This is kind of a suggestion on how to improve land transportation in Minecraft. I realize some of these ideas may have been suggested before in a somewhat unbalanced way, but my hope is this thread will present a far more balanced, supportable form.
First off, pigs. People have wanted an animal you can hop on and ride (actually controlling where they go) for some time now, usually leading to suggestions of horses. But it seems rather trivial to add another mob to do this when we already have a mob we can ride. Additionally, pigs are pretty much the least useful farm animal in the game, only dropping food upon being killed. So being able to control where pigs go when you ride them is the easiest solution that actually gives them a unique purpose.
However, there's a problem with this - pigs are a lot more cost efficient than Minecarts, especially if some sort of crafting recipe for a saddle is made (leather and string - I see no reason why not). So how do we rectify this? My solution is twofold - first, when riding a pig, it consumes wheat out of your inventory at a rate of maybe 1 wheat per half-minute. If you don't have any wheat, you can no longer control where it goes. Second, make Minecart tracks have another function. They can already transport items in chest carts, but these lack the inertia to make cost effective booster rails for transporting them (and furnace carts are more or less anachronisms at this point). But, if you were to increase the inertia of chest carts to that of player carts, suddenly that rail that transported players can carry loads of items long distances too (using multiple chest carts, you can carry items much faster than having a player shuttle themselves back and forth).
So doing these two things would improve land transportation multiple ways. Minecart rails become efficient, fast ways of carrying items over long distances, and pigs become fast mounts for traveling long distances in uncharted territory, or possibly even riding into battle - who wouldn't want to see hordes of pig cavalry storming a castle (or pig jousts)?
But wait, you might say, wouldn't this make mobs really weak, comparatively speaking, if you could outrun them on pigback? Ah, there's an easy fix for that as well. Make it so when skeletons are exposed to moonlight, and bump into spiders, they automatically mount them and become spider jockeys. (The moonlight condition is mainly because they'd be a pain to deal with in caves, and I couldn't see mounted combat being favorable in closed quarters anyway). So your pig riding knights who ride around at night laughing at ordinary mobs as they speed by suddenly have to contend with spider jockeys chasing them relentlessly. Since the skeletons burn up in the daytime anyway, it's not really going to make the game harder for people who stay inside, and skeleton and spider collisions aren't going to happen all the time anyway, so it wouldn't seriously affect the overall difficulty of the game.
You can outrun them, too. The only mob you can NEVER escape from on foot without sprinting is a spider, although if you happen to be in tricky terrain skeletons could kill you before you get away. I still like the spider jockey idea, though... I keep seeing them in a Super Hostile map and they're definitely more threatening than facing a spider and a skeleton separately.
I got rather tired of reading all of that, and from the most of the post that i read, it seems that your offering a solution that is more complicated than needed. My more simple solution:
You need to feed a pig alot of wheat to "Tame" it so you can controll were you move. I do want making saddles, however I think it should be made with leather, string, and a couple iron to balance it out slightly. Have pigs be faster than player walking speed but slower than sprinting, like in between. This would make it so that if you have tons of food, it would be faster to sprint and eat ocacionaly than to pig ride. You also could not fit through 2 block high spaces, it need to be at least three.
This, in my opinion, is a simple solution that is also balanced.
I don't want craftable saddles.
It is only right that the minecraft elite shall ride the noble pig. Those that have braved the dungeons of darkness and emerged victorious. Not just every steve who punched a cow on the first day and a spider on the first night.
If anything, your idea for craftable saddles makes the rest of your suggestion totally unbalanced. And the wheat consumption sounds like an annoying mechanic that would just make it so that players either make a massive wheat farm or just never bother to ride a pig because it is too much trouble and not really worth it.
I'm a fan of either enchantable saddles or the wheat on a fishing rod.
Or the craftable golden horse golem...
I got rather tired of reading all of that, and from the most of the post that i read, it seems that your offering a solution that is more complicated than needed. My more simple solution:
You need to feed a pig alot of wheat to "Tame" it so you can controll were you move. I do want making saddles, however I think it should be made with leather, string, and a couple iron to balance it out slightly. Have pigs be faster than player walking speed but slower than sprinting, like in between. This would make it so that if you have tons of food, it would be faster to sprint and eat ocacionaly than to pig ride. You also could not fit through 2 block high spaces, it need to be at least three.
This, in my opinion, is a simple solution that is also balanced.
I apologize for the wordiness, I admittedly overdid it. Here's the short version:
Control pigs by feeding them wheat from your inventory as you ride.
Chest Carts have the same inertia as carts with players in them.
Skeleton + Spider = Spider Jockey
But yes, I think your solution for the actual riding is perhaps a little more elegant. It does make pig mounts a little pointless for combat purposes if you can sprint faster; though I suppose they weren't terribly helpful in the first place.
I don't want craftable saddles.
It is only right that the minecraft elite shall ride the noble pig. Those that have braved the dungeons of darkness and emerged victorious. Not just every steve who punched a cow on the first day and a spider on the first night.
If anything, your idea for craftable saddles makes the rest of your suggestion totally unbalanced. And the wheat consumption sounds like an annoying mechanic that would just make it so that players either make a massive wheat farm or just never bother to ride a pig because it is too much trouble and not really worth it.
I'm a fan of either enchantable saddles or the wheat on a fishing rod.
Or the craftable golden horse golem...
Could you explain to me exactly how craftable saddles unbalances things? I'm not quite following your logic here. Is there something else in Minecraft that would be made virtually obsolete by making pig mounts easily accessible? Or is it just that, in your opinion, only a few elite should be able to obtain saddles, even though there's no rationale behind why they can't just be crafted.
The wheat consumption is a possible balance mechanism based on pigs, well, being pigs and eating whatever food is put in front of them; though honestly now that I look at it Pxex had a better idea on balancing it.
Edit: I misread that last sentence. The original idea is in effect wheat on a fishing rod, but without the physical fishing rod. I figure if there were an actual fishing rod involved, it would probably have to be held in your hand, which would make pig jousting impossible (as soon as you switch to a sword you'd lose control of the pig).
First off, pigs. People have wanted an animal you can hop on and ride (actually controlling where they go) for some time now, usually leading to suggestions of horses. But it seems rather trivial to add another mob to do this when we already have a mob we can ride. Additionally, pigs are pretty much the least useful farm animal in the game, only dropping food upon being killed. So being able to control where pigs go when you ride them is the easiest solution that actually gives them a unique purpose.
However, there's a problem with this - pigs are a lot more cost efficient than Minecarts, especially if some sort of crafting recipe for a saddle is made (leather and string - I see no reason why not). So how do we rectify this? My solution is twofold - first, when riding a pig, it consumes wheat out of your inventory at a rate of maybe 1 wheat per half-minute. If you don't have any wheat, you can no longer control where it goes. Second, make Minecart tracks have another function. They can already transport items in chest carts, but these lack the inertia to make cost effective booster rails for transporting them (and furnace carts are more or less anachronisms at this point). But, if you were to increase the inertia of chest carts to that of player carts, suddenly that rail that transported players can carry loads of items long distances too (using multiple chest carts, you can carry items much faster than having a player shuttle themselves back and forth).
So doing these two things would improve land transportation multiple ways. Minecart rails become efficient, fast ways of carrying items over long distances, and pigs become fast mounts for traveling long distances in uncharted territory, or possibly even riding into battle - who wouldn't want to see hordes of pig cavalry storming a castle (or pig jousts)?
But wait, you might say, wouldn't this make mobs really weak, comparatively speaking, if you could outrun them on pigback? Ah, there's an easy fix for that as well. Make it so when skeletons are exposed to moonlight, and bump into spiders, they automatically mount them and become spider jockeys. (The moonlight condition is mainly because they'd be a pain to deal with in caves, and I couldn't see mounted combat being favorable in closed quarters anyway). So your pig riding knights who ride around at night laughing at ordinary mobs as they speed by suddenly have to contend with spider jockeys chasing them relentlessly. Since the skeletons burn up in the daytime anyway, it's not really going to make the game harder for people who stay inside, and skeleton and spider collisions aren't going to happen all the time anyway, so it wouldn't seriously affect the overall difficulty of the game.
HECK YES
You can outrun them, too. The only mob you can NEVER escape from on foot without sprinting is a spider, although if you happen to be in tricky terrain skeletons could kill you before you get away. I still like the spider jockey idea, though... I keep seeing them in a Super Hostile map and they're definitely more threatening than facing a spider and a skeleton separately.
In short, support.
You need to feed a pig alot of wheat to "Tame" it so you can controll were you move. I do want making saddles, however I think it should be made with leather, string, and a couple iron to balance it out slightly. Have pigs be faster than player walking speed but slower than sprinting, like in between. This would make it so that if you have tons of food, it would be faster to sprint and eat ocacionaly than to pig ride. You also could not fit through 2 block high spaces, it need to be at least three.
This, in my opinion, is a simple solution that is also balanced.
It is only right that the minecraft elite shall ride the noble pig. Those that have braved the dungeons of darkness and emerged victorious. Not just every steve who punched a cow on the first day and a spider on the first night.
If anything, your idea for craftable saddles makes the rest of your suggestion totally unbalanced. And the wheat consumption sounds like an annoying mechanic that would just make it so that players either make a massive wheat farm or just never bother to ride a pig because it is too much trouble and not really worth it.
I'm a fan of either enchantable saddles or the wheat on a fishing rod.
Or the craftable golden horse golem...
I apologize for the wordiness, I admittedly overdid it. Here's the short version:
Control pigs by feeding them wheat from your inventory as you ride.
Chest Carts have the same inertia as carts with players in them.
Skeleton + Spider = Spider Jockey
But yes, I think your solution for the actual riding is perhaps a little more elegant. It does make pig mounts a little pointless for combat purposes if you can sprint faster; though I suppose they weren't terribly helpful in the first place.
Could you explain to me exactly how craftable saddles unbalances things? I'm not quite following your logic here. Is there something else in Minecraft that would be made virtually obsolete by making pig mounts easily accessible? Or is it just that, in your opinion, only a few elite should be able to obtain saddles, even though there's no rationale behind why they can't just be crafted.
The wheat consumption is a possible balance mechanism based on pigs, well, being pigs and eating whatever food is put in front of them; though honestly now that I look at it Pxex had a better idea on balancing it.
Edit: I misread that last sentence. The original idea is in effect wheat on a fishing rod, but without the physical fishing rod. I figure if there were an actual fishing rod involved, it would probably have to be held in your hand, which would make pig jousting impossible (as soon as you switch to a sword you'd lose control of the pig).