Players have outright wished death on me IRL, bursting through my foundationless floor with a scream into the mic of an epithet, and then about how they were going to massacre my ranch inhabitants while I sleep, and they still never foundation wiped me. To reinforce what I’ve said earlier, I’ve played PvP since EA on the PC – with the last 7 months in peace – and have never seen a foundation wipe outside of trespass. You’ve really gotta be angry at someone to waste all those treb shots and mats killing every last foundation.
The last wipe I witnessed was in fact on my PS4, some poor fellow built a humble hut at the base of a big tree in Noob River. Ran him right off the server and back to Ark. (Recently, I built a platform on my PC official PvP in the tree way above in tribute.) I do find it interesting about @WhatMightHaveBeen’s claims on the PS4. I know you play on XBox; a couple of my crossover friends say they’ve seen it on your console a bit too. It seems to me consoles would be more of a hotbed for this as they’re later-adopters due to how launch went down.
The Momentum Perk is a necessity, as it is a Quality of Life perk for the player of the Single Player game. I’m going to drop @Shadoza’s name into this discussion as well, with hopes of illuminating the subject from his inimitable perspective.
There are gates that I imagine can be put in place to make Momentum less insanely preternatural, but to remove it would not only be unpopular*, it would harm the experience of the unsung people who play the base game, their way.
* Argumentum ad populum would be my central objection to polls, as I also disclosed elsewhere.
BUT: Funcom mostly makes changes not for fun… They think about it. They have the numbers to see, how much XYZ is used (or not used at all) and are balancing things around that (well, lets hope so).
Good example: Serpentman things. They were cheap to craft AND STRONG. Which wasnt balanced at all…
Was I happy with the changes? NO.
Was it better for the game? Probably yes.
Many others are still pissed (or quited) because of the removal of the light roll… You have such examples in the whole game and with every patch.
Being upset that a nerf hits you is entirely justified if the nerf did not fix an imbalance in the game (as much as I hate that word). No one suffers because people have that perk. No one is victim of the 5th encumbrance perk. There are no bosses that can be cheesed because of the 5th enc perk (gawd if that were the criteria, we’d have no thralls by now…).
Removing the perk will not just hack off me, it will hack off a lot of people. Let the roll be your guide (which they already rolled back heavily); when you change a core mechanic this far out of release, you risk alienating old players at the opportunity of gaining players who… what exactly? Point me to a thread where someone says, “I would buy this game if it weren’t for the people who can max encumbrance and carry lots of resources/mats.” There are no potential customers with a nerf to that perk; only potential lost customers.
Moving a base:
After quite some time I recently started to respec for the perk because I am reducing one main base and moving things to new location. While it is nice to carry alot (more) I ran into a problem called “max number of inventory slots”. Trying to transfer few chests of armor or weapons or dyes proved to be much more time consuming than transffering 3000% (not quoting but mentioned above by @Candle ) enc worth of stone or other basic material.
In this case I would rather see the perk to simply increase encumbermance to like 500% (also mentioned above) and not theoretically infinite, but also increase max inventory slots.
Farming:
Personally I find slots of a T4 bearer to be sufficient for my needs. Obviously, when I am in a build/upgrade base mode, I need WAY more than worth of a 1 bearer pack.
What I do is: farm to fill bearers slots. Return to base, throw stuff into appropriate stations. Repeat. After repeating it x times, I take out the products and start producing walls, foundations ect. Nice option for a short break.
After that, repeat (if I am still in the mood).
About spending points:
My personal philosophy is to have a general build and dress for the occasion (also eat fish )
Wearing epic flawless 4 part enc armor (original base game or dlc) + bearer pack = 12 point
eat + wear warpaint = 6 points
total = 18
Making modifications by using some special armor (silent legion, warmaker versions or legendaries) or (few) legendary weapons gets the total even higher. That would leave quite some points to spend to make a proper (not best) build for general use and have enc perk 5 at hand when needed.
Conclusion:
I do not mind having perk 5 as it is. But would welcome some changes.
I would not think it a big game changer if it would suddenly dissapear and be replaced by something different altogether.
I’m not disagreeing with your points in general, but this one needs a correction. My farming spec requires me to spend only 164 out of 390 attribute points on encumbrance. That gives me the encumbrance of 38 and the remaining 12 come from my armor and bearer pack. If I don’t want to wear the pack, I can eat one of the many rhino head soups I have in my fridge and farm pack-free for half an hour. Incidentally, that means I could lower my investment into encumbrance even further, but I don’t like being dependent on temporary buffs from consumables.
I don’t know if the foundation-wipe raids are a widespread problem or not. I know at least one player on these forums has posited that they’re the biggest problem caused by the 5th encumbrance perk and I’ve also seen at least one thread complaining about repeated foundation-wipes.
Like I said, I started this thread to get everyone’s input, especially because all my ideas about balancing this out in PVP are based on my guesses and other people’s stories.
Which brings me to another point:
As I also disclosed elsewhere, the polls here are meant to be informative. I knew from the start a lot of people wouldn’t take them that way, but I thought it wouldn’t matter, because we’re here to discuss things and anyone who actually referenced the polls as an argument would get a reply from me explaining that they’re not
The reason why I included the polls in the first place is because I really want to see the distribution of people who aren’t satisfied with the status quo, i.e. how many think the perk should be removed, how many think it can be changed, etc.
Lesson learned for the next time (if ever): include the polls without the status quo option and explain why the polls are missing that option. I made a mistake there and I apologize for it.
Both of you are right, but there’s something that’s bothering me. Please don’t take what I’m going to say as an appeal to authority, because I’m not bringing it up as a counterargument, but rather as something on which I want to hear everyone’s opinions.
Remember how I said I’ve played the game back when stone stacked only to 100? Funcom has been increasing stack sizes of everything steadily. We can store more stuff, we can carry more stuff, we can farm more stuff.
Yes, the 5th perk is game warping, but its effects have been greatly exacerbated by increasing stack sizes. What the hell is the logic behind this?
Um, this might be a stupid question, but do you enjoy stress? Challenge is great, effort is fine, but I don’t think I want any additional stress in my life and I also think that “stress” is the right word to use for suddenly having to change my farming habits to include more trips home than an incontinent toddler
You’re a great communicator, thanks for the follow-up. The bandwagoning superscript was actually directed at myself, as I’ve mentioned it before in other survey threads. By using the word popular I was being a bit self-deprecating. My point wasn’t clear, but yours, as usual is.
What I always take away from these sojourns is that just like every other specialty, creating objective or non-subject-to-conformity-bias polls requires a lot of experience, a good editor or both.
Something you advised in one of your other posts made me think about an expedition I’m about to take. If 5th Perk ENC were not part of the game, two of the DLC armor sets I’d be using for this trek would not be used, and never be crafted again.
An experience that informs my opinion is that I was doing a relatively minor base migration using a Bearer thrall, and the bearer blinked into the void when we went through a map room. No lava, no elevator, no body I could find, just a death message and my stuff decaying in the log.
I do not PVP - but wondering about flags. I know when I am by a banner I can flag myself for PVP in a PVE server.
If there is a way to manage these flags like a “raid” flag so the enc perk works differently when you are flagged for PvP (engaged in a raid in any way and flagged that way for a set time, like a few hours) that is an equitable balance for PvP concerns - this may help split the difference between PVE activities and PVP activities, regardless of what kind of server you play on.
In a game like EVE online, your corporation has to declare war on another corporation to destroy structures in space. Maybe there has to be an active decision by an attacker to declare war and engage in complete open hostilities that can separate PVE and PVP activities equitably and changes the “mode” of the game.
Just spit balling here - but other games have tackled these types of issues. And there are ways to address multiple issues at once with a system like this or simply managing different flags.
First, my great pal @droch-aon has built a tav for us to cleanse our corruption and stack the healing buff properly, so I had a load of groceries, and maybe a big fridge to tote plus a backup dancer. Also, I’ve been blowing through fur like nobody’s business lately, and that kind of harvesting weighs a ton. After that, a guy who came and left is about to decay, thus I wish to control by absorption his bombs and mats. You know, normal PvP stuff.
Funny you should mention that! I have a suggestion that would bring a limited form of raiding to PVE-C:
It isn’t meant for PVP servers and it doesn’t address the encumbrance issue at all, but since you mentioned the declaration of war and since that thread has seen no action whatsoever, I thought I would link to it and see what people think
I just don’t like how much power the 5th perk grants and there needs to be a better way of limiting it’s impact in-game.
I like stress free farming don’t get me wrong. I just think we’re all used to something that was underestimated in how effective it was in game. It feels cheesy after a while.
Maybe the solution is going from 200 to 100 inventory slots. I have no idea.
These new stack sizes. I would bet are part QoL and also a precursor to how funcom wants to change the 5th perk. Whether or not it’s a success. Time will tell. I just feel this is an aspect of the game that should be looked at, improved and hopefully embraced over time among the community.
My opinion is that we all got comfortable with it when we shouldn’t have. Sucks if it goes. I’ll miss it. I also believe it would be meaningful to change it and look for a better way.
There are improvements that can still be made to the game. I really think the 5th perk is a bandaid that should go once we have other methods of farming without needing encumberance.
Easy solution: server setting PersonalInventorySize = XXXX. Then the debate shrinks as fewer people are impacted and the resolution can be focused on those people. Maximum agreeable solution.
Already too many words here, folks!! Nontheless, take that:
We all have grown too familiar with this strange ability to carry a mountain in the pocket. A little bit like a bad habit: You think you can´t do without, but… Stay open minded for new ideas!
And if the 5th perk of enc will stay (wich is most likely) PLEASE give us A VARIETY OF PAINTABLE BACKPACKS! forthesakeofcrom
Im intrigued by paintable backpacks. If I can have one with Scooby Doo on it, you might convince me to hunt for them… but even the Doo cant get me to go along with no 5th enc perk.
A couple of posters hit it on the head…it is because we have never played without it that we do not realize how it trivializes some things unintended.
for me, this is like the obelisks…
I feel both the 5th enc perk and insta-porting to the different corners of the map remove from so much potential the game could have. Especially now with mounts.
I am restarting my private server, and one of my goals is to bring back the traveling that is so important to Conan lore. He traversed the lands and encounter enemies, friends, and created lore. Imagine the stories if he just ported between areas, carrying everything he (conan) needed. We would not have the rich stories and lore we have now.
How will i do this?
1st step is as admin, i will block all obbies.
2nd step is to slow the respawn of mats + 1x harvesting.
Now, I might not get any players, or i might get players who want to try ta true Conan life style out and see how the game could play without insta-port and massive farm runs.
) I do find it interesting about @WhatMightHaveBeen’s claims on the PS4. I know you play on XBox; a couple of my crossover friends say they’ve seen it on your console a bit too. It seems to me consoles would be more of a hotbed for this as they’re later-adopters due to how launch went down. 
)
