GREETINGS, EXILES!
Building your character to excel at what you choose is an important aspect of Conan Exiles. Over time, we have noticed that certain attributes and perks are used a lot less than others by players. This is something we have wanted to improve for a while, and Age of Sorcery has been the perfect opportunity to do this.
For Age of Sorcery, we had three goals in revamping the system; one, to majorly rebalance perks and attributes to improve viability across the board; two, to integrate sorcery in a way that suits the fantasy; and three, to introduce an added element of choice in character progression.
It is worth keeping in mind that changes to the attributes and perks have far-reaching effects throughout the game, affecting combat, followers, resource gathering, and so on. In addition to the overhaul we are introducing the option of corrupting your attributes, providing additional perks focused on the twisted nature of sorcery.
We will start off by looking at the changes to overall progression, then move on to the specific attributes and their effects, and finally, corruption, the unique new perks that come with it, and the price to pay for those who choose to wield the virulent powers of sorcery.
MEANINGFUL PROGRESSION AND CHOICE
In Age of Sorcery, we’ve reduced the max number of attribute points you can earn from 390 to 60. Also, each attribute is now maxed out at 20 points, and there is no ramping cost as you level. In this way, every point placed into an attribute should be and feel far more impactful.
Further supporting this design goal, a new perk is earned for every five points put into an attribute. At every 10 points, you can choose between two different perks, meaning that every attribute has two milestones where you can choose between two perks, at 10 and 20 points.
With these changes, we look forward to players trying out various different builds and perk combinations to specialize their character. And with sorcery in the mix, diversity will be even greater, as we will show soon.
THE POWER OF PERKS
We have some really cool new perks coming in Age of Sorcery. Let’s look at a few examples. One of the 20-point agility perks is Rolling Thrust, which causes your first attack after a dodge to cost no stamina and have increased penetration.
The Builder perk makes all the structures you build more stable, and Survivalist makes tools last a lot longer and significantly reduces your hunger and thirst.
Shield master lets you block unblockable attacks at a higher stamina cost and you react twice as quickly after successfully blocking. There are many more brand-new perks, so make sure to explore all the possibilities and combinations.
Due to the new maximum of 20 points per attribute, you will be able to max out three of the attributes if you choose to, something which wasn’t possible before. You are also free to distribute your points across more attributes to increase your versatility in several different aspects.
NEW ATTRIBUTES
As you can see in the list below, Accuracy, Encumbrance, and Survival have been replaced by new attributes. All attributes’ effects have also been tweaked. Here’s the list:
- Strength: You’re a titan of muscle. Makes you deal more damage with strength weapons and somewhat increases your carry capacity.
- Agility: Precision, skill, and speed keep you alive. Deft weapons deal more damage and you have increased stamina.
- Vitality: A living Exile is a deadly Exile. Increases hit points.
- Authority: They will all kneel before you. Authority makes it easier to knock out thralls and followers deal more damage.
- Grit: The harsh elements and struggle for survival have carved out a deep well of willpower, providing you with increased stamina and armor.
- Expertise: Some destroy, some build. You do both. You can carry more weight.
CORRUPTION – POWER DEMANDS SACRIFICE!
In Age of Sorcery, you will be able to cast a plethora of sorceries, but these powers come at a cost. Only those touched by corruption can channel such dark forces, and they are easy to spot; hungry eyes staring from gaunt faces; blackened veins webbed across withered skin and atrophied muscle.
Sorceries require varying amounts of corruption to be present in the one trying to cast it. Each sorcery cast corrupts you a little more. The more corrupted the person, the less health and stamina they have. An Exile cannot sacrifice more than half of their health and stamina, but at this point no sorcery will be beyond their grasp.
The next step in the path to corruption is sacrifice. In Age of Sorcery, you can corrupt your strength, vitality, and authority to gain completely new corrupted perks, but to do so you require Soul Essences. These are acquired by bringing a living human to the sacrificial stone and tearing their soul from their body, leaving them a smoking husk, and you the proud owner of their Soul Essence.
You can now corrupt your strength, vitality, and authority up to the number of points you have spent in that attribute, costing a Soul Essence for each point. For example, if you have six Soul Essences and four points in vitality, you can corrupt your vitality up to four, leaving you with two Soul Essences.
Corrupted perks are acquired at the same intervals as normal perks and replace the previous regular perk. Each point of corruption spent past the first perk in a certain attribute will increase the potency of that perk.
Corrupted perks are only discovered when you meet the requirements for them. It’s worth noting that corrupted perks are not about casting sorceries directly. If you corrupt your strength for example, you will gain a perk that increases your damage beyond the limits of regular strength, albeit at the cost of your max health and stamina.
Corruption can be removed by being around dancer thralls, but if you have corrupted your attributes, your corruption will be locked to that level and can only be cleansed by resetting your attributes.
MORE TO COME!
We look forward to seeing you all experiment with varying levels of corruption and different perks to create your ideal Exile, be they barbarian, sorcerer, or somewhere in-between.
We hope you have enjoyed this dive into the changes coming to attributes and perks. If you missed them, we have already released similar articles on Sorcery, the building revamp, and Creative Mode. Go forth and feast your eyes!
There is more yet to come.
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