Right now they are almost entirely useless with their ridiculous weight limitations. I need to be carrying under 30lbs of gear to be able to mount one in game, which means no armor and severely limits weapons. Seems kinda silly how 30 more pounds on top of my character’s body weight is just entirely too much for the horse to handle.
I am not quite sure how the game deals with horses carry-weight, but if it is based on the 20% rule, then it’s realistic. Most horses can only carry up to 20% of their own weight. 30lbs of gear on top of your character’s weight is a significant amount, especially if your character is between 150-200lbs - and this is assuming the average weight of a horse in-game is 300lbs (the average weight of a horse irl).
Weigth of horse breeds irl…
the little Falabella weighs around 100 kilos,
Shetland ponies weigh about 230 kilos,
the German Riding Pony weighs 350 kilos,
Haflingers weigh an average of 500 kilos,
a thoroughbred Arabian weighs 450 kilos,
the German Warmblood weighs about 650 kilos,
a Friesian weighs about 600 kilos,
the Black Forest Cold Blood is already heavier with 700 kilos,
the Shire Horse weighs 1100 kilos and more.
For weigth in lbs, double the numbers…
Take to ponys away, imo the weight for a horse ingame should be around 1200lbs
I also think they could carry a bit more ingame…
Horses in-game have no species. They’re just “horse”.
They weight 550kg in game. Meaning that if the “20 rule” applies to them in-game, a horse should be able to carry around 110kg. So if we include the human riding it (75-80kg), the person’s clothes/equipment (average street clothes around 1kg-2kg?) and the saddle (5-7kgs?), that means the horse can carry a surplus of 21-29kg, which makes sense.
If anything, the decision to “make horses diversified” by species should be made based on wherever the game takes place and which species are either commonly used/bred or native to the area - if any.
A source for information for how much a horse can/should carry is here:
Now you could argue that “oh it’s the cataclysm, no one cares about health and safety.” And, sure, why not? Make it so the horse becomes slow and slow and develops severe back and leg problems if constantly overencumbered, eventually just dying. Or outright refusing to move when overweight.
A horse with a bad leg or back is pretty much screwed. Too much weight and, much like a human, they could get a serious back injury. Makes sense to be careful about how much weight a horse carries if you want to keep using the horse.