If you think about PVP, the game is severely tilted to players who can play 10 hours a day. at minimum, 4 of those hours are during non raid time. And once a clan has built up 4 vaults of building high end PVP mats, there is no real cost to raid any and every player who does not have 10 horus a day. thus, you get servers that die. And during this dead time, the 10 hours a day is essentially 2x harvest PVE servers, because there is no on e on them to fight. By making everything have somewhere between 3 days and 7 days decay time, that would mean players could not have hoards of materials and never really feel in danger because 1 loss is nothing to htem. And would also remove the ability to just be a refresher clan, as after 7 days, if the clan has not been on farming, they will be out of mats. This is almost like soft server wipes, but would not punish those that can play and farm as needed, and remove clans that have literally gotten to checking in only on their stashes. It would remove body vaulting being a thing, because stuff would decay off the body before it went “invisible”. So much can be fixed that is cheesed with a simple switch to make everything decay at some pace. And again, this would be for PVP. PVE, ehh, i give up on anything with that style, as it is about building and RP. not my type.
The decay does not have to be overly aggressive, but 3-7 days for different items would definatley help to make new players think “yeah, i have chance to have fun PVPing”, vs "I don’t have 10 hours a day to farm up to fight the other clan for a 10 minute skirmish.
Whaaat, that would only help people that can play a lot of time, what you say is contradictory (and also probably off-topic tbh)
That option would break all the game making it an infinite grind farming, why you should even raid if the things you steal will decay the day after, how do you raid a huge base, when you need to make 2-3k bombs all in a week?
That sounds like a pretty good idea, IMO. It’s self-balancing, but not to the point it removes incentive. There’s still a bias toward those who put in the work.
@Zeropoint: excellent reply. I believe we’re thinking along the same lines, and the difference isn’t so much in opinion as it is in semantics. I do admit that a clearer distinction between “structural unfairness” (which you call “unequal access to opportunity”) and “experience of unfairness”, which is a subjective feeling.
Byt you do raise a good point. “Unfair” as a word has a strong connotation of negativity, of being wrong. “Unequal” has similar problems. Perhaps “asymmetry” would best describe the designed structure that sets an uneven playing field due to the reasons listed. Asymmetry isn’t inherently wrong as a concept, but it may cause people to feel that it’s unfair and thus wrong. You have a good point that these two concepts need to be separated.
One of the core ideas in my essay is that this perceived feeling of “unfair” is the reason for most complaints about PvP. Yes, individual features can, and should, be changed, “balanced”, but the bottom line remains: people need to accept that asymmetry is a feature. The feeling of unfairness comes from not accepting asymmetry.
Thank you for your post, you helped me better conceptualize my idea, as well as come up with better terminology. If I ever decide to publish my thoughts in more scientific media I’ll definitely refine the text based on your comments.
@SigTheTerrible: good ideas, wrong thread. Let’s continue the “micro-level” discussion on more dedicated threads about horses.
I last played this game a few years ago, when it was just released for the public. Then I came back a month or so ago, and I’ve had a blast playing PvE with a friends.
I was very surprised when I read up on the patch logs and changes over the last two years. There seems to have been a lot of focus put to the PvP experience. But as you say, I don’t think a game like this can ever be a competitive PvP experience. I’ve personally played RTS and FPS games competitively, including partaking in amateur tournaments. I also do BJJ and MMA, having competed in the former and looking to eventually competing in the latter. When you play competitively, you will do anything you can to win, including breaking rules if it seems that you wont get caught for it. Competitive gaming is about winning. Plain and simple. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just fooling themselves.
Yes, you can play on a PvE-C server or you can play on a roleplay server that has dedicated raiding hours. But now you’re making up new rules and you need everyone to agree to playing under those rules. It’s fine if you can control the environment, but these kind of things will break up the moment you can’t control the environment - that is, the moment you go on a public server.
I don’t believe that this game can ever be balanced for a true competitive PvP experience. I think they should really just focus more on the PvE and let the PvP be a niche that is meant for closed servers or servers with very specific raid rules and raid hours. I don’t believe that PvP will bring longevity to this game. It’s very easy to abuse and break this game when you play it with the same mindset you have when playing competitive CS:GO or AoE2 or so.
Never said 1 day. Said 3-7. i would say mats closer to the destructive side be 3 days, mats closer to the building side 7 days. And this is for stored materials. the Building would still decay as they do now, 7 days (14 on some holidays). If you are newer clan, in three days you can have a base up and should start using mats to PVP. That is the whole purpose of the server type. To PVP. not show up and hope to never fight.
@Zeropoint expressed really well a part of what I wanted to say, I think this is really important.
I want to add that the more I read the forum the more I understand this post and the reasons behind it, that’s really good
@WhatMightHaveBeen I don’t want to go too much off-topic, i’ll say what I think in short.
PVP servers are not about fighting, PVP servers are about supremacy. If you want to fight, probably you will have more fights in a PVE-C. PVP is about destruction, killing your enemies and become more powerful with their loot, it’s about hoarding riches and make a fame with your name, and then fall when another clan stronger than you rise up. Because if you have riches for 1 year, but you’re not really the strongest, you will lose. The decay on things just destroys everything I said.
Sadly most people do not understand (or do not want to understand) that a game needs a certain balance and therefore can´t be compared to reality at all.
People don´t play a game for long, when they are not able to, at least win a fight once in a while, no matter what they try. Sometimes beeing better in (competitive) games are not enough. You can have the best aim, the best movement, the faster reaction and be smarter then 60% of the rest of the gamers but you will still loose, because the server you play on are trash and/or certain gamemechanics just don´t allow you to win because the company is more interested in earning money from selling skins/dlc then providing a proper game experience.
Nobody says that pvp in a game needs to be always fair. But it needs to be balanced so a positiv game experience can be made for all players equally.
Because you don’t want to work for your victory. But I appreciate a great “car” chase. It brings in so many of the game mechanics and really shows skill sets of players. Melee, bow, horseback, knowledge of the map, knowing how much damage one takes from falling 2 or 3 foundations over a ledge. Stamina managing. Headset comms with teammates using in game aesthetics as markers to identify where you are in the chase. Porting and camping remove a hell of a lot of the time those mechanics get to be showcased.
It’s called thinking ahead … if they raid you and are silly enough to port through to the obbi nearest their base then that’s there fault … hence why I don’t use them after raiding people … would much rather be chased,. been chopped up too many times on them myself …
I agreed with you but they can also be used as a tactic … another reason I don’t know why people moan about been killed on them … if there used right you won’t be killed on them
Sorry, but I feel this is intended more as a snipe at Funcom than participating in this thread. You’ve made your stance regarding where Funcom’s priorities should be abundantly clear in other threads already.
If the server is trash and certain game mechanics don’t allow you to win, those are problems that should affect everyone equally, so one with better skills and natural abilities should have an advantage. Presence or absence of cosmetic bonus features should not affect that balance in any way. Also, making cosmetic DLCs and balancing the game’s PvP features are done by different people and different departments within the company, so they’re not mutually exclusive.
I feel we have other threads better suited for discussing this, though. I’m reasonably certain I’ve had this discussion before.
When mounted you do basically double the damage with every single weapon the damage multipliers for horses absolutely need a fix. Also with 4th perk of accuracy being removed try shooting someone off a horse with a defense saddle. It’s not gonna happen. Only another horse rider using a predatory blade or yogs touch(which also needs a nerf due to hyper armor) can knock off another horse rider using a defense saddle with ease. Horses also get trample which can leave you on the ground immobilized for 3 seconds which is deadly of course.
The main problem I currently have with the game at the moment that I think needs a fix is horses. When mounted you do basically double the damage with every single weapon. The damage multipliers need to be adjusted. You have something that has more mobility and damage than a fighter on foot. Archers can’t knock off a mounted rider as easily now since the 4th perk of accuracy was removed. Especially when the rider is using a defense saddle it makes it almost impossible to knock someone off the horse unless of course you are also on a horse using either a yogs touch or a predatory blade(anything with high armor penetration really). Forcing everyone to fight on horseback is where the game is at the moment. I’m not coming here to say remove horses from the game I think it’s great they are part of conan exiles, but we definitely need something that counters them or something that can dismount a rider more easily. A poster on the forums here named DarthPhysicist I believe suggested a great idea which was to add a “set vs charge” ability for spears to do increased damage(stamina or health) to both the horse and rider. This would be a great start. I don’t pay attention to all of these people saying “this isn’t the kind of game to be balanced” I think that’s pretty lame to be honest. How do you think this game has come to see all of these different “metas” ? People voice their opinion and the game is updated. Which is exactly how it should be.
All of which is completely realistic mounted vs unmounted.
If you aren’t on a horse, you are dead 1v1 versus a mounted opponent. Half a ton of animal charging at 30mph doing double damage? I think the devs nerfed it.
1 skilled person who has spent hundreds to thousands of hours of time learning and mastering a weapon and their players movement should be able to take on multiple people in combat. Your reference to them sitting outside a dungeon is different, that’s the fault of you not being able to move your character at all or be invulnerable during a loading screen. Btw, now a UNSKILLED player can take on 5+ players by just being on a horse with a spear. Would much rather the first option.
Ok if we are talking about realism why isn’t there an increased damage to mounted player with spears? Even archers?? This game isn’t about realism it’s all about balancing. It has always been this way.
