so i ve been giving this a second chance with the latest update ( FREE EXPANSION!!!!!
) and here s my thoughts if anyone cares:
pro:
-the graphics and area design are just damn pretty and so are the armors and weapons. hats of to the graphics guys and designers - i really loved exploring the north just for the looks even despite the gameplay.
…
-that’s it for pros.
con:
-despite minor tweaks to AI and combat mechanics both remain still completely awful. You ll have a hard time finding a game with more boring, unchallenging , buggy and flat out badly designed combat than conan exiles whether you look among console action RPGs or MMORPGs.... and yes that includes stuff like Risen 3 or Bethesda games. Combat in these games is really bad, but not as bad as conan exiles…and having combat still this bad after 6 months of early access does not bode well for the future of conan exiles if its supposed to be a game centered around melee combat.
mind you if the game ever gets some of the promised features that make it play more like ARK (i.e. instead of fighting mostly yourself you ll be fighting alongside beasts and slaves ) bad combat could be less of an issue than now, where you simply don’t have anything else to do other than building and fighting.
that brings us to the next big problem however: its been 6 months and out of all the stuff they have promised they have delivered very, very little ….. yet completely lack self awareness in that regard if you follow their streams/posts.
considering the gaming press apparently has their back ( conan exiles got lots of positive press towards release and now with the FREE EXPANSION!!! .... meanwhile somewhat similar games from other developer barely make the headlines )
I m feeling this game might as well be named No Man´s Exiles.
...so many promises, so little to actually show for it: back after early access their roadmap talked about 2-3 major content patches before summer and now get got merely 1 out but that one is boasted about like a huge deal as if they rolled those 2-3 major updates into 1 (they didnt).
You can check out their roadmap yourself but basically their “FREE EXPANSION” covered not even 20% of the features & content they promised, yet it took half the time of the EA phase. With half a year to go until release you can make your bets on how the promised features will
be cancelled, postponed, rushed, castrated or halfassed to meet the deadline.
TLDR: the game s world is really pretty, now 70% bigger and begging for a good game to take place in it ….. but unfortunately so far gameplay outside of building and really bad combat vs awful AI only exists in developer blog promises.
Those promises do however so sound really good (....why I bought this afterall ), so hope dies last that eventually this might become a good game . I really doubt this will happen in 2018 however, no matter whether its officially released by then or not.