Advanced Mounts Overhaul Concept

Gidorick

The recent change of mount skills leading to riding skills has lead me to have some notions of how Mounts could be expanded in ESO while adhering to the changes that have been made. The overall notion of this concept is to expand on the mount system we currently have to offer a more engaging and immersive experience in terms of an MMO gameplay mechanic and an aspect of an RPG.

Overview:

• Mount Combat
• Additional Riding Skills
• Mount Buffs
• Advanced Mount AI
• First Person Mount Riding
• Mount Tangibility
• Mounted Combat
• Monetization: The Crown Store Additions

Mount Combat
The “Mount Combat” concept is to allow players to attack with their mount. Each mount could have different attack animations. Horses could attack with their hooves, Tigers and Guars could attack with their teeth. Attacks would be activated with a mount specific ability bar that is accessible only while mounted.

• Mount Ability Bar
  • Attack:The mount’s standard attack. Upgradable.
  • Spur : The mount chuffs or growls or stomps. A chance of increasing its attack , defense, and fortitude. Upgradable.
  • Ram: The mount would lean back and butt up against the enemy, with a chance to knockback and stun. Upgradable.
  • Rush: This could be activated from a distance. The mount lunges toward the enemy, pouncing for the attack. Upgradable.
  • Flee: This ability could be used in and out of combat. It is a sprint in which the mount and the player are immune to attacks of any kind, allowing the player to flee from a dangerous situation. It also refills a percentage of the mount’s fortitude. Upgradable.
  • Ultimate: Each mount could have a specific ultimate. NOT directly upgradable. The effectiveness is dependent on overall level of the riding skills.

All upgradable mount abilities would be tied to the Riding Skills, which should remain upgradable in the exact same way they are upgradable now. The abilities are not tied to experience points, skill points, or champion points. They are earned through the Riding Skill mechanic.

• Mount Fortitude: A mount shouldn’t have life, exactly. Below the life bar there should be a fortitude meter. Once that meter runs out, the mount becomes spooked. If a mount is spooked during a fight they will throw the off and flee for their life. They should not able to be recalled until the player is out of combat.

Additional Skills
To accommodate the Mount Ability Bar as well as add additional options to the mount skill variety, I suggest the following Skills be added to the riding skills.

• Riding Skills: These are additional Riding Skills that are attached to the Character. These skills are attached to the Rider to highlight the skill the rider has at handling mounts. Mounts listen to a character the higher these skills and the character has a better command over their bestial companions. These would still be upgradeable once per day, per character.
  • Compulsion:Increase the Speed and Duration of the Flee Ability.
  • Fortitude: Increases the overall fortitude of the Mount.
  • Sovereignty: Upgrading this skill allows the mount to act autonomously for a longer duration, more on that later.
• Mount Skills: These skills would be Mount Skills that are attached to the mount. These skills are attached to the mount because each mount would have different skills and abilities. These skills would be upgradeable once per day, per mount.
  • Attack: Increate the attack damage of the Attack Ability.
  • Defense: Increase the passive defense rating of the Mount.
  • Provocation: Increase both the chance and the effectiveness of the Spur Ability.
  • Determination: Increase both the chance and the effectiveness of the Ram Ability.
  • Inspiration: Increase both the distance and the effectiveness of the Rush Ability.
  • Aquestrian: One point in this skill and mounts are able to swim in the water, upgrades increase its speed in the water. (Get it? Aquestrian... hehe)

All of these skills would be upgradable once a day for 250 gold each, just as the three skills are upgradable now. This would give players a total of 12 riding skills they can upgrade, and one character could upgrade the mount skills of all mounts each day.

Mount Buffs
Each mount can be fed snacks and treats that will give them buffs on a specific trait or ability. Each treat has 3 quality variations (Bland/Tasty/Savory) of the treat that will provide a 10% buff for 40 minutes/ 15% buff for 20 minutes / 20% buff for 10 minutes.

These buffs can be for:

• Speed
• Stamina
• Attack (increases damage dealt on all 4 offensive abilities)
• Defense
• Fortitude
• Aquestrian
• Sovereignty

These 7 buff types would be dependent on 7 types of treats for each mount. Again, each treat would have the three quality types of Bland/Tasty/Savory.

Horse

• Grass Bundle
• Fistfull of Hay
• Oat Crumble
• Flax Seed Cookie
• Dried Beets
• Salt mix
• Apple Slices

Guar

• Live Crickets
• Mixed Berries
• Mellon balls
• Fish Guts
• Snake tail
• Skeever jerky
• Mudcrab Chum

Senche

• Whole Squirrel
• Skinned fox
• Dewinged bat
• Chicken breasts
• Goat chop
• Deer loin
• Moon Sugar cane

The two methods of obtaining these treats would be:

• Bought individually through the Stable/Mount Trainers (individual Mount Trainers for each Mount type concept HERE)
• Bought in bulk packs through the Crown Store

Players would simply “Use” the treats as they would be in their inventory. If a player is mounted while using a treat it would be preferable if there were an animation of the player leaning forward, stretching out their arm, the mount looking back and taking the treat from the players hand and the player patting their mount on the head, but that wouldn’t be necessary. Just a nice little touch, if ZOS were so inclined.

The buff would be applied to the player’s riding skill and should be viewable on the character screen and should be mount type specific so a player could have a Horse, Guar, and a Senche buff applied at the same time, but only one buff for each.

Advanced Mount AI
Along with the above additions, mounts should have advanced AI as described in my post: Horse auto-run AI which can be found HERE.

The long and short of this concept is we should be able to set our mount in a direction and press the auto-run key and the mounts should avoid trees and rocks and should be able to find its way forward. Alternately, we should be able to set a marker on the map and have the mount travel to that marker by finding the closest road and following that road.

The duration of the Advanced Mount AI should be dependent on the Sovereignty Skill. The Sovereignty skill determines how well your mount follows a rider’s directions and can act autonomously without direct interaction. The greater the skill, the longer the mount is focused and undistracted. This could be displayed by a Sovereignty meter that appears on screen when the auto-run is pressed while mounted and depletes as a player’s mount acts on its own.

Once the meter is depleted, the mount will ‘dumb down’ and act as mounts currently do, getting caught on trees, rocks, fences, buildings, etc.

NOTE: Although players do have the auto-run option while on foot, Sovereignty shouldn’t apply to this dismounted movement mechanic.

First Person Mount Riding
This one is pretty straight forward. Allow player to ride their mount while in first person. There is a post on it HERE from @mandrakethebard_ESO . Most of us that want this would be willing to PAY for the option in the Crown Store.

Mount Tangibility
The fact that mounts dematerialize once we dismount is unfortunate. I posted a suggestion HERE regarding mounts staying around while we are off of them.

While I would really like for my mount to walk beside me, I would be perfectly content if the mount simply ran away when players dismounted and ran up when a player wanted to ride them. While it would take a few seconds for the mount to arrive from a distance, most of us who want this feature are ok with that. To accommodate those that would NOT want this feature, it should be to toggled on and off in the settings menu. Again, if it had to be, ZOS could sell this feature in the Crown Store.

I expand on this concept in this thread here: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/165659/tangible-mounts-advanced-concept/p1

Mounted Combat
Using many of these mechanics that we mentioned above players could be then given the option to partake in Mounted Combat. This is when the player uses their weapon to attack another player or NPC while staying on their mount.

The player would use the right mouse button to look around while on their mount, functioning like a mouse freelook with limiters where the player character rotates at the hip to look around. Pressing the Weapon Draw button, players would enter mounted combat. If they let go of the right mouse button, they simply attack “forward”.

Then the player would use the left mouse button to attack with their weapon. While on the mount players can attack using either of their weapons but maybe shouldn't have access to a full skill bar. If a player has full access to their abilities they may be dissuaded from dismounting to partake in combat. However, players must be given enough incentive to stay on their mount to make the mechanic interesting. Perhaps allowing players to only assign one or two Mounted Abilities assigned would be sufficient deterrent to encourage players to dismount for combat but would be enough to where a player can be formidable while mounted.

Players can also choose to toggle a mount’s autonomy before entering Mounted Combat. If they do so, and they then lock onto a target, the mount will then circle the target, allowing the player to attack the target at will. The mount will instinctively know if you are using a ranged weapon or a close quarter’s weapon and will keep an appropriate distance.

If a player toggles off Mounted Combat by sheathing their weapon and they will return to the mount riding mode.

Monetization: The Crown Store Additions
There are many monetization opportunities that arise through these enhancements.

• 500C – Feed Bag: A single slot inventory item that houses all treats for mounts, no matter how many the player has. Items cannot be placed within or taken out of the feedbag. If a player has treats for their mount, it can be found in the Feedbag, otherwise, one treat type consumes one inventory space.
• 200C – Bland Mount Treat Sampler Pack (21 Bland treats, 1 of each type for your mounts)
• 400C – Tasty Mount Treat Sampler Pack (21 Tasty treats, 1 of each type for your mounts)
• 600C – Savory Mount Treat Sampler Pack (21 Savory treats, 1 of each type for your mounts & one pack for each mount type)
• 200C – Bland Treat Sampler Pack (14 Bland treats for your Mount, 2 of each type & one pack for each mount type)
• 400C – Tasty Treat Sampler Pack (14 Tasty treats for your Mount, 2 of each type & one pack for each mount type)
• 600C – Savory Treat Sampler Pack (14 Savory treats for your Mount, 2 of each type & one pack for each mount type)
• 200C – Bland Treats 10 pack (10 bland treats for your Mount, one type & one pack for each mount type)
• 400C – Tasty Treats 10 Pack (10 tasty treats for your Mount, one type & one pack for each mount type)
• 600C – Savory Treats 10 Pack (14 savory treats for your Mount, one type & one pack for each mount type)
• 500C – Advanced Riding Lessons. This 4 pack of Advanced Riding Lessons allows players to bypass the time and gold requirement for the next riding lesson and upgrade 1 riding skill for each lesson (includes 4 lessons).
• 500 C – First Person Riding Pack: Enables Players to ride their Mount in first person.
• 200C – Mount Tangibility Pack: Mounts run away and run up when dismounting and mounting.

All of these suggestions would add a total of 25 items that could be bought from the Crown Store. 22 of which would be consumable, re-purchasable items.

Overall, these advanced mount features would greatly increase the customizability of the mounts, increase their interactivity, increase PVE and PVE combat options, add to long term return purchase options to the crown store, add gameplay by adding mount progression, and would add to the overall variety of ESO.

Thoughts?

frould

Nice, welcome to Mount & Blade : Tamriel Online.

Gidorick

lol @frould We really do need mounted combat... Mounts, right now, are 'vehicles'. It does a disservice to them as "animals". Functionally there is little difference between my Striped Senche-Tiger and a speeder bike in SWOTOR.

Gidorick

I added up how long it would take to max out 12 different skills and added the following to the OP:

A player hoping to max all of their riding skills would have to pay a total of 180,000 gold over a 2 year period. This could be stretched out even further if players are charged more and have to wait longer the higher their skills are.

Snowstrider

Would be awesome to see,Maybe a few changes to some of your ideas but i love to have more expanded mount system,at the moment eso does not have anything special with mounts compared to other MMos Was dissapointed with the mounts only being dull horses at launch but i am happy they are slowly adding more creatures we all heard about from the lore.

I want full mount customization being able to choose if you want to have only saddlebags,helmet or straps and so on,And perhaps more expanded customization,like more stuff to give our mounts.Tabards?

cozmon3c_ESO

lets do this, it will ad another dynamic to pvp!!

Vairkjosab14_ESO

As I see it, this would be a great addition. I agree with most of your article. That said and Thanks for taking the time. Great ideas.
I'm also asking that we have an option, perhaps in the settings menu to "Turn Off" any or all of the mount adornments. My full on reasoning for this is, I spent a lot of gold early in the game to get mounts for specific aesthetically pleasing jobs. All of that went away with the new "Riding Skills". I feel a great deal of loss over this new skill tree. My "War Horse" with backpacks is definitely not aesthetically pleasing any more. Some one dropped the ball on this at ZOS.
Point is that what will a "Courser" look like with backpacks? Sorry ZOS but I'm not happy at this new change.

Gidorick

Vairkjosab14_ESO wrote: »

As I see it, this would be a great addition. I agree with most of your article. That said and Thanks for taking the time. Great ideas.
I'm also asking that we have an option, perhaps in the settings menu to "Turn Off" any or all of the mount adornments. My full on reasoning for this is, I spent a lot of gold early in the game to get mounts for specific aesthetically pleasing jobs. All of that went away with the new "Riding Skills". I feel a great deal of loss over this new skill tree. My "War Horse" with backpacks is definitely not aesthetically pleasing any more. Some one dropped the ball on this at ZOS.
Point is that what will a "Courser" look like with backpacks? Sorry ZOS but I'm not happy at this new change.

I'm of the thought that mounts should have equipment or costumes. That way we can buy different helmets, different saddles and different blankets.

Jamesbr1b14_ESO

How about new content before we re-tool the mounts!

retyler3_ESO

Honestly there are a few changes I would like to see occur soon. Everything else listed in the OP is nice, but honestly is just too much.

1. The ability to upgrade three skills a day, riding, stamina, and storage.
2. The ability to pay for the skill upgrade from your bank account.
3. Not being knocked off your horse when you reach deep water. Horses can swim.

It's very annoying to have to leave the stable to withdrawn 250 gold from your bank and return to the stable to make the payment. An automatic withdrawn would be nice.

Gidorick

Jamesbr1b14_ESO wrote: »

How about new content before we re-tool the mounts!

Lol. Do NOT visit my repository. A good deal of my posts are ideas that should be secondary to content.

here's the link: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/171334/gidoricks-concept-repository

Gidorick

retyler3_ESO wrote: »

Honestly there are a few changes I would like to see occur soon. Everything else listed in the OP is nice, but honestly is just too much.

1. The ability to upgrade three skills a day, riding, stamina, and storage.
2. The ability to pay for the skill upgrade from your bank account.
3. Not being knocked off your horse when you reach deep water. Horses can swim.

It's very annoying to have to leave the stable to withdrawn 250 gold from your bank and return to the stable to make the payment. An automatic withdrawn would be nice.

Too much? Not enough! Check out my accompanying concept suggesting Tangible Mounts: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/165659/tangible-mounts-advanced-concept

Cormore

i love this. i just dont think they have the time or on their main goal list right now. Love to see this in the future though!

nastuug

@Gidorick Good write-up as usual. I was going to smart off with something witty, but unfortunately the coffee is wearing off.

Gidorick

Thanks @nastuug! This thread was actually from March 20th. So there's a bit of age on it. Nice to see it's not dead yet.

dafox187

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1048-ImmersiveHorseRiding.html first person horse riding addon

Gidorick

dafox187 wrote: »

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1048-ImmersiveHorseRiding.html first person horse riding addon

Thanks @dafox187. I totally use that.... and I repurposed the code to make first person werewolf

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1082-FirstPersonWerewolf.html

dafox187

Gidorick wrote: »

dafox187 wrote: »

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1048-ImmersiveHorseRiding.html first person horse riding addon

Thanks @dafox187. I totally use that.... and I repurposed the code to make first person werewolf

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1082-FirstPersonWerewolf.html

right i forgot about that sorry i even use fp werewolf mod i have short term memory loss so i forgot who made it

Gidorick

dafox187 wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

dafox187 wrote: »

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1048-ImmersiveHorseRiding.html first person horse riding addon

Thanks @dafox187. I totally use that.... and I repurposed the code to make first person werewolf

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1082-FirstPersonWerewolf.html

right i forgot about that sorry i even use fp werewolf mod i have short term memory loss so i forgot who made it

lol. awesome! I love the first person mount mod... I wrote this concept prior to that add on being made. I was willing to pay for that feature... now, not so much.

if I could figure out a way to show the werewolf model while in first person that would be great... but no luck yet.

cmetzger93

But really... Why doesn't ZOS get you on their team? They desperately need someone with a vision

BigM

This could take a year or more to get to but I love all your ideas. I hope they take a close look at the post and really think about adding a lot of this.

Great post OP.

Gidorick

Thanks @cmetzger93. It would be wonderful to work for ZOS... I do keep my eye on their careers page.

cmetzger93

Gidorick wrote: »

Thanks @cmetzger93. It would be wonderful to work for ZOS... I do keep my eye on their careers page.

Here is hoping!!

Gidorick

Thanks @BigM! Hopefully they do take note. I would love for mounts to be an active personal part of gameplay. One of my favorite games is Shadow of the Colossus... and if I could feel the kind of connection I felt to Agro... that would be something special.

altemriel

for First Person Mount Riding there is a addon for that and it works pretty well, it is called "Immersive horse riding" if I remember it right

Salmonoid

Mounted combat would change the game entirely.

I do like the concept of mounted combat, but I do not think it is right for ESO. I'm not a fan.

Gidorick

It would indeed do that @Salmonoid. After this has set a while and had time to gestate... I'm thinking mounted combat would need some mitigation. Something like... a Mounted combat bar that is unswitchable and only has like 3 skills. and no ultimate.

There needs to be a reason to get off the mount to fight.

Gidorick

altemriel wrote: »

for First Person Mount Riding there is a addon for that and it works pretty well, it is called "Immersive horse riding" if I remember it right

You're completely right @altemriel! And I totally use it.

PoseidonEvil

Also to the guy that mentioned the add on. Console players don't have add ons. I feel this would be a great addition o the game. After some new content of course. And definitely after they finally release spell crafting lol

altemriel

PoseidonEvil wrote: »

Also to the guy that mentioned the add on. Console players don't have add ons. I feel this would be a great addition o the game. After some new content of course. And definitely after they finally release spell crafting lol

aha, sorry then, I did not realize you were on console...

and yes, spellcrafting now!!! totally looking forward to it too!

DaveMoeDee

Could be entertaining. Interesting ideas.

I have 2 objections though.

1. Horses should not be persistent (tangible not really the right word, especially since there is no collision detections for players in PvP, mounted or not). Horses should continue to disappear for 2 reasons: (a) imagine unmounted horses standing around in the middle of combat; and (b) having to find your persistent horse in order to mount it would suck. Mounts should be immediately mounted and should get out of the frame when not mounted.
2. Horse swimming would be funny, but a bit too silly. Are you going to remain mounted as your horse swims?

Ultimately, I don't see this having a chance because mounts have a very simple implementation at the moment. They just make you move faster. The only other horse complications is deciding when a players should be forcibly dismounted. Pretty bare bones.