The real problem is not the Bazaar store nor the bugs in game. The main issue is the poor communication between game dev and the players. Announcements were not made in time. Bugs not being acknowledged when they have already received multiple reports(building/thrall wipes, falling through foundations). If the Dev needs more time to fix it, say something about it. If they are not ready to roll out all the contents/update in time, make an announcement about the delay and postpone the release of new contents. I canāt speak from everyoneās behalf, but most of the players should be āokayā with the delays, if an announcement is made in time. Players would rather to enjoy a bugless game than to play on something that gets released quickly but constantly run into problems.
It really feels like you go to a restaurant and you are told that your server will be right with you and no one ever came to your table 40 minutes in after you are seated. It is understandable that they may be short staffed, or they are just too busy. But that does not mean you can leave the customer hanging for a long period of time without even ācheckingā up on them. That is just terrible service.
Conan is going to die, but itās not going to happen today.
Also one needs to know how to interpret the data.
For me these are not dips, these are temporary jumps in playerbase after expansions.
People come back to the game, check what is new, they boost playerbase statistics for current month, then they leave.
But some of you are also high on copium - āthese charts āONLYā show Steamā I bet the playerbase is growing on consoles
The game is getting old, bugs and broken expansions are not helping, but itās coming just like it eventually comes to every game of this type, server merges, until there is only one server, and then the game is dead.
But have no fear, Funcom is all about money and Conan was their biggest successā¦
Conan Exiles II is coming, you will see, Unreal Engine 5, RTX, and other bells and whistles.
Exactly - I mean these are things that are pretty inevitable and not just in the context of gaming (though there may be an argument that attention spans and, more especially, a craving for the new, can perhaps intensify this sometimes.)
Iām a bit unsure here, but figure the flawed premise is presumably based around the weight/value of such complaints? Complaints just because of human nature etc being somewhat less valid than complaints because of actual faults and flaws? Iām probably putting that a bit badly - but I think I could go along with it, at least in general. Though of course itās hard sometimes to decypher which is which (and also sometimes easy, lol), which could impact the signal to noise ratio.
I get that - very much the āover-promisedā element. But I donāt know - I didnāt really take AoS as a promise that other ages would be as big/spectacular - I can see how the puff pieces around the time certainly implied that, maybe I was just insulated by my cynicism? But then, also AoS was almost entirely irrelevant to me, so I actually enjoyed the first two chapters of AoW more. The only thing AoS brought for me was chapter 2 some Khitani dudes turned up who wanted to pay me for doing what I was doing anyway (find sorcerors, cut off their heads, burn their evil books and leave their bones to bleach in the sunā¦). The biggest disappointment for me with AoS was that no account was taken for players maybe not wanting to be sorcerors (I still havenāt even visited the Kurak dungeon, just donāt care - I went to the spire, Mek Kamosis started talking to me like I was his lackey while prepping to sacrifice a woman on an altar - so I hit him with my axe, kicked over the altar and cut my way out through his followers carrying the woman to safety. At least, thatās what I wouldāve done if the devs had remembered that, in a game called Conan Exiles, maybe the barbarian fantasy is a part of itā¦ Instead, Conan did it. Off screen. Between chaptersā¦)
Maybe Iām misremembering, but I thought I remembered a certain amount of complaints even around the cultural packs tended to come from people taking that as a (semi) firm release schedule. But then, as weāve already been over, complainers gonna complain, so probably shouldnāt give that too much weight. And yeah, it is noticeable that certain behaviours have at least been intensified since the buyout, if not originating there wholesale.
You may have to get used to those for a while, lol - Iām not sleeping well, and that means even Iām not entirely sure what Iām saying some of the time (and no apologies needed )
No question. And I absolutely wasnāt trying to suggest that you didnāt already get that point (in case thatās how it came across), more just trying to stumble through where Iām āatā with all of this.
I was thinking about this last night, and honestly, Iām not even sure thatās it. Iāve definitely had points where I thought Iād āhad enough of this shā¦ā. But I seem to have passed through it into this kinda zen state of not caring. Maybe Iām just too tired to careā¦
Yeah, I just donāt seem to be finding any of them lol.
Black Flag - fantastic story, but no attempt to fix game-breaking bugs that have existed since release 10 years ago (but then Ubisoft is just a small indie dev team so we canāt expect too much from them )
7days - thereās been some improvements but the devs incomprehensible obsession with forcing players (of an openworld sandbox) to do it ātheir way onlyā has led to RNG-based character progression and about 20 hours into my current playthrough Iām already bored and unlikely to continue (which also means I donāt actually get to experience a lot of the newer content since thatās all locked behind the RNG progression and hours upon hours of grind).
And donāt even get me started on Cyberpunk or Jedi Survivor lol.
(Iām sure there are such games out there - but every one that seems to interest me turns out to fit the āchronically mismanagedā category).
look at other companies increasing the time ( often decades) between installments of game franchises (Iām looking at you TES VI)
imho if there is ever a CE 2 , it will be on UE6 (or 7)
Otherwise for me it is OK if the release of the game / DLC / update is delayed - as long as as as some have mentioned the publisher communicates with the players .
I personally am a big fan of Mount&Blade but I waited for Bannerlord - yes I could have bought it in EA but I preferred to wait for the full game ( I thnink more than a year) and thanks to that I bought a game where most of the bugs were long gone
I am generally very careful with early acces and preordering is not an option for me , I did it once and last time with TES IV Oblivion
letting players grope in the dark and pretend that bugs donāt exist is the worst possible way to treat the gaming community and a guaranteed way to sink a game , FC should have known this after Age of Conan
Iām coming back from a 4 year break. We have a server called The Fox Den if anyone wants to join theyāre welcome. I did notice some changes to the thralls. Hopefully Funcom fixes this stuff and keeps this game alive. Its a good game. Either that or make a Conan Exiles 2 with better graphics and bug fixes. Either way I would be fine with one of those options. Mods really help this game out.
Authority sorcerer here: I dont think thralls are useless, quite the contrary. I use thralls for anything except the hardest bosses.
So up your authority and give your thralls good stuff if you find them lacking.
BUT
changes to combat
coming off a 4-5 month period of massive bugs being unfixed (I felt the game was literally unplayable to me. I only played enough to reset my decays hoping things would improve some day)
PVE raid being bugged (infinite spawns) and not being everyoneās cup of teaā¦
bugs bugs bugs
battlepass being somewhat unimpressive compared to previous ones
and now we dont even know when the next age will start.
I would say problems have caught up with the enthusiasm. But the biggest rhino in the room is arguably the combat changes, which I have not heard a single person actually LIKE, and which touch ALL PLAYERS. Im talking about alignment and stuff. I actually hate it. And I guess Im not the only one.
on the plus side, devs actually fixed undermesh bases. That took a few years too long but better late than never I guess d-(ā ')z
As someone who has followed video games since the late 80s, in my experience when there is roughly same amount of people complaining and praising, then the game is most likely in a good state.
ps. Important thing is to understand that the complaints will never go away.
Yeah, sorry, I wasnāt very clear there. I agree that we would be seeing a āfair proportion of the same complaintsā no matter how they handled AoS, but I think that the difference between that āfair proportionā and what weāre seeing now is what really matters. I believe that the complaints weāre seeing these days canāt be just reduced to āEh, people always complain, they wouldāve complained regardless.ā
I think youāre not really saying that, but there are others who do that a lot
Maybe Iām a sucker, but I most certainly did. In fact, I thought the whole point of switching to Ages was that we would get a massively exciting release every 9 months, rather than āwhenever weāre readyā, because: 1) the team evaluated the cadence carefully and committed to something theyāre capable of, and 2) the new monetization that came with Ages would finance that kind of development effort in a more stable way.
Yeah, thatās what I meant by ānot there yetā. I went through that one, too
Iām guessing we have different tastes
It helps if your taste allows you to avoid live service games with constant updates. Iāve had tons of fun with The Talos Principle 2, and Baldurās Gate 3, and replaying Cyberpunk 2077 (and playing Phantom Liberty for the first time). And even though Cyberpunk 2077 got some really drastic changes since the last time I played it (and I happen to dislike some of those changes), it was still a hell of a lot better than a never-ending stream of half-assed changes that leave you wondering what the hell the team really wants the game to be.
If itās āDuneā, go see the movies first. You get a higher chance of liking both the movies and the books than you do if you read the books first
The castle Raid IS useless SINCE the reward IS a trash you can get much more Gold Just killing and farming the Gold rocknose in Volcano or golems in the map WITH no waste
The tavern dont let us hire Any Thralls we like , It IS random
Combat changes when NO ONE asked for It
Funcom never talking WITH players showing no respect for who REALLY help they and and still have Hope for It game
Useless changes like the blackice arrows in Frost Temples.
And for last but for me the more strong hit in players comunity together with combat system the Nerf in Thralls and pets SINCE they never have a good AI they become useless.
Agreed - thereās definitely certain hot topics right now, and more than averagely valid complaints as a result. I guess I was approaching it more from an āaverage volumeā angle, which doesnāt really take account of how meaningful (or new/specific) the complaints are in a given period.
Which is why itās always good to hash these things out rather than ignore it (even if youāre reasonably sure that Iām not meaning something that way)
Weāll see how it goes (I must admit thereās a little something I saw today that managed to lower my opinion another notchā¦)
Placed in order played, you can see a definite sequence to my games (in the modern market) - 7days taught me to avoid early access titles, CE taught me to avoid live service (Iād never heard the term till I joined the forums, lol), and I guess Black Flag has taught me that even the big studios release buggy nonsense and donāt resolve it Iām sure at some point Iāll find other games (and then, after a while, find things to complain about with them ).
Unfortunately I read the books many years ago (not sure if I finished Chapterhouse, but I know I read the ones preceding), so Iām not sure thatāll save the films That said, Iāve always enjoyed the old '80s film (and that took itās liberties), so I might enjoy the new ones at some point
The core issue with the game since November 2021 is a complete lack of direction and a constant stream of, āHey! This is a neat idea!ā releases.
Not only is nothing connected, but they have decided to, deliberately, sever any tenuous connections to any story as part of their āstrategy.ā
Currently, the direction of this game can be aligned with a toddler telling you a monotonous tale and every time they start to lag, they just throw in something both contradictory and unrelated, but pretend they meant it all along.
Siptah was a great idea, until it wasnāt.
Wild surges were a great idea, until they werenāt.
Siptah Purge control was a great idea, until it wasnāt
Sorcery storyline was a great idea, until it wasnāt.
Fixing the purge was a great idea, until it wasnāt.
Taverns were a great idea . . ., no, thatās not true, taverns are a 30 second gimmick someone threw in with the foresight of a lackluster DM running a campaign they despise.
The game needs a methodical and coherent direction. It has not had that for over two years and the producers seem 100% okay with that.
The Tower Defense purge is easily countered. I can construct a purge base out of sandstone to defeat a level 10 purge. Enough oil cauldrons, Amusement Park queue line management, and gas arrows and all I have to do is wait out the hordes and collect my 700th named dancer and pile of rubbish from the loot chests.
There is no incentive to have actual combat, thralls will get slaughtered in seconds and players are penalized for making too strong a purge base.
So they will tweak the current purge to counter the current strategy, and weāll just develop another design to defeat it.
Until it is no longer fun, and then we will move on.
I donāt hold out much hope for Chapter 4. And this meandering incompetence of vision has dampened any desire for their Dune product.
I played 7 Days to Die for years, until the company decided there was only one correct way to play their game. That is the path I see in Conan. And when their mismanagement sucks enough joy from the game, I will move on.
Edit: Damn that turned out way longer than expected. Sorry.
As I said to CodeMage, donāt get too focused on that particular section, it was more of a rough TL:DR for the overall. Certainly not intended to suggest that player complaints are the ācore issueā (and even then, more about overall volume than specific validity).
While I can certainly see your overall point, and agree to some extent, I guess Iām just not feeling it as strongly (yet). I do think your list can be taken in a different direction and still work -
Siptah was a great idea, but players complained about it being āsmallā, āemptyā, āonly for PVPā
Wild Surges were a great idea, but players complained until they were removed
(Siptah surge control I canāt really include - I havenāt played on Siptah in ages, so donāt know whatās been changed )
Sorcery storyline was a great idea (was it? I wasnāt really a fan, but I know Sorcery was something lots of people wanted and some people seem to still be enjoying). And that one was ācompletedā - seemingly actually as intended (probably because, as CodeMAge points out, they had a lot longer to prep that Age).
Fixing the Purge - well, itās been complained about a lot in the past (always been fairly lacklustre except when it was massively over the topā¦) and, in theory, they havenāt abandoned fixing it - supposedly c4 is mostly for fixes.
Taverns - mostly I see this as a stepping stone to the āimproved lifeā features supposedly to come - either way, not finished yet.
To be clear - Iām not saying the above is āhow it isā - just pointing out that the same list can be used another way. Thereās certainly a possibility that any of the unfinished features might be abandoned (or head in a different direction) - Iām not trying to claim that Funcom has shown consistent direction or anything like that. But Iām also still willing to concede that I can see some goals being worked towards.
Sure - but then players can always break these kinds of mechanisms (aside from anything else, thereās thousands of players and only a certain number of devs - thatās one of the reasons exploits always get found in PVP games - and why 7days hordes can always be ācheesedā, the devs can never patch every loophole that players could conceivably come up with.) To at least some extent, it is a choice whether to handle purges that way or not. Experimenting with other bases - fighting the purge with less efficient designs - might be more fun. The current purge defense has been āsolvedā - but it was an attempt to update/improve an old system. Personally I prefer the new system - some donāt.
On a side note (since your point about coherent direction seems predominantly about gameplay rather than story), the new purge is more cleanly integrated with the story of the Exiled Lands than the older version was - though āstoryā can always be a bit of a problem with openworld sandbox games (hence my annoyance with the whole Kurak dungeon setup).
I think the incentive is supposed to be the combat itself - doesnāt really work for me, but then whatās the incentive to do 7days horde nights? (Other than the fact that if you donāt youāll lose all your stuff, obviously )
Yes, and these are both valid problems that many people are complaining about. Iām still at the stage of hoping Funcom are listening and weāll get more than just ātweaks to counter the current strategyā - if thatās the approach they take then they would be settling into the devs vs players approach that 7days has fallen into.
Whereas I guess I donāt expect that much for Chapter 4 - but am holding out hope that it will see a raft of promised fixes and polishes. That supposedly is what it is for. Iām not holding my breath for it to be something great, but Iād like to see it before I decide whether theyāve delivered or not.
On the other hand, despite having had a great deal of enjoyment out of CE, I am also very wary regarding Dune. I havenāt looked into it at all yet - and itās going to have to seem very impressive (with some pretty solid guarantees) for me to be willing to dive in yet again. (I guess that means that to some extent Iām operating a sunk cost fallacy with regards to CE - Iāve come this far, maybe itās worth continuing, but Iām not really willing to start the process again with another gameā¦)
I donāt know. On one hand, I agree that CE needs a more coherent overall plan, but 7days makes me wary, since the way I see whatās happened there is very much the result of too coherent a plan (and consequently trying to force players into following that plan). (Iām currently playing 7days - for the first time in several alphas - and itās driving me mad - the new vehicles are cool, the new weapons add variety (and the mod system, while not perfect, allows additional customisation of loadout) and the new quest/dungeon style POIs are really great - but theyāre so heavily incentivised that they wind up feeling forced and end up with the gameās ābestā feature becoming boring from over-exposure.)
Whereas Iād say that is the path I fear for Conan. And if their mismanagement sucks enough joy from the game I will move on. My enthusiasm for CE has waned, and my trust in Funcomās will or ability to deliver has been tempered by experience - but Iām still willing to see what comes, at least for now
I ask purely out of curiosity - what is the point of turning on tier 10 purge ?
from what Iāve tried ( and watched on YT ) almost anything you can get from T10 you can get from T5 , except maybe zerker / lianelle but I donāt need purges for those
and I can stop tier 5 solo with a normal looking base and 8 bersekers (2x lvl 20 , 6 x lvl 15 )
Siptah was a great idea, but it was poorly executed. Funcom focused on Siptahās unique features and left a lot of other elements in a state that I initially assumed was a placeholder; specifically, getting recipes that were part of normal exploration in Exiled Lands was a matter of RNG, even for simple stuff like specialty cooking and brews.
On top of that, getting T4 thralls was way too hard. Worse, it was way too RNG dependent. I mean, getting T4 thralls in Exiled Lands required the blessing from RNGeezus already, but on Siptah it was compounded by all the cost of getting what you needed for the proper surge.
The ludicrous reliance on RNG was the root cause of many of the complaints, but not all. As you said, people also complained that Siptah was āemptyā, because it was almost entirely devoid of humans. That could have been remedied by working on the rest of the problems, because those seemingly unrelated problems were making the game hard to enjoy. Only when you actually enjoy the gameplay are you free to appreciate the ambiance of a spooky place without human presence, and to wonder whatās so inimical to human civilization there.
Because Funcom didnāt implement any way to prevent people from building a base on the wild surge spot, which on PVE(-C) server meant that the owner of the base was the only one who could get access to that particular spot. So naturally, if one clan does that, everyone else immediately follows suit and you canāt get any wild surge thralls. Since wild surges were initially an important part of Siptah progression ā get T1 and T2 thralls from wild surges so you can advance to getting higher tiers from actual surges ā this was bad game design.
Yeah, Iām gonna go with you on this. The storyline pretty much sucked. But the sorcery was handled a lot better than quite a few things before it and definitely better than anything after it.
They definitely abandoned fixing it. Theyāre calling the new mechanic āThe Purgeā, but it isnāt, by far. Not only is the gameplay entirely different ā and quite inferior, from what Iāve seen ā but it also doesnāt fit with what they described in their own freaking in-game lore.
As soon as I saw that sentence, I knew people were going to get stuck on that. I donāt know about @Pugilist, but my own complaint isnāt that it can be cheesed, itās what he wrote in continuation:
Sure, you can always find a way to cheese a gameplay mechanic. The hallmark of good game design is to make the mechanic interesting enough to be a more enjoyable alternative than cheesing. The new āpurgeā is simply badly balanced and badly implemented too.
Iāve written about intrinsic and extrinsic incentives elsewhere, but Iām too lazy to look for it. Iāll find it later and update this post with a link, but in the meantime, Iāll sum it up by saying that neither the intrinsic nor the extrinsic incentives of the new āpurgeā are worth it, and thatās a problem.
of what people in my group are playing seems they are half split on helldivers and Myth of Empires.
I can only speak for me personally who isnāt really playing anything (but am leaning more towards helldivers) the pvp meta game was no longer fun for me, the simplifying of the stamina system I feel helped impact that overall, nothing about the last update was engaging content compared to say age of sorcery chapter 2.
Dupes continue, Cheaters continue, the design of the game seemingly just gets worse.
in part its a long time coming because of my pure hours I know the game like the back of my hand.
My policy was no matter how bad the game got I would keep playing it so long as it was fun, it stopped being fun so it feels appropriate to move on.
I am more weary on dune for the sole reason of funcom.
The combat/stamina system pushed a lot of people away in my extended group of acquaintances. A few of my core members have moved on.
Some are still hanging on to the thread of what once was. Weāre all pretty knowledgeable about the game so can still make it work to a degree. I suppose itās one good thing about the people I associate with and that is adapting.
But Iām not going to pretend like itās ok because of this:
ā¦ and the complete botching of the report system and ToC on Officials.
This is my issue with FC and this game. Half-baked implementation. Pets. Remember that plan? They nerfed them down in order to raise them up in a methodical way that balances them out. How long ago was that? What makes anyone think Taverns are going to be any different than what we have seen in other āthis is only the beginningā promises? Pets, sorcery, thralls, crafting benches, etc etc etc etc. Lots of promises over future content because they knew XYZ couldnāt get done in the timeframes but we are all still waitingā¦years worth for them to slow down enough to get any focus on the past promises made. At this point, this game is like that runner that has tripped and is constantly moving forward else they will fall on their face. Eventually itās going to happen anyway but common wisdom is to just continue forward momentum and believe you can catch your footing later. Chasing the shiny sparkle novelties. IE theā¦
and not getting too concerned on providing a fuller and more complete experience from the get go.
I bet the playerbase is growing on consoles 
(and no apologies needed 
)
