Pony giganticism and the comparatively diminutive non-equine pets

Carbonised

Long title, short message: Is there a reason why most "pony" type pets are gigantic in size compared to almost all other pet types? "Pony" pets often appear almost as large as a player character, whereas other pet types - guars, wolves, senche cubs, insects, especially looking at you tiny nix-hound pet - are comparatively much smaller?

I grabbed a couple screens today of my pet skeletal guar, which is the usual guar pet size, compared to a New Moon pony standing next to it. The pony is like triple or quadruple the size of my poor tiny guar.

Please scale other pets up to be larger size as well, when it makes sense anyway. Not everyone wants ponies as pets, and it sucks that all other pets are very small in size compared to these gigantic ponies.






@ZOS_SarahHecker @ZOS_GinaBruno

VaranisArano

Have you see the relative size difference between a real life pony and, say, a tiger cub?

Carbonised

VaranisArano wrote: »

Have you see the relative size difference between a real life pony and, say, a tiger cub?

Have you seen how large mature guars are in ESO? They are horse sized. Probably more mass due to being a bit bulky.

Are you just being obtuse?

Ye_Olde_Crowe

A pony can be up to 1.48 meters high (talking about the withers here, mind you). So while the ESO ponies are comparatively small, they are not of Falabella stock. IMO they look just like a 'normal', healthy pony would.

Of course Zeni could make some bigger pets in general. Why not?

Araneae6537

I like most of the pets being small, but perhaps there are specific instances where it would make sense to adjust the size? I think the senche cubs are a fine size and really, insects in Tamriel come in all sizes. I prefer my pets to be on the small size and unobtrusive both for me and other players.

VaranisArano

Carbonised wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Have you see the relative size difference between a real life pony and, say, a tiger cub?

Have you seen how large mature guars are in ESO? They are horse sized. Probably more mass due to being a bit bulky.

Are you just being obtuse?

I can tell the difference between the guar I use for a mount and the guar I keep as a pet, so no. Same thing with senche cubs and senche mounts.

I understand what you want - larger pets, like ponies. But ponies are the size they are for a reason, its pretty realistic.

So if you want larger guars, insects, senche cubs, etc. figure out a reason why they should be larger than they are.

Carbonised

Also, @VaranisArano , since you choose to bring real life into the discussion with your extremely bad example, have you seen the size of a normal bear cub? Have you seen the size of adult bears of most races? Do you think it is particular fitting that bear cubs should be portrayed as less than half the size of a pony in ESO?

VaranisArano

Carbonised wrote: »

Also, @VaranisArano , since you choose to bring real life into the discussion with your extremely bad example, have you seen the size of a normal bear cub? Have you seen the size of adult bears of most races? Do you think it is particular fitting that bear cubs should be portrayed as less than half the size of a pony in ESO?

I'm all for realism.

If there's an actual reason for pets to be larger, go for it.

Avariprivateer

Ponies are adults but an actual pony foal would be small.

Ye_Olde_Crowe

Thinking of it, I'd like a customizable size parameter for my mounts and pets. With a slider or checkboxes (like 'tiny', 'small', 'mid-sized', 'big' and 'huge', for example). One character might want to use the huge mount and tiny pet while another one prefers them mid-sized. All scaling off the character's size.

Asardes

Guars are reptiles, and IRL reptiles tend to grow throughout their whole life cycle. They tend to start out pretty small, since they hatch from eggs. So the difference between newborn/hatching and mature specimen is much larger in reptiles, compared to mammals. If you look at horses, a foal, even a pony one, l is quite large even at birth, and can walk and run around right away. Having a horse 0.5m tall wouldn't make sense, but for a reptile, the guar, it would.

Carbonised

I would like to point out that nowhere did I ask for ZOS to upscale ALL OTHER pets to be the same size as ponies. I did mention "where it makes sense", and all I'm asking is that they provide a few OTHER pet types than just ponies in the larger size, so there's more variability to choose from.

Look, ZOS isn't even consistent with itself at this point. Guar pets used to be much larger in size. Here are some of the older guar pets:





Then suddenly a while back they stopped making guars this size, and now all the guar pets we can buy are of the much smaller size:





It would be nice of ZOS varied the size of some pets, for instance the guars, in the future, so there is the possibility to buy/obtain some of a larger size if you wanted to, instead of right now where ponies are gigantic pets and all other pet types are less than half the size of the ponies.

Carbonised

Asardes wrote: »

Guars are reptiles, and IRL reptiles tend to grow throughout their whole life cycle. They tend to start out pretty small, since they hatch from eggs. So the difference between newborn/hatching and mature specimen is much larger in reptiles, compared to mammals. If you look at horses, a foal, even a pony one, l is quite large even at birth, and can walk and run around right away. Having a horse 0.5m tall wouldn't make sense, but for a reptile, the guar, it would.

You made your reply before I posted the second set of pictures. ZOS used to make guar pet models that were twice the size of the newer guar pets. I'm particular interested in guars since I collect them for my characters, but there are also other types of pets to think of, like bears. The recent bear cub models are also very much on the small size, if we're bringing realism into it.

driosketch

Carbonised wrote: »

I would like to point out that nowhere did I ask for ZOS to upscale ALL OTHER pets to be the same size as ponies. I did mention "where it makes sense", and all I'm asking is that they provide a few OTHER pet types than just ponies in the larger size, so there's more variability to choose from.

Look, ZOS isn't even consistent with itself at this point. Guar pets used to be much larger in size. Here are some of the older guar pets:





Then suddenly a while back they stopped making guars this size, and now all the guar pets we can buy are of the much smaller size:





It would be nice of ZOS varied the size of some pets, for instance the guars, in the future, so there is the possibility to buy/obtain some of a larger size if you wanted to, instead of right now where ponies are gigantic pets and all other pet types are less than half the size of the ponies.

There are two types of guar pets: Guar and Pony Guar.

Ye_Olde_Crowe

...and Bantam Guar.

driosketch

Ye_Olde_Crowe wrote: »

...and Bantam Guar.

True, but probably would confuse the lizard chickens with the other types.

Carbonised

driosketch wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

I would like to point out that nowhere did I ask for ZOS to upscale ALL OTHER pets to be the same size as ponies. I did mention "where it makes sense", and all I'm asking is that they provide a few OTHER pet types than just ponies in the larger size, so there's more variability to choose from.

Look, ZOS isn't even consistent with itself at this point. Guar pets used to be much larger in size. Here are some of the older guar pets:





Then suddenly a while back they stopped making guars this size, and now all the guar pets we can buy are of the much smaller size:





It would be nice of ZOS varied the size of some pets, for instance the guars, in the future, so there is the possibility to buy/obtain some of a larger size if you wanted to, instead of right now where ponies are gigantic pets and all other pet types are less than half the size of the ponies.

There are two types of guar pets: Guar and Pony Guar.

You're not right. The ZOS naming conventions are all over the place, and have nothing to do with the size, really.

First picture is "Freckled Guar" So "guar", nothing more. Considering that all mounts are called "guar", that would make the pet in the same naming category, and obviously it's not the same size as a mount.

Second is "Shadowghost Guar", So "guar" again.

Then comes "Psijic Mascot Guar Calf" So this is now a "calf", and smaller in size. But wait, there's also a Hearthfire Kagouti Hatchling, a hatchling would imply an even younger animal than a "calf", and yet the hatchling is a lot larger than the calf!

And finally we have the "Skeletal Pony Guar", so a pony, but this one is tiny - and yet "pony" when it comes to horses imply a diminutive race that's quite large - so why is the guar pony tiny when the horse pony is huge? And even more confusing, there's also a "Frostbane Guar Pony", but this one isn't tiny, it's the "larger" size of guar pets like the Shadowghost.

There's no rhyme or reason here, guar names and sizes are all over the place. And it's not really important either. Call them ponies, calves or whatever, doesn't matter to me, I would just like to have a few guars of a larger size than the tiny ones we get nowadays, and seeing as they DID make larger guars before, it's neither "unnatural" nor, I would think, absurd to ask for them to make guars in different sizes again. And seeing as they ALREADY DID make larger guars, I really don't get why people apparently are so critical to my idea.

Aurie

Ponies are small horses, and as @Ye_Olde_Crowe says, they can be up to 14.2hh /148cm at the withers. So they are a lot larger than your average pet.

However it all depends on whether you are going for realism or not.

Personally I couldn't care less, apart from the fact that entire zoos trailing after players just irritates me. But there again, I never did see the reason for ingame pets, which I always think caters to the teenage girlies of the playerbase

Feel free to load on the insightfuls.

Carbonised

Aurelle1 wrote: »

Ponies are small horses, and as @Ye_Olde_Crowe says, they can be up to 14.2hh /148cm at the withers. So they are a lot larger than your average pet.

However it all depends on whether you are going for realism or not.

Personally I couldn't care less, apart from the fact that entire zoos trailing after players just irritates me. But there again, I never did see the reason for ingame pets, which I always think caters to the teenage girlies of the playerbase

Feel free to load on the insightfuls.

Other pets are called "ponies" too, there are several guar ponies, for one. No one says that "pets" equals "infants" or "babies", just as ponies are a dwarf race of the larger sized ones, the guar ponies are also another breed of the larger race, so they don't have to be as tiny at all.

There are also several jaguars/panthers/senches ingame which are obviously adults, but are pets and not mounts. As well as some bears which are also dwarf races and not "babies", such as the Frostbane bear pet (which isn't called a cub and doesn't look like a cub either).

So once again, I don't disagree with anything you write, but that doesn't prohibit either that other animals "pony" versions could be made into pets, and ZOS even has a precedence of doing it already, they just do it rarely with other animals, and all the time with ponies.

Araneae6537

Carbonised wrote: »

driosketch wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

I would like to point out that nowhere did I ask for ZOS to upscale ALL OTHER pets to be the same size as ponies. I did mention "where it makes sense", and all I'm asking is that they provide a few OTHER pet types than just ponies in the larger size, so there's more variability to choose from.

Look, ZOS isn't even consistent with itself at this point. Guar pets used to be much larger in size. Here are some of the older guar pets:





Then suddenly a while back they stopped making guars this size, and now all the guar pets we can buy are of the much smaller size:





It would be nice of ZOS varied the size of some pets, for instance the guars, in the future, so there is the possibility to buy/obtain some of a larger size if you wanted to, instead of right now where ponies are gigantic pets and all other pet types are less than half the size of the ponies.

There are two types of guar pets: Guar and Pony Guar.

You're not right. The ZOS naming conventions are all over the place, and have nothing to do with the size, really.

First picture is "Freckled Guar" So "guar", nothing more. Considering that all mounts are called "guar", that would make the pet in the same naming category, and obviously it's not the same size as a mount.

Second is "Shadowghost Guar", So "guar" again.

Then comes "Psijic Mascot Guar Calf" So this is now a "calf", and smaller in size. But wait, there's also a Hearthfire Kagouti Hatchling, a hatchling would imply an even younger animal than a "calf", and yet the hatchling is a lot larger than the calf!

And finally we have the "Skeletal Pony Guar", so a pony, but this one is tiny - and yet "pony" when it comes to horses imply a diminutive race that's quite large - so why is the guar pony tiny when the horse pony is huge? And even more confusing, there's also a "Frostbane Guar Pony", but this one isn't tiny, it's the "larger" size of guar pets like the Shadowbane.

There's no rhyme or reason here, guar names and sizes are all over the place. And it's not really important either. Call them ponies, calves or whatever, doesn't matter to me, I would just like to have a few guars of a larger size than the tiny ones we get nowadays, and seeing as they DID make larger guars before, it's neither "unnatural" nor, I would think, absurd to ask for them to make guars in different sizes again. And seeing as they ALREADY DID make larger guars, I really don't get why people apparently are so critical to my idea.

Those are good points and it would make sense to release additional guar pets similar in size to those earlier ones. And logically, the bear cub is another pet that would make sense to be a bit bigger.

Personally, I’d rather there not be too many pets the size of the ponies as anywhere lots of players are would become a crowded zoo. So I would rather most pets stay small and unobtrusive but all of the guar pets are within this category and you’re right that the recent ones are comparatively tiny.

Carbonised

ErinM31 wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

driosketch wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

I would like to point out that nowhere did I ask for ZOS to upscale ALL OTHER pets to be the same size as ponies. I did mention "where it makes sense", and all I'm asking is that they provide a few OTHER pet types than just ponies in the larger size, so there's more variability to choose from.

Look, ZOS isn't even consistent with itself at this point. Guar pets used to be much larger in size. Here are some of the older guar pets:





Then suddenly a while back they stopped making guars this size, and now all the guar pets we can buy are of the much smaller size:





It would be nice of ZOS varied the size of some pets, for instance the guars, in the future, so there is the possibility to buy/obtain some of a larger size if you wanted to, instead of right now where ponies are gigantic pets and all other pet types are less than half the size of the ponies.

There are two types of guar pets: Guar and Pony Guar.

You're not right. The ZOS naming conventions are all over the place, and have nothing to do with the size, really.

First picture is "Freckled Guar" So "guar", nothing more. Considering that all mounts are called "guar", that would make the pet in the same naming category, and obviously it's not the same size as a mount.

Second is "Shadowghost Guar", So "guar" again.

Then comes "Psijic Mascot Guar Calf" So this is now a "calf", and smaller in size. But wait, there's also a Hearthfire Kagouti Hatchling, a hatchling would imply an even younger animal than a "calf", and yet the hatchling is a lot larger than the calf!

And finally we have the "Skeletal Pony Guar", so a pony, but this one is tiny - and yet "pony" when it comes to horses imply a diminutive race that's quite large - so why is the guar pony tiny when the horse pony is huge? And even more confusing, there's also a "Frostbane Guar Pony", but this one isn't tiny, it's the "larger" size of guar pets like the Shadowbane.

There's no rhyme or reason here, guar names and sizes are all over the place. And it's not really important either. Call them ponies, calves or whatever, doesn't matter to me, I would just like to have a few guars of a larger size than the tiny ones we get nowadays, and seeing as they DID make larger guars before, it's neither "unnatural" nor, I would think, absurd to ask for them to make guars in different sizes again. And seeing as they ALREADY DID make larger guars, I really don't get why people apparently are so critical to my idea.

Those are good points and it would make sense to release additional guar pets similar in size to those earlier ones. And logically, the bear cub is another pet that would make sense to be a bit bigger.

Personally, I’d rather there not be too many pets the size of the ponies as anywhere lots of players are would become a crowded zoo. So I would rather most pets stay small and unobtrusive but all of the guar pets are within this category and you’re right that the recent ones are comparatively tiny.

Thank you. I think my points are quite logical as well, especially with the pictures I supplied to support them. I don't really understand where all the opposition is coming from, at this point I'm just chalking it down to misunderstandings I suppose. I'm glad I'm at least not the only one who sees this is a reasonable request.
I also wouldn't want guars the size of the pony pets, "realistic" or not, the size of those ponies should probably be scaled down a bit as well, right now they're almost large enough to use as mounts, which is silly. But some guars that were more the size of the Shadowghost and less the size of the tiny Skeletal one would be nice.

VaranisArano

Carbonised wrote: »

I would like to point out that nowhere did I ask for ZOS to upscale ALL OTHER pets to be the same size as ponies. I did mention "where it makes sense", and all I'm asking is that they provide a few OTHER pet types than just ponies in the larger size, so there's more variability to choose from.

Look, ZOS isn't even consistent with itself at this point. Guar pets used to be much larger in size. Here are some of the older guar pets:





Then suddenly a while back they stopped making guars this size, and now all the guar pets we can buy are of the much smaller size:





It would be nice of ZOS varied the size of some pets, for instance the guars, in the future, so there is the possibility to buy/obtain some of a larger size if you wanted to, instead of right now where ponies are gigantic pets and all other pet types are less than half the size of the ponies.

That's a perfect example of ZOS having larger guar pets that makes sense. There are clear, distinct differences in size from the mature guar mounts, but they are larger than the tiny guar pets recently released.

Thank you for providing pictures.

In looking at pictures of tiger cub size vs humans for my first post, I did notice that ZOS' senche cubs tend to be on the younger end of the size spectrum (not entirely surprising, as young cub = cuter for a lot of people). Real tiger cubs are still "cubs" for over a year and can be fairly large depending on when you see them.

Carbonised

VaranisArano wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

I would like to point out that nowhere did I ask for ZOS to upscale ALL OTHER pets to be the same size as ponies. I did mention "where it makes sense", and all I'm asking is that they provide a few OTHER pet types than just ponies in the larger size, so there's more variability to choose from.

Look, ZOS isn't even consistent with itself at this point. Guar pets used to be much larger in size. Here are some of the older guar pets:





Then suddenly a while back they stopped making guars this size, and now all the guar pets we can buy are of the much smaller size:





It would be nice of ZOS varied the size of some pets, for instance the guars, in the future, so there is the possibility to buy/obtain some of a larger size if you wanted to, instead of right now where ponies are gigantic pets and all other pet types are less than half the size of the ponies.

That's a perfect example of ZOS having larger guar pets that makes sense. There are clear, distinct differences in size from the mature guar mounts, but they are larger than the tiny guar pets recently released.

Thank you for providing pictures.

In looking at pictures of tiger cub size vs humans for my first post, I did notice that ZOS' senche cubs tend to be on the younger end of the size spectrum (not entirely surprising, as young cub = cuter for a lot of people). Real tiger cubs are still "cubs" for over a year and can be fairly large depending on when you see them.

Well it seems we do agree on this after all then, at least to some extent.

Looking at some of the older pets in the game, it's obvious they were intended to be the "dwarf" or "pony" type of a mount. They don't look like young or immature animals, and they didn't have any names such as "cubs". Then somewhere along the time of Crown Crates, they started making the "adult" animals the apex mounts, and most mounts would then have an "immature" or "child" version which was the pet (we still didn't see any immature camels, for some funny reason). Horses/ponies were the only exception to this, whereas guars were downsized to their "infant" variants, as were senches to their "cub" variants.
So now we're stuck with mostly pets = immature/infant/child version, and mount = adult. The exception to this being the horse/pony situation, where they are both adults but one is a dwarf version.
ZOS could add some variety to this model by re-introducing some of the older sizes/types of pets, such as mature, but smaller, senches and guars and possibly other types as well. The Frostbane pets are a very nice example, where all the pets are "adult" dwarf version, not children, and are of a larger size than their "cub" versions.

Carbonised

And as a final example, there's also the infamous Bal Foyen Nix Hound pet. Nowhere is it implied that this is a "child" version of the animal, yet the pet is less than half the size of the normal Nix Hounds you find as mobs on the overland. Many were excited to finally get a Nix Hound pet, when very disappointed when it turned out to be very tiny and almost hard to notice in the game.

driosketch

Carbonised wrote: »

driosketch wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

I would like to point out that nowhere did I ask for ZOS to upscale ALL OTHER pets to be the same size as ponies. I did mention "where it makes sense", and all I'm asking is that they provide a few OTHER pet types than just ponies in the larger size, so there's more variability to choose from.

Look, ZOS isn't even consistent with itself at this point. Guar pets used to be much larger in size. Here are some of the older guar pets:





Then suddenly a while back they stopped making guars this size, and now all the guar pets we can buy are of the much smaller size:





It would be nice of ZOS varied the size of some pets, for instance the guars, in the future, so there is the possibility to buy/obtain some of a larger size if you wanted to, instead of right now where ponies are gigantic pets and all other pet types are less than half the size of the ponies.

There are two types of guar pets: Guar and Pony Guar.

You're not right. The ZOS naming conventions are all over the place, and have nothing to do with the size, really.

First picture is "Freckled Guar" So "guar", nothing more. Considering that all mounts are called "guar", that would make the pet in the same naming category, and obviously it's not the same size as a mount.

Second is "Shadowghost Guar", So "guar" again.

Then comes "Psijic Mascot Guar Calf" So this is now a "calf", and smaller in size. But wait, there's also a Hearthfire Kagouti Hatchling, a hatchling would imply an even younger animal than a "calf", and yet the hatchling is a lot larger than the calf!

And finally we have the "Skeletal Pony Guar", so a pony, but this one is tiny - and yet "pony" when it comes to horses imply a diminutive race that's quite large - so why is the guar pony tiny when the horse pony is huge? And even more confusing, there's also a "Frostbane Guar Pony", but this one isn't tiny, it's the "larger" size of guar pets like the Shadowghost.

There's no rhyme or reason here, guar names and sizes are all over the place. And it's not really important either. Call them ponies, calves or whatever, doesn't matter to me, I would just like to have a few guars of a larger size than the tiny ones we get nowadays, and seeing as they DID make larger guars before, it's neither "unnatural" nor, I would think, absurd to ask for them to make guars in different sizes again. And seeing as they ALREADY DID make larger guars, I really don't get why people apparently are so critical to my idea.

I'm wrong only inso far as there were also guar calves. And Frostbite Guar Pony aside, "pony guar" are an actual part of the world's bestiary. You can see them in the wild/around towns not as pets. The first guar pets were this type. The larger guar types are the new addition. So they'll most likely make more like that at some point.

VaranisArano

Carbonised wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

I would like to point out that nowhere did I ask for ZOS to upscale ALL OTHER pets to be the same size as ponies. I did mention "where it makes sense", and all I'm asking is that they provide a few OTHER pet types than just ponies in the larger size, so there's more variability to choose from.

Look, ZOS isn't even consistent with itself at this point. Guar pets used to be much larger in size. Here are some of the older guar pets:





Then suddenly a while back they stopped making guars this size, and now all the guar pets we can buy are of the much smaller size:





It would be nice of ZOS varied the size of some pets, for instance the guars, in the future, so there is the possibility to buy/obtain some of a larger size if you wanted to, instead of right now where ponies are gigantic pets and all other pet types are less than half the size of the ponies.

That's a perfect example of ZOS having larger guar pets that makes sense. There are clear, distinct differences in size from the mature guar mounts, but they are larger than the tiny guar pets recently released.

Thank you for providing pictures.

In looking at pictures of tiger cub size vs humans for my first post, I did notice that ZOS' senche cubs tend to be on the younger end of the size spectrum (not entirely surprising, as young cub = cuter for a lot of people). Real tiger cubs are still "cubs" for over a year and can be fairly large depending on when you see them.

Well it seems we do agree on this after all then, at least to some extent.

Looking at some of the older pets in the game, it's obvious they were intended to be the "dwarf" or "pony" type of a mount. They don't look like young or immature animals, and they didn't have any names such as "cubs". Then somewhere along the time of Crown Crates, they started making the "adult" animals the apex mounts, and most mounts would then have an "immature" or "child" version which was the pet (we still didn't see any immature camels, for some funny reason). Horses/ponies were the only exception to this, whereas guars were downsized to their "infant" variants, as were senches to their "cub" variants.
So now we're stuck with mostly pets = immature/infant/child version, and mount = adult. The exception to this being the horse/pony situation, where they are both adults but one is a dwarf version.
ZOS could add some variety to this model by re-introducing some of the older sizes/types of pets, such as mature, but smaller, senches and guars and possibly other types as well. The Frostbane pets are a very nice example, where all the pets are "adult" dwarf version, not children, and are of a larger size than their "cub" versions.

Yeah, like I said, I'm all for realism.

The current situation does seem to be an example as you said of ZOS deciding that every pet is now going to be the "young/infant" version...with the sole exception of ponies, which are also adult animals, just smaller than the mount-sized horses.

To compare apples to apples with the reast of the mounts, ZOS would have to be making horses/foals. Guars are a particularly apt example of this, since there are the Dunmer equivalent of horses.


So to clarify my original point, I think the size difference between the very young animals ZOS seems to be using as models for the new pets and ponies is fairly realistic...but as we've later discussed, ZOS certainly could release larger pets that are older or are their species' equivalent of ponies (adults, just smaller.)

NotaDaedraWorshipper

It bothers me that the ponies can be so big, yet the welwas and other similar pets are tiny.
I wanted a welwa for my orc, but not when are so small. No money for you ZoS!

CMDR_Un1k0rn

Leave my Shadowghost pony alone!

max_only

Thank you! I said the same thing when they released that pitiful pittance they called a Craglorn Welwa. They didn’t even call it a welwa pup to indicate its small size.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

CMDR_Un1k0rn wrote: »

Leave my Shadowghost pony alone!

I leave the ponies alone when the welwas are big enough to eat one! Not being the size of a dog.

Fischblut

I also wish we had more large pets

Good senche pet:



Why was wolfhound pet so tiny? This size is closer to wolfhound:



Pocket watcher should have been this large:



Maybe somebody liked tiny welwa and durzog pup, but I would like adult welwa and durzog:



Large ponies and guar look very nice