Simple solutions (workaround) for Mounts, Living NPCs, Swimming animals and maybe more

Conan Exiles General Discussion Feedback
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Good morning! First of all, english is not my main language (i speak portuguese), so i’m sorry if something i say is hard to understand or grammatically wrong (or if some word i use don’t even exist).

OK, let’s go to the topic!

I have been playing this game since the begginning. I played Ark before but i wanted something like this, a “survival RPG” and Conan exiles was what i was hopping for. You (funcom) gave a lot of promisses and i was very interested in that mechanics. I stopped playing because i knew the game wasn’t done. For my surprise, a year after, the game was realeased, i wasn’t expecting that, all survival games takes more time than expected to launch, but ok, and i saw a lot of improvemments, what made me return to play. Burt i’m sad that VERY simple things are not in the game

SUGGESTIONS:

MOUNT WORKAROUND:

I was reading the launch notes and noticed that the problem with mounts is the amount of speed it takes and it don’t work well with the engine. So i was thinking… I’m a 90’s gamer, back then games used simple things to create the ilusion of something, so for me mount is entirely POSSIBLE. I’m not a programmer, but i think that just giving a mount 0.1% more speed than a player running and giving a lot of stamina boost would work well. For example, a horse should be able to cross the entire desert area before stamina runs out. Other animals would have less stamina and so on. And for a possibel mounted combat, just make it takes a lot of the animal stamina, so it won’t be much of an advantage.

Edit: I saw a video interview but i’m not convinced. What looks terrible for someone may not look terrible to another person, it’s more like a subjective thing. For example, Minecraft looks terrible, but many players like it and i have played it too. So, mounts with player running speed can be done, and i’m not asking for a “normal walk” to be at player run speed. Make they walk at normal walking speed! And run at running speed!

SWIMMING ANIMALS:

Ok, i must be crazy, but i remember, or at least i think, that some animals like crocodiles and the NPC were able to swimm during the beggining of the early acess era. I don’t know why they don’t swimm anymore (if i’m not crazy). But c’mon, it’s a SURVIVAL game! You can’t be safe from a crocodile just because tou have entered the water! I noticed that NPC and animals have swimming animations when they gat stuck underwater, so it may be something planned. I don’t have a “workaround” idea for this, but since you are promising swimming thralls i hope that one day a CROCODILE could swimm. And make some believable weapons (like spears) able to be used underwater to defend ourselves from underwater threat.

LIVING NPCs:

Guys, that one is not hard at all! I would be happy with simple things like a standing animation. Enlaved NPCs and tamed animals are like breathing statues! Just give some animations like scratching the head or kicking the ground to NPC, Eating for animals and so on… And make them able to walk around! It would be nice some more interactions, but i will be realistic and i know that if may be harder, so i’m happy with these simple things!

SOMETHING MORE THAN A PURGE:

Ok, it’s a survival game, but animals and NPC can’t atack our base? What reason i have to upgrade my base at PVE then?! The purge isn’t the best thing! It’s more of an event and not a CONSTANT threat! I just want that animals and NPC that chases me could atack my structures and even be able to destroy them if they are weak! At PVE i see only stone ugly bases! And when some rare player upgrade is just to get a “prettier base”. What reason i have to spend so much material without any real danger?!

SIMPLE MOUTH ANIMATION:

It’s really weird to talk with some NPC and they don’t move lips, you could just make a mouth animation like some mmos do.

MORE:

If i remember, i will edit.

9 Likes
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Great , i agree with you . There should be rare fish to catch at deep water and about the living NPC , its time to be able to level them up , at least the fighting atribute .

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‘Mounts at player run speed’ is an old old suggestion that they tried (internally) and it looked ridiculous. This was in one of the streams.

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Mikey

I think that with some tweaks in animation it can be done. And like i said, it can be faster, but not a lot, just a small % that makes it don’t break the game or look ridiculous.

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Well, maybe. I’m taking Funcom at their word, but I didn’t see it for myself so… who knows.

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Mikey

I edited my post with what i saw at a video interview if you want to read it again :slight_smile:

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The other issue is the rendering of the areas like if you ever admin yourself more speed the land will not load fast enough around you. So what this mean is that when you are on a mount… the server would have to increase render distance and its just a host of problems. I feel it most likely an engine limitation.

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Oh goody, another mount thread…Since this has been discussed so much that the number of characters typed out would equal the circumference of 12 suns, I’ll keep this brief.

Do it right, or don’t do it at all. No running at player speeds, no standing still and mounting, no slow mounts. Do it right, or don’t do it at all.

Swimming and water combat I’m cool with. Living NPC’s I’m cool with, I’ll hold out for the Purge Revamp a bit before commenting more on that part.

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I remember getting murdered relentlessly by crocs crossing noob river in very ea.
They were tough to avoid and if they got wind of you it was all over. They would chase over land and sea and never stop until you were dead.

Its one of the things the game needs back is animals that are a threat at lvl 60.

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Agreed. There should be dangers no matter where you are at level 60 for PvE. Tricky to do with how the game is designed now.

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Multigun

I undertand your point, but if the engine have limitations, i prefer “slow mounts” than not having mounts at all.

And with some tweaks in animation it can be “not terrible”. For example, can’t make a horse sprint? Just give it a trotting animation while running instead of run animation.

Like i said, i’m a 90’s gamer (here where i live it’s the same as being an 80’s gamer) and i’m surprised how a developer can be so “limited” by engine limitations. I’m of an era where even non 3D games gave ilusion of being 3D and so on.

And for the fact that it’s another mount post, this just shows how many players want this feature, speacially when it comes to a “survival RPG” game.

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HonkyLips

I rememmber this too, so i’m not crazy, thank god ahah

I think it’s not that hard, they could just make a “on and off” programming for animals/NPCs that could or not enter the water and swimm.

For example, a rocknose would continue teleporting (if tamed) and not able to enter the water while a crocodile could follow you inside water.

For non tamed, a rocknose will act like now and don’t enter, while a crocodile can.

I am not a programmer, but i undertand some of the basic programming lines, it can’t be that hard to put a simple “on/off switch” to make some animals/NPC swimm or not.

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There need to be Avatar purges where you have to go kill the guy who summoned the avatar. Like a world event. That would be exciting!

And yes I agree with the rest of the original post! Mounts dont have to be rockets, maybe just give them unlimited sprinting. And crocodiles must swim!! And sharks!

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Not an engine limitation. Re-listen to that interview with Joel you referenced in your first post. Even still, games are infinetly more complicated to develop then a game from the 90s. Doing Sprite animations is not the same as a full fledged mount system, not even in the same universe.

Even if it you could pull it off to where a single mount looked “okay” (best case scenario) running at the same speed as a player, what’s the point. You jump on your mighty steed, ready for adventure, and trot along the same speed as everyone else, for, reasons? Do it right, make the what would be a huge investment of time and resources worth it. I would much rather have pretty much anything else that could result from that time and money, then slow RP mounts that offer nothing.

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If i could constantly sprint on my dire wolf and cary unlimited weight i would be pretty damn happy lol. Remember Skyrim? Slow horses to hop onto when over encumbered where sure nice to have! And changing the attacks to left attack, right attack or a bow system on a mount like ocarina of Time ( not skyrim lol, that was terrible) it would satisfy many people!

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Exactly

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Multigun

Like Jesstheripper said, and like i said, i want some exchange. Of course just a horse with player speed is not enough.

But answer me, can you sprint for an entire area of the game? We run a bit and our stamina runs out, with heavy armor is even worse. So having a horse with player speed but capable of sprinting during an ENTIRE AREA of the game before stamina runs out would be nice.

I know that the games nowadays have more lines and sprites, but i saw “not so older” games doing much more than conan exiles.

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Fair enough. I’d (much) rather have no mounts than slow mounts.

Even if the slow mounts could be made to look okay (that’s a fairly big if), I’d rather see the limited dev resources spent elsewhere than what would effectively just be a glorified stamina potion.

I see Multigun already said what I wanted to say. That’ll teach me to continue reading before typing up a reply. Oh well, no harm in +1’ing his point.

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Dangerous water? Deadly waters? It was planed in EA

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I hope the waters will get deadly someday as I hope NPCs will learn to swim. If this will be possible- if the waters will become alive then it’s also time - for boats

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Can’t we change the pace of the mount like if we have to have a slow mount then make them spread their leg longer, though I not sure how they gonna do it with a rhino since they got short legs.