Always great when you gotta explain.
While we can't give any immediate promises about the future of PvE Conflict, the team is acutely aware of the feedback you're sending our way. There's more information about the reasoning behind this change on our forums: https://t.co/TKKYu4uSpr
— CONAN EXILES (@ConanExiles) May 9, 2018
Short version is this: straight, unlimited PvP is of the Devil. It will devolve into blood and depravity to precisely the level that the game designers permit; and will constantly snap at the boundaries, precisely as a rabid, starving wolf will gnaw at the edge the door that stands between it and the tasty morsels that hide, quivering, on the other side. This is a known fact*.
Now, most game designers understand that allowing their game to devolve into a Hobbesian state of nature is generally not a smart long-term strategy, so they attempt to tame the Beast by putting restrictions. in this particular case, one solution was to create PvE Conflict servers: it allowed a limited window of time (generally, evening, Eastern Standard Time) where players could kill each other and take their stuff, but not loot their bases. However, FunCom soon discovered that many more people wanted the red-in-tooth-and-claw joy of killing each other like howling barbarians (not very surprising, in a Conan game), so they abruptly switched all the PvE Conflict servers into straight PvP ones. Which, in its way, was apparently a remarkable emulation of what happens when a barbarian horde comes over the walls to grind the jeweled thrones of the world underneath their sandaled feet.
The straight PvE servers — where nobody gets to fight other players, or break their stuff — remain untouched, which makes this story a bit less poignant. But some people were looking forward to building huge castles for rival clans to assault at mutually-acceptable times, and now that ain’t happening any time soon. And, let us be honest: people get upset when other people smash their dollhouses without warning. And I think that that’s fair. At the very least, FunCom should have probably warned them better. Or, really, at all.
Moe Lane
PS: Also, apparently if you play Conan Exiles on console right now you’re hosed. I think I’ve heard that one before, though.
*Mind you, I liked doing PvP in The Secret World. Which had strong restrictions on PvP, where it could be done, and what it involved.
Yikes.
I think I’m going to go with straight PvE. PvP gets on my nerves, for the reasons you have described.
What limitations did they put on PvP in The Secret World?
Separate zones for PvP, faction-specific, balancing of gear and weapons, and a community that reported people who swore or used trash-talk in chat. That last was the most important thing, I think.
That’s rather impressive, actually.