Should mount abilities be impacted by character size?

tautau

Riding mounts across the world, through the oceans and (perhaps) in the air are fun things to do. But I am wondering, should mounts be impacted by character size? After all, in the 'real world' a 400-pound fellow cannot ride a little pony.

So, my question is this; If someone chooses to make their character one of the larger races or a large, muscle bound and heavy toon, shouldn't that increased weight slow their mounts somewhat? Conversely, if we build a petite toon and/or choose a race which weighs less, shouldn't that make our mounts a bit faster? Not a lot, but an elf on a horse might run at 102 speed, a human at 100, an orc at 98.

Maybe there would be some animals which would refuse to let a Tulnar ride them.

Sure, speed spells ought to still help, as would levelling the animal up, giving it a better saddle and training its movement and strength related skills. But a 250-pound orc warrior ought not to ride the same horse as fast as a 100-pound elf maiden. The same would go, it seems to me, for flying and swimming mounts. Perhaps a little elf could train a dragonfly to carry him, but the same dragonfly would never get a Conan lookalike off the ground. The same with riding a dolphin, smaller loads allow it to swim faster and there might be an absolute limit on its capacity....potentially including carried items.

The downside of this would obviously be increased complexity. Some players would be frustrated that their choices came with trade-offs. It might make some races slightly less attractive to play. It would make cavalry tactics more complex.

Is there an upside at all? A few odd players, like myself, might like the increased complexity and realism (I know realism in a fantasy game is an oxymoron). The genetics of breeding tamed animals would become more important, if you can breed warhorses for orcs you can sell them for a lot, for example. If you choose to play a small, fast race (like an elf), your lower strength is mitigated. We already have this in-game with lower strength often offset by higher dexterity, speed and other stats, so this is arguably a natural extension of existing game mechanics.

It seems reasonable to see elves flying on dragonflies, but not orcs doing so.

Azherae

No.

Any choice of this type leads to some of the most annoying min-maxing in the game, because there is no obvious benefit offered the other way.

And if there was, it wouldn't prevent that, only change the way players perceive the meaning of things. It's bad for game design. Your choices should matter, but only in situations where they are choices you expected to matter, and MMOs do not generally have 'your weight' matter explicitly to your mount's speed, for the exact reasons of 'it leading to min-maxing in ways that obstruct an experience'.

"For every bonus, there must be an equal/comparable/opposite bonus."

While the above is subjective, not paying attention to it fails because as soon as the min-maxing happens on a large scale, the immersion one gains from doing it then vanishes.