Private server lessons. {thanks neebs}

Conan Exiles General Discussion
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Been playing on the neebs family Conan server for a couple weeks now. Yes it’s a bit moddy for my taste, but I actually get to chat with the modders so fun trade off.

Things I have learned is, ALL the issues I chalked up to a crowded server on testlive, and a crowded, over built server on live, are still on a private server with a limit of 10 players, that is practically empty.
Been 3 days since a restart and the server is acting like there is 20-30 people on. With 15-20 megabases.

I’m going to ask admin about a restart, see if it can be autoed. But as it stands the game is as unplayable as it was on the live server with down town bedrock stretched from the west border to the east jungle, and 30 people on.

As far as the bazaar, I was hoping funcom would readjust the pricing. Doesn’t look like it is going to happen, so I’ll sum up my opinion in one sentence. If funcom doesn’t cut prices by half, I will never shop the bazaar. Simple as that. And I don’t mean putting some items on sale for 50% off. And before you say it, ya, I will probably never shop there.

So far every spawn blocking, path obliterating, tetris base I have reported is still on the official, and I get the typical blow off Email “sorry, been busy, hope issue has solved it’s self, byeeee”. I could report this one a 4th time but 0 point, so… Every time I go to check to see if the issue has “solved it’s self” the place is covering more area and gotten stacks taller. I have learned funcom admin does a rather lackadaisical job running their servers. So if you are having issues with players or builds on the server you are on, find a way to deal with it or hope it solve it’s self, you’re pretty much on your own. “Official server. Play at own risk” is not how you run a server.

I have said it before so you know damn good and well I’ll say it again, the official servers should be a shining example of how a Conan server is run, not the best example of server admin neglect. And regardless of what servers the official game are on funcom made that decision. And before you say it, I’m sure you can think a of a list of games that would have been dead and burred long ago if the developers didn’t host game servers.

When 3.0 hit testlive I was on it 10+ hours a day; when possible. When it went live, same. Dealt with bugs and still bugs, days I couldn’t log in because server ping was too high, l a g, stststststuter, rubbbbbbberbanding. I played through it. eh battle pass, sadly disappointing bazaar, I played through. Borked majic system, I played through. Avalanches leveled my base in my 4th bugged out purge. Done.

I play at Conan now. On the official server enough to keep my place from decomposing. Playing around with the whimsical mods on the neebs server. 3 maybe 4 hour in a day, if at all. It’s like the bad child, I want to love Conan but funcom makes it so hard.

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Good reporting.

G-Portal is our second hoast, and if we’ve stuck with them through everything to now, I’m not sure there’d be incentive to move. HOWEVER, we know that with enough coin, we can rent a practically dedicated Conan Hoast at GP, that can run at a higher tick rate, with dedicated physical RAM and all the trimmings.

I believe Funcom will be disinclined to up the quality of their “starter” servers. These, in a top-down marketing model, are “upgrade assets” that then funnel people into the bucket of Server Admin.

What I would instead propose is Premium Servers, let’s call them Survivor Series - some no-wipe, lots of wipe, lots of Siptah. You subscribe to them every month, and gain access to all kinds of neat goodies. I would do this instantly, to earn special benefits, like unlimited transfers, a custom email address, access to the Exiles Portal and Chat, and much more …

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All Conan servers need to be restarted every 3-4 days. This has been true since 2017. I even assume this is true of Singleplayer. But I’ve never tried testing it for 72-96 hours.

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I’m going to be honest. People who think it’s their job to “save the server” by reporting all the builds they think are TOS violations really irritate me.

Go play single player.

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Funny, I have the same advice for people who think it’s their right to build so much that the server is shіtting its bed constantly. Go play single player.

If you’re not playing single player, you’re sharing the server. So share it responsibly or go play in your own special little sandbox, set aside just for you.

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Did I say that nothing that should be reported had ever been built?

No.

I played on the server Deacon played on. There was literally no base I ever saw that broke the TOS. Being ugly and inconvenient is not in violation of the TOS.

Straight up abuse of reporting is entirely different than fostering a shared space for players to enjoy. And based on his various posts here and in game conversations, he is very much abusing the ability to report other players bases.

From what I understood he also said he was wrong about the megabases affecting the server so much.

If you’re still sitting here thinking megabases and endless thralls tank server performance, you’re just continuing to lie to yourself. But we’ve been over this a dozen times and we don’t need to do it again.

Bottom line, entire point of my post, stop abusing the report feature.

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Problem is, you don’t know what breaks the TOS. I don’t know, you don’t know, nobody outside Funcom really knows.

I haven’t been banned yet, but even I don’t know if it’s because none of my bases ever broke the TOS, or because nobody reported me. People who have been reported and asked for more information – many don’t even know how to ask – never got anything useful enough to say “oh, okay, now I know what not to do again”.

So what you’re really saying is that there was no base you ever saw that you thought was breaking the TOS.

“Abuse of reporting” means that Funcom is not doing a good job enforcing the rules, in addition to not doing a good job of communicating about them. If the rules were applied consistently enough, the “abuse of reporting” would be negligible.

No, he simply compared apples to oranges. It should be no surprise that a modded server that hasn’t been restarted for 3 days runs badly. Does it surprise you to know that there’s more than one reason a server could have performance problems?

And if you’re still sitting there thinking that bases and thralls can’t tank server performance, you’re just talking about stuff you don’t know anything about.

The only possible abuse of the report feature is when you report a base even though you yourself believe that it does not break the TOS. That’s abuse. Everything else is either Funcom’s failure to communicate properly about a legitimate infraction, or Funcom’s failure to enforce their rules properly.

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Classic CodeMage post where he over explains everything until he convinces himself he’s right.

I’ve stated my piece. If you’re cool with his behavior, invite him to your server.

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You did say this and remember, completely agree. For many new to the game, especially those that don’t have friends that encouraged them to come play on a private, this is their very first look at what Conan has to offer.

However, it is sort of ironic that you’re focused on your efforts with reporting yet how many posts have we seen where people have been complaining that on their first view of the game, they get unceremoniously suspended with little to no information?

Advise first based on ToC to the best of your knowledge and take action only if necessary.

Interesting information from @Tuffman, gives a lot of flavour to the story here. But @CodeMage is correct, we really honestly, truly don’t know what the ToC means in full and Funcom has admitted their rules are lacking in clarity, which they’re working on, right on this forum.

If all you’re doing is refreshing then you’re not helping the situation. You’d just be a serial refresher and taking up space that someone else could benefit from.

It’s not that hard to restart man.

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@Kikigirl I can agree the rules aren’t clear enough to fully claim outright abuse of the reporting system. It’s a fair point made by CodeMage. I personally think they shouldn’t be deleting anything that isn’t meant to outright harass or impede other players, until there are clear guidelines. If we want to go full lawyer on the issue, the counterclaim can be made for abuse of the system based on the fact that it isn’t fully clear what is in violation of the structure TOS. Therefore, reports on non-malicious structures are abuse by default. If you aren’t clear on what the restrictions are, how can you claim they’ve been broken?

But deacon has made it clear he’s reported these structures and he EXPECTS them to be deleted simply because he said so. It’s a poor attitude in a sandbox game, so like I said, invite him to your server folks.

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Very much agree with you.

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I know they’re not clear. You know they’re not clear. @Kikigirl knows they’re not clear. Doesn’t mean everyone is as doubtful of their knowledge as we are.

Also, even thought I’m not 100% clear, I will still report when I’m reasonably sure the rules have been broken according to my interpretation. Funcom should be able to determine if my interpretation was wrong and simply decide not to act.

In all this time, I’ve only reported one build, ever. It was a build that was on top of the armorer spawn at the Oasis of Nekhet, and I reported it because that’s one of the spots that have a chance to spawn a temperwright. I didn’t report it as soon as I saw it, though. I waited for a couple of days to see if the owner would log in. They did, I told them about the spawn, and they shrugged it off.

I provided all the necessary information in my report and explained that I was reporting it because of the armorer spawn. Within 48 hours of my report, the build was gone.

Take from that whatever lesson you will, but my point is that even when you’re not completely certain about the full extent of the rules and all their details, you can still have a legitimate reason to file a report, and it’s up to Funcom to do the right thing.

Maybe in some other thread that I haven’t paid attention to, but not here. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I just don’t see that here.

What he did say here is that he expects the reports to be actually reviewed by an admin, instead of auto-closed:

Here’s what it looks like when an admin reviews a report:

This could mean they either handed out a wipe and/or a ban, or they decided the report didn’t have any merit. But it does mean they at least reviewed the report, as opposed to letting Zendesk auto-close it after a time.

A lot of people have complained about auto-closing of reports. This is nothing new. I don’t know if my report got processed because I supplied enough information (apparently not everyone bothers to do that), or because I filed it when they weren’t all swamped, or because I was lucky, or some combination of the above. But what I do know is that I would’ve been very discouraged to receive an auto-close reply.

I’d love to, but I haven’t built a proper base there yet. I used to have one on 1823 – along with a standing invitation to report me – but then I left it because it was way too overbuilt for my tastes. Now I’m on 1822, but I don’t have anything more than a crappy little sandstone shack, so it’s not like he could report me.

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I think this is the best attitude to have. I do the same. Explain, give them time to understand, argue (because most do), link the ToC, etc.,…

The difference with being on PVP server is that you can also eliminate the offending structure. I’ve done that plenty. I advise and then ask them to remove it. Then raid it if they don’t. Sort of vigilante justice to a degree but you really don’t need a reason to raid but I like justification for my actions lol

I’ve also only ever reported 1 build and it was MASSIVE with a huge amount of placeables that caused the entire server to “shit the bed” as many like to say. It’s funny because I didn’t even ask for them to remove the whole damn thing, even though they should have reduced by about 90% (like I said MASSIVE), just the parts with long spidery foundations and blocking of spawns…

My reports have mostly been around exploits such as undermeshing and hacks.

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I in now way think it is my job “save the server”. And I also do not THINK they violate the TOS, they do. Or I wouldn’t waste my time reporting them. It is a bit more the checking a box.

Agree.

So you didn’t read in the TOS not to block boss spawns? The one I keep referring to is blocking a boss spawn, so you still want to stick to that story? And I bet if I really looked I’d find a few more.

Please tell me how?

Now you’re just reaching, trying to grasp something that isn’t there.

Stop jumping to false conclusion you so desperately want to be true.

He’s full of … his own unsubstantiated bias opinion.

THIS

One I had threatened to report in chat, fixed it the next day so didn’t report.

Dude get over what ever hatred you have for me. I have reported all of 3 structures, gripped in chat about 7 times. Only reported the for sure TOS violation 3 times. Still waiting for 2 more blow off Emails.
Just how much actual trouble have I caused on the server? Any? Yet you’re carrying on like I eat babies or kitted a dragon in to your base or something. Or could it be this is your base and you know it?

was busy just got to this :smiling_face:

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If I was playing on a server and it dropped below a 30 server tick, you better believe I’m going to start reporting every over sized build I see to the admins. That’s affecting my ability to play and that isn’t right.

That’s your opinion. Only the server admins’ opinion in this case matters. If someone gets actioned, its because the one running the server doesn’t want them building like that on their server. This goes for all servers.

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Just take steps to keep your nose clean and bases cleaned up. Or face the consequences. You’re not given any other choice. Otherwise, “go play singleplayer,” as you stated maybe a decision made for you. This is just how its going to be.

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You should probably check your internet connection before you look to ban someone for slowing the server down. The point that i am making is a bad connection or old hardware does make the game run really bad. And although this may not have been the case here, it could be for others.

Also not everyone takes the decent approach seen above when considering a ban. Some players seem to see a bigger or better base than theirs and report it because they can’t be bothered to put in the time and effort to get a similar base. I have even seen lazy people complain because they have to walk around someone’s base, not sure what they do in the real world. And unfortunately report abuse has been used as part of pvp gameplay for a while now. So i can see @Tuffman’s point. But blocking off spawn spots should be a ban or warning.

Also the whole ban process has taken away the huge bases. And as a pvp’er (or as i think @Raskhaul was implying elsewhere a youtube warrior :grin:) i miss defending and raiding these challenges.

I agree @DeaconElie unless the Bazaar prices are adjusted i too will be out on that one.

example of server admin neglect.

I don’t think we can expect too much here as i don’t think server admins were in their budget. Adding dedicated admins would probably push up pricing elsewhere and not everyone would want that.

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Using ToggleDebugHUD in the console shows how good or badly your server is running. If you do this after a restart and it drops below 20FPS then you will see issues related to server load. When it goes below 10 you start seeing major issues but somewhat playable. Under 5 is regarded as unplayable.

For servers capped at 30FPS (like G-portal hosted servers, not the only the ones), you want this to be 25-30FPS


The Ping shown is the issue you listed. But sometimes ping can be caused by server issues as well. Also to my knowledge the servers in question have a ping limited to 200. I assume the OP and others in this thread are behaving themselves and not bypassing this to play in regions outside their own. So connection quality to the server shouldn’t be a factor here.

If the server FPS is below 20 on your server after a restart. You should report pretty much every large structure that has unused space and let the admins sort it out. Someone’s overbuilding isn’t worth other players’ quality of play.

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I think as players we should maybe try to see other players as investors. The less investors here the less the game evolves as less money is invested. So ideally we want as many investors/players here as possible. Maybe bans help maybe they don’t.

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Maybe we should just see other players as players. :laughing:

Seriously, how did we get to this point where we have these borderline delusions of grandeur? We’re not “investors”, and Funcom doesn’t “work for us”, or any of that stuff people come up with to convince themselves we have more influence than we really do.

Here’s an analogy: anyone who owns a home around a public park pays for that park’s maintenance through their property taxes, but that doesn’t make them an “investor” or a “shareholder” of that park, and if they take a massive dump in the middle of it, their turd is ruining the park for everyone else and they still have to be held accountable for their behavior.

Should you be banned from the park? Maybe, maybe not. But paying more in taxes than someone else doesn’t absolve you from your responsibility.

And that’s the harsh truth when it comes to official servers: they’re like public parks and no one should get preferential treatment.

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Sound strange. I run my own dedicated server, just for myself and my friend. First of all I’ve set up auto daily restarts for my server, late at night when it’s empty. It’s a small hoster with a very simple panel but even this panel allow such planning. Daily restarts are vital to get rid of various little bugs happening now and then.

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