That would make a really good addiction to Oblivion.

I mean a mod were you could damage enemy with the horse's strike, and it would gain strike level... So they could even attack other horse, like medieval duels.

Mounted combat just seems to iffy, this and multiplayer is just the stuff that people want that Bethesda can't deliver without extremely delaying the game and creating wierd glitches. I for one am glad they are not adding mounted combat actually.

Mounted combat isn't something I would really need in my game. But it should have been implemented anyways in my opinion, why have horses if you can't use them for anything besides riding. I'll get over it though.

Mounted combat would have been wierd,buggy and unbalancing. It would have been to heavily impacting to most combat (giving an advantage to mounted opponents versus grounded ones) and mostly detracting from the new grounded combat system they put so much hard work and energy on.

I would like mounted combat... I'm pretty sure that some mod will mod it in anyway, when they modded horse riding into Morrowind, I'm very sure they can mod in Mounted Combat.

When it comes to the Mounted Combat, if they had added it of course.. would have been buggy, unbalanced and weird like Chaos said. Well of course beeing on a horse back in a fight is in many ways better to be on the ground, thought with a good enough and advanced combat system u could easily make Mounted Combat balanced by adding the fact that u might not always be in control of the mount, u might not be able to use bow if your not very good. And u can always kill the horse too... The horse doesn't need to be so good..

Yeah, I am expecting that there will be a mod for that.

Am I the only one that thinks its really odd that they didn't include mounted combat?

I mean isnt it kinda ackward that you'd have to get off your horse everytime just to fight?!

Oh and about the balance thing, since its not online you can choose what you want to do. If you want to be very powerful ride a horse, if you want to be powerful off a horse don't ride it. After all, this is Bethseda right?

Oh and fighting against someone thats on horse back, (and your not) isn't that hard. If you've ever play mount and blade you'd know, its as easy as getting on someones weak spot as it charges at you.

Meh, I don't really care about mounted combat. *shrugs* It's just fighting on a horse, is all. Nothing impressive. Not to mention it might be too easy to charge someone who is not on a horse when you're mounted. I think that's where it could be unbalancing, not to mention easy and boring. But, what happens if you have a dagger or something that has short reach? Are you in trouble, then?

Anyway, I'm used to games in which you have to get off your mount and gee, I don't know, fight fairly? I think getting off of your mount would require timing and common sense. You have to think of where to put your horse safely and stuff like that. I think that would increase some more, er, strategy or at least make the game more difficult?

I think there will definitely be a mod, due to popular demand. So, I do not think you should be too worried.

I guess my idea is just you should be able to fight how you want..

You can run away and shoot arrows or you can rush forward and cleave their head off... its all your choice

All in all I'm not too excited about a mounted combat mod, It just still a little droll (and since the makers of the mod will be unproffessional it might suck a little bit)

Well.. I'll wait and see, I'll clearly try out the Mounted Combat. But it really depends if the modder have done a good enough job, not to make it clearly unbalanced...

It'd be pretty hard not too make it unbalanced though, I'm expecting Cortex or TheLys caliber of skill for a mod like this.

I think they should have not made it so you could fight on a horse normally, but like the arena have jousting matches or just horse fights. Also horse races of course. Or chariot races.

Chariot races That would be a strange mod.

Hmm, should be combat chariots.. that would be nice, standing in the chariot with a modded javelin or a bow.. Sweeet..

That would be very interesting, but a little TOO roman.

Too roman? Imperials remind me of the romans anyways, the way they force everyone under their rule...so bring on the roman stuff.

Theres no such thing as TOO Roman.

They seem to me to be loosely based on the Romans.... too have chariot fights seems a little TOO close to the real romans.

Seems to me like the Imperials are the Eldersrolls equivalent of the Romans in a few ways...maybe it shouldn't be taken so far as chariot fights...well actually I'll be happy with not being able to fight on horseback either...it would distract from the game a bit.

Yes, exactly my point! The devs gave a good reason why It wasn't implemented too. That most the time you will be fighting in interiors where horses can't go and so it wouldn't be a very important or interesting feature and would only delay more.

If someone made a really popular mod for mounted combat, what would happen if the devs then went on to add it in an expansion?

I can imagine that happening.

True.. If they managed to make it complete balanced etc. I think the dev's might add MC in a expansion

Maybe a quest would require u to have a little band of knights to attack someone on horse back

an expansion would make sense, having jousting tournaments and whatnot.

as long as it's probably going to be added anyway I think we ought to figure out now how to make sure its balanced.

There will probably be 10-20 different mounted combat mods, and none of them will be perfect.

It needs to model real horse combat. Accuracy has to be greatly deduced (which would noyl apply to a bow since there is not area damage and damage on a horse needs to be increased relative to how fast the horse is going)

Mounted combat ought to be done in runs, as in, if you horse is going fast enough not to take one in the gut, ti won't be able to turna ll that well either, so you have to attack your enemies in passes.

It would require major changes since the entire game with all the massive battles and the scene development made for unmounted combat, a guy riding in on a horse would basically screw it all up.

wow this thread is old......


anyway, my opinion on mounted combat: i dont really care. it would have been cool if you coold use spears and bows on horses but.....whatever.

since there is no mouned combat though, you had better be able to get off your horse really fast. if I run into trouble i dont want to watch no 5 second animation of me jumping off a horse.

Well as DoomedOne so revealved it appears you can have horse armor. Pretty nifty. Some people's dreams have already come true.

Adding mounted combat into the game would be very complicated. It would also require a whole new addition of different weapons, and a whole new addition of combat techniques. Furthermore as mounted fighters would have certain bonuses, the infantryman also needs weapons to balance the advantages of cavalry. One weapon I can think of which was widely used during the rennaissance would be the pike; a 6 meter (20ft) long spear. The only problem with this polearm is, that you would need a fair number of men to succeed in killing the horse and/or the mount.
Instead of making an extension for mounted combat, I would rather like to see new addtions in weaponry, new special fighting moves, and the ability to dual-wield.
Still, I wouldn't mind if mounted combat were included, especially if they added chariots, camels and elephants (or, since this is a fantasy world, how about rhinos !?)


Oh yes... by the way. I believe Romans did not really use chariots very often in their battles or campaigns. Sadly, they mostly used chariots for triumph marches, chariot racing, or gladiator games.

As far as I know, the only cultures who made extensive use of the war chariot were the ancient egyptians, persians, and assyrians.

I think they could do it.Ive played many games where controlls very depending on what your doing.Im sure if mounted combat was added when you got on whatever it is your riding they would show you the controlls.I still think you should be able to ride something that flies or atleast turn into something that can.

When Bethesda talk about there being "no mounted combat", I'm not clear what they mean. Obviously, there won't be lances and charging attacks and suchlike...

But, are you invulnerable to damage when on horseback? The fact that your horse can get armour implies that it can be damaged, so presumably you can too, and it would be rather strange if you couldn't be damaged just by climbing on your horse, so that aspect of "mounted combat" is in, I imagine.

Are you unable to swing a melee weapon when on horseback? I could see this, I suppose, and without weapons specifically made for use on horseback, you'd likely be unable to reach lots of enemies from horseback anyway.

Are you unable to use your bow when on horseback? This is where I start to wonder... would they go to the effort of explicitly disabling something that would otherwise seem to make sense? Assuming they're using something at least as versatile as the skeletal animation systems available in many open source 3d engines, blending the "sitting on the horse" animation and the "firing the bow" animation wouldn't require any work at all, you just make the character do both, so animation frame count shouldn't be an issue...

Are you unable to cast any spells when on horseback? This is something that I would be extremely annoyed by if they've forbidden it simply to prevent "mounted combat"...

Anyway, just some thoughts about exactly what "mounted combat" might entail. If you can still fire bows and cast spells from horseback, I don't know if I'd even notice the lack of mounted melee combat.

(And I hope you can look around with the mouse while riding in a straight line in any case, which would make mounted archery and spell-slinging even more sweet

Your horse can die, you can take damage on a horse as well.

You can't use any weapons while on a horse. No bows, no spells.

If going at a good speed you may knock down your opponent while charging at him.

Thats good to know.

I'll assume armor also probably slows the horse down as well.

that is the main reason they didn't included mounted combat. If gives archers and spell casters an unfair advantage if they can shoot a bunch of arrows and spells at an enemy and at the same time keep running thier house out of the reach of the enemy and be fast enough to dodge any ranged attck they have. most melee weapons are too short to use effectively from horseback anyway, which would make it a feature purely for archers and spellcasters.

since this is in the mod forum ill say yes it would make a cool mod. however im glad its not already in the game.

In my imagination, mounted combat looks great.

But then again, I don't know whether it should be done in Oblivion.

I agree with DoomedOne on this one. I usually have stayed away from the whole mounted combat arguments, but I just want to point out a few things here as to why.

1. One person on horseback is not a cavalry. Cavalry were effective because of many many horses trampling through the ranks of enemies. Indeed the moving mass of the horse added greatly to the penetrating power of any wielded weapons ensuring to make it through the heaviest armors and shields. However you had little ability to aim at a particular target. You simply rode into the ranks of infantry swinging hitting people by shear chance.
2. Cavalry was only effective in open plains. Get them into a forest and infantry had a huge advantage over them.(A lot of Cyrodiil is forested)
3. A few civilizations used horse archers to good effect, but not like how you imagine. They would ride close to infantry, stop, and then fire heavy arrows in a high arc into infantry ranks and then ride away quick when the infantry charged them. It would be extremely difficult to shoot an aimed shot from horseback even if stopped much less moving.
4. Wearing heavy armor would be pretty much out of the question if you intended to mount and dismount your horse by yourself. Most knights in plate armor were hoisted onto their horse using a crane. Once you fell off you never got back on again during that battle.

Now I do realize this isnt a simulation and that suspension of disbelief is a big part of fantasy and roleplaying, but the truth is that Oblivion is very realistic in the sense that horses were used mostly as a means from getting place to place.

Bring on the Mount and Blade style action!! I'd love to see this in the game!