WHY? Explain it to me like I'm 5!

Conan Exiles General Discussion
22

I’m running an Xbox Series S. I’m not sure where that stands in terms of minimum requirements but being that it’s current/next gen…

For things that aren’t the players “fault”… I do think that somehow there are some objects that are “worse” than others when it comes to lag issues. Everyone knows torches/lights with “flame” are a problem in large quantities, but I think there may be other objects that are equally problematic. Which ones, I’m not sure.

That said, it seems (and I could be wrong) like selecting performance mode should also toggle things like flame animations.

Another observation that kinda isn’t the players fault - seems there are some building sets that are far worse than others in terms of lag. Like the Lost Dungeon set.

I do realize that some aspects of what creates a laggy base aren’t the players fault, but I still definitely tell the difference. I do a lot of running around the various servers I play in. There are a few bases/“villages” that I literally know that I have to avoid by a GREAT distance or I know I will dashboard. This literally creates a giant area that I can no longer play in. If there’s content, a camp, a boss, anything I might need in that danger zone, I’m screwed.

At the end of the day I don’t think I can be convinced that these people who are building like absolute imbeciles don’t know that they are being jerks. They have to.

If you have a gigantic palace with a village taking half a grid square, a thousand decorations (literally) and you’re causing other players to dashboard on approach, YOU ARE DEFINITELY LAGGING TOO and I can’t be convinced you’re not. It’s at that point that you know YOU have created the lag hole and by choosing not to fix it, you are the A.

I made this post to try to get perspective from their side. But I honestly feel like you guys have nailed it.

23

This has been an ongoing issue since funcom implemented the ToS.
The issue is the vagueness of the ToS, your and my interpretation may be wildly different. I’m a conservative builder “chrome don’t get you home”. You may do extravagant themes.

The zendesk system is a fail. It depends on players being the HOA agents, so doomed to failure from the get go. You either have people that wont take on the responsibility, or people that feel since they follow the rules everyone should; which is just so absurd, right?{snark.} OR abuse/exploit the system for what ever selfish reasons.

That is an issue. I got a brick. 5years ago this was a nice PC, now it’s 6 years out of date. And me being on a fixed income means I’m always broke.
So i7 4.3, 1060 6gig 32gig ram, and 2Tbites of good old fashion HDD.

So when my fps drops to 5 running past your place I should report you?
Ya, that is why that rule seems absurd.

ETA: Steam Hardware & Software Survey

24

Please remember: Thread started with “I’m only discussing Xbox (or probably console in general)“ which means PS4/PS4 Pro/XBox One (sandstone), PS5 (stonebrick) and Xbox Series S/X (maybe reinforced stone but a brick nonetheless). Everyone on the respective console get the same experience so Funcom could easily verify the validity of complains.

25

Series X seems to have less problems from what I’ve read. I’m not knowledgeable enough to compare the specs; console versions are supposed to be optimized. But then the last 2 hotfixes still have not passed certification so it’s hard to say what exactly is the problem. Cue letter from Rodney to postpone content development in favor of stability and bugfixes. It’s not explicitly stated but you can deduce a few things from that.

Off the top of my head I can think of: hundreds of chests filled to the brim, golems, golem benches, like you said various build sets, a lot of thralls bunched up, now Settlement System, large amounts of placeables - especially those that change in some way (the torches seem to be debatable depending on who you talk to), being the heavy hitters for performance.

You mention great distances, I can usually tell when a player who has a resource intensive base logs in, the entire server has to deal with them loading in.

I agree with you though, there’s no way they wouldn’t know to some degree. Are these people even “playing” though? Or are they refreshing? That’s another problem that can be impacting. Taking space for the sake of longevity, it’s their “space”, good experiences enshrined, waiting for new content/improvement/when they feel like playing again, etc.,…

Rarely have I seen those who build resource intensive bases come forward and admit it on social media or the forums other than justifying from how it was sold (also a valid argument IMO, but still). Funcom also hasn’t done a good job of educating or acknowledging some issues that need attention to alleviate this - ToC is vague for a reason “spirit”…

The Official sandbox is a shared sandbox and we all should do our best to play responsibly and reasonably.

26

I agree but there’s still variables. 2 things I can think of: how you take care of your system and your internet. Are the players consistently restarting their systems to refresh the ram? Are they clearing out space? Are they on spotty WIFI or hardwired with a package that is appropriate for online play?

27

Expounding a bit beyond what’s already been said…

There are a lot of people in the world who do not share your traditions, beliefs and values and in fact may even consider what you believe to be stupid and find it funny to provoke you.

There may also be a dash of competitive rivalry where competing companies try to overwhelm Funcom’s servers simply by overbuilding in order to drive people to other games. Not to mention private server owners, especially ones who charge or accept donations, who could be attempting to drive players to their servers.

Could even be possible there are people with a grudge against Funcom or even the nations where Funcom is headquartered deliberately trying to ruin the game experience.

Or could be my tinfoil hat is too tight again. Maybe one day we’ll know.

28

:zipper_mouth_face:

29

This is why I brought up my example with the base at Skyholme: If you happen to be somewhere else on the map before entering this base you crash probably of not enough ram, but if you log in there it works (barely). The Playstation 5 version is not optimised at all, it’s PS4-era code and limits. The Xbox Series X fares much better, in fact I can’t remember crashes, only noticeable framedrops.

Funcom should really have frozen the state of the game for PS4/XBox One before Age of Sorcery which was the point at which the older consoles start to struggle seriously.

But in the end, it’s the people who don’t care about the limited resources who ruin the experience for everyone (which is a bit of the point of Conan Exiles, but meant in another way…).

30

Well that’s fairly easy to figure out. Their thought process is, “IT’S ALL ABOUT ME! I’M THE ONLY F___ER ON THIS SERVER THAT MATTERS!” It’s just them being selfish, inconsiderate and honestly just not giving a damn about anyone else. You see this in real life any time you get in a car, some self entitled ____ thinks they own the road and drives erratically, dangerously and without any regard for anyone else just so long as they get 3 seconds further up the road!!!

I would say that there truly are those who delude themselves into thinking that their own actions have no real effect on their performance. It’s all “the evil devs fault”! It is well known that G-Portal is pretty garbage, so they chalk it up to “crappy servers”. But they never stop to think, “are my actions making the server worse?” :thinking:

I find the fact that you honestly cannot fathom their mentality to be refreshing. :grin: I can understand wanting to understand how these people think, but… do you REALLY want to know? Some things just cannot be unknown. :scream_cat:

31

The morbid curiosity that infests my brain kinda still wants to know :joy::joy:

32

Please explain how you can be so utterly brain dead? Oh right, never mind I forgot who I was asking for a second. :rofl:

How about this:

Please explain where @Validusernam3 suggested that “each individual player should be allowed to build” … anything?

Please explain where @Validusernam3 suggested that people must adhere to rules they like? :thinking:

And now since we both know that you cannot do so, because nothing like that was done, perhaps you can address the last part. They are simply asking WHY people make the conscious decision to build MASSIVE structures and or Role Play villages on official servers (both of which are likely already in violation of the ToS) and are causing such MASSIVE levels of lag as to effect even the ground itself from properly rendering? So why do you suggest that people should build this way? :thinking:

Let’s hear your pathetic attempt at a response that will have no actual meaning and won’t actually address any of the questions I asked. You know, your typical response.

33

(Youtube) To much decoration…

Out of curiosity, I just created a new character on a freshly launched PS5 to see if what I said above (Base at Skyholme, should crash PS5) is still true. I went straight from the desert to Skyholme (only detour through Kuraks Cave to get some metal gear (solid!)). On my way I passed some of the usual sandstone castles and a quite huge stormglass structure at the northern aqueduct. So this had to be rendered in addition to the environment.

As you can see all is fine until ~30s in where the ground textures went super low quality, and then crash ensues. If you walk around inside the base after relogin it is obvious that all of this is too much to handle for UE4 on PS5. And in this case it’s not the size (the base is on the smaller side), it is the, granted, nice to look at role-play decoration which went way to far.

And the builders of that has to suffer the exact same way as anyone else who comes by. I, like @Validusernam3, simply don’t get it.

34

I suggested this idea, because no matter what someone builds, there is a player butthurt over it. Since the OP is talking about consoles, which we know doesnt have the same capabilities of PC, and also since they are forgotten in terms of optimizations, pre designed builds are a valid idea.

If we want to get into a PC building discussion again, we sure can. But first, go buy a more state of the art PC so you can understand the perspective of those that have that.

Yup, and thats been proven time and time again, when people report builds, just to sit there and try to scoop up the items when the base is deleted, and then they build there. They simply cant use another part of the map to build their own base, they cant share. Reporting is easier for them, because it forces others to do things for themselves. Its the generation of entitlement. Seriously, the map is huge, and if someone has an eyesore of a base, why do people not just use another part of the map?

You keep bringing this up, and maybe I misunderstood. Maybe its you thats in a home that you cant leave when you feel like it.

35

Yes, which is why I stated this:

Please ensure to read what Im typing before replying. Limiting the number of stations and placeable that are not needed is EXACTLY what you advocated for in your first post:

Now, can you understand why, on consoles that do not have the game as well optimized as PC, and on hardware that is maybe not as current as what PC can run, that predesigned bases are a valid idea?

If you still at this point think its silly to have someone predesign your base, keep that thinking in the back of your mind and re read your first post, where youre upset with people being able to build on their own.

36

No, I understood exactly what Validusernan3 was saying. And, while not an issue solely console players face, its one that affects them more. So, why not make it so that no one faces lag, by having predesigned bases? If it helps the game and players by not lagging everything out, isnt that a good thing?

Or do you think its unfair that you lose your creativity by having predesigned bases?

First, it does make you wonder how the owners of the base manage to play when your all on the same hardware. Maybe they are just refreshers, which isnt against the rules, however if the base causes everyone to crash, and not just you, then report it. Thats what its for. And if it violates the rules, it will be deleted. The fact that people have had issues for the years you say that base has been there, and the fact that it hasnt been wiped, means its not violating the rules, or no ones reporting it.

See, and thats why I would do too, just ignore it. But Funcom also cant fix what they dont know about right?

37

Whilst the Series S is decent, the Series X has more power which helps with rendering etc. Personally, I keep torches to a minimum (no more than 12, regardless of base size)

38

Looking in the mirror for confidence before replying isnt necessary.

Well, thats a part of any game that allows you to build bases, each player is allowed to build what they want.

We have the rules we do, and the ability to build as we see fit. Validusernam3 doesnt like the builds that people make. Validusernam3 doenst like the current situations created by the rules we have and the fact that players have the ability to build what they like.

So I asked if predesigned bases would be a valid option, since it allows for bases to be built that are neither against any rules, or overloaded with cosmetics and placeables or stations (all things he complained about).

Not my problem if you hate the idea, it solves many issues. And it only creates one issue, you lose your creativity…which doesnt matter that much because the people complaining about massive bases, or laggy bases say you can do that in single player or on your own server…so really, there is zero downside.

Neither of those are against the ToS, as long as the buildings serve a purpose. Just because you think they are against the rules doesnt mean they are.

That is the issue, and a more dominant issue on consoles, which is the topic.

See the thing is, Im not advocating for people to build massively or anything like that. My suggestion is predesigned builds that would PREVENT any issues thats being discussed. Its a great idea for consoles.

And like I told Deacon, if we want to talk about it on PC, then thats a different cookie. This topic so far, is a GREAT EXAMPLE of why we need different rules sets for each gaming platform, and heck even server types. There has been a few good reasons for different rules for different game types that are also quite valid.

Someones breakfast got piss*d in.

39

My personal opinion is if you insist on building large, do it off the beaten path and have a teleporter. That’s what I do. It keeps people away from your base that may cause lag. This is especially problematic when a large base is in a busy area. I built my main base at the very edge of the map, on both Siptah and EL for this exact purpose. That being said, knowing your limits is also important. Build knowing that each part has a purpose beyond just aesthetics (often an issue with builders), avoid excessive placeables, use non-animated lights, etc.

Also, when I build outposts, they’re just that, outposts. They may have a theme (tavern, longhouse, etc.), but they’re small to modestly sized so as not to interfere with the stability of the area.

40

Wait, thats the base in question?

Thats not a massive base from what I can see in your video, and certainly doesnt appear to have too many placeables (impossible to tell without seeing the inside.

If bases like that are a struggle, then I double down on my predesigned base idea, because thats sad that a base like that makes console games lag out and crash. Definitely an optimization issue, not a building issue.

41

Yeah , good point, but there are people in this very thread that will go out of their way to see your base, encounter lag or issues, and complain about it.