Unfair creature farming method and addition of new servers

Conan Exiles General Discussion
26

And the things that can’t shoot acid? The things that can’t attack you unless they can stand right up in your face and swing their weapon or claw or whatever? You know damn well that you’re exploiting the AI when you stand on something they can’t climb and shoot arrows at them while they just stand still and take it.

I wish I could tell you not to insult our intelligence by pretending otherwise, but frankly I’ve seen exploit abusers try to justify some of the most egregious exploits imaginable as “intended gameplay”. Standing on a rock doesn’t even come close by comparison.

27

Seriously, what is wrong with you people? Are you guys really trying to prove that cheesing is hacking? Am I going to get reported the next time I climb a tree so that a mob will leave me alone?

The AI doesn’t know how to deal with people who climb to places the mobs can’t reach. People have been taking advantage of that for ages. So what’s new is that the way Maelstrom is coded means that you can end up with more AI actors than the server can handle.

If someone does that on purpose, with malicious intent to slow the server down, that is an exploit.

28

I wouldn’t call cheesing hacking unless they were doing it specifically to create lag and take advantage of that lag somehow.

However, cheesing the AI like that is an exploit by definition. No ifs, ands or buts. It is an exploit. A bannable offense? No, not in my opinion. Not unless you want to go with an asinine zero tolerance policy. Frankly speaking, it’s one that’s hard not to take advantage of, as it’s simply the result of AI being difficult to code around an action that players would normally perform.

The main problem here is the maelstrom mechanics have created a new situation. Instead of standing on a rock, killing the boss, then running off to do something else while that long respawn timer ticks down, mobs are now spawning one after another. The strain on the server as a result is only part of it. A rather problematic part, but still just one aspect of the whole. The other part is that you can use this to farm a large number of “bosses” almost at once without even having to change location.

Imagine if you wanted to farm that big spider near The Summoning Place because it dropped some uber rare item you wanted, but there was a way you could spawn as many of them as you wanted all at once. So instead of one big spider at a time spread out over several hours, you could kill ten, twenty, fifty at once with no risk to yourself. Even if it didn’t lag the server, that’s still a lot of loot and that uber rare item has just become not so rare.

I suppose what it really comes down to here is whether or not you’re taking advantage of this relatively minor exploit, or abusing it to the point that it becomes a serious detriment to other players.

29

Who on earth do you think is doing this? No one in this thread is doing this. One user said ‘hacking’ and then took it back when they watched the video & had the context.

32

Everyone who’s calling this an exploit.

33

This made me laugh because I do the same thing to get away from the lynx when I get swarmed and can’t get my bearings. Usually I go for the cliffs but if they’re too far, the nearest tree will do just as well.

My thrall can take it from there :smiley:

34

It’s called an exploit because it is an exploit. That doesn’t mean it’s hacking and in point of fact, only one person in this thread referred to it as such, and that was before they saw the video showing what was going on.

35

I think you guys are not considering the fact that without said “exploit”, fighting that zerg underneath is impossible in the current implementation of the game, unless you toss some sort of area of effect damage on them.

You gotta AOE this stuff down because of the way the devs have removed being able to build structures in the maelstrom… Or setup defensive thralls around structural weak points in order to deal with purge level enemy swarms on the level of the Starving Exiles purge. (The one where they just swarm your walls.)

Are these players doing this to save time, or because there is no other way to kill the zerg present underneath? It’s not like they are generating the mob themselves. It’s happening because it was designed to overwhelm the longer you stay in, I think?? In other words, the fault is with the devs on this one, not the players. Their design causes this reaction to content.

In other words, players cannot engage said content:

There is no other way of killing this amount of creatures on screen, other than with AOE.

You can’t climb the layshrines or the braziers around them. There are no rocks you can stand on there. Here, it appears that they are at the wayshrines scattered near the tower. But it’s not happening for any other reason than that there is no other way to interact with the game’s content.

Two solutions:

A) Implement maelstrom damage the higher from the ground you get compared to the center of it which is the top of the tower.

B) Lower the amount of mobs the storm spawns so that sitting there and firing poison arrows at ONE creature is neither time efficient nor cost efficient.

Don’t blame the players, you can’t kill that zerg by swinging your 2h hammer at it. If there was no lag in the videos I bet that no one would really care, but because it affects the entire server, it’s an issue for everyone.

And let’s be fair, no one wants to be forced to compete with these guys by doing the same thing they are doing, which is…for them to also stand on pillars doing AOE damage. The ones who do this will get ahead in content, and the ones who won’t…won’t. They will be left behind the progression curve.

That’s the real issue here. It’s not the players, it’s the design the devs have implemented. Number one, you can’t engage said content. Number two, in order to be competitive, you have to farm it like a WoW dungeon - just AOE the crap down.

Bad design. Bad iteration for small servers. Not sure how they will work out this issue without throwing out the whole concept of the maelstrom, but this is what early access is all about. If they can implement fixes for large scale engagements, it will benefit the rest of the game as well.

If there was another way of engaging said content, nobody would be doing this because it’s boring as hell.

Yet pay attention guys, this is the kind of farming you have to do in order to summon the highest surge to enter the T4 thrall lottery without slaving an entire week as if it was a job. (That should scare everyone.)

36

Wow, ok. Why is it in every single exploit topic, no matter what game you’re talking about, the mechanics of the exploit just don’t seem to register at all with some people.

Nobody is saying AoE is an exploit. Nobody. Ever. Not even one time.

The exploit is specifically taking advantage of a gap in the AI. Also known as “cheesing”. Something that allows you to easilly destroy an otherwise extremely dangerous enemy with very little to no risk to yourself.

37

No, @Glurin, you don’t see the full scope. You’re taking a very narrow view.

The truth is, it is impossible to engage the content present in that video. Neither solo, not in a small group. The only exploit these players are abusing is that they are still alive. That is the only “exploit”. And the fault lies with the devs, not the players.

Because there is no other way to survive that content, other than by doing exactly and only that. That is the point. The condition Siptah has forced on the player populace as a whole is feast or famine. The devs have created a mechanic that literally starves players out unless they are “resourceful”.

If building was allowed in Siptah, these players would be on a stormglass wall, doing the same thing as in that video, but possibly in a more engaging way.

Who cares if the mobs can hit you or not? It’s a sandbox, not a first person shooter. And even there, “exploits” like this are not exploits but someone “knowing the map”. A sandbox is about emergent gameplay. Using the terrain to your advantage is baked into this game. That’s why you build walls and put archers on them. To do exactly this. Shoot mobs that can’t hit you back.

Only with a fortress can you engage the content below these players, and currently, Siptah doesn’t let you build walls that allow you to survive this. Period. The only way you can defeat this content is to stand where it cannot hit you and AOE it down.

These players would be doing this from a base if the conditions allowed fortifying in the middle of the Barrens. In fact, I would bet that is the intended way that players will be engaging this army generator that the maelstrom is - eventually, when Funcom gets their tech there or they will greatly water down the concept and drastically lower the ??? grind.

There is no gap in the AI. It’s intended to be fought that way – until the player’s defensive structures are completely defeated and then the only solution is having to flee. That’s the point. We just have no structures able to withstand that for more than 2 seconds.

You will either have a defensive structure or you will die. There is no other way this content is intended to be engaged. Obviously, the Eldritch horrors are not going to start tearing up the map. They are meant to lay siege to stormglass, not the map terrain.

This is my guess as to why these devs have a zerg generator in the maelstrom – it’s only a stone’s throw from building actual defenses that can keep it at bay so the player can whittle it down by throwing everything and the kitchen sink at it.

Either with a clan or thralls if they are solo. Even if I’m wrong, it doesn’t change the facts. The fact that a player cannot fight 50 creatures at one time. Not in this game. Not on foot. And certainly not in range.

39

Can you verify this information? Perma ban for people who farmed those mobs in the center of the maelstrom with gas arrows… I´d be interested in the exact reasoning for this!

41

It registers. It’s just that “some people” think it absurd to call it an exploit. Mobs can’t climb. That’s how you can easily escape from an angry bear or mammoth in Conan Exiles. It’s how you can escape from an angry mob of enemies that’s chasing you, just by jumping off a cliff and grabbing it on your way down.

This is exactly the same mechanic. Mobs. Can’t. Climb.

If this kind of thing didn’t bring the server to its knees, none of you would be calling it an exploit. And that’s where the problem is: it becomes an exploit when it’s abused.

42

Wrong. It is an exploit. Plain and simple. You are exploiting a hole in the AI. The AI doesn’t know how to climb. The AI doesn’t know what to do when it can’t reach you. The AI stands there and lets you pelt it with arrows or gas or whatever you’ve got that you can throw at it.

It is an exploit. It always was an exploit. It always will be an exploit. No amount of mental gymnastics is going to change that fact. The only thing that will change it is when the AI is changed so it does something, anything other than stand there and die.

43

Oh for the love of…

YES! It is an exploit by definition!

Look, I specifically stated that this particular exploit is not and should not be a bannable offense. However, using it in such a way that creates lag could well be considered an actionable offense.

FFS, this is why exploit threads go nowhere. Forget discussion about how to fix it. It’s nearly impossible to get people to agree that something is broken! :unamused:

44

The culprit is bad game design. If your code is too buggy to handle a Zerg, don’t implement a Zerg-inducing mechanic as the central mechanic of your entire f***ing expansion.

45

Really? I’ve been shot down off walls while climbing towers by npc archers. Not everyone wants to go into battle wearing heavy army with melee, this is why bows and light armour (and yes gas arrows) exist.

Also people using arrows and gas arrows in particular have to farm both the crystal, the icor and the mushrooms to first make their arrows. There are only so many you can carry at any time and when you run out too bad. If there was no place for archers and arrows and gas arrows and standing out of range of something nasty then they wouldn’t exist in game. My clan of tanks for one are glad I follow them around with arrows and healing for when they can’t heal themselves in battle due to the state of the healing potions as they are at the moment

46

The point folks seem to be making is that those players did nothing more than solve the inherent problem presented by the mechanic. They didn’t glitch, cheat, etc. They just solved the problem presented by the developers. If the solution to a game mechanic breaks the game, I don’t think the players are the problem.

48

There you go @CodeMage. Two prime examples of the point just plain not registering.

49

That’s what I was saying earlier. “Cheesing the mob” has always been an exploit. One that isn’t particularly harmful and not really deserving of any real action against the player, but still an exploit. However, the mechanics of the maelstrom has created a situation where it does become harmful. Particularly when people abuse it to the fullest.

It’s a problem that has always existed, but until now hasn’t been causing trouble. Now that it is, something needs to change. Either the exploit needs addressed in some way, or the circumstances causing it to be harmful need to be altered.

51

I don’t agree that “cheesing” is an exploit. Exploits are bannable. Finding an easier way to do something can be anything from laziness to brilliance. But it isn’t bannable.

I don’t consider what these players did an exploit. If Funcom didn’t want people to climb on those rocks, they should have made them unclimbable.