Personally, making player characters stronger is the opposite of what is needed. The content needs to be more difficult. NPC’s, bosses, things of that nature, need to be more challenging. Soloing dungeons, with or without a thrall, should be much more difficult. Tune settings for singleplayer to allow such a thing, but multiplayer content should be more difficult. Purges should be devastating.
Give me something to fear.
you and me both. But it will be hard pressed, as a majority of Conan players left are either RP, or want/ like the ease of the game. And that is fine. but whenever I see a well thought out post like this where it says alot of what I want, I try and back it. So we aren’t the silent minority. But I hold out very little hope the game (on officials…default?) will ever truly challenge us in a survival way.
Side note, this thread will eventually get the vocal majority RP/easy mode players that will chastise us for even discussing a harder true survival brutal game more in line with Howard’s stories.
As one of the hugest RP nerds out there and who isn’t all that great at the game, I will disagree with you on this. The game DOES need more challenge and more complex survival systems. Much of the death of private RP servers comes from the fact that players hit a point where there’s nothing else for them to do BUT RP. And believe it or not… most of us dislike that. That said, I am among those who hope we get new systems AND with difficulty sliders/settings. I am a huge fan of letting people play the way they want. My own RP server is a permadeath server and that scares the sweet bejesus out of a lot of players. That means when you die (and there are parameters for what counts as a “true death” and most of them involve PVP defeat with the winner deciding to execute the loser) you literally lose everything and have to reroll. And it functions exactly the way I want it to. Logical consequences for actions and players know it coming in so we largely don’t HAVE the dreaded swaggering gods that pass for RP characters a lot of places. We’ve been live since October and have had ONE permadeath. Because we all understand going in that it’s a matter of “start sh*t, get hit.” So players have a tendency to play their characters realistically, which makes for better RP. The point of this tangent is that choices are good and not all RPers just want to play Barbarian Barbie. Making the game more challenging and more realistic actually appeals to an awful lot of us. Having to do things like plant crops and care for them, carry warmer gear when we want to head north, and even getting ill all ADDS to good RP. It doesn’t detract from it. So bring it on!
But you are not part of the RP/easy mode majority. You are a minority like. Look at the threads and you will see the vocal majority don’t want challenging game loops, and will go into attack mode in wrestling on anyone that thinks contrary. Again, vocal majority is different than overall majority. I know many pvper ( raid) who do not post that play conan for a bit, then jump on more challenging games if no war is going 9n. They are a silent group that does not feel wasting time debating on forums is more fun than playing games.
But that is beside the pint. We are on same page left hoping for more depth to the game loops than button mash and build.
Well that’s why I like sliders. Let the “easy mode” folks have their way too! LOL I’m not sure how official servers are set up and if they all have the exact same settings or not. I would hope they don’t. I think officials should have both hard mode and easy mode (and medium mode!) settings. That would give FC a much clearer picture of who the majority of their players really are I’d think.
They do.
That would certainly be interesting, but it’s not something they can do yet. They would have to pick which servers to change and there would invariably be people on those servers upset that their server got picked. Maybe once they implement server transfer, although people would still grumble.
I believe they have access to “traffic” on servers. I would hope so if not. That would be a key KPI I think any company paying for the free servers would want.
So if they do, they know which ones are pretty much just refresh personal servers.
They could convert, and as you said do it after transfers are allowed. Give a 2 week “eviction” notice so to speak.
@biggcane55 and @CodeMage see, we’re helping! LOL I am a little surprised that officials are all the same when the game itself HAS different modes to choose from.
Never understood that either. Part of the issue was they weren’t prepared for the amount of traffic day 1 on officials. I believe they had to open more than planned. So it was a hurried rollout. Doubt the thought of variety was high on the list when the goal was to support the large early player base. Once it died off about 3 or 4 months later would have been a great time to reevaluate…but may be way to late now.
I think with the right rollout and hype it could be successful. After all a lot of people own this game. Give them a reason to come back and they might!
Will you be adding a bypass Steamplay option to the Steam launch options like ‘Baseone’ did a few weeks ago when it launched into EA? That way us Linux gamers will be able to play without having to use some script workaround to bypass the Funcom launcher.
I hope that Ive not missed my opportunity to catch Dennis here. Hi there Dennis. I do not use social media myself. So I am going to post my question here in the hope that you will spot it and be kind enough to answer it. [crosses fingers on both hands]
Q: Dennis I am interested to know if you would be open to expanding upon Crom in Conan Exiles and consider giving us some additional goodies or artifacts for roleplayers and his devotees to use?
For CROM!! 
good afternoon, I wanted to ask if you have any plans to create dls dungeons on both cards
I’m sorry , but pineapple has no business being on pizza.
It goes pineapple ham and bacon with BBQ sauce with lots of cheese 
My great-grandma was from Sicily and seeing people say stuff like this cuts me to the core.
We had wipe servers, Most people just didnt play them and they got yanked. Its been request to bring some of older server types back.
Those were early access only…and Conan blew up on release…but quickly died. Using data from a small count and then not revisiting when all that is left is that small count is bad business practice. Continously improvement is the goal every business should strive for.
Yea. This would be a great addition for some RP/Building/PvE/PvE-C groups on console, who don’t have access to Mods on PC (if you are on PC, it’s pretty easy to find a Mod with a minimap). That being said. If this is implemented as an option, it should definitely be a “server-side” option as well, like inverse nudity, where mini-maps are NOT available on some servers.a
Personal message for Dennis here: I think you are, to date, the best designer that has been working on Exiles. I appreciate where the game is going under your direction. That being said, I think the changes to survival–as mentioned-- miss the mark and I shall explain why.
It makes sense that you don’t want new players to be frustrated and quit, but back when I was leveling up for the first time in Conan many moons ago. My survival experience at low level was difficult, but not overly so. I struck out for the north at level 5 and it was TOUGH, but the challenge made me love the game. I managed it because I was able to learn the game quickly. I personally believe that the vast majority of people who look to buy a “Survival” game are looking for a game with a tough starting experience. That being said I understand that the early game can be tough for a new player, and I also understand that Conan’s RP community sometimes bring in people who may not be used to more hardcore games.
The changes that you mentioned above consisted mostly of changes to the damage rates, amounts, and effects of being Hungry and Thirsty. To discuss these directly, I have a few points:
1.) I think that your addition of slowed movement speed on hunger and thirst were great additions to the survival system and IMO feel more immersive; however, reducing the damage on each tick of hunger and thirst was, as I see it, wholly unnecessary. All it will do is make new players walk slower and take more time to die while they struggle to figure out what/how they can find something to eat.
2.) I believe it was mentioned before that the damage reduction was intended to give new players more time to find insects to eat. I think that your changes did not solve the problem. As I see it, the problem was not the health damage. It was the fact that the game literally tells new players nothing. Like every survival game before it that I have played, Conan Exiles tells new players nothing.
To some players, like myself, this adds to the Survival appeal–forcing the player to quickly learn how to survive, while to others it is a frustration, because you have to either ask for help in global (immersion breaking, or impossible depending on play mode) or leave the game to look at a Wiki or other guide). Consider for a moment that when brand new players spawn in and wander around, they don’t innately know that: a) that they can press ‘E’ to interact with a bush, b) they can pick up eggs in the game similarly, c) that they can use a campfire to turn fiber and seeds into gruel, or even that they can pick up (are you noticing a trend here?) and eat grubs. So what do they eat? Well… nothing unless they have already figured out that they can interact with bushes and rocks using E.
The problem was not a problem of the game’s food and thirst mechanics, but rather the problem of not communicating the interface between the player and the game world. I have noticed that the Journey menu offers some good hints, however, I think the starting UI needs to accentuate the Journey menu to push players to get in there and read the tips… also. I would advise flashing a “Use “E” to interact with the world” message at the beginning of the game. The journey steps describe interacting, but not HOW to interact. As a long time gamer, game-dev, and survival game veteran, I picked up the game easily–quickly hitting esc to find the controls. If Conan Exiles is your first video game, or you’re a more casual gamer (hint. a lot of your RP/PvE folks) may have a frustrating time.
It may seem like overkill, but I promise you that the call for an easier early game did not come from the “Survival Game” players. I would just recommend putting more emphasis on teaching the player how to navigate and interact with the game, rather than making the game itself easier (which will put off some survival players, and is easily doable on SP/Private Servers with difficulty settings and sliders).
I also might add a simple suggestion for the survival mechanics: reduce hunger and thirst rate below level 5… so new players have time to get used to the mechanics. Also. Keep the walking speed and tick rates for the Hunger and Thirst, but bring the damage back.
EDITED FOR BREVITY and CLARITY