DEV Blog 7 - More About Mounts



Date Posted: 20th October 2016

Greetings, Riders! It’s BK again, the lead game designer for the Riders of Icarus development team at WeMade. Collecting mounts is a core feature of Riders of Icarus, and in this DEV Blog I’ll discuss my two favorite mounts and some of the decisions we’ve made while designing mounts in the game.

FAVORITE MOUNT

My favorite mount is Pegasus from Tritael Rift. I really like that its wings look similar to the wings of Icarus from Greek mythology. It's also a very practical mount, as it functions well in both aerial and ground combat. On ground it is considered a steed type, so it moves fast. It can also reach high altitudes, but is far more easily tamed than other mounts that can reach those heights.

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Because I like the Pegasus so much, I've added the mount to a few additional places so that more Riders are able to try it. Originally Riders escaped on a different mount in “Prison of Salant,” but I changed it to Pegasus. I've also based the design of a legendary familiar on Pegasus as well.

MOST MEMORABLE MOUNT

To me, Garme is the most memorable mount I have designed. This is the very first heroic-rarity mount you will get to see in-game, and it was also the first time we introduced the idea of a "boss monster" mount. And once you tame Garme, he’s huge! He’s a very distinct and attractive mount for Riders to use. Because of Daveen and Garme we’ve been able to develop more "boss monster-mount" combinations such as Ashuram and Apocalypse.

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ADDING GLIDE AND SPRINT TO MOUNTS

When we were developing and testing aerial mounts, our internal feedback said movement was slow, and traversing through the world became tedious. Part of this perception is due to an increase in field-of-view that scales to cater to the larger wingspan of these mounts. The field-of-view makes it seem like the mounts are moving slowly because it’s not necessarily representing the actual movement speed. The speed at which the mounts move is actually pretty decent.

Simply increasing the move speed was not the solution, as the speed of the monsters in the world would need to scale as well, so we had to think hard to come up with a feature that allowed faster movement but did not affect mounted combat. After a long discussion, we came up with the "Gliding" feature.

In the Riders of Icarus Closed Beta Test many Riders were happy with gliding, but now some expressed that the ground mounts felt too slow. Therefore, we created the "Sprint" feature on ground mounts to mirror gliding found on aerial mounts.

FLYING IN THE BREACH

In Rift of the Damned, Riders experienced The Breach, the first 5-player dungeon with aerial mounted combat. Flying is one of the most important aspects to the Riders of Icarus experience, so we wanted to incorporate flying in a dungeon. In that endeavor we experienced a few limitations. If an aerial space is too large, it will confuse Riders and disorient them. Riders will lose their sense of direction. On the other hand, we didn’t want to set the flight path physically as it would make flying too restricting and wouldn’t provide the true flying experience our Riders want.

Because of these reasons, we made the flight path in The Breach a straight line and reduced the flight area. We think we struck a good balance and Riders will enjoy flying in the dungeon.

FUTURE OF FLIGHT

As you explore the Breach and find your wings, we hope you will want to see more flight integrated into the dungeon experience. In a future update, Riders will encounter another dungeon that mixes in aerial combat, so stay hyped!

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