Tangible Mounts Advanced Concept

Gidorick

As ESO develops, it becomes more and more apparent that having tangible mounts would be good for the game, the players, and for ZOS. By tangible, I mean that the mount doesn’t disappear when you dismount. It continues to be part of the world.

I have touched on some of these concepts in a couple of previous threads.

• This concept is born of my thread Concept Discussion Mount Stays concept and takes that thread’s conversation into consideration.
• This concept is in addition (and works in tandem) to my Advanced Mounts Overhaul Concept.

While this would create some concerns in regards to system resources, there are some mechanics below that could easily circumvent most issues and would help create a move viscous gaming experience for everyone and a more profitable gaming environment for ZOS.

TL/DR
I am suggesting that Mounts should stick around a player when the player dismounts and that mounts should have their own character menu which would allow for mount outfitting and additional functions.

This post will cover the following topics:

• Mount-Stay Radius
• Mount Menu
• Mount Equipment Screen
• Crafting Mount Equipment
• Mount Costumes
• Additional Enhancements

Mount-Stay Radius
When a player dismounts, their mount should hang around and not run off. The mount could have idle animations, like shaking its head, or eating grass. The player should be able to walk around the mount doing their own thing, but if they wander too far away (10 feet or so) the mount will run off.

To call the mount, the player will press H. The mount will then run to the player from a distance. A toggle-able “Automount” option would determine if the player climbs aboard the mount as soon as it is close enough or if the mount just stands nearby.

A mount should run away in fear if a player is ever dismounted or if the player engages in battle. While in battle, a player should not be able to call their mount. Mounts should never be autonomous enough fight alongside their owner.

If a player is dismounted, yet their mount has not yet ran away, and they press H, their character will make a clicking sound and the mount will trot up next to them. When next to the mount, players can climb aboard the mount by pressing E or they can hold down E to access the Mount Menu.

The Mount Menu
This Mount Menu is accessible by long-pressing E on the mount and would give the player the following options:

• Command (Follow, Stay, Get): The Command list would primarily be used to toggle the mount to follow the player while the player is not actively riding the mount. This would allow players to have their mount follow them in much the same way a pet follows and would have the mount stay within the Mount-Stay radius. If the player somehow leaves the Mount-Stay radius while follow is toggled on, the mount would run away, per the usual mechanic, disregarding the follow toggle. This would be to prevent weird situations with the mount being stuck behind something while it tries to follow the player.
  
  Stay and Get could also be commands. Stay could be used by players who wish to not have their mount run off right away. Perhaps the Stay command increases the Mount-Stay radius 3X for a limited duration. Get would dismiss the mount immediately by the player smacking the mount on the rear. The mount would then run off before dematerializing. The Stay command would have no impact on the skittishness of mounts. If a player attacks or is attacked, the mount Gets!
  
• Feed: If the player has the option to feed the mount a treat (as outlined in my thread Advanced Mounts Overhaul Concept), they could do so in the Mont Menu. Feed could be sold exclusively in the Crown Store, or could also be sold by in-game vendors or be craftable through the provisioning skills with recipes that are found around the world and/or sold in the Crown Store. A nice little emote of the player feeding the mount could play. This could be different for each mount to give them some flavor.
  
• Equipment: Selecting Equipment from the Mount Menu would be an alternate way to access the Mount Equipment Screen.
  
• Emotes: Brining up the mount emotes would allow players to pet/brush/pat/bow and generally play with their mount. Different mount types could have different emotes such as shoe and rear for horses, tussle and hug for bears, etc.

Mount Equipment Screen
The Mount Equipment Screen would be an alternate Inventory Screen where the player sees their mount and the mount’s equipment instead of their own. There should be 4 Equipment slots for Mounts:

• Saddle
• Armor
• Cargo
• Wrap

And 3 slots for Accessories

• Costume
• Shoes
• Bit & Bridle

The mount equipment screen should change, depending on the type of mount the player currently has selected. This screen shouldn’t reset when a different mount is chosen so players could equip their mount with one character and use that same equipment on that mount while playing a different character.

If a player has not reached the specific riding skill to be able to see the specific equipment on their mount, that equipment would not be viewable to that character and would not impact the mount’s stats while they are riding them. This would even be true if the mount is outfitted on another character with that equipment.

The Saddle, Armor, and Wrap are all different variations of that specific equipment type. Different styles could be offered so the player could outfit their mount with their specific style.

The Cargo equipment would primarily be for different saddle bags but could also be for banners, camping gear with bedrolls, weird mounted alchemy labs, stacks of books, pots, etc., all of which would be for the aesthetics of the mount and serve no actual function, or maybe they could…

The Costume Accessory should work much like equippable costumes work in ESO now, except they would be for mounts. Mount costumes could be found in future content releases.

The Shoes and Bit & Bridle would both add stat effects to the mount. Shoes could always add a speed effect and the Bit & Bridle could increase the mount stamina.

Crafting Mount Equipment
Adding a Saddle, Armor, Cargo, and Wrap crafting options would flesh out crafting in the game and ZOS could add additional Mount Motif books to both the game and the Crown Store. Each Crafting line would have to have multiple styles per motif for the different types of mounts available. Of course, ZOS could simply have multiple motifs so the Senche Breton Motif is different from the Guar Breton Motif which would different from the Horse Breton Motif.

The different equipment could be purchasable or craftable by using different crafting lines.

• Saddle = Purchasable from the Stable.
• Armor = Blacksmithing Crafting
• Equipment = Woodworker Crafting
• Wrap = Clothier Crafting

Wraps and Banners could be used in a similar manner to Guild Tabards with guild symbols, ZOS could also sell faction or in-game guild Wraps and Banners. Shoes and Bit &Bridle accessories cold also be sold by in game Stable Merchants.

Mount Costumes
Mount Costumes would serve much the same purpose as player costumes. To facilitate this there would have to be a Mount Costumes section added to the Collections menu. While each costume would be for a specific mount type, all mount costumes could be grouped together under this Mount Costume tab.

These would be full costumes for the mount that players can buy from the Crown Store. They could include flair or embellishments that are otherwise unavailable such as a molten lava armor costume with subsurface animation.

Additional Enhancements
If the principals laid out in my Advanced Mounts Overhaul Concept are implemented the Saddle, Armor, Cargo, and Wrap equipment could have a positive or negative impact all available Riding Skills. This would give the player a lot of customizability with their mounts, making each mount entirely unique to that specific player. The stat effect from the Equipment could benefit the player’s riding skill taking a riding skill of 60 beyond that cap.

The only skill which couldn’t have a stat bonus based on mount equipment would be Capacity, not unless the Over-Encumbrance concept I outlined here (http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/162693/more-bags-and-encumbrance-crown-store-concepts ) were put into place.

Some of the Equipment could also impact the player abilities. For example, a miner’s Cargo pack could increase the distance a player will see a material node and could result in a higher yield.

Equipment enchanting could be used to enchant the different equipment that are used on the mount for different mount stat effects, much in the same way armor is enchanted now.

Since players would have additional riding skills using the Advanced Mounts Overhaul Concept, the points required to be able to see and equip the different equipment could depend on the points placed in one or multiple skills.

• 20 total points in Speed/Defense/Fortitude/Provocation allows player to see/equip Armor
• 20 total points in Stamina/Attack/Provocation/Compulsion allows player to see/equip a Wrap
• 20 total points in Capacity/Inspiration/Aquestrian/Determination allows player to see/equip Cargo
• All players with any mount should be able to change or unequip saddles. This shouldn’t require any points to be added to any riding skill. Players should also be able to ride their mount without a saddle.

This Mount Tangibility system would provide players with additional crafting, additional gameplay mechanics, and additional options with which to reflect their own personal style. More importantly, these mechanics would provide ZOS with a handful of items that could be sold in the Crown Store.

All of this would create a very robust mount system but it would require a good deal of effort and retooling to make it work. Currently, the way mounts are implemented, they seem to be little more than character costumes that impact the speed of the character. This system would have to separate the character and the mount and would have to make the mount its own artifact within the game world. This would take some effort, but the benefits would be far reaching and continually profitable.

Thoughts?

rileynotzb14_ESO

Would be cool but there's a lot more important things the game needs first.

Gidorick

rileynotzb14_ESO wrote: »

Would be cool but there's a lot more important things the game needs first.

Yes, yes... more important things. I am always getting this response.

The reason I'm posting this is because ZOS has said they are looking into the whole issue that people are having where their horse is showing saddle bags and not armor or only armor. With my suggestions, every player would be afforded the "base" equipment and additional equipment could be crafted.

While it's a more rotund concept than could be implemented in the short term, I think it's worth putting the concept out there now for possible future development.

If we only ever look at our feet we will always be tripping on what's ahead.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Amazingly well thought out post. Great work!

NadiusMaximus

Saddle should be craft able by a clothes using leather/medium armor skill

Great plan though. It's one unique twist that they should do.

P3ZZL3

Agree'd with @ThatNeonZebraAgain - Stunning work if you did those images all yourself - allowing for concept deployment as well.

Personally, couldn't really care less as I use a mount to get to a place quicker. That's about it. But for those that want the aesthetics, sure

olsborg

It would be damn cool.

lordxyrax_ESO

I believe the word you're looking for is PERSISTENT mounts. Tangible mounts would mean a physical mount that we can reach out and touch. I aint got the room for a horse in my house so that's not a good idea.

Takhistis

Give this person a cookie! and a job at Zeni! We can always say "more important stuff first" but how about just employing more people to more evenly distribute tasks? I know, i know, this costs Zeni money... But if they fix more ingame, and push out more content faster, doesn't that equal more $$, thus being able to play your new employees while also having happy customers and a better name overall

Gidorick

lordxyrax_ESO wrote: »

I believe the word you're looking for is PERSISTENT mounts. Tangible mounts would mean a physical mount that we can reach out and touch. I aint got the room for a horse in my house so that's not a good idea.

Lol. I used tangible because of the Mount Menu option, where you select the mount and also because of being able to equip them, but persistent would work too!

Danikat

Apologies if I've missed something but how does this address the main concern from the other thread, which is that mounts staying in the world would hugely increase the number of objects the game has to display and cause a lot of lag?

Gidorick

P3ZZL3 wrote: »

Agree'd with @ThatNeonZebraAgain - Stunning work if you did those images all yourself - allowing for concept deployment as well.

Personally, couldn't really care less as I use a mount to get to a place quicker. That's about it. But for those that want the aesthetics, sure

Thanks @P3ZZL3. the top two images (sscreen shot and equipment screens) are from me, the bottom two (photo and solitude reach picture) I just yanked off of Google for visual flair.

Nahz

I really like this idea. Currently, crafted items don't have much of an impact on the game economy (except consumables like potions and food); people are primarily buying/selling ingredients. Introducing crafted items which do not have stats would keep players from feeling pressured into buying only the "best" stuff, because there would be no "best" stuff.

A toggle could easily be used to allow players to use the current system as opposed to this newer one; it is convenient to just hop on/off your horse at the push of a button. In addition, the current system could be mandatory in places like Cyrodiil (similar to how vanity pets are removed) and towns to improve game performance.

If this were implemented, my horse would look good all the time, as opposed to looking good for the whole 3 steps I'm on him before I jump off to harvest a node...

Gidorick

Nahz wrote: »

I really like this idea. Currently, crafted items don't have much of an impact on the game economy (except consumables like potions and food); people are primarily buying/selling ingredients. Introducing crafted items which do not have stats would keep players from feeling pressured into buying only the "best" stuff, because there would be no "best" stuff.

A toggle could easily be used to allow players to use the current system as opposed to this newer one; it is convenient to just hop on/off your horse at the push of a button. In addition, the current system could be mandatory in places like Cyrodiil (similar to how vanity pets are removed) and towns to improve game performance.

If this were implemented, my horse would look good all the time, as opposed to looking good for the whole 3 steps I'm on him before I jump off to harvest a node...

So, maybe the "Automount" toggle works for both calling the horse and dismissing it. Having Automount toggled would have the mount just appear and disappear like it does now. Automount is automatically toggled to ON in Cyrodiil. Would that be a good solution?

BBSooner

Love the idea of the mount design window for customization. As well as the idea behind crafting and equipment.

As for a persisting mount, I could take it or leave it. It's a shame that mounts have to poof in and out of existence, but weighing that against having a larger model (generally) than our current pets following everybody (not just sorc) around town - I dunno, it feels like a necessary evil to me to just have them poof in and out of the world.

I enjoy reading your concept posts though, they always come from a genuine desire for cool things, even if I do/n't ultimately desire the addition. +1

dawnhawk

@Gidorick - I hope you take this as a huge compliment, it is intended as one. You are the type of creative mad genius that developers and project managers both love and despise depending on the day and how good the coffee is.

I absolutely love reading your idea threads and how much thought you put into them.

I wouldn't say there are "more important things" to do - but I will say this, the reason I said that you'd be both loved and despised is because you fall firmly in the category of "scope creep from Oblivion".

I hope they do eventually have a chance to implement even an 8th of some of the stuff you and many of the others come up with. But I also hope people are understanding if a lot of things end up shuttled firmly into the "out of scope" category (which is NOT the same as "more important things" category).

As for "just adding more people" as someone mentioned further up - that rarely ever works out well in the software industry (or any industry really) - Brooks' Law is probably quite apt for ESO. I think we can probably all agree ESO often looks a bit more like a chaotic project than controlled. And the code base here would definitely constitute a high training requirement.

As for the idea itself - I think most of it looks great from an idea perspective. Implementation may be a bit touchier. As a "player" I appreciate the "get" command - as I likely would not want my horse following be about like a dog (especially since I'm often creeping and...well horses and guars just aren't that stealthy...the senche is arguable). So I'd likely be sending my mount elsewhere until needed even with the added code base. I like the toggle addition though.

Gidorick

Thanks for the kind words @BBSooner & @dawnhawk. I really try to suggest ideas that would genuinely make the game better. I have a general rule that I try to follow with my suggestions: "Always add functionality, never remove". Like, I don't care for the fact that we magically have picks and axes and fishing poles. I'd prefer that in order to gather materials we were required to buy/craft and hold those tools. Knowing this would take functionality away from the game, the most I'd suggest is that we have the OPTION to craft these tools which would yield a greater number of mats while gathering.

I know that the likeliness of my suggestions actually being taken into consideration during development are slim to none, but those are the only chances I've got!

But thanks for the kind words. They are appreciated. Truly.

Gidorick

I found this picture on ESO website that pretty much is exactly the "interaction" I'm suggesting.

TD5160_ESO

Would absolutely love this, for sure!

retyler3_ESO

Gidorick wrote: »

As ESO develops, it becomes more and more apparent that having tangible mounts would be good for the game, the players, and for ZOS. By tangible, I mean that the mount doesn’t disappear when you dismount. It continues to be part of the world.

I can't see ZOS doing this anytime soon due to the issue of how much lag this would cause. If they took cloaks/capes out of the game because of lag there is no way they are going to add this feature; though I would love to see it.

Gandrhulf_Harbard

Gidorick wrote: »

As ESO develops, it becomes more and more apparent that having tangible mounts would be good for the game, the players, and for ZOS.

Seriously Grid, Zeni should just hire you as a game system concept designer.

You have posted several threads like this over the time I have been here, and every single one has been AWESOME and would make, IMO, a significant improvement to the gameplay experience and level of immersion.

All The Best

rynth

great ideas think they'd be great for the mounts though I'm wondering if perhaps get rid of the feeding as a way of improving your mount. Instead you can craft or purchase different types of saddles and armor. though it would be really nice if the different types of armor were based on race types. As for saddles you could have saddles that have different size bags denoting how much extra room you gain for your inventory. Say style of armor being medium balance of speed and stamina, heavy = greater stamina, and light = greater speed. then of course you can have area for costumes for well costumes and use guild tabard for horse.

Gidorick

Thanks @Gandrhulf_Harbard. Most of my posts are because I genuinely want to see ESO succeed. Every once in a while I post something that is just for fun or to be silly, like my Unicorn Mount suggestion, The Dead Horse Target Dummy, body parts as trophies for PVP victories, and the Auction Horse... Then I end up wanting the concept in game! Lol.

and I do keep an eye out for job openings at ZOS but I've yet to see any for "Idea man" lol.

Natjur

I always though the way we summoned mounts was a little odd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXXltTsQawY

rb2001

Great post. All of this, and changes like this for greater immersion and deeper mechanics are definitely needed for long-term.

rb2001

Oh, also, +1 for the silly horse costume pic.

rb2001

Additional mechanics like this that I want are resting, resting with blankets, setting up camp, tents, campfires--anything to make the game more deep and immersive.

Gidorick

rb2001 wrote: »

Additional mechanics like this that I want are resting, resting with blankets, setting up camp, tents, campfires--anything to make the game more deep and immersive.

You might enjoy my Expanded Rested Bonus concept @ rb2001

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/137394/expanded-rested-bonus-concept

Yinmaigao

@Gidorick I appreciate your idea, and think they are pretty cool. I especially am astounded by the amount of time and love you dedicate to fleshing out and professionalizing your ideas.

However, I do not think it will come to be, and I can see people abusing thing (Think about all the people spamming mounts at the wayshrine in Mournhold) just crushing weak computers

Cool concept though!

NewBlacksmurf

Good post...good ideas G!
WTB horse cart with 100 bank slots

NovaMarx

This is awesome!! Yes to anything that make mounts more useful/interesting.
Beyond carrying capacity and being able to run fast in Cyrodiil, there's really no point to mounts atm - in part due to there are so many wayshrines, usually situated close to every quest area. Which is a shame, because they are good looking mounts with lots of potential.