We're losing our patience with all the problems in game!

Conan Exiles General Discussion Feedback
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This one is torn
On one hand, this thread has taken a few turns for the hilariously absurd. This one always loves a good laugh.

On the other, there were some often echoed concerns voiced, perhaps not in the most civil of ways, but this is a Conan game and civility is not a universal virtue.

This one has noticed (pure anecdote) player hemorrhage on all servers this one plays on. If not outright leaving, then going into refresh mode. That’s not good, it’s not healthy for a game.
While this one can play with blocks and dolls in single player without anyone else… PvP and PvE-C are other player dependent and server based PvE benefits significantly from having other active players.
Whether what is causing players to participate less is what is posted, who knows? Perhaps it’s just that the survival builder genre is getting more crowded. But the more the competition, the harder one must compete, and this is rapidly turning into a player’s choice niche rather than a play what you are given and like it corner of gaming.

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46

Honestly? Funcom fraked up combat.:smile: It doesn’t feel right. Even if combat isn’t the sole component in the game, it plays a very significant role, @LostBrythunian . There might be more to it, but I think that’s the main reason.
If you screw that, players will leave.
I hope they correct it in the next update.

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47

But I’ve only just got used to the current style. It’s not that horrible. Of course, I don’t PvP, and I don’t use target lock, so I have no idea how combat works with either of those. If it’s really as bad as people claim (and I doubt anything is really quite as bad as people claim, because they make everything sound like it’s another Chicxulub impact), then I guess it should be reverted, or at least edited to become more tolerable.

I do get hit by NPCs more often than before (meaning, now I get hit, whereas before it was easy to stay out of danger), but I can live with that. At least as long as they don’t hit me hard enough to kill me.

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48

Of course it’s playable :smile:, but we’re worse than before the tweaks, @Kapoteeni . I don’t mind that npcs rotate in wildly impossible ways. That only makes combat harder and you know how I feel about that.
It’s the changes applied to player combat that are worse.

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Hence why i dont play on privates. Favoritism is an inevitability on them. Even when “justified”.

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50

If it really is true that the tide has turned and people are slowly abandoning this game at a higher rate than new players being suckered into playing it, I would speculate that there’s much more to it.

Sure, combat is important, but it’s just one more in the long, long streak of disappointments. At this point, we’re measuring time in years of broken promises, lackluster updates, poorly handled incidents of catastrophic data loss, and constant disregard for their community.

Let’s name just a tiny few of those things.

Broken promises? “We’ll do better” is the winner there, whether it comes to communication, quality, or transparency. But I also count being unable to deal with cheaters in any useful way, and also being unable to properly moderate official servers.

Lackluster updates? Age of War is a dumpster buffet, take your pick from it.

Catastrophic data loss incidents that weren’t handled properly? I’d say the snafu with Nemedian foundations is the most memorable one, but it’s not the only one in the recent memory.

Disregard for community? Start by looking around at these forums. They’ve let go their voluntary moderators. Trolls are thriving. The few Chosen of Asura that remain are far from being staunch supporters of what Funcom is doing with the game. But if the forums are not enough, go ask the modding community how they feel.

And all of those were just a few examples in a freaking sea of problems.

Honestly, combat is just the tip of the iceberg. I would hazard a guess that the real problem is that Funcom just can’t carve out the niche they’re trying for.

Think about it: they took a hot, steaming, protracted dump on their veteran players, because they wanted to turn the game into a live service game. People who have played this game for years are not their target playerbase anymore, although some of them certainly refuse to accept it :wink:

So now that Conan Exiles is a live service game, can Funcom keep their target playerbase engaged? I mean, look at the most popular live service games. Now look at Conan Exiles. Now back to popular games. Now back to Conan Exiles. Do it like the Old Spice commercial, until the realization of the mediocrity of this game settles in :stuck_out_tongue:

If Conan Exiles is finally losing players, it’s because it ditched its core players to go and be popular:

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51

I understand your gist. “Alliances” make sense for servers with more than 20 players. It doesn’t scale. It may need manual (hard to manage) adjustments overtime.

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A dev once said they canceled the Asura program due to pushback from the Community. That really rang in my ears, obviously still does. I know my brethren get piled with putrid meat, that somehow this title removes our objectivity. With every Asuran I know well, objectivity and a “Nathan to Solomon” speaking truth to power instinct is what helped earn them the honor.

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53

The moment Funcom introduced paid servers with live moderation it would immediately be accused of discrimination and catering to the rich. If all servers were paid, they would be chastized endlessly by excluding those less wealthy.
I can only imagine the outrage! A river of whinning. :smile:
Those services don’t come cheap. It would take a big investment to get something like that runing and keep it operational. Who would pay for that? People who protest against a bazaar that is completely optional? Who rage against a battle pass they only need to buy once or not at all and and still receive new content?
Don’t make me laugh.
Right idea, wrong community.
Rent a server with friends and share the costs. That’s a more realistic approach and you’ll have a moderation to your liking running on top notch hardware. Unless you’re on console. That being the case, you’re stuck to G-portal. :smile:

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Which would be a stark difference from status quo, right? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Funcent is obviously focusing their Conan Exiles efforts on catering to whales and this is their reaction to those who criticize that decision:
woody-harrelson-crying1

They might as well try to provide a decent premium service that their players have been requesting for years now.

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55

You can see the problem. It would be like throwing gasoline to put out a fire! :smile:

I like having the bazaar though and spend a shitload of money there. I do, however, understand and sympathize with your concerns, @CodeMage .
I would gladly pay for a premium service, but I doubt that we’ll ever get it. If we do, I can see the mob with pitchforks and torches already!

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No, I’m saying there’s no problem. It would be a problem if they actually cared about those complaints. Do they see them caring for those complaints? 'Cause I don’t.

Complaints about Funcent’s focus on whales have precisely zero effect on their attitude. More importantly, they have zero effect on their bottom line.

If Conan Exiles is actually losing players, it’s not because of the complaints of the old, pre-live-service players. It’s because they can’t produce stuff that’s good enough to keep their new targets engaged.

I’m not sure you do. It sounds like you might think I’m against having the Bazaar. That ship has sailed. They introduced BP and BLB, and I stayed and kept playing despite not liking their new business model. What made me quit wasn’t the new monetization, it was their inability to keep any of the promises they made when they introduced that monetization.

woody-harrelson-crying1

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57

Do you really think that? I believe they are just understaffed and have other types of constraints we don’t know about.
The moment I start believing Funcom has lost its soul, I’ll unistall the game for good.
But I am still far away from that point.

Because this might be pure speculation. No game lives on whales alone, especially a game that is not very popular. I find that very hard to believe.

If they are, they probably have very informed and competent people to deal with it with access to the full picture.
This game is getting old too. A bit outdated in some respects and the blunders don’t help. But I prefer to think it will make it in the end. I still haven’t lost faith and trust.

Fair enough. It makes me very sad knowing you aren’t playing. I have my disagreements with you, but I respect and value you a lot. Time has shown you are an extraordinary person . I told you that a few times, in spite of our differences. I like knowing you play this game. Go figure! :smile:

I prefer to think Funcom couldn’t keep their promises, not because they didn’t want to, but because other factors led to such result.

Edit: you need to be more positive! :blush:

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58

How do you think they got understaffed? Where do you think those constraints come from? Those are some questions worth pondering.

It’s a business. Talking about its soul has a poetic appeal, but I’m not interested in waxing poetic right now. There are two things worth discussing here. One is the business strategy, the other is corporate culture.

The business strategy has changed. It changed when Tencent bought Funcom, and it’s not going to change back as long as Tencent owns Funcom. That doesn’t mean Funcom is a muppet with Tencent’s hand deep rammed up its read end. Funcom might still retain certain freedoms, but the business strategy comes from Tencent and Tencent’s goals will be met. You can fill in the “or else” part of that sentence yourself.

As for the corporate culture, that’s something that goes beyond Conan Exiles. Perhaps you should read up on it, but if you don’t want to, the TL;DR is that they have a history of fumbling with their games, and it’s that history that led them to the brink of bankruptcy that Conan Exiles saved them from.

All in all, what you consider Funcom’s “soul” was a happy accident, and Bob Ross has left the building.

As is your belief that Funcom will make decisions based on complaints from people who don’t want to pay.

But you don’t find it hard to believe that Funcom will make decisions based on complaints from people who don’t want to pay? :wink:

As evidenced by the consistency in their game design, the high quality of their releases, and the way they keep improving. :roll_eyes:

Again, ask yourself what other factors led to that. People here tend to oversimplify and anthropomorphize.

Funcom is not a human. It’s a company comprised lots of different people. I’m pretty sure there are people on the Conan Exiles team who would love to do better, but can’t due to the decisions from above. I’m also sure there are those who just enjoy working in game development and don’t give a shіt about what you and I say here.

Those people don’t make the decisions we’re talking about.

Funcom didn’t keep those promises because keeping them would not have made them as much money as their business goals required. Otherwise you can bet your ass they would have kept those promises, because no competent company will leave money on the table by breaking a promise they can keep.

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59

I don’t have much time now (family diner :wink:) but my hopes lie in this point alone.
That the freedoms retained by Funcom are enough to deliver us a better product, closer to what they envisioned.

I know how Tencent works and regarding corporate culture, you’re preaching to the choir. I am not naive. I also know Funcom is a bit… clumsy, but hey, they have very interesting ideas. Their creativity in games is way beyond average. I like that. Conan Exiles still is an amazing game, in spite of its flaws.

I still believe we will get to a better destination within the actual limitations.
You have given up. I didn’t. Time will tell which one of us is right. I just hope you reconsider your decision. :blush:

It’s not all bad. The game also had some improvements.

Now, be more positive, will you? Sometimes good things unexpectedly happen.

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The more i dig the more i‘m convinced FC is beyond incompetent.
People often make excuses like “the game is very niche” or “it isn’t well known”.
But i remember (at least where i live) the game got a lot of attention when it was about to release, because of nudity, slavery and the violence in general.
Even the mainstream media was talking about it, that doesn’t happen very often that even mainstream media is talking about video games.
That’s btw how i got aware of CE in the first place.

However, the attention it got was related to Schwarzenegger and the conan movies i think.
It wasn’t on par with Star Wars or the lord of the rings, but it still was a pretty well known IP.
But they failed to capitalize on that.
Many other survival games didn’t have that name recognition and still do much better.

What makes those mentioned excuses silly.
Nevermind the steam charts.

If CE really saved them from bankruptcy you would think they’re much more grateful, and would do everything they can to make it a success.

But yeah… this is what we get instead.
Everyone who takes the time to watch FC‘s live streams can already see the difference to other game developers.
There is no excitement.
If you watch Hugo Martin (game director of doom eternal) playing the game on stream, you can see the passion he and everyone else involved had.
They want the game to be outstanding.
Same with baldur‘s gate 3, monster hunter world and many others.

They made a sh¡t load of money for sure, but they deserved that success because they gave everything they had! AND listened to their players, their customers.

Mahazioth has a series where he criticizes FC, you even got mentioned in one of his videos @CodeMage .
But his analysis of the dev-stream for chapter 2 was very interesting and insightful.
I didn’t watch the stream completely because i was pretty frustrated back then already. But he noted some things i wasn’t even aware of because i didn’t play a lot.
Can only recommend his series to everyone who doesn’t know it already.

Anyway… i still hope the guys at FC get their act together. But i barely play atm.
There is just no point for me.

On a completely unrelated note @CodeMage.
I don’t know what kind of games you and your son like. But i can only recommend monster hunter world:iceborne. It’s a great example how a “nichey” franchise can turn out to be a huge hit.
It’s actually capcom‘s most successful release ever.

Sorry for the advertisement and “off topic” btw.
But if i can convince only a single person on this forum to check out monster hunter, i can die a fulfilled man! :sweat_smile:

:metal:

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At the risk of being off-topic: It’s really no surprise MH:W did as well as it did for capcom since people had been clamoring for a monster hunter game that wasn’t trapped on a nintendo handheld for years and years.

Super late edit for some elaboration: It’s not so much that MonHun was ‘niche’ exactly (relatively speaking of course, I remember it being fairly popular but not like blockbuster numbers or anything) as it was more people rewarding capcom for FINALLY pulling their heads out of their posteriors in regards to the franchise. People loved Monster Hunter, but they weren’t going to be going out and getting underpowered nintendo systems for it.

Funcom is a lot like Capcom in that I have a rather tense love/hate relationship with the company and I find myself asking ‘what the hell are you doing?’

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Well, in japan it’s common to play in the train or subway because the society is aging, people have to work a lot and have to travel far distances. They have to use their time pretty efficiently.
However it already had console releases.

The reason why i mentioned WHW:I is that the series was niche, but they turned it into a huge success.
CE could have that too… if they would handle it better.

As @CodeMage said, it was the game that saved FC from bankruptcy. If this game saved their arses why are they breaking it down so badly?

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63

I don’t understand this sentiment. At all. And what I am about to say doesn’t just apply to UNfun, I’m using his post as an example.

What are you all still doing here? You don’t believe that the next patch will fix anything. You don’t believe any patch fixed more than it broke. So Age of War, Chapter 4 is going to flop. You all know that already. This is a knowledge you all share. Its not going to work and will be broken on patch day.

What are you waiting for? Age of Faith(or whatever) Chapter 1? Chapter 2? Chapter 3? Chapter 4? The Age that comes after that in 2025? 2026? 2027? How many more years are many of you going to stick around playing what you believe is a irreparable broken game managed by incompetent developers?

Some of you have been around as long as I have. Take a look at some of your posts from 2021. You had many of the same issues then as you do now. That’s three years ago (and some of you go back double that). Are you all really going to stick around for another three years with all the issues you have?

For what purpose? To refresh a decay timer on a building you put up nearly half a decade ago that you haven’t really engaged with? That’s the only thing I can think of here. I’ve seen players keep FFXIV subs going that they don’t even play to keep housing they purchased years ago. Not saying people should do that (in fact I think this is not a good to do).

This community is definitely unique. I’ve seen gripes on the forums of many games. But never the level of what this one displays. Usually when you see this level of dissatisfaction the game in question is getting uninstalled and left in the dust. You’ll see a few comments from a person, and then they’re out.

Not lingering around for half a decade. I mean what kind of message is that intended to say? You’re not guilting the devs into doing better. You’re effectively saying they don’t have to do anything and you’ll be a faithful customer for the next decade.

And the one that really confuses the hell out of me is many of you have spent hundreds of dollars in the bazaar since Age of Sorcery. And let’s not gaslight ourselves into somehow thinking that is ‘when the game was good’. The complaints about the developers’ competence were at their peak, This goes way back to even before Isle of Siptah.

Honest non-rhetorical questions here. Are you all exaggerating your complaints? And if not, why are you still here playing? What is it you are doing that is so fun, and so engaging that through all the issues you can still tolerate it?

Personally I have left games for far less. They get uninstalled. Subs get canceled. And then I move on like it didn’t exist. Is it ego driven? To say you stuck it out till it sunsets? I can’t for a moment believe its that.

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Yeah, we know. That’s your modus operandi: conflate a bunch of different points of view to make a point that doesn’t address any of those points of view :wink:

All who? I’m pretty sure @UNfun is “still here” for reasons that are quite different from mine. So if you’re really asking – as opposed to just indulging your need to point out how superior you are to others :wink: – you’ll have to ask a better question.

No, those are the words you’re putting in everyone’s mouths. Actual opinions vary from individual to individual.

No, those are the words you’re putting in everyone’s mouths. Actual opinions vary from individual to individual.

No, those are the words you’re putting in everyone’s mouths. Actual opinions vary from individual to individual.

…

See a pattern yet?

Oh, yeah. I definitely have been around as long as you have. And in all that time, you haven’t changed one bit. You always do the same thing: find someone criticizing Funcom and do your best to literally belittle them.

Some of them, yes. Others are new. And even if that weren’t the case, it’s perfectly possible to change your mind over time due to other factors.

People can tolerate a great deal of crap if there’s something to make them feel like it’s worth tolerating. So when those things go away, those same people will suddenly feel different about the same crap they have been complaining about forever.

But you know all that, don’t you? I mean, that’s not something that applies only to video games, it applies to life in general. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that. You’re a smart dude, as you like pointing out, so how come you still haven’t managed to understand the same answer people keep giving you to the same question you keep asking? Could it be you’re not actually asking that question in good faith?

I have my doubts about that, but ask away.

No, we’re not. That was easy, ask the next one.

People have answered that question every time you asked it and you keep asking it. Pay attention instead of pretending you didn’t get the answer.

It’s different for everyone. Hell, some of us don’t even play anymore. But if you’re truly curious and want to know what makes these people tick, if you really want the answer to that question, try posting it sometime without all the other antagonistic crap that you always surround it with. You might be surprised to find that being polite with your questions can get you answers more easily than being condescending :wink:

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