Probably.
He did indeed!
Yeah I can live without the 5th Enc perk now that stack sizes are what they are. I’m not sure why there’s all the hate for it (including from Alex), but “meh”. It’s going to make moving bases a complete pain in the ass though (unless you’re situated right next door to an obelisk).
Lets hope that FC gives something in return, when removing the 5th perk. Like a saddle with a huge amount of inventory places.
@Ignasi …good questions and thanks for staying active in the communication process.
Answers:
The mounts are very nicely done. That said, I think they would have been an unnecessary addition had more obelisks simply been added to close the big gaps in that system. I believe it should have been one or the other from the get-go. Adding more obelisks this late in the game, I feel, would have been the more logical choice taking less effort.
The main reasons I feel this way are:
Since they’re here, why not make them less intrusive (in regards to being considered a follower) and more useful as they are in real life. My suggestions are:
I know…some of my suggestions are probably impossible or impractical to actually implement, but I had to throw them out there anyway. 
I could adapt to the loss of the 5th enc perk if they would kindly make followers immune to lava damage or completely fix the path-finding problems in the volcano. You know how to write code, so you’ll probably agree with me about which one is more likely to happen 
That’s precisely what mystifies me so much. Nobody has ever been able to explain adequately why they’re so adamant that it has to go. There were several valid problems raised by PVP players, but those are solvable in numerous ways, without getting completely rid of the perk.
What drives me up the wall, though, is that Alex mentioned he’s not a fan of it and suddenly everyone who dislikes it for their own reasons feels that those reasons are valid and that the only way is to remove the perk.
Everyone got so obsessed with what Alex said, that they forgot to pay attention to what he didn’t (yet) say:
So far, all we know is that the lead game designer sees some kind of a problem with the 5th enc perk. Anything else is speculation, but that’s fine, it’s what we do here a lot 
But if the team ends up removing the 5th perk, then for the love of all those hours that PVE players sink into farming for building mats, please make it viable to use bearers and pack animals without them:
Yeah, having a “pack mule” kind of follower is more realistic, but that laundry list I wrote above makes them anything but immersive.
Interesting…i read this as being able to have another player ride with you (but i think you are referring to thralls?). That would definitely be a way to make them more useful. Being able to have a “gunner” while you steer???
Being serious, what do you mass farm in the volcano? Obsidian is useless to me, so outside of thralling, all my farming happens in the non volcano areas.
Removing it would totally jack with my gameplay. The slow down on the pick was bad enough but to just make life more difficult makes no sense. Its boring enough to break rock for an hour, but to make it take longer by transferring to a pack animal with fewer slots just makes it more tedious.
Stone. So, so much stone. Get a black blood pick, slap an advanced tool upgrade on it, get the 2nd survival perk, and you can get 20k stone in 15 minutes. It’s insane.
I usually don’t come back w/o 40k or more, because I’m a bit obsessed with optimizing my farming and I like to stock up on hardened bricks for future projects. 
It’s not like I prefer the volcano for that. It’s just that there’s no other place on the map that has the same combination of rock density and quantity. The “rock slide” inside the silver mine has a greater density, but the total yield is somewhere along the lines of 4k stone, which is pitifully small on the scale I like to build. And there are plenty of areas with lots of total stone, but the density is on the low side, so I can’t farm as fast.
Hi,
Somebody probably already wrote this above but if the developers would add some kind of system where you can tell your followers to change stances ( for example be passive in fights) then I think more players would use horses.
It’s not that fun to bring my horse with me when it runs into the jaws of a giant crocodile boss (or any other danger).
as a consistent user of the 5th encumbrance perk, I agree with all stated here.
Trying to see it from the other side, the only complaint I can really see is ‘it breaks immersion’ as being capable of carrying endless amounts of stuff isn’t very realistic.
But even that is flimsy reasoning in that this game already breaks immersion all over the place in much bigger ways. Hell, even without the 5th enc perk, you carry a super human amount around with you…
So yah, i never understood this gripe either. Maybe its just viewed as a lazy, uncreative perk? I dunno. However, as primarily a builder in this game, I use the 5th enc perk more then any other. If it was removed, unlike others stating they could, I would not be able to move past it unless a solution of equal value was provided.
I like to build in this game. If Funcom continues to hit builders with (not more difficult) but more cumbersome play, it’ll push people, like me to not play. Theres other games out there I can build in. Besides, I don’t see the point in it…
I get making combat more difficult. I understand tuning dungeons to be a challenge, world bosses.
I even get that building up to T3 building pieces is a process and people shouldn’t just be able to build whatever right out the gate.
The thing I don’t understand, yet still seems to happen at times, is crippling the building process by making things cost more, take longer to get, build slower. Its a weird situation as I don’t really want to suggest all these things should just happen on call. I get timers in the game. But further crippling this part of the game would heavily hinder my desire to continue to stack blocks.
I’ve thought of the chariot idea in the past.
Don’t know how hard it would be to put them in the game with the games limitations, both hardware wise, and map design wise.
But I can’t think of a more ideal place for your useless archer thralls then being a mobile arrow turret on your chariot as it raced around battles.
5th perk for BUILDING? o_O Just put mats on a thrall and run back and forth…
With how much weight/places do you build normaly?
horse pvp meta, one more reason not to use gear. ou go out meet a team of riders you are dead. the knockback … IDK anymore small clans and solo players are no longer viable IMHO
The running back and forth and opening inventories is tedious. I personally prep 7000 hardened brick before I start building and associated wood and steel so a mostly complete structure goes up quickly. There are alternatives that are slower sure, but WHY do it slower just cuz a perk gives someone an icky feeling? It is a perk that only impacts the user; it has no defensive or offensive properties. Getting rid of it would just make some people’s gameplay suck more.
Update. Mounts are incredible. My new Paint, Rigel, is an absolute beast even at Level 9. Trips to my new Oasis Basis are a breeze now. Plus, on Egg Sac Thursdays, we go swimming down the Swanee River, I set him to autorun and he just paddles our way to Buccaneer Bay.
Egg Sac Thursdays? Gross.
It has a massive Impact at PvP and running away with 250 items…
I would rather have someone attack me in encumbrance build than combat builds. Stamina drains quickly.
Its building and gathering, then I respec to kill things (I also don’t like being a side character to my thrall. Different discussion, but even farming mounds and new asgarath, sometimes go Enc spec, I kill 1 for every 4-5 thralls my thrall does. But clearing the city and nearby outposts, sometimes its far more efficient to just be the bearer thrall and farm steel/other items.
Farming capital cities: 600 - 800 steel before heading back
Farming Stone or Wood: roughly 40k stone a trip… usually 20 - 30k wood a trip
Building?: I typically lay things out and work with sand stone to put down a rough draft of the building first then go back over with T3.
When working with Sand Stone: virtually all the wood, stone, and sandstone blocks I have in my possession.
Working with T3: pretty much go in batches of 2k steel reinforcements or more + other mats and make the building pieces on the go.
Farming I dont get anywhere near the weight I do with building. With building, at Enc perk 5, i am typically sitting around 600 - 700% weight. You can still sprint (for a short while at least) and honestly, when I am building, my limited stam isn’t that big of an issue. It just makes it so I never have to go back to a box for supplies (well, until completely run out).
It makes building far more efficient, and certainly more enjoyable. I mean, i could always go admin mode and god mode it if I really want to keep building and Funcom develops it away from my play style. But its not the same. I enjoy that my buildings are legitimately made and are ‘projects’.
The loss of the 5th enc perk would be heavy on me.