Horses Getting Tired

[Kiyaani]

It seems horses are getting tired recently just from general use. You can't go from Shadgard to Mistral without the horse becoming exhausted, but you could walk the same distance with your character and have no problem other than food. If there's a need to change horse energy due to combat issues that's fine, but I'd like that to be kept separate from travel use.

[Rias]

Horses getting tired from being ridden across the wilderness is intentional. The numbers will be tweaked for sure - remember this is still alpha, and the players are essentially our playtesters! Right now it does seem like they're tiring too quickly.

You could walk the same distance, sure, but you're assumed to be walking the wilderness, not running or sprinting it. When characters ride horses, it's assumed the horses are moving at a decent clip (not outright galloping) significantly above walking speed. Keep in mind it also takes the rider's encumbrance into account - yes, this means people who carry a lot of junk and/or wear a lot of heavy armor will tire out their horses more quickly.

Regarding feedback: First, thanks to Kiyaani for the demeanor and attitude of her post. It was calm, level-headed, and informative about what she thought. I would suggest others follow the example. My attention was directed to some outrage over chat (that GMs infrequently listen/pay attention to, I'll remind everyone) where comments were little more than expressions of outrage, anger, and claims that this mechanic was ridiculous, as well as other profanity-laced expressions of disapproval.

I want to share a little psychological self-analysis in this regard.

When I hear things like ...
- "This is stupid."
- "Wow, this is just wrong."
- "What the [expletive] is this?!"
- "Absolutely ridiculous."
- "This needs to be changed right now."
... when I hear comments like that regarding something I've done, being the wretched and prideful man that I am, my first thought reaction is often "Oh yeah? Well screw you, too!" I'm then tempted to angrily ignore the issue and move on to something else. I know this is wrong. I know this is petty. I wish I could change that and grow a thicker skin and be this stoic thinker who looks beyond petty offense and delves into the core meaning of comments like this and just deduces, "This is displeasing people, and I should consider looking into the issue." Unfortuately, my brain launches immediately into defensive mode due to coming under such critical and hostile attack and says, "Screw those guys, they're just being jerks." I don't really think that way about you people, I sincerely don't - but that's what my brain seems to instinctually say, and it dramatically lowers the chances that I'll seriously reconsider the issue anytime soon, mostly out of childish arrogance and pride. Even if I'm obviously in the wrong! Maybe for some reason I was up too late one night, and I changed all bladed weapons to do rake damage only. If people start lobbing profanity and inferred accusations of stupidity at me, my brain's natural reaction is going to be to say, "Hah! Well I'm sticking to the change anyway, just to prove to these grouches that I can't be bullied into changing things just because they're feeling grumpy."

Now on the flip side, when I hear things like ...
- "This might need some reconsideration, because reason(s) X (Y, Z) ..."
- "I disagree with this new change/implementation because [reason(s)] ..."
- "I'm not sure this is the best way to achieve what you're going for. Maybe as an alternative you could [suggestion(s)] ..."
... when I hear things like that, I'm not going to lie - my childish and arrogant pride still says, "Hey, these punks are disagreeing with what I did and they're just being grouchy!" but then my rational side says, "Well hang on a second, pride, there are a lot of complaints and they gave plenty of reasons why they're unhappy, so let's go over those reasons and try to undertsand why, and we'll see if we can tweak (or possibly even remove) things in an attempt to maintain balance between what we're trying to achieve here, and what makes the players enjoy the game."

TL;DR: Expressions of outrage, accusations of ridiculosity or stupidity, and profanity in general will significantly lower my likelihood to sympathize with that person's case. Complaints/criticisms that are informative, and contain suggestions of alternatives when possible, tend to make me immediately begin reconsidering the matter.

[Evelyn]

Whilst I understand this change, it does seem a little excessive... Maybe they can get tired less quick on the roads and more in the wilderness? :)

[Rias]

The fatigue rate has been decreased a bit.

A tip: When your horse is getting tired, hop off and lead it for a while.

A reminder: While I don't necessarily want horses needing to rest from Shadgard to Mistral Lake, keep in mind that lorewise, the two settlements are very far apart. There are multiple towns/outposts/ruins in the distance between them, and even those places have several leagues of wilderness between them. It's not just a hop, skip and a jump across the suburban city line. That's a long way for a horse to run without resting, especially when carrying a burden.

[Evelyn]

Thanks for looking into things Rias, I guess it's all about finding a balance!

[Rias]

Considering all the hullabaloo from before, I was hoping for some more discussion on this. I didn't say I didn't want to hear complaints/opinions, I'd just prefer them to be informative and constructive. Thoughts on the current fatigue rate? It's okay to say you think it's awful - just say why!

[Kiyaani]

I haven't been riding around too much, but from last I checked the rate of exhaustion was already much improved.

[Stranger]

I don't really ride much, in game, so I am quite aloof from this problem but perhaps we could have some horses that travel better and some horses that fight better.

If I recall the big heavy warhorses, such as the destrier, were awful for the riders due to their very bumpy trot. This would often tire the rider and leave them exhausted by the time they reached their destination.
Good: Can fight and carry heavy armor, can carry heavy loads.
Bad: Tires the rider, slow when burdened.

Vice versa there is the palfrey. This horse has a very smooth ride, but is quite small.
Good: Smooth ride, quick to travel.
Bad: Not very large, cannot carry heavy armor.. easily, cannot fight.



[tangent]
When it come to horses and fantasy games, I have always found them annoying. They take time to mount/dismount, they normally pull attention when I am trying to be sneaky and they die.. OFTEN. I am not just referring to CLOK but ALL games. In skyrim I would always avoid the horses but I will admit Arvak always made me smile. (Such a good horse.)
[/tangent]

[Elystole]

I haven't taken my horse out riding in a few days, so I haven't played much with the most recent changes. It was jarring when I tried to ride from Shadgard to Mistral Lake on the road and he suddenly collapsed underneath me.

I think that to accurately discuss this subject we need to know two things: How fast are horses moving? Just how much distance is covered by a wilderness room?

Horses getting tired from being ridden across the wilderness is intentional. The numbers will be tweaked for sure - remember this is still alpha, and the players are essentially our playtesters! Right now it does seem like they're tiring too quickly.

You could walk the same distance, sure, but you're assumed to be walking the wilderness, not running or sprinting it. When characters ride horses, it's assumed the horses are moving at a decent clip (not outright galloping) significantly above walking speed.

The first thing I thought of when I read this is that horses have at least four different gaits. Elystole goes everywhere with his horse, and I'd rather key-in "horse walk" or something and drop my speed than ride my horse into the ground. The other thing I thought of is that horses are made for long-distance travel and can trot, which is about twice as fast as people walk, for hours. That's their default speed, and I think a horse at a trot should tire as quickly as a person who is walking. Or, to put it another way, a horse at its default speed should be able to travel twice as far as a person can before exhaustion sets in. It's been a while since I went walking around in the wilderness, but I don't remember getting tired as much as hungry. Maybe that needs to be looked at...

So if I were to make a list of changes it'd look something like this (and some of these may have already been implemented):

• Fatigue rates for people who are travelling in the wilderness should be adjusted and they should also take encumbrance into account.
• Horses should have higher encumbrance thresholds than people, but their encumbrance includes their tack, barding, and load, plus the rider and all their encumbrance.
• Horses at a walk (the speed you get whenever "you slow down to not leave a member of the group behind") should tire less quickly than people at the same speed and relative encumbrance.
• Horses default to a trot which is twice as fast as a person walking but only wears them out as quickly as walking does for people.
• Maybe make a "horse walk/trot/whatever" command if you want to slow down or speed up your horse.

I do want to say that, for the most part, I like the change. I just think it needs (needed?) some tweaking so that horses maintain the advantages they're supposed to have (speed and endurance) to pay for their disadvantages (expense, care, and lack of stealth).

[Jawbleak]

This has been a point of frustration for me, recently. Has there been any consideration to having the rider's Ride skill play a part in the fatigue rate? While work is obviously work, a skilled rider can better conserve a horse's strength, while an unskilled rider can exhaust the same horse more easily.

[Lavi]

I also see the cost of a war-horse to be part of the issue. it used to be you paid a good amount of money because it's good to travel with due to armor encumbrance and the fact that Mercenaries, and Templars, need them for combat. With the recent changes it is difficult to get a lot done in either case. So that week you put into getting the war-horse isn't really worth it if you get an armored person on that horse for combat to have it pass out from the weight. You can lead it, but then with the fact you are wearing a lot of armor you are losing at times 15 energy per movement. it took me 3 times as long to take someone from mistral to Shadgard because of the energy loss. so those things might be something to consider. The advantages of both those things get a bit muddled when the time and effort to obtain the horse that's going to collapse comes into play. Regular horses I can see this but War horses are trained to carry armored people; however, i'm not very familiar with the history of a lot of things with war-horses. just a few thoughts

[TwistedAkai]

This has been a point of frustration for me, recently. Has there been any consideration to having the rider's Ride skill play a part in the fatigue rate? While work is obviously work, a skilled rider can better conserve a horse's strength, while an unskilled rider can exhaust the same horse more easily.

I won't pretend to be an expert, but I'm fairly certain that's done primarily through pacing. That is, not going as fast as possible.

[Jawbleak]

This has been a point of frustration for me, recently. Has there been any consideration to having the rider's Ride skill play a part in the fatigue rate? While work is obviously work, a skilled rider can better conserve a horse's strength, while an unskilled rider can exhaust the same horse more easily.

I won't pretend to be an expert, but I'm fairly certain that's done primarily through pacing. That is, not going as fast as possible.

I'm not an expert, either, but I've done some riding. Pacing is part of it, but knowing how and when to adjust the pace comes with experience. An inexperienced rider can also make a horse tense with the way they sit the saddle, handle the reins, etc. This tension and unease can also tire a horse, unnecessarily.

[TwistedAkai]

I won't pretend to be an expert, but I'm fairly certain that's done primarily through pacing. That is, not going as fast as possible.

I'm not an expert, either, but I've done some riding. Pacing is part of it, but knowing how and when to adjust the pace comes with experience. An inexperienced rider can also make a horse tense with the way they sit the saddle, handle the reins, etc. This tension and unease can also tire a horse, unnecessarily.

So maybe a small, capped impact from riding skill? I mean, the difference between riding as fast as you can and pacing your travel is in your input, not a semi-arbitrary number attached to a skill.

[Jawbleak]

I won't pretend to be an expert, but I'm fairly certain that's done primarily through pacing. That is, not going as fast as possible.

I'm not an expert, either, but I've done some riding. Pacing is part of it, but knowing how and when to adjust the pace comes with experience. An inexperienced rider can also make a horse tense with the way they sit the saddle, handle the reins, etc. This tension and unease can also tire a horse, unnecessarily.

So maybe a small, capped impact from riding skill? I mean, the difference between riding as fast as you can and pacing your travel is in your input, not a semi-arbitrary number attached to a skill.

I'm not going to debate the issue, especially since I have no idea how the game works these things, mechanically. My suggestion was based on the simple fact that when comparing two riders, all other factors being equal, the skilled rider will most often get more efficient use out of their horse than the unskilled.

[Rias]

There's now a Riding skill check per move to lower the mount's fatigue a bit.

[Jawbleak]

There's now a Riding skill check per move to lower the mount's fatigue a bit.

Oh! Cheers.

[Kiyaani]

I know people want their horses to rest when tired, but horses don't really sit unless trained to. I appreciate the feature, I really do, but can we not have their rest state be sitting?

Most horses sleep standing up and only have to lay down to sleep once every few days. Resting is predominantly done from a standing position.