Mounts in RPG Games

It's different in every RPG with mounts. Some mounts do allow you to avoid encounters while on them and some don't.

I'm not really sure if there's a philosophy behind why either of the two options occurs, but both are normal in my consideration. Typically, if the mount increases your speed and you still have a chance to encounter a battle, the encounter chance is lower in order to facilitate faster travel. That's the point of the mount in the first-place.

You know, this has me thinking that it would be interesting in a turn-based RPG for a mount to have some sort of combat function if you were riding it and a battle occurred. I'm not sure if I've played a game with such a thing.

Let's see, Dragon Quest 8 specifically has an animal you can ride around the overworld for a speed boost. Because the encounter system is a random encounter, the player just gets zapped off to the combat field, no sign of the mount anywhere. You do encounter fewer REs than if you were walking, but they still happen. I guess it's like, you can outrun SOME things, but not all.

^ I seem to recall it being the same in FFVII. Maybe VIII let you skip entirely (iirc the rental cars did). Hmmm. Time to break out the PS2?

Red Dead Redemption had gunfights while walking and horseback. Not RPG, but it was very well done.

In Dragon Age Inquisition you can ride horses and the enemies will start attacking you as normal, and you can't fight back (or your companions, since they disappear when you mount) until you dismount. And they made the game very slow on my PS3. I nicknamed my horse Laggard.

Imbroglio said:

You know, this has me thinking that it would be interesting in a turn-based RPG for a mount to have some sort of combat function if you were riding it and a battle occurred. I'm not sure if I've played a game with such a thing.

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IIRC in some of the Fire Emblem games, characters that had mounts had a different movement mechanic, being allowed to move both before and after an attack, instead of just before like ground-based units. Probably not quite the same thing as what you're thinking though.

Current expansion World of Warcraft allows players to tame mounts that, at least during training, also seem to help them fight. It's more possible in that game now than it used to be to avoid battle on a mount. Used to be you could get stunned off your mount if enemies were hitting you as you rode past, but I believe there are now ways to stop that from happening.

As to the OP, I don't think it's stupid per se, if that's part of the point of getting a mount.

KateSmash said:

^ I seem to recall it being the same in FFVII. Maybe VIII let you skip entirely (iirc the rental cars did). Hmmm. Time to break out the PS2?

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In ALL Final Fantasy games--apart from the online ones--riding a chocobo lets you avoid encounters. It's one of the great perks of doing so.

Some games let you BATTLE while riding a mount. Skyrim does this.

In Wild Arms 3 if you went into battle while riding horses, you'd be in battle riding horses. The combat was turned-based as well. I used to think it was the COOLEST THING EVER!

In Final Fantasy Tactics, if you have an allied chocobo on the field, one of your units can ride it. Chocobos usually have far superior Move/Jump stats compared to units on foot (Black Chocobos can even fly), but the chocobo can't act separately from its rider.

In FFXIII, while you avoid battles while riding a chocobo, getting close enough to a monster to normally cause a battle reduces the chocobo's "morale" meter, and running out of morale causes the chocobo to throw you off and run away.

lilyWhite said:

In Final Fantasy Tactics, if you have an allied chocobo on the field, one of your units can ride it. Chocobos usually have far superior Move/Jump stats compared to units on foot (Black Chocobos can even fly), but the chocobo can't act separately from its rider.

In FFXIII, while you avoid battles while riding a chocobo, getting close enough to a monster to normally cause a battle reduces the chocobo's "morale" meter, and running out of morale causes the chocobo to throw you off and run away.

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I forgot to mention Tactics, though it's my favorite game.

I didn't know that about FFXIII. Though I got stuck right before the final dungeon like a dork.

Kaiser-Kun said:

Red Dead Redemption had gunfights while walking and horseback. Not RPG, but it was very well done.

In Dragon Age Inquisition you can ride horses and the enemies will start attacking you as normal, and you can't fight back (or your companions, since they disappear when you mount) until you dismount. And they made the game very slow on my PS3. I nicknamed my horse Laggard.

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Its why I never used a mount. Much easier just to walk.

Miss Strawberrii said:

I forgot to mention Tactics, though it's my favorite game.

I didn't know that about FFXIII. Though I got stuck right before the final dungeon like a dork.

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Tactics is a bit different, since it's a strategy RPG, rather than a traditional. Though I suppose in this case the mechanic is functioning in sort of the same way, just across the actual field of combat.

And yeah, FFXIII is the one FF game in the main series that I could never beat because I was so uninterested in the storyline and characters. Sad.

EDIT: Although, to be fair, even with the absence of Nobuo Uematsu, I was still really impressed with Masashi Hamauzu's score. The Piano Collections of XIII is one of my favorites.

In the game Mount & Blade, you get several bonuses for using horses while in combat. However, that is not a turn based game.

Shadow of Mordor allows you to mount, ride, and do battle or not -as you choose - while riding whatever creature you've mounted.

I get so frustrated with video game horses.

1. They're so weird looking they throw me out of the immersion. Especially in the AC games. (Skyrim and Read Dead horses are better than most.) I fail to understand why developers go to such great lengths to get human faces and architecture precise, yet they apparently can't pick up a book and look at a picture of a horse.

2. Their maneuverability is awful. My real life horses can back out of a tight corner, or step sideways. Hell, they can go sideways awfully fast to get out of the way of a threat. Why can't video game mounts do all that?

3. The tack. Seriously. How hard can it be for game developers to go to the library, and look up the rich cultural history and usage of tack?

Now, if a game were to have a more realistic horse system, the player's horse would occasionally shy at random objects, dislodging the rider. Over time, the horse would stop shying, develop more stamina, acquire better handling, and gain more battle maneuvers. If the player's horse gets killed in action, they'd have to buy a new horse and start over with the new horse's training.

Brutal Mustang said:

2. Their maneuverability is awful. My real life horses can back out of a tight corner, or step sideways. Hell, they can go sideways awfully fast to get out of the way of a threat. Why can't video game mounts do all that?

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In fairness, quite often you can't do this with the unmounted player-character either. To take Red Dead Redemption as an example, the logical control for 'walk backwards' would be to pull down on the stick. Both man and horse turn around rather than walk backwards when you do this. And left and right on the stick turn both, rather than side-stepping.
I think it's not so much bad horses as just having limited controllability with a gamepad.