Idea Horse Ideas

Currently, horses are like an oddity in WarZ that spawn occasionally (and even more scarcely, with a saddle to ride them with) that are rarely used purposefully. With the recent idea of the removal of grapples (https://www.brawl.com/threads/75350/), transportation between zones will be slowed heavily as an indirect consequence if the idea holds. This is obviously a downfall for new-player retention since travelling would become slower whereas fights/outcomes are unaffected.

Note that if grapples are not removed, these ideas may still hold and are relevant.


General increase in spawn-rate of horses
- Increase spawn-rate to the (current rate * 4) OR limit spawns to one per zone 1+. The latter may be more tedious to develop
- This increase in spawn-rate will encourage the use of horses as a means of travel rather than grappling hooks
- Decrease the spawn-rate of donkeys in WarZ to account for the ideas below:


Items to accommodate the increased spawn-rate
Horse food: Specifically, wheat would be the best option. This is because horses may eat (hard-coded in Minecraft): wheat, hay bales, sugar, apples, bread, golden carrots, and golden apples. Hay bales are not an item in WarZ, and the rest of the items a horse may eat are consumable by WarZ players. Wheat is not consumable and would be the easiest to account for in terms of "cases", developer-wise (correct me if I'm wrong on this).
- Given the new horse-food, replace flint+steel with said-food as an item in the pool for looting, with the same rate.
- An alternative to the above two ideas would be to allow blood bags to be used on horses; increasing humanity and feeding your horse at the same time, all while maintaining the same loot table. Flint+steel may be kept if this is chosen and an idea for that item should be made.
- Horse-food may be used to heal horses from fall/physical-damage or gun-damage.
- Must be be off the horse to heal it (Ritzy)

Horse Armour: Since horses are very weak as they are currently, players would find them useless in combat and would strictly use them for travel. Although horses should never be OP as to not repeat the legacy of grapples/boost pads, armour should help to tank a shot or two before the horse falls.
- Leather, iron, gold, and diamond horse armour should be added into the item pool; Since leather horse armour was added to Minecraft later on, only iron, gold and diamond should suffice; and horses spawn by default with a health accounting for that of wearing leather armour (Carson)
- Their spawn rates should increase in rarity relative to hierarchy in protection, and can be tweaked as needed;
- A good mechanic could be the armour "breaks" and is removed from the horse depending on the damage the horse breaks before health begins to lower. Otherwise, the armour could just dictate the amount of damage the horse takes depending on the regular damage the horse would take without it.
- Horse armour may also spawn depending on the zone; for example, diamond horse armour may only be found in zone 4+ and etc.

Saddles: Horses should not be a chore for WarZ players, and thus I believe it would be balanced to spawn all horses with a saddle on, and ready to ride.
- Saddles will remain un-lootable (unless another idea shows that a saddle may be useful to equip on a donkey; if that is the case, spawn donkeys with saddles and keep their spawn-rate the same)
- Saddles cannot be removed from the horse

Golden Apples: Since horses may eat golden apples and they are present in WarZ, there should be an effect that is given to the horse.
- Speed, health regeneration, and defence buffs given at the expense of a golden apple
- Multiple golden apples used on the horse will not stack buffs, but will increase duration of the buff OR you will be unable to use another golden apple on the horse until the effects from the first golden apple are gone

Chests: An additional item that may be added to the loot-table, and are un-placeable
- May be equipped to donkeys for temporary storage
- Items spill onto the ground upon death of donkey


Achievement Possibilities (note that these numbers are just base ideas and can be tweaked)
- Total blocks travelled while riding a horse or donkey (1000/10000/100000)
- Total horses/donkeys killed (50/100/250)
- Total horses/donkeys killed while a player is riding it (10/50/100)
- Total maximum jumps performed while on a horse/donkey (100/500/1000)
- Total blocks fallen without a preceding jump while on a horse/donkey (50/100/250)
- Total zombies killed while on a horse/donkey (100/250/1000)
- Total players killed while (you're) riding a horse/donkey (10/50/100)
+ achievements with horse armour which can be decided once an armour system is finalized


Final Notes/Considerations
- There must be a balance between horses/donkeys being a chore and a leisure for WarZ players. We have seen many items go unused due to other items being present (ladders versus grapples), so for this idea to work best, grapples should be removed. Their spawn-rates should also be common enough so that it is worth looting/equipping horse armour, or expending golden apples/wheat on them, etc.
- In general, there is very little player-animal interaction in WarZ. This could help freshen that aspect up and may also be paired with the addition of more cows/chickens and other animals.
- If flint+steel is not replaced with a horse food item, then we work together to make it a useful item.
- Server restarts should be considered
- This thread is just the beginning; any reasonable ideas discussed below may be added to the thread.

Let me know what you guys think, and please feel free to contribute to this idea or criticize anything, constructively.

 

These two points are great. Adding your first to the thread, thanks for the positive comments!