Greetings Exiles!
For those curious as to what's going on on the TestLive branch, you can check out the notes here! Coming hot on the trails of our previous content patch, conveniently titled Followers I, and as announced in our producer letter, we feel now ready to deploy on Testlive the first iteration of our next game update: Followers II!
Given the amazing reception you all gave to our new commitment to make Testlive a meaningful platform to test and improve upon new features, we feel this is the right time to let you all have a first look at our new batch of changes and improvements aimed at overhauling how you interact with your followers.
Among these changes comes a very long and oft-requested feature, AI stances! We have also added a command system for your active follower, so you can give direct orders such as move and attack. There’s more changes and improvements that come with these new additions that will generally improve how AI reacts and interacts in the game. We have also included a couple of commonly requested quality of life changes that will make your adventures in the Exiled lands even more amazing: you can now have a companion and a horse active at the same time, and while riding you can also drag any unconscious NPCs!
We’d love if you would give all these changes a try and let us improve on these features by sending us any feedback you might have regarding possible issues here. Remember, this Testlive update is still a work in progress build and many things might still be still under active development!
Thanks again for your ongoing feedback and support.
Please remember that updates can mess with your installed mods. We suggest taking a backup of your current database before updating to any new patch if you have mods installed.
New follower behaviors!
You can now give your followers a brand new set of engagement rules and tactical preferences to better suit your playstyle!
Accessed via a new option in the interaction wheel, you can now assign different behaviors to your thralls and pets. Divided into two sections (Engagement and Tactics), this will give you better control than ever on how your armies react to incoming threats.
Please note that these new options are for your thralls and pets who are set as base defenses and not actively set as your follower (to see which new changes apply to active followers, you can skip a few sections and go straight to the new Follower Command System!)
Engagement behaviors
Under this new menu, you can now choose and customize different rules of engagement for each of your followers. These new options are:
Guard Area
With this option, your follower will only attack when a hostile engages with them or any friendly presence (including you!) within their detection radius.
Guard me
You only want them to attack with those that directly attack you or those hostiles that you engage in combat with? This is your option!
Attack all enemies
When subtlety isn’t part of master plan, just let your armies know about this option. They will engage with any hostile that enters their detection radius, old-school!
Attack nothing
If you want them to know engaging with any threats might be above their gruel pay-grade, choose this option. Any follower with this behavior will not retaliate against hostile activity.
Attack and Chase Distance
You can set at which distance your thrall or pet will detect hostiles (Attack Distance), as well as the distance they might move (together with some new aggro systems) from their designed guard spot while pursuing their target (Chase Distance). These two settings open a new submenu with a range of options, from Lowest (5 meters) to Longest (50 meters).
Tactics behaviors
Within this section, you can set which tactical choices will be preferred by your followers:
Stand and defend
With this option, your followers will stay firm and keep the designated position against any hostile activity.
Prioritize melee
Followers with this tactic assigned will try to deal with enemies up-close and prioritize equipping the shortest range weapon they have available in their inventory.
Prioritize ranged
This tactic will make your thrall opt for long-ranged engagements, prioritizing ranged weapons in their inventory when attacking an enemy.
New Follower Command System!
By Crom! You can now give direct orders to your active companion. Politely ask them to move or rudely ask them to annihilate any hostile targets within the press of a button!
Aim and press the assigned key (X by default) to move your companion to the designed location or attack an enemy. Double press that key to make them stop any activity they’re engaged on (and double press again to make them resume that activity). Press it three times and you will ask your companion to return to your position.
You can also hold the command button to open a new radial menu where you can select any of these settings individually!
Some important Quality of Life additions!
We’ve been listening to the feedback you’ve all been sending us since the release of the mounts update and we’ve integrated the two most requested changes! You can now have an active companion as well as your trusty steed, as horses don’t take the active follower slot anymore! And while you’re out and about on your ride, don’t forget to that you can now drag any NPCs you’ve left unconscious!
- New follower stances!
- New follower command system!
- You can now have a companion and a mount active at the same time!
- You can now drag unconscious NPCs while riding a horse! Yee-haw!
- AI improvements!
- …and more!
Currently Known Issues
- The Follower Command System is currently missing Audio Effects.
- Target lock keybind while using a controller is currently overridden by the Command key.
- Given the complexity of the AI changes present in this patch, it is possible that some of the new systems and behaviors might not only not work as intended, but present worse performance than those already available in live. We’re extremely interested in any feedback you can share about AI issues and behavior in this build of the game.
- This is a Work in Progress build and as such some features might not work as intended. Please share your feedback should you encounter any issues, so we can fix them in a future iteration of this patch.
- Fixed an issue that would allow building inside certain locations.
- Added new follower behavior settings!
- For the first time, you can customize the rules of engagement of your follower defenses as well as their tactics when in combat.
- Added new command system that will allow you to give direct orders to your active follower. This can be controlled via a new radial menu (holding X by default), or giving direct input (by single pressing X to move/attack, double press to cancel, triple press to return).
- Added new animations to provide visual feedback to the command system.
- Added and reworked AI behaviors to deepen and improve the playing experience.
- Fixed an issue where Riptide light attacks would deal double damage.
- Fixed several instances where friendly and/or hostile AI would become non-responsive towards external threats.
- Reworked several AI components, such as hate list (list of hostile targets) and leash distance (distance they’re allowed to chase their target).
- Resolved several issues where followers would have troubles teleporting to the player.
- Resolved a number of issues that would prevent thralls from using weapon combos.
- Improved AI awareness. They can now detect threats and targets visually and via sounds.
- Stamina cost for dodging has been reduced for medium and light armors.
- Redesigned the Accuracy 40 perk. It is now called Flattening Shot and will allow your heavy shots to push back or knock down targets.
- Improved navigation on interaction radial wheels. You can now use key or button inputs to ease your navigation.
- You can now drag unconscious NPCs while riding a horse.
- Mounts no longer take a follower slot. This means you can now have a follower and a horse at the same time.
- Added character animations when issuing commands to followers.
- Added new radial menu options to control follower behavior.
- Added new follower command menu.
- New key bindings have been added to control the new commands.
Separate TestLive Product on Steam
We heard your input regarding the inconvenience with having to switch back and forth between the main game and our TestLive servers. To make it easier for you and because we really value your testing and feedback, we added a separate product for the TestLive server on Steam.
If you own Conan Exiles on Steam, you should now see a separate Product called “Conan Exiles - Testlive Client” in your library which gives you the option to install an additional instance of the game specifically for the TestLive servers. Please be aware that this will prompt you for a full additional installation.
We are aware that not everyone wants install or has space for two full installations. For those of you who don’t want to play through the additional TestLive Client, you can still access the TestLive servers through our old method.