Q&A Thread About Follower Levels and Follower Limit

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Agreed a 10 person clan will just breakup and form 1 player clans but be allied together they will dominate everyone that has 50 or 65 thralls

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Instead of adding a limit, why don’t you implement thrall feeding? The “pot” is already there… The more thralls you have, the more food you’ll need, and if you don’t feed them properly for a while they die. This would limit the ammount of thralls/pets to whatever the person/clan can farm for food, and if someone quits the server and stops feeding them, they also vanish instead of staying around consuming server memory and processing for no reason.

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That is the similar to my question and others thus far. What system will thralls, soon to be known as followers, that have not been placed but have been broken be under? I have stock pile of thralls in a safe and I would hate to have to ditch them in order ensure they are under the new system, as they serve as a backup thralls for my placed thralls in case one of my placed thralls get killed in battle.

I like the new improvements, but I think it bad that already placed thralls are not going to be part of the new leveling system. I have some named thralls that are a rare find and if I have to kill them off or let them be free then there is a strong possibility I will never get a chance to reacquire them because of their low spawn rate.

I have suggestion: maybe funcom can provide reparations for ever thrall we let go and not kill for a limited time period, with a rare resource like star metal, legendary weapons, and /or legendary Armour pieces.

I totally agree any limits or random or full deletion of your hours played out side of the rules of the game is completely unreasonable. from some that plays the game has every dlc I want the mounts and the leveling system but funcoms total disregard for there core community to try and get a bigger community will kill the game. H1Z1 did this and its not around anymore

Where did you see this, because I saw no mention of the method?

May I humbly suggest shutting down all PVE and PVE-C servers, since you seem to be dedicated to making sure that playing on them sucks?

Do you remember that time when you organized a building contest, because you were so proud of how big your players can build things in Conan? Now you’re telling everyone that their nice big builds, which you were encouraging so recently, cannot have thralls to guard them?

Bad enough that I had to spend countless hours collecting followers. Bad enough that the best followers come from human purges, which happen once in a blue moon on official servers. Now it turns out that you’ll just kill a bunch of them randomly and make the rest of them useless, because you can’t be bothered to include them under the leveling system.

Come on, guys, get it together. For once, listen to the feedback beyond just pandering to the loudest bunch and slapping a crappy band-aid on their problem.

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First thing:

I have to say is the “not final” limits are kinda ridiculous, especially on a PVE server. You are proposing 100 limit (10 each) for 10 people to use including base defense. I can tell you that on a PVE server that is completely insufficient. PVE servers have a ton more structures in general. Ours has community map rooms at every obelisk. Each of those Map Rooms requires a minimum of 4 guards. Most large guilds have greater wheels at every major hub so one at Galleon, one at BB, one at UC, one at Sep, one at Mounds and one at NA. So 6 wheels X 5 guards each is 30. Now each clan member has their own base right? Well yes they do on PVE servers! Why the heck not? So say you don’t have particularly build centered clanmates and they build small bases. Call it 20 guards. So now with just wheels and individual bases you have 200 (bases) and 30 for wheels so that is 230. Now each clan member has their favorite 2-3 thralls. Mine are a Bearer 4, and two separate named fighters. So that is 3 each for a total of 30 more. Now we are at 260.

The question then becomes what the heck do you do for a clan hub or main base? Well, any castle, pyramid, rocket ship, keep or main base I’ve ever seen has at least a 25X25 footprint. To cover all entrances and corners for purge your talking at least 40, 50 if you want a few archers. So the new total is 310. I think a good medium here would be to half it after you join a guild. So you want to give 55 to single players, give them 30 per for guild. So that would be 55 base plus 30 per member.

Call it 325 for a full guild on a PVE server and half of that on a PVP server. So even a PVP server would have 55 for a guild of 1 but add 15 for each member totaling 190. Those are more realistic numbers. What you are currently proposing is completely preposterous.

PVE server dynamics are entirely different. People don’t log on and prepare for war until it comes. They log on and collect things or build things. The whole reason people log on to PVE servers after they have built all they want to build is to get a SOC or a Last Breath. They go to rare thrall spawns and hunt that elusive rare dancer from the volcano so they can make their shiny new bar PERFECT. They hunt more baby tigers so they can try again and again to get enough greater tigers to offset the greater panthers they have placed “just so” in their perfect build.

You are completely removing a major element to the PVE dynamic and replay-ability of this game on PVE servers. PVE servers are 80% about building and collecting. PVP servers are 80% about PVP and re-building. Don’t mix them up or you will loose a massive amount of the PVE player base with this patch.

Second issue: Legacy Thralls

Let me just say without trying to sound offensive or condescending towards FC that I absolutely DO NOT trust FC code or developers to be able to “prune” or “delete” a darn thing in their own game. They have already proven that they are unable or unwilling to write code of the necessary quality to delete thralls they specifically target. I can personally verify that fact because to this day I have two unmovable, 100hp performers who were formerly “The Watcher Above” and “The Captain Below” buried deep inside my base where I can’t do a darn thing with them and they have been there since the last time FC claimed it was going to mess with the thrall population and delete “unintended to be thrall-able” thralls.

So yeah, I don’t trust them to do it nor do I think they can safely do it without wrecking something in the process.

In addition to that why on earth would they take the easy way out and make all of the Legacy Thralls almost entirely useless? According to the OP the Legacy Thralls will not be as powerful as the new ones. So I spent days trying to spawn a “Enter Name Here” in the Volcano, collect all of the named bearers, kept all of my Captains, etc… Now what, FC erases that achievement on a whim? Not only that but they now discourage you from keeping the old ones at all because the new ones are much more powerful (remains to be seen) and the old obsolete ones are trash anyway? Yeah no. Rethink this one guys. This is just lazy programming. You absolutely CAN put the leveling system on retroactively and you SHOULD. Anything less makes this a B movie. You can’t erase hours and hours and in some cases days of camping and killing and checking and killing more and checking again over and over for all these people without an ounce of recognition.

My proposed solution. Since I’m sure all of these thralls have uniqueID in the database once they are placed here is what you do. Add a wheel button to the thrall menu that says “reset thrall.” PROBLEM SOLVED. You give the player (providing they have the inventory space) a brand new shiny exact match for their prized thrall under the new system so they can level it. How difficult can that possibly be?

Now there is an added benefit to this new feature. It allows people to reclaim their thralls. If you can reclaim them, you can box them. If you can box them you can save them for a rainy day or when your placed thralls die so all of your hard work isn’t gone to waste! That sounds like it would be a much better plan than just failing to delete them properly via some algorithm that doesn’t work or worse yet works poorly like the last one did.

Finally the lag:

Look if thralls are really what is causing your lag problems and not hardware as I suspect it is here is at least a partial solution suggestion for you. Implement REGIONAL THRALL LIMITS. Here lets take everyone down memory lane for a moment. Who played Anarchy Online? I did. I also had a massive guild there, we had 4 guilds with thousands of members on RK1 and controlled 40% of the land mass available when Notum Wars came out. You know what one of my favorite tactics was? Get 150 of my guildies to one side of a zone boarder and then RUSH an opposing base with all of them simultaneously. Even if the opposing base had 200 people guarding it they would loose every single time because before the lag ended they were all dead and 2/3 of their towers were destroyed. We broke the servers ability to keep up with the load. Clearly an old strategy and FC noticed it. Their solution was to implement zone limitations and after that guess what happened? You actually had to FIGHT to win. And we did and it was much more fun but the point is that they could do it in Anarchy Online 20 years ago so there is absolutely no reason why they can’t do it here.

Base the maximum number of thralls in a specific area on the mass of the land owners base. FC obviously have a system already in place to count the number of foundation blocks in a base so create a call or some sort of variable check in the system to allow players to put down thralls only if the base reaches the appropriate size. Call it “number of connected tiles” for the sake of this argument. So if a base has say 100 connected tiles the max thrall count inside the limits of the base are 10. If it has 1000 then the max is whatever, say 100.

Ok thats the end of my rant but I will add this last little bit. I don’t think thralls are as big a part of the lag as the structures themselves and the lack of commitment in terms of hardware and available processing power. The end.

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This! A thousand times this! My main base has only 24 guards – 18 on the outside and 6 in the courtyard because the crappy purge algorithm randomly spawns enemies inside – and that’s only to make sure they’ll keep some of the purge enemies busy while I deal with others. It’s far from enough to completely defend the base on their own. If I wanted to make sure they could deal with the purge on their own, I would probably have to add as many archers, so that’s 48 thralls just for that.

I understand that having 400 thralls in a single base can adversely impact performance. But this cap is not a solution, especially on a PVE or PVE-C server. And let’s face it, Funcom has been treating us PVE(-C) players like dirt for a while now.

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here is an idea or 10!

Forget about limitations and allow us to pick up our thralls and replace them that way there new so retroactive goes away… and on that note give us a way to un modify gear so when you change a set of gear we can un modify it and not have to spend countless hours refarming the same gear.

I am not a programmer but am a gamer and this makes sense to me… Pippi mod you have been able to pick thralls up for over a year… so maybe yall should consult them on how that’s done. But… Honestly after 2 years of play loving this game and wanting to see the mounts and thrall leveling system this is a slap in the face for the 3rd time …
First what vathis you allowed to be in the game as a tamable thrall for over a year and a half…

Second right after that bandit leaders… that got nerfed then buffed (not as good as the named thralls they were) and with this leveling system nerfed again! because we can’t level the bandit leader.!

Third this patch that is supposed to decrease lag… that will not decrease lag… in fact will drive more of your core community out of the game… vanity thralls such as vathis in a box or bandit leaders or captains is a reward for time played … such as the royal armor and the conan sword for time spent in the beta version… Yet you risk ripping apart the community you have built, on the hope of getting new players… but disregard the fact you will get some new players but lose more of the ppl that have been here for years. Why not do a patch that every one wants but does not effect the flow of the game just new stuff? Why is it you feel the need to take every time we pay you to give more content!?

Its a stupid risk seeing how on a lot of servers are dead. If you want a patch to decrease lag on servers … well institute a server decay that way if no1 logs in on a server in your seven day (decay timer) the server is deleted. That way your virtual servers you use to run all theses servers can be reallocated to servers where there are players. With more processing speed and ram allocated to these “laggy servers” you don’t need to make changes that upset your core community and increase server resources so they can preform better. Ask yourself how does WOW have thousands of players on at a time on 1 server… but we are limited to 40… This limitation will cause a decrease in player population long term from your core player base.

Love the game however hate your hate for the players that take the time to build and to farm … what is in the opening video of the game? build conquer and survive… yea not possible anymore with all these anti build and conquere and anti survive. patches… Its a sad day in conan exiles.

In closing I would say. If funcom is trying to kill the game to move on to different projects your doing a wonderful job! however if you want this game to thrive and become something like WOW…

First don’t do limitations you marketed this as have as many thralls as you want to defend… yet now your going away from what you said… its a sandbox game. Also I can’t stand liars…

Second do something that WOW did …. quests to do something other than grind. Make dungeons dungeons! force ppl to group up! ppl make friends when they do that … The dungens don’t have to be 10 man raids or 25… but honestly the dungens are just a grind fest like everything else in the game… Make them hard like the arena champ gotta learn the fight and if you mess up its over! Go get ur stuff and try again.

I do love this game but am sick of the disregard for the core community funcom has done over and over and over… this is not alpha nor beta and to take from your core community 10 100 1000 hours of time spent is the reason there are so many dead servers…

Whats the old saying once shame on you… twice shame on me! 3 times and your out.
hmm wonder if I can get a refund from funcom on the almost 4600 hours I have played even at min wage 11 where im at I would be ok losing all that stuff.

Hello Exiles.
Devs pls make an option to (break bond) with your thralls prior to the update so we have enough time to disregard any pets and humanoid npcs that we don’t want to be counted against us.

Also be specific if this follower cap will be base related or as a whole including every single post and base that the clan owns on the map.
Since that will make a big change in gameplay. Specially for people with multiple places to gather resources throughout the map.

Also a friendly reminder and constructive criticism to the devs that will benefit everyone with large bases since at first back in 2018 when the game left early access the devs encouraged players to free build large bases and capture unlimited thralls to defend their base against the purge and other elements.

I can testify this since I’ve been a fan of this game since Feb 1, 2017 and used to watch its early livestreams and we as a community were reminded of the create and build all and later on with thralls and pets as an add-on culture that you endorsed and created to now trying to backpaddle and handwash the issue that it was never your intention for people to have 400 plus thralls as stated on the devs notes.

I definitely smell a stunt here… and highly urge you to please watch your own livestreams from Jan 31 2017 and reflect before placing an update that will hurt many people who role play with their thralls on official servers as well as others who have invested time in guarding their city bases throughout the map since they been playing since 2018 when this game left early access after the wipe.

Calling it the way it is… and hoping that this free update does not come fun-filled with bugs and issues like the prior ones we had even though they went to testlive … still managed not to have adequate quality control and was publicly released with inconveniences to all pvp,pve, and RP gamers.

Again, fan of the game but pls devs get it together.

How will the witch doctor pets that you create in the firebowl cauldron be affected by the new system and if they are will they have bleed and poison immunity like undead NPCs? If they do have immunity how is the survival stat dealt with when they level up because they would have no use for it.

A couple of questions:

  1. What is going to happen to any named thralls in storage (not placed in the game world)? Will they be upgraded to the new thrall system or will they still use the current system?

  2. If one breaks a legacy thrall’s bond, what happens to them? Do they disappear? Do they walk away? If they don’t disappear, can I then proceed to knock them out and re-thrall them in order for the thrall to use the new leveling system?

  3. How will the leveling system affect pets and greater pets? Will regular pets evolve to become greater pets as they level? Or would the pet system remain unchanged and we just get to level whatever pet the almighty RNG provides to us?

I also hope we get the ability to do the following under the new system:

  • Rename thralls (except named T4; the generic T4 thralls can be renamed though)
  • Edit thrall’s appearance (hair, facial hair and make up only)
  • Edit crafting thralls clothing/armor
  • Since there is a limit to the number of placable thralls, make an option for crafting thralls to
    defend the base if attacked. Much like how they work in NPC cities where a blacksmith thrall
    might be working on his bench and runs and attacks the player when they get too close. This
    should be something that is able to be turned on/off at their crafting station.
  • We should get the ability to enthrall any NPC except those with dialog or are part of a storyline.
    This includes ones that were previously enthrall able and now no longer are.

All in all I do like the changes Funcom is proposing to the thrall system in the game.

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Will the thrall AI be improved greatly with the leveling system or will the thralls still be severely mentally slow?

So instead of farming 50 thralls over a 4 day period that take 5 minutes apiece for someone to hit with acid arrows to get the sandstorm mask off and then shoot poison arrows which the thrall happily stands in the gas cloud until death, giving a total of 250 minutes of protection, I’ll now spend 4 days breaking and leveling a single thrall who will happily stand in a gas cloud and offer 5 minutes of protection.

If you want to limit me to 100 thralls then you had better have live people controlling them during all raid hours so they are actually useful.

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Just let the old ones die … those “legacy” thralls are inferior … once the patch hits, you want to actively kill them by using the “break bond” from the radial menu and get the new thralls ASAP - remember only the new ones will be able to level!

Larathiel posted yesterday a facebook post from funcom saying that we’ll have a “grace time” during which will be able to break bond before the “wipe” happens.

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No no no just nooooooooooooooooooooooo.

I Have one room with 3 blacksmith t4s, 4 artisan t4s, 10 armors t4s, 2 tanner t4s, 4 smelter t4s, 3 slaver t4s, 2 carpenter t4s and 4 cook t4s. That’s just one room.

I have 20 pets in pens producing gold, ore and feathers. You need the Armour thralls to make each different set.

I have on top of that 200 plus thralls in 4 bases across the map, only one is a mega city the rest outposts with teleports, i have every named Thrall from near all the tribes, legendary creatures all over the shop.

As for building cap, does my weapons room count each weapon on the wall as a build piece, the holder and then the actual wall piece individually?

What about my ■■■■■■■■ bandit leaders, my captains my cannibal brutes unable to be gotten anymore what do I tell them when I next log in? ( i have one bandit leader in a box still
cause I am sneaky )

My wall of severed legs and arms i collected over the last year and a bit are they now build pieces? My wall of severed heads, so many severed heads.

My mega city would be made up of 10,000 build pieces plus ( it is bloody massive ) but I never lag out, some load time now and then but it is a work of ■■■■■■■■ art ( it is ugly and badly made but damn it I made it ), I even built a boat for the pirates i collected.

All done by myself on official server. ( yes I have no life and I really like this game )

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None of those are Followers, they’re crafting thralls, and don’t count against the limit.

Not sure if those count. My guess would be no (because they’re technically still items).

The rest, however, will need a culling.

There’s no mention of a building cap. Only that it’ll be more difficult to defend huge land claims.

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Thank you everyone for your questions. We have about 3 A4 pages worth to go through and we will endeavor to answer as many of your concerns as possible during the stream.

We understand that this is a controversial change we’re proposing and we’re monitoring your feedback as it comes in.

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