I used my horse all the time, but it recently died. I'm sorta sad about that. It was an awesome horse. Kicked my enemies in their faces and stuff. RIP.

I use them occasionally.

I answered the multiple choice poll aswell, and the reason being is that the reason I only use them occasionally is because of the horse AI. Horse? Why are you running into my steady stream of flames? If you must attack something, attack the bowman over there. Geez!

Horses are good to get me to places. I am using them to discover new places so I can fast travel to them later. I avoid NPC's and creatures by Galloping..

But the biggest disapointment, No combta on horses. If i have a MACE or SPEAR. I should be able to run by someone or something and club there face. i could understand getting knocked off, or horse damage. But not being able to participate in cobat.for thousands of years on earth warriors practiced horseback COMBAT!!!! From bows and arrows, Jousting / all kinds of awesome hoseback combat..

I think some DLC combat should add that.. That would really make horses awesome! cuurently they are taxes, not much better than the car guy who takes your gold.. Getting off where you want is nice, but the horse does get attacked to much and runs away.. once they flee, i than have to fast travel to a stable to get my horse bacl..

A first person view would be nice. Also the jump is a little unresponsive and like being on foot you can't jump while sprinting. God only knows why cus I'm pretty sure Beth has no clue lol!

I bought one
it died
I bought another one
it died
i'm not buying anymore horses

I don't use a horse because I hate the forced 3rd person.

well they are kinda pain, but i still use them, i love how they feel when ur walking in some neat mounain area, or take screenies while pressing space and also they can climb almost anyhing up.

pros:
-nice looking
-insane climbing cababilities
-little faster than running

cons:
-horrible turning angle
-slow mounting
-enemies see you from miles away
-cant fight when mounted
-dies too easy from fall dmg, other than that he pwns bandits etc.
-stupid AI "hi dragon, ill try [censored] kill you now, just coz im horse"

Haven't bothered with horses. I have a hard enough time having my followers fall behind while I'm on foot. Plus, I don't need to mount/dismount everytime I see something interesting to interact with.

This would be lots of fun. Then as you leveled up, your horse wouldn't be left behind and start being less useful (when you can run faster than your horse there's not much point having him).

Also it would be easier to grow attached to him and be upset enough when he died to load from an earlier save. Since you put a lot of work into him.

What would also be nice would be to be able to buy gear for him, and store it in the tack shed of the stable at your house. You could buy better and better gear, and enchant it too.

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One point I have in this conversation is people complaining that they are not realistic enough, and in the same breath complaining that they can't run over rocks well enough. Duh! Horses are not supposed to be able to run over rocks at all!

I don't use horses, purely because they're not much faster than going on foot.

Maybe it's just my imagination but they seem a bit slow.

I always feel like I'll move faster on foot, so that's what I do.

I haven't tried horses yet in Skyrim, but from Oblivion, I learned it's just no use to even buy one. It can die, it doesn't work "offroads", it gets in the way during combat, when being attacked, you must climb off ect. Personally, I also am not ashamed of using the fast travel option, so it won't even help getting quickly from one end of the map to the other and honestly, when I am travelling around to find new places or areas I haven't been to yet, I want to explore and experience the gameworld and not run through it on a horse.

Maybe itworks better in Skyrim, but with all the rocks, mountains, marshs ect., I somehow doubt it.

Maybe I'll have a travelling merchant type of character one day, he might have use for a horse.

My horse is 100x better now with the mod below. Sprint speed is just perfect. Before it felt like my horse was slower then my character run speed. Feel sorry for the console gamers ..... :tongue: At the poster above me, while Skyrim's horses could still use some work, it's a lot better then the Oblivion version. Just make sure you download the mod below assuming you on PC. Better yet try the vanilla one first then try this mod, amazing difference.

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=934

Lets just say "Storm call" and horses don't mix.

I cant vote on your poll because I really like them, but do not use them.

I dont use them because they are a bit clunky, hinder me in sneak attacking and companians cant keep up.

But..
I do really like that there are horses in the game.
I love the way they look, it really fits northern highlands. I really enjoy walking on the road and passing a noble on horseback, or those rare instances you see wild horses. I like walking up to a city and the first thing I see is the walls and the stables.

For me, it is flavouring to the game. I think the game would be lesser if they werent in.

I think that while horses are ok there is a lot of things that the developers should have implemented. Things such as ~
whistle to call the horse over
the horse stays where you dismounted instead of wandering off
a quick way of mounting and dismounting (perhaps by holding the sprint key/button?)
horses don't attack unless provoked and actually has a flight response to be attacked

EDIT typos

Don't use horses. For all of the reasons you gave. There's no reason for horses to go charging after foxes, goats or other stuff. They respond rather slowly and gathing on or off of them goes too slowly. Other than that my current horse, Frost, is completely broken. It's stuck in an animation (even after fast-travelling) with it's mouth open and it's tail pointing straight back like it's peeing. If I get on the horse I get a loading screen, followed by a loading screen, followed by a loading screen, etc etc.

I heard Shadowmere is in the game as well and might use that for a bit.

I like their animations and how they look, but their cons outweigh their pros. I can't use them to carry some items, there's no mounted combat and its painful slow to dismount and irritating I'm basically helpless for a few seconds while a bear or something is attacking me and taking half my health.

I love the Horses. I like and enjoy exploring Skyrim from horseback. They look cool and when I get in a pickle with creatures I don't want to fight, I just run away.

The only thing I don't really like is the fact that they are erratic when it comes to creatures. Why on earth does my horse so desperately want to engage in melee combat with creatures when I have dismounted? Why when I am mounted does it stand idly by and let itself be killed? There are annoying questions that need to be answered.

Other than that, the only other downside is that Companions don't ride horses. This bothers the crap out of me. I either don't take a horse, or I don't take a companion.

This. I wouldn't mind not being able to cast my spells while on my horse if not for the mount/dismount issue. Not being able to pick up alchemy ingredients is a deal breaker too.

Basically it was the constant dismounting every 5 seconds that made it not worthwhile to own a horse. That and I like to be sneaky

I... urm... lost my horse I was travelling to Winterhold and was almost there. I got jumped by some ice wraiths and after I dismounted the horse to kill them, my horse attacked one and ran off into the distance. The last I saw of my horse was it being launched into the air (jumped??) and then it was gone. I searched for ages but to no avail, not even a corpse. I think it went over the cliff

I probably won't buy another one. It was annoying to have it run off and attack things randomly. Maybe if they were cheaper. But if you're unlucky, you'll lose 1000g every time you go out on your horse as it will probably find a way to die.

I prefer to walk everywhere as horses don't allow you to sneak (obviously). I'd rather go undetected and be a bit slower than drawing all kinds of unwarranted attention and ending up having to dismount.

The only way horses could become useful is if you could fight from horseback. That would make encounters while riding a whole lot less tedious and annoying. Until that function is added into the game (or next game) I will never consider riding a horse, whether I have a sneaky character or not.

In Oblivion I took my horse every where even before horse mods improved them. In Skyrim horses are an abomination I've tried several time's and just roll back before purchase. I like the look of the horses everything else about them in Skyrim is horrific.

Horse turning like a spinning top.
Can't do anything on a horse, like talk to npcs or give orders.
Followers don't mount and walk faster than horse so always bumping into the rear.
Horses fleeing and wandering.
Horses fighting and getting in the way.
To long to dismount.
No first person view
No saddlebags for storage.
No horse commands like stay or follow.

Its also time for mounted combat and can easily be balanced since horses die and are expensive. I don't remember it being OP in Oblivion with Deadly reflex but my game also had triple spawns to make it harder.

I like to explore, horses are too slow, I can't be in first person, they are fearless warrior etc etc

No horse for me.