I run a small modded server. I am mostly just wondering what people look for when they are joining modded servers. What Mod is a must to join? How many mods is too many? Do you like busy servers? Just looking for some insight on how people are playing now days.
I mostly look for servers that look promising (or are already established) and I avoid servers with owners who are new to the game. When it comes to mods:
- Mod order - If I see a server whose owner didn’t bother to follow any of the recommended mod orders by the mod authors and puts mods such as LBPR 2nd in their list, I save myself the trouble joining as they are clearly inexperienced running a modded server.
- Mods - there are so many servers running mods that are heavily outdated and no longer supported. It is a matter of time before they break. For many servers this means crashes, a bunch of content that doesn’t work properly, downtime on every game update and in many cases the issues are so severe that the server requires a wipe.
- Number of mods - too many mods usually means a lot of server restarts for mod updates or downtime. In addition, the mods require sufficient ram to run properly and many owners run cheap servers with insufficient ram.
- Must have mods for me would be Pippi, Fashionist and a mod that removes the screen shake (there are a few of them).
EDIT: At the moment though, I am not looking for any servers. I am waiting for the new map.
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I like to have a close to vanilla experience with some aditional features like vanity gear, some new weapon types and additional t1 and t2 building options.
Too many mods, Age of Calamitous or any mod that breaks the attribute or level cap is what i always avoid.
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Pippi. Though that much is a given. Pippi is so important that it ought to be run on officials. The chat features gives the players a huge QoL boost. But the admin tools that allow you to find and clean up abandoned structures is invaluable. Especially if you decide to run with decay off. It makes decay kinda obsolete (to a degree, it depends on the server you want).
Pippi also allows you to make your own dungeons, complete with doors that need keys, chests with custom loot. NPC spawners that let you use existing NPC types with different stats and allow you to add to their drop table (you can make a Imp that has 25000 HP and do 5x the damage, and drops a key for a loot room for example). Its Mushiscript allows you to design your own quests.
And various other features. One of which the server I admin on has is you no longer start in the Broken Highway. You start in an infirmary where you cannot leave (even if you pull bracelet you respawn in that room). There’s NPCs that you can talk to in order to get starter gear, and learn some of the local lore. You cannot leave the room until an admin gives you a tag. In which case you can move freely and have access to all the commands useful on the server. What this does is gives players an in game way to learn the lore, and trolls can’t get anywhere to cause a ruckus or dirty the server with spam. Don’t even need to password the server because of this.
After that is Hosav’s Custom UI. Its just way cleaner and shows more information than the default UI. It allows players to have floating combat text which helps them see if a particular build, weapon kit, or armor set is actually giving them more damage in situations.
Unlock Plus (with Pickup) or a similar mod is also desired by players. Putting down a T3 foundation by mistake sucks when you only get partial mats back. These mods let players pick them up. Very handy for players who need to move their builds also. Especially if the server has building limits or other policies.
If your mod is a little more fantasy oriented, then Improved Quality of Life is a must. This allows you to have non-standard races look like non-standard races. You can make orcs, elves, dwarves, faeries. Of course you will need a mod like RP Aesthetics: Fantasy Extension or Exiles Extremes to facilitate this.
Then you need to decide how much customization you want. For building pieces you have Emberlight (it adds little, but allows you to recolor vanilla non-DLC buildings through its Chroma system), Savage Steel, Dude’s Delightful Decorations and various other mods that add new building pieces. For armor and weapons you have Warrior Mutator, and some of the previous mods listed add weapons as well. Warrior Mutator has an addon if you want to keep some of its equipment rare or out of the hands of players. Some of it is pretty powerful.
If you think you need something a bit harder than the vanilla game… because lets face it. Most of it can be solo’d by a tier three fighter. Then Age of Calamitous and Expanded Endgame Weapon Arsenal will be your thing. AoC raises the level cap to 120 and adds level 61-120 content. It can get quite squirrely in the Unnamed City where most of that content is. AoC adds magic as well, as well as 6 factions worth of progression from 1-120 for armor, weapons, and construction. EEWA adds higher level content and equipment to go with it, but does not in itself raise the level cap. Though they recommend you use a mod to do that.
Speaking of customization, some players like to look a way, but armor attributes restricts that when you’re out in the world farming or whatever. Fashionist solves this problem by giving appearance slots. Not only does it change the look of the equipped armor, but also the weapon (if the feature is enabled).
There’s so many more mods out there you can use obviously, but these listed are some of the more popular ones. And yes I’m missing a few of those as well.
Just understand the more mods you run, the more times throughout the week you will need to update. Some mods are just data table edits and don’t update much at all (my archery mod for example hasn’t broken in 2 years, though admittedly it is obsolete). But others add scripted systems that tend to break on patch day. Others update frequently and you need to be prepared to deal with that.
Having a dozen mods means probably having to update one or two a week. Having 2-3 dozen mods means quite a few more restarts. Learn to be patient with this. Mod authors create wonderful content and they provide it for absolutely no cost to us. They do amazing work.
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Number of users, i like playing with other people. Not for the pvp, but rather trading and such.
Mods used, pippi, fashionist and LBPR are a must.
Latency, needs to be something playable
The name of the server, it usually shows important info. “Weekend raids/kits/events/no loot”, things like that. Allows you to filter servers that have things you are interested or not.
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There are three main things I look for on a modded server:
- Is the server running Emberlight?
- Are there mods that add customization options (RA, Akuba’s Salon, Barbarian Barber, Immersive Armors, etc.)?
- Is the server not running Age of Calamitous or Sexiles?
If the answer to those questions is yes, I might check it out.
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I only play a modded server if they have pippi or fashionist, I totally dodge any server that have Age of Calamitous.
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I am wondering. Is it just Age of Calamitous that you don’t like to play with, or any Map change mod? and why do you not like it? (For those who specifically look to make sure that Age of Calamitous is not on a server)
We play two AoC servers, the wait time is forever.
On the other hand, we just found a server 70 miles away (ping <50) it has 52 mods 
The SySop has it roll over every 6 hours, takes 10 minutes. Keeps everything updated. Most of the mods are for pretty. Loads faster than AoC.
BBgiggles is the dumbest mod ever made. We have to talk them out of that one.
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Thats actually very impressive. The more mods you have, more likely your server is to have lower performance, since you keep adding more and more things for the game to process and take into account. Having 50 ms with that amount of mods is crazy o.O
I just don’t like the lore changing mods, when I wanna play wow I get into wow. In CE, I wanna play in the world of Conan.
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AoC turns Hyboria into a generic fantasy world and changes a lot of thins in the world and core mechanics that i don’t like.
I tried to play with it once, but nope, i don’t like it, i won’t play with it.
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We play the same ole Conan, just with AoCs fancy what nots.
My fav mod is immersive armor and its add ons. Cute and functional armor.
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My own checklist:
- Multipliers that are close to officials. I’ve seen 5x harvest rate, I’ve seen 0x (yes, zero) sprint cost. These things just ruin the game.
- Few mods. The more mods it has, the higher the likelihood it’ll run into problems.
- My favorite mods. Pippi, Fashionist and LBPR are essential QoL mods that make it really hard to go back to officials. I also enjoy Emberlight a lot.
- Absolutely no Age of Calamitous. I bought Conan Exiles and that’s what I wanna play. If I want generic post-Tolkien fantasy, I’ll go play something else.
- Good ping. I once played on a server in Oceania region and my ping was 300 at its best. The server itself was awesome, but a ping that high will ruin even the best experience.
- No mandatory voice chat. I have a nice set of speakers and I like using them. If switching to a headset so I can be in a voice channel on Discord is a requirement to play, I’ll pass.
- Building restrictions. I prefer none, but if there are any, they need to be reasonable. Restricting a solo player to a single 15x15x4 base sounds generous, but it’s actually pitiful.
- Admin. Having an admin available to help with buggy situations is heaven. Having an admin who abuses power and plays favorites with people on his server is hell.
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As others have said I don’t like the way it kludges a bunch of generic LotR-knockoff fantasy stuff into the game. I like the Hyborian Age setting, I don’t want to shoehorn in a bunch of other stuff that clashes with the lore.
I’ve long ago run out of stuff to explore on the vanilla map so I’m not opposed to anything that makes changes in principle, as long as they’re not completely incongruous with the setting. I actually really like the Riverboat and Darkwoods mods, though they’re not to the level of must-haves.
I’ve never run into it so it wasn’t really on my mind, but this is another thing that would turn me right off a server. I’ve got pretty bad social anxiety, and the thought of voice-chatting with a bunch of strangers is a nightmare scenario for me. (Even moreso if it’s a roleplay server.)
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yeah, I have not run into a server yet with Voice chat as a must. That would make me super anxious. I have used chat on discord but not for RP purposes mostly just chill hangout time, or organizing with clans. Thank you everyone for your responses and clarification of what you like to see on a server. It has been helpful. Ill keep checking this post for other responses but it seems like there are several similar preferences here.
As for me I don’t like servers “too kind to newcomers”. Giving them all the stuff for free on level 1, you know. It could be OK for high-rated PVP server but I prefer PVE. I don’t like Age of Calamitos mod as well. It’s a good mod but CE with AoC is completely different from original game. Maybe some time later, but now I like CE without AoC. And another mod, Emberlight, is a must for me as well as LBPR - just for it’s arrows for building pieces. I don’t like too many people on servers; for PVE and building the map seems rather small, all the Newbie river is like some damned avenue with skyscrapers 
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