MMOexp: Meaning that I can see why smooth movements were favored from AventurineLe's blog

Mane Quest's problems eventually turn up in places I'd never noticed them, but now is impossible to un-see: Torrent looks like a horse, however their legs bend like...well like they shouldn't, much like a goat but also not really: Now let's get to the bit I'm not fine with Elden Ring Runes: Torrent's joints. Our horse suffers from two of the most typical issues: excessively bent forelegs and completely stiff fetlocks. It's like breaking a record right now because I've brought this up in numerous games however, a horse's fetlock joints need to be lowered as they bear their weight. Animating an extra joint will be a lot of effort, but I am constantly disappointed that an game with the same dimension and resources of Elden Ring does not consider this vital for the character's mount.

It is possible to justify this by pretending that Torrent is more goat than horse, or at least a mixture of both. However, when watching footage of goat walks their legs are fairly straight indeed. As Torrent's legs are more equine than... caprine's legs and I'm not very happy with that explanation. Especially since there are actually horses that aren't goats in this game who are mounted by enemies, and they all suffer from the same problem.

Although it is visually jarring however, there's an element of truth to it: goat's legs might appear odd however they are functional. playing the game for longer has helped me understand that the choice can be understood from a game perspective in a game like Elden Ring, where precision and timing is crucial against every foe, your mount's lack of coordination could cause you to be prevented from using it in combat. Meaning that I can see why smooth movements were favored over the realism of horses.

I also would wish to believe that at some point during Elden Ring's design process , someone mentioned, "Maybe the player needs horses," and somebody else suggested, "Not fucked up enough, it needs to be a goat-like horse with cheap Elden Ring Runes legs" and everybody nodded.