PVP opinion. Why funcom should put more work into it

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Why I think PVP is not quit there where it can be in Conan Exiles.

Conan Exiles could be a very good pvp game. It had better days in the years but lacks of some I think important things.

I don’t go through the netcode issue much, because the netcode is just aweful and would need to be way better for good pvp,
but I think this will never going to happen. The game is just aweful in handling combat with and without base destruction.
The amount of ram and cpu for the workload the server needs is just insane. It would be in interest of funcom too to save money with better optimized code in that regard.
Same with Exploits, Undermesh and Cheat tools over the years that hit really hard on player count in pvp. I saw dozens of players over the years who got demotivated
because they got cheated away. There should be still dozens of videos on youtube to find.

So how is actually life in pvp server. Most people play solo and up to 3 people. 80% of players in pvp you can count as low experienced to mid experienced.
There is a small hardcore community of around 20% of people who build and use so called meta. There are a few groups from 4+ people who usually clean
servers from people and that often really really fast. Most servers go down from 20+ to 1-3 in 2-5 days.

So the pvp community is mostly really small and a lot of players don’t stick with pvp so you have always these cap between hardcore player “to rule them all” and new starting people without enough experience to know what will happen to them till it happens.

I think a healty community in pvp needs more stable playing midcore pvp players in the long run, but the pvp game is mostly for the hardcore niche and thats mostly
because the balance between attack weapons and defense in conan is to strong in the direction of attack. I know there are small changes to gather more ressources faster on pvp and build up faster but that is not the main problem. There is actually no effective defense!

On attacker side you have avatars, bombs, orbs (yes they dont get used a lot), arrows explosive/poison, trebuchets, the new door ramp, help of sorcery
with bats ice bridges and so on, black ice front bases mostly in form off trap pyramides and of course a 5 hour long window per day where you can decide to attack a base.
Solo/groups of 1-3 people often do offline raids and big groups just destroy all. Yes there are hardcore solo players and small groups who know all stuff and are very effective but thats a really small amount of people who can reach this level.

Exclusive on defender side you have cauldrons to put fire/tar in and where the enemy of course just stands under the door and waitrs to get hit from them
sarcasm off Yes there are pallisades with insane 5k HP where the enemy of course just runs against it all the time and doenst explode it sarcasm off

Thralls you have on both sides so I can’t count them in one direction and mostly from defender side they are just stupid anyway. The guarding system doesn’t change that. It doesn’t help either to lock some of the new “defence” stuff like archer posts behind the need to do the purge when bombs and arrows are really easy to get.
The game need better defence, automatic turrets/ballistas and stuff where you put a thrall on it and give ammo in it, better traps that just activating for enemy and stuff.
Of course it should not be impossible to destroy or get into a base but definitely harder as how it is now.

So funcom please work on better base defence to protect your stuff. For now it is easier to have as less stuff in base as possible or hide some stuff what is mostly useless since chests crafting tables and stuff loads in first and structure after. So mostly hardcore pvp players just use shadowplay or other tools and check frame by frame where players hide chests and stuff.

I hope conan exiles devs read that and have interest to build a more stable pvp community. It should be better for all pvp community. You hardcore attack players are still stronger as soft and midcore players, but it should cost you a bit more effort to wipe a server clean in my opinion.

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hahahahahah oh my sweet summerchild

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In the early months private PVP servers were the most popular and in many ways it can be said that the game started off as primarily PVP.

Probably the biggest event that changed the focus of Funcom from PVP to other interests was the buyout from Tencent.

It pains me to think too that there was once the exploit hunters and Funcom actively communicated on wanting to deal with exploits quickly.

This is a couple months old but does speak a lot on my thoughts about PVP on Officials.

Here is a summarization of most issues on PVP but also a bit dated.

We once had better defence but it was at the cost of server stability and time. There were bases you had to attack all raid window and STILL could not reach the core. The removal of fence stacking was the right thing to do.

I don’t think a base should be taken down in 30 minutes which is pretty standard offlining.

However.

The hope is that there are defenders on and in direct combat. But how often does that actually happen except for those hardcore groups? Sieging rarely happens now. I’d feel bad about gutting a noobs base so I wait patiently for them to build up and have some semblance of defence and if it happens where I attack, they rage quit. They don’t know enough, are patient enough or have the emotional maturity to not panic.

But almost guaranteed if I take a night off they’re offlining me.

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Until last week, I was getting raided like every other day. I figured there were a few from the forums. I got bored of setting things up just to be farmed. Now, the fortress is a better deal to farm than my base. :partying_face:

It usually takes three players (or alts) to get in my base. Now, you can be solo and climb your way into the fortress. It usually took 2 hours for a complete raid (all loot), no wipe. on my base. In the end, not worried. Because maybe the fortress will finally lead to fixes.

Maybe I can further this conversation, later, with potentially a new building piece that would make the fortress hard. Maybe just a fence crenulation, that fits on sloped walls and roof, is key.

I rebuilt pretty fast, but I’m not going to do it in public anymore. It took me only a day to rebuild, and it took 10 minutes for others to blow it up. I’m on a merged server, and we had to count how many items we could take (~200 in inventory). Hmm… the next merge is bound to happen…

Now, it is someone else’s turn to “get good” at that kind of play. Online pvp does happen.

My opinion there: we need funcom to expand the radial. The radial is too basic right now. “we” could add another selection layer around the first layer (that is there now). I mean, a mod maker should be able to expand the radial to add another layer of selection.

Details? :thinking:

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The game is designed for 40 players. The game runs really well at 40 players with a decent host. Ironically the servers with issues use the same hardware as those without. The difference is configuration and setup. I suspect some providers stuff far too many instances of servers onto one machine.

To give an analogue, for those of you on PC, Conan Exiles runs pretty well. But what if you launch a second instance on the same machine? Probably pretty well still. But a third? Unless you’ve got a bit more ram than average and such, its going to run with some slow down, but likely still playable. But what about a fourth? Or fifth? Or twentieth? You can quickly see where the issue is.

Every rented server hosts puts multiple instances of Conan Exiles on one machine. That alone isn’t a problem. But what is a problem is how many, as well as other factors. But when the game is hosted in the way it was designed, it runs pretty well.

I’ve seen how Conan Exiles runs on a dedicated machine with around 50 players in a single battle with no mods. There’s a bit of lag, but its definitely still playable and definitely still quite a bit of fun. That’s 10 more players than recommended. And there’s been quite a few optimizations that have been made since then.

The biggest issue with PVP in all honesty is playing it unmoderated. There’s quite a few fundamental reasons for this.

Offlining for example puts a weird strain on players outside of the game. There’s a window each day that you have to play without fail or risk logging into nothing. The longer you go unraided, the more likely you will be watched and preyed upon. You could be the most altruistic player/clan on the server, but if you’ve had a build up for months, its going to be known its been up for months, and others are going to want to tear it down… because who the hell are you to be so special to have such a thing? Its just general PVP desires to tear someone down off their high horse, regardless of how decent they are.

Offline protection has its own issues. I’m not going to talk about the ‘bugs’ FC says keeps them from doing it. But the other issue that FC doesn’t really have on their radar. That’s online defense and their ability to repair and replace on the spot. This needs to be fixed. Right now many PVP servers have restrictions on players building and repairing during raids. This requires moderation to enforce. But it could easily be put into a game mechanic that prevents building for a time after the last attack.

The other issue is related, but the ease of putting up walls and foundations as well as the ease of tearing them down. Its all balanced around the ease of repairs. The reason we can tear down a wall so easily is in part due to how easy they are to simply put back up.

Think about this for a moment. Has anyone here who thinks they are pretty decent at PVP have ever gotten their base destroyed out from under them? Outside of obvious sandstone getting annihilated instantly, but actual T3 fully functional fortresses. The answer to that question is pretty much nobody.

But shouldn’t it be possible? Is there any situation where a 10 vs 10 siege for example can end in the total loss for the defender in an online raid time frame? Can anyone explain why this shouldn’t be possible?

Everyone has an idea of how PVP can go. But no one really thinks about end use case scenarios and goals. I would say set that goal and then work backwards to see what changes we need to have.

For example the clan limit is 10 by default. Raid hours are 5 hour blocks. What kind of system can we come up with that ensures that 10 attackers from one clan, can win and take an area held by 10 defenders in that 5 hour window?

If you want DBD on and 24/7 raid window, then what system can ensure that 10 attackers can take an area held by 10 defenders who at some point when they feel they might be losing can simply log off and trigger the protection giving the attackers only 15-30 minutes to finish their goal?

In either of those situations, what kind of damage do trebs and bombs need to do? How much health do building pieces need? To make it possible (not guaranteed) just possible for an attacker to actually have a shot at winning?

The whole system needs a comprehensive look. Just adding extra this, or a little bit of this, or changing a server setting isn’t enough.

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There is a third tier to ammo for the trebs. That is stone bolders and iron bolders. Then there is the mini nuke, 3 bombs tied. If that is not enough, then I recommend using a god, whos fun lasts longer.

I agree, but this last patch seems to have fixed a few issues. Top one being npc spawning in dungeons and caves. I mean the npcs do not spawn under certain conditions. Not fun if your base caused it. :innocent:

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