Would you be interested in having to care for Mounts in an FE Game?

[Zkitty8]

I like the idea of different mounts having their own abilities. Maybe when you promote someone to a mounted unit you choose between a few different species and each one has advantages and disadvantages (and a different appearance). I also like the animal racing, it would fit right in alongside the arena.

Idk how to feel about mounts dying. The animal lover in me wants them to just retreat if they take too much damage, but on the other hand it gives you a reason to use the dismount feature more often and would probably make mounted units more balanced.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Maybe for the lord or avatar, and only for the lord or avatar. More than that would just pad the playtime.

[Boomhauer007]

No, the worst part of 3 houses for me was how much focus there was on not combat stuff. More of that is not something I'm interested in. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

Minigames and like elements, no. 

Horses with HP and minor stat buffs, perhaps as much as a skill, maybe a character-exclusive horse or two, is good to me. Treating horses purely as equipment isn't a bad idea as long as horse management is quick and easy to understand. Deciding what horses I want to buy and equip people with should take no more time to digest than the amount of time I spend on purchasing and distributing weapons.

3H Battalions might be case "more equipment to manage is bad" but I think thats owed entirely to the UI around Battalions.

[eclipse]

7 hours ago, Zanarkin said:

In that sense, i could get behind the idea. It would be interesting to give mounted units a few more things to worry about, given how good they tend to be. Specially when it can be so easy to ignore weaknesses in some games.

I doubt you have an issue with weapon durability.  Think of a mount with a HP bar in a similar vein.  We're not going to attempt to woo the pony, it's there to be ridden.

Ponies with random attributes added to them might be an issue, depending on said attribute and how you get them.  But I'd much prefer mounts as another type of resource, rather than another thing to train.

Edited May 7, 2020 by eclipse

[Kurt Irving]

It depends on what engine you are installing the feature into and how the data handlers are aligned. In it's simplest form you can just make the horse a holdable stat change item for the attributes but it is crude, it is the imaginative element that matters here. Now if you make a slightly different Python engine for instance it is easy as hell to add a life bar for the horse along with, well, all kinds of things really. Free form as it is just data and light amounts of handling methods. You would just have to run the derived stat calculation after equip, hit eva etc. I got it working once.

[whase]

I've been thinking about something similar for a while now, and I was hoping they'd introduce it in 3H, but sadly they didn't. Here's my idea for a separate mount and rider system:

• Mounts need to be bought with money, sometimes a new recruited unit brings their own.
• assigning a mount to a unit makes them a mounted version of their class (example: cleric -> troubadour) at the start of each chapter
• In combat they take half the damage their rider receives, if they run out of HP they either flee or die and are removed from the game.
• If the user chooser to dismount, the mount goes back to your inventory.
• Either way, if a unit chose to dismount, they cannot mount again until next chapter (so no dismount-go down stairs-mount again)
• A mounted unit gains additional movement and canto
• a mount may form a bond with the rider to receive less damage.
• maybe mounted units cannot use longer range weaponry (siege tomes/longbows) to make ranged attack canto less OP.

Personally I would love such a system and believe it adds to the strategic value.

[Kurt Irving]

Classifying long ranged tomes as heavy arcane in the some way a ballista is a heavy bow, put mildly, bow type is fair but I think a bow type with mount is as useful as they will ever get, I don't use archers due to their limitations so they say more range but the pay off isn't all that great. Mage all day block formation if you need. I think you there should just be a retrieve discarded item event added in and you can just go back and grab the mount. Like as though placed a treasure event yourself for AI notes? Kind of. Buying is a given as is movement and you can place them under the same life or death stipulation as chosen by the casual or classic setting. You could just give mounts type and weapon levels. Almost anyone can ride a normal horse but promotion unlocks a war horse of some kind of race horse type or the Wyverns or Gryphons or whatever. Using it as a promotion item seems kind of too easy.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I'd say that it could be interesting if a horse has its own HP stacked with the rider's HP.

The dealt damage would be shared (50% each) to the horse and rider.

Once the horse is dead (should have less HP than the rider logically) the rider takes 100% damage.

 

FE10 had horses in 3-3 with a HP bar, but I think it was utterly pointless since the enemies didn't attack them once the gates were opened.

Though this would be way how to get horses aside of buying.

Their stats / level could grow by surviving a chapter like Merlinus.

[Samz707]

14 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Minigames and like elements, no. 

Horses with HP and minor stat buffs, perhaps as much as a skill, maybe a character-exclusive horse or two, is good to me. Treating horses purely as equipment isn't a bad idea as long as horse management is quick and easy to understand. Deciding what horses I want to buy and equip people with should take no more time to digest than the amount of time I spend on purchasing and distributing weapons.

3H Battalions might be case "more equipment to manage is bad" but I think thats owed entirely to the UI around Battalions.

I suppose ideally this would function more like Jagged Alliance's training mechanic. (Dunno how exactly it's done in 3 Houses as I only got to just after the mock battle, which for some reason you don't actually train for but if it's like anything I've seen with the monestary it probably involves too much running around.)

You have a unit and mount sit out a battle and train together and they both improve somehow in exchange for not taking part in the battle  in a similar manner to just selecting a unit because you want take an item they picked up in the last battle out of their inventory in the GBA games before actually starting the battle.

Not sure how exactly racing would function but It'd be basically like the Arena but maybe with a lower pay-out in exchange for no threat of death. (So you just sit back and watch the animation of them racing or skip it.)

So it's just a quick function you'd do in the same menu as you're sorting your weapons before battle, maybe you can optionally watch them train together but therotically it'd be just going to a unit you're not using, selecting "Train" then the mount. (Rather than running around a large location.)

(Maybe a few story moments where there's a long down-time between combat you'll get to assign mutliple training events in the time before the fighting picks up again.)

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Samz707

[Hawkwing]

I would be down for having different kinds of mounts with their own strengths and weaknesses along with different stat buffs and other abilities, but only if the game was designed with said boosts in mind, and with mechanics and map design that kept infantry units relevant. Otherwise, it would just make mounted units even more powerful, and at this point they don't really need any more advantages.

[Kurt Irving]

Mount death is a weakness of sorts. Building or terrain lock is another. The latter is cute if you make a droppable map event for demount that the enemies can use to take it. What keeps infantry relevant is the same thing that keeps standard equipment relevant, lack of funds and then losing the item. However spear and bow lock on flying units is most realistic reach wise as well as a potentially hefty hit penalty though a charge attack power buff is good too. The other draw back is the first in, first dead if the mount dies on a rush counter, have an extra hidden crit possibility for auto mount death as well as a normal hp bar and it gets ugly for the rider. Some random stuff I could go at length. It is not game breaking.