Suggestion on better base defences

Conan Exiles General Discussion Feedback
1

Hello Funcom and fellow Exiles,

Conan Exiles has been one of my favourite game for about four years now. It has an amazing potential, but as of lately cheating has become a real problem, especially for pvp. And some of the updates has changed the balance in a way that I feel doesnt do the game any favours.
But instead of just sulking I feelt that I wanted to share some opinions and suggestions to try and help out. I am fully aware that they are just my own personal opinions, and that my technical suggestions might be very naive due to my limited knowledge of programming and coding. But here are my five cents.

BASE DEFENSES
The balance between defender and aggressor doesnt really agree with me. I often play the defender and building a good base usually takes weeks for me, just to have someone demolish it completely in 30 min. And gathering and leveling thralls to defend it takes ages, just to have them wiped out during these 30 min. I am sorry to say that I fail to see the fun in that balance.
The Sorcery updates had many good things going on, but the moment I heard about the Batdemons I feelt my inspiration fading. Not because they are a bad idea, cause they could add an interesting challenge implemented in a good way. But the way they entered the game they just cut these 30 min down to 10 min on elevated bases.
In short: It was extremely hard already to defend a base and no good sieges are going on anymore. It feels like all updates have gone the way of the attackers, so here are some suggestions on adding something to the defenders as well and let the attackers work too.
(1). Improve archers. They are very weak at the moment, and can’t defend bases against bat demons or any other thrall/player. Archers feel extremely weak, nearly redundant, cause it should not take 200+ arrows to cut another thralls HP in half. With better archers the bat-demon threats would be more interesting and archers could actually be valuable.
(2). Add T4 walls with 250000 HP or higher. This will diminish the total destruction of bases and fights can take place over longer time, and even make offline raiding harder.
(3). Add a defence bonus to thralls. When thralls are guarding a base (guarding within the basezone), they could have some kind of defensive bonus - maybe dealing more damage or having better protection etc. Being the defender should have some benefits but as it is, the defending thralls are very ineffective.
(4). Offline raiding is defenetly part of the game and even though it is annoying it should not be removed. But once again 
 the thralls are not effective at guariding it, even when they are lvl 20. One suggestion could be to add some kind of offline-bonus that is active if all members of a clan is offline. That would make offline raiding atleast a little harder. And no 
 all members logging out during a raid would not be a working strategy since the bonus would not activate until 10-15 min after the last member logged out (or something along those lines).

Well 
 those where a few suggestions that came to mind. Ofcourse all players won’t agree, but as someone mostly being the defender I would find it nice having some benefits comming my way too. And during the few moments I am the aggressor it is way to easy to enter a T3 base, the challenge is basically gone - I actually miss putting some work behind it.

Kind regards
/Narrian

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While I agree that getting offlined can be frustrating
 I have to deny every single suggestion you bring up. Let’s discuss.

  1. About archers. Archers as defensive thralls are exceptionally effective if you place them right. if you wish your roof to be protected from bat flyers - put more than one archer with clean view in every direction, enable ‘attack all enemies’ and increase attack range to the max. To knock out a bat flyer they need to only hit them once, and npc archers are pretty accurate. 10 times more accurate than me at least.
    Increasing their damage would only lead to imbalance and inability to raid anyone who has more than one of them. Thralls are NOT there to defend your base while you’re afk. They’re there to hinder and to annoy your enemies so you can last longer or can counterattack them easier.
    No base should ever be unraidable.

  2. No. Never ever even think about it. Do you not understand why officials were dead for months before patch 3.0? Because of drawbridge that had 200k. When the game allows building unraidable bases (aka way-too-hard-to-raid base) players lose motivation to even try. If you’d have t4 pieces, guess who else will use them beside you. That’s right, everyone. Including alphas.
    Unraidable bases lead to stagnation and people losing motivation to play. 3.0 breathes life back into the game specifically because of the drawbridge nerf and was close to ruining it with the bazaar stormglass pieces having 200k hp. Gladly those were already nerfed.

3.No. If you gear your thralls appropriately they can be incredibly tanky already now. Once again, thralls are not there to win battles for you. They’re merely a support, a distraction and a nuisance to the enemy.

  1. Once again, I agree that being offlined can be frustrating, just like with previous points this is a stick with 2 ends. As a solo or as a weaker clan you can and should know when to strike your enemy to be able to deal any kind of damage. Offlining oppressors and alphas is a perfectly valid and justified tactic.

Now for advice from my personal experience, on how to minimize and trivialize damage caused by raiders to your base:

  1. Make sure not to keep all your valuables in one spot. Build several bases instead of just one and fracture your resources. If one place gets hit you can quickly regroup and recover in another one, which still stands.
  2. Make secret stashes. A secret stash is a chest built into floor or walls, accessibly only by removing building pieces. Keep in them spare resources and emergency sets which can be used to quickly repair and rebuild damaged sections of your base. Always keep them walled off during raid time and don’t open them if you’re actively being attacked. Make sure to not have the chests close to natural cliffs without walling them from every side, so that people can’t spot them by hitting the cliffs while in 1st person. Here is an example of me making that mistake (video should start from the right moment)"
  1. If you feel like you’re spending too much time farming building mats, don’t hesitate to respect into Beast of burden perk and to gather huge quantities of raw resources in a single trip. Build multiple furnaces, carpenters and blacksmith benches to craft the most essential t3 mats quickly and in large supply.

Combine these 3 suggestions of mine and you’ll stop fearing being raided. No matter how high the damage your base gets, you’ll always know that you have prepared resources to repair and rebuild within an hour after the raid is over.

In other words - don’t blame the game, improve yourself

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Hello and welcome to Conan Exiles’ forums.
I cannot answer the place of PvP players because I am not one.
I’m too bad in a game style.
Nevertheless I think (know my opinion) that giving a defense bonus for the NPCs enslaved to note the archers when the members of the clan are offline could be a good idea.
This question should not have any problem if the PvP players had a fair play minimum and therefore did not practice offline raids.
Helas as for all competitive games the cheaters and people who abuse esplois and glichs are present, although they represent a minority, they tarnish the reputations of honest PvP days.

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Hello Kilix,

Thanks for replying.

Unfortunatly it just sounds like you and I have a very different opinions of what make makes a game fun i believe. My point was that easy raiding doesn’t interest me on either side of the battle since I enjoy a good challenge and the work behind it.

In other words: If you improve yourself as a raider, you might find the challenge these suggestions offer to be interesting.

Kind regards
/Narrian

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Hello Mynotaure,

Thank you for replying.

I am glad some of the suggestions sounds reasonable to you. I am hoping changes like these would make the enemies brave enough to show themselves again.

Kind regards
/Narrian

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Hmm
 either you didn’t read what I wrote, or you don’t even know what you actually want yourself.

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Oof. That’s pretty disrespectful. @Kilix explained well why most of your suggestions wouldn’t work and they’re pretty experienced lol

Bases are not meant to be unraidable or hold out until you decide to get on.

Fight the raiders, take their bombs and return the favor.

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While your offkine? Like to k ow how that is possible.

I believe the toxicity of pvp is because offloning os so easy. So toxic low skill pvpers thrive by just playing 8 hours a day. Which leaves to boredom, then trolling to have some fun.

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Hi @Narrian_Mantric

I liked most of your post about improving base defenses. I, too, would like to see improvements to several features including base defenses in what they can do, base defenses in the variety offered, AI pathing, AI scouting/patroling, and even NPC purge mechanics (let Purges actually siege a base instead taking swords to the stones).

However, I also don’t want to see what was designed for defense to be used for raiding. So, I was thinking about your suggestions #1 



 and #3


 and thinking perhaps they should be combined. An improved archer can be used for raiding (which several players complained about in the past as being “too OP”). However, if the archers are only improved when defending (such as standing on or next to a base foundation, ceiling, and/wall that you own), that might make it better. That would improve their ability for defense and “hopefully” avoid raiding exploits (no taking archers as followers with the increased bonuses).

Keep the ideas coming! Conan Exiles is definitely a great game.

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That’s not what I said, c’mon.

What I meant is that if you want to defend your base, be online and defend it.

Also, I think DBD should be enabled on officials once the kinks are worked out. But we have to work with what we have?

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Hello Kikigirl,

Thank you for your reply.

Please 
 allow me to explain without assuming that I mean to be disrespectfull. First: I never said that bases should be “unraidable”, so why is this even mentioned? Nor has no one (atleast not me), claimed that a base should be able to hold out to till the end of time nomather what the aggressor does 
 so why again with this?

Kilix basically just explained in what way he/she enjoys the game. And that is ok.

(1). It is ofcourse ok to think that thralls are not “meant to” defend your base or meant to do anything specific. But I have not seen rules like that anywhere, nor do I have to agree with that. It is personal opinion of what one think makes the game more fun to play. So I most respectfully disagree (and I am not being ironical), I think it is ok for thralls to have a stronger impact on your defence than they do today.

(2). I already knew all the suggestion Kilix brought forward and that he/she ended with “dont blame the game - improve yourself” which I did find quite disrespectfull. I already do all that, they are good strategies, but they don’t represent what I enjoy about playing the game. I assumed we just had very different views of what made the game fun (maybe I was wrong?) I dont like the easy-target base-play on either side of the battlefield (which I stated in my original post). I enjoy a good siege where there is hard work and time behind taking/raiding a base more like it was 4 years ago when I started playing the game, then I saw my enemies and could enjoy fighting them
 it is not about bases being “unraidable”.

(3). Bases where never really that hard to raid (sorry to say), the loss of activity most likely have several explanations. But I do know a great deal of people leaving the game due to things making bases to easy to raid (cheats/hacks/and even batdemons etc).

(4). Kilix “explained” that offline-raiding is a valid and justified strategy. Yes, it is available, but that doesnt mean that it should be available. Me on the other hand enjoys having it there, but I disagree with the balance of present times.
Being offline raided isnt that frustrating if the balance is good. If the aggressor really has to work for it and earn what they take, then it is ok. But at the moment it feels like the balance favour those who dont feel like putting much effort into it (or atleast as much as I do).

What I am trying to say is that PVP doesnt just belong to one type of player with one type of opinion of how it “should be”. That is why i am bringing forth suggestions that might give something to boths sides.
It is a tricky balance for Funcom to satisfy all players 
 that will probably never work. Kilix presented (direct and indirect) his/her view of it, and I respect that - we enjoy different things. Kilix didnt enjoy the harder bases - that is ok. But I didnt feel that respect was mutual, so I ended the reply in the same way as the one I got. It was not meant to be cocky, just trying to make a point.

Please forgive me if it offended you cause I am not here to offend anyone, I just want a good game. And please forgive my English, it is my second language, so I might not express myself in the best way possible.

Kind regards
/Narrian

1 Like
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Hello Bodin,

Thank you for replying.

I am glad that you find my suggestions are going the right way. I like your mix of the suggestions, that would be perfectly fine with me. I am just brainstorming, so anything to improve my ideas are more than welcomed.

Kind regards
/Narrian

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I really think the difference with all of this now is that people can’t fence stack. No more 50-100 doors to blow through before you get to the loot room.

So I guess you haven’t really come up against hard to raid - or rather - very time consuming bases. Some bases couldn’t be raided fully within the 5 hour window when fence stacking + hard thralls + bubble were a thing.

ToC, report meta, changes to the system all removed that. Not to mention the change to explosives as is.

Now people have to be present and in numbers. If they’re not, then it is what it is.

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Hello again Kikigirl,

True, the fence-stacking was annoying and never feelt realistic. I never did fence stack though (never got the hang of it), and I dont mind it being removed,

I have on other hand fought an enemy with a base that took several days to beat due to a good location and good building (not stacking). I was pretty new at the time, me and my clanmates. The other clan was experienced, and was on from time to time, fought us and rebuilt. But I did enjoy the fight against that clan and their odd buildingstyle (was medium high located place), it was one of the best fights I’ve ever had in Conan.

For me it wouldnt be an issue if a base wouldnt be fully raided in 5 hours (depending on how much material you use ofcourse - 23690 nukes not being enough is just silly). Also for the reason that the game cant be a fulltime job for me (my studies would suffer to much then).

But I also understand the players that wouldnt wanna struggle that hard on every base or enemy they attack. I realize that the balance of a game depends on many things, and it is most likely an impossible mission to find a solution that can satisfy all players (and really hard to fully satisfy even a majority)

I suspect the best solution would be to have two different versions of the PvP (on different servers), and let the players choose which one they prefer - but I doubt that will ever happen though.

Take care, and maybe we will meet on the battlefield someday.

Kind regards
/Narrian

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I think it is reasonable to give an advantage to the defender if their terrain and fortifications and use of defenders (thralls) are good. This is how it generally is in the real world. If you study the history of real world castle defence – many castles were fairly impervious to brute force attacks. This is why sieges had to be done that could last months, if not an entire year: precisely because the attackers knew they had no chance to storm the castle, and their only hope was to starve the defenders out over time. For real historical sieges, a lot of the time the greatest threat to the defenders was the dwindling size of their food stores.

Personally, I think Conan Exiles could learn a few things from real medieval castle sieges. Castles that did get their defences breached were not typically demolished in the process. They were breached, usually at a weak spot like a gate, using a battering ram. Attackers could sometimes get over the walls too – usually at great cost in men, due to the defenders’ advantages. But they didn’t generally bring the walls down, unless they had time to build trebuchets. And even if they destroyed a section of wall to allow attackers to get in, the goal wasn’t generally to raze the castle to the ground. Very often, the goal was to either steal resources or to take over the castle itself, or both. You don’t want to demolish a castle that you intend to occupy and defend afterwards.

In Conan, it is too easy to demolish someone else’s castle down to the last rock. That doesn’t really happen in real world history. Even if you wanted to, it’s just too costly in terms of manpower to demolish. In my opinion, Tier 3 fortifications should be almost impossible to destroy without trebuchets and a great deal of time. It should be so cost-prohibitive (in explosives and time) to destroy T3 stone fortifications that no one would waste effort beyond targeting a weak spot like a gate or specific wall section.

Of course, striking a balance between realism and still making a game that PvP’ers enjoy is not always an easy thing to accomplish. Personally, I think there should still be a place for raiding. But at the end of the raid, if the attackers do successfully breach a castle’s defences, I think the castle should still be standing. Resources and treasures would still be stolen/looted, defender thralls would be killed, and so on, but the base/castle would remain in place – needing repairs wherever it was breached. You should not be able to reduce the entire castle to dust (at least for T3 which is presumed to be high-quality stone and masonry fortifications).

Anyway, I agree with the general spirit of the desire to make defenders stronger than attackers. For the most part, that is how these things played out in history. How to do that in a game that forces both attackers and defenders to plan and prepare themselves better – is easier said than done. Archers on battlements (with cover from parapets and a distinct elevation advantage as well) should definitely have defensive advantages over attackers. It is realistic to say they should have a 10:1 or even a 50:1 or 100:1 advantage in terms of manpower (depending on how well the fortifications are designed). Would that make it impossible to raid? No, but it might mean trebuchets, battering rams, or other things are needed to breach a gate, and allow attackers to get in – in order to try to even the odds.

Unfortunately, making castle sieges more realistic would require a lot of changes to the game (perhaps increasing the strength/hit points of T3 building pieces, especially exterior battlements/gates, and perhaps reducing the effectiveness of explosives on anything except lower tier structures, giving combat advantages to well-entrenched defenders, and so on.). As in the real world, the goal of the attackers should be to breach somewhere specific. Reducing a castle to dust after taking it over isn’t something that generally occurred, because it was a waste of time and effort.

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I know you meant when online. But OP is lookimg at it from offline defenses.

And DBD doesnt have many kinks, or at least we will never know because FC refuses to test it on officials to get true feed back on pros and cons. I meam they release all kind of stuff that has kinks, but for some reason ghey have drawn a line with DBD not releasing:/

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Hello Xochiakawuq,

Thank you for posting and for a very interesting history reflexion. You have a very interesting view.

Kind regards.
/Narrian

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Thanks
! (It always bothered me a little bit that battlements could be reduced to dust so easily by attackers
there’s nothing like that in real world history, especially pre-gunpowder but even when you do start to get to the age of explosives and gunpowder and cannons). A case in point: the Siege of Kenilworth castle in the 13th century in England, was one of the longest in English history – lasting 172 days. Multiple siege weapons were used by both sides. But the main limiting factor for the defenders was their food stores.

And more recently, supposedly one of the longest sieges in world history was the first siege of Ceuta (Morocco) in the late 17th and early 18th centuries – lasting something like 26 years!

So I agree with you: defenders should have more advantages, and successful attackers should be content with looting – not demolishing battlements. There’s nothing to be gained from that kind of destruction – even if you had the ability to accomplish it with ease (which no one historically had).

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Hello again Xochikawuq,

Once again many thanks, and once again a very good reflextion. I have actually during my base-building phases thought of the food-part (Water and food production in my bases so that I am selfsuffienct should a siege party come along) Hopefully it won’t last 26 years 
 but that would defenetly be a good fight though

Kind regards
/Narrian

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Good evening .
Strategically it is admitted that to take a fortified position, it takes a 10/1 report for attackers. This is more valid since the use of heavy and long -range weapons and aviation. DSL for the outset, good games to all.

1 Like