Agreed. Everything has a solution if you are willing to adjust your play style.
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That’s kinda the point of the game. Dear OP here didn’t seem to get that memo and wants the game to cater to his out of this world playstyle instead of adopting a functional method of play
True but the point of the OP was also mixed messaging with the design. Where overpowered thralls are frowned upon but the pools have over-the-top bosses where expert game play is needed to even remotely have a chance to do it or just let your thrall hack and slash it.
The underlying issue is one that occasionally gets brought up. A co-op game like this that encourages clan and group play means the bosses need to be a bit tougher than one casual player can handle. However to offset the challenge to make solo players able to win without getting a black belt in CE combat, the thralls are increased…and then we get this weird balancing game where we watch the thralls fight baddies vs we jump in and get our teeth handed to us.
In other words you want to play how you want. I’m not sure why people can’t be tolerant of your playstyle. Like Pools, some Boss battles are not fun, and if you wanted to do a purist playthrough with no thralls, it would be a chore.
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It sort of seems like what OP is saying though is “My playstyle is X. I can succeed against almost all challenges in the game with playstyle X. However, with encounter Y I cannot. Please adjust encounter Y so that it’s consistent with the rest of the game.” And then it’s just whether or not you come down on the side of “F***com has engaged in bad-wrong game design again.” or “Oh cool. Adding an encounter that’s counter to what the rest of the game encourages is an interesting challenge.” You should be able to tell which side of the fence I’m on.
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And Funcom will never “get this right” because there’s no way to get it right without making dungeons that adjust the enemy strength based on the party size.
The best they can do without that tech is to come up with a variety of different boss battles and dungeons, where each one tries to hit the sweet spot for one or more playstyles, at the cost of putting other playstyles at a disadvantage.
That’s probably why some of the rewards are underwhelming, too. When you have a boss that drops something unique that no other boss does, people who prefer a playstyle that isn’t adequate for that boss are going to complain about it.
In the end, I believe more variety – of content and of playstyles – is better, but that goes hand in hand with not being able to use a single playstyle to comfortably interact with all of the content.
No I agree that the OP is being a bit stubborn but I don’t want the valuable parts of his points discounted just because of it. There is still value here if we are to look past the cringy stuff.
I do wish that was a thing…dynamic boss difficulty. Where players proximity around a boss increases it’s stats so that it gets tougher. doesn’t seem that hard to put in there with some level of multiplier but I haven’t coded since the early 90’s so what do I know.
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Having to balance around op follower thralls makes this all really difficult I’d imagine. I’m not sure how you’d modify the thrall system though (or even greenfield a new one).
I sort of think following thralls should be more “support” focused but I’m not sure how that would even work given how the rest of the game is setup. On my private server I’ve nerfed thrall damage to the point where they function pretty much only as tanks. That has some pretty weird side effects that I don’t personally mind but that I’m sure other players would loathe.
In most games support usually means heals/buffs-debuffs/cc, but given Conan’s low magic settings and general lack of of those effects, I’m not sure what there is for support thralls to do besides tank and carry stuff.
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I have a unique experience with Conan in that I do have some friends who play the game who are literally at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to skill. These are people who will not get T4 thralls because its too hard. They won’t do dungeons outside the Abyssal Remnant one because they are too hard. We’re playing Savage Wilds currently, and they are avoiding one half of the map like the plague, because they THINK its too hard. SW has a lower NPC density, and the snow north while having dangers like Hyperboreans and Sabertooths, is mostly boars with some very short ranged mammoths. But they won’t know this because they refuse to go there.
Reason I bring this up is because they too, won’t use potions. Why? Because its too hard. Whenever they try, they get hit and its wasted and they have less health than they had before they tried. Now I want to point out something. Getting T4 thralls, while challenging in some cases, is not too hard. Dungeons are not too hard. Summoning Pools are not too hard. Going to the north in SW is not too hard. And using potions is not too hard.
Just like this guy:
Is too hard for many players to overcome. Yet 37 years later he’s still there. In every iteration of that game, he’s there. Why? Because just because some people can’t get past them. Just because he has the highest player kill count in all of video games. Sometimes the player either needs to get better, or accept their situation.
These are excuses. Using potions, or I should say dealing with damage, for many CE players is like jumping over gaps or dealing with goombas in SMB1. I personally don’t use thralls a lot of the time (well other than to carry my junk). And guess what? I don’t really use potions that often either. Its not uncommon for me to go a week on the same stack of potions doing my boss rounds.
But they are there if I need them, and I have practiced using them and finding opportunities to get a health potion in part of the skill to using them. Sorry arktara, but the problems you are having is between the chair and the monitor.
If you want to be able to do content where the focus might be on you over your thrall and you have to deal with it. Then you might want to practice strategies that revolve around being targeted. You might want to practice even going without a thrall (it can be faster depending on how good you get). And if you are taking damage in encounters, you may wish to practice using potions in those situations.
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I like the pools.
- Looking for statues.
- Killing absurd bosses.
- Wondering how and why the Kinscourge’s soldiers got to the Isle of Siptah.
- Getting some fun loot.
Yes, the concept can be improved in some aspect. But that’s true for everything.
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LORE:
Exiled lands are a pocket dimension between our world and the outer void, the pools, surges, and the storm alike all grab beings from the reaches of the void and dump them into siptah.
learn how to use a shield…it’s so easy
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Strength or number of ads… yup! I wish!!!
I agree it’s an odd thing about not being willing to use aloe potions, but I’m not sure the comparisons you’re making are equivalent (apples and aardvarks?). Right, in ER it’s mainly just a tactics changeup. In CE, (for the rare times it’s even needed at all) it’s a character rebuild - and then maybe also rethinking the tactics.
No real point to be made, just saying…
I have tried being the hammer to the anvil thrall… But the thralls are sometimes very… creative… in what they decide to do and where they decide to go. I go to bring the hammer down and Rocky is wandering off after an archer or goat half a mile away while I’m left with aggro from whatever mean mother hubbard we were hypothetically fighting together.
At that point, it’s better for me to hang back and throw darts or play twing twang while the combatant with more than ten times my HP and heavier armour than I usually wear slogs it out in the pit.
I think it’s the bad diets they eat. All meat and low grade porridge. No veggies, barely any fruit, and far too much booze. It’s rotting their brains.
Ruminations aside, I also prefer to play anvil because (speaking of bad diet) I am want to munch on pizza rolls while grinding through a dungeon, and it’s easier to free hand while turtling than trying to deal with whether auto-target wants to make good life decisions for me today.
My preferred shortswords all bring some sort of status problem with them. Either Poison, Bleed, or some other nuisance. My thrall is usually wielding an outer dark Greatsword for the sunder.
But yeah, my pattern is far from perfect. There are times when it just isn’t a good solutions. Honestly, I’d be a little bothered if any one way of fighting was always the right answer.
As for vitamins, a saying I learned in a specialty school many years ago: “Don’t die in the desert with a full canteen”. If you can use the feat points, get them now. Shards are farmable. If the feat points can be useful to you now, get them. If they are just ornament, then hold on to them. But that’s just my two cents
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Or that! I, for one use shield more often than dodge. Always carry a shield with me on the hotbar.
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I used to. Still sometimes when leveling. At the pools I think @LostBrythunian technique is superior. I’m not that smart, so as a matured character at level 60 with good armor and vitality, I just sweep them with the long sword till I’m at about 50% health then run in a circle and drink a potion. Usually by that time they’re all dead. On the boss if singular, it’s pretty much the same thing but with an E press before circling (to direct the thrall to attack) so by the time I’ve downed the aloe the boss is aggroed on the thrall and I can do it all over again.
After carrying a shield for about a month and not using it even once, I’m no longer always carrying one. I’ve got the hyper-armor of the long sword and 2H hammer 
down well enough now - so I mostly only use those in such times.
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Very sound advice. I’ll eat my 6 Frags and be quiet. 
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On 3728 I spend 150 fragments until I got the recipe for tablet . I filled almost 3 chests with recipes until I get this recipe. You will tell me now, OK you took 28 more recipes that you didn’t knew, yes ok but except klin furnace(back then it was awesome) , venom infused daggers and tablet of power, the others were secondary, I could live without them 
. As I stated in the past, tablet of power recipe should be charged 10 fragments and sold by the archivist like the oils recipe.
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Wait…you spent 150 fragments of power to get the tablet recipe?..and what is the purpose of the tablet recipe? To maximize your fragments to knoweldge points conversion, right? Doesn’t 150 give you enough KP to learn it all?
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