Mad 1337 Horse skills

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Lethandis

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I was just thinking that it would be great if you could really become a master horseman in the game. If your ride skill affected more than raw speed and turning on the mount. It could also determine things such as: Deceleration while climing a grade, angle and speed of decline one can go down without the horse falling and crippling itself, and the height of your horse's jumps. I think this would make it really cool to invest heavily in the ride skill. I had this idea suddenly while reading the Horse Rearing thread, and the scene from "Man from Snowy River" leapt to mind where he charged down a cliff that was perhaps a 70 degree down angle while the other riders, all good horsement, looked on in amazement. Of course, the degree you could take this to would need to stay in the realistic feel of the game.

Climbing: Your horse could lose less speed when hitting inclines, thus allowing you to keep a couched lance on slight inclines, and use steeper hills to outrun other cavalry.

Descending: Make down grades of greater than 10% leathal to most horses at faster than a walk speed, because they are. However, allow riding skill to counteract this, and a player with really high ride could go down nearly (not completely, but close) sheer cliffs at a gallop without losing his mount.

Leaping: Let horses jump about as much as they do for a character with the minimum ride skill to mount them. However, skill that exceeds the minimum ride skill would increase the height (and distance due to speed, so no need to increase that separately) of the horse's leaps. Each horse could have a limiting factor on how high it could jump. I'd suggest an algorithm something like:
Maximum_Jump_Modifier = (Mount Maneuverability + 10) - Armor.
Distance_of_JumpNormal_Horse_Jump * (1*Maximum_Jump_Modifier).
Also, a horse should be able to absorb a bit of an impact on the landing, not an insane ammount, but allow for slight down-grades. I remember riding accross a clearing, and there was a small hill, we're talking mole-hill size, so I decided a playful jump was in order. . .goodbye spirited courser. Now, had I attempted to jump a horse in plate barding off even a slight grade, wearing plate armor myself, I'd fully expect it to snap it's legs. However, wearing leather myself at the time, and riding an unarmored, spirited arabian style horse. . .I'd figure it could hop down a slight distance. . . :???: So, I'd suggest making fall damage applicable to horses, something like:
Fall_Damage = ((Armor + Character_Inventory_Weight)*Distance Fallen) - ((Mount_Speed_Rating +Maneuverability)*Ride Skill).
Thus, your more agile horses, carrying less, could hop down short distances with a skilled rider, but your bohemeths would need to keep close to the ground.

Edit: No making fun of my pseudo-code guys, just illustrating an idea, not submitting a logic plan.
 
That's pretty good. I still see many parts of leaping horses to be supernatural already. On plains, I can bunny hop on horseback and it's not very realistic.

I do find jumping down a slight hill crippling your horse to be a pain.

The go up hill with little loss of speed is already in place with the fact that you are going quite a bit faster than if you had low riding skill.
 
Well, your average person who knows how to sit in the saddle and not fall off can get onto a champion race horse and won't be able to ride it as fast as a jockey, nor will he be able to get it to leap like a jumping competition horse. Now, I'm not saying the horses should reach those extremes, because those are doing it in ideal conditions, and that's all they're trained to do. However, those events sprung from training horses for the battlefield, so it stands to reason that war horses could do some of it, with a rider that knew how to urge them correctly, lean properly in the saddle, and shift his own weight at just the right moment. I know a plate-armored knight and horse wouldn't be doing those things, however, mongols and arabs are legendary on horseback, some of the arabian horses could reputedly leap another horse and rider. Whether or not they could get that high, I can't say, but even today's arabian stallions are cherished as the most agile horses in the world, and they weren't bred that way as a novelty, the curved scimitars and shamshirs of the desert people were feared for a reason, and much of it was that their horses could bring those blades at you from any direction. The mongol armies of Ghengis Khan were said to charge down sheer mountain grades into an unexpecting valley, and vanish over the ridge before any could marshal a response. Now, granted, part of such legend is fear and exaggeration, however, other parts are from the fact that mongols lived on their horses, and could steer them down paths that others would quail in fear to think of walking on their own feet.
 
you could implement different events with these modifiers, such as horse races in the arena or a new map that is a little straighter, like a dragway.
 
That incline thing sounds good to me (and should maybe be applied to running people, too). However, you can already charge uphill for awhile if you have a fast enough horse.
 
Im wasnt sure where to add my idea, but I didnt think it deserved a separate topic.

I am playing a mounted archer character, and have a scimitar for backup. Usually I will go up against steppe bandits that have many arrows & javelins. So I am forced to carry a shield if I am planning to win. This is bad for me since I can only carry one quiver of arrows.

So...what if I could lean off one side of the horse to protect myself instead of relying on the shield? This would be the perfect answer to my problem...the duration of the lean could be determined by strength, and the speed of recovery (getting back on the horse) could be determined by agility. Of course the horse will take most of the hits instead of me, so this may only work if additional armour for the horse is also implemented.

Is this a reasonable alternative for those who want to have as many arrows as possible and therefore have to leave their shield behind?
 
Agree just as much with gnu, I suggest adding a 'lean left / lean right' control
*On the horse:
lean left / right (and holding down the key) will make a person 'lean' in the saddle to avoid getting hit with missiles (from one side) and to increase the range of how far your weapons can reach (ie. if you lean and slash with the scimitar, it would be able to hit an enemy much further off.
holding both keys together will make you crouch low over your horses neck, which would make it a lot harder for archers directly in front of you to hit you. Of course they can still aim for the horse isntead.
*On foot:
lean left / right will make you 'dodge' (fast side-jump) missiles or charges. Since you can't spam press the key, (maybe once every 2 seconds or so) you will actually have to wait untill the last minute to dodge a charging cavalry, or see the arrow flying at you to 'dodge' it.
holding both keys together could act as 'crouch' or could be totally ignored ::grin:
Personal view on the matter, best I could come up with. Anybody else willing to think of something? ::grin:

As for the original post, 100% agree with it and can't really improve on much ::smile: would go very well with what I suggested about horse stamina
 
Agree just as much with gnu, I suggest adding a 'lean left / lean right' control
*On the horse:
lean left / right (and holding down the key) will make a person 'lean' in the saddle to avoid getting hit with missiles (from one side) and to increase the range of how far your weapons can reach (ie. if you lean and slash with the scimitar, it would be able to hit an enemy much further off.
holding both keys together will make you crouch low over your horses neck, which would make it a lot harder for archers directly in front of you to hit you. Of course they can still aim for the horse isntead.
*On foot:
lean left / right will make you 'dodge' (fast side-jump) missiles or charges. Since you can't spam press the key, (maybe once every 2 seconds or so) you will actually have to wait untill the last minute to dodge a charging cavalry, or see the arrow flying at you to 'dodge' it.
holding both keys together could act as 'crouch' or could be totally ignored ::grin:
Personal view on the matter, best I could come up with. Anybody else willing to think of something? ::grin:

As for the original post, 100% agree with it and can't really improve on much ::smile: would go very well with what I suggested about horse stamina

Maybe, if you have a melee weapon equiped, both of the lean buttons would make you crouch down low over your horse, however, if you had a ranged weapon, possibly pressing them would make you stand in the stirrups or w/e they're called, so you can shoot farther to the right :smile:

Also, about the side-stepping & crouching on foot, I totally, 100% agree. However, the speed at which you perform these movements should be lowered, depending on encumberance. So that a man carrying a longsword, no shield (:wink:), and leather armor would be much more capable of dodging and ducking attacks than a man with full plate armor and a 2 handed battle axe.

If something like this were to be put in to the game, then I'd have even more of a reason to ride around on a courser with not but leather armor and a nomad sabre! Shields be damned! It takes skill to block with a weapon!
 
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