Well, when you take a brand new player who’s never touched the game for and gotten them to show they are as successful with the thralls as players who’ve put in hundreds of hours or more, then I’ll accept it’s balanced.
But if said player gets wrecked and struggles too much, then it’s nothing but a sh*tshow of a design. Survival game or not, it shouldn’t be “fine” for experienced players, and “brutal” for new players.
Isn’t the first time I’ve seen that sort of thing, tbh. Skilled players think only about how they play the game, and not how everyone else does.
But that’s not something a designer has the luxury to do. They have to work things out to be functional for ALL their players, not just the minority. That’s how you lose revenue.
I’m certainly not inclined to spend any more money on Conan if this thrall nerf makes the game needlessly difficult for my skill level, just to cater to better players. Even with playing on single player and being able to fix their mistakes with addons or server settings.
Which shouldn’t be the solution in the first place. It’s just lazy to tell players to do that because you can’t balance things correctly.
Edit: Or else, some serious design needs to be given to Thralls. They need to be faster leveled and easier to work with in general, if they are going to be squishier. Rather than a grind.
I’m sorry to say that if this 
is the case, then you are in the minority, and balancing for the minority is never a good idea. The nerf itself might have been a little heavy handed but the goal was not to balance game difficulty as you are implying. The goal was to buff player skills and damage, bringing the player out of the shadows to become the hero, instead of the thrall’s sidekick.
The only advice I can offer on this front is to wait until the game goes live as certain things may still change, that’s what TestLive is for. Once it has been released, I’m sure there will still be people that don’t like the changes no matter how insignificant those changes are. All I’m saying is reserve your judgement until you have at least tested it yourself, you may be pleasantly surprised.
Additionally, as you pointed out, the tools available to you (in the settings) will still allow you to increase your (or your thrall’s) damage as well as decreasing damage taken if you still feel it’s necessary.
Oh I know full well this wasn’t necessary at all. I’ve seen this happen with Conan stuff before from when I was here on the forums as a PS4 player, watching stuff get beat into the ground because the vocal people were screaming about it. And there was no finesse used, only sledgehammers.
Edit:
I mean, what concerns me the most is, it sounds like Authority is going to become mandatory. And with the way attributes have been revamped, that is a serious investment now.
Like, literally spending 1/3 of my points so Thralls can be viable to help me. Means I then have to spend up to 1/3 of them to pick either Strength or Agility to be able to fight myself. Leaving 1/3 to use on other stuff.
It feels like you’re being forced to respec yourself rather heavily between if you want to engage in combat or if you want to go out gather or build stuff.
You’ll need STR/AGI for your damage, VIT to help you stay alive, and Authority for thralls when you go out into combat stuff.
Then you have to drop that for Expertise when you go gather or build.
Just feels like the whole SAVAGE system becomes meaningless when you just respec constantly to get the best perks for your current usage, then swap again when you need to do something else.
You asked if we were:
And in my case the answer is no. I am considering uber-n00bs and likely so is Funcom! Some colleagues and I played for around 4 months before we even considered thralls or followers and then it was just horses for about a month till we decided to try something else. Wolf pups and antelope were next - but only as a base defense - not taking them out - as we thought they would die. Another month later we started in with human thralls and occasionally taking them with us as we adventured. Mostly they were Level I and Level II humans from the Trapper’s Cabin.
Thralls were never needed in this game and still aren’t.
I think you’re going to a bit extreme with this…
I generally don’t have a “git gud” attitude and every time any inexperienced player in any game struggles with something I gladly help them with information or any way I can instead of mocking them…
However this viewpoint is just unreasonable in my opinion… You cannot expect ANY game or pretty much anything in life where a complete beginner should have the same playing field as somebody who mastered said skill… and if a system is designed like that, then that’s a horrible and unrewarding system.
At some point part of the goal in any game is the journey itself of improving and becoming better over time so I completely disagree with the notion that they should be “as successful” as experienced players in positioning and handling their thralls or fighting alongside them.
Also, it does not appear to be balanced towards the “extremely good players” either… they certainly don’t need a thrall with 8k HP to kill a boss, not to mention normal non-boss NPC camps, I mean look at @Marcospt stalking this thread like his life depends on it 
He’s a decent player by his own admission and can kill bosses alone without thralls, so certainly doesn’t NEED one with 8k HP.
So it’s not a case of it being balanced only for the really good ones… it actually is as you say it should be - balanced towards the medium… in fact a bit under still probably to account for glitchy AI.
Oh which reminds me @Marcospt It’s also not an argument that “Nobody forces you to use thralls”… that’s pretty much the equivalent of “Nobody is forcing you to play the game”… but if you’re playing it… why would you choose to ignore the popular features of it that you paid for? The neighbor has a BMW! I can have one too? for free? even if I only walk?.. Sure!
In PvP you don’t really have the choice, since the meta is typically being forced on people to some degree… so when it comes to PvP that’s the equivalent of “Let’s have a boxing match, but I’ll deliberately tie my hands behind my back and see if I can win”… it would be crazy to deliberately opt out when the enemy is coming at you with thralls…
The more I think about it thou… the more I come to realize that this isn’t the real issue…
Because here’s the thing (and let’s focus on PvE for now since we’re talking RPG stats, health and NPC damage)…
The thing is… under normal circumstances the current thralls ARE way too overpowered… and in a game you would expect to not win every fight with ease all the time regardless of skill level… you’d expect to have to walk away from a few and lick your wounds a bit etc…
Even so… under normal circumstances the thralls seem to be more than enough even post-nerf, in fact I doubt you’d have to back away from most bosses (few exceptions) with a fully leveled thrall regardless of authority… even if you’re very non-skilled.
So what is this term here “normal circumstances”?.. It means when the game works as it’s supposed to… cuz most of the time when you actually utilize that massive HP buffer is when the AI craps on your thrall and it’s getting pummeled not doing anything… stuck somewhere… or you disconnect / die and your thrall is left there alone aimlessly… etc… the “bugs and issues”…
Maybe we should be complaining so they come up with a system for that…
But the biggest one of them… and this is where I share the concern… is the consequences of things bugging out… or losing a fight… You should NOT lose imo a follower that you really put a lot of effort into gaining… leveling… perking… babying around pretty much… especially when you lose it to a silly bug and it’s lost forever… that’s a concern I completely share…
Because what happens?.. the player tries a fight… fails… dies… gets resurrected… maybe in some cases loses a set of gear as a “punishment” but then moves on with their lives or is free to try again… the thrall thou is just gone… and that doesn’t feel any better than getting offline raided and robbed and losing assets that way…
I think this is where the issue lies… if there was a way to make your thrall respawn if it dies… to get it back the way it was… and somewhat minimize the consequence factor… then I think Funcom could get away with way more nerfs and a lot of people would be way more comfortable with a system where the thrall HP is closer to that of the player’s…
So overall I think we’re arguing the wrong thing here and we’re “dying on the wrong hill” by wanting to cling to our 10k HP thralls… instead what we should be doing is asking for a system where we can get them back if they die so that we may experiment with them a bit more “bravely”.
All that 
and like I said you don’t even need thralls at all 
That’s the thing.
I can understand Thralls being too powerful in PvP terms. It would probably suck to be raiding a base full of powerful thralls.
But that is where the rub is, and always will be in this game. If you nerf thralls from being too powerful in that instance, you’re also nerfing them for those who don’t engage in that.
It’s what I have always said has, and will be, the biggest issue with this game. Trying to balance way too many things all together, and it pretty much just isn’t going to work.
PvP needs thrall guards at a base to be reasonable for players to face them down, without them being too powerful or too weak.
PvE needs thrall guards at a base to be reasonable for the purge to face against them, again without them being too powerful or too weak.
Players have the advantage of intelligence when facing a thrall, so they can be smarter with their tactics.
At the same time, Purge enemies have a mechanical advantage, of sorts.
Leveling is a concern, definitely. Like, it’s a pain in the butt leveling a single thrall. Having to ensure they eat after every level to make sure they get the boost you want. On top of getting the right RNG with their perks, that can foul an entire thrall up. Not to mention the RNG of actually FINDING the thrall in the first place, which not all are easy to obtain.
We 100% should be able to recover them like that. There is really no reason we shouldn’t.
Ideally the way something like that needs to work is they need to be respawned at your base, at a special point you designate with a placeable. And set into Scout/Guard mode by default.
Yup, see? That’s what I mean!
Make them less clumsy but at the very least recoverable and then people would be much more inclined to give the nerfs a try, I agree that it’s a silly situation that the fear of losing them is a major driving force in how we perceive changes.
So maybe the design team should pick up on this @den ?
I disagree. Mostly, they just need to turn off offline raiding.
I disagree again. A couple of low level players can defeat any purge and repair or replace what was broken in just an hour or two. No thralls needed at all. I single stalwart (or experienced and intelligent) player can do the same - again no thralls needed. And by “experienced” I mean they have endured at least one prior purge event.
And let’s not wait until Chapter 2…because didn’t they say like…each Age is going to be 13 weeks or something? So who wants to wait a few months for something like this to be worked on.
That’s your problem. You keep thinking about this game as if everyone wants to be a part of a group or a clan and has player allies to help deal with stuff. When some people literally it’s them and their thralls and nothing else.
Still not a problem… You do not need a base. You do not need a thrall. You do not need a mount. You do not need to play this game like “everyone else does” or “everyone else says to”. You can play for a year and never even know what a purge looks like. There are a million ways to play CE. There are some ways that have associated requirements - if you wanna play those ways then you need to meet those requirements. As a total n00b you do what you can until you can do more.
Simple!
The “I’m a solo n00b but insist on being as powerful as an alpha clan” message is lost on me. It’s just dumb!
From what I remember of your thread about how you returned to the game and don’t like the combat anymore, you’re in the second group, and that’s really why you’re complaining.
The nice thing about being a new player is that you eventually learn from your mistakes. It’s always the old players that stubbornly refuse to adapt to changes and demand that the game cater to that refusal.
That defeats the whole point of learning to play the game. If there’s no difference between a newbie and someone who has been playing a long time, that’s not much of a challenge, is it?
But the game designers behind the game do, a lot. You haven’t actually shown that the new system is worse for new players in any way.
“Harder” isn’t the same as “worse”.
Not really, no. From what I’ve seen so far, you formed an opinion about the change before you even read the details, and now you just keep finding reasons to prop that opinion 
People who actually played this – some for months in closed beta, others recently in TestLive – are giving some detailed, factual explanations about how this is going to work just fine for us PVE players, and they seem to be pretty convincing. But, as @Yshtola has proven repeatedly, it’s nearly impossible to convince someone who is invested in their own preconceptions. 
As far as I’m concerned, I’ll save my kvetching for when I have played with the new system for a couple of weeks.
lol, right. I don’t need a base. I’ll just carry all the crafting stations around that I want to use for making gear or food. Or dump it out on the ground where I can deal with weather effects while trying to craft. Maybe I like building nice looking bases and camps and don’t want to look like a bum running around the Exiled Lands with nothing but the shirt on my back.
Right, because I haven’t been ganked by two or three NPCs that hit for 30 or 40 damage at a time, before I nerfed them to stop ridiculous behavior like that. Who needs a thrall right? That remark was ignorant because the way the game was designed, yeah some people DO need thralls for support. Maybe you don’t. Doesn’t matter, you’re not everyone else.
Sure, who minds running on foot all over the map…
Probably because that’s not what I said. I said you need to take into account that not everyone wants to be in an alpha clan, or has the opportunity to be in an alpha clan. So trying to think the game should be fixed around how THOSE people play, is pretty da*n moronic.
Just because an Alpha clan can have a huge base with dozens of thrall guards, doesn’t mean those guards have to be weakened so those trying to raid that clan have an easier time of it.
Just because an Alpha clan has a dozen people gathering resources, doesn’t mean T2 and T3 need to have absurdly high costs so it’s not -too- easy for said Alpha clan to build something, but takes tweaks or even more grinding for smaller or solo players to do that same.
Literally NOTHING in this game should ever be balanced around more than 5 players banding together, if that much. Sure as hell not for a clan with 10 to 20 players in it. That is what is dumb about this.
Yeah, I’m starting to see that.
The problem is that it’s a pretty stupid challenge when you have to spend HOURS leveling a thrall, after first RNG finding said thrall, then also having the proper gear for them, as well as the right perks.
That’s my problem with thralls being made squishy, with no way to recover or not lose them to death. And something it seems most of you don’t have an issue with, because you probably have stockpiles of thralls, which I have heard some players do.
Where is the fun in losing a thrall because they were nerfed, then having to go out and find them all over again, break them again, level them again, get them new gear again, if the system is bad?
Combat isn’t the issue here.
You really need to make up your mind if you’re complaining on behalf of new players or experienced players, because you’re all over the place with this argument.
If you’re a new player, you’re still learning the game. The nerf won’t matter even if you started playing shortly before it, because it’s going to be a drop in the ocean of changes you’ll have to adapt to anyway.
If you’re an experienced player, you’ll know how to control your thralls, so you can be careful with them while you’re learning about the changes. Also, you’ll have several thralls, so you’ll probably experiment with the ones you don’t mind losing as much as the others. On top of all that, you’ll know where to find thralls, how to level them up fast, and you’ll probably have some stockpiles of materials (or even spare thralls) to help you along if you do lose some thralls.
I don’t know which challenge you think you’re talking about. I’m talking about the challenge of learning how to play the game. Where to find thralls you want, how to level them fast, etc.
I mean, there are plenty of ways to not lose them to death on PVE(-C) servers, the main one being not letting them get killed. Seriously, if you’re leading a follower around, it’s really not rocket science to notice they’re getting beat up and pull them back and escape. And purges are entirely avoidable, so you don’t have to have one until you feel confident about knowing how to keep your thralls alive.
As for PVP, yeah, maybe it’s a problem. Or maybe they’re trying to change the way people play PVP. I’ll leave that discussion to people who play PVP and have shown that they’re adaptable.
I’m not new, in that I’ve played the game before. Similarly I’m not experienced. Sure I know how to manipulate some stuff in my favor when it comes to gathering resources or in building locations. But as a strictly single player I have never gone into dungeons because of the difficult I’ve faced in the overworld area.
I have been through the Jhebbal Sag one, and that was a struggle because the animals hit pretty damned hard.
The problem I have with this is several things.
First you need to feed them to boost the RNG % values.
I’ve done this with Sully so far, having to feed him a steak to get the +14% boost over his normal VIT value.
Second is that you have to moderate the XP heavily in the early stages. It’s not as simple as just kill something strong and skip a bunch of levels ahead. Because afaik, you’re losing that 14% food boost after the first level up. Nothing has shown me the +14% sticks around for every single level up, if they get multiples from one kill.
And they very much CAN get that in the low levels. A single Shaleback is worth enough to give you a level or two for killing them.
Maybe it’s not a big issue, but if the thrall has a crap % value, then I don’t want to be losing points because of how the food bonus is set up on this.
So having to take them to specific areas, and making them only kill specific enemies bit by bit, until you get to levels high enough where you can kill multiple enemies to get their XP up for a level, does take time. And you can only do it with a single thrall at a time.
Not rocket science, but I think you’re underestimating how exactly it works to be in a general melee with multiple NPCs, trying to hover your cursor over the thrall (and not over an enemy), pressing Square to pull up their control menu, and getting them to disengage and follow you as you run away. Assuming you don’t die because you’re standing there doing all this while the NPCs are present.
Or you could just try to run and hope the thrall will teleport out of the fight when you get enough distance away from it.
You don’t need to craft anything in this game other than maybe food - and not really even that
Learn to look where you’re going… take things slow… be aware of your surroundings. Combat is 100% avoidable in CE if you wish it to be.
“running all over the map” mindlessly is likely what got you “ganked” by NPCs. You can play CE as cautiously or as carelessly as you like.
I think this is exactly what you’re saying though.
You just said it again there.
And again here.
And a third time.
It shouldn’t be “balanced” around them… it should be “balanced” around YOU, right?
Nope! I don’t even like using the word “balance” in this forum because it’s almost always used as a way to complain that FC isn’t catering to some personal notion of how that individual or group plays the game. Instead of adapting to the game and learning to play it… you want the game to adapt to you and FC learn how to please you… No good bro!
For me and I would assume most human beings, the game is most fun when you are the center of the action whatever it is; hyper-stealth-play or Extreme-Rambo, or as a member in an Alpha-clan. And with all the risks and rewards that go with it. When thralls are over about 2k HP, the thrall becomes the center of action and the player becomes dependent on a mechanic that is excluding them from the most possible fun.
Give me 10 or 15 named thralls at 5k HP and I don’t have to participate is any purge. Just watch the action - and sims like that get boring fast. Give me any named thrall with 8k HP and I don’t have to do anything to beat any and every boss in the game. Just give the thrall food, armor, and a weapon and I can just watch from the sidelines. Not fun… or at least not fun for very long. Give me 120 thralls at 7 or 8k and the same is true for clan base defense. PvP can become TvT. The solution for the later as so very many people have expressed, is to turn on offline protection.
IMO FC isn’t nerfing them far enough yet as 5k thralls will still be a thing - and commonly so. That’s too high IMO and results in removing the player from the game; placing them more as a sort of sim operator.
Nah, FC is moving in the right direction by nerfing thralls! There’s no legitimate complaint to be made about that. Well, other than: “I’m a solo n00b but insist on being as powerful as an alpha clan” and if you can’t then claiming FC doesn’t care or that CE is broken and unplayable.
