Hello Funcom Team,
I would like to report a number of issues I have encountered while testing and using the Sorcery system in Conan Exiles.
I have spent a considerable amount of time experimenting with Sorcery, because I find the system itself extremely interesting. In terms of atmosphere, immersion and lore, it is one of the most interesting magic systems I have encountered in a survival game.
The upcoming October 6 update has also brought renewed attention to Sorcery, and I sincerely hope that some of these problems will be addressed.
I understand that Sorcery has received many additions and improvements over time, and there are also parts of the system that I have not yet been able to test extensively, such as some of the newer Alchemy-related additions.
Therefore, this report is mainly about features that already exist, but currently do not function reliably or effectively in actual gameplay.
I will go through the problems individually.
1. Summoned Mounts – Rhino and Demon Horse
The summoned Rhino and Demon Horse have a fundamental problem with their current implementation.
The ten-minute duration is already extremely restrictive. This is particularly problematic for roleplay servers, where a summoned creature may be intended as a companion rather than something that must constantly be resummoned.
I understand that temporary summons may be intentional from a balance perspective. However, if the game describes these creatures as usable companions and, in some cases, combat-capable summons, their actual behaviour becomes a serious problem.
The Rhino has a targeting reticle and can be used in combat more effectively.
The Demon Horse, however, still behaves like a frightened animal rather than a supernatural demonic creature.
Despite being a demonic summon, it can become extremely difficult to control and does not behave like something that should be considered a reliable magical mount.
The problem becomes even more noticeable when combined with the ten-minute duration.
If the summon is intentionally temporary, it should at least be sufficiently functional during those ten minutes to justify its use.
2. Summoned Combat Demon – Survival, AI and Effectiveness
The summoned combat demon is another example where the concept is excellent, but the actual gameplay implementation is extremely unreliable.
Even after improving the summon, its health and damage are not enough to compensate for its poor survivability and slow combat behaviour.
It is simply too easy for enemies to kill.
Its attacks are slow, predictable and relatively easy to avoid. Even having multiple demons does not reliably solve the problem.
The knockback component could actually make the summon very interesting in a war party or group combat situation.
However, the current AI and combat performance prevent that potential from being realised.
There is also the issue of feeding and maintaining the creature.
The amount of effort required to get a summoned demon to the point where it could theoretically become useful is often greater than the practical benefit it provides.
The “Well Trained” version has significantly more health and damage, but it still struggles to survive against ordinary enemies for long.
Considering that the summon itself is already limited by a ten-minute duration, I believe it should be considerably more effective during that limited window.
At present, the Sorcerer cannot reliably build around it.
It is occasionally useful against low-level enemies, particularly when the player has very little equipment, but beyond that it becomes difficult to justify.
This leads to a larger problem that also appears elsewhere in the Sorcery system:
many Sorcery abilities currently lack meaningful build compatibility.
SPELLS 3. Slow Fall – Jumping Becomes Permanently Disabled
This is one of the clearest reproducible bugs.
When using the Slow Fall effect, the player becomes lighter, can move more effectively while carrying significant weight, can jump farther/higher, and does not suffer normal fall damage.
The intended functionality is great.
However, after the effect ends, jumping can remain disabled until the player relogs.
In other words, the player is effectively stuck in a state where the jump input no longer works.
Relogging restores the ability.
This makes the spell problematic even though its intended mechanics are useful.
Expected behaviour
Once the Slow Fall effect ends, jumping should immediately return to its normal state.
Actual behaviour
The player may remain unable to jump until relogging.
4. Magma Wall – Incorrect Position After Relog
The Magma Wall also has a serious persistence/positioning issue.
After relogging, the Magma Wall can appear extremely high above its intended location.
This can create an additional and potentially much more serious problem:
If another player happens to move through the affected area, they can be teleported out of the playable area.
This makes the issue more than just a visual positioning bug.
It can potentially affect other players who had nothing to do with the original spell.
5. Summoned Zombies – AI, Health and Damage
The summoned zombies are among the more usable Sorcery summons, but even they have significant problems.
They frequently run around instead of maintaining a concentrated attack.
There is very little coordinated behaviour.
Their damage is extremely low, and their survivability can be poor enough that they sometimes die almost immediately.
One interesting use would be to have them blend into groups of normal zombies.
Unfortunately, the current AI makes it relatively easy to identify which zombies are actually summoned.
Instead of creating the feeling of commanding an undead horde, the player often ends up watching several zombies run around independently while enemies attack whatever happens to be nearby.
The concept is good.
The execution needs further refinement.
6. Darkness – It Does Not Really Feel Like Darkness
The Darkness spell has an interesting thematic concept, but its practical effect is questionable.
It can technically be useful at night, but the game does not currently provide the kind of deep darkness that would make the spell truly meaningful.
The result is that when Darkness is used, the environment can remain perfectly visible.
More importantly, enemy NPCs can still react to the player as if it were broad daylight.
If Darkness is supposed to represent magical manipulation of visibility, it should have a meaningful effect on both the player and enemy perception.
At present, it often feels more like a visual effect than an actual darkness mechanic.
7. Abyssal Call – Bat Flight and Uncontrolled Movement
The summoned bat is another example of a very interesting idea with problematic execution.
The bat can begin ascending, but its movement becomes highly unpredictable when it encounters terrain.
If the player flies directly into a mountain, the collision can sometimes launch the player upward dramatically.
Interestingly, this can actually be exploited to gain altitude without consuming stamina.
Unfortunately, if there is no terrain available to produce this unintended effect, the player can instead enter an uncontrolled fall.
Pressing the jump/space input does not reliably recover the flight.
The result is that the spell can feel less like controlled supernatural flight and more like gambling with the terrain.
8. Storm – Extremely Low Effectiveness
Storm is one of the spells I particularly like conceptually.
Its purpose appears to be to damage and knock back enemies who attack the caster.
The problem is that its actual chance of successfully affecting an enemy appears extremely low.
In practical combat, it can feel as though the spell has approximately a one-in-one-hundred chance of actually doing something meaningful.
Whether the exact internal chance is intended or not, the gameplay result is the same:
The spell is extremely unreliable.
A defensive spell that is supposed to punish enemies for attacking the caster needs to activate often enough for the player to actually build a strategy around it.
At the moment, it is difficult to do so.
9. Golem – Lightning Interaction
The Golem system also appears to have lost some functionality compared with its previous behaviour.
Previously, when a Golem with the appropriate lightning-related head attacked, its attack could create an electrical discharge around the Golem.
This provided a useful knockback effect and made the Golem feel considerably more threatening and mechanically interesting.
That interaction no longer appears to function in the same way.
If this was an intentional balance change, it would be useful to understand the reasoning.
If it was unintended, it would be worth investigating.
CORRUPTION PERKS 10. The Fundamental Problem With Corrupted Builds
This is where Sorcery becomes particularly problematic.
The Corruption system has excellent lore potential.
The idea that gaining magical power comes at the cost of corrupting the character is completely appropriate for the Conan universe.
However, the mechanical cost is extremely significant.
With the corruption perks, the player sacrifices approximately 50% of their maximum Health and Stamina.
From a lore perspective, this is fantastic.
From a gameplay perspective, however, it puts the Sorcerer at an immediate disadvantage against non-corrupted characters.
As a result, the player has to spend a huge amount of time preparing a situation in which the advantages of Sorcery can compensate for this disadvantage.
Potions, food, summoned creatures, golems, zombies, followers and other preparations can all be combined in an attempt to compensate.
But the underlying problem remains:
the benefits often do not feel proportional to the cost.
11. Strength Corruption – Kick and Demon Interaction
The Strength corruption perks are an interesting concept, especially when combined with the demon summon.
However, the actual combat situation is extremely difficult to make work consistently.
The removal of lag in recent updates has actually made the Kick interaction even more difficult against experienced players.
An opponent can often avoid the kick with a simple movement to the side.
This raises another question:
Why should the Sorcerer rely on a melee kick to initiate a combo when the corrupted build does not provide a reliable long-range magical attack to capitalize on the opening?
The intended combination appears to be something like:
Kick → Demon attacks → follow-up damage.
That could be a very interesting gameplay loop.
In practice, however, latency, desync, resistance, player movement and dodge mechanics can easily break the interaction.
This affects both PvP and PvE.
The underlying idea is good.
The current reliability is not.
12. Final Strength Perk – Extremely Low Proc Rate
The final Strength perk is another example where the theoretical reward is enormous, but the chance of actually seeing it happen feels far too low.
The interaction involving invisibility, weapon visibility, execution attacks and the Curse effect can theoretically create a very powerful moment.
However, the proc appears so rarely that successfully triggering the complete interaction can feel like a once-in-a-blue-moon event.
The problem is not necessarily that the effect is powerful.
The problem is that the player cannot reliably build a strategy around something that almost never happens.
A powerful ability does not necessarily need to have a huge impact every time.
But it should occur often enough that the player can meaningfully incorporate it into a build.
VITALITY 13. Deflection – Excessive Randomness
The Deflection-related perk is another ability where the concept is interesting, but the random element makes it unreliable.
Sometimes it activates when it is not particularly useful.
When it is actually needed, it often does not activate.
This may simply be personal bad luck, but after extensive testing the mechanic feels excessively dependent on random chance.
I would strongly suggest considering whether these effects could be connected to a more predictable condition, resource or gameplay interaction rather than relying almost entirely on a random proc.
14. Vessel – Interesting Concept, Limited PvP Impact
Vessel is probably one of the most interesting Witch-related abilities conceptually.
However, I struggle to understand why a player would choose it over a more consistently useful option such as Glutton for Punishment.
The idea is excellent:
If an enemy physically attacks the corrupted player, the attacker should suffer a meaningful magical consequence.
This could create a very interesting deterrent.
It could encourage the opponent to use ranged weapons, orbs or other methods rather than simply engaging the Sorcerer in direct melee combat.
Unfortunately, the current effect mainly applies Corruption to the attacker.
It does not appear to deal meaningful direct damage.
The amount of Corruption applied is also too small to feel like an actual punishment during combat.
Against NPCs, however, the ability can become surprisingly effective.
For example, a sufficiently prepared Sorcerer can stand in a large group of enemies and allow the Corruption effect to accumulate across multiple attackers.
This can turn Vessel into a surprisingly effective mob-clearing tool.
At that point, however, the system starts feeling less like Conan Exiles and more like:
Diablo Exiles.
The concept is interesting, but I believe the PvP implications should be considered much more carefully.
AUTHORITY 15. Demon Lord – The “Demon Lord” That Rarely Feels Like One
This is probably the ability that frustrates me the most.
The idea behind Demon Lord is fantastic.
A corrupted Sorcerer should be able to summon demonic entities during combat.
When it actually happens and multiple demons appear, it looks fantastic.
That is exactly the kind of moment I would expect from a Sorcery system in Conan Exiles.
The problem is the activation chance.
The effect appears to depend on repeated combat hits, with a very small chance of summoning demons.
In practical combat, the result can be extremely inconsistent.
Sometimes nothing happens during an entire boss encounter.
Other times, the ability suddenly works repeatedly and creates an actual demonic horde.
The latter situation is exactly what I would like to see more often.
The demons do not necessarily need to deal enormous damage.
In fact, their relatively modest damage could be perfectly acceptable if their purpose was to create temporary battlefield pressure and reinforce the fantasy of being a Demon Lord.
Imagine a boss fight where the corrupted Sorcerer gradually creates a small demonic army.
That would be memorable.
Instead, the current implementation often produces nothing.
And when a large demon does appear, its attack speed and damage can be so low that the encounter becomes almost comical.
You can practically write a short novel while waiting for the demon to finish beating a basic enemy.
The visual and thematic concept is excellent.
The gameplay implementation needs considerably more attention.
OVERALL SORCERY PROBLEM
Sorcery has something that many games struggle to achieve:
it creates an extremely strong emergent roleplay experience.
It feels appropriate to the Conan universe.
It has atmosphere.
It has character.
It makes the player feel like they are actually dealing with forbidden powers rather than simply equipping another ordinary weapon.
For that, I genuinely want to give credit to the developers.
The Sorcery system is one of the most interesting magic systems I have encountered.
Unfortunately, many of its mechanics are currently so unreliable, inconsistent or poorly integrated into actual combat that the system becomes frustrating rather than rewarding.
The biggest issue is not necessarily that individual abilities are weak.
It is that many of them are difficult to build around.
A player should be able to say:
“I am building my character around this Sorcery mechanic.”
At the moment, the answer is often:
“I am building a corrupted fighter and occasionally hoping my Sorcery abilities do something useful.”
That is a very different gameplay identity.
What I Would Like to See
I would not necessarily suggest simply increasing every damage value.
I believe the more important improvements would be:
More reliable spell and perk activation. Better AI for summoned demons and undead. More meaningful combat behaviour for temporary summons. Better interaction between Sorcery abilities. More predictable conditions for certain powerful effects instead of extremely low random proc rates. Proper recovery of movement states after spells end. Correct persistence of summoned structures after relogging. More meaningful Darkness mechanics. Better control and recovery during Abyssal Call. More useful combat roles for summoned creatures. Better build compatibility between corruption perks and actual Sorcery gameplay. A clearer mechanical advantage that justifies the massive Health and Stamina cost of Corruption.
Most importantly, I would like Sorcery to feel like its own combat and progression system rather than simply being an additional collection of effects attached to a heavily penalized fighter.
Final Thoughts
I understand that Sorcery has been developed and expanded significantly over time, and I am also aware that the October 6 update may address some of these issues or introduce entirely new mechanics.
That is precisely why I wanted to write this report now.
The system has enormous potential.
The lore, atmosphere and fantasy are already there.
What is missing is reliability, consistency and stronger mechanical integration.
I hope the developers will continue improving it rather than abandoning some of these mechanics simply because they currently perform poorly.
And if you made it all the way to the end of this report:
Thank you for your attention.
This was supposed to be a small, yet very long, and hopefully somewhat humorous bug report.
Apparently, I failed spectacularly at keeping it small.
Thank you for reading.
