Spear/Roll meta

[Blueeinblacckk]

Hello, I was thinking today about how lame combat is in conan with the spear and dafari meta.
It seemed like there’s nothing to do to balance that out, and it struck me today!
How about giving armor and weapons attack characteristics. For example:
Spear should be considered a piercing weapon with the heavy attacks, and do piercing damage against any armor that isn’t full plate, like leather, chainmail, etc.
And make it do little to no damage against say silent ligeon, or other heavy plate armours.
And blunt weapons in the contrary, should do massive damage to plate and little to padded leather armor.I

That way you can’t go dafari and spear vs heavy plate, since you won’t do very little damage.

And please make the roll much much slower. The roll speed is just non realistically fast, smooth, or realistically convincing.
You should take a look at martial arts guys, and see how fast they roll, and what distance, rolling in conan covers half a mile. It should be reduced in speed and length. Heavy armor dodge feels very realistic, in speed and length, but light armor roll is over the top. It renders everything else useless, there’s only dafari spearmen everywhere.
Idk wheb I was checking out conan exiles website prior buying the description of “no left click spam to win” sounded promising, except you guys forgot to mention that the game is “right click spam to win” instead.
It absolutely doesn’t feel like precision or timing is required, you just spam spear poke>roll>heal>repeat. It’s very repetitive and boring. Please do something about it. Only reason I play Conan every now and then is to check changes, build stuff and and do some dungeons.

Please do something about this combat.

[Infectious1X]

The real issue here is heavy armor is nearly useless since the armor reduction is pathetic when compared to light or medium armor. Light armor at flawless epic gives a whopping 50% damage reduction on average, whereas heavy is only 25-30% higher for a near nonexistant dodge.

The second major issue is the fact that one doesn’t have to fully commit to any attack (even with a spear) as they can roll mid-animation, or unequip and immediately roll. This needs to be changed to where unequipping or rolling mid-animation is no longer possible. This might make certain weapons, such as greatswords, become much stronger, so the solution is to provide a feint option. Unequipping mid-animation will only be possible if the attack isn’t late enough to cause damage.

[Kapoteeni]

@Blueeinblacckk

How about giving armor and weapons attack characteristics.

As much as I’d love to see weapons and armor represented realistically in a game, I don’t see it happen. Not in a game with as limited attack and defense moves as Conan Exiles, at least.

You’re right - spears, swords and similar cutting or piercing weapons basically cannot harm a person wearing heavy armor. One of the best weapons against “full plate” is a dagger, but to utilize it you first need to wrestle the other guy to the ground and then stab him through the visor or something. Mail can be pierced with a very strong spear thrust, but swords would be nearly useless. Even a quilted jacket made of linen can stop arrows and sword cuts. Blunt impact weapons would be effective against all types of armor, which would result in everyone using maces or hammers (or pollaxes and polearms as we saw happen in medieval and Renaissance Europe).

But in the real world, in wars, duels and skirmishes all across the world - most people didn’t die. Armor worked. So realistically, you could have two groups of people wearing mismatched pieces of cloth, leather and mail armor fighting each other for two hours, and in the end they might all still walk away from it, wounded, bruised and exhausted, but alive. Realism makes for uninteresting action games.

That said, most Conan Exiles “armors” would offer little actual protection unless you happen to hit an actual armor piece. And a strike in the gut with a sword, spear or dagger can be fatal without medical attention - maybe not instantly, but in a matter of hours or days - and we have very few skilled surgeons roaming the Exiles Lands. Most Exiles would die in a matter of days or weeks to infections and poor hygiene. Again, realism makes for uninteresting action games.

Finally, the dodge roll. If you take a look at a martial artist who rolls you’ll realize that such a roll would be suicide against an opponent armed with sword or a spear. Most armed martial art styles teach you to block incoming attacks with your weapon, or with a shield. Rolling on the ground is a very poor way to evade sword thrusts because the sword tip will move faster than a human body. The dodge roll is a game mechanic, not a representation of a realistic defensive manoeuver. In other words, “don’t try this at home, kids”. Making the dodge roll slower would make it more realistic, but it would also make it realistically useless, and, as a wise man said, realism makes for uninteresting action games.

The spear/dodge combination may be too powerful (although I doubt that, after they added the delay to the spear attack animation before you can dodge, leaving the spear user vulnerable to retaliation), but adding realism to an action combat game is probably not the right way to fix things.

[Blueeinblacckk]

If realism is not a fix, nerfing is not a fix, then what in the world is a fix?

[Blueeinblacckk]

That won’t work, the problem with the spear is the attack speed and damage, you can use other weapons, but the spear simply puts out more dpm than any other weapon. And it’s much easier to hit someone with a spear, than let’s say a 2h hammer, the animations are just not viable, too slow and clumsy, predictable, you name it.

[Kapoteeni]

They already reduced the spear’s damage on the first two heavy attacks, which means most spear attacks. By the time you’re going for the third attack in a combo, the other guy is going to hit you back.

I didn’t say nerfing isn’t a fix, but I do have to question most suggestions people have as to how exactly nerf the spear. There’s not much you can take away from it and still keep it a useful weapon. The question everyone should ask when suggesting nerfs is: “Would I be happy using this piece of equipment after the change? Would I feel I could compete using that piece of equipment?” If your honest answer is a No, then you’re not asking for balance, you’re asking to win the game against those who are using the (currently) strongest option.

[jesstheripper]

I think the different weapons need to rely on different attributes. It would both make things more realistic and help balance the game, and give you more reasons to lookat the other stats.

Right now, being light with a speer and putting all of your pointd in grit is the way to win, and thats just lame. Why not make the spear rely on accuracy? Have it so that the bleed chance is like 1 percent without you being Accurate with the spear?

Also, combine strength and encumbrance, so that using sledge hamars and FREEKING CARRYING THEM is possible in the game!

[thoth-anon]

My counter to the current meta has been what I like to call the encumbered Goose. I simply run away from enemies, get them to go on a wild goose chase after me and then I jump in a body of water with a fob or vault.
Next I over encumber myself with stored junk in said vault and wait for them to swim at me.
Finally I swim above their heads and insta kill them. Great way to farm the current meta.

In all seriousness though light armor needs to be nerfed or healing/buffs in the middle of combat nerfed. No one should be eating / drinking food or potions in the middle of what should be fight or flight adrenaline fulled mortal combat. Heavy armor should have far more resistance to cripple/bleed/sunder and maybe even better dodging capability until the roll is fixed. Rolling with any weapon out and equipped aside from daggers should be impossible.

[jesstheripper]

I feel like those are pretty simple QOL changes for the game that would make it more playable.

How about:

Swords axes & hammers= strength
Spears bows & Daggers= accuracy

Kinda like skirmishers vs Melee

[Blueeinblacckk]

The problem of the spear is not th damage, it’s okay to do high dmg on high end spears, the true advantage spears have is their animation, the fastest, smoothest and softest animation of them all, now trow in the uber range, attack speed and damage, and you’ve got an alpha weapon, say want you may, but all the other weapons, currently, are the underdogs. If I fight a box with the sword or axe, they hit me bow and then, If I use the spear, I can be texting and boiling pasta while doing a world boss. You call that fair/balanced combat? Funcom needs to either
A) Remove spears from the game
B) Change the animations of other weapons
C) Change spear animation, make it slower, etc.

Even if you dodge to the side, the animation is so fast, by the time you finish dodgin the dude’s hitting you with the and thrust.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the spear also has hyperarmor, since when I jump on with the axe they don’t even flinch, while I get stun locked by the spear, wtf is that? Remove at least the hyper armor from the spear!