I spent a week breaking a thrall and horse, training them to level 14 each.
I decided to take them on a trip to harvest some aloe and look for some brimstone.
I came across some scorpions and decided to kill and harvest them.
After a round of 5-6 kills, I head for another one. This one is about the same size, yet a different color…?
Oh no. It’s a world boss. By the time I realize this and try to run, I am dead in two hits, and my thrall and horse are dead.
A week’s worth of effort, gone in seconds.
Why are world bosses not recognizable before you aggro them and it’s automatic death?
Not to mention, heading back to the sight of the slaughter, I got a work call. After ending the call, too much time had gone by, and I lost the stuff on my thrall and horse.
This loss of time, effort, and items really makes me not want to play anymore.
It’s part of the learning process my friend. Early on, losses feel substantial. But as you learn, explore, and your knowledge of the game expands, all things are easily replaced. The first play through, 1-30 is pretty rough. I remember getting absolutely harassed by a wolf outside my base for days until I leveled up and geared up to a point where it was trivial. But if you even kinda enjoy the game, I’d encourage you to power through the current disappointment of your lost gear and companions.
World bosses do tend to be notably larger than their counterparts. This is the case for boss scorpions to my knowledge.
Side note, I don’t know if you’re on a server or playing single player, but you can turn off dropping loot on death if you so desire in single player.
Slap a target lock on anything you don’t recognize so you can see if its just a red bar, has a skull or 3 skulls. You can also turn on the health numbers in the settings if you like.
Welcome to the fellow Exile many of us here have played for years I will confess to being suckered into battles I wasn’t ready for. It’s a learning curve that doesn’t require days but weeks. Still learning. @jwilliam87
This is one of those games where you learn by failure. Everytime something turns south you have to look back and see why. The replies you got are from people who have been playing for months or years. So far the best advice is this:
Tuffman is absolutely correct here.
The stuff you lost that took you a week to build up… You can easily replace in minutes once you have the experience, knowledge, and practice under your belt.
Conan Exiles is definitely a game where you have to be proactive. You have to learn how to find information. And I don’t mean looking at a wiki or guide or video. I mean you have to watch what is going on and what is working and what isn’t. And then once you learn how things work you can prep for it.
You’re going to find that at times your best preparations suddenly don’t work for a certain area, or foe, or just isn’t working in a situation. Then you need to observe why, and then formulate a way to tackle it.
If you stick with it, it can be extremely rewarding.
Case in point. Many of us can do that boss in your original post at level 10 (or lower) with stone weapons. And it isn’t even that difficult. I’m not giving you a git gud response here. I’m just putting things into perspective. You might even surprise yourself how well you could handle these dangers if you simply were prepared to take them on.
You panicked. And paid for it. Nothing shameful there. Unless you never try again in the future.
What takes a week early on, becomes trivial at higher levels.
You’ll get the hang of where bosses are and an eye for the glowing bits on surprise 1 skull enemies.
At least a purge didn’t spawn while you were respawning.
Have you considered revenge?
While there are no scorpion cultists to slaughter, there are plenty of scorpions. After you finish the mani quest line, a personal goal of kicking the boss scorpions in new and creative ways may occupy you for a few days or even weeks
counter argument: i’ve seen enough people stop playing because the survival aspect of the game has become a joke over time. i consider both the “rage quit” player and the “missing survival, I quit” player to be exotic and not relevant.
edit: at least not relevant in relation to the amount of players the game has lost due to bugs, cheats and exploits.
Usually it is more welcome for players when the game gets easier. The latest witch hunt event, where you can get T4 thralls and black blood tools more easily, was very welcomed by a lot of players. At least in PvP, where players can then focus more on PvP.
My point was, that the game is not beginner friendly at all. Without the wiki, it would be even worse.
Can’t agree with this at all. I’ve never played a game that didn’t have at least some loss when dying/failing that kept me engaged. If there is no risk involved, what’s the point? OPs death also wasn’t due to an unfair mechanic, it was ultimately player error.
IMO, Conan is pretty forgiving when it comes to the penalty for dying. Losing all your gear, horse and thrall is the absolute extreme case. But then again, I grew up playing EverQuest, which actually punished you for dying. If dying and losing gear causes someone to rage quit, this maybe isn’t the game for them. And I don’t think the game should be changed to keep that kind of player around.
Yep i know someone who did the same- needless to say he hasnt been back. Kinda lame actually to quit because a game mechanic or bug got you. Seriously when you play the entire game then the end is delete character and start over… just sayin!
I just do a different setup or play differently next time. I guess thats why i keep playing. There isnt just one spec or way to play now.
I always keep secondary sets on my thralls in case i cant get my stuff back- its the price you pay for getting killed.
… the thing that got me about Scorpions and Sand Reapers especially is that they both :
have a poison attack which early players have no experience or reason to suspect exists in the game.
Early on you may or may not get attacked by a snake and die of poison, which you might have twigged to understand.
But the Sand Reapers and scorpion Boss stack the poison so quickly, so unexpectedly that you are already suffering stacked damage that may continue to stack damage past the point that you and especially your lower health thralls can no longer wait out the poison timer on.
Learning through failure is fine, but understanding why the failure happened is key.
I have been playing for several years, and while power levelling some followers, I still recently lost 2 lower levelled named thralls, due to the poison. stacked from the 3 skull Sand Reaper just outside of Sepamaru.
I got cocky and forgot both how unforgiving poison stacking is, and how small the health pool is on followers following the latest thrall rebalance. In addition on PS4 followers can fall under the map mesh on death, so I also lost a full set of follower gear. The hardest part is actually surviving a boss fight; and then watching your follower’s health keep dropping and then die, because you don’t have an extra anti-poison potion to throw into their inventory and force them to drink.
Lesson learned watch out for that little poison graphic on your health bar, and keep a couple “potions of set” (set religion antidote crafted at Set Altar) or later game, any antidote made at your Alchemy Bench.
Naked with daggers is great, aloe potions are helpful, but with a low health pool a couple antidotes in your pack might save you having to replace your favourite followers, and save you the walk of shame back to your base with a dead man’s armour in your pack…
