The Great Encumbrance Perk Debate

Conan Exiles General Discussion
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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 :wink:

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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.

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I’m intrigued. Is it a secret or could you share the details?

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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 didn’t like that.

Encumbrance is safer.

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52

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.

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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. :wink:

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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 :wink:

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Honestly Codemage,

I don’t know how they would fix it.

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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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But Conan never broke rocks.

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He would if it meant to survive. Conan knew no limits, only to push until victorious. Or he would die trying.

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Don’t sell yourself short. A lack of experience does not mean one cannot still acquire knowledge and make reasonable discussion on a matter, and I think that you’ve proven you’re fully capable of that.

I’m going to stay out of the PvE debate on this perk. I personally do not like the perk for a variety of reasons that I feel span PvE and PvP, but I think any of my PvE arguments are purely preferential to gameplay, and I admit the perk is very handy while playing PvE.

…and brief background. I have been playing since the northern expansion in August of '17. My EA days were exclusively official PvP server, when there was no such thing as the encumbrance perk, and all farming and XP was 1x. Many of my arguments regarding the perk are therefore anchored by the experience and knowledge of what the game has been from then through where it is today.

PvP:
The 5th perk utterly destroys the raiding/defending game. The most aggravating thing about raiding/defending is a mix of two factors that are directly impacted by this 5th perk. Time efficiency gained in farming resources to build massive bases, and to also endlessly foundation/build block while defending said bases, makes dislodging and wiping opponents next to impossible. One can solely focus on farming, building, and repairing/build blocking and effectively remain nearly impossible to wipe/defeat.

(Please, spare me the arguments about it being doable. I’m not debating whether something is possible or not, but whether or not it’s reasonable and good for gameplay. Just because a handful of people are capable of spending endless hours to farm bombs and/or hack/exploit servers to defeat massive sprawling bases does NOT necessarily mean the mechanic of being able to build or defend with such efficiency is ‘good’).

Already alluded to, but taking away the 5th perk would make it much more difficult for people to gather the resources necessary to massively spam PvP servers.

In the ‘good ol days’ of EA /s you couldn’t afford to go farm encumbered. Yea, you could pick a dense area, farm beyond encumbrance, then roll dodge your way to your base. But this took significant time to roll dodge your max load home and carried significant risk of getting ganked while unable to run away. Equally took significant time to farm up to your limit, run home, run back out, rinse/repeat and so forth.

Weight and encumbrance has to do with resources, and the easier the devs make it to massively acquire resources, and do so without much risk, results in and is at the root of problems with the overall PvP server game.

Sort of… again, it’s also a time/efficiency issue. If one person, or a clan, has access to resources to build massive establishments, then the tools to tear those down need to be potent enough to do so in an equal amount of time expenditure (combat/defense mechanics aside). But then the question starts going into what’s reasonable time, and whether or not such establishments are good for the PvP game. The devs need to satisfy a broad base of players to keep the game alive. A large amount of that base that wants to do PvP doesn’t want to spend a whole week of their game time farming up bombs and treb materials to compete with the very few number of players who can grind 16 hours a day. Something here needs to change. Yes, that handful will always have a time advantage, but something needs to be done, and the 5th perk is one of those things that has VERY FAR reach effects that could change things for the better (IMO of course!)

I could talk 'til I’m blue in the face on this issue, but it’s bad. Real bad. And no, I’m not one of those who goes around saying we need to go back to like it was in EA, but there are things that were good back then that have been abandoned that should be at revisited.

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63

Very well stated. This is all tied to economy of the game ( I know i harp on it) but the longer i have played the more i realize the value of stuff is insignificant.
Basically, what would happen is more people would have to build farm bases so they could mass farm. Those bases would also have to be made for efficiency, so lets say iron base would have smelters to at least get the ore to bar level, thus easier to transport. For PVP servers, this would mean more FOB attacks, and less all or nothing main bases. Strategy would be to hit their supply FOB’s. both sides. Again, this does not help PVE, but in PVE i would think this would evolve into more trading because of the area you built in giving you access to better farm certain resources.

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It also makes you more of a slave to your initial base location choice as its harder to load up and relocate.

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From a newish player perspective I would like to see it toned down considerably as it would mean im more likely to actually have some stuff left after a raid. Nothing worse than seeing all my food, potions and petty mats like salt going on top of everything else. It encourages hard wiping as most clans will have an enc build with them.

Perhaps at certain points of been over enc, dmg will restore the debuff the perk alleviates for a limited window at ever greater amounts dependent on how over enc you are, in an attempt to reduce one click loot all, and focus on what resources the raider actually needs.

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And on a shared official that is bad how?

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Its bad because when noobs join they are just trying to survive and after they level, they should have an option not to throw away anything they have to make a new base. That perk gives them a way to adjust after they know how the game works.

1 Like