When a game is great value for money..a positive story of my journey so far with CE

Conan Exiles General Discussion
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My Name is Goldius in game. I have well over 3000 hrs in this game. I guess you could say I enjoy the journey of the complete game not just the drive to 60, pvp then leave.

I don’t play 10X or 20X servers( with admins pvp ) I now play official ( No admins pvp ) and can clearly see why the standard settings work. Getting to each tier is a rewarding experience in its own right. This is obviously what the developers intended all along however unfortunately a lot of players seem to have the ( I want it now ) mentality and have lost the magic of what a survival mmo/rpg is. I hope this is a trend that will fade out and players start to help make the magic happen; not just rely on developers to provide a playing field that suits every person because that is an impossible task in itself for any developer.

I paid $30 for this game and $10 for the dlc. That translates into just over 1 cent per hour of gameplay which I would call extremely good value especially when I look at my games library and see some there that cost way more but gave less ( despite some having great reviews ).

For me this game( and genre ) has great replayability where there is so much to do. I love pvp but its not the sole driving force of why I play, it is the entire package that keeps me playing such as:

  • Community and social interraction within the game and meeting new people
  • Building and experimentation with different layouts/defences as well as rpg/aesthetic features.
  • Immersion in the game world ( another good example of this would be Skyrim ).
  • Different player builds/customisation
  • Politics and managing your play/survival vs alpha clans and players with different personality type/egos
  • Lore and the world of Conan
  • Raiding and using different tactics vs difficult defences/obstacles/land claims etc
  • I am constantly at risk of being attacked or losing my build ( hidden bases/hidden loot means I have used strategy to overcome this risk). The nervous excitement of logging in and hoping my base is still there or my hidden items have not been found adds to the fun of the journey imo.

For good or bad the current reality is that players are now the testbed for new games ( alphas/betas and so on ) as the business model for developers is basically a partnership with the player. I.e. The player pays and amount for early access and agrees to play the game knowing that the game is incomplete. With the advent of DLC and other add ons this continues the development aspect of the game beyond release as funds continue to be injected which allows the developer to try new features and edit existing ones as well as maintain servers.

Knowing this going in means my expectations are not overly high ( for a quality finished product ) in fact they are quite low as a product is never truly finished in this business environment but constantly evolving. I expect to lose things, be raided, poor implementation and bugs causing loss of gear and so on. At the end of the day its just resources which can be farmed.

Based on my experience this works fine as my mindset is in finding ways to use the game to entertain me, not rely on the game to do this solely by itself as those days are over Imho .

As frustrating as this can be at times for some players ( poor quality control from developers being my main gripe) the big picture for me is: Am I being entertained? Am I receiving good value for money? Is it fun?

The answer for me is Yes to all points as I didn’t pay $150 for a founders pack or more for a game that isn’t even released yet. I paid $30 for 3000hrs gameplay ( and still going ). And $10 for some cosmetics which I am really enjoying. Yes there are bugs, poorly implemented features and so on however the reasons above for why I am a gamer in general are still constant and are what drives me to purchase a gaming product.

My fellow players it’s not the gaming environment it was 10 years ago as developers have budgets to meet and need to release products as EA to keep ahead or equal to the bigger players financially ( especially smaller entities like Funcom and others ). This can be frustrating but it can also be an opportunity to add your feedback and experiences to the growth of a gaming product where your input and experiences ( good and bad ) have an impact on the game as it continues to evolve.

Your feelings, frustrations and experiences may differ and there is no right or wrong way to enjoy a game. The key is to set your expectations at a reasonable level before you hit that “Purchase” button and be involved…take some responsibility for your own fun and make the ride enjoyable…relying on others to entertain you can often end in a less than desirable experience.

Cheers,

Goldius

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I concur with your mindset but there are a few things I do not share:

  • The current DLC model of business is optional, and one thing is to embrace it and another to exploit it.

  • Losing assets for no reason or a malfunction of the game is never going to be fun nor rewarding, let alone a motivation to enjoy the game further.

  • Early Access, whose pros and cons lie on a balance the player (customer) may accept (buy) or not (wait) is quite different from publishing an unfinished product that is labeled as final.

  • Survival games shine for their difficulty and high risk/reward ratio. The other side of the coin is risk/loss, but bugs, exploits etc turn this into ??/loss.

  • Gaming is both a hobby and business transactions between publishers and players. Said transactions are expected to meet certain minimums in terms of quality and playability. In other words, when I buy a pair of shoes I expect them to have the laces, going home to find them missing and then being told that they will be coming SoonTM is out of everybody’s minimum requirements, even yours.

But I agree that so far the game has been great value for money. Sadly, it is not about that but rather about how well is going to age the game. The current state of things point to aa future of “yeah I remember Conan Exiles, it had so much potential”. Don’t we all want a “boy, 10 years and the game is still ever-expanding, Conan Exiles is what I have been waiting for so many years”? Eve Online comes to mind (which I continue playing after 9 years).

All in all I have enjoyed reading your post, it has been nice.

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I really have to agree with almost all your points

One of the biggest issues you mentioned is people rushing to the end of the game and than complaining about content.

However a few points I do have to stand firm against

  • the current DLC model is an issue if your game is not finished that added content should not exist finish a product prior to making more and charging for it. This is for two reasons first it is just wrong on a morals standpoint. But more importantly if you still have an unfinished buggy game adding content will only risk more issues happening.

Also this is not a finished game it is a beta at best. I agree signing up for a beta is fine and there is a level of expectations with that. However buying a finished out of early access product there is a minimal level of expectations that need to be met. When you have people play testing for as long as this game how can your release have this many bugs. I understand new bugs pop up but the amount of issues in this game means it should not have passed the EA tag nearly so fast.

But otherwise this is a solid and fun game with a remarkable amount of content and a fun system

Which is much more enjoyable if people stop watching streamers and you tube videos and looking at the wiki and just play the game those outlets are great but they do destroy alot of the satisfaction of discovering the games ones self.

This is a super fun game and has enough content to reach 500+ hours of play quite easy

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Had I known exactly how ‘low’ should I have set my expectations before buying a ‘finished product’, I would have never payed for this.

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Do you have any experience from other survivalo games in EA?

Because i have, and after the 1 year ea Conan Exiles had its allready better then them all in regards of bugs and glitches.
Most of the things you guys call bugs are really a problem because Funcom patch so fast and often that the modders dont have time to fix their mod, and the players whine cus things are gone.

I play Van
vaniilla, on official server, and have never lost items, never lost a thrall or whatever some people talk about.

Now there is some things that need to be fixed, but you must set the product up against others in the same genre wich have sold many millions of games, like ark, rust etc.

People love it, play it, and they have fun, the only difference is that Funcom havent spendt 4 years in EA, and they patch faster and work harder.

A full game like this takes time to complete, and please find 1 game without any glitches or bugs to compare with, there is 0.

I have enjoyed my journey to 60, played 500h+, and i can comfertably say its worth every cent i paid, in fact id like more levels, more items and maybe 1 biome more after a while, and ill kieep playing it, as it suits my gamestyle.
A full exp pack and ill pay new 30Euro instantly.

And i think that OP was talking about value for money, i guess it qualifies to have fun 500h for 30euro, but thats just my point of wiew.

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Of course it’s your choice to pay more money for more broken product. If you’re blind enough to see that complains from all these people are real, than that’s your problem.

You seem to live with the idea that this game is still EA though. That’s when you’re also wrong. This game left that ‘luxury’ behind on May 8, 2018. They have no excuse after more than 1 year in EA, to launch this excuse in this state.

I don’t need to compare a broken product against another broken product like Ark, Rust, or whatever. Such comparison will lower expectations, making anyone believe that it is all right to have a half functional product.

I don’t care how many years a product should spend in EA, that’s none of my business. But when a developer decides to show that a game is ready for a full launch, they’d be better be ready to do that.

Stumbling through the lag, glitches, and bugs for 500 hours is not my idea of fun. Being forced to re-install the game hoping it will fix my base disappearing is not my idea of fun. Trying all kinds of workarounds when core elements of gameplay are broken is something I shouldn’t do. I am not being paid for beta testing this game, I paid them to give me a finished product.

And I am not the only one in this situation.

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Like i said, i dont see the same game, i dont stumble, and i dont reinstall, i dont loose bases and i dont loose thralls.

I mean, some people dont know about the decay system, dont visit their base for a long time and then call it a bug when its gone?

Now i do see glitches here and there, and my point is that i see it in all the games i have actually, and i mean in ALL games.

I get sick of reading about glitches i personally never see, and there must be a reason because if people did loose their base then it wouldnt be 5 complaints, it would happen to us all, not just a few.

Funcom should just moove on, make more content beacause this game deserves more content.

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It’s not the decay system. In my case I play single player offline. I don’t have decay enabled. I don’t have purges enabled.

Five complaints? Oh well, we do have a reality perception problem then. It’s ok, let’s drop this conversation, it’s useless.

https://forums.funcom.com/t/i-hope-this-is-a-bug-khitan-building-supplies/21851?u=arhureld

Go read, there’s your more than 5 complaints right there. Or better, go into PC Updates and Bugs and start reading.

Have a good day.

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He payed for the game, like you did (I assume you owned the game, too).
But he (and me, too) is enjoying the game.
The most bugs are just annoying to me, but I found workaround for the most of them, to let me have fun playing the game.

I see the complains and I’m agree with the most in the issue itself.
I’m not compliant of the way the most people complaining: In a personal attack against the devs and in a more then childish way!

But when I read, that the “light armor journey bug” is game braking, that’s laughable.
And there a lot of such post.

If you can not enjoy the game, leave it for a while and come back in half a year.
I did the same for other games.

And to be honest, my personal spare time is more valuable to me, then a game, that I’m not able to enjoy.
And if I was you, I would just play another game.

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My point exactly, now how many is this compared to the amount that have installed the game?

Usually the people that have complaints are the ones that write, the others that enjoy the game you hear nothing about.

There is a difference in a bug report and a complaint.
You can differ these people in the way they talk, if they do, or bash the game as hard as they can.

I care if people have trubble in a scenarion in wich i can help, many times i do, and in most cases its a user problem, because there will be restrictions in all games and in rl.

For me the game runs fine, i play a lot, have over 500 hours in game, and still havent lost 1 item without me being dead, wich i have reported.
This is getting fixed as it is difficoult to find you body after death, and the marker isnt allways right.

Regarding the other things reported i dont question them, i just tell you that i havent had these kinds of trubbles, wich leads me to think that luckily its a minor few that have these kind of issues, and care so much that they need to report it as an issue.

Report a bug or a glitch in a civil maner, and understand that not all of us experience the same problem.
If we all did the forums would overflow with angry gamers, you know this as there are thouseands of gamers online in Conan Exiles every hour of the day.

I am one of them.

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There are people that like the game as is and there are people that keep throwing critiques to the game, both influence the development of the game into a better game. Without critiques, the devs won’t know what’s wrong with their game, without appreciation the devs also won’t know what’s done right.

Now we don’t need more category like people-who-like-the-game-as-is-but-don’t-like-people-who-throw-hard-critiques-to-the-game or the other way around. Whatever we do we want to play a better game.

Cheers.

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Each of these warrant attention, investigation, and bug correction. However - please bear in mind that sarcasm really isn’t the most useful of persuasive arguments. :slight_smile:

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I would like to assure you that the images rendering is not the case. They have rendered previously. The space is empty. No collisions, no nothing. Cannot E key on the space to access invisible or unrendered chests the way you can access invisible corpse containers.

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Thank you for this, i feel you and i have also had issues i was sure was not on my end wich i learned some time later it really was.
Now, these people will not post a message here to admit this, thy do not care after the fact, thats rare, and i respect that.

Remember, it is not an easy task to fulfill all of the playerbases needs.

I have heard people say that the gfx in ce is old, animations boring and look like 10 years ago etc etc.
This is just not true.
Some of these gamers compare CE with singleplayer games with no interaction at all but the ai.
The ai wich also is a hot topic gamers do not consider this, they usually say its to stupid, and compare it to sp games with a much more easy way of doing this.

Multiplayer games must consider both client and serverside at once, and i do not mean 1 client…
There are multiple clients, and they all call the server for response, now, imagine if Funcom did use the finest animations in the business in this scenario…what would happen?
Map features are beeing changed as you fight, mobs and players both spawn in the area, and some fight and some run.
I mean, its obvious that a sp game can do ai and animations much smoother and better, but just because we as a playerbase dont have the state of the art rig, and the server isnt a supermachine its not possible atm.
Now, it can be better as i am sure it will, but atm i think its totally ok.
As long as there is this massive building going on theres no way to be sure it even can be done better, we will see.

Now, i dont mean to neglect many of the things being reported, not at all, i just look for some reason behind many of the claims people post.

I still find it weird that i personally havent lost any items, i havent lost any thrall, they do fight for me if in aggro range and my bases do NOT just disapear!

Now, if i started to play on a new server, and i didnt know better i would maye say my items disapeared, but i really hope thats not the case:)

After the reset patch i had people on my server yell that their feats and att points where gone!
“i quit now, i have seen online many complaints, this is it” someone said.
Now, what do one do with this kind of attitude, why do they not read any info on steam or here, why do they think that the game should function just like they feel is best?

If you cant build on that exact spot, why the hell dont you just place it some other place where its possible?
Things like that make me go nuts, i dont know but in many cases i feel that the critisism is unfair.

Maybe the reason is that ive seen many games, and left many of them too, but remember that one of the wery best mmos out there had massive trubbles at the start, and the reason?
25 players entered the same zone, broke the server…again and again, and it was the start year of wow.

So, all in all, i will wait untill i get to see the kind of trubbles someone say, and then report it as a fact for my setup.
Untill then i want to say i enjoy the game as it is, and for sure i would like even more items and levels, in fact i look for mods now to make me play more.

Funcom, start to work on an fullblood exp pack asap, because Conan Exiles has the potential to be best-in-class, if they arent allready.

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