Age of Sorcery Retrospective

[Dread Swoop]

Hello everyone,

With the recent announcement of 'Age of War', I thought to ask you all on how the Age system has been for the game. I stopped playing prior to Age of Sorcery due to my belief that the shift to a BattlePass / Shop would be ultimately less friendly to players than the older DLC system, and that this would not be compensated by an increase in the quality of the game / future updates. Not having played, I don't know whether my predictions were correct.

With the hindsight of the past year, I would like to ask you all the following:

* Has the quality of the game genuinely improved under the 'Age' system as compared to the examples of Siptah and the DLCs before it?

* Has the improvement, provided that there has been any, been proportionate to any increase in the costs of DLC?

* Have the levels of quality for subsequent updates been consistent to the start of Age of Sorcery?

* Are you optimistic toward the future of Conan Exiles with the new content system?

Thank you.

[Jaq]

I consider most of the Age of Sorcery to be bad choices in gameplay design, but not short on content. The pace of additional content has increased, the timing of content releases are predictable and consistent, and thus far they've held to their schedule.

The Battlepass as currently implemented is perfectly fine. I don't think the Bazaar items represent good value nor is the storefront a good design, but ultimately it's all optional.

Player numbers and length of time played are reportedly higher now compared to any time other than the first launch of the game. Only Funcom knows whether that's led to better revenue. I wouldn't be surprised by either an increase or a decrease. My own expenditures on this game have decreased.

Unlike Age of Sorcery, I think Age of War is exactly what this game needed. Ultimately though it comes down to how well the gameplay concepts they described are implemented.

[DarkFire]

Personally I didn't think, and still do not think, that Conan needed any sort of sorcery system. That being said, the implementation we have is quite lore friendly and is thematically consistent with the Conan world building. Prior to its introduction I was also suspicious of the battle pass system. I didn't think Conan needed such a system and still don't. Again though, with that said the implementation has been probably the most player-friendly battle pass system that I've personally experienced. With the exception of the first battle pass they've all been effectively self-funding which has been pleasing to see. The content has been fun and I do like the pile of additional cosmetic and decorative items that have come from the various battle passes. Strictly in terms of the new items that have come with the battle passes during the age of sorcery, I personally think that the quality of those items has been consistently high.

As for overall game quality, we've seen some welcome quality of life improvements but there have also been some inexplicable bugs that have crept in - some things that previously worked have somehow contrived to be broken. It does frustrate me that bugs that have been in the game for literally years have still not been fixed. Obviously artists and 3D modellers are not coders but I do think that significantly more effort should have been put in to bug fixing along side new content.

Generally I am optimistic about the future of Conan, but FOR THE LOVE OF (insert belief system here) please do some bug fixing along side developing new content.

[Rusted Metal]

well the one thing i love is that now we can predict when we will get new content since now it is consistent, the one thing i do dislike is the fact that we may never get cosmetic packs any more due to the new monetisation which i am super bummed about.

[Bloodartist]

Originally posted by Dread Swoop:

* Has the quality of the game genuinely improved under the 'Age' system as compared to the examples of Siptah and the DLCs before it?

Absolutely yes. Sorcery brought me back, and Ive played more than I did during the previous two years. Ive even invested in the game again, because it felt cool to play. Theres tons more stuff added than in previous years, much of it free.

* Has the improvement, provided that there has been any, been proportionate to any increase in the costs of DLC?

Im not sure of the question. I dont remember DLC costs being increased. Instead there is now the battlepass, which you need to buy only ONCE, and when you finish it, you have enough crom coins to buy the next one, and then the next one, and so forth. And theres a ton of stuff in the battlepass. I think that is a very fair system.

Bazaar... you dont need to buy those things if you dont want.

* Have the levels of quality for subsequent updates been consistent to the start of Age of Sorcery?

The sorcery feels like the best update since, well, forever. It certainly changed my game a lot.

* Are you optimistic toward the future of Conan Exiles with the new content system?

In terms of content system, yes.

[Torasan]

I hate battle-passes. You are forced to play for so long to actually receive what you paid for. The whole concept is insane for consumers. Don't buy into it. I love the game though, I have nearly every dlc.

[Noxsa]

the age's are ok, battlepass is well a one time buy get it for the rest of eternity "granted you don't spend the crom coin you get back from pass in their redicules over prized bazaar shop"

the bazaar on the other hand, don't get me started on that, its completely shady and scumy if you ask me, they whent from dlc packs that had 70-90 items for the fair prize of 10 bucks, to bazaar item packs of 6-10 for 10 bucks and some even more. this is tencent written all over, in no way the devs of this game are really ok whit that. every time i see them on stream you see passion, so a system like that was 100% told to them by tencent to add.

in short,
ages = super good,
battlepass = is ok if use the reward coins for next pass,
challanges to level pass = needs rework if you ask me, they are boring and lame, make you run all over the map, they actually feel like work "no game should feel like work, i have my real job to do that for me"
bazaar = HELL NO, GET THAT POOP OUT OF THE GAME, go back to dlc packs i own all old packs and was 100% going to buy the new "old style" packs, so funcom and tencent you should know, you lost money fom me. i'll NEVER BUY FROM BAZAAR with them prizes.

[Bloodartist]

Originally posted by Torasan:

I hate battle-passes. You are forced to play for so long to actually receive what you paid for. The whole concept is insane for consumers. Don't buy into it. I love the game though, I have nearly every dlc.

Considering the amount of stuff you get for small purchase, the battlepass in Conan is an extremely good deal.

[Macdallan]

* Has the quality of the game genuinely improved under the 'Age' system as compared to the examples of Siptah and the DLCs before it?

No. It's worse than ever before. I've never seen more disconnects, bugs, and general issues as there have been since AoS came out.

* Has the improvement, provided that there has been any, been proportionate to any increase in the costs of DLC?

Since there has not really been any improvement the only answer to this question can be no. I'd prefer to go back to the old DLC system, I hate the idea of predatory microtransactions and the "free" steps along the battle pass are basically just a lure to get you to pay.

* Have the levels of quality for subsequent updates been consistent to the start of Age of Sorcery?

Since the quality of the initial Age of Sorcery was low to begin with it's hard to answer this one, too. I'm going with a big no, though, since I have disliked nearly every single thing they've done since AoS launched and I think they're headed in the wrong direction.

* Are you optimistic toward the future of Conan Exiles with the new content system?

No. They're just putting more nails in the coffin lid on a game that could and should have been great. I think they need to roll the game back to pre Age of Sorcery, scrap everything since then, and just focus on bug fixes for a while. Get a new project lead that will take the game in the direction it needs to go instead of further down the "soon to be pay to win" path that it's on now.

[Swedish Meat Lover]

i agree with you Macdallan.
the bugs are worse now then ever before.

the building system change is nice and the magic is ok.

BUT the events are crap.
skull wagons that are everywhere destroying the progression of the game.
kill a few npc and you get the best thrall or the best stuff in the game........................totaly insane.

[Dread Swoop]

Thank you for the responses thus far, everyone.

At least from the sampling here, there's a tendency toward positivity for the future of the game, which is good for the game's sake. The generally-positive perception of the BPs are (at least to me) surprising, though by structure it was likely to be the more popular of the two between it and the shop, which appears to be somewhere between tolerated and disliked. [My question about quality in proportion to price of DLC was admittedly confusing.]

The consistency of updates appears to be appreciated, and the quality also seems to be sufficient for most people, but Funcom may still need to do some more bug-squashing both in their updates and in the released game.

Given that, and keeping in mind the more negative feedback as well, I may give the game another try once I carve out the drive space for it.

Originally posted by Kiander:

i agree with you Macdallan.
BUT the events are crap.
skull wagons that are everywhere destroying the progression of the game.
kill a few npc and you get the best thrall or the best stuff in the game........................totaly insane.

Are the events optional, in the sense that they can be disabled from occurring on private servers / singleplayer, or is the only option to avoid them when they pop up?

[Bloodartist]

Originally posted by Kiander:

skull wagons that are everywhere destroying the progression of the game.
kill a few npc and you get the best thrall or the best stuff in the game........................totaly insane.

"Skull wagons" aka Khitan exile camps were part of the Age of Sorcery, and will be gone when Age of War arrives. At least in all other places except possibly Mek-kamoses spire.

Currently on testlive sorcerers still dropped sorcerer skulls, but I have no idea what Im supposed to do with them now without the khitan merchants.