Mounts height

darkriketz · September 2022

Hello !

I'm really sorry if the matter has already been discussed but I've searched a little and I found out that most of the time, when players create a discussion regarding mounts, they just name it "Mounts", which isn't very practical.

So, I'm not at all a new player, I've been playing ESO for years and there's a question I'd never had the answer to. Here it is.
Does mount height make a difference when traveling in Tamriel ? Some mounts have very long paws, like camels or Indriks, while others are much closer to the ground, like, well, any wolf or feline mount, bears, lizard mounts, you name it. When you are, for example, crossing a river or a pond (with low depth of water), is there an advantage to ride a high mount like a camel to avoid dismounting in the middle of the water, or does the length of its paws have no relevance compared to a smaller mount ?

I'm asking because my main character is a Bosmeri huntress riding the Ebony Dwarven wolf (not very high), while I also play a Breton templar who, since she's a mage, rides a Pure-Snow Indrik (tall and majestic creature). To your knowledge, does the difference of height between mounts make a difference in gameplay ?
Thanks a lot for your attention and please have a good day !

ghastley · September 2022

That would be too complicated to program, the way you describe. It is much more likely that you dismount at the same point regardless of mount. The same is true of speed, with the long-legged mounts striding less often than the shorter ones, so they cover the same amount of ground, even if it looks less frantic.

When you add in the fact that mount height scales with character height, the simple answer is much less headache for the programmer.

AcadianPaladin · September 2022

I've no problem with all mounts having the same performance and expect @ghastley is right.

What I greatly dislike is scaling mounts to the size of the character. In previous ES scrolls games this was done to avoid clipping. I always disabled it via mod for my tiny elf and the very minor clipping with a proper size horse was much better than riding a pony.

Danikat · September 2022

The size and shape of a mount makes no difference at all to how fast they move, they're all just skins with the same mechanics behind them. There are several things which do make a difference - like training up the characters mounted speed, the Alliance War passive skill Continuous Attack, the Adept Rider set bonus and so on, but again those will affect all mounts equally.

I'm not sure if you get dismounted at the same point on all mounts, but it sounds like you could test that by sending your two characters into the water at the same point and seeing where they each get dismounted.

darkriketz · September 2022

OK, that's what I thought, I knew it would create much more work for devs just for the sake of realism, but I wanted to be sure. However, I don't think mounts are scaled to the rider, cause my main character is a female Bosmer (not as tiny as a *male* Bosmer, but still dwarvish compared to Altmer and Orcs ^^), and I'm pretty sure the horse I used to ride before I got the Ebony Dwarven Wolf was the same size as anyone else's horse in the game.
Both my Breton templar and my Altmer templar ride the same Pure-Snow Indrik, Bretons are much smaller than Altmer, and there's no difference between their mounts, I think.

Anyway, thanks for the answer ^^ Have a good day, and good game to you