Since the new patch, I've noticed that when sprinting on a mount, once the stamina bar runs out, the mount resumes it's non-sprint running speed. Previously, the behavior had been that once riding stamina dropped to zero, the mount continued to sprint, but your character had absolutely no resistance to being knocked off by the slightest enemy attack.

Historically, I can remember when mount sprinting dropped when riding stamina was exhausted -- this was how the game played when I started, right at console launch. Then, somewhere along the way it changed to the way it's been for a long time -- riding speed skill determined speed and sprint-speed, and riding stamina determined only how much resistance you had to being knocked off your mount. So infinite sprint on a mount was possible at the cost of being unable to escape pursuit once riding stamina was gone.

I'm trying to recall if the riding stamina change was originally a bug or a planned change with a patch -- and I can't remember for the life of me.

So the new question is, of course, was this reversion to the earlier mount stamina behavior (mount slows down when riding stamina is zero) an intended change in Update 23, or is it a bug? Either there's nothing in the patch notes about it, or I'm blind and missing something.

For fully-leveled riding skills with maximum stamina and maximum speed, the change is almost unnoticeable. You can sprint continuously across nearly half a zone, and when the riding stamina runs out and the speed drops, it's noticeable but not all that bad.

But for a new player, or a new alt that hasn't leveled riding skills by much, it's a huge change. Your mount is slow, and can only sprint briefly -- not even all the way across a town -- before your speed drops by half, and then you'll have to wait for several seconds to recover riding stamina before you can do much more than lunge forward by a few paces. That trash mob you're trying to escape will likely kill you.

Anyhow, I noticed it on multiple characters while playing after the update come down, and several of my guildies have also noticed it. So if it's a bug, it's not isolated. If it's a change, I haven't found the precise documentation.