Conan Exiles (PS4)

Conan Exiles is an open world survival game that was available as a free download back in April 2019; the disc can be had at Gamestop for a little over $30... or buy it from Amazon for $20. It's also available on the PS Store for $49.

This thread is not a review; my experiences with survival games is greatly limited, and so I'm hoping for this to become another tip or advice guide. I don't know if Minecraft can be considered a part of this genre or not, so besides that, I've only played Arc. Once. Had no idea what the hell I was doing, gave up, and haven't returned since. Since Arc for me was free (oldest boy bought the download and had it installed on my system), the lack of play didn't bother me... but since I paid for this, I'm damn well going to get a return!

Bought Conan because of a friend's enthusiastic recommendation. A 20 minute install was quickly followed by a 12 hour update.  This is why I don't play as often as I used to, but that's neither here nor there.

Opening Menu
There are two ways you can play this: as an MMO, or single player / co-op online or off. Right now, I'm working on single player offline so I can learn what to do and how to do it; if anyone here was also playing, I'd do the co-op until I was comfortable taking things mainstream. With SINGLE, there are four play settings, ranging from newb to brutal to custom. With the MMO play, you have three different server types: PvP where everyone can attack everyone at anytime; PvE where player attacks are limited to specific time frames; and {I forget}, where there is no PvP, only creature and NPC attacks. "Official" servers are supposed to be well admin'd, but I cannot say, whereas player created worlds will generally have custom settings.

Character Creation
Race - does not affect stats at all, just gives a general background.
Religion - from what I've heard, you can switch religions in game, create temples for all the gods, whatever. Doesn't really affect play.
Everything else - general facial reconstruction.

...

Beginning Advice and Tips
The Road. Don't worry, there aren't any spoilers.
1. Your warrior needs water - When you first begin to walk down the road, there will be a group of crucified skeletons on your left side; before that, along the road, a nice sized boulder. On the boulder is a logbook and a waterskin. TAKE THE WATERSKIN. Chances are, you're going to need to drink what little water is in there before you get to a water source.
2. Your water needs food, badly - While walking down the road, interact with the large bushes you come across. You'll find bugs in them (as well as other items). You'll be fine hunger-wise, but they'll make a nice snack. Eating too many bugs will give you food poisoning, which goes away after a period of time.
3. Collect and save branches and stones, rattle some bushes for plant fibers. Five branches and stones can be crafted into a stone hatchet or a stone pick axe. Plant fibers (I forget how many) can be used to make simple shoes, hand wraps, pants and shirt. Don't worry too much about crafting now, your main focus is to get out of the desert.
4. Don't fret about the gargoyle, it ignores you. It is, however, munching on a corpse (nothing to loot) that is lying next to a journal. Continue down this stretch of road, and you'll come to something a bit more lively.
**There are two possible ways to drink from the waterskin, both depending on where it is. You can either open up your inventory, select waterskin, then hit USE; or you can open your quick wheel, select it, then activate.**


Oasis. River? WATER - Your temperature has cooled, you're out of the desert, and you have an ample source of water, food, rocks, wood, and plants. This is where I am at, and this is where most people will stop and learn the mechanics of the game before moving on. What follows are the things I've learned, and hopefully they'll help you.
1. Drink water from the river - get into river, then interact.
2. Eat - From inventory or quick wheel, eat what you've collected. Don't eat rancid or foul meat though.
3. Cooking - You need to craft a campfire. After you place the fire, activate it; "give" a fuel source (most likely wood) and "give" meat. Here's the tricky part: you will then need to toggle the fire on or off... the specific button is listed on the bottom of your screen. You cannot cook fat grubs or bugs for some reason, but you can cook the meat collected off of the surrounding critters.

Those three things will keep you alive. There are neighboring NPCs who will attack if you get too close, so be careful!

Tools
1. Hatchet - chop down everything from the small cactus looking trees to mighty palms! You'll collect wood and branches. The smaller scrubby trees grow back, but I haven't seen the big palms grow back (yet). This tool is also good with the killing of animals, where you can get anything from hide to meat.
2. Pickaxe - hit some bigger rocks and boulders, collect stone. I tried burrowing into the cliffside, but can't. Darn. Can also be used to take out trees, where you will collect wood and bark. Don't know how effective it is on slaying things though. Boulders do respawn.
*If you've got the stones, you can repair these items. Open your quick wheel, select item, then "repair"*
**With bushes and bigger plants, you will collect more by interacting with them than by chopping them**

Things I Learned the Hard Way
1. Cooking - see above. The Toggle on/off was a pain, as I expected it to turn on automatically. Nope.
2. Placing items on the quick wheel - You'd think there would be an easier way, or a tutorial, or... I don't know... instructions. Anyway, open your main inventory screen. Select an item. Now open your quick wheel (yes, the wheel can be opened from inventory). Select a slot. Activate said slot.
3. Remove item from wheel - Easy... open wheel, select item, "remove" or "return".
4. Learning new things - The way you open the main inventory is also how you get to your stats, point increases, and feats / abilities. That's where you can activate skill sets. Your stats are your own, do with them as you please, but I would recommend for abilities to activate them as needed; you don't want to waste points on something you don't need (at least not right away).
5. Refill waterskin - Put skin in quick wheel. When you get deeper into the water, open wheel, use water skin, and it should refill.

Shelter
You're going to need stone. A lot of stone. Foundation, walls, ceiling. Don't worry about a thatch roof, that's only for appearance... get the basics down! You'll want to build at least a 4x4 sized shelter to start, as this will be big enough for a bedroll, campfire, and a storage box. Wood and twine for a door. Depending on difficulty setting, you may want to use walls with windows: windows to see bad guys approaching if you're doing anything other than civilized. Mounted torches cannot go on walls with windows! You'll want to craft a storage box because you're probably getting close to being over-encumbered. Note that you can still harvest or pick stuff up while encumbered, you just can't move fast, or fight. After crafting and placing your bedroll, interact with it: you've now got a spawn point.

...

My first session I died before I got to the oasis, then died again at the oasis when I tried to befriend the NPCs, then said screw this. Second session I died because I didn't know how to do anything, said screw it, and watched a bunch of videos the next day at work. Third session, did a little better, though there is room for improvement; at least with the third play, I learned some things that I didn't see in the videos. Fourth session will be tonight. Hopefully with tonight's play, things will be a lot better; I'm planning on restarting from scratch until I feel confident I can survive a bit.