Giving players better options to defend their horses

[Sanastro]

Problem:

In most PVP encounters, it makes sense to focus on horses first in order to take away people's mobility and prevent them from escaping.

This is a common strategy, but it can be very frustrating especially for non-mounted builds and during small-scale/solo activities.
Let's say for example you are transporting your hard earned ressources and get attacked by someone.
If you get off your horse and try to fight, the attacker will most likely still focus on your horse first and kill it. The horse won't even move or try to run away!

In this case, even if you win the fight, all your resources end up on the ground and you don't have a horse to transport them anymore.
You won the fight, but you still get punished and can't keep your stuff.

In fact, the dead attacker now has better chances than you to get the loot: They spawn back in town and can grab another horse to come and get what's left on the ground, while you still need to walk back to town first.

I understand that changes to the survivability of horses have a huge impact on the balance of this game, but the following suggestion shouldn't change the balance too much:



Suggestion:

Make it so that horses won't die immediately when they are shot while in mercy mode as long as they wear any horse armor. Instead, they should get "injured" and lie on the ground.
In this state, the horse can't be mounted or healed with spells/bandages anymore. (Maybe the bags and their content will also drop to the ground and can be looted.)

You now have two options:
Go to the horse and press and hold 'R' for 10 seconds to kill it for good, or hold 'Ctrl+R' for 20 seconds to "heal" it and get it back on its feet with 5% hp.
(The times could depend on the type of horse armor)

If there is no interaction with the horse, it will die after 10 minutes.



Advantages:

This way, it would still be possible to take horses out in a fight. However, now there would be an option to defend them.
If you manage to fend off the attacker and defend your horse successfully, you could heal it up and continue your journey happily.

Of course, there is still a possibility of losing your horse or your items during the fight.
For example, if one attacker keeps you busy while another one finishes your horse off (or steals from its bags with thievery?), or if you run away and leave your horse unattended.

This change could also have a positive impact on the usage of light and medium horse armor. If you are not a mounted fighter, you might actually prefer light or medium horse armor.
Even if your horse might get injured more easily with lighter armor, as long as you manage to defend your injured horse, you can at least keep the mount now.

It could also help with "horse griefing" (killing the horse and running away). While killing horses is still doable and part of the game, you would at least have a chance to protect your horse and be able to fight for it.

Maybe we would even see more miners with proper gear out in the world, because they could actually defend their loot and bring it home. (Currently a lot of people just go naked and suicide if someone attacks their horse, because it's almost impossible to save the horse anyway.)


Conclusion:

All in all, getting attacked on a horse would be a way less frustrating experience, because players would have a much bigger impact on the survivability of their horses.
As a side-effect the change would encourage more PVP instead of griefing, promote the usage of different types of horse armor and maybe even encourage naked miners to take their gear with them to a mining trip every now and then.

(Maybe this mechanic could work for all pets with armor?)



Please let me know your thoughts about this idea.

 

[Jackdstripper]

This is only a problem because horses have low hp and die very quickly. This will change once breeding comes in and each horse breed will have different stats. People will breed horses with much more hp.

I really dont mind how it is now. If someone is killing my horse it gives me an advantage to either get a few hits on him for free, or just run away. It was my fault to begin with to put my horse in harms way.

If anything, they could make horse armour have higher damage resistances. It already slows down your horse considerably so i think it would be balanced.

If pathing wasnt such crap in this game id be up for trying out a “flee” command. When pressed your horse would run in a random direction at full speed for 5 seconds and then stop. It would have to have a long cooldown. However, in the current state of pathing, i doubt it would work very well. Your horse is more likely to get stuck on a rock or under the ground.

 

[Sanastro]

This is only a problem because horses have low hp and die very quickly. This will change once breeding comes in and each horse breed will have different stats. People will breed horses with much more hp.

I really dont mind how it is now. If someone is killing my horse it gives me an advantage to either get a few hits on him for free, or just run away. It was my fault to begin with to put my horse in harms way.

If anything, they could make horse armour have higher damage resistances. It already slows down your horse considerably so i think it would be balanced.

If pathing wasnt such crap in this game id be up for trying out a “flee” command. When pressed your horse would run in a random direction at full speed for 5 seconds and then stop. It would have to have a long cooldown. However, in the current state of pathing, i doubt it would work very well. Your horse is more likely to get stuck on a rock or under the ground.

I'm writing this from a perspective of a non-mounted character who needs horses only for travelling.

I don't think that horses with more HP would solve anything here, because the attackers will also have horses with more HP.
In fact, it would even make things worse because as a non-mounted character it's even more difficult to kill the horse of the attacker so that you can escape and save your horse.

As long as there is a guy behind me shooting at my horse, it will die eventually.
To get rid of the guy I have to get off my horse, but then the horse won't move and will just stand there until it is dead.
It kinda feels like most of the time the death of my horse is inevitable, no matter how the fight turns out.

So even if I win the fight and kill the guy eventually, the game still favors him, because he spawns at a town with stable and can try to get my loot again, while I have to walk for 30 minutes to the next stable first. It just feels like a weird design choice to me.

 

[Deleted member 44]

No actual red is spawning back in town, and no solo is looting your five stacks of granum without making themselves a sitting target for two minutes. Horses need to die. As Jack said, if horses had more HP and better armor we would get away from this kill the horse over the player meta. In MO1 you targeted the player and there usually wasn't a ground fight in a 1v1 as horses were not paper. MO1 mounted game play was ten times better than the shit show we have now. Additionally, about your point about ground players needing to counter mounted. Why? Why do they need to counter mounted? You are investing at a minimum 216 points to use a horse over the pure foot fighter. Ground fighters don't need any buffs. I already hit Oghmir in steel for 7 while they hit me for 50 through steel armor.

 

[Doom and Gloom]

I'd love the same system for all pets as well, it's not very rewarding to win/survive a fight if your pet which takes many days to train gets killed anyway. This would help a lot for ppl who win the fight so they wouldn't unnecessarily lose more than the once who actually lost the fight. Especially as there is zero way to protect your pets currently as they can't even be targeted to flee etc. and won't catch any horses anyways so they are basically just easy targets never landing a hit.

 

[actetto]

This change is basically mandatory since the majority of "PvP" is actually "PvHorse". Pretty much every PvP engagement is a Mounted Archer zooming 500 meters up to you at lightspeed, killing your horse, and running away so their horse doesn't die. LOL.

I think instead of "interact" to kill, it should get a gray health bar in mercy mode for like 500 hp so that archers and mages can still finish the horse from range in a standoff kind of situation, and it would be a little less immersion breaking.

 

[KRANKONE HSLER]

I'm writing this from a perspective of a non-mounted character who needs horses only for travelling.

I don't think that horses with more HP would solve anything here, because the attackers will also have horses with more HP.
In fact, it would even make things worse because as a non-mounted character it's even more difficult to kill the horse of the attacker so that you can escape and save your horse.

As long as there is a guy behind me shooting at my horse, it will die eventually.
To get rid of the guy I have to get off my horse, but then the horse won't move and will just stand there until it is dead.
It kinda feels like most of the time the death of my horse is inevitable, no matter how the fight turns out.

So even if I win the fight and kill the guy eventually, the game still favors him, because he spawns at a town with stable and can try to get my loot again, while I have to walk for 30 minutes to the next stable first. It just feels like a weird design choice to me.

The issue is that people target the horses especially when they know they will die, simply because losers can spawn at the red priest and call their friends while you are criminal overloaded left without a horse or the ability to get one back quickly (not even get the horse of the enemy after the fight) and the enemy instantly regears and rushes back with assistance. And boy they do that, in massive zergs.
Increasing HP will not help the attacker. You gotta be able to defend yourself and be aware of your surroundings.
Having murderers spawn in their red priest stronghold instantly regear with horses and pets then come back within mere seconds while you are still standing there looting. Like wtf in Ultima Online and any other game its normal to either run or have a HUGE recall timer...

ANG eating lemmings since ´97

 

[Sanastro]

No actual red is spawning back in town, and no solo is looting your five stacks of granum without making themselves a sitting target for two minutes. Horses need to die. As Jack said, if horses had more HP and better armor we would get away from this kill the horse over the player meta. In MO1 you targeted the player and there usually wasn't a ground fight in a 1v1 as horses were not paper. MO1 mounted game play was ten times better than the shit show we have now. Additionally, about your point about ground players needing to counter mounted. Why? Why do they need to counter mounted? You are investing at a minimum 216 points to use a horse over the pure foot fighter. Ground fighters don't need any buffs. I already hit Oghmir in steel for 7 while they hit me for 50 through steel armor.

Maybe you misunderstood me here.
I was just describing a potential combat scenario from my perspective.
I never made a point about ground players needing to counter mounted players, I'm actually OK with the current foot fighter/mounted balance, you just have to use your surroundings in a smart way - but that's a different discussion.


All playstyles could benefit from my suggestion, because everyone would have the chance to get their horses back after a fight, as long as they defend it properly. It wouldn't even affect the combat balance, because as soon as the horse is on the ground, you can't mount it anymore - just as it is now.

The issue is that people target the horses especially when they know they will die, simply because losers can spawn at the red priest and call their friends while you are criminal overloaded left without a horse or the ability to get one back quickly (not even get the horse of the enemy after the fight) and the enemy instantly regears and rushes back with assistance. And boy they do that, in massive zergs.
Increasing HP will not help the attacker. You gotta be able to defend yourself and be aware of your surroundings.
Having murderers spawn in their red priest stronghold instantly regear with horses and pets then come back within mere seconds while you are still standing there looting. Like wtf in Ultima Online and any other game its normal to either run or have a HUGE recall timer...

ANG eating lemmings since ´97

I fully agree here! The low respawn time doesn't really help.

Of course a long downtime/waiting time can be a bit frustrating.
But when your attempt to rob someone fails and you die, you shoudn't be able to respawn and regear fast enough so that you still can get the loot.

That's why I came up with my initial suggestion. If I kill my attacker and defend my horse successfully, then I would at least have a chance to get away before they come again. Sure, if I fail to defend my horse, then it's my own fault.... but currently defending the horse feels impossible.