I got to thinking about mounts recently and how they’re implemented ingame. I’ve got some suggestions to lay groundwork out to make adding new mounts easier and improve the current Rearing Methods.
Groundwork
Simply put, mounts should only be rearable in the Stables. This rearing would be accompanied by regular food for said animal, and a new alchemy item, “Mount Fodder”.
Mount Fodder would be described ingame as a concoction that promotes growth in smaller animals and strength for carrying heavy loads around (people or goods).
This would let people specifically go for a combat pet or a mount pet, instead of replacing the basic versions with mountable ones. (Looking specifically at Rhinos) With this in mind, Horses would need a “cattle” version for the pet pen, with extra inventory slots that can fight back, but poorly.
Accompanying this change, Saddles would need to be made into 3 blanket categories; small, medium and large.
Each Saddle would still have their own subtypes for speed, defense and maneuverability. This would cut down on needing to make saddles for each individual animal type.
Mount Tags
Mount tags would define what a particular mount excels at. They’d be visible when hovering over a tamed mount like armour stats are (light, medium, bonus vitality etc.) Such tags might include;
- Speed (obvious)
- Versatile (balanced hp, stam, turning speed, acceleration and ram damage)
- Endurance (high stamina, high hp)
- Lightweight (improved jump height, turn speed, acceleration)
- Heavyweight (slighly lower top speed and lower acceleration. Takes less stamina damage while mounted)
- Ramming (Rider can hold “Kick” key/button to channel Ramming mode for a Ram/Crash damage increased while slowly draining stamina)
- Charger (rider presses “kick” to activate. animal has a sprinting attack that quickly dismounts rider before its animation to avoid spamming it)
- Steady (allows bow usage)
- Packmule (lots of inventory slots, slightly lowered speed and hp, turn speed and acceleration)
- Combat (has less inventory slots and takes extra stamina damage while mounted, but can fight by your side like their conventional pet versions.
Takes up combat follower slot. Has a longer mount up animation and briefly slowed acceleration upon initially mounting to avoid very easy escapes from danger.
Just elaboating on Charger, the rider would hop backwards off the saddle, after which the animal could do it leaping attack, ie wolves & tiger pounces.
New Mount Ideas
I’ll start by re-defining the Horse and Rhino with tags and a size class.
Horse:
- Speed, Steady & Versatile,
- Medium
Rhino:
- Heavyweight, Ramming & Combat,
- Large
All big cats:
- Lightweight, Charger & Combat,
- Small
Canines:
- Versatile, Charger & Combat,
- Small
Elk, deer etc.:
- Speed, Ramming & Lightweight,
- Small
Camel:
- Packmule, Steady & Endurance,
- Medium
Elephant/Mammoth:
- Heavyweight, Endurance & Ramming,
- Large