Let’s talk about making the Survival Attribute an appealing part of the Conan Exiles game experience. Currently, here’s what the Survival Attribute offers:
10 - Raw and Bloody
You do not need to cook raw meat to avoid food poisoning.
20 - Waste Not
You consume half as much water when drinking from waterskins.
30 - Hard Worker
You harvest resource nodes twice as fast.
40 - Antidote of One
Invulnerability to poisons and diseases. Strength of detrimental status effects are reduced by 20%.
50 - Bronzed Physique
All direct combat damage you take is reduced by 10%.
Below is my first draft in an attempt to redesign this attribute. I wanted to make this attribute more “defensive” in line with “surviving” while staying true to its original design as much as possible (and making it useful, too). I don’t claim that its perfect nor even correct, but simply a starting point for discussion. So feel free to critique, improve, replace, or come up with your own design.
10 - Robust
You do not need to cook raw meat to avoid food poisoning. Also you consume half as much water when drinking from waterskins.
20 - Efficient Harvesting
You harvest twice as many resources using pick, pickaxe, hatchet, skinning knife, sickle, and cleaver.
30 - Run Like The Wind
You increase your sprint movement speed by 10%.
(hopefully, able to outrun cats; can be increased slightly more if 10% is not sufficient)
40 - Antidote of One
Invulnerability to poisons and diseases. Strength of detrimental status effects are reduced by 25%. Bleeding effects on you are reduced by 25%.
50 - Bronzed Physique
You do not take stamina loss from direct damage (ie. horseback lancers). All direct combat damage you take is reduced in direct proportion to your health.
From 100% to 75% health, you receive a 15% damage reduction.
From 74% to 50% health, you receive a 30% damage reduction.
From 49% to 25% health, you receive a 45% damage reduction.
From 24% to .01% health, you receive a 60% damage reduction.
I don’t think you’re going to see much disagreement on that one - seems pretty much where the consensus appears to be. I definitely never regarded ‘raw and bloody’ as a relevant perk, just a stepping stone to others - adding the also ‘low value’ water perk to it makes it feel at least a little more worthwhile in itself (within the context of being a bottom level perk). Alternatively, the other consensus idea of just a straightforward reduction in rate of hunger/thirst, to represent someone better adapted to surviving in the wilds could also fit well (say maybe 10% less hunger/thirst lost per time increment).
20 - Hard Worker/Efficient Harvesting - I’m not exactly in disagreement here, though Funcom have apparently said that they considered the perk too powerful, which is why they moved it up a level. Adding in the butchery element as well makes it even stronger. That said, 30 levels is a lot to invest in an attribute, and Hard Worker is the primary reason people tend to go for Survival at all. (Which, of course, is the point of suggesting changes to the attribute perks - Survival should be a really important attribute in a survival game based around Conan, and mostly it feels like a secondary attribute at best.) Certainly, if we compare Hard Worker (or Efficient Harvesting) to other level 2 perks, it does seem quite strong (especially compared to let’s say ‘Trick Shot’…). I’d say that maybe Hard Worker/Efficient Harvesting does belong at 30, but there needs to be a decent level 2 survival perk to give you reason to take that first - maybe something like your ‘Run Like The Wind’ (though that does seem a bit like an Agility perk - not that there isn’t already cross-over between attributes) or a reduced Hunger/Thirst perk (but perhaps at 15-20% per time increment).
Certainly seems a decent perk, and the power level feels about right (which is another problem for me wanting to switch it down to level 2) - as I say, it does feel a bit like an agility perk, but that doesn’t have to be a problem. Perhaps of greatest relevance to PVP, but still provides something that might be desirable in other modes (just for time-saved moving about if nothing else). Alternatively, maybe something that reduces susceptibility to poisons and other negative status effects - a sort of stepping stone towards Antidote of One - though the problem there is that then the 30 perk becomes completely irrelevant once you do get to 40.
40 - Antidote of One - I’m not convinced this needs to get any stronger than it already is - it’s already crazy good - no poison and no corruption from enemy attacks - I’d probably still consider that even if didn’t do anything for the other status effects (shh - don’t say that, the devs might hear…). I’d also be perfectly happy to see it go up to 25% - I don’t think that would be too overpowered a change (and maybe the difference could be relevant in PVP?) - but I’m quite happy with it at 20% too.
That seems like a damn powerful perk. But then, level 50 perks should be damn powerful - they represent a high degree of specialisation. So while I feel like it would be a bit OP compared to most of the existing level 50 perks, that’s more an indication they could do with an overhaul (or at least fixing so that they work…). I do feel like the ‘no stamina loss’ from direct damage could make the PVP meta even harder to rebalance (by the sound of things to an outsider…) - but if a proper counter option was introduced to fix that issue (spear as ‘unhorsing weapon’?) to restore a ‘rock-paper-scissors’ tactical balance, then giving riders the potential to be ‘really good riders’ would be less of an issue.
I agree with adding Efficient Harvesting to Hard Worker, but I am fine with it at 30 if they merge the old perk with this one, since you are gaining a huge perk. I do notice many of the really good perks start at level 30 so this will be comparable.
For the new 20, I would probably add food as well with Waste Not. Since water only is not a huge gain for a 2nd perk. (example: Gives twice the sated buff when fed). This way there is more bang for getting this perk at 20.
My question is Survival attribute is what does it do beyond the perks? Does more points spent help reduce the poison/cripple/etc effects or just the perks are the only thing gained from Survival. Other attributes appear to gain bonuses for each point spent. I personally never really understood this attribute beyond the perks themselves. Hopefully someone can answer this question. Thank you.
I would change it to reduce the hunger and thrist multiplier from 20 to 30%.
Too Op for its lvl, as it is now, the 30 points in survival seems a good investment for what already does, now merging it with efficient butcher… i would move it to the 4th perk.
This seems out of place imo, i would include a way to reduce the time needed to take a potion or wrap a bandage, lets say in 30% less time, for example.
For its lvl, its a really good perk.
I don’t know, the current 10% is nice but i don’t think i’ve met someone who uses so much surviveability. Maybe half the damage from wildlife (animals, pets but not fiends or humans)