POLL: Should Funcom make seasonal adjustments to the decay timer settings?

Cauthey · 2024-12-19T00:52:30.509Z

Exiles!

As has happened in previous holiday seasons, Funcom is once again planning to make adjustments to the official servers’ game configuration in order to increase the decay timers. They have selected their arbitrary date range, and have notified us here.

Frequently, these decay timer adjustments are performed in a manner that usually causes havoc for official server players. Just about every holiday season, there is significant fallout where players lose their assets and thralls on official servers.

Which would you prefer? Do you appreciate the double decay timers? Or - does the adjusting of the settings usually adversely effect your play and your official server assets?

Which solution would you prefer for the handling of decay timers on official servers?

Please PROCEED with your official server decay timer update. The doubled decay timer is appreciated!
Please DO NOT INTERFERE with the decay timer settings on official servers. Adjusting the decay timers always causes issues and asset loss.

0 voters

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Thank you, Exiles, for sharing your thoughts in the poll above and in this thread. Whatever your vote, and whatever Funcom does - I wish everyone a Happy Holiday Season!

Oduda · 2024-12-19T00:59:15.043Z

I do not play on officials so it does not impact me. But in all honesty, people have not been able to log in for OVER A MONTH AND HAVE HAD ZERO DECAY TIMER INCREASE but you know…holidays, so here have a 2x rate of decay. Seems kind of… insulting to those players.

Kikigirl · 2024-12-19T01:03:13.781Z

It is a nicety that a portion of the Official playerbase does appreciate but there are several ways to refresh a base even if the normal platform is inaccessible.

Redhotmonkybutt · 2024-12-19T03:04:13.203Z

I don’t play on officials, but how does increasing the decay timers adversely affect players?

I am genuinely curious.

Thank you and Happy Holidays!

LordPaul · 2024-12-19T03:13:31.691Z

I would say yes - but no changes should be made on a Friday (or a weekend).

Do the change on a Monday so there are people around incase something unforseen happens. And have a plan to immediately roll back any changes if things go wrong

erjoh · 2024-12-19T03:22:32.708Z

If memory serves me right, I believe the majority of issues happen when they switch back…like they get interns to switch it back of something.

I have no stake in this vote even though I play exclusively on officials. I have no attachments to the stuff and tend to switch servers on weird whims. The only thing that bugs me is when they rollback and destroy half a week’s progress

Cauthey · 2024-12-19T03:25:32.412Z

Redhotmonkybutt:

I don’t play on officials, but how does increasing the decay timers adversely affect players?

Someone else might be able to explain the actual technicalities of how the changes cause unintended decay. This is what I know of it:

Normally the max decay on officials is 240 hours (10 days). When they adjust the setting, depending on how many hours have already elapsed, it could put anyone between 240 hours and 480 hours. What is most likely to cause problems is when the 480 hours is dialed back down to 240. If 255 of the 480 hours have elapsed, and then they return to the 240 hour setting… things go poof.

It happens absolutely every holiday season. There is often a very large outcry about it. But each holiday season they come back and repeat the same process again. And again. And again. And people lose things. And then they feel as though their 1000s of hours put into the game have left them with absolutely nothing.

Cauthey · 2024-12-19T03:43:00.910Z

Redhotmonkybutt:

adversely affect players

A few examples below. Like I mention - this happens EVERY TIME they mess around with the decay timers. You cannot be certain all of your stuff isn’t going to be wiped unless you are tuning in to your assets EVERY DAY when they change the decay timers.

Lost everything! PC Bug Reports

I lost everything at my main camp on PC server 1521! I logged in and played on 9/2 and then logged in last night (9/9) and everything gone! Building and everything in it! All my materials, crafting stations, boxes full of stuff. I have proof of the date I logged in last week cause I streamed it! Video is still on my twitch channel

Bugged decaytimer ?!? PC Bug Reports

Basic Info: Platform: Steam Issue Type: Gameplay Game Mode: Online Official Server Type: PvE Map: Exiled Lands Server Name: #1007 Mods: =MODS= Bug Description: My whole base is gone and all my thralls aswell and its not due to decay because i logged in yesterday Bug Reproduction: just logged in

(URGENT BUG .GAME BREAKING) SIptah: all of our followers in official server 6157 , decayed PC Bug Reports

it happened on official server 6157 (so there is no MODS) all of our thralls, pets, and mounts they all decayed… [image] we refreshed on the 8 one day before this. it all happen after server restart on the 9th of january… so all the thralls, we had with their equip[ment and everything in their inventory is gone… … and it seems that this crap is happening only on siptah… @den is funcom planning to abandon this map? if so, please allow server transfer so we can move to EL. all the build…

Lost base on a server General Discussion

Hello. My steam account’s name is ***** and i am a fellow player of conan the exiles. I was playing on a server pve conflict server and i had a big base in that server. I put lots of hours to build that base and it has been decayed. I know it will take 2 weeks but my base took shorter for some reason. I know that because i log in to the server every 2 weeks in a row. the server is Official server #1042 PvE Conflict - g-portal. com. I was wondering if i could not get my base back. Atleast can i g…

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I found these threads half-heartedly, and not searching very hard.

Rust · 2024-12-19T08:07:05.412Z

Other than the possibility Funcom touches the wrong button; render your stuff the day before the changes are reverted.

If you can’t do it the immediate day before try the day before that and so on.

Obviously my experience is not going to be everyone else’s but I’ve never lost things after a change. (Minus the Nemedian debacle, but that was the game shooting itself in the foot.)

Redhotmonkybutt · 2024-12-19T13:26:28.858Z

Well that’s just terrible!

I understand now and I certainly understand the outcry.

Question is now, why don’t they just disable decay altogether for said time period instead of increasing the timer?.

Seems it would accomplish the same thing and then just set a date for when decay gets turned back on and everything starts at day zero all over again.

No more poofing and no one complaining that they cannot log in during the holidays.

Or, is that also a bad idea for some reason?

Taemien · 2024-12-19T13:57:28.125Z

Redhotmonkybutt:

Question is now, why don’t they just disable decay altogether for said time period instead of increasing the timer?.

Why not, indeed.

I haven’t tested if this bug was fixed or not, but having seen this done in real time caused a spectacular catastrophe across a server. When loading in, you could see from one end of the map to the other, what looked like an invisible wave sweep through and destroy every building.

What had happened is the decay was turned off, and when turned back on, the game felt that every building on the server was due for collapse because the timers were never reset (apparently when turned off you cannot refresh and the timers still go).

Admittedly this was a bug that could have been fixed in the several years since I’ve seen it. One I’ve never been really willing to test on a live server with tons of buildings on it. But the fix at the time for us was to turn decay back off, reload a backup, and never turn it back on.

I’m certain the bug has been fixed though, I’m sure servers have turned decay on and off since with no issue. Or maybe not, would be an interesting experiment.

stelagel · 2024-12-19T22:08:01.503Z

Redhotmonkybutt:

I don’t play on officials, but how does increasing the decay timers adversely affect players?

Side effects individually, not generally.
But these side effects can easily be done from each update whatsoever.
I play on official servers from 2019 and hopefully never got any side effect from extended decay timers. It’s good from my point of view that these timers are extended on holidays, even regular players have to stay afk some days, or even a couple weeks too, especially these days.

Generally it’s only good to extend decay timers on holidays.

Redhotmonkybutt:

I am genuinely curious.

You do very well my friend, in these cases, curiosity does not kill any cat .

Redhotmonkybutt:

Thank you and Happy Holidays!

Thank you too and wishes for wonderful holidays fellow exile .

Redhotmonkybutt · 2024-12-20T14:07:33.174Z

So many excellent responses to my question, I thank you all!

After considering what you have all taught me here, why not just extend decay timers once and for all and leave it be?

On officials, would an extra week decay delay be all that terrible?

Thanks again!

Kikigirl · 2024-12-20T14:57:23.648Z

Very hotly debated in the past

So the issue of course is that Officials can partly be a “hotel”. There’s no vetting so anyone can join, put up a shack and never log in again.

The more the decay timers are extended, the longer those little shacks, sometimes big ones, stay, the longer newer or existing players have to wait for it to clear.

With performance and no active moderation, it exacerbates the situation.

Siptah servers’ decay timers were disabled for quite some time and it showed just how bad it could get. Of course, that is the extreme.

I’m of the opinion that normal decay timer at 7 days was just fine. I do acknowledge that changing it to 10 wasn’t that huge of a deal and it does allow for some buffer for the problems with decay altogether.

But 20 days is quite excessive.

stelagel · 2024-12-20T14:58:20.949Z

Redhotmonkybutt:

why not just extend decay timers once and for all and leave it be?

Decay timers affect other building pieces as well, like campfires or bedrolls. If these didn’t decay then probably the whole server would be filled with 7 year old campfires impossible to be used from others.
Then again, some people quit servers, or even the game completely. Without decay timers on 2020 there should be no place to build anything.

Decay timers do a silent but extremely important job for the health of each server.

So no my fellow exile, official servers without decay timers are non functional.

Kikigirl · 2024-12-20T15:02:31.091Z

We’re like twins!

Redhotmonkybutt · 2024-12-20T22:31:29.985Z

I get that definitely. What I’m asking is why not just extend the decay timers once and for all instead of extending it, then reducing it causing havoc across the servers?

stelagel · 2024-12-21T07:21:27.877Z

Redhotmonkybutt:

What I’m asking is why not just extend the decay timers once and for all

Because…

Kikigirl:

20 days is quite excessive.

This
20 days for vacations is overwhelming and covering at the same time the feedback from players they gathered all these years. It’s way more than enough. But ONLY on vacations!!! Because even 10 days in the normal season can easily cover business trips, small injuries that need hospitals, etc, etc…

Redhotmonkybutt:

causing havoc across the servers?

If it was only from this action, i maybe would agree not to touch decay timers, but it’s the quality of the updates they must improve, how careful and professional work they must do. Don’t forget it’s not only Funcom to blame in these updates but gportal too. Their servers are nothing best.

azaroth · 2024-12-21T09:02:01.580Z

In fact we simply never had any problem with decay timer change before 2022 (or may be 21 as i dont recall exactly when was the change done) because in past thrall had a decay timer that was the double of building. in past was 7 days for building and 14 for thralls, and there was a reason why the original team did that. but it was changed around 2022 with the age of …

stelagel · 2024-12-21T10:41:26.569Z

azaroth:

we simply never had any problem with decay timer change before 2022 (

I still don’t , like i explained above these issues are individually, not everyone has them.

azaroth:

past was 7 days for building and 14 for thralls, and there was a reason why the original team did that.

I never disagree to this part, but there’s a reason the original or new team did this change as well and it’s no other reason of our feedback.
Also, last time i checked, @FCStorm and @den are still in the team of Conan exiles . I believe these people, the original team has the first and last word in each change.
Do we need better updates?
Yes please!!!
Is it a little excessive to have 20 days decay on holidays?
Maybe, but some people really need to stay out of anything ordinary and do something different in their life without thinking of Conan decay timers .
I wouldn’t care if i had money to go and visit friends i met here, let everything burn and decay . More reasons to play when i return home .