In Oblivion, I never really used my invincible armored Shadowmere due to fastraveling, but after I finished most of the quests, I explored the overworld on foot and simply ran everywhere with 100 speed, running faster that any horse could.

In Skyrim, I still never even think about using horses, invincible or not, due to fastraveling. When I'm not sneaking, I do sprint around and about, making me wish I brought along my pet. So once again, I'm riding along the overworld of Tamriel, and quickly I remember why I never bothered to begin with. I can't draw my bow, cast a spell, grasp my hilt, or even shout at the oncoming enemies. I must always stop and go through the animations of getting off my horse before I can even defend myself.

This is such a missed opportunity against dragon fights. Mounted archery with a dragonrend shout (or not) is perfect against chasing a speedy dragon. I know I'm not the only one that sees a dragon at a distance only for it to fly away right before I'm visible. I would always ride my horse, summon a few dremoras, and fire area effect arrows at a gang of necromancers if I could. Why not just me? A gang of bandits riding around harassing villages and hunting down the adventurer in groups-it would be awesome!

Yeah mounted combat would make thsi game much better. Maybe in the next installment of the series they will add it, but it won't be coming for us for Skyrim.

Mods are a must, but there is yet to be any that works on the steam community.

That might be false, they created a mounted combat mod in the Gamejam presentation. It's very much a possibility for future DLC. We just need to make our voices be heard. I for one would gladly stand behind this.

No, it really doesn't. The exterior gameworld is too mountainous, and too much of the combat takes place in dungeons to really justify the dev time.

As a mod... maybe. If you want mounted combat though, go and play Mount & Blade with it's wide open battlefields, large armies, and decent combat system.

I'd like mounted magic
Just ride around casting fireballs in every direction and see who/what comes after you

I'm perfectly happy satisfying that very urge on foot.
I don't think mounted combat would be all that great in Skyrim.

...But then again, in the hundreds of hours I've logged, I've probably only ridden a horse ~5% of the time.

Bethesda may want to hire Taleworlds, the developer of Mount & Blade, an indie game that has really fun mounted combat.

http://www.taleworlds.com/

C'mon, this husband and wife team alone can create mounted combat. Why can't a mega corporation do it?

Mounted combat should be the next evolution of the Elder Scrolls game. It should be a new innovation in the medieval setting.

It's not that hard. I'm an archer, all I want is the ability to literally aim by bow instead of look around. look around. I don't need that. I need to be able to shoot, and pull out sanguine's rose to summon a distraction. That's it. Nothing more. How hard could it possibly be to allow the player to use weapons normally regardless of if we are mounting a horse? Seriously there's no reason why we can't have this.

I'm sorry, but there's nothing revolutionary about it. There's no damned excuse as to why they couldn't have this in the vanilla version after failing to include it in Oblivion. Daggerfall can do it. Daggerfall. It was made how many years ago? Why the hell can't we have this? How long will it take for it to happen? There are limited number of weapon types in the current generation of tes, including Oblivion. Swords, Maces, Axes, and longer variants that require two hands. Why can't we have throwing weapons? No-why can't we have a button that we throw our equipped weapon? That would suffice. Hell, that would be better. Why are we losing features in each game instead of gaining new elements of gameplay? The biggest thing we have is shouts, which is arguably a variation of spells or powers which can only be used once in 24 minutes. I digress, but can't seriously be that hard. I'm not asking for anything revolutionary and incredibly complicated to achieve to the series like multiplayer. Just let me aim while riding a horse.

No it doesn't, mounted combat would ruin the game. People will just hit and run everything all the time, be virtually invincible.

M&B is pretty good, but saying that the combat system is just decent, is underexaggerating in my book.

Not if it was made a little more challenging, for example aiming on horse back wouldn't allow you to use the target cursor to see where you will swing/shoot or something like that. Maybe those people that get to level 50 by grinding smithing and then complain about boredom will just run around and kill things with ease but those people kind of rush the game too much in my opinion.

I try to refrain from fasttraveling, so I use my horse often. With random encounters I have to escape, so I can park my horse to return on foot to deal with the threat. Quite a drag. If I get of my horse at the spot of attack, it takes ages before I am of my horse and it starts to fight with me, making it hard for me not to hit the horse while fighting and adding a level of stress, cause all the enemies are focusing on the attacking horse which I dont want to let die.

Sigh.

horses should be fixed first

As a mod? Sure, why not of course?
As official? No. Never.
Ever.

Why deny consoles?

It's more then decent. It's the best realistic-style combat system in any action-RPG available.

Look, to HELL with balance. If people can't stop themselves from abusing Enchanting/Smithing/Alchemy, mounted combat isn't going to make much of a difference anyway. This is about FUN. It is NOT fun for horses to be near useless. Period.

Other npc/monsters can ride horseback as well, such as a gang of bandits, and of course dragons will have no problem. Balancing the game isn't Tes's strongpoints and it certainty isn't what draws me into their games. If people stop complaining about game abuses and start expressing the distaste of the lack of content, then maybe we can levitate in future tes games. That's right, I went there.

Spell making, enchanting, alchemy, smithing...they allow the player to play with the game. Like it's a toy. I love sandboxes because it doesn't restrain the player and just let's them play the game there way. Thus, it's called a sandbox. But you can't just leave a kid in a sandbox and expect them to have fun. Toys that allow the kid to manipulate the sand and use their imagination is what makes it so intriguing, and it's no different to games.

We need more ways to craft our own, unique characters and adventures. If the game is too easy, then make more "unfair" challenges that forces the player to use intuition and be creative to overcome any obstacle. If you're using all you can, then the game is expected to be easy. And the game should react to this understanding that the player will and should "abuse" the power given to them. Here's an easy fix. If the player can fight on horses, so can the enemy. Higher level bandits should ride on horseback, chasing the player. If you have a high bounty, guards can pursue the player to submission. It's not that hard to come up with these things. It's just the work that goes behind it. My point is that there's so little to add in comparison as to how much it would add to the game. Using what is already in the game, they could give me exactly what I'm asking for. If they put in a little bit more, they can create a masterpiece.

Riding a horse and fighting:
WASD/joystick tank controls for the left hand as usual, and the same first person fighting we always have had with the mouse/joystick in the right hand. DONE
Adding enemies that ride on horseback, that would probably have to be either in an expansion or in the next game.


Are you that satisfied with the performance of horses in Skyrim that you would rather stay restricted from the option to fight back while riding one? Or perhaps the idea of mounted combat is repulsive to you?

Agreed. Ocarina of Time is 14 years old, and riding Epona was incredible. Your horse could run at a reasonable speed. She would jump automatically when needed, and you could actually fight while riding. Sure there wasn't a whole heck of a lot to fight but you could still do it. PLUS, it didn't take what feels like twenty seconds to get on or off your horse. And it only got better in future games like Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess.

Mounted combat -if well implemented - could be essential in a game of this genre.

Otherwise,at the actual state horses are in the game,perhaps is better not having this feature sadly. A total revision of the whole horses' attitude and animations would be necessary first.

It dooesn't even need that. It just needs enemies (clanfear, other mounted horseman, wolves, dragons spring to mind) that are able to keep up with the horse, and for them to be able to damage the horse before they damage you, hence taking the horse out from underneath you and leaving you stunned for a few seconds while they tear your corpse to pieces..

I can see how it would be usefull, but i dont think its essential.

I was disappointed by the horses. Forced 3rd person, still no mounted combat, lack of variation between the different types, slow speed and strange animations. I wasn't expecting red dead style horses, but I was hoping for something a bit better. I feel oblivion horses were much better than Skyrim's.

Horses in general need an overhaul. Check out the horses in Assassins creed, thats how you do horseriding in games. Skyrim horses svck. Their run is too slow and their gallop doesn't last nearly long enough. Who the hell was responsible for giving horses a 10 second gallop time? fire that idiot at once.