110404-suggestion-for-later-or-not-on-mount-mechanics

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So this suggestion has been brewing up in my head a while, and to understand where it's coming from, we need to take a giant step back into the past.  As many of you know, I've been on the forums pretty regularly since launch and I try to keep an eye on criticism and distill it all into cogent suggestions that fix several problems at once, hopefully providing room to grow new systems.  Now, there's a massive set of changes to systems coming, so talking about systems changes more than I have may be somewhat counterproductive (they may have fixes, even my proposals, in the works).  And this isn't necessarily as important as anything else I've brought forward, so unless this is implementable independent of other major systems changes, it can certainly wait.
 
But let's get it on the radar.
 
I wasn't the only person a little let down the first time we got on our mounts.  I got a grinder, and found out that it goes at a decent pace for as long as I have sprint (yes, sprint, I'll get to that) pinned down.  If not, it looks like I'm idling.  This was brought up in several posts on the subject just after launch, that the mount mechanics were extremely slow.  Not only that, but the expert mount speed increase is extremely pricey.  That's fine as it goes, but since it's needed to not feel just slightly faster than a quick run, it seems like it's not giving us the option to go REALLY fast, it's forcing us to pay to go as fast as we should be.  So that was when this started brewing.  My initial suggestion was to remove sprint and make the mount speed just as fast as the sprint speed continuously.  That never happened, but there's always been something more important in the way.
 
Cut to later, when I'm trying to come up with good ideas and things to put into Wildstar to give people stuff to do in and around endgame content (to increase concurrency).  One of the major issues I run into making suggestions like this is that everything revolves around gameplay.  Setting up new tiers of gear to give people things to work on, changing elder gem caps, integrating crafting, et al.  These are game system improvements to give people more reason to run smaller group content at more continuous rates.  But something got me thinking, why is this less of a problem on Evindra, my home server?  Well, the RP server seems to attract a lot of people to set up cool stuff to do on their housing plots.  Skate parks, racetracks, bars, you name it.  We can kill time between raids doing things that have no game rewards or mechanics.  I started to think, maybe that's the answer!  Include more ancillary stuff, more minigames, more side stuff that doesn't involve swinging your rotation.  It worked well for WoW, why not Wildstar?  Wildstar, as opposed to WoW, has a much more flexible system for that kind of thing (it helps to not be ten years old).  So what to suggest first?
 
Then TheRybka posted this and this in this thread.  And I had something of an answer that could link all this together.  Hoverboards used to have their own physics, with a lot of sliding and momentum shifting.  They didn't work like other mounts, they were light and unpredictable.  They were eventually removed because their physics made them a bit overpowered for movement (I heard that you could kind of bug them and launch yourself halfways across the zone) and the sliding mechanic gave them sometimes random damage (because of how falling damage works).  I don't have all the details, but it got me thinking about this all and the idea that mounts don't necessarily have to have the same physics.
 
So here's the proposal, implementable in part or in whole whenever appropriate.
 
First, split the mounts into three categories.  Beast, Mechanical, Hoverboard.  When mounted, the action bar changes and you start using a new HP for the mount.  As in beta, when a mount runs out of HP (not much, since it's just how much gets it to stop running) you become unmounted and take half as much damage as if you'd run into something (we'll get to that).  All mount types will have their own simple LAS.  This relies on both factions having access to the same types of mounts and, as they are now, mounts being easy to get basic models of all three types of (everyone should be able to afford a beast, mechanical, and hoverboard mount so they can use whatever works best).  They'll have different uses, so it will be important that people can at least by all three basic mount types at the price they are now, which I find accessible at present.
 
For beast mounts, the mount mechanics stay the same (though they should be a little faster overall).  Sprint accounts for something reasonable on a living mount like an Equivar or Pig, animals can be made to sprint but then tire.  That makes some sense.  Also, they would move much like a character, being able to jump, turn around as need be, things like that.  Mount mechanics right now seem to work for them, and they can be thought of as maneuverable mounts used offroad in dense undergrowth and places like it.  They can also not take damage from running into objects because animals will stop themselves from running into walls (we'll get to that).  However, without sprinting, they would be the slowest and with sprinting, they'd be just faster than hoverboards.  Beast mounts, though, will have a new key for attacking (so you can get a good smack or two in on passing enemies if you want before they unseat you).  Other abilities they could have could be suggested.  Also, as they build up speed, in sprint, they gain a short centered AOE to enemies to show the damage taken when they trample (this might take a second to warm up, so people aren't exploiting it by rapid firing shift or running macros.  Beast mounts can also swim. They may become the mount of choice for PVP. as well as exploration.
 
Hoverboards get their own mount mechanics back, the wild unpredictable sliding and momentum mechanics.  They get fixed so that they aren't quite so broken (there's a ceiling to how fast and high you can go off a ramp) and the falling damage can be fixed by checking speed when you crash into something (including vertically), but they become faster than beast mounts.  More importantly, they jump higher and farther, since they are lighter.  However, they take much more damage (and damage the rider more) when you run into something at speed because there is no protection.  However, you can cross vast distances at a quick clip.  They also have a sprint (though they run out of sprint faster, it's to boost before a jump).  Any other tweaks to make them balanced would be fun.  Regardless, it would bring back that hoverboard insanity and make them fun to jump around on in skate parks again.  I imagine they'd be on more than the RP server then.  You could drop tricks onto the LAS.  It'd be the mount of choice for people who want that speed and quickness, and also the fastest accelerating mount in the game.  And, of course, they go over water.
 
Then there would be mechnicals (specifically bikes since we don't have dune buggies in the game yet, these mechanics shouldn't account for anything like a tank or APC if they ever make it into the game).  These are heavier and sturdier, and will have that beast-style AOE ability as soon as they've picked up some speed.  They also are the fastest mounts, having no sprint.  However, they have a three-speed gear shift, forcing you to pay attention to how quickly you're going before you top out speed and have to shift up (shift will be on the LAS).  Also, despite having a much higher "step" (the size an object can be that the mount will ride over it as if it were a stair), a bike would not be able to jump, making them unsuitable for hopping around places.  But they would be blisteringly quick at top speed and unmatched as travel mounts on the open road.  Though they take damage from hitting things (less than hoverboards, until at full speed, though), they tend to protect the rider to a degree.  However, they would not be able to submerge in water and will have a more limited turning radius, so they're unsuitable for bouncing around on rocks.
 
After this, you've got three kinds of mounts that can have three different kinds of "racetracks" made and three different uses for them, and that's where this can expand beyond just having a lot of change in your mount choice into having something to do between raids and PVE content.  Racetracks and minigames can be added for all of these mount types, and new "abilities" can be added to the LAS or stats to how they work (maybe just on tracks to balance PVP).  Bikes can get booster rockets that fire for set periods of time and increase speed farther, beast mounts may get new abilities for polo games or for steeplechase, and you might be able to add new tricks to your hoverboard LAS.  Players can build even more of these on their plots for their own little games (hey, maybe we can get some housing bits like "checkpoint" and "starting line").  These can be earned in game competitions with a sort of racing currency picked up only from winning these kinds of races.  It's an expansion that has a lot of potential to give us even more to do in the future when major game systems mechanics are worked out.
 
I'll open up to the floor now.  Remember that I'm not pushing for this right now in the next megadrop unless there are a bunch of mount programmers randomly sitting around doing nothing (not likely) that won't delay anything else.  And there are some mechanics I don't fully understand (because I don't know the code) that made the original hoverboard physics impossible to fairly implement, so feel free to bring them up so we can discuss possible (shot in the dark) fixes.  Also, if you have something else you'd like added (inb4 flying mounts, since they kind of kill the feeling of the world, though feel free to bring up how to make world travel more fun).
 
I do think this would make the game a little more entertaining and give us things to do that aren't revolving around the progression grind.
 
EDIT:  This just occured to me, but if you ever implement this, can we also apply our dyes to our mounts?  It'd break up the monotony of seeing someone's velocirex if they could make it electric blue with a pink saddle and white eyes.	
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You trying to make the mounts seem more realistic and sell them off as a minigame to play while we are mounted up, only thing is this wont be a minigame but one genre built in another genre and i think it will be asking too much for the devs to do right now
 
I do like the idea however i dont see it ever being implemented :(	
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			I like the concept, but I think I'd take a "light version" of your idea :lol:	
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While I like it in theory, it actively discourages people from using their favorite mount in favor of something that's more effective. This is already an issue to a much smaller extent with hoverboards being able to cross water.
 
So no thank you.
 
But by all means bring minigames for mounts in, just don't change mount mechanics this drastically.	
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			I am 100% all for the old Hoverboard physics. Please please please carbine!!!!!!!!!	
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You trying to make the mounts seem more realistic and sell them off as a minigame to play while we are mounted up, only thing is this wont be a minigame but one genre built in another genre and i think it will be asking too much for the devs to do right now
 
I do like the idea however i dont see it ever being implemented :(
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Hoverboards used to have their own physics, with a lot of sliding and momentum shifting.  They didn't work like other mounts, they were light and unpredictable.
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Sorry but this is a fantasy. That video is exceptionally misleading. Hoverboards were not radically different and better than other mounts. They looked the way they did because their height over the ground was lower, and the animations allowed for a bit more lean than they do now. Those issues caused the bugs and got changed. The only other difference was a symptom of the iterative development process. Jump height between different mount types hadn't been normalized. That's all.
 
The sliding and shifting and differences in fliction were GLOBAL. They applied to all mounts and players on foot. That also had to be changed and was.
 
The end result of those factors mean hoverboards are more 'boring' now, but they were never ever deliberately more awesome than everything else and then made boring. All the changes had to happen.
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For what purpose?  I mean, specifically, I've tried understanding what the issues were and I know them in the broad strokes.
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Supposedly fall damage.
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Supposedly fall damage.
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Yeah, I caught that.  It was either that, or because the momentum mechanic they were using to check for crash damage was reading when it wasn't.  I wasn't sure on the details of the whole thing.
 
I'd still like to see the OP stuff applied. :)
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			Well, the thing is, I think those slidy, crazy physics work well for hoverboards, but for my Velocirex?  It'd be nice to keep at least some mounts as they are, so that you have mounts that can fill a few roles.  The current mounts are great for Wilderrun, but boring for Malgrave.	
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			Faster mounts. That's what I'd like to see.	
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Faster mounts. That's what I'd like to see.
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What if Carbine took fall damage off of sliding, and put it all on falling..... Physics... how does it work?
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