The Problem With Conan's Longevity and Replayability Suggestion Fix

The problem with Conan’s gameplay, although fun and addictive is that it has no end goal and not enough to make you stay after you saw all the game has to offer (and the new DLCs perhaps) and the actual ‘‘End Goal’’ is pointless and feel’s rushed out but has potential and here’s the solution/ suggestion I’d like to offer, strap in because this is a long one!(Kind of)

So I like grindy and micromanaging games and find my self lost for hours at a time with RTS games, idle games you play on your phone, Planet coaster type games, SIM games, City Skylines and etc..

I have a great history with Funcom and it all started back in 2008 to 2009 when ‘‘The Age of Conan, Hyborian Adventures’’ was released, it was a great at the time RPG and I got hooked and despite the ups and downs I stuck with it.
Years later they came out with Conan Exiles and I immediately ordered the collectors edition and got once again hooked I just liked the graphics and the survival element of it and this game just itched my grindy self and got addicted, well not really and not for long I left Conan because of how buggy it was and did not really picked it back up after months when they rolled out with new content and many of the bugs fixed!
I continued like this for a bit, playing every time they release a new DLC or fix and then not playing anymore for months, again the reasons are unfixed bugs, broken thralls, the decay system, Alpha Clans terrorising servers and last but not least, no actual end goal… I like that the developers try to fix their game incrementally but I don’t like that they don’t fix the lack of an end game…
The solution
I said before that I like idle games and I also said that the end game of Conan Exiles has potential, so for the people whom don’t know a lot about idle games, I like to play ‘‘Idle Miner’’ on my phone(This is only an example of what i like to play on my spare time and not at all an advertisement of any sort) and what you do in this game is slowly accumulate money in order to get the next upgrade in order to earn even more money and when the moment comes when you feel like you don’t earn a lot you just destroy you mine and start anew you destroy all what you had but keep the money you made before with the deference that now you can gather at X times 4 the original speed for example, you prestige and now can make 4 times the money you made before and then you prestige again for even more money than before and this cycle continues on and on and the gameplay don’t really end because there’s always more things to unlock…

Now what does this have to do with Conan Exiles, well we could implement an idle game structure to work kind of like my previous suggestion, for example you start on an official server, the base gathering rate is 1 the game is grindy you mined up some stone to make a pickaxe you make the pickaxe but you still gather only one stone at a time if any but then you gather something like 100 stone ant then you see that you can upgrade your pickaxe and now it can gather 1 to 2 stone at all times, kind of faster and 20 points of extra durability, wow you think great I want to upgrade my pick again so you gather more stone but this time it needs 250 stone to upgrade then when you upgrade it the durability goes up 40 more points, the mining speed goes up a tad bit and now you can gather 2 to 3 points, at this point the pick has changed visually slightly you get exited to make your first base and continue to upgrade you pick, you see that the amount of materials gets progressively more and more and the only option is to keep upgrading your gear whilst levelling up your stats at some point you make your base and fount out that the pickaxe you have has been maxed out at lvl 5 it can gather 5 to 6 stone, has 700 points of durability and mines 50% faster than your first iteration of the stone pick… You keep playing the game and upgrading to iron tools finally, upgrade cost a bit more expensive and grindy but you can do it, your armour and be also upgraded about 5 times with material costs getting more and more Ludacris and more exotic, your base and weapons can be upgraded with materials you gathered to make the more durable, your work stations can be upgraded to do stuff faster, more efficient and costing less materials and the game gets a bit more grindy but you made it, after hours and hours of gameplay you’ve upgraded your amour to iron, your tools to iron and your base and crafting stations also to iron and feel stronger… Now you say I want to upgrade to my base harden brick but the cost of materials is crazy, how you do this? You fight enemies and gather all the materials to make the keystone, the bosses are really tough and you died many times to them but you did it, finally killed them all and gathered all the items, you make the keystone you are lvl 60 and then you use the stone ending the game and so the new game+ or prestige one is unlocked for you and your player starts again your base and everything you owned I destroyed and go back to lvl 0, you think what happened why did I do this but then you try to pick up a stone and you see now that you’ve picked up 2 stones instead of just 1 you get crazy and keep gathering stone to get your first pickaxe you gather them fast and make your first pick it still costs the same to make it and then you gather some stone with it, it can gather 2 stone now and the cost to upgrade it up to 5 times hasn’t changed meaning that now your base rates is 2, you get your first point and decide to spend it you open your attributes and feats tab and see that you have now 10 extra points to spend plus the points from the one lvl you got…

Now this is but for a small example and the addictive factor of the game is you can always upgrade your stuff more and more and enemies get more and more difficult and so the more you prestige the more stuff you can gather and you get progressively stronger and stronger…
This is what is missing from the game A New Game Plus system that will ALWAYS reward you if you put the time in to it…
Because the current way the game is is to easy and you can get to the end game content in a matter of hours/ couple of days and then the game gets boring and only gets visited when a new DLC comes out… Funcom I really like you and I really like this game, I have 1000 hours of gameplay and all DLCs I really like the game and really don’t want it to die…

Thanks

Exponential increases that are common in idle games would outright kill any competitive nature, difficulty curve, and progressional balance. You’re also describing hitting rocks more to get more rocks per hit to hit more rocks with. That completely gets rid of any need for iron, steel, or star metal if you can just infinitely upgrade a stone pick. You’d be killing more of the core game loop than you’d be fixing.

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I believe if this is restated as:

“My problem with Conan’s gameplay, . . .”

It would be more accurate. I do not have a problem with the game play. I enjoy it thoroughly.

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see, this has potential, but only if Conan is a single player game. As a multiplayer game, this would probably drive off a decent amount of the playerbase. This would absolutly ruin any sense of balance, and new players would leave to find something that doesn’t just cater to the 1% of dedicated people who have nothing else to do but keep grinding this game for all eternity.

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This was just an idea and perhaps a way to make a new game plus work…
what I suggested was not to upgrade your tools an infinite amount but a specific number of upgrades, I suggested 5 as an example…
Is possible that my post gave the intention that it should be crazy grindy but no that is not what I intended but in my opinion is that the game is, to easy and it really doesn’t take a lot of time to reach the end content leaving you with not much to do really… Thanks for your comment

Fair enough…
It could very well be the case that I have the problem but you have to agree that the game could benefit more with some sort of a game plus and a reward for having to finish the game other than a game achievement and the deletion of your character…
This forum is open for ideas and we would all benefit to see other people’s idea’s for an end game content better from what we have…

The idea Is that every moment that the player spends in game he will get rewarded, not monetary or something but incrementally rewarded by the player him self, you gather all day materials and you reward yourself by upgrading all you have worked for.
Now my post was, like I said just an idea and will never happen and how the developers would go about implementing something like this I don’t know…
I quoted you because this is exactly how the game is currently, there are only about a few Alpha clans dictating everything and new players have problems and will always have, new player base will always face this problem, there is always going to be an old player base who really invest in the game been ion the top, this problem will not go away regardless but the idea is to always reward new players to keep them… But thanks for commenting

Right, but this idea doesn’t help new players. It’s literally a reward for whoever plays the most/longest. It’s win-more, in that the people who benefit the most are those who have the least need for it.

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