Bold statement. So I take it you’ve been on the forums of “every game ever”, as Jimbo said, and can back this statement up by citing these instances from each one? Using caps lock doesn’t make something completely accurate.
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You think that people who say these things are defending Funcom. And to be fair, some of them probably are. I know I’m not.
It’s not that Funcom just needs more time and money. When it comes to software development, sometimes you can dig yourself a nice big hole and there’s no good way to get out of it. At this point, I’m quite convinced that to get rid of all these big problems would required at least a couple of months devoted exclusively to that. Nothing else, just doubling down on quality. I don’t know if they would also need a crapload of money to improve their QA or they could somehow rework it without extra dosh.
The problem is that they literally can’t afford to do that. And when I say “afford”, I don’t mean they need money. I mean that if they sit still for a few months and just work on the bugs, the players will lose interest and leave. You can see that their playerbase is always slowly shrinking and that it expands thanks to new features, DLCs and free weekends. Try to project that trend over a few months, followed by a release that doesn’t really offer anything new. And no matter how many of us say that we would be willing to wait for that, the truth is that at this point Funcom doesn’t have enough credibility and goodwill to truly pull it off.
Part of the problem is UE, of course. Anyone who has ever worked with a big engine like that will agree, even without knowing anything about Conan Exiles. For better or for worse, all major engines are a work of incredible complexity and when your game runs into the limitations of the engine, it’s a huge challenge to overcome them.
But a bigger part is what software developers call technical debt. Basically, the longer you let your problems sit and build on top of them, the harder it becomes to solve them. That’s the “nice big hole” I was referring to earlier.
What Funcom tries to do is solve some of these problems “on the fly”, gradually, but they’re so deep in the hole, that the gradual approach is not working out well.
Maybe I’m too pessimistic. Who knows, maybe the new map will turn things around. Personally, I’ve been on too many projects with huge technical debt to be anything but pessimistic about it. Even though the “point of no return” is not something we can quantify in general, it’s a real thing. I’d love to see Funcom turn things around and prove that Conan Exiles not past the point of no return, but I’ll remain skeptical until they prove me wrong.
Oh, and by the way, I’m not saying that “Conan Exiles is dead”. I just don’t believe in drastic changes when the historical evidence is so stacked in the opposite direction 
we don’t look at the past, we don’t look at the future, we look at the present. where are we? we are on the high seas, of course the idea that the game can improve in every aspect is tempting to many but we have to be realistic about the fact that very few things work today.
I love this game and I sincerely hope it can find better days. I think it’s one of those titles that only happens once. so long live conan and let’s hope god sends us good
Thanks to our faithful News-Asuran @TheLOLxd2, we have knowledge of an upcoming Gaming Seminar for investors, at which Funcom will be a notable presence. For reference, I have been reviewing old webcasts of these events, the first of which was held in 2017.
In 2015, there were only 3 gaming companies in the Nordic sector. One of them was Funcom. Half in prophecy and half in urgency, throughout the 2018 presentation, lead speakers again and again emphasized “Gaming As A Service.” Continue to roll out DLC, and keep the customer engaged. Funcom seems to have been on the cusp of greatness, if not the actual vanguard of that sector’s full exploit of GAAS.
According to the presenters, the Nordic sector had grown in Market Capitalization from 151 million Euro in 2015 to 4.5 billion Euro in just three years.
This of course omits 2019, which we know was a very successful year for the industry, the Nordic sector and Funcom in particular. That Funcom would present this year, with potential capital partners in mind, speaks volumes about their intentions and desires to fund what we demand, going forward.
I don’t really agree that the game is a buggy mess like some people suggest. Yes it’s always had issues with bugs and the like, but most of these games (survival pvp) have had similar issues throughout their lifetimes. Every time something is fixed, something else is broken - that’s not an exclusive issue for Conan Exiles - and i’m not saying that to fanboy the game, I’ve noticed the same in similar like ARK, ATLAS, Rust etc.
I think the biggest issue with the game holding onto players is the longevity of the gameplay loop. This is something that’s never definitively been improved. Yes they’ve added a LOT of stuff into the game which most definitely improves/extends the experience, but ultimately when you’re 60, established, brimming with loot, there’s really not a lot to do. Raiding other players for their own loot is fun but you get to a point where you dont need to do even that and the only way to really enjoy the game is to take a break and come back fresh - or to checkout more content.
This is where a new map is so bloody important, and so so needed. IMO 2019 should have been a year where a new map went in. The game if anything needs 2-3 maps minimum. The current map is fantastic, but when you’ve been living in it for a certain amount of time - around the 1000+ hour mark, it’s still great, but it just doesn’t have the same appeal and ultimately you’re setting up a base and ending up in the same place again.
Things like the thrall and pet levelling systems are good, they add longevity to a degree. But the dungeons fail here. They’re all good experiences, but they’re not the kind of thing you want to do more than once - the kind of content you hoover up and never think about again unless you’re obsessed with collecting every item.
They’ve done multiple things like this to try and encourage players to re-do content - like the unnamed city overhaul - yes there was some good stuff there, but like the other content, it has very limited appeal.
The games single biggest longevity feature is the building system. The building system IS the best building system I’ve seen in any comparable game. No other survival game comes close to the quality of Conan Exile’s building system. Coupled with the climbing system (which goes hand in hand with building) - it’s a serious asset and one that keeps players actually playing. It seems a bit of a no brainer to me that they should further capitolise on it. They have to a degree with the cosmetic dlc’s which have been a very welcome addition to the game - so much so that way back in early access i never could have dreamed of there being such building diversity - but the bases need to be more intrisict to the gameplay loop.
Right now building falls into two categories: building bases or destroying them. There are players who’ll focus all their efforts into one or the other. IMO they should be exploring ways to further enhance the building/base aspect of the game and tie it into the overall gameplay loop. This doesnt just mean enhancing the raiding side of the game - but how about a way of making the building aspect more rewarding? How about introducing ways to reward players who build utility buildings/areas for other players? Ways to properly create player created forts/dungeon adventures? Additional layers to the raiding aspect or mini-games incorporated into it, so we’re seeing very real siege type scenarios where players might fight all afternoon just to get up a wall? Ways to incorporate thralls more interestingly into base defences or even just base builds?
This is the kind of stuff which could take conan to the next level - based on its arguably best selling point - or one of.
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Another thing I’m skeptical about is the idea that because something is profitable, it’s also good for its consumers.
Besides, my post was centered on the technical aspects of the game. It’s nice that Funcom is aiming to get more funding, but you can’t always solve technical problems by throwing money at them.
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I agree with this a lot. The economies shortcomings is what is driving the non need to do the game play loops.
The cons of the current economy:
- Nothing decays. Even items that should have a decay (food) can be cryo-stored.
- The spawns, although rng levels for thralls, are mostly static. Which means I can run the same area over and over, and always get the same returns. That is not to say they should be full blown lotto rng. But having the resources spawn a little more like Star metal nodes (where there are a few “patterns” thus not always the same exact spot.
- Because of 1 and 2, there is no reason to really raid on PVP official. That is why people get really personal when they are raided. They know the other clan only did it to pick a fight, as harvesting is far more rewarding numbers wise. I enjoy raiding, but i cannot remember the last time on officials people raided each other and didn’t go full blown no-life-war on each other until one just gave up due to wanting a life outside the game.
- The game rewards those that play the most to fault. People who play a lot should get some benefits from that play time, but the weight is far tilted. And that goes back to 1 and 2. ONce a clan has vaults of stuff, on an apex spot, they can just out resource any new threats. not out fight, but out resource. Basically just keep bombing over and over until the other side runs out of loot. That is great for RL wars, but to have a healthy server, both clans need to survive and keep the PVP aspect intact on those specific servers. PVP servers will go months after a toxic war where there is only 1 clan building and farming. That clan is also jumpy because the last war stressed them out in RL. Thus they gank noobs to avoid any long term conflicts.
- tied to number 4, is the fact harvest rates don’t push people to play at peak time (evenings). IF the harvest rate was PVE 1x during non raid time, and 4x during raid time, it would allow the people who can only play evenings the time to both defend, farm, and raid. the people with more time would still benefit some from the non raid hours farming, but would have to balance that against protecting during a more populated raid time.
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The thing is - it doesnt take long at all to get all the resources you need to have a reasonably secure base and a bunch of items. For seasoned players, they know exactly what they need to get and where because as you say, it never changes. The real barrier (and an annoying one IMO) is re-obtaining thralls - particularly T4 thralls, but T3 thralls suffice in most situations (when it comes to resource ratios/speed).
What you’ll commonly see is an alpha clan emerge whose either new to the server or returned, will quickly gather all of the essentials, then just go and raid to get their crafter thralls as it’s far easier and far less effort than obtaining them via normal means. What happens here is the whole server population is often disrupted as the most established clans are raided and leave, the alphas get bored and also leave as there’s no other opponents and the population dips.
I’ve seen this situation play out so many times its not funny. The good thing is there is usually a fairly consistent stream of new players, but not all of them make it to 60 or beyond as they’re often raided off the server prior.
I’m not saying this is a bad thing neccessarily either - when you sign up for an official pvp server you are basically acknowleding that anything can happen. But in such small and often closeknit server communities (unavoidable due to the 40 pop max), it is more impactful than games with much larger server pops. Games like Rust can have 200-300 people PER SERVER). ARK can get up in the 50-90 mark or higher, but has a whole range of interconnected servers so potentially an expotentially more massive player number. Conan has just those that use that one server - big difference right there.
I can back it up with every forum I’ve visited of every game I’ve played. Its bugs this, rng that, always complaints.
I put this else where a while ago but it bears repeating…
I think people are forgetting that this was a project built on a tight budget with sub par materials for the sole purpose of bringing funcom out of bankrupcy (look it up) and it worked and this is most likely as good as it is ever going to get.
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Oh I see. I could have sworn you said that if I visited the forums of games I play, you could guarantee I’d find people whining over irrelevant bugs on those games. Oh wait…you did.
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So show a contrapositive. Easy to refute if you want I guess.
“At this point, I’m quite convinced that to get rid of all these big problems would required at least a couple of months devoted exclusively to that.”
-2 years have reported problems that I mentioned in my contribution. They could have been fixed a long time ago but it didn’t happen and exactly what you wrote are those classic arguments of players who just naively hope to get what they want, but it won’t happen;)
“The problem is that they literally can’t afford to do that. And when I say “afford”, I don’t mean they need money. I mean that if they sit still for a few months and just work on the bugs, the players will lose interest and leave.”
-You probably did not understand the point of this post at all … The players you write about have stopped playing CE for a long time because of problems that have not been solved. 80% of official servers are empty, just open your eyes and see it right in the game, not on Steam stats
“Part of the problem is UE, of course”
-No, the UE really is not a problem, the problem is in the person who wakes up in the morning and thinks of making a new launcher or other dubious change in the game that no one wants. Games like ARK: Survival Evolved, PUBG, Sea of Thieves (I have written the best known and most played) so neither of these games had the same problems as this game, but they work on the same engine. So?
Personally, I don’t care if they have the money to fix these things. If someone buys a game he wants to play it and not search 10 times a day for google instructions on how to get rid of lags or how to increase FPS. And especially I think that if they were to devote their time to these problems instead of creating a DLCs or launcher, everything would be much better 
Yes, they could have been fixed a long time ago. They haven’t done that, though, which is why they’re where they are now. That’s literally what I wrote:
You seem to think I’m somehow defending them, when instead I’m being quite fatalistic 
I would hazard a guess and say that the greatest difference is whether they allowed their technical debt to pile up or not. Not to mention how much technical debt they might have started with:
Again, I’m not defending them. I’m just trying to explain why it’s naive to expect things to magically get better “if they were to devote their time to these problems”
Precisely. And those that remain (and aren’t having a great time abusing exploits) will go away even faster if Funcom stops releasing updates because they’re elbow-deep in the code, trying to fix everything.
Seriously, if they said “give us 3 months and then we’ll release an update that fixes everything”, would you believe them? More importantly, would you keep playing the game as it is now for those 3 months? Or would you move on to something different?
I wish I could be that optimistic
I would be afraid if they announced “next three months are bug fixes only” that it meant the game was done. Usually thats what it would mean.
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Rationalize it however you want, you made the claims, not me. Maybe in the future, you won’t try to pee down my back and tell me it’s raining.
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What I’d like to see if Funcom not giving PvPers all the updates and fixes because a lot of times that messes up PvE and there are quite a few of us as well.
I definitely would like to see bug fixes and development in that area, not just new content aimed at making a quick buck. Build something to be proud of and you will gain loyal fans, not just fly-by-night customers that may never give you another chance.
Its stale again. Recent bugged patches, and the fact that mounts had about a month “yee-haw” where people loved them, then…it got stale.
The same will happen when the new map launches. First couple months the game will be booming, then it will die off again. Its the same routine weve seen for years in here, and many years in various other games.
I made the claim that any game YOU play. If you want to refute it fine. I suspect you cant.