I think mounts should have “families” to categorize them, and then each family has small “racial abilities” that have a little impact in gameplay.
Right now, only two mount “families” have something like that: waterstriders (able to walk on water) and the promotion/fishing turtles (swimmer mount that is slower than other swimmer mounts but does not dispell when walking on land).
But, in a way, flying mounts already have a special “perk” in that they can fly, so maybe this system could apply only to ground mounts? Not sure about that.
Some possible effects:
- Slightly faster on land (around 10% faster?)
- You stay mounted for 3 more seconds after attacking (so, limited mounted combat)
- Increased dodge/evasion while mounted
- Immune to knockbacks/roots while mounted
- Reduce slowing effects
- Higher/longer jumps while mounted
- Swim slightly faster than other land mounts
- Reduced damage taken while mounted
- Reduced fall damage while mounted
- Becomes faster for X seconds after suffering an attack
Imagine that each mount “family” has one or two effects like those, like horses could have increased speed, wolves allow limited mounted combat, cats increase dodge/evasion, kodos are immune to knockbacks/roots and so on.
That would make your mount more than just a cosmetic, while not granting enough advantages to make any of them instantly better than the others.
What do you think?