That is the big issue with athletics its automatic, it does not matter what your build is, if you play for a while you will become fast. The skill was a joke.

If they are in. I would hope there can be a wait/follow command. Thus avoiding stalking.

High athletics alone did not make you super human fast, plus just re-due how athletics works. As in dont have it effect overall speed, just stamina. Obviously speed is out in Skyrim, but I can think of workarounds. I wont get into how faster than Earthly human speed and jumping is totally realistic in TES.

I didn't like mounts, but I can see how some people would. It would be better if improved, but with Oblivions implementation it was nearly useless (for me at least).

And that stalking was a bit terrible.
"I didn't want you Shadowmere! Go away!"
*Shadowmere continues to walk towards you*
"Die Shadowmere! Just die, your worthless and I want to see your corpse roll down a cliff, thats how much I hate you Shadowmere!"
*Shadowmere continues to walk towards you*
"Screw this"
*Character deleted*

The issue the automatic nature of it, its a passive gain. You can't help but use, even with your fix it still would be an auto gain. Its just silly and counter to the idea that you control you characters destiny and what kind of person they are.

This is also how I felt.

All I can say to keeping attributes just because they were in the game before even though they have been replaced with a new system is...

What does that have to do with mounts? More Like "I did everything with one character and made a JOAT, therefore I dont see a reason to use it." The same way sneaking would be mediocre to a warrior, or security mediocre for a mage. People make different builds. Cutting something because you particularly didnt use it is dumb.

I feel like we need to give Xarnac a break because he has stated that they need to fix horses. Now I don't necessarily agree on what needs to be fixed but that is because I have my own opinion on what would make a good horse in Skyrim.

I agree. I never played a mage character in TES, but I don't think magic should be cut.

Theres nothing else to do, lets brainstorm and make it better. Its not hard. Lets balance it. You and I, right now.

I propose mounted combat. All weapons and spells are capable of inflicting damage from mounts. You could base this on the base weapon/spell skills themselves. Have perks, or have it determined by stamina. Your thoughts on improving it?

Well everyone wandered into the attribute talk because the attribute speed and the skill athletics was really what made some people think mounts were useless because you could run faster than horses.

Also, I think you missed the point of the quote, it's talking about attributes mainly but can go with other features. The point is, if the feature is broken or basically useless (this would be attributes) and really didn't end up differentiating your character from another and a new system that does what the old system does and more, then why not upgrade to the new system from the old system. Upgrading to the new system and keeping the old system, as was stated by Leonin, just fosters mediocrity in the game and will most likely end up breaking the game with redundant stat boosts on top of another stat boost and make everyone too powerful and make the game so easy a joke. It's a slippery slope to keep an old system and add it to a new system that has the same function, your just doubling up.

I would like to see horses to be used as a way to move faster for a slower more encumbered character (making it very hard to matchthe speed of a horse on foot.). Also I think there should be some negative for casting a spell/swinging a sword from a moving horse. I believe that a lower chance to hit from horseback (or if you don't like dice rolls: less damage or effectiveness from horseback.)

I agree mounted combat is good, the only issue I see with it, is how to make combat on foot still matter. I guess horses could not go into dungeons with you and with SR having more passive wildlife it would make it even less of an issue.

As for perks this is one of the reasons I think having miscellaneous perks in a good idea, like FO were you could gain some perks through quests,etc. Not just leveling up.

Yet its not useless, its based on your build. Something you've never understood in any of my posts apparently. We all dont play like X person. And instead of being against it because I personally didnt play that way is not a reason to cut it for others that did.

Significantly faster than people, sprint button gallops for significantly more speed.
Extra speed of the horse increases damage, being stationary would reduce damage (because of the reduced ability to swing your arm, etc). This makes it cumbersome in battle.
"Frightening" a horse could cause it to buck, knocking you off.
Can't block while on horse back, individual swings are slower

Running out of ideas.

I believe their should be a penalty for mounted conflict making on foot combat better or making horses really hard to get.

Nice ideas, now balance them for the balance people. Damage would be based on your correlated mounted combat skill level and or perks related to such. Stamina could effect your chance of getting knocked off your horse.

But that just sounds tack on and counter intuitive, if I am on horse back fighting I should be even more of a badass than on foot. I think not being able to go in dungeons, more passive wildlife and perhaps some areas(like mountains) where horse may not be able to go, will be a fine balance, combat on foot would still be the main way to fight.

If the horses were like this I would not ever complain about them!

And Kefka: True I hadn't thought of that... Although the ideas presented above are better then mine anyway.

And we aren't even getting paid for this.

I was thinking that the increased damage with increased speed would force the player to attack in strafing runs, making combat a bit more cumbersome. Perhaps poor turning at high speeds, forcing you to slow down or be in a very large open area. That should discourage some horse combat, although some people would be good at it.

Definitely need a chance to get thrown off the horse.

That could just be annoying could the horse buck you off in RDR, I know Todd thought a lot of the horse riding in that game.

The turning and tight quarters issues I thought were just assumed, you need more space to use a horse in combat.

May be just no blocking well on horseback instead of getting thrown off. That way you will be at a disadvantage if you are on horseback right next to an enemy.

Being thrown off should be unlikely, but it should be possible under the right circumstances. Now the question is what are the right circumstances, and how often will that occur.


I might not even be getting the game, certian design decisions have seriously questioned my potential purchase.
Im just that dedicated to a good game. And there are no games as amazing as TES can be.
Open world design philosophy is the best thing to happen to games since graphics.