We are Funcom, ask us anything about our recently released survival came Conan Exiles! AMA!

Who's idea was it to customise dicks?

We discussed nudity early on and decided that for the lore and setting, nudity was something we wanted to go with. The slider was a natural evolution of that, especially seeing we had a similar slider for breasts. Equality and all that.

What examples can you give us of Magic you have planned? Will it be mana based?

Sorcery and necromancy. Will require corruption. Will not be anything like Skyrim etc.

I think it is a little unfair that people can spam foundations around the map and claim as much land as they want. Do you have plans to tweak this so people don't abuse the building permissions? I really appreciate the hard work since the release! Keep it up with the patches and this game can be great.

We agree and we wanted to add a decay system before launch, we just never got there. Our decay system will be based on the building size - the larger the building size, the slower it decays. So random foundations will decay very quickly. We're also making it such that small placeable objects don't claim land but still respect land claim rules.

Age of Conan's melee combat had huge potential with combo chains, blocking, dodging, etc. Will you try a similar approach to combat in Conan Exiles?

No, Age of Conan had a very different combat system and doesn't apply well to what we are doing with Exiles.

Though everything you mentioned can be applied to Exiles on some level. We have chaining, blocking and dodging. We don't have specific combos yet.

how do you plan on re-balancing raiding once the trebuchet is released?

Trebuchets are self balanced, to a certain extent. You'll need to build one for yourself to truly understand, but it isn't going to be something you just throw out in the world. You need to place it, then figure out range of throws based on the weight of the counter balance. And you need to defend it while you are doing so. It's not going to be a smash and grab mechanic for raiding.

Thanks for your questions everyone, but I need to get back to work. Hope I answered some burning questions and sorry for the ones I didn't get to. Thanks for your support of Conan Exiles so far!

With the decision to cut ties to pingperfect, does that mean all progress on official servers will be lost? or will it be transfered

Please upvote guys, this effects alot of us

Edit: their answer... We will be copying databases over, so people should have all progress preserved, unless there is unforseen problems.

As mentioned above, no. We will be copying the database across to the new servers once they are available, and your progress should be there.

A few questions:

1. With all of the 'Boss' NPC's being in the world, do you plan on adding more later or making them random at any point?

2. How many maps will there be total (assuming there will be more than one) and will you combine them and what time do you think that would happen?

3. What do you guys plan on doing with the combat system? I know in one of the Dev streams you guys said you didn't get it to where you wanted it; so what do you think it will end up being like in the future? Will it be more skill based and how so?

1. We will be adding more and improving what they drop. We probably won't make them random as they usually have a reason for being where they are.
2. We will see how many we end up with total. We are working on the highlands/mountain biome next and we will determine our direction beyond that. The plan is to have them be combined, either as a single giant map, or as maps that are right beside each other with a zoning line.
3. We have a lot of plans. Right now we are improving the control feel of combat, a bunch of small things that lift the experience that we just didn't have time to get to before Early Access launch. We're also looking at how bows and crossbows work. Beyond that we are planning to separate light and heavy attack buttons which gives us greater flexibility. Oh and dodge, we need to take a pass on dodge. So yeah, we will keep working on combat for the foreseeable future.

I'm a big fan of the survival game genre, and exiles has been filling the void that Reign of Kings left. From which survival games, if any, were you influenced by?

All of them. We've been playing since Minecraft and DayZ really kicked this genre off and we have tried almost everything along the way. Obviously we have great respect for how much Ark expanded this genre. We owe a debt of gratitude to them all and we borrowed some of their good ideas even as we came up with our own.

Can you please add a separate key for dodge?

it being stuck to shift+direction is awful, and i can't rebind it TT

I keep accidently dashing when i want to change direction, thus wasting stamina.

Also on stamina, I feel like stamina needs to be reworked, you're too vulnerable with an empty stamina bar, dodging takes a huge chunk of stamina which makes the combat feel slower and less action based, also we simply run out of stamina too quickly atm, and putting points into stamina doesn't actually give much, takes like 30 points to double our stamina bar? which is sorta nuts.

Yeah, dodge needs an overhaul. We are going to be digging into it soon.

Can you give more information/details about your vision for the human sacrifice mechanic?

Similar to the way in which you capture thralls, we would like you to be able to drag players back to your altars and sacrifice them for a massive boost. We might also add specific killing equipment such as iron maidens etc. In addition we really want you to be able to harvest the heads of your foes and stick them on spikes outside and around your bases. Maybe even at some point...castration.

Greetings,

What is the overall vision you have for this game? How would you compare it to your competitors and what will be the niche spot in relation to gameplay, mechanics, and content?

P.S. Will we ever have beards?

Our vision for the game is to find the line between Skyrim and Minecraft. We want to have a game where NPCs inhabit a living, breathing world, but where players make a real impact on the environment and become a part of that world. Through the thrall system we hope to introduce complex behaviours that allow you to build your own cities and towns and as we add features such as the Purge, we are going to be trying to create a dynamic world that challenges your right to survive. That's the niche we are aiming for :) But it is a big vision and we hope you guys can help us along the way.

Are there any plans to expand upon interactions with non-thrall NPCs in the future? I.e. persuading them to become followers, or join a settlement to perform jobs willingly? Surrendering to NPCs if they are stronger than the player?

Yes we want to expand upon the world to the point that we have working scheduling mechanics for NPCs and they will be capable of remembering their relationships with players. If you've visited the relic hunter city in the north, you can see our first early ideas around how to build these kind of locations. Expect this to expand. On the thrall side of things, we will be adding a rescue mechanic, so if you find slavery distasteful you can rescue people from camps and bring them back to your base to work for you as mercenaries.

Will you guys have boss monster like types that require large amounts of high tier gear people?

Will you guys have find able gear that is legendary but hard to obtain?

Yes, though currently some servers have low frames which allows people to exploit the AI. We already have at least one of these bosses.

Yes we already have some of this gear, but we will expand upon it during Early Access.

Hey Funcom! I'd like to know 2 things:

1. When will Linux servers be available? By Crom!

2. Do you plan on improving server performance and therefore lower server requirements?

As a big Funcom fan since Age of Conan I'd like to launch my own server on Conan Exiles but windows server licence is overpriced and Ping Perfect is pretty much a scam, even with the 25% from the barbaric edition...

EDIT: Oh I just saw that the partnership with ping perfect has ended, Farewell :D

• No idea, sorry.
• Yes

Fair enough, though you don't need a windows server license. Just any PC running windows can be a dedicated server. See dedicated server hardware requirements in the technical manual.

Hey FunCom! Loving the game so far, it's got so much potential. Will you guys be publishing a Product Roadmap or production schedule? It's fine to leave off dates, but knowing about feature delivery in the pipeline would be fantastic.

We'll probably provide more detail once we get past the initial launch rush. For now we have a "what's next?" post on conanexiles.com

Survival games have a terrible reputation of becoming stale. What is your plan to stop that from happening without breaking the core game concepts and adding stuff like guns?

We'll add sorcery. And see above for our vision for where we want to take the game. Hopefully it won't get too stale!

Will you further build upon the clan system? I heard details of dye coming out to help distinguish your clan members from enemies, but are there any other plans coming? Can you elaborate or share a few if so?

Yes we will continue to work on the clan system throughout Early Access. Currently we have plans to improve the permission system, and eventually we want to offer full clan dyeing customizations that can be shard with clan members. And yes, the name targeting is something we will improve across the board, not just for clans.

[deleted]

As mentioned above, yes this is the plan.

When are you planning on releasing modding tools?

We have made a dev kit for the game and sent it off to Epic for approval. Once it is approved, they will add it to the Unreal 4 launcher. So currently it is out of our hands!

Hello! Will you be looking into improving the chat system? For example, remembering the last type of chat selected when pressing "Enter" so we don't always need to select "-" to enter Clan chat. Love the updates so far thank you for keeping the game great!

Yes we will be looking at improving the chat experience. Improving usability and adding chat bubbles etc.

You guys said the release of Conan exiles was way more then ya'll anticipated. What exactly were y'all hoping the number of players to be when it first released? Also did the dev team experienced any issues the community is currently having issues before release? If yes then why release it and not delay it to fix it?

We outlined our expectations in the company quarterly reports, but we didn't expect the demand we have received. Can't comment on specific numbers due to public company rules etc.

We stress tested the game with 70 plus people on external (not our own) hardware multiple times. We never dropped below 10 server frames which we deemed acceptable performance for a full load server. We did not see the issues that the official servers were seeing.

We have, however, launched multiplayer games before so we know that when you go to scale, things can go wrong. See Diablo 3 for an example of a very well prepared company that still got caught unawares by demand. That was also a part of our decision to do early access, so we can have a more understanding audience who will work with us to improve any issues we have.

Will you be bringing back additional options to server owners who want to adjust settings such as the ability to set durability on crafted items like shields, etc? Seems it was removed in the last patch and was very useful to be able to experiment with while in game.

The ones we removed were not functioning. We will continue to add new options and we welcome feedback from server admins as to the commands they would like prioritized.

How will the game differentiate itself from similar existing titles such as Ark and Rust? In the current build, there is little existing difference in core gameplay other than the theme. I would love to learn more about what features will set the game apart in the future, and how Exiles plans to innovate.

Close quarters melee, sorcery, fatalities, lore, thralls, religion and avatars etc.

Plus the Conan world is an interesting place, above and beyond just being a random map.

With the change of the Offical server hosting service, will all offcial servers' progress be wiped or will all the data be carried over to the new servers? Thank you for working hard on fixing these issues, keep up the good work.

We will be copying databases over, so people should have all progress preserved, unless there is unforseen problems.

What are your plans to improve the combat system? Is parrying going to be added?

Parry frames on sluggish servers are a nightmare (as anyone who has played a poor connection in Dark Souls can attest). See above for a list of immediate combat improvements - beyond that we will be adding a large amount of mechanics that give you a sandbox combat system - a bunch of tools for various situations. We can talk about parry if the community pushes hard for it, but from a practical perspective it is pretty difficult to get right in a server driven game (or it is very forgiving and thus unbalanced).

Do you foresee yourself implementing any ideas/concepts from Age of Conan into Exiles? I was a founder in AoC and loved it for a long time. I miss it from time to time but jumped on Exiles for the universe. Also where do you see future development going on this game?

We already take great inspiration from AoC and you can expect to see more of the ideas from there in Exiles. For future dev, I think I have answered a fair amount of this above.

Funcom seems to be the biggest company working on a Early Access Survival game atm and you guys had lots of experience with Conan already. What are your plans to further expand into the amazing lore created by Robert Howard ? Also, can we expect more tools for us roleplayers ?

We're going to keep building on our world and expanding the story of the Exiled Lands. We try very hard to be true to Howard as we work on the world and we want to bring as many elements as possible in from his work. Also more stuff for roleplayers. Yep, we are on it.

Do you guys ever plan on adding a message announcer for server owners? If so when do you plan on releasing it because it's hard for server owners to advertise their community discord, and websites on their own servers.

We have it on our list and hope to get it in soon.

I need an arrow hallway trap in my life... Are there any plans to add such traps? Also, the bow/crossbow shoots too slow and has ridiculous arrow drop. The melee combat feels good but the bows are lackluster. Are y'all looking into improving combat in any way?

Yes, we are adding traps AND we are improving bows.

Hi!

1) Do you test game on Legacy AMD drivers? They have their final version that isn't going to be updated at all, but those video cards are still good.

2) How would you rate current performance of the game? Can we expect big changes about it in near future? Addin more map regions, that you planned, will not make performance even worse?

3) Will we be able to create hidden stashes?

4) Are avatars currently the only counter to mountain bases? How about adding grapling hooks?

5) People saying that you using outdated version of ue, that causing major fps drop for multi-processors. Is that true? If yes, will you switch to newer ue soon?

1) Not personally, but our QA team does. 2) Hard to say. I think in single player it runs pretty well for where it is in Early Access, but obviously we have some work to do on the server side. We are working hard on improving this. We will assess the impact of new maps, but our streaming tech should handle this. 3) I don't really understand the context. I think you can easily do this now. 4) We'll add more mechanics for climbing in a later patch

I know you guys read Reddit, but can you guys read all the topics? Or only the most upvoted ones?

And, how the process works? The CM reads the posts and them what? Do you have daily contact with the development staff?

CM sends me reports constantly. Like he comes and annoys me at my desk. It's actually kind of irritating. I want to hire someone to keep him away from me while he screams "just think of the players"... Jokes aside, we are all in the same office. We have daily reports, a dedicated slack channel and a whole lot of interaction. We've also gone through every steam review and compiled a list of the most common complaints from there. We aim to do our best for everyone, even people who didn't like the game when they first tried it.

Were you aware of the typo in the title when you submitted it?

It's a mystery...

Can you describe your plans for the end game competitive aspects? Are we to look forward to clan wars or boss npcs?

Also, is there anything in the works that will allow us to get back on our home server easier?

We're working on the Purge system and boss npcs for endgame. We are adding more dungeons and locations to explore. Eventually we want full on sieges to take place between clans.

We're planning to add a filter of servers where you have characters in the server browser. For a workaround, you can also favorite servers in the steam server browser for quick access.

Is this game coming to ps4? I've heard a lot of conflicting info.

Yes, eventually. Our focus is PC, then Xbox Game Preview to launch in spring and then PS4 sometime afterwards

Is the purpose of summoning the Gods/Avatars to decimate another player/clan's base, or does it serve a Pve purpose for high level content?

It will serve as Purge protection in PvE.

Can we get a better way to see clan members in game/on the map. Also maybe a grid on the map so it's easier to find/tell your clan members where to go?

We actually have a new version of the map that didn't reach Early Access. Will patch it in soon.

any hints to what the 1st major feature update will bring to the game?

I could give you a hint and then someone would punch me in the face, and then I would punch them back and then a bench would get thrown and then... well you know how it goes. It would be a mess.

Is there going to be any permanent fix to the black screens, infinite loading screen, half-loaded world, main menu during loading, not being able to connect through steam browser, etc?

I noticed you guys already released several patches, but it would appear that while one patch fixes the issue, another one breaks it again.

I understand you guys are working very hard on this game, but for me personally it's been pretty much headaches all the time trying to get into a server.

I've got 18 hours in this game at this moment, of which 6 or 7 are probably me trying to get into the server or browsing reddit/google to find a possible fix to get the loading screen to actually work.

Hey I am sorry to hear about your issues. We have several potential fixes for them in the next patch. But we'll keep hammering at the problem until we fix it and I can only say I am sorry that you have had to experience this.

At the moment it seems nearly impossible to get the needed recipes as a solo player, Is there any feature in mind that would help with this? Maybe a thrall to teach us recipes or recipes we could somehow learn through npcs?

We already have the ability to teach recipes through NPCs. However, as I recommended to someone above, I'd also suggest adjusting XP gains and so forth through the server setting pane. And find a server that has progression that works for you.

Is there any part of the lore / Conan world that you really wanted to implement, but weren't able to for some reason?

That will depend how the game does. I imagine I can add whatever lore I want to if we sell 10 million copies.

Do you have any recommended stress relief exercises for me to perform when i die due to disconnects and have to spend an hour getting back the stuff i lost?

Yes. Screenshot whoever or whatever killed you. Put it on your wall. Hate it. Really feel the hate! When you get back in the game, hunt them down and kill them like the dogs they are.

And I do apologize for the disconnects, we are working on fixing these issues at full speed.

Are there any ideas of future higher levels of weapons / armor / building structures and customized weapons?

We have at least one more tier of weapons and armor we want to add (apart from more legendary and named items). We want to revamp crafting at some point to allow a much greater customization of weapons. Buildings will get visual upgrades, but we will probably maintain the tiers that we have and expand instead upon the pieces we have.

Are there going to be more servers in the future? The lowest servers I can find are 90 ping, which isn't horrible but could definitely be better. Love the game by the way.

We're adding more, but see our announcement today. We have some work to do on this end.

The leveling system is terrible, do you plan to change it? Any ideas at the moment? The problem I currently have is as you go through the game you don't level at a pace with what you're crafting/doing. Instead you're forced to go farm animals for a couple of hours to reach the next stage of progression.

We've included sliders so you can adjust the experience as you please on your own server or playing single-player. Every XP gain has its own rate slider - killing, crafting, harvesting etc. Some servers will have this set up already. Don't get caught up in playing this game "as the developers intended" because our honest intention is that people will adjust the game to fit their needs and playstyle. However, we will be monitoring progression and making changes based on how we see people playing. Right now though, it is early days.