Mounts, roads and the weather/season

neuroguy

I always have thought that riding your mount on the road should give you some speed boost. Since nodes leveling up builds bridges, roads etc, it would kind of make sense and there could be even tiers of roads (a metro might have better roads that give a higher speed boost). It also makes routes interesting to pick, as the cost of "exploring" would be potentially losing the speed buff from the roads that may get you to your destination faster. Similarly, you can set the route of your caravan on the road for a speed boost or pick a route without roads that may be slower but maybe less likely to be attacked, although I believe this is already planned to be a thing in the game.

I also like the idea of the game rewarding having different mounts with the weather system. Some mounts may be better suited for hot climates and do well in a desert region while others may be wooly and do well in cold regions. To be optimally fast in a given part of the world, the right type of mount should be used (or some items like the saddle etc) to make your mount more suited for the local environment. I think this would be quite minor, and not too annoying and would add to the game's immersion. It also gives people an excuse to use/seek out more than 1 mount and I think that's a good thing. Again, I think there are already some plans for the season to impact caravans but I think it would be cool if that was extended to mounts as well.

Thoughts?

tautau

Two thumbs up.

The underrealm is impacted by weather and seasons, in the wet season some underground paths may be blocked by water. Above ground mountain passes will be closed by snow, rivers will freeze and turn into roads or dry up in summer...though we don't know that last one for sure.

Yes, your mammoth mount ought to be more useful in winter and mountains, just like your fish mount will help you in ocean caravans or turn rivers into roads for you on land.

McShave

I hope seasons actually do have an effect in the world. I like the idea of visual, gameplay, and physical world changes with different times of the "year" (year as in Verra universe time). One issue I see is that if you look at the world map, you have desserts right next to plains right next to jungle, and there is a part of the map that is permanently winter it looks like?

I tried to copy paste an image i did in MSPaint, but I can't copy paste to here lol

Dygz

1: It's Alpha.
2: How do you show changing seasons on one static map?
3: It is kinda fun to see geography change slightly over time in the Alpha One Preview, even though it's due to Nodes, rather than due to seasons.
4: Ashes is High Fantasy with High Magic and extant gods. Geography can be however the gods want it to be.

Maph

I am all down for weather/climate making a difference in mounts, and possibly also resources.

I think the roads already effect caravan speed. Effecting mount speed would also be super cool.