Dear OP: nobody is saying that the current meta isn’t particularly imbalanced, and it is in need of some balancing indeed. But, since your words don’t revolve around that topic, but “I don’t like the current meta therefore the game can’t be played anymore”, I’m afraid you expose yourself to some rather caustic replies.
As people have suggested, as imbalanced the meta might be, it can hardly be considered unfair. It’s not like people with access to a pre-nerf weapon are instagibbing others, or through a current set of hard-to-obtain gear they can destroy everything in their path. The tools required to join the meta are considerably easy to obtain. A stable, a horse, and a spear.
Besides, there’s no need to be so utterly disprespectful to everyone here. You brought this upon yourself.
If you’re complaining about not being able to defeat three opponents at once, consider that being able to do so might be imbalanced in its own way. One could argue that there shouldn’t be a skill ceiling so high that lets someone take on several others at once and kill them.
There may be two main reasons for you to be angry, and a possible solution to each of them.
You’re angry because the current meta doesn’t suit your style and the skills you’ve developed up to this point. The answer to this is to join the meta, make its tools yours and use them to your advantage. In other words: L2P.
You’re angry because, whether the skill ceiling has dropped or not, the skill floor has risen, since now everyone can inflict serious damage against their opponents, and not only you need to know how to use those tools, you need to devise new builds and strategies to be able to stand above the others, and it will be considerably harder than before. In other words: GIT GUD SCRUB.
I can only imagine the amount of butthurt generated by the first gun ever.
We shouldn’t exaggerate here. There is no counter to it if you decide to fight a guy on a horse on an open field. But you don’t do this if you want to win.
The big disadvantages of horses are terrain and range. You don’t want to get trampled? Get your bow, put yourself on an elevated area or somewhere where the riders has big problems to move and use that for your advantage. You don’t like that? Ok, get trampled than.
The same discussion or at least similar I recently read here was “Archers are too strong” with the same tunnel-vision argumentation.
It’s your decision how and what you play and the balancing isn’t that terrible at the moment.
It’s a matter of adapt and learn and not melee each other like pinatas.
I don’t understand why people keep complaining about horses, I have not once come across with players on horse (Xbox official PVP) and I played at least 5-6 servers.
Any PVP game on the world has meta in it that players try to abuse. Full stop.
pvp doesn’t exist. It’s either GvP (group vs. player) or spawn camp obelisk to kill people not fully loaded in (or the same an dungeon entrances) or offline raid bases. Don’t kid yourself.
I’ve tried using a horse on PvE a little. “Just spam attack” results in me and the horsey getting hit a lot. Yes, you’ll probably out-damage the guy on foot, but if both players are just standing next to each other trading blows, they’re both doing something wrong.
Before the spear nerf (and later dodge nerf), the argument was the same: “spear+dodge requires no skill, it’s just roll-poke-roll-poke-win”. That’s why I find it hard to take “requires no skill” arguments seriously.
It’s also extremely easy to prove whether the argument is true or false. Pick two experienced PvPers - one with no prior experience with fighting mounted, one who has practised mounted combat since January. Set them against each other with similar horses, armor and weapons. See which one wins. Repeat. If the guy who hasn’t fought on horseback before doesn’t win ~50 % of the time, there is some skill involved in mounted combat after all.
I wonder if you have actually tried that in game and killed players like that. Since it’s just super easy to… umm… walk away with your horse?
Btw, I am archer spec ingame and I abuse elevated positions. I also killed 3 horses in my last fight.
But you can easily charge in, instagib someone with your horse and thrall and then charge out again, getting out of range of the archer(s). Then a teammate heals up your horse with healing arrows. And repeat.
For gods sake people stop comparing games with real life! Conan Exiles is NOT a simulator!
If you want realism in Conan, go on, remove respawn after death. Because respawning is unrealistic…
Also running around with 50 tons of stone in your backpack is unrealistic too…
For gods sake people, stop pretending that that a person on foot with a sword in hand should be able to fight 3-4 people on horse back and then cry that horses are OP. It’s just ridiculous to cry about something so ludicrous.
Why would a teammate heal the horse? Healing arrows are very weak while mounted, it barely heal the player and if they are mounted I dont think it will actually heal the horse. Stamina is a big problem for riders, they take long to start regenerating. A rider that uses hit and run tactic will run out of stamina after 2 or 3 charges, even less depending how much they already charged to get to you in the first place. It drops fast, much faster than a player on foot avoiding the charges, riders that use this tactic have two options when they start running low on Stamina: stay and fight risk being dropped out the horse, or move away. If they retreat its the perfect time to take the fight to a terrain favors you.
New mechanics require new tactics, I strongly suggest people who are struggling to actually give mounted combat a try, its the best way to learn how they work and find exploits. Glad to see the game is improving and giving players new tools and experiences.
Blocking does not work against almost anything PVE related, unless they fixed it.
Snakes and mobs attack you so frequently that you won’t have a time gap between lowering your shield and fighting back. Some mobs also get their attack time cooldown reset as soon as they hit your shield, making them be able to start a new attack animation almost immediately.
Unless that was fixed, or you mean simply holding your shield while your thrall does the job, shields are useless Against most mobs
Unless they’ve changed it in the last weeks, you can block almost literally everything short of a mammoth trampling you. Even Rotbranch/Rockslide sweep attacks can be blocked (and interrupted) if you use the right angle. Giants and their clubs? Blocked. Snakes? Blocked. Dragons? Even one of their breath attacks can be blocked (I don’t recall if it was the static one or the sweeping one). Humanoid NPCS? Only the greatswords’ downward slash attack cannot be blocked.