Mount stamina: How much is too much

I know we all love not refreshing our mounts, but we should all accept that it's not how it should be forever.

Endless running sucks and takes away a portion of 'realism' that I enjoy about Ultima in general. As such, I'm drafting this thread to carry on the discussion for and against mount stamina and the resulting changes that are more than likely going to happen.

Personally, I feel that mounts should certainly fatigue at some point. As fast as other shards is excessive, but in my opinion, one should not be able to run from the Honor shrine to Spirituality (SW of Trinsic to NE of Vesper) without any mount fatigue. Perhaps something in the range of Trinsic to Britain, Britain to Yew, or Britain to Vesper?
Those are all probably pretty close in actual tile distance, but you all get what I mean.

Refreshing a mount's stamina should only be possible by staying still, walking or feeding the animal.
Feeding should only recover a portion of stamina, and mounts should have a finite appetite, such as players do when eating food for stamina.
Perhaps stabling the beast for 10 minutes or longer should provide a full stamina refresh?

All told, a run from Britain to Yew should leave a standard horse fatigued and unable to move until rested, fed or both.

Also on the topic:
Alternative mounts should have variable stamina (if that's not already inherent). Otherwise, there's no point to riding a Frenzied/Mare in regards to stamina.
Because Frenzies suck compared to mares, they should only take a single control slot also. This way tamers can be boss and have a pack of 7 frenzied ostards not including the one they're riding.


Just thoughts on topic, but do share and take part in this relevant discussion.

Hail UO:R!

Noone liked it on uosa and noone is gonna like it here. So bad idea.

Its a game mechanic.....just because you dont like something doesnt mean that everyone hates it.

Makes for a lot more interesting fights if you have to worry about mount stamina.Of course if all youre worried about is running all the way across the map to get away from people you would hate it I guess.

I was thinking about this a few days ago, a way of implementing mount fatigue without being too cumbersome for most players, and the only half-decent solution I could come up with was for mount stamina to drain only while combat timers are running. This way players that are exploring/looking around don't have to suffer through the refresh cycle every few seconds while players engaged in battle are forced to deal with it. I'm sure there's much better solutions out there, but to be honest I do enjoy the mount stamina system as is currently in place.

I dont want fights to be determined by whos horse craps out first.

So another win for non pvpers and another nerf for pvpers. No ty got enough of those. The current system is fine like you said and like most people have said there are more important things to work on.

I think while Deacon's idea is just as valid, I think it's a bit extreme and unbalanced.

Living things that move have stamina that should deplete when running over periods of time. We can't run forever without losing stamina either.

The current stamina drain rate on SA is one minute to stopped at full sprint, on a regular horse. It takes a total of three 'All follow me' hits, to get to the Brit GY, from Empath Abbey in Yew, by way of the mountain pass and through Britain passed the bank. My mount was fatigued when I got to the GY. So that was three straight minutes of running. I had to chug a stam pot on the run because my character was fatigued about halfway.

This is normal game behavior. This is not a discussion of PvP vs PvM. This is a game world and its perfection is something that should not include catering to anyone, but rather uniformity and common sense. Such as things that are running, should get tired. While many play for the PvP alone, Ultima is truly a world unto itself. This is why fire burns when I step on it and I can bake bread in an oven.

What I propose would be 3-4x the stamina found on SA for standard horses and 5-6x for Mares/Frenzied

I appreciate more feedback on the topic, rather than derailment to argument about playstyle preferences.

There should be an equation already for fatigue based on the animals dex. The more dex the further they could run without needing to be fed/ or sit still. This and combined with no delay to remount after a bola on war horse is what made them coveted by factioners, so they could run further without hitting that stam wall. I also used to fight two beetles and vet them until their dex would max at 125, making them run for days without stamming.

For large fights or ones we knew were going to take a while, sometimes we would park mounts somewhere we knew we would be close to in case someone hit that wall, we would ditch the mount and get the parked one.

Now that's working with the world to make it happen! Being that we can actually train animals here, perhaps a new market would unfold for highly trained Horses and regular Ostards. 125 Dex mounts for sale, coming soon?

I'd still like to propose the given equation for fatigue be multiplied a bit, but not excessively, for mounts.

One of the main things I loved about this shard was not having to refresh my mount, felt so good to have that thorn removed.

While we can all easily agree that a one minute fatigue at full run is annoying, does it really make sense to be able to run endlessly?

Think about an example in Factions wherein a sigil thief just ran from Yew to Britain and you see them in Brit, only to chase them all the way to Trinisic afterward with no stopping. Perhaps with the 4x stamina suggested, they would have to stop at a stable to get some apples or hay, or perhaps stable briefly to refresh.

This adds some flavor to the hunt/chase as it's not just who can get bored of running first and Recall out. In fact, I can't see why this wouldn't be supported by anyone who was in favor of limiting the Recall of someone under attack who has not engaged in battle.
Running endlessly for ten minutes or more is silly and really anyone into fighting should be in favor of something that stops the endless running, I would think.

Perhaps not.

Thanks for getting involved and sharing opinions though. I appreciate it.

I really don't see the point in changing it, no one is complaining that it needs to be fixed and if ezekial adds in bolas like he said he was gonna that's going to eliminate people running away anyways, if you add mount fatigue on top of it everyone might as we'll fight on foot because between your mount running out of stamina and you getting knocked off your horse and your ride being killed it's going to end up like that anyways. Remember bolas are being put in so don't count your eggs before they hatch.

Even with bolas, I believe that horses have dexterity which equates to stamina which, in turn, should result in fatigue over a given distance running.
That is the point.
I'm not counting eggs. I'm discussing the game and, ultimately, aiming to help perfect this little virtual world. I understand perfection of a game can be subjective, but there is a core value to Ultima that should not be ignored in persuit of the goal here. I'm fairly certain I am not alone in this opinion and I respect your difference of such.

This will not guarantee someone fleeing will be stopped by mount fatigue, the chaser will also get screwed and the chasee will definately escape. It will not balance pvp at all but upset it.

It certainly means they will have to stop at some point to feed or rest their horse. If both parties are attentive to their mount's fatigue, it will be another interesting aspect of play to see who's attentive to their mount. You know the guy who just ran a lap around the GY has got a tad less stam left than you, if you were sitting at the gate the whole time. Oh, unless he stopped for a second and hit the drag apple by type to absolute target a time or two.

It will only add another dynamic to PvP because it affects all players equally, except Tamers if mare/frenzied have more stamina (which they should). Perhaps making a fencer tamer a bit more viable even......

It may very well impede my play just as it does anyone else's, but it will feel correct. Mounts should have some point of fatigue otherwise we might as well be riding light-cycles in TRON.

I think its fine that mounts have unlimited stamina. Would be more realistic if they had but it would also be quite annoying.

Two things

1) I think its fine the way it is. I agree with Eisenstaff that it would be annoying if they had it. Adding Stamina is not an improvement.

2) I don't even THINK that mounts had stamina during UOr on OSI servers.

Mounts actually did have stamina during UO:R...this is from the publish 7 notes from September of 2000. Although I agree that implementing this would just be more of a pain in the ass than anything else.

If it were 4x or more the stamina of other shards, how often would that really inconvenience you? How often are you really at full run for 4+ minutes?

Just curious whether or not folks not in agreement have actually considered how often/far they really run on any regular basis. Not saying your opinions are invalid, but really curious about experiences.

I do run around a lot instead of burning regs. I would just opt to building an extensive.library and recall or gate more often to avoid needing to feed a horse, would probably get annoyed and kill the damn thing.