Overall, positive.
The Great Hunt looks interesting until they made it “fight naked” and “wear specific tattoos”. The rewards don’t seem worth it. The lycanthropic ambushes seem interesting (the beginning of random encounters in the world). I’ll probably skip most of this content.

Siptah was not neglected. That’s good

New armors in the battlepass looked really good.

Adding a ballista was good (special bonus against Avatars seemed really nice). Needs to be usable by thralls for base defense, though.

Making incremental changes to stamina to return balance was a good move.

The thrall UI looks better and more concise. That’s good.

With the changes to inventory management (how all the buttons now appear and no longer allow “use” from inventory), I can see why they had to change how dyes work, but its a bit more cumbersome. So, that’s a trade off of good and bad.

Quick split is a nice feature, but I don’t want to lose the ability to make precision splits in specific amounts. Taking away player ability for a generic split stack is not worth the trade. So, that’s somewhat bad.

Giving players the ability to earn battlepass XP from just playing the game (and not “challenge only”) is definitely a very good improvement.

Adding to the settings the ability to get the camera back to the old combat style is definitely good, too.

Sword of Crom was overpowered, but with its change to stamina drain, yes, bringing it down to similar stats with other legendaries seems good. But Sword of Crom still has only 400 durability (making it extremely weak). Durability needs to be improved on it.

Overall, these seem like good changes for the game.

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It kind of depends. If it works one way, you will be able to complete the BP near instantly. If they have the exp gain in another, well then it requires playing the game more ‘normally’.

The Battlepass was never designed with the intent of admin commands being able to skip over. They just never took measures to close that ‘loophole’. Leaving it in the players’ hands. The reason they are changing it now is due to feedback.

How many complaints did people have that said they had to take time out of their normal play to do specific tasks that they may or ma not want to do? Now such tasks are less grindy, and optional as bonuses. Those who choose to refrain from getting the bonuses can still complete the battlepass by playing. The difference is, they can complete the battlepass with that decision, before they could not.

The only ones who are (potentially) hurt by this are those who used to use mods and admin commands to skip the battlepass. But the battlepass was never promised to be completable by those methods. Again if its tied to exp in a ratio, then they will get a ‘buff’ in their methods. I don’t think it is, by the wording it seems like the actions themselves trigger something else. Which means, to complete the battlepass now, you need to play the game.

Which has always been the original intent of the battlepass, get people to login and just play.

One thing is for sure, you will have to play, but that’s how battle passes generally work. The challenges are a way to help if you start lacking, but that’s the nature of battlepasses. I very much doubt you can use the admin panel to increase battlepass xp. People who are used to cheat the BP and refresh timers, might have to revise their playstyle. We will see. I ALWAYS cheat the BP, but I play. But those challenges man… I couldn’t stand them. They drove me crazy. So at least that’s gone!
Just don’t doubt this is to raise engagement. But at least you do it by playing normally.

Shhh, they may hear that and disable achievements when in admin mode :disguised_face:

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For me it’s just the same as with the purge - new challenge, new test, new fun. I don’t really care about loot boxes. In Conan Exiles it is hard to get hit by a single NPC, the game tells you when they are going to attack, what kind of attack it’s going to be, and there is plenty of time to react, and make that dodge, or just strafe to the side. I usually just walk around the enemies and keep hitting them and it works, no armour needed.

Yesterday I watched Anabriella do that challenge solo on her stream without a Thrall. It was not really a problem if you avoid attacks.

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The stream itself was kinda … “wtf”

But the content showed was nice :smiley:

With that awesome accent of hers. :blush:

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I love listening to her. And that Indiana Jones tune while she plays :blue_heart:

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Anyway I have a feeling that these changes to the menu, to the dying system etc are going to blow up some established most popular ‘must have’ mods :face_holding_back_tears:

Thanks for reposting the video!

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They only work on NPCs though :frowning:

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Yeah, Tamien already told me. It’s a pitty. These would be awesome on pvp.
Maybe in the future, @biggcane55 . :blush:

Apologies if I misread and found myself barking up the wrong tree @MarcosC. But even, purely hypothetically speaking if we were not in agreement that is cool bananas in my books.:sunglasses::banana: Each man has a right to his own point of view, and I respect the beliefs of others even should we disagree.

But that said, I appreciate your support and solidarity. I just do not want to see what I fought so hard for be turned into another generic greatsword.

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Fully agree. :blush:

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It probably wasn’t designed with the intent to just admin through it, but I also remember them knowing that it could be admined and that they were ok with that for those that wanted to do that, people would still have to wait for the 10x or grind their way through the challenges :slight_smile:

Ideally it sounds good on paper, but I and probably a lot of others fear that it will actually become more grindy than before and not something you can complete playing a couple hours a week like Dennis promised.

Source:

Lots of people don’t have the desire or time to play the Conan Exiles regularly.
There can be months where your play time hit an absolute minimum, and with the way their battlepass is designed now, some people may not be able to complete it in time, and if you miss the deadline, you won’t get a chance to complete it at a later time, this is where a battlepass system like theirs can fail.
Currently the access to a battlepass is sealed off once a new chapter is released.

Do you not see a problem with that?

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I also always cheat the battlepass using admin, but not all the time, some things got unlocked through the little time I still play this game, and while I to some extent refresh my base, I do not just do that.
Conan Exiles is no longer and hasn’t been for a long time my go to game, it is pretty far down the list.
There are very few things left that keep me in the game, playing with a few friends and people I just got to know on a server, and completing the battlepass.

I am ok with their change, but I also fear that if I can no longer complete the battlepass with the little time I play CE currently then I might be leaving the game completely… No drama or hurt feelings, I have loved playing this game and have spent thousands of hours playing it since release into early access, but I just don’t feel the game is expanding in any way since they switched to live service and their Age of system.
Yes they do in some way develop the game, but it is mostly QoL, changes of mechanics(CONSTANTLY!), events and such, but it still doesn’t feel like a game that is slowly moving forward… Well at least to me :slight_smile:

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That’s what people need to ponder, @Frillen . Do they still wish to pay for a battlepass of a game they barely touch?
In a way, the new system might be sobering. I reckon the battlepass doesn’t make much profit to the company, since you get the coins back. It’s a one time purchase unless you spend those coins elsewhere.
I belive Funcom is more interested in having people actually playing. The battlepass rewards such behavior. This might convince some to play more hours if the rewards justify it. They seemed better for the next chapter.
It makes sense from that perspective. It doesn’t hurt those who are still actively playing. It is sobering for those who aren’t, but still occupy space in the servers. The “serial refreshers”, as people comically call them.
I see it as a net positive. If I ever decide to stop playing, it wouldn’t make sense buying a battlepass just to drop by half a dozen hours monthly. I can do that without investing money.

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I loved it when they knew we could scam it and that was ok with them. They wanted to ensure it’s easily doable and it showed they wanted everyone to feel they got their money’s worth.

However the bp is designed to keep player numbers up. If too many people are scamming the system, they have to do something about it.

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I agree that it is in a game company’s interest to keep people playing, but I have to disagree with the way they do it.
In my personal opinion nothing good comes from sort of “forcing” people to play a game more by increasing the time it takes to complete a battlepass, some may accept it and perhaps like it, but there will also be those that will start to feel as a chore, more grind.

The best way to keep players in the loop is definitely offering new content that will make them want to play more, but I am also aware that CE as a live service game likely never will take that route again… I don’t know how to say this in a good way, but to me it feels like they are turning up the requirements in the hope that they this way can get people to play more and therefore make their servers feel more alive for possible newcomers so that they stay and possibly spend besides having paid for the game…

Don’t know if they succeed with it, but I am sceptical, they may lose big time in the end if they don’t walk the fine line carefully.
I have experienced these small gradual steps in other games where it turns more into keeping players in the loop with rewards(unlocked battlepass items) depending on how much time they are willing to spend rather than giving them actual new game content that expands on the experience and actually make them want to play more :slight_smile:

That was a long ago, from early access until the game more or less took its final shape. Then it became stagnate. It stayed like that until the BP and the Ages were launched. We may dislike things about them, but they revitalized the game. They also brought a lot of problems! :smile:

I never liked having players forced to spend time in the game. That’s a subject I touched in multiple topics. The best reason a player can have to keep engaged in a game is wanting to play it, instead of having to do it. The activities offered each Age and chapter aim to cover that part. How successful they do it can be discussed, but that’s their goal.

Now, the battlepass rewards playing the game naturally for an extended period, but the new content is available without the player even touching the BP.

When the player decides to engage at lenght with the game, by playing it instead of doing random challenges, often out of place, untimely, etc., his involvement is rewarded. That’s much better than what we had.

There’s still a subtle coercion present. If you want the rewards, you gotta play, but that’s what battlepasses are for.