Changes to Mounts

The following is copy and pasted from a Zenimax online staff member from the official site after I started a discussion, full thread here http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/1490610

@MSchroeder,
We’re aware that many players are attached to their mounts, and that some players use different mounts for different tasks. Rest assured that you will not have to “lose” any mount statistics or visuals. Instead, when the system changes, we will look at all of your mounts, and apply the highest number of speed, stamina, and carrying capacity increases we find; these will become your riding skill. Further, your maximum for each will be as high as the highest achievable now. And of course, each kind of mount you currently own will be available for use via the Collections menu.

An example: Say you have two horses right now. The first, you’ve fed Apples (speed) ten times, and Oats (carrying capacity) twenty times. The second, you’ve fed Apples twenty times, and Hay ten times. When the new system arrives, your riding skill will have 20 speed increases, 20 carrying capacity increases, and 10 stamina increases. This will apply to you, regardless of whatever mount you choose to ride. You’ll also have plenty of room to grow in each category, as you can keep increasing each until you reach each stat’s maximum.

And a second example, for the player who has everything: Say you had a speed horse, a stamina horse, and a carrying horse, and you had improved their best stats to their utmost – the speed horse has eaten nothing but apples, the stamina horse nothing but hay, and the carrying horse nothing but oats. When the new system arrives, and you hop on your mount, you will be riding as fast as you would have on your speed horse, with as much stamina as you would’ve had on your stamina horse, and have as much additional inventory as you would’ve on your carrying horse. This is true regardless of the mount you choose – including the Palomino or Imperial horses.

In short, we feel this is a boon to players of all levels and riding experience. From now on, every horse you ride will be as good, if not better, than the horses you’ve rode until now – and you can choose your mount’s visuals without worrying that it might not be the ‘right’ mount for the job.

I have a horse with Max speed, one with Mostly Bag Space, and one with mostly armor that I was going to start putting speed into. This change means, that since I already maxed Speed on one of my horses, I no longer need to work on speed for another. I will be switching and putting it all into armor for my new horse, that way I get something out of it when the update hits.

TL/DL If you already have a horsed maxed out on one stat, start working on another, and don't put any more points into a stat you already have maxed on any other horse.

More answers on this from the same thread

@MSchroeder,

1. “What happens to my mount’s base stats?”

The base stats of your mounts are accounted for when we do the changeover. For instance, take two horses: One is an Imperial horse you've fed 50 Apples to, and the other is a Light Horse (which is the fastest horse in the game), also fed 50 Apples. When the changeover happens, that character will have a full 60 in their riding skill’s Speed category – we’ll have evaluated that character’s mounts, and applied the highest stats they had in each category.

As a second example, take a similar character. He’s got an Imperial Horse that's been fed 50 Apples, and a Light Horse that has only had 10 Apples. When the changeover happens, that character will have 50 points in their riding skill’s Speed category – again, the highest amount of Speed they had in all of their mounts.

In short, those choices you made before, both in choosing a more expensive and skilled mount, and in how you fed them, are taken into account for the conversion.

2. “What happens to the mount’s stat-based appearance?”

When your riding skill gets high enough in each of the three categories – speed, stamina, and carrying capacity – then ALL mounts that character rides henceforth will reflect this, with the appropriate accoutrements. If you’ve increased your riding skill’s carrying capacity enough, then every mount you ride will have saddlebags. This does mean that a fully maximized rider will have barding, armor, and saddlebags, on all of their mounts.

At the moment, our team is working on bugs and improvements with this system. For instance, we have a known issue that a mount with all three stats “past the mark” will only display two of the accoutrements, rather than all three. We’re also considering various ways to allow a player to control which accoutrements their mount has, but we have nothing finalized at this time. Neither the options nor the known issue will be “in” in time for PTS, but we’ll be sure to say when they’re implemented.

3. “What if I have lots of mounts? What if I spread the stats around on them all?”

You’ll still have access to all the visuals of those mounts via the Collections menu. If even one of your characters owns a Light Horse, for instance, then all of your characters can choose to apply that visual to their mount at any time.

As stated before, though, only the maximum of each of the three stats, from all of a character’s mounts, will be brought over to your new riding skill. When the changeover happens, each character’s riding skill is determined independently, based only on the stats of that particular character’s mounts.

4. “Can I still upgrade my riding skill after Update 6?”

Of course! The procedure is very similar to the current system: Just go to a Stablemaster, and you can increase one of the three categories – speed, stamina, or carrying capacity – by one, once per day, for a small gold fee. The only difference is that now, rather than the Stablemaster feeding your mount, they’re training your character!