Why are horses better mountain and hill climbers than humanoids?

[SpellAndShield]

Anyone else notice how a horse can scale just about anything but the sheerest of moutain surfaces but your dovakin, well...why is that??

[TimF]

Such are the horses of the Nirn.

[Khorak]

Because once again Bethesda made horses laughably pointless, and not even particularly good at what horses are for. So they needed a reason for you to bother owning the damn thing. For some reason no-one raised their hand and said "Why not make them naturally move at the same speed as the player character sprinting?", which would have made sense and given us a damn reason to own one....and not just own one, but own one as quickly as possible because low level players would get the absolute most benefit from being able to outrun Trolls, Sabre Cats and Bears that would otherwise tear them in half like a sheet of paper.

 

No, instead someone raised their hand and said, "Lets make them like 4x4's!". For some reason, that person was not immediately beaten with a stick.

 

It makes zero sense. Especially since the terrain of Skyrim would place limitations on horsies that would counteract the huge advantage you'd have when using one in places where they'd be able to operate effectively. You could cheerfully massacre foot bound bandits around Whiterun, and when travelling on roads. However, the rocky, broken terrain of Skyrim would force you to dismount in order to continue exploring the wilderness so you don't end up rearended by a damn bear whilst on a horse that can't move well in this area. You could easily make horses freaking awesome and yet realistically inapplicable in the majority of Skyrim, because it's a rocky, snow covered, mountainous dump.

[Lachdonin]

The Horses in Skyrim are actually large, hornless variations of the more commong mountain goat. Their hoves have soft tissues pallets which allow them to act like suction cups, alloing the horse to climb slopes with flat-footed creatures, such as Humanoids, would be otherwise unable to traverse.

 

On a more serous note, I think its either an unintended trait of their skeleton, or its to make them remotely useful. As Khorak said (In what i am learning to be his characteristicly angry way) the environment of Skyrim is not exactly Horse-Friendly. Even if your sticking religiously to the roads, theres little point in using a horse unless their moving considerably faster than the PC can on foot. As it is, the Horses can barely outrun a wolf, god forbid have have a Sabercat chasing you.

 

I think the only reason they are even in the game is because, for some strange reason, people like having useless horses around. Why they were so populat ion Oblivion i'll never know. If they could actually carry things and would follow you like a companion, they may be at least slightly useful.

[justwannaddl]

They aren't even useful for climbing mountains. Sure they can climb steeper slopes but I can't count the number of times my mouse jumped or the horse climbed over a ledge and I had no chance to recover. The only use they have now is to let over-encumbered fast travel.

[Khorak]

I think the only reason they are even in the game is because, for some strange reason, people like having useless horses around. Why they were so populat ion Oblivion i'll never know. If they could actually carry things and would follow you like a companion, they may be at least slightly useful.

 

I think that's the only reason they exist on Tamriel at all. Look at a map of the place. It's all mountain, wood, desert or marsh. All you'd find on this continent would be goats, hippos, snakes and camels. There'd be three confused looking horses somewhere around Kvatch who'd have finally come across the prophesised Flat Land of their legends, albeit smaller than the legends claimed, and they'd probably end up trampled and eaten by migratory herds of goats.

[Lachdonin]

Not to mention that, in Morrowind, they ride giant fleas and bumblebees, in Elswyr you ride around on siblings, Blackmarsh has raptor-like critters, and in Summerset they probably just teleport from city to city. And don't worry about moving around in Valenwood, because your tree-city will just go somewhere else since the freaking forests migrate...

 

Horses have no use in the TES universe.... They've been replaced by things which are much cooler.

[thesapien]

There is a mod for faster horses. I seem to remember it even having speeds to choose from. I used one that made my horse just fast enough to outrun other wildlife while sprinting. Funny thing, I still didn't like having a horse tho because of the whole mounting/unmounting when I'm freak'n carrying a bow. Why can't I shoot an arrow while on my horse?

[Lachdonin]

Why can't I shoot an arrow while on my horse?

 

That takes mad fraking skills man. We're talking Nerevarine skills. The Dovahkiin just isn't that bad ass.

 

Seriously though, shooting from horseback is absurdly difficult to do. Being able to swing a sword from Horseback would be more reasonable than shooting a bow.

[Khorak]

If you've got a small enough bow, it's technically not going to be too difficult to fire it from a horse....if you stop. The problem with those friendly steppe horse archers like the Mongols and endless Russian/Eastern European/Persian hordes is that they're impolite enough to do it while still galloping around. How are you supposed to easily shoot back at them if they're doing that? Rude. That's all it is. Rude.

 

And it would also have resulted in some fun variety with bows! Do I cart around a more powerful foot bow, or something I can use whilst on my horse? Could also differentiate in even mroe ways than that....the lighter, less powerful but more compact bows wouldn't just be for use on horseback, they'd be the sneaking choice. Ever tried sneaking with a six foot war bow? Yeah it's probably not simple. So huge, scary combat archers would have their giant foot bows that blow through armour.....and sneaky so and so's would be relying on added sneak attack damage from their smaller bows. :) Fun!