Actually you are right. The driver is the one who uses a cupholder more…kind of like combat in Conan. Combat is good only to the player…the NPCs don’t really use it:)
I know this probably isn’t going to be a well received post… but I think people tend to over-react to the fighter getting the archery perk and the archer getting the fighter perk. As well as getting the nerf perks. That’s just me though. To each their own.
You’re right, it’s not going to be received very well, because it’s similar to saying “grow a thicker skin” to someone who’s getting bullied, or saying “cheer up” to someone who’s sad.
What you’re saying is true, but it doesn’t help. People spend hours leveling up their followers and they don’t like to be punished for that. The solution for that is really, really simple, but Funcom doesn’t want to do it. Telling players “it’s all in your head anyway” is true, but not helpful.
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It’s funny to me how many people like to assume that I’m not a person (“people”) too. lol
I too am not exactly jumping for joy when I get a negative stat hit to my thrall. Whoever said life is fair anyways? “Life’s a b with an itch and then you die.” Censoring speech is also something I’m not happy with. How can the word “b with an itch” be censored?
I do fail to see how getting a negative stat perk for your thrall is equate-able to “getting bullied” though. Although I am guilty of telling someone who’s sad to “cheer up.” So maybe I just don’t understand people or life all that well.
A lot of “people”, myself included (I can’t believe I have to type that), use their thralls as tanks. That’s a very dangerous job. It would only seem fair and right that there’s some downside/risk to the role. So I tend to look at the negative perk as a wound suffered in battle. Thralls are a dime a dozen anyways.
I’m not mad or incensed in any way @CodeMage. You’re a well respected and super active member of the Conan Exiles community. You come across as bright and insightful and I appreciate your thoughts and input. I also hope you keep voicing/typing your opinion. The forum wouldn’t be the same without you. 
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I would have hoped that it was clear from the context that I was talking about the same people you were talking about (those that complain about negative perks), rather than somehow denying your personhood.
I don’t know about you, but if I wanted more of real life in my spare time, I wouldn’t spend that spare time playing videogames. 
I play games to have fun. And it’s decidedly not fun to spend hours trying to improve my follower, just to get a randomized outcome that penalizes my effort.
That’s because it isn’t. My point wasn’t that it’s equatable. My point was that you can’t discard the human psychology, not even when it comes to video games. And if the problems with human psychology could be solved as easily as saying “it’s all in your head, just change the way you think”, then psychologists would be out of work.
That’s where the psychology comes into play. I wouldn’t mind it half as much if it was a wound suffered in battle. Instead, it’s supposed to be a “perk”.
It’s a completely random outcome that I have no control over and that’s being presented to me as something that normally has positive connotations. Maybe it’s because English isn’t my native language, but I’ve never heard anyone say “yeah, having a limp is one of the perks of this job”, at least not without sarcasm being involved.
Yes, but time to level them isn’t. At least, not in my case. I’m glad that other people might have more time to play this game, but mine is somewhat limited. Having random dice rolls waste that time in a completely gratuitous fashion is a source of frustration for me.
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Its toss up… Major RNG to get said rare thralls RNG to get Good stats spread… then rng x 3 to get 1-2 good perks, and its heavily weighed to be nothing you want after winning RNG twice. XD
Same as Horses… It takes 100-120+ to get about 5 female blue spotted… and pool for them to have good stats is complete trash.
I had some of it written down before, when trying cheese with admin panel. It takes about 50+ horse to get a 80% one…
Trying to do it on live server? You need to spam stables all over a area…just speed it up.
Its to much RNG…
Horse RNG could be saved by simply adding paint recipes for 4 bases horses like black and white ones.
Thralls, it would be nice if Food Buffs, or had Potions to buff a % of certain perk. (or perk pool)
Just make potions ingredients rare.
Then again… most of skills/perks dont matter to much… but OCD and to much free time says gotta try right. XD
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If that’s persistent, try thralls like Colvric the Blade as Archers.
A Fighter sporting a base 20 Accuracy with the highest percentage to gain in said attribute(usually) and with almost equal Melee/Accuracy multipliers of 1.56 & 1.575.
Another one is Birger Birch-Bow, and Archer with 20 base strength, 15 Vit and higher gain percentages for them. He’s only 1.2 Melee, though I’ve found it’s still acceptable.
the thrall leveling and perk system is nearly un-moddable. all the variables are read-only and the main logic is c++. converting a thrall back into a thrall item, and losing all progress and stats, is the only thing that is currently possible
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Why would they program one of the fundamental and one of the most engaging part of the game behind an un-moddable wall? Is it due to how Followers were programmed from the outset?
Opening things up for modding is extra effort. Hell, taking anything written in C++ and making it accessible to anything else (including other C++ code) is a right pain in the аss 
the variables and implementation was not explicitly restricted for modding, it’s more that you need extra steps to make things accessible via blueprint if the implementation is in c++. in this case it was either overlooked, forgotten or not done so far due to time constraints.
the problem has been addressed, but it will take some time to fix it
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Oh cool, I’m glad it’s slated to be looked at and fixed. Thanks for the layperson explanation.
I feel you…
Thank you.
Funcom has a way of going overboard on everything. There seems to be no middle ground with them, its either major meta or major nerf. After playing five years I realize this will probably never change, and have resigned myself to the fact that anything I have worked hard for will be eventually nerfed. I used to spend hours upon hours killing the red mother and other bosses for the drops, but I don’t even bother anymore.
The evolution of the thralls was - stands there in attack mode looking stupid and wearing whatever they had coming off of the wheel to overpowered tanks that let you AFK to cook dinner while they were soloing everything in sight to I have no idea if this thrall is good or not., why am I spending so much time leveling it?
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The downside is when your thrall gets stuck in a crack or corner, decides to block for infinity, or just stands there watching you die.
I use my followers in a multi-purpose role, when we are hunting T4s, she has the truncheon, I have the axe and shield. That way I can block and see what is a t4 and what isnt.
When we go toe to toe with a boss, I send her in first to grab agro, then I come in and attack from behind. Usually my attacks pull the agro from her and I get the brunt of the damage.
This causes me to withdraw and lets her regain agro.
In the old days, I would send in my “tank” and stand back and shoot healing arrows until the target was dead. That doesn’t work anymore, unless you want to be there all day, and spend a few hours waiting for your “tank” to heal up.
I actually like the realism of the new mechanics, but have leveled up probably 40 followers and had only one that really didn’t get a negative perk. That’s not a wound suffered in battle, that’s a travesty.
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I think to be honest its all done on purpose if all you get is crappy RNG on your thralls sooner or later you will give up and stop using them, then all the servers will run better. Thralls are no smarter for these perks, they do not fight better nor do the follow better or do anything different because the have these perks. They still fall off mountains and get stuck in rocks and get lost, none of these perks have changed how thralls act or even their usefulness, its all window dressing.
If that is not it then was would you as a company want to punish your player base with hours of leveling each thrall to have to throw it away as you were training a archer for your wall not a fighter so there fore you need to train a new one its a way to make you play longer and longer same as the RNG on every thing on Spitah its not about fun for the player its about making you play longer and longer to do the same thing that took half the time a year ago. Its about keeping you playing the game but I do not think that Funcom understand that this does not create more fun but more frustration but as Natascha said on one of the long ago streams that " if players are frustrated then we know they are still playing."
I think that the perk system has been broken and not even come close to what they told us it would be when they tried to sell players on the idea and talked everyone into how wonderful new thralls would be trying to make us all want to give up our legacy thralls and it has not in any way made thralls more useful for me at least. At least we knew what we had and did not have to spend days and weeks leveling up thralls to throw them away and start over with many of the thralls we get now.
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I still name one of my thrall “Captain” out of nostalgia…
New game, first lvl 20 thrall :
lvl 10 : “Archer”+3 accuracy
Lvl 15 : “High Strung” -3 accuracy
Lvl 20 : “Warden” +8 accuracy
I already want to “recreate character”
My new toon is supposed to be a Heroes trainer, and these non sense perks are totally breaking my storyline! 
I feel you , have had so many thralls just not worth that time but I still keep trying for that one thrall so guess they caught me in that circle. My bf is more of an animal person as he says the perks are not as important as how hard they hit and their armor vales for him, they level better he says.
Yea hard to get into that place when the story is just not coming together.
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