Testlive Patch (29.05.2020) - Balancing and Avatars Rev. 1

Offline Mode

I wanted to give an update to this. I’ve had the offline mode mod installed almost since day 1 of my time on CE. When I reported that the mod didn’t work, I was using it in the testlive client. That was before I switched to the beta branch on the standard live client. I just tested the mod in the live client, and was able to start a new game while the offline mode mod was in use. I only played for a few minutes, but just wanted to let anyone know who wanted to utilize that method. The standard client opted in to the Steam beta branch can play with the offline mod.

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This should be the same on the live version of the game.

See reply for more info

USA Testlive PVE Server

Firebowl cauldron with T2 Alchemist doesn’t present the option to craft special orbs or fill flasks. Is this an intended change? I haven’t yet crafted an improved firebowl cauldron, nor have I recruited a better alchemist.

Far as I know you need named alchemist to craft special orbs or to fill water orbs. :slight_smile:

I didn’t think that was the case, but it could be my memory that’s bad. I’ll go convince a better alchemist to join me and see if it changes.

I checked in game , see shot above. Need a named and for black and white dye you need either a purge alchemist thrall or a witch doctor.

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Ok. Apologies for the unnecessary post. I’ve been so focused on blitzing to test the world bosses that most of my usual support structure is missing, and I’m accustomed to seeing the option there. This is the only bad thing about installing the test branch to the live client, is that I can’t check easily check for myself and am going off of memory.

This seems new to me. As far as I remember, you could take any Alchemist for the base orbs. difficult enough for a beginner as alchemists are difficult to find in noob area. but it is a bit time ago. so this was either changed in the last time or not intended. your question is valid. it should not need a named thrall to craft this base 4 orbs (dragon, tar, poison gas, water bottle), not even a higher ranking Alchemist.

That’s good news that you’re lowering the HP on bosses. I play singleplayer and it’s rare when a fight is enjoyable and that’s because my character is so anemic compared to my thralls and even more so compared to the enemies I’m fighting.

I’ve devised a New Game+ mode for myself, and I’m effectively fighting at level 120 with a heck of a lot more resources than a regular character would and it’s not really comfortable but it feels a little bit closer to Skyrim when the first level scaling hits in and it hits like a truck when it does. Your characters goes from hero to zero in an instant when you meet that scaled up enemy. Conan Exiles feels like that throughout the entire game. I’m not sure that’s intended, but perks are unimpressive, there aren’t that many stat points to go around, character abilities are pretty limited in regards to combat options and in general, there is little you can do to improve your situation.

Also, most attacks with weapons will miss small opponents like spiders because they were motion captured to be used against humanoid targets. Putting a mace on a thrall and having them fight spiders while you go loot the gossamer is almost an infinite fight because you’ll come back and they would have killed maybe one. They can’t hit when they’re swinging about 90% of the time.

I feel that way too, combat feels way too rigid and in comparison, humanoid opponents spam attacks on you much faster than anything a regular player could do and with much higher precision, which ironically makes them deadlier than a player… Again back to the character not feeling all that heroic throughout the vast majority of the game.

NPCs with mace spam are more annoying to me than those with tridents. But not by much…

Also who is Denuvo, the winged creature from your pic? Why remove him? Make him something not attackable that flies around somewhere now and again. Seems like a nice looking asset.

Also, please pay closer attention to the Argos pack. It has incorrect mip maps for ceiling tiles and carpeting. They fade out almost immediately upon your character stepping off of them, making them look very low res compared to other pieces. Collision boxes are not their biggest woes in terms of bugs… The Argos DLC needs QA.

If you want to improve the feel of the characters in game, you should try to make players feel more like leaders of a base in regards to the PVE world. Maybe have thralls and followers be given commands to harvest and gather resources, instead of fighting heroically while the players mine ore and chop trees like slaves. Shouldn’t it be more the other way around?

Instead of learning emotes, maybe players can accrue additional attribute points or special moves that they can slot into their weapons. Like a gemcrafting system, or some similar ability to customize or gain new abilities in combat. I feel it’s too limited at the moment, and powerful thralls are a band-aid solution. Characters are vastly underpowered and largely under-developed by the time the levelling time ends.

Maybe give players veteran levels or something… It’s not really enough to have a finite anything in this game because of the nature of the combat and the fact that boss fights have to compensate for the group component. Sinpleplayer is really struggling to make ends meet and I feel like that is your biggest draw. Even if it just means playing solo on a multiplayer server. I think most people are generally going to be doing things alone most of the time.

Looking forward to fixes. :slight_smile:

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Nope, its anti piracy software.

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Ok, I finally got all my gear built up to the point I went around doing boss fights. There are a lot of bosses in the game that I have still never tried to battle, so I ignored them since I don’t have a baseline for comparison. I’ve thus far ignored avatars for the same reason. I wasn’t playing the game when avatars were in use. I really don’t think I’d be a fair judge for most things avatar related. It’s the first time I had a RHTS as a thrall, I usually just have a T3 from Set City following me. Weapons were the star metal versions from the Argos DLC armors were the craftable lvl 60 armors (except I lucked out and found the Executioner Hood, given to thrall). Details on the gear/stats are available upon request, but I’ll stick to general concepts for this post.

The fights seemed to go a little bit faster, so I’m assuming that’s mostly down to the RHTS. I’ve used the same/similar equipment before, and I remember it taking slightly longer. For the most part, the boss fights felt good. They weren’t so easy that it felt like I was cheesing them, but it also didn’t feel like a tedious grind-fest. I didn’t time them, so I don’t know how long were the durations of the fights. I don’t do the thrall tanking method. I’ve got nothing against letting your thrall do the job, but personally I don’t enjoy the gameplay unless I’m right there in the mix, putting my own butt on the line. I like to share aggro with my thrall.

That brings me to my next point. Sharing aggro. It seems like you guys have put some work into this. Running the live version, for most of the boss fights, it felt like the boss fixated on my character, so a lot of the time I spent running around in circles trying not to die while my thrall did most of the damage. Maybe I’m just imagining it, but it felt different this time compared to when I’ve done them in the live branch. Having said that, a few of the fights felt like they were no different than before. Most notably the Red Mother. When I’m lucky, as soon as she squashes my thrall into the dirt, she ignores him completely and focuses on me. When I’m not lucky, she ignores the thrall completely. I’ve yet to kill the Red Mother. Maybe it’s because I’m fighting in light armor. Maybe I just need some more practice learning when & where to dodge. If you want the player to feel like the hero, he has to be there doing his fair share of damage. I think if you can fine tune whatever type of threat detection mechanisms you have coded in, it could go a very long way in achieving that. The fights I felt were the most engaging, the most immersive, are the ones during which the boss aggro was shared between myself and my thrall. He tanked some good blows while I flanked the boss. Then the boss would turn to me and I would shield up while my thrall was given a chance to deliver some damage. It was a very enjoyable dance to the death.

I obviously don’t know what mechanics are coded into the game for the AI, but I think maybe some type of damage-based threat assessment might be a good tool. For those who play by means of sending in the thrall and firing healing arrows from range, the thrall is the most important target because he’s the one doing the damage. For a player like myself who wants to be right up in the boss’ face, then I’m half of the threat and should take aggro half of the fight. Maybe you already have something like this in place. If you don’t, I hope you consider it. All in all, I think it’s been great patch. And I’m not just saying that because it’s my first one. I’m really happy with what I’ve experienced thus far.

Bosses engaged were: all of the UC bosses except for the snake boss, Croc world boss, Abysmal Remnant (earlier levels in the playthrough), Undead Hyena thing from the Executioner’s Entrance. There are a few more for me to test and compare, but I assume the experience will be similar.
USA Testlive PVE Server

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As I said before. This is the wrong approach. First nobody wants to grind for a rare Thrall, put the effort in him to level him to 20, equip him with good stuff and entrust him your base, while its numbers will be limited and he should be as easily be killed by a player as vice versa. The only solution I see is, to keep there healthpool as it is in the current Test Live build and add a damage penality for hitting players. Just bring them closer to pets in terms of damage when attacking other players…

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USA Testlive PVE Server

T3 Armorer cannot repair the shield that she crafted. I have the proper feats. Unless someone sees something that I’m missing, I don’t know why she can’t repair it.

This issue resolved itself upon my most recent login, although it persisted several login attempts prior to this. Maybe it was a server reset that fixed the issue?

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USA Testlive PVE Server

Ok, so I decided to revisit this in order to verify. It was not caused by the reset potion. Screencap included here was taken immediately after using a yellow lotus potion.

I did some digging and found this from OP of the previous patch thread:

Currently Known Issues
Recipes provided by thralls are not available on crafting stations. Current workaround is to restart the server or rejoin the session.

Which suggests that both the firebowl cauldron and armorer’s bench issues that I mentioned above are a result of this ongoing issue with artisans forgetting their recipes. I wasn’t here for the previous patch, so I didn’t think to read through the previous thread.

Yes I got hit with the the firebowl one, upgraded to improved and swapped the cauldrons, boom gone, placed old one back down and gone from it also. I feel like such a thrall running out to fill glass bottles… :frowning_face:

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It’s even worse when you don’t live near water and rely on the well, isn’t it? Trying to fill an inventory page full of glass flasks and your water keep running out.

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I followed these instructions but they didn’t work for me. Steam opened Conan Exiles, not Conan Exiles - Testlive. Thanks for the suggestion though. Worth a try.

I’m going to loose everything … sigh …

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This worked for me, and I reverted to live afterwards.

Regards

jim

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I had an issue the first time I tried it to, the step I missed was was to shutdown steam completely and restart it. That’s what happened to me, may it will help you.

@scottj So one week still no fix for the test live other then that work around. A week this has been broken and no word from you on fix or what is going on??? Could you tell me when this will be fixed so test live can be joined without some work around???