Mount

“	Mounts will allow you to navigate the Exiled Lands at a more rapid pace than before, but that's not all: we're also rolling out mounted combat, letting you swing your sword at your enemies from horseback! We'll have more to share about mounts in the time leading up to release in December.	„
	~ Jens Erik, Dev Blog

Mounts are mountable pets. They can be used for transport and combat.

List of mounts

Horses

Horses can be picked up as foals and may also have a "Swift" or "Sturdy" prefix, which does nothing. The Black and White Horses can be crafted from any of the four basic horses using  Tainted Fodder.

•  Horse (Variant A)
•  Horse (Variant B)
•  Horse (Variant C)
•  Horse (Variant D)
•  Black Horse (Pet) (Riders of Hyboria DLC)
•  White Horse (Pet) (Riders of Hyboria DLC)

Rhinos

All rhino mounts need to be crafted from a basic grey  Rhinoceros using  Sea Salted Fodder, or Wartorn Fodder for the beta reward.

•  Purebred Grey Rhinoceros (Isle of Siptah DLC)
•  Savage Grey Rhinoceros (Isle of Siptah DLC)
•  Killer Grey Rhinoceros (Isle of Siptah DLC)
•  Wartorn Rhino (Isle of Siptah beta reward)

Attribute Growth Chance Buffs

• Feeding Mounts specific foods give an increased chance to specific attributes when they gain a level.
• Nutrition is a relative factor that governs the healing power of each food.

Thrall - Food	Strength	Agility	Vitality	Accuracy	Survival	Nutrition
Grey-flower Lupine	+14%					1
Bark		+14%				1
Vines			+14%			1
Seeds				+14%		1
Desert Berries					+14%	1
Highland Berries	+7%	+3%	+3%			2
Shadespiced Highland Berries	+3%	+7%	+3%			2
Hops		+7%			+7%	2
Leavening Agent	+3%	+3%			+7%	2
Asura's Glory	+7%		+3%		+3%	2

Transportation

Mounts move 50% faster than a sprinting player. They are also able to swim in water.

Mounted combat

Main article: Controls

Mounted combat has a variety of options. You can use spears, one-handed weapons, bows and lances while riding a horse.

Horse armor, barding, is made through the Armorer perk. There are 5 saddles: lv.20, lv.40, lv.60 (each with light, medium, heavy variations) and two extras: Aquillonian Scout and Savage Cavalry.

You can be forcibly dismounted while in combat. The Damage Endurance Multiplier seen in the mount UI is the multiplier on how easily you can be dismounted when taking damage.

Notes

• For available perks, see Follower Perks.
• Mounts can only be mounted by the player.
  • Mounts don't count towards your one companion limit.
• Mounts can be renamed.
• More mounts are possible in the future.
  • More saddles are possible in the future.
• Savage Cavalry was suggested as best PvP option in mounted combat by the developers.
• Elephants were planned mounts. It is also uncertain if they would only be added as mounts or also as pets.
• Mounts will not engage in combat. Use pets for this instead.
• It is possible the same or similar animations to that in Age of Conan were implemented.
• It is possible mounts are referred to in the Debaucheries of Derketo Pack. It includes two small statues of staggering mounts, which respectively depict someone riding a horse (both white) and someone riding a dragon or similar (both black). Both persons hold a sword; the first has it pointing forward, the second has it pointing up.

“	It was a lot of work, and we have done it with some clever tricks that bypass some of the issues, that in turn present other lesser issues. And with optimizations done over the year(s) they are actually feasible on console too.	„
	~ Scooper

• Previous technical difficulties were able to be worked around eventually.

“	Unfortunately, we will not be launching with mounts or pets. Mounts were one of the most requested features, and we have spent a lot of time trying to make it work for Conan Exiles. Due to technical limitations with the way the game loads and streams the game world, we were unable to include a feature that allowed players to move over a certain speed. Our coders worked hard to find a solution for this, but in a recent “point of no return” type meeting, we decided that their time is better spent on polish, bug fixes, and other features that we know can make it for launch. Pets is another animal-specific thing we also wanted to do. We have done a lot of the groundwork, and it’s certainly possible that we can add them at some point after launch, but we decided to prioritize polish and other features ahead of launch. There were also concerns about server performance, that too many players having too many animals and human thralls would have a massive impact on servers. To minimize risk for launch and to focus on other core features, we have decided to put this on hold.	„
	~ Dev Blog

• Mounts were originally not able to be added for full launch.
  • The attempts to add mounts left behind an unfinished 'mount' blueprint example in the DevKit, which has no use so far.

“	I was a nervous wreck inside when we were wrapping up the stream. There’s a reason why my cheeks are so red towards the end.	„
	~ Jens Erik, Funcom Forums - September 27, 2019

• Alex sheds light on the effort which went into making the stream teaser.

Alex describes that the dev team always wanted to add mounts (the earliest discussion was in March of 2017). But, as Alex goes on to explain, there were other priorities then a mounted system. There were various issues and priorities they felt was most important, and why mounts were ultimately put on the back burner.

Eventually, they reached a point where they felt the time was right to not only work on the mount system and resolve all the issues that have been well documented, but to do it right. They want mounts to be something players find engaging, want to use, and meaningful. And they didn’t want it to be just another fast travel system (hence mounted combat). And all of that is expensive and difficult to do, so they had to take their time.

• Jens sheds light on the background of the mounts system.
• Early Access description:

“	Taming animals will mostly work the same as taming thralls. Players will have to drag their chosen mount back to a special pen that will break the animal’s will and turn it into a mount. The idea is that taming is an active process. We will also be adding animal thralls that will work as pets and transports for players, as well as mount and pet gear so you can customize your animal companions. Players will start out taming horses and camels to use as transportation and pack animals, while bigger animals like rhinos and elephants can be used for more offensive purposes. We’ll also be working on adding mounted combat.	„
	~ Dev Blog

Note, Most of this description concerns pets.

Background

Mounts were originally supposed to be available in one of the first patches after Early Access of Conan Exiles. This info since has changed, as technical difficulties have arisen. No fix for these issues has been found.

Mounts are not impossible, but they are not super straightforward. The main problem comes from how they structured the player character/input and UI early on. It was not planned early on to have mounts. Basically, everything is very reliant on the current controlled actor being the player. If the developers change that, there is a lot of systems that break. So it is doable, but it is a lot of work to fix.

• The developers have not been in a position where they've had the time to dedicate for it.
• For consoles it has been an issue about performance, having increased run speed allows players to run too fast for the consoles to load the world.
• You could also run off the map.

Adjusting the speed to be the same as the player makes mounts look like they are running in slow-motion. This did not feel right to the developers.

Thursday, September 26, 2019 mounts were teased at the end of the stream. As Jens was talking about the stream schedule a mounted horse rode by while he mentioned TwitchCon. Viewers noticed the mount immediately and shouted "horse!" in chat to celebrate.

Friday, September 27, 2019 it was announced that mounts and mounted combat would be implemented in December 2019. An early version of mounts would be playable on the TwitchCon show floor on September 27-29, 2019.

Gallery

• 

  Mounted melee combat.

• 

  Mounted ranged combat.

• 

  Staggering horse mount.

• 

  Mount demo at TwitchCon 2019.
  (TwitchCon 2019)

• 

  Mounted combat.
  (TwitchCon 2019)

• 

  Swimming in water.
  (TwitchCon 2019)

• 

  Pet leveling.
  (TwitchCon 2019)

• 

  Mount UI.
  (TwitchCon 2019)

• 

  Mounted combat.
  (Announcement trailer)

• 

  Horse mount teaser on stream.