I think horses are kinda unnecessary back in Oblivion. Without the saddle bag mod, all you can do with horses is pretty much running away from danger, and maybe feeling somewhat prestigious. Since there's fast travel, you can just ditch the horses. In chinese we call such things "chicken ribs" which have some meat but really aren't fun to eat.

My suggestions for skyrim:

1. Saddle bag, of course
2. I know horse back fighting is difficult to implement (so says the dev before oblivion was out), but we can amplify the charging damage a little bit. maybe different type of horses have different charging ability
3. Fast travel only allowed while on horse back. The reasoning being if you fast travel on foot you'll encounter dangerous situations so it's only safe to fast travel on horseback, which is faster
4. The horse needs to stop attacking the enemy. I always end up killing my horse while attacking the enemy just because he's in the damn way!
5. More realistic maneuvering animation for horses. see M&B. Oblivion horses are a joke. Remember the girl among the dev team before OB was out was talking about how she grew up with horseback riding and such? yea.
6. Make more unique (hero) horses and give them unique abilities. Such as, Mr Bucky is able to scare away all small wild animals so they won't come to hassle you while traveling.

other ideas?

Yes great idea replace horses with Ford Mustangs.
See what I did there? :teehee:


That's sounds overpowered.

I agree with 1,2 (if done right and enemies can also),4 and, 5

AND ADD DONKEYS PLEASE!

Ability to leap onto a horse's back from above.

i hope they have commands for the horse (stay, follow, come to me, etc).

i just want horses to be as good as they were in assassins creed

With Assassin's Creed's basic but very workable mounted combat, they made horses much more useful than Oblivion did. You need to be able to use a horse or mule for a wagon as well.

If somehow you can use a bow or crossbow perhaps toss a spear while riding. You could go hunting for herds of animals in the valleys and plains areas. Much like the Sarmations and Scythians.
[img]http://www.allempires.com/Uploads/Sarmatian_Knight.jpg[/img]
[img]http://images.elfwood.com/art/j/u/julianne1/scythianpc.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.mysteriousworld.com/Content/Images/Journal/2003/Autumn/Giants/parthian_horse_archer_180.gif[/img]

How bout Red Dead: Redemption instead lol?

You're Chinese? I certainly didn't expect that, but moving on...

I don't think horses should have unique abilities, but I do think that we should have more unique horses. Why should the only unkillable horse in Oblivion be restricted to evil characters? I hope that's fixed in Skyrim.

Other than that, yeah, I agree with just about everything. I hated having my horse attack enemies for me because he'd always get in the way and I'd end up killing him or getting in trouble for doing so.

Also, Oblivion devs were REALLY detailed with horse asses.

Only if you ar'nt wearing heavy armour.

i agree with the more realistic movements and the saddle bag but I think that they will have horseback fighting this time...so wait for later information about the game to make any more assumptions (you sound like your using the old engine and not the new one)...we do know that there will be horses in Skyrim and with the amount of effort they have put into this game...you will be pleased

I like your ideas, OP, except for 3 & 6.
With your idea about the horse not attacking, I think the horse should run away (although not too far), because - like you said - in Oblivion, I either accidently killed my horse, my horse was killed or my horse was so badly injured that I had to sit on it and wait on it for an hour to heal. It was damned annoying.
But Oblivion had nice, realistic horse asses.

Yes, please.

EDIT: Ooh, and I liked Shades' idea about them taking Caravans and Wagons. That was somehting that was missing in Oblivion (although all transport was), there were no caravans or carts you could go on.

mounted combat or no horses

I am all for combat on horses, but I cannot believe archery on horseback that takes years it not something you can pick up in 20min, if there was high archery then yeh

I really though horses were fine except for mounted combat, and assassins creed was kinda stupid, you could steal anyones horse and they wouldn't do a thing about it

The problems with horses in Oblivion, aside from the way they looked and animated, was they felt too big for the world they inhabited. I hope that makes sense. Compared to Red Dead Redemption, the horses in Oblivion were quite amateur.

I don't know what's people's obsession with fast travel lol.

Anyways, how about more "classes" of horses, such as battle horse, mules, and racing horses? The mules are slow but can haul lots of stuff. battle horses has more health and has better charging damage. racing horses can't carry much, but sure can run super fast.

That's a cool idea.

I have a feeling horses won't be in skyrim. The environment doesn't really call for it in skyrim.

Um, how about padded?

Idea: We haven't heard about an interactive environment. How about the ability to cut out the horse's guts and take shelter? If they go all survival, the ability to eat said horse, too :nod:

But really, wouldn't it be great if their first DLC was barding :rofl:

3 game series Bethesda is clearly aware of:
Mount and Blade: which at least myself, would have posted about in the suggestion thread as early as March last year. It is clearly the best horse combat ever in a video game.
Red Dead Redemption: best pure animation and overall feel for horse riding. Has some limited non-ranged weapon combat (with dagger) too.
Assassin's Creed Series: Horse is elegant.

If the horse option was cut altogether for reasons noted above, then no horses. These 3 games set a standard which Bethesda would clearly wish to emulate or exceed. There will be no .5 assed attempts at a mounts feature.

7. Horse anus, now in stunning high definition.

I hope I still can use my horse as a portable storage box.... Poor Shadowmare, no idea how you could move with all that armor and weapons inside you...

There's a horse in an image in the Game Informer that shows a crouched archer looking at it in a forest.

Better use for horses?

Well, my dark elf characters would just say "Eat them." :confused:

thats an elk. :facepalm: