a lot of rocks around but I would guess around 10k total stone. Being PVE-C I dont get a 2x bonus.

Still should not have to adapt everything to use a particular building material when an equivalent material is much easier and faster to use. They need to adjust to make the their 3 building materials equal in speed of construction and amount of materials as well as defense. Then they can fix the heat/cold thing where black ice wont work in the hot areas and the stone not in the cold areas without causing a riot because of the material and time difference

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37

Don’t cheapen the harden brick so it’s like sandstone , increase cost of black ice so its more in line …

38

Personally I don’t need to see everything be exactly equal, but that’s a matter of personal preference. I like that different styles have different methods, and advantages and disadvantages.

I imagine the dev thinking on black ice was that it’s locked behind a specific region, which, on pvp servers at least, allows for conflict and territory wars to control the resource. In practice though nobody wants to live in that area, so nobody bothers trying to monopolize it. Even on pvp servers everybody shares a map room right by the obelisk. Boom, valuable ‘conflict’ resource for everyone.

Reinforced stone is available everywhere, for a little more work, and more forthought.

I’d also much prefer the cost of black ice increased. Adding oil was a terrible way to do it, costing real builders nothing, and only messing up t2 recipes for low levels. T2 is the problem. I don’t even know what insulated wood buildings look like. Nobody builds T2, except maybe one small stone brick base while leveling. Increasing the cost of black ice might make T2 more attractive, but honestly I’d say crank the cost way up, and even increase the reinforced brick cost, and increase the defensive stats a bit. Widen the gap between T2 and T3, to make it a real choice.

Of course I made another thread wishing for T4, walls made of star metal and alchemical base…

39

When your argument that reinforced stone buildings are reasonably balanced relies on examples assuming you’ve respec’d to a full gathering build (on a x2 harvest PvP server, no less) and maintain a bank of 10 smelters, you do not have a reasonable argument. I also must say that handwaving away the time and energy needed to prep consolident and oil in your “15 minutes plus some waiting time” example - or the vague handwave that it’s trivial to find a location with 20k worth of stone nodes with no meaningful walking distance - makes it seem rather… telling when you describe transferring stone to smelters as a 30s task, and mock someone for suggesting it would take longer.

Reinforced stone - and hence DLC material - is enormously expensive compared to black ice. All your toy examples of how trivial and easy it is to pull together thousands of hardened bricks don’t even touch on black ice - a completely unrefined resource - only being used in 1/3 the quantity of reinforced bricks. Speaking of black ice as being regionally locked and thus potentially (but not practically, ofc) scarce might potentially justify the higher quantity OR the far-more-demanding processing requirements. It’s rather hard to take seriously a claim it justifies both barriers to production.

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40

Those tasks are trivial. Much more trivial than the insulated wood that all of you “handwave” away.

Timed it tonight, it took me exactly 16 minutes from walking out my door to turning on the last smelter.

Consolidant? Really? Harvesting black ice is trivial, I’m not complaining about people saying it takes them 10 minutes to load their furnaces but only 2-3 minutes to harvest black ice. Do they live right in the obelisk? But the details don’t matter because after a little work, they come back with enough ice to last a long time, as much as they feel like storing. Consolidant is the same. The work involved in making it isn’t instant, that’s true, but you can make enough to last a long time after only a little work.

Look, if you’re dead set that reinforced stone is evil, then suit yourself, and continue beating that dead horse trying to get them to change it. Some people out there might want build with it, and I’m trying to show them how they can reorganize themselves to do so now, under the current build that we’re likely stuck with. I would like to see other people building out of more than just black ice.

They already adjusted black ice. I don’t see them revisiting it again soon, considering everything else that needs visiting. Adapt your playstyle to build stone, or don’t.

41

Dry wood is 2x1 from wood plus a resin. Even with a T4 carp, 5 wood per shaped wood is non-trivial but you don’t even deign to mention it even as you harp on about the horrors of insulated wood.

I also note that you’re careful to not address the most glaring problems with your putative justification, that of respec’ing and running on a 2x resource (though ofc the respec is not PvP friendly) and maintaining 10 furnaces (with T4 smelters, I assume?).

You’re not being reasonable. I get that you like black ice and want to keep it cheap and easy to build. That does not in any way make it balanced.

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