Mount Movement & "Physics" in Ashes of Creation

thexman

With Intrepid focusing a lot on mounts and showcasing new ones in most of their monthly video blogs, I'm curious if they ever discussed about what I would deem the most important aspect of mount gameplay, namely the actual mount movements & "physics" behind them? In most MMORPGs like WoW for example, mounts moves instantly and weightless when you turn, stop etc just like the player and with no sense of weight behind them. As a means of transportation that's fine I guess, but then using mounts doesn't really add anything fun in terms of gameplay and just acts as a means to get from point A to point B faster.
I think like most players I never really gave much thought to mount gameplay until I tried Guild Wars 2, then I realised that mounts could actually enhance the game experience instead of just acting as a faster way of traveling in the game. In Guild Wars 2 mounts have a feeling of weight to them, with them accelerating when taking off and sliding for a bit before they come to a stop etc, they also don't just turn around instantly either. It was the first time that I actually enjoyed using mounts in a MMORPG and caught myself spending time just riding around with them without a destination since it was actually fun to just ride them. Does anyone feel like that when riding mounts in other MMORPGs like WoW where mounts just turns and stops instantly?

If we would compare how mounts in most MMORPGs behaves to for example how riding creatures and driving vehicles works in pretty much every other types of game genres like racing games, RPGS, Open World Sandbox games etc, then it would be a given that having movement system like that in those genres where they lack any sense of weight and "physics" wouldn't be enjoyable. Yet it's been the standard in MMORPGs for decades. There are probably people who don't want mounts to be weighty and want them to behave like they usually do in MMORPGs, but I at least would prefer them to behave more like GW2.

Have Intrepid discussed if they have any plans to have "weighty" movements to mounts or will it be like WoW? I know they've talked about giving mounts different types of abilities, but I'm talking about the actual movement itself.

daveywavey

I can see it from both sides. It would add a little extra realism to riding, but it'd also frustrate me a little if I got myself stuck in a spot where it was really hard to get out, where the basic-MMO-ness would have just let me turn on a dime.

arsnn

Unfortunately i dont think they have the option to go the gw2 route anymore.

They released more than 40 mount cosmetic that are fairly unique and require their individual animations. I dont think it’s realistic for Intrepid to do hundreds of mounts on release to the same fidelity as Arenanet, that started out with 3 mounts and progressively added 5 more over several years.

But i still hope they will do something to make them feel good.

McMackMuck

I was hoping that mounted combat might be an option for those with a physical type (fighter/tank/rogue/ranger) for their primary or secondary archetypes. Primary (physical type) archetypes would have more usable abilities from horseback than Secondary (physical type) archetypes. I don't think that's a realistic expectation from what I've seen so far, too much rework required. I'll save that pipedream for another day.

The limited methods for fast travel make the mounts far more relevant than for games that let you TP/portal/dimdoor around the map. We are going to spend a lot more time looking at our mounts butt than we realize, depending on the camera options. I loved the first pass animation on the frog mount that I saw recently; it wasn't perfect, but there was a lot to like. I have high hopes that all mounts will have even more believable animation, but I will wait for Alpha 2 to give my assessment and feedback.

daveywavey

No reason you couldn't throw a fireball from horseback. Probably easier than firing a bow.

McMackMuck

I agree in principal that you are correct (I was probably "something-ist", indoctrinated by real world values), but it depends on the magic system and how involved manipulating the arcane is supposed to be. I would love all archetypes to have the option to spec into increasing levels of riding combat skills.

I suspect it's a mute point and we won't see mounts used for anything other than movement.

daveywavey

Well, this is from the wiki:

"Mounted combat
Certain mounts will have combat abilities.[22][12]

Players can't use their class skills while mounted.[22]
Mounts can be targeted separately from the player while mounted.[21]
Mounts can be killed by players, but can be resurrected after a certain cooldown period.[21][23]
Potions obtained from the Alchemy profession can be used to reduce the cooldown.[24][21]
Mounts that die a certain number of times within a set period might gain a debuff that requires a different material component to assist with their resurrection.[24]
If a player dies there will be a period of time before their mule despawns. Other players must kill that player's mule to be able to loot it.[25]
If a player's mule dies its corpse will contain the same percentage of lootable items as the player.[25][26]"
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Mounts#Mounted_combat

But, it's not the Mounted Combat that we're looking for.