Suggestion: Centralized Resource Market to Reduce Server Load and Hoarding

Conan Exiles General Discussion
1

Hello,

After spending a lot of time playing Conan Exiles and reading discussions on the forums, I wanted to propose an idea that could help address one of the recurring issues many players experience: excessive loot hoarding.

Currently, many players accumulate massive amounts of materials across multiple vaults, chests, and bases. In many cases, these resources are never fully used, but they remain stored indefinitely, contributing to server strain and clutter.

Proposed Solution: A Centralized Market System

Introduce a system where players can buy and sell raw materials using a standardized currency (for example, gold coins). This could work either through NPC vendors or a global trading interface.

How this helps:

  • Reduces the need to store massive quantities of materials

  • Encourages players to keep wealth in currency instead of physical items

  • Frees up server resources by reducing entity count (vaults, chests, stored stacks)

  • Creates a more dynamic and interactive in-game economy

Instead of maintaining multiple vaults filled with resources they may never use, players could:

  • Keep a smaller, more optimized storage (e.g., ingots or currency)

  • Purchase materials when needed

  • Sell excess resources rather than hoarding them

Additional considerations:

  • Prices could be fixed or dynamic depending on supply/demand

  • Limits or taxes could be added to avoid exploitation

  • Could be optional (server settings) to preserve different playstyles

I believe this system could significantly improve both performance and gameplay experience, especially on official servers where storage tends to grow uncontrollably over time.

2

While I generally agree with this post & like the idea, it would create a new problem that many games fail to solve that has significant consequences of its own.

Duping money then becomes the only gate to success. Players would find a way to dupe money.

Then they would give it to new players who would promptly buy a billion trillion blocks & spam walls across the map.

The main issue is that exploits to a currency system changes the time sink involved with grinding of resources & the encumberance it takes to move those around.

I’d say if it comes with guard rails… such as generous capped structure count & a removal of the decay timer all together it could make a bit more sense.

They don’t have to be tied together, but a reduction in sever load from currency should benefit players with more generous decay timers.

And there has to be a way to stop Angry Bob from sploiting coins & then buying a 100ft tall map spanning wall.

3

That’s actually a very good point, and I agree that a currency-based system would introduce new risks if not properly controlled.

The concern about money duping becoming the main exploit is completely valid. However, I think this doesn’t necessarily invalidate the idea, but rather highlights the need for proper safeguards in the system design.

Some possible ways to mitigate this could be:

  • Transaction limits or daily caps to prevent massive abuse

  • Server-side controlled pricing (not player-driven) to avoid inflation exploits

  • Taxes or sinks (like fees) to constantly remove currency from circulation

  • Bound currency systems (non-tradeable gold earned through gameplay only)

  • Strict monitoring/logging of abnormal transactions

Also, currently, the game already suffers from hoarding and structure spam — just through materials instead of currency. So in a way, this system would shift the problem, but could make it easier to control centrally rather than across thousands of distributed containers.

I really like your point about “guard rails” — I think that’s exactly what would determine whether a system like this works or fails.