The Purge feels dull now :(

[Kittenykat]

It was touched upon in the other thread briefly, but the new thrall mechanics have pretty much deleted the excitement we used to get out of preparing to hunt for rare thralls in the purges. There’s no unique or rare crafting thralls anymore due to the changes - even at tier 4 they’re just generic - and it has taken away a good bit of what little endgame we had to look forward to.

Now I’m not saying you have to change the way benches and thralls work back to they way they were before (though I do find it rather silly in some ways, like someone else said, the desk doesn’t write the novel), but I do hope that this is being kept in mind for the future. Give us something to look forward to again when it comes to thralls. One of the game’s major, richest features has been dulled significantly. We’re watching and waiting to see if you address this problem, devs!

[vyanie]

Was about to post something similar. I play on a PVE server personally and its now a ghost town as chasing hard to get thralls is meaningless anymore, trade has been completely killed as materials and thralls are now meaning less. its just… boring. I mean we could go to a wipe every week to try and stimulate the game to not be so tediously boring but… bleh.

[Bodin]

Sadly, I would have to agree. I really liked the “Tower Defense” game play of the Purge (when it worked correctly), but now there doesn’t seem to be much reward to successfully doing it. Improving the gameplay on Siptah makes the Exiled Lands boring.

At this point, I’d love to add a suggestion to help fix this problem; unfortunately, I don’t have one to offer yet. I like the new benches and I like the new T4 thralls. So I’d like to keep the new updates, but how to make them work together for the fun of both EL and Siptah?

[vyanie]

agreed, its even worse with the new benches as they make thralls, for the most part useless, just toss in another bench and poof you did exactly what taking the time to find, then knock out, then break a thrall.

[Subotai_Archer_Thief]

Purges should have three skull bosses that drop “Relics and Artifacts” of great power themed from the Conan mythos. Some could be weapons. others could be placeables that provide buffs. Even just placeables that are cool looking and rare would motivate people. They could also just make some unique thralls that did things in your base. A scribe who can create random war paints and gives them to you every X days. etc. There are so many ways that they could be creative with this.

[helium3]

Maybe the purge bosses could drop weapons and armor that you get from delving benches on siptah?

[DanQuixote]

@Bodin

I really liked the “Tower Defense” game play of the Purge (when it worked correctly), but now there doesn’t seem to be much reward to successfully doing it.

I’ve got to disagree with you on this one (picking this quote as it kinda seems like it sums up some of the thread) - the argument seems to be ’ tower defense was good - because we got stuff for it’ - if it’s only fun because of the reward then surely it wasn’t that fun to begin with?

Obviously, I recognise that isn’t what people are actually saying - the ‘excitement of the hunt’ is one of the things people are feeling the loss of. But it does seem to me that if the Purge is not fun in and of itself, without the ‘reward’ of something locked behind it, then making it the only mechanism by which something can be obtained does not actually make it more fun, it just forces you to do it over and over in the small hope of getting that little burst of excitement when you finally are rewarded. And if the ‘tower defense’ part is fun, then it should not require special rewards locked behind it (and all the RNG fun that entails…).

Personally, I find tower defense extremely dull (I came to CE from 7d2d - got all the tower defense I ever wanted or needed for the rest of time…) - doesn’t matter what the reward for doing it is, I don’t enjoy the waiting around for wave after wave of repetitive combat in a single location for a set time period. The only reason I have ever engaged with the Purge in CE is purely to try to get those rewards that were locked behind it - I didn’t enjoy the process, and in over 1200 hours I never received any reward from it that I cared about in the slightest - the new crafting system is literally the first time I have had the option of crafting legendary repair kits of either type - previously I just gathered them by grinding the Unnamed City.

Just another perspective. But like I say, if it was only fun for the rewards, then maybe it was the rewards that are fun and not the process?

[Kanza1]

I agree with you , to a certain extent , but the purge wasn’t ( isn’t ) only designed to be “fun” it’s also designed to gathering thralls for defense , building higher tier of buildings ( for example on Sitpah i am not at all (for the moment ) incentivized to build something else than floatsam building pieces , since they go pretty well with the beach environment ( at least on pve / pve-c) ) , and not only that but it was also designed to force you to build in a certain way ( even if it failed in some aspects , doesn’t mean the intent wasn’t there ) .

And if you survived all that , we would throw an occasional "good thrall " in for you as a treat !

but the facts are also that if you take out this treat , it’s too easy to cheese out of the purge ( look at how many solo players complain on not having been able to trigered even one ) for an experienced player that if there is no incentive behind it , then you take out a huge chunk of what people were doing waiting for new content ( at least in pve / pve-c ) the fact that purge T4 are locked behind “regional” and " rng " makes people that are waiting for more content still having something to aim for . But if you take out this incentive , then the only player type that will continue is the ones that one 1 of each purge thrall in their chest/guarding base , and even some of them might get discouraged by the fact that they are no longer “that” special , but more playing hard to get ( wich can be irritating if you think of it without reward ! who wants a follower that even before taking random tea breaks is playing hard to get ? )

[DanQuixote]

Totally reasonable (and correct as always ) - my perspective on tower defense in general is undoubtedly soured by over-exposure - I’m well aware that others ‘get more out of it’

Certainly I can see what you mean with the issue of not being incentivised to build defensively - my base on Siptah was an absolute mess of flotsam platforms and crafting stations out in the open, because it didn’t ‘need’ to be anything else - and as a result was less satisfying than something more thoroughly built. Though, having said that, my current Exiled Lands base is over-built enough to be becoming frustrating for other reasons, so maybe there’s advantages to both situations

I certainly wouldn’t call for the Purge to be removed (I can ‘switch it off’ if it bothers me that much) - I’m mostly just looking to inject a different viewpoint And, to at least some extent, to ask what it is that made the purge enjoyable before if it is no longer enjoyable just by a reduction in the ‘reward’ (arguably removal of that ‘reward’ would be an equally true description - you’re still able to get thralls, but if they’re no different to those in the world, then they are not ‘special’)? To me, this just highlights that the issue is more in the purge itself not being a ‘rewarding’ enough experience, and requiring extra rewards to make it ‘worthwhile’. But like I say, maybe that’s just my negativity towards tower defense in general…

[Gloatingtomb6]

Not much tower defense and other find purges useless well I have a fix. During end of purge all avatars spawn as ai to assault your base at once and they have health instead of timer and you must kill them to win

[Kanza1]

Of course , but what I meant was more that the purge in itself wasn’t made to be " enjoyable " ( who could enjoy losing hours of gameplay stored and built to an army of thiefs and pillagers ? ) but made to be " chalenging " and " destructive " . To balance such a feature we had "purge only " thralls that was reward for surviving to this mechanic . But since purge can be destructive , and that conan exiles is mostly a learn by yourself through : exploration/experimentation and/or looking on the internet for tips & tricks / community driven wikipedia / ect…
They have made it a little less disruptive by having the purge meter go down if you are offline too long ect… ( this is only my guess , but I think a lot of new players get surprised by the purge ( it’s somewhat easy to not see it untill it’s too late , at least for me it was something like “a black hand horde is comming in 10 min” ??? but i have no pets and no thralls to help me defend the 2 towers i just spent 48 h straight into the game without having watched a single tutorial/guide and my teamates are building an outpost in the snow area … )

but now lowering to nothing the reward makes the mechanic imbalanced in my opinion and with the fact you can avoid it easily , it’s the same as if they removed the mechanic for many players . this narrows down the player type that will interact with this mechanic to the people that enjoyed the purge just for the fower defense part ( and with all it’s bugs i guess the numbers aren’t very high ) , and the people that wants every single purge thrall on their head hunting list !

[DanQuixote]

Edit: - wow - sorry, that got long…

Ah, ok, I get you - yeah, purge as ‘challenge’ but with a ‘reward’ to repay what it (may) take from you. I guess I’m also viewing it from more of the singleplayer perspective - the virtual server doesn’t need ‘clearing’ in the same way as on a real server, so the purge doesn’t serve that purpose. (Plus I’m a builder, so never a big fan of being ‘punished’ for playing how I want to play ).

The challenge part I get (though, no purge I’ve had has ever felt that challenging - for a variety of reasons, not least the number of ‘failed’ purges I’ve had for one reason or another - best one was a purge that spawned properly in every way except they spawned on an island that wasn’t connected to my base in any way ) - I like to set my own challenges, but external challenges are always a good thing to have in a game. But I do also know what you mean with the surprise for many new players (a friend got repeatedly wiped when starting out) - I guess I came in with a little more understanding of what to expect, even if I didn’t know what to do about it - I’d watched Neebs Gaming, so I had at least some idea of what not to do

I see what you’re saying about lowering the reward making the mechanism unbalanced - not sure whether I agree or not, I guess I never really cared about the purge thralls I did get (possibly coming from never having got the right ones, of course…), so the reward never felt that meaningful anyway. It’s a weird irony that I’ve probably had more reward from purges since the change than I had before (t4 taskmaster with 300% speed boost - I didn’t even realise how good he was till I picked up a standard t4 and discovered they only give 200% - and, on singleplayer, taskmaster speed makes a big difference since there is no ‘leave them overnight’ option).

@Kanza1

with the fact you can avoid it easily , it’s the same as if they removed the mechanic for many players

But is this actually a problem? If people who don’t enjoy the purge (again, I’m back to enjoyment, but that is kinda the point of playing a game - the challenge part is good, but surely only if you enjoy the challenge to at least some extent?) choose not to engage with the purge, who loses?

I’m really not sure on this one - so, to argue against myself a bit, I can see that it could be easy for people to skip the challenge because of the lack of reward and wind up feeling the game is missing something (they might actually have enjoyed having the challenge there). It is the constant danger of sandbox games - it can be easy to avoid the tougher stuff only to find that you’ve actually made the experience less enjoyable as a whole.

But then, to go the other way, is that not still player choice? You can still choose to face the challenge, and get the enjoyment from it (or the enjoyment of having overcome it - which is probably more where the enjoyment lies with challenges), there’s just no longer active pressure ‘forcing’ you to do it as the only way to get (a chance) at the desirable thing (in this case thralls).

Previously we were incentivised to take on the challenge, but those that did not want to had no choice if they still wanted access to certain parts of the game. Now the incentive is reduced, but so is the pressure on those that didn’t want it. I’m genuinely not sure which is better (which is what makes getting your perspective so interesting )

[Kanza1]

@DanQuixote

(Plus I’m a builder, so never a big fan of being ‘punished’ for playing how I want to play ).

Well don’t get me wrong I’m a builder myself ,and since you know neebs Gaming imagine that one of my clanmates is a thick44 , and all the others are simons in terms of crafting/building and doras in terms of combat so I provided them a lot and built this on my own for our clan and my personnal pleasure , and let them work on the outposts , also I use solo for mod testing/building .

but I’m losing a lot with this change cause I’m part of the playerbase that would like to get 100 % of the different purge named thalls , ( I already got before the thall leveling system was introduced 1 of each fighter/archer / dancer that wasn’t purge ones ( if not for syra brennerhet ) placed down and eventually got rid of them since they couldn’t lvl up and there was “rumors” of imminent thrall limitation ) and now ask himself if he will even want to ingage in this mechanic ever again … because the potential destruction will not be leveled with enough reward ( I love my base more than I want all the purge thralls if they don’t offer anything “special” )

anyway you are also right in a certain point it’s a player choice , but it’s also a core mechanic .

[DanQuixote]

Some really nice buildings there (and if you’re dealing with a clan of Simon/Doras, then they’re definitely lucky to have you - I’m guessing they’d probably still be in a sandstone hut otherwise )

[ShinsaiX]

OMG! YOU WATCH NEEBS GAMING LETS BE BEST FRIENDS DAN! =p

I actually still enjoy the purge when it works as intended >.> It is honestly half the reason I bought the game xD I played Official PVP on Ark for 2, maybe 3 years? I wont touch PVP in survival anymore but I still need that kinda excitement, a reason to build defensive and have thralls protecting my buildings =D That is fun for me and one of the things that keep me interested in Conan, plus all the amazing mods Wouldnt mind some random encounters around the world too though, group of npcs that pop up like hey we wanna take all your gear!

In saying that while I still like the mechanic and enjoy it, having the chance to get a reward from it just made it that much more exciting xD

Im not sure how to use the quote feature… but when you said “Just another perspective. But like I say, if it was only fun for the rewards, then maybe it was the rewards that are fun and not the process?” could that not be also applied to pretty much everything in game then? =p
Dungeons, World bosses, thralls, benches etc. etc. if they didnt have rewards or benefits then they would not be used or at least not as much. Sure a boss is fun to fight (when they work ) but if it didnt give a reward, really how many people would actually run it after the first time? xD

[DanQuixote]

@ShinsaiX

Sure a boss is fun to fight (when they work ) but if it didnt give a reward, really how many people would actually run it after the first time?

Certainly a fair argument I don’t know, I guess maybe I never felt like the reward for the purge was worth it before, lol, so don’t really notice the change so much now… But then, the reward for killing a legendary creature is often something I don’t actually want or care about, and I still do that, but I guess there’s always a chance of getting something good so maybe that’s part of what keeps us coming back. Which of course supports you and Kanza on this one

@ShinsaiX

Wouldnt mind some random encounters around the world too though

Yeah, I think that is something that would be great - I’ve no idea how doable it is, but it would be very cool to encounter a few more things at random (rather than running a route I’ve done so many times that I’m using arrows in the dark because I just know where all the enemies are ). (Although, I have also had the other problem of it gettting really dark somewhere I don’t know so well - that turns into more flailing wildly while demanding that enemies ‘stop hitting me at least until you’ve got a health bar I can target you by!’

If you want to use the quote feature, it’s pretty simple (at least on PC - not sure if it’s the same on a phone) - simply highlight the section of text you want to quote and it should automatically bring up a little box above it saying ‘Quote’ that you can just click on if that’s what you intended (It also works that if you haven’t already started a reply, selecting and clicking quote will automatically begin a new reply message with the selected quote).

Neebs Gaming is an awesome channel (I’m sure there’s many who’d agree with us ). One of the only ones that can get me to watch games that I’m not even interested in playing. Their ‘assault’ on the Undead Dragon at the sinkhole was almost painful from the amount of laughing

[ShinsaiX]

Hehe if it helps! I flail wildly even in daylight, I’m not exactly a very strategic fighter more like runs straight into a fight then realizes it was a mistake and runs away like just kidding I didn’t mean it I’m sorry please stop killing me “death sounds” =D And then runs back and redoes it all over again because I’m a slow learner too apparently!

Ooo thank you for explaining xD Conan is the first game I have bothered joining the forums for so my how to use the forums knowledge is pretty derp haha

I love them so much! Their channel is what got me into playing both Ark and Conan :3

PS Your profile picture changed Dan! I didn’t even recognize you at first!
I went to type Im so used to seeing the big D (the default profile picture you had!) at then burst out laughing cos I realized what it sounded like LOL

[DanQuixote]

Lol, yeah, I’m fairly new to the whole forum thing as well, figured it was time I moved to using some sort of pic rather than the default - I guess using a ‘big D’ for a profile pic wouldn’t be the best

If it helps, I finally started getting a bit more strategic in fights by taking on lots of stuff I could beat easily (like crocs) and just taking my time over it. Probably the most useful one that helped me slow down and pick what I want to do was after I got the Nemedian Helmet (that fixes whatever weapon you’re holding a bit each time you take damage) - I wound up going out to deliberately aggro a croc and let it hit me once, then move around and heal up while staying out the way - probably spent about ten minutes just annoying the croc and dodging - surprisingly fun and it wound up sort of changing my approach to combat (That said, charging in, aggroing everything and then just trying to cope while running round in circles can be a lot of fun too )

[Kanza1]

@ShinsaiX

I love them so much! Their channel is what got me into playing both Ark and Conan :3

for me it’s playing conan that brought me to them , looking for tips & ticks (on what not to do ) , and yes their channel is awsome !!!

@DanQuixote

probably spent about ten minutes just annoying the croc and dodging - surprisingly fun

I did the same long ago with crocs, and it did change something in the way i view pve combat !
crocs are perfect to train , cause their boss version is somewhat the same pace of combat ( just much much longer ) and gorillas also for starters . One of the “surprisingly fun” thing I do , is whenever I have an imp purge , i use only my fists ( and no thralls ) and it becomes really much more funny

[Caffeine]

I know what you mean. On the bright side, not all purge thralls have been made useless.

For example, a purge T4 Smelter still produces more than a regular T4 smelter.
Some other crafting thralls might apply as well.