SORCERY SKILL! Let us harness the magic that flows through the exiled lands!

Conan Exiles General Discussion Feedback
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47

Traditionally Conan lore wise has been a low magic setting.No fireballs. 3-5 minute casting time for a sleep spell (With 3 wizard casting it all at the same time.) Sorcery was mostly mind control and enchantments in the world of Conan. Magic made people go insane (we have a corruption system that is a great substitute for an insanity system.) Alchemy works pretty much as well as it did in the source material. And crafting undead doesn’t break lore too much.

All in all conan was about as low-magic as Tolkien, actually even lower than that. I feel alchemy already does what it needs to for a offensive magic system. With witch-doctor, animal pens and the like added it works as a rough mind control system.

In the movies Mako was more of a lore master and alchemist (and a bit of a necromancer.) Sure he had that one telekinetic battle with an evil wizard, but that was the most you were gonna get in a wizards duel.

I would like subtle magic that fits within the lore. Night vision (we have potions), Water breathing (potion) invisibility (cheat code), minor buffs (we already have elixirs) and even maybe a sleep spell. Honestly the admin panel is kind of “magic” now that i think of it, they could even rip some of the cheats and tie them to corruption so non admins can use the powers with a price.

Regardless, you think (insert weapon you don’t like) are broken? Wait till you eat a game breaking bolt of fire to the face. No thank you. We have trick arrows and bombs, I like that just fine. Oils to coat my weapons would be nice tho.

Keep it low magic, keep it within lore, and ultimately it will work out fine.

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48

Dude, just quit…or take it to PM.

50

Sorry.

But punishing players who use magic by banning them, or totally locking them out of gameplay, is simply a terrible idea. That’s like the extreme outer edge, as far from yes as you could possibly get, side of absolutely no.

People buy video games to wind down and enjoy themselves. Not for BS mechanics like this, that try to justify the harshness of magic corrupting their characters.

If you want to look at it another way, it would only punish the gamers who spend more time playing. If someone plays only 2 hours a day, they could use magic, accept the ban, and just come back tomorrow no problems.

Versus someone who plays 3 or 4 hours, they use magic and after two hours they are locked out of their game. So they end up moving on to play another game in their remaining time.

Which actually harms the game, because it then creates a negative attitude towards the game. Why should I buy a game where I am limited to playing for a brief time each day? For no better reason than an arbitrary decision of the devs.

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52

Something that fits with the game would be great, the avatar thing is compared to a nuke… so allot of room to have less op abilities, you could have a system tied to alter being the primary source of crafting magic abilities or items. Maybe even have ability to summon beings or things to act like thralls from hearts that are magical beings to guard base or assist with doing things, so you could go the whole never enslaving thrals and just using hearts/whatever to summon demons to maintain a magic palace or a mix of magical guardians and human thalls.

Could be some realy cool themes based on each god, set would obviously have some cool snakemen and snake like creatures, mitra divine beings of light, yog some very other worldly death and cannibal themed monsters.

53

Are you just tired of the word? Or do you think funcom should just ignore it and just let the game be Conan in name only? Lol.

54

Not really.

Given that magic already exists in your bracelets, teleport obelisks, religious altars, the boundary, map room teleports, and magical potions.

Do you also intend to challenge Funcom giving player’s magic that allows them to create skeletons to be their thralls?

Magic exists in Conan. The point of contention here isn’t whether or not the game should have magic. It’s the level of that magic.

Hurling elemental attacks or that like should not be included because that is high fantasy stuff. And it’s not Conan.

Summoning things as thralls is a bit more on the low magic side. Demons already stalk some places. And we have necromancy already. So some demon summoning as thralls seems to be the next step.

Summoning pure magic beings as @patoman suggests is probably as much overkill as having fireballs. Demons are beings from another plane, so they are far more acceptable.

The whole beings of light, otherworldly death/cannibal beings, is probably also extreme overkill. Snakemen is far more acceptable because they have already shown that shapeshifters exist from the Jhebbal Sog thing.

And Thulsa Doom shapeshifts into a snake in Conan, albeit not 100% canon I would think. But still more acceptable within the content of our game.

Given all the magic we already have in the game, there is no reason not to move forward with adding it. But we aren’t getting Elminster from D&D in Conan, that is overkill.

A demon summoner to have demon creatures as a thrall: plausible
Shapeshifting magic to have animalistic thralls: plausible
Place magic to add some sort of offensive or defensive capability to your base: plausible
The ability to apply a curse to your weapon, that causes a debuff to enemies: plausible

Anyone saying no to Sorcery, you need to go look at the original Conan works. Magic exists and is part of the canon, whether you want it or not.

Those who want Sorcery thinking you are getting Combat Magic, by all I can tell, it doesn’t work that way. Magic in Conan works by preparing it ahead of time. IE, you summon minions to deal with the warrior before he gets to your base. Not while he’s walking across the room towards you.

Rituals seem to be the order of the day.

Here we have resurrection/illusion/: The Hour of the Dragon | Conan Wiki | Fandom

Here we have portal opening to unleash demons: Thoth-amon | Conan Wiki | Fandom

On that same page we have this:

Thoth-Amon is a powerful Stygian sorcerer. He has many spells and rituals at his disposal. He commands beasts, especially snakes, and many types of insects. He has the power to corrupt and infest those who he has infected with venom; before they die, horrible monsters are spawned from their bodies. Thoth-Amon can communicate with others over long distances by possessing swarms of insects.

So since we already get beasts as pets, you could use the corruption/venom to create monstrous thralls from Sorcery.

One would have to read the original Howard works to determine what other actual spells were used. But odds are, if it’s in Howard’s work, there is no reason to believe it may not be put in Exiles. But mostly it seems like new ways to create minions.

57

Couple of quick things.

First Sorcery as has been said is part of the Conan Universe and is a major part of Conan Exiles. (Where do you think the Sandstorm came from or the bracelets) Sorcery was originally planned to be part of the game much like Mounts were. It was never implemented. It maybe one day but don’t hold your breath.

The Obelisks, Bracelets, Green Wall, Corruption, Hyena, The Midnight Grove Dungeon, The Staff, The Witch Queen, etc are all examples of Sorcery in the game already. Alchemy is part of Sorcery in the grand scheme.

There is nothing wrong with it per say however it’s implementation in the game is less than easy from the looks of it due to the same poor design decisions/short cuts decided on by the Teams managers early in the development process.

It also has the potential for some balance issues. The Skeletons are a peace offering I think.

As it stands now players have the ability to throw balls of fire, Poison gas, heal themselves and others, create light, etc through other means that act like sorcery as such Sorcery would be little more than Archery reskinned and requiring a new mechanic that would introduce new bugs most likely to break the game in new and exciting ways.

They only reason against adding sorcery, is the fact they can’t keep the game running proper as is. We don’t need a new mechanic to mess things up further.

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58

I didn’t suggest a ban. The person just took it literally even though I explained why I used the word so loosely.

Punishing players isn’t the case. If they read what I wrote and truly understood it, they would have spotted the actual idea. Instead of just logging out in an ordinary manner, a player could logout guns blazing and after two hours (or more), they log in again and get a surprise. Maybe it didn’t open to them, but the timeframes and the words I used should have given all necessary variables for them to deduce it thorough.

What I mean is that this type of a variant ending to gaming sessions could be something some players want. When they return, the deck is shuffled a bit. Also adds a layer of challenge to the mix.

Point is that if they are going to logout anyway, they will have more ways to do so and that their choice would affect their session the next time they log back in.

Which is why I explained that, figuratively speaking, only those who really want to jump the Niagara would be the only ones doing so. No one is banned from playing their game. We just get a fairly creative choice how to logout and further influence our next session whenever that may be.

So yeah. They misunderstood the point.

Edit:

For clarity, I didn’t say they use magic for two hours and then get banned. I wrote specifically:

In other words they may utilise their corruption as long as they won’t overdo it. In essence I merely introduced a breakpoint and two buffs. One to shake the next session and one to negate corruption sources. Both are rewarded if we are good enough.

Edit2:

I don’t know why someone would take the above and misunderstand it so badly. Why would anyone suggest a ban as a reward even. There’s no sense. :joy:

59

I would imagine it’s because you say this:

  • when control is lost, we are logged out from the game
    *when control is lost, we receive a “ban buff” of 2 hours
    *after two hours, we can login again

This implies that Funcom is going to dictate exactly when “control is lost” and the player, against their will, is going to be forcibly logged out of the game, and essentially prevented from logging back in for 2 hours.

Thus they are banned from playing the game they purchased, through a purely gameplay mechanic. Which nobody is going to be happy about.

It’s one thing if roleplayers elect to log out when the corruption is too high, it’s entirely something else when Funcom is enforcing it.

Personally, I don’t see why corruption has to be used to apply negative things to the players who employ magic to begin with. Plenty of Conan sorcerers were alive and well from using dark magics. They may have been evil and done despicable things, but has it once been said anywhere that their use of magic or being corrupt caused any form of illness or sickness within them?

To me it seems more like people just want to use corruption to try and stop sorcery from being part of the game.

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60

If set alters get snake monsters or minions that can be used as base defenders or companions like current thalls the other gods and religons need some other kind. Mitra have animated statues in the image of saints of stone and iron? A much smaller human sized version of the avatar.

Jhebbal Sag would be easy because got werecreatures in game and only thing to differentiate from existing beasts is having more supernatural or sentient ones.

Of course some relgions might not have any summoning of things, but then to balance it would need some other kind of powers.

Izombie-carnophage

Best idea i can think of something fiting theme of yog and canibal religon is some creature like carnophage from MTG that has flayed skin. Who knows where something like that comes from, might just be a still living person who has devolved so much from cannibalism kind of like many mythological creatures which originate from monstrously changed people who did the taboo of eating human flesh.

61

You would not tie stuff to any one specific religion, I believe. But make it like Witch Doctor as a feat to be learned. Then there is no religious balancing required.

It’s just a way of emphasizing there are numerous magical things that can be added.

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I know. However, I didn’t exactly imply it to happen without players’ consented directive and pursuit. That assumption came purely from their own experience.

Here’s where I got the idea…

What I would do is design something similar to what was given in Warhammer 40.000: Inquisitor - Martyr. In that game the scion or the sorcerer spellcaster equivalent variant has to balance between going berserk risking their own life in the process and playing safe, but risking being too time consuming instead. When you die your fourth time, the mission ends in failure and you teleport back to your ship.

Casting spells is the scion’s forte alone and doing so will raise the warp meter. Going above to yellow level means there’s a slight chance that warp anomalies will happen and going up to the red level the anomalies spawn like mushrooms after a rainy day (one of them is actually warp rain effect). Some anomalies are harmless, even fewer will actually heal us, some will make our vision blurry and some deal damage up to a lethal degree in a worst scenario. Anomalies come in different strategy elements as well so the approach to one isn’t always what works to the other.

Personally I would love it if we could utilise corruption to our advantage.

63

I honestly am lost with the amount of activity that bloomed here, everyone clearly has solid opinions on this topic!!

A lot of you have it exactly how I imagine, nothing to big but adaptions that work with what is already there, it is exactly as has been said, this is Conan not World of Warcraft or some Diablo 3 like game with lightning blasts and fireballs, the idea of shield magic of some sort is not out of the question, as we see many forms of it already, the curse wall, the witch queen fight, and a few others where the boss is hiding behind a magic shield…

things like curses, and taints, summons, perhaps even something bordering close to temporary mind control there are many < many! > different forms of this already around the exiled lands.

corruption ? it could be applied in a curse, temporarily, same as poison, maybe temporary weaknesses to certain weapon types, who knows!! keep it coming!!

the possibilities are endless, without turning this game in to something it is not :slight_smile:

64

not realy about the subject, but still a bit.

Didn’t we were suppose to experience halucinogenic vision & monstruous image because of the corruption on our character ? I think that was one of the earliest describing of sorcery and the magic atmosphere of the exiles land.

Wanted to know if that would still be a thing if they hypoteticaly release it because i would love to see that !

Back when i tagged the game in early, and even before it came out, i always imagine the game as a survival with horror element. Not fully about jumpscare but more with a throbbing feeling along the journey.

PLZ funcom, if you do the sorcery thing (first of, thx & love for that), add some horror element to it and bound that with the corruption system !

65

Don’t forget blood transfer! :smile:

66

Interesting notion.

I would love a decent horror element! Corruption basically begs for one. :joy:

67

I have read a few of Howard’s books and the way i understand it sorcery (unless the work of otherworldly beings) was more like a mix of forgotten science/alchemy.

I remember one time where Conan was paralysed With powder from a lotus plant and somebody was temperately blinded with grave dust from a stygian tomb so could see this sort of thing being used ingame as sorcery offering buffs and debuffs at short range using powders of various kinds

68

Yeah, it seems that Conan somewhat regards some parts of science as sorcery, mainly because he can’t get his head around it, perhaps? :thinking:

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69

Exactly, sufficiently advanced science would have appeared like magic to most people in the Conan universe.

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70

I would love that kind of magic. Yes, it shall be costly. Yes, it shall give good benifits. I am not really happy with this new Witch Doctor feat since it is too easy in my opinion to create undeads. And it is only grinding so… not much fun in it either. It should be harder, like only possible if you have, say 50% corruption. And I also feel that using the firebowl cauldron is wrong. A new building block should be used to accually create the undead. That building block should generate corruption and block out the dancer effect is nearby. Now it is only a skin. Boring.

I would like magic that is brutal. Pay with thralls or with your own blood. As in the movie (the one that counts) Valeria had to pay a high price for a great reward (saving Conan). That I would like to see. Right now it is a bit D&D-ish already.