I think @CodeMage is the guy for making a topic for this if we want to be seriously about it.
Not (only) because of his knowledge (he is more PvE if you want to call it like that), but his overview and writing skills are awesome!
@CodeMage, are you willing to help me/us about starting a topic and the first message we use for the overview of all ideas about making PvP, PvP great again? So we can let Funcom know as a group with a overview and nice English writing what we think about this subject and later on we can make suggestions of all the ideas what could be working in our group opinion. Because if we canāt, why expecting Funcom to do it?!
What do you think?
But what makes an alpha? I came on a server, built quietlyā¦provided services (like maprooms and water sources) and kept to myself. As clans came and went, I was the last older one that was onā¦had inherited great base locations, and had enough resources amassed to take down several clans at once if neededā¦and everyone on the server knew it. I didnāt have to flex my muscle at all to gain the respect from other players and ensured the server ran smoothly. Am I an alpha? what actual metrics did I collect to make myself an alpha?
Most FPS have certain things that say hey you won!!!
Capture the Flag
Last Man Standing
Highest K/D ratio
Video Sports game
Highest score
fighting Games
Knock the other player out x out of x times
And all have the goal of using immersive mechanics to accomplish it its own genre.
CE, tbh is not set up to be PVP. Every mechanic is built to hoard as much stuff as possible. And the goal in PVP seems to play more hours than the other player. That is it. Everything is built around resource domination, and it cause huge gaps for those that can play as many hours, but may actually be better at building, fighting,etc. I
In FPS, the only advantage in playing more hours is the fact you learn the maps. But that can be overcome, because some people can learn quicker than others. You don;t have more ammo because you played all day, you just have more knowledge of the map play-out.
Sports game are the same, as well as fighting, the only thing playing more does is allows you to practice more. but again, some people are very absorbent and can learn and get skilled quicker. Conan has nothing to do with skill. Period. I can know every trick but if i have to work overtime for 2 weeks, i am at a disadvantage no matter how āgoodā i am at all the mechanics.
And a majority of competitive gamers want a game that rewards mechanics skills, not playing time. So that is why Conan may never, until they figure a way to balance the resource disparity created by different schedules (mmm mmm, decay on everything) then there will never be true PVP. Players will consistently offline when the other guy has to be at work. Players will consistently use 1 of 5 vaults of dragon powder to wipe a clan who has only played on server for week.
Iām going to recommend you actually take a look at real-life combat situationsālike actual world history. Dude on horseback w/spear > dude on the ground virtually every time. Might I suggest taking a page from that history & defend appropriatelyālike maybe donāt just stand there & get run down? Cavalry is faster than foot, hits harder than foot, and requires very specific countermeasures to defeat. Foot will almost always lose to cavalry. Counter cavalry with archers, or try to control the flow of the battlefield. Think or die.
Thank you for the kind words, but I have no PVP experience, only PVE-C. Iād be happy to help start a discussion thread, just donāt ask me to come up with a proposal myself, because I donāt know enough about PVP and have been told to stay in my lane when I tried to discuss it
If I may offer a bit of advice, @Barnes also has a way with words and he actually plays PVP. Maybe he would be a better choice to help with this?
Regardless of who actually writes a suggestion post, I agree with @Kapoteeni:
And @WhatMightHaveBeen is also right: Conan Exiles doesnāt seem like it can ever be a proper PVP game as long as we can all stockpile everything like crazy. I donāt think Funcom will suddenly decide to fix that, because they would basically have to redesign everything from scratch.
The horse update wasnāt that bad in itself since there were glitches. Palisade walls placed in front of horses was highly effective. Also, stacking poisons on the horse with venom daggers was good, or smoke arrows.
From the people I played with, hacker groups were a big issue. I know two people that played heavily and were borderline alphas, but then got cleaned out by hacker groups that looted locked chests/vaults from outside the bases. These hackers were reported, and nothing came of it until it was too late and the players quit the game. Itās one thing to lose your stuff to a legit raid, but to be completely cleaned out by hackers that one-shot you through walls and loot your locked vaults and chests is completely different, makes you not want to play. These players were reported over and over again and nothing happened until well after everyoneās stuff was ruined.
This is not real life. So I dont really care. This is a freaking game. And implementing one thing thatās so easy to get should not be that OP. And with the servers lagging as soon it comes to PVP just make it even more ridiculous.
So Im recommending u to dont bring your reallife in all the games you play, cuz that will not end up well.
Out of interest, how are horses so OP? Iāve killed plenty of people and know someone who uses a build that routinely destroys mounted players. He can even catch them while on foot. I have watched him do this to multiple people. His build is literally murder to mounted players and itās pretty funny watching them trying to outride him and getting chased down and killed.
I personally run horses into trees/rocks and then stack bleeds/poisons on them to dismount the rider. Once dismounted, a stammed out rider is a super easy kill. You can also just climb on top of something and firespark arrow the horseā¦big target and canāt dodge at all. These are just a few of the effective counters I have seen.
As you said, this is a videogame and almost every videogame has some sort of āmetaā that often fluctuates and changes. Horses introduced a new dimension to the meta in Conan, but it is hardly a broken feature. Horse riders are actually very vulnerable because of the horseās stamina pool being affect by damage.
The mistakes I see most players making are:
A.) Trying to fight duel-style in an open field against a horse. This is just stupid and you should be get destroyed 9 times out of 10 if skill levels are the same. Cavalry really should be the king of open field battles. If you are playing on foot, be smart and get into terrain where the cavalry is hampered and you have the advantage.
B.) Trying to fight the rider, not the horse. The rider is generally well-armored and hard to kill. The horse is not. The horseās stamina pool will run out quickly if you attack the horse, thereby dismounting and stamming out the rider. This is really easy to do and leaves the rider very vulnerable.
Ami me gusta como esta ahora mismo lo unico que retocaria seria que los esclavos atacaran y no se quedaran la mayoria de veces parado . Enterrados bajo suelo etc
While this is true during raid-time, the horse cannot be harmed directly the rest of the day. So outside of raid-times, palisades will be your only weapon against horses. Despite that I think that you are right, cavalry is supposed to have a clear advantage over infantry, and itĀ“s a great addition to the game!
I thought the horse could still be damaged if it was being ridden in non-raid hours? I was thinking and I realized I donāt think I have fought someone on horseback during non-raid.
If so, then that much should be changed. In essence, if the horse is being ridden, it should be vulnerable to damage. That should be a relatively simple line of code to update and would make a huge difference.
Well, I am not sure what to think about that myself, to be honest. They simply treated the horse in the same way they did with the normal followers, who cannot be harmed during non raid times and who donĀ“t even attack players then.
Your base defense thralls have to be invulnerable out of the raid window, and I can imagine that changing that for one of them by commanding a thrall to follow you might result in several ways to abuse perhapsā¦
You are immensely popular, and your words typically resonate with a lot more people than mine do, to be honest. It could be because Iāve massacred a lot of people over the years, and I donāt have a record of having taken too many losses. Thatās not a boast: I play on PC and PS4, where I employ vastly different playstyles. On the PC Iām pretty much an ambassador on servers, and due to the ridiculous amounts of high-value loot one can acquire, a guy who constructs extravagant buildings as advanced loot boxes.
Another PS4 player, WMHB, is pretty much my guru for console play ā because the community and its inherent quirks are easily digested, and readily disseminated by him. In the PS4 world, I go by many names, and am far less acquisitional. His guideposts have made it easy for me to drop in and get my PvP on.
The upshot is, as a polarizing figure, I might not be the best to start off a thread. Perhaps you, CodeMage, as a PvE-C-interested player might serve as a suitable ātruth explorer,ā or unofficial ad hoc moderator of such a topic. It would be very informative, and a structure I would definitely support with my insights and experiences that go all the way back to early Early Access.
Well, I am new to the server, but I would like to make a point that I think the question of PvP dying is a tangent from the bigger question of āwhat is the direction of Conan Exiles?ā
Conan is a weird game because Funcom doesnāt seem to commit to one direction or another. It is supposed to be a multiplayer, survival/PvP (on PvP servers) game. However, the devs restrict building and ban players that work to control strategic resources, so this isnāt really survival/PvP. True survival/PvP games are games like Life is Feudal or EVE Online, where the devs are hands-off except for hacking/exploiting and the most absolutely toxic gameplay. Players are expected to resolve in-game issues (ie, someone is building on Brim Lake, players ban together and destroy them). The ārun and tell the teacherā method of Funcom is directly contradictory to survival/PvP.
At the same time, is it a solo, PvE experience? Not really, because if that were the case, why have official PvP servers? There are clans of up to ten that can steamroll a solo player (assuming skill levels are remotely close).
My opinion is that this is the root cause of the balance/mechanics issues that everyone talks about. My personal opinion is that the answer is to change mechanics on PvP servers to force players to fight each other more. However, I think ultimately the thing that needs to happen is that a clear direction needs to be settled on.
Good, and fresh observations. I really appreciate it!
In the not-too-distant past, we had Avatars to help clear out the clutter. Whenever someone would try to block strategic resources, there was always the Hand of Mitra to help flatten the monopoly. Furthermore ā and I say this with great regret ā we have lost so many great players recently due to miles and miles of spam. And thereās nothing I can say to these friends of mine, because theyāre done. Finished.
I submit a screenie from the latest clan to jump ship, which hurts the most because the leader is a good fellow who was one of my more reliable and persistent active PvP reporters. I salute you, āI,ā and I hope weāll cross paths again one day.
Have you played during the avatar era, Andy? Do you think their revival might work?
This is by no means an apology for the way things are now re: reporting and banning. I do believe Funcom needs to put the smack down in order to establish that there are penalties for misbehavior. When Avs are reworked and reintroduced, I think/hope the culture of spam/resource-tattling on PvP will be diminished.
Horses are OP and different ways. One of these ways are that u cant kill them out of raidtime. Another way is how come spear gives bleed on all hits since spear on foot barely do any damage at all.
And last i bring up here is the turns. They charge into u get u down to half hp, bleed and knocked, and they can just turn ( by go from full speed charge and just turn around in a second) and start hitting u again while laying there unable to protect urself.
Kinda funny to see that so many people saying they arent OP, would been a pleasure to meet u in game and see that.
Thatās a good question, and I donāt think thereās an unambiguous definition to the concept. I believe the etymology derives from āalpha predatorā aka. apex predator, ie. the beast on top of the local food chain. The āalphaā is something that hunts others and is not hunted by anything in return. It doesnāt necessarily mean itās invincible - an elephant could destroy a lion, but elephants donāt hunt lions. Thatās why the lion is the alpha, and not the elephant.
From this perspective, an āalpha clanā in PvP is one that is so strong and well established that others donāt pose a real threat to it. They could hurt it, and if working together they could defeat it (like a pack of jackals could bring down a lion), but the natural order is the alpha hunting for the others, and the others trying to survive while competing with each other.
However, and in forum speak especially, people seem to atatch various connotations to the word āalphaā, such as implications of toxicity, allegations of cheating and using hacks, etc., thus implying that one couldnāt become an alpha by playing fairly. Iām not particularly fond of attaching these implications to the term.
@WhatMightHaveBeen: An interesting point of view. Conan Exilesā PvP definitely feels more like war than like sport from that perspective. Skill, training and knowledge are deciding factors only when the playing field is about equal, but vastly superior numbers and resources will prevail over a better-trained but smaller force.
I remember an anecdote from over 20 years ago when a U.S. Marine captain was visiting Finland, learning about our conscript training system. He challenged a Finnish Signal Corps lieutenant to a shooting contest at our garrisonās firing range - and when he lost handily, accused the Finn of cheating because there was no way a Signal Corps guy could shoot better than a U.S. Marine. He couldnāt accept the idea that every Finnish conscript is trained to shoot at the level of U.S. Marines.
But if it came to a war, the U.S. would absolutely roflstomp Finland, no matter how good our guys are, because the Americans have like 60 times the numbers we have.
On the other hand, at various sports, Finnish teams compete at an equal level to Americans because you still can have only a certain amount of people at a time in e.g. an ice hockey rink. At that point, training, skill and determination are the deciding factors.
