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#doesn’t this kind of negate the point of open wheel racing?
sugamoonv · 5 years
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I’ll Still Stay
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Hello! Can I please request a Poly!Mate Hybrid!BTS OT7 x Mate human!female reader imagine where she goes to the shelter, planning on adopting one hybrid, but then when she sees how badly  the poor hybrids are treating, she ends up bringing home 7 hybrids (BTS). BTS are all each other’s mate and see that she’s there mate too. She takes care of them and they take care of her, lots of love to go around! All 8 fall in love! They are all very protective of her + hugs + kisses + cuddles and love.💜🤟  
Pairings: Hybrid!BTS x Reader/ OT7 x Reader
Word Count: 4k
Preface: Wolf Hybrid!Namjoon / Rottweiler Hybrid!Jimin / Siamese Hybrid!Yoongi / Golden Retriever Hybrid!Taehyung / Bear Hybrid!Jin / Bunny Hybrid!Jungkook / Red Fox Hybrid!Hoseok
A.N: I know this took a while, so I hope it’s good. I may have turned this request into a gateway for a series/multipart because I love poly hybrid fics. So yeah- here’s the first installment.
Masterlist > Next
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“I’m going to adopt a hybrid.”
Your friend's eyes widen and they scramble as they get out of their chair to follow you.
“Wait, what? Now?!”
“Yeah. Why Not?” you look at Hoshi with innocent eyes as you grab your jacket from the hanger rack in the entrance of the office you work in. Small conversations and the clicking of keyboards play over yours’ and Hoshi’s conversation.
“Because we’re still at work? And you literally just decided you wanted a hybrid. Are you even ready for one?”
The company you worked for paid its employees well, especially those that specialized in specific sectors. You and Hoshi worked in public relations and as younger employees, you were in charge of helping create ads that appealed to your age group. It was a difficult company to get hired into and was still competitive while working, but was one of the most lucrative jobs available where you lived, and because of this, that meant that most of the people here had lots of disposable money. A majority of them eventually decided their extra money would be best going to getting a hybrid and now you were joining the ranks.
“Chill. I haven’t used any sick days in months, so I doubt they’re really going to get mad if I leave early today,” you negate as you shrug on your jacket. “Vernon told me about this really nice adoption center he got Dino at and he said that lately, they’ve been getting a lot of hybrids. So I figured I might as well go now.”
Hoshi sucks in air between his teeth. “Fine, but if you get in trouble with Mark, that’s on you-”
“Obviously.”
Hoshi’s eyebrows straighten as he tilts his head and gives you a deadpan look. “IF you really are serious about this, there’s a couple of non-profit shelters that you can go to too. And I’ve been hearing that a lot of people are putting their hybrids up for adoption to get new ones. Go to one of the shelters and save money by adopting a hybrid. It’s going to be better considering you’ve never had a hybrid before and the hybrids at the shelters won’t need as much adjusting to having an owner.”
It was true. The adoption centers that typically ran for profit offered hybrids that were fresh out of training school and had never had an owner before. There were even a few places that had hybrids under 18 for adoption for those that weren’t able to conceive and wanted to raise a child.
You nod, “Gotcha,’”.
You beam at Hoshi, “Next time you see me, I’m going to be a hybrid owner.”
“I’m already praying for the hybrid.”
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You slightly glance at the GPS mounted to the dashboard of your car as it gives you the next direction. You still had put in the address from the place Vernon recommended but as you pulled up to the red light, Hoshi’s advice mulled about in your head. You tapped your fingers on the steering wheel before curling them around the wheel and squeezing. You stared at the GPS screen, gnawing on your bottom lip.
You jump as the person behind you lays on their horn, tearing you away from your inner thoughts. The light has turned green and the lane beside you has already cleared so you press on the gas. There’s a small gas station that you pull into. You ignore your GPS repeatedly telling you to make a U-turn as you search for the nearest adoption center and upon finding one, you input the new address into the GPS and begin driving again.
From first glance you can tell this place doesn’t have much funding. The parking lot is all gravel and the grass away from the actual building is overgrown and has been left to its own devices. In the lot, the large adoption building stands alone with its dull paint, broken concrete sidewalk, and faded wooden pillars, making it look lonely. There are only a few other cars parked alongside you, most likely the employees.
The receptionist looks as though this is the last place when you walk into the building. There’s a man in a stained, muscle shirt waiting in the seated area. His stomach slightly pouches and the skin visible shows the sun and age has not been favorable to him.
“Can I help you?” The receptionist has noticed your presence and addresses you.
You give a polite smile and step up to the desk. “Hi. I’m looking to adopt.”
The receptionist clicks on their computer, “Do you have an appointment?”
“Oh! Uh- No, I don’t.” You try to sound positive though you’re sure the dismay sneaks into your voice.
“Okay, that’s fine. Go have a seat and someone will be out shortly,” they say all without taking their eyes off of the computer screen.
You twist your upper body to look at the seats where the man is. The building itself is huge, but most of the space must be dedicated to housing the hybrids because there are only at most ten chairs bunched together.
The sound from your heels on the linoleum floor draws the man’s attention to you and you ignore the way his eyes scan over you. You nearly bolt out of the door to go to upscale hybrid adoption center like you originally planned, but the corkboard on the wall with pictures of hybrids smiling with their owners as they’re freshly adopted catches your eye and you hesitantly sit.
The man sighs and shifts in his seat. “How much longer are they going to be?” he loudly calls out to the receptionist.
“It shouldn’t be too much longer.”
“Bastards took my damn hybrid and I’m trying to get him back.”
You peek up from your phone to see that the man is talking to you. Your cheeks blush and you shuffle back in the chair and cross your right leg over the left. “I’m sorry.”
He rubs his hand over his face, “Yeah, been waiting for a little over an hour and they still have yet to bring him out.”
It’s twenty minutes before anyone comes into the waiting room. At the door opening, both you and the man looked over to see two guards escorting a hybrid out. The man stands and speedily walks over to them. The hybrid flinches in the guards' hold but says nothing as the man throws his arms over his shoulders and pulls him into a hug.
You’re too distracted to see the woman standing by your chair at first. When you finally so take notice of her, she gives you a kind smile and holds out a hand for you to shake.
“Hello. You’re here to adopt?”
You nod.
“Fantastic! If you just follow me to the back, I’m going to ask you a few questions and have you fill out some paperwork and then I can show you some hybrids.”
You gather your jacket and bag from the chair next to the one you were sitting in and follow behind her.
Nervous energy bubbles in your chest as you hear the chatter from the hybrids growing louder as the woman leads you into the housing section of the center. The rooms are set up in rows, similar to a prison where you can look into the rooms through the glass windows in the door. As you glance in the rooms, you mainly see the hybrids laying in their bed, finding ways to busy themselves. You stop when you reach a portion that opens up to accommodate lunchroom style tables and two food serving stations and sit at one of the tables, the metal cool beneath your legs.
“So, most of the hybrids we have here are older but we do have a few in your age range.” The woman shuffles through a pile of paper shes brought with her. “Is gender something important to you?”
“Um, no.”
“Oh that's good!” the woman seems relieved. “I will go get the first hybrid for you.”
You watch her walk off, left alone at the table with the papers. Part of you is curious to see what is written on them but you know it’s not your place to creep. Instead, you get up from the bench and walk to one side of the room to glance into the bunks. There are a few that are empty and as you walk down the line, the hybrids in the room, at most, glance at you passively before returning to their book or falling back asleep. All but one.
His hair is pitch black and it weren’t for his tail, you would be questioning if he was even a hybrid because his ears blend in with the rest of his hair. You can tell his hair is knotted and the plain clothes on him are baggy and loose. As you look in, he turns in his bed from having his knees to hugged into his chest to having one hanging off and the other tucked under him. The breath is knocked from you when you see how beautiful he is; a button nose paired with plush lips, round cheeks, and almond eyes.
His head tilts as he observes you back and he carefully steps from the bed and walks to the window. Your heart starts racing when his face comes directly in front of the window so the only thing separating you is the smudged glass. His eyes widen and he brings a hand up to the window, pressing his palm into it and you see his ears perk up.
“Y/N?”
You’re head snaps in the direction from which you’re called and you lower your hand. The woman’s returned and standing next to her is a hybrid. The hybrid’s hair is as dark as the hybrid’s you were just looking at, though this one’s ears stand straight from his head and have a slight point rather than drooping flat. You can also see the hybrid’s long tail behind him as he keeps his head down. You look back when there’s a whimper from the hybrid in the room you’re walking away from and when you look back at the hybrid being presented to you, he’s looking directly at you.
“This is Min Yoongi. He is a Siamese, twenty-six, and he’s had three previous owners. He IS older than you but I believe he should be a good fit for your particular lifestyle.”
You watched Yoongi the entire time the woman was speaking and couldn’t help but notice the way his jaw clenched at the mention of his previous owners. His tail was also rapidly swishing back and forth, slow enough for you to catch a glimpse of a bald patch on the underside.
“Hi, I’m Y/N,” you politely smile at Yoongi. His eyes are transfixed on yours and despite his wide pupils showing his excitement, he keeps a scowl on his face.
“His name is Jimin.” Yoongi carefully watches as your brows furrow in confusion. “The hybrid you were talking to, his name is Park Jimin.”
“Min Yoongi, that’s enough,” the woman interjects through gritted teeth.
“If you’re going to adopt a hybrid, adopt him, or Jungkook or Taehyung. Not me,” Yoongi says with complete conviction and at the mention of Jimin, you look over your shoulder at the door to said hybrid’s bunk. Now that you listen closely, you can hear a quiet whimpering coming from his direction.
“Min Yoongi!” The woman explosively reaches out and yanks on Yoongi’s ear. He loudly yelps and scurries on the bench away from her and the whimpering from the door becomes louder as Jimin begins kicking the door.
“Hey!” You’re half standing in the bench now, leaning your body over the table as you try to put your arm in front of Yoongi as protection.
Footsteps indicate that a few guards are approaching and one has taken to banging on Jimin’s door with a baton as a warning. Yoongi’s eyes are focused behind you on Jimin’s door but as two guards grow closer to you, his lips pull up in a snarl, ears completely flat against his head and the hair on his tail standing straight up.
“Stay away from them,” Yoongi hisses.
And they do. The guards instead walk around the table and roughly grab each of Yoongi’s arms and hoist him up before beginning to drag him off. You lock eyes with Yoongi as he looks back at you, getting further away but you’re too in shock to interject and a few moments after he’s gone from sight, you hear the slamming of a door.
The woman clears her throat, “I apologize for him. I thought he had learned that he should never try to sway potential owners but it seems I was wrong. He’s usually not aggressive and we will make sure he never behaves in that manner again.”
You just now look at her.
She smooths her clothes as though she was the one dragged off. “Now, I have another hybrid I can show you and I can assure you that he will be far more pleasant-”
“I want to see Jungkook and Taehyung,” you cut her off with a steely gaze.
Her lips thin and her nostrils flare. “Jungkook and Taehyung are both unavailable due to some misconduct, but we do have some other lovely hybrids. If you are interested in adopting in pairs, I can show you our predator hybrids, Seokjin, and Namjoon who are both mature and would also be a good fit for your home.”
You chew on the inside of your cheek as you contemplate your next move. Yoongi seemed so concerned about the two hybrids but the woman is most likely not going to give in and allow you to see them, and she’s the only one here that can ensure you don’t walk out of here alone. One last glance at Jimin’s door to see him shyly looking through the window quells any doubts you have that make you want to leave. If you were able to help one hybrid leave this place, then you felt that was worth it, and so you nod.
There are far more guards in the section that the predator hybrids are housed in. There are also bars on the windows of their doors and instead of the conversations you overheard in the last place, it’s deadly silent.
The woman gestures to the guards standing by the door and the one by the handle pounds on the door twice with his fist before opening it. One hybrid is sitting at a small desk with a book in his hands and the other is standing behind him and turns from the window looking outside to you as you walk in. Both of the hybrids ears perk up as their eyes scan over you.
As soon as you fully step into the room, there’s a series of clicks and grunts coming from the older looking hybrid with the round ears and stubbed tail. He lowers his head and steps away from you before completely lowering himself to the ground. Your eyes are on him so you don’t see the other hybrid until he bumps his body into yours, sending you stumbling and he follows to nuzzle his nose into your neck. A bright red colors your cheeks and your heart leaps into your throat.
“It seems they’ve both taken a liking to you.” The woman’s tone somehow sounds sarcastic. “The wolf hybrid is Namjoon,” she flicks her hand at the hybrid now whining into your neck, “and the bear is Seokjin.”
Namjoon becomes lost in his own ministrations and grabs your waist to pull you closer causing you to gasp in shock and the for the guards to come into the room. At the sight of them, Jin begins huffing and stands, puffing out his chest to seem bigger.
“Why don’t we go look at some other hybrids?”
Jin makes a deep noise in the back of his throat that sounds similar to a growl when the guards step forward and pry Namjoon from you. Namjoon bares his teeth at them and his ears lower back but he remains compliant. Both of their eyes are pleading as you follow the woman back out of the room and you find yourself feeling guilty for walking away from another hybrid.
The next room is right next door to Namjoon’s and Jin’s, though there’s only one person occupying the space.
The orange haired hybrid doesn’t look up when you enter the room, focusing on folding the white clothes perfectly. His room is the cleanest you’ve seen so far, both of the beds are made and the sheets are straightened so there are no wrinkles and the pillows are fluffed, his tennis sneakers are tucked neatly next to his desk which has a neat stack of papers on top, pencils lying to the side.
“This is our red fox hybrid, Hoseok. He would normally have a roommate, but we had to let the other hybrid go, unfortunately.”
Hoseok lifts his head at the woman talking and his whole body stiffens. His hands pause folding mid-air as he assesses the situation with a cautious demeanor. He’s intimidating, even when his face breaks out into a grin and he bounces over to you.
His large hands cup yours and bring them up between your bodies. “Are you here to adopt?!” Hoseok’s eyes light up as he excitedly asks you the question. His personality is infectious so you find that despite the way your heart pounds in your chest, you’re smiling along with him.
“I am.”
If it’s even possible, Hoseok’s smile grows larger. The glow of his skin and the whiteness of his teeth are almost blinding.
Hoseok brings your hand up to his face and leaves a few gentle nips on the inside of your wrist. “You’ve already met Yoongi, Jin, and Namjoon.” You feel his lips curl upwards on the delicate skin of your wrist. “If you don’t adopt me, I hope you adopt one of them,” he stares into your eyes with a soft intensity.
You swallow heavily and you pray that he doesn’t feel your hands becoming clammy. You faintly hear the woman call out Hoseok’s name in warning but both of you ignore her as you keep your eyes locked. And at long last, you exhale a shaky breath and gently remove your wrist from Hoseok’s hand and look away. Your cheeks feel warm so you’re sure he can tell the effect he has on you.
“Hoseok has had three previous owners. The last was actually an instructor at a well-known dance academy, so he is technically trained if you’re looking for a hybrid that’s able to provide entertainment for yourself or any guests you may have.”
The woman gives you the rundown of Hoseok’s past like she’s done with every hybrid you’ve seen. Namjoon and Jin have both only had one owner and were put up for adoption because they were getting too old. You’ve spent nearly four hours listening to her speak about different hybrids and following her from room to room, and though your heart goes to all of the hybrids you’ve seen, only Yoongi, Hoseok, Namjoon, Jin, Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook stay on your mind, even though you haven’t met the former two.
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You stare at the single adoption form in front of you pinned to the clipboard in your lap, pen in your hand. The main lobby is empty and there’s a different receptionist than the one from when you arrived. The setting sun casts the chairs in a golden hue. Most of the form is filled out though your pen hovers above the line asking for the name of the hybrid.
You rest the pen in your fingers and look up from the paper, eyebrows upturned and you continuously glance over at the receptionist working before you make your decision and walk over to them.
“Hi! All set?” the receptionist pleasantly asks.
“Uh-” you place your elbow onto the tall desk and gingerly scratch the bridge of your nose, “No actually. Is there a way I can get six more adoption forms?”
A single person is legally allowed to own up to twelve hybrids at a time.
The receptionist's eyes widen. “Umm, I’m...not...sure,” they answer uncertain, “Let me go talk to my boss and I’ll get back to you, okay?”
“There’s no need to do that,” you muster up a smile to seem convincing, “We already talked about it and said it would be alright.”
The receptionist hesitantly sits back down, looking warily at you and for a second, you think that they’re able to see through your bluff but luck is on your side because they spin to the filing cabinet and pull out extra adoption papers to your request. You quietly thank them and rush back to your chair to fill them out.
The sun had completely set by the time the receptionist puts all of the paperwork you filled out through the system and now you wait impatiently for your hybrids to be escorted to you. Your leg bounces nervously and your eyes never once leave the door. You hold your breath when the door clicks as it’s opened.
Jimin is the first to walk through the door, his tail wagging fast behind him and he slips from the guards escorting him and jogs over to you. His cheeks swell with the smile he has on his face. He hugs your entire arm to his chest and rests his cheek on your shoulder.
The others were in single file behind him, starting with Yoongi and then a hybrid with pure blonde hair, Jin, Namjoon, Hoseok, and finally a bunny hybrid with large ears and hazelnut brown hair. What baffles you is the handcuffs around the wrists of the bunny hybrid. You curiously watch as one of the guards removes the cuffs and the hybrid rubs his wrist and rolls them to crack them. There’s a faint brush of pink upon his cheekbones and his ears twitch when he looks at you and he shuffles so he’s half hiding behind Hoseok.
Yoongi’s looking at you in shock and you find him completely adorable with the way his eyes are big and vulnerable and how his lips form a pout. Namjoon’s tail is wagging behind him yet his face is neutral and Jin steps beside him, lips pressed together to contain his smile. The blonde hybrid that you’re not sure is Taehyung or Jungkook, has a scowl on his face but one ear is raised in interest.
“Ready to go to your new home?” You try to not let your nerves seep through your voice. Jimin’s tail thumps on the back of your leg.
“Did you really adopt all of us?” Yoongi is scared and hopeful all at once. You’re standing in front of him, one of his loves latched to your side and your sweet scent faintly mixes with Jimin’s and Namjoon’s before meeting his nose. He can tell the others are just as affected as him because he’s only ever seen them react the same when they met each other upon first arriving in the shelter.
“If that’s alright with you?”
You’re terrified. You have no idea if they will get along; if they even know each other. As your heart starts racing and your throat closes up, Taehyung bounds over to you at Jimin whining, a similar noise being vocalized.
Taehyung has his ears lowered and tail tucked in submission in front of you, peeking up at you with big eyes. You want to feel the locks on his head despite the tangles and flecks of dirt, the wavier hair that covers his ears. You’re not given a choice because Taehyung nudges his head into your stomach and your hand reflexively comes up to Taehyung’s head as one foot goes back to catch you.
“Please take me home.”
Tags: @detectivebourbon @omgsuperstarg
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writingonjorvik · 5 years
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Can We Discuss Adding A Level Cap?
So I’ve talked about SSO’s leveling a number of times, and there are more than a few examples of my thoughts on it, combined with the way it influences the stat system. Just as a few:
Can We Discuss Why SSO Needs More Higher Levels?
Can We Discuss How To Make SSO a Better RPG?
Can We Discuss the “Speed Is the Best Stat” Attitude?
Can We Discuss: Can We Discuss Breed Specific Abilities?
Can We Discuss: Can We Discuss Why Clothes Don’t Need Stats?
However, I wanted to talk about a different approach to this system that might help resolve a lot of the issues, while also moving SSO into a more interactive direction. And that would be putting a level cap on the game and moving to a prestige level/masteries system.
So I’m going to be talking a lot about Guild Wars 2, because I think they have an amazing masteries system and one of those systems is entirely based around mounts. And while I don’t think SSO should or can just emulate that system straight into their game, I do think it’s a good framework to look at for prestige levels compared to how other games handle it.
In GW2, after you reach level 80, the game switches to a mastery system. There’s still story, but instead of continuing to level, you gain access to several mastery trees that give you special abilities, like crafting legendary weapons, learning how to navigate the jungle, and in Path of Fire’s expansion, mounts. I think there’s a lot to be said about GW2′s mounts and how in a lot of ways they do it better than SSO, but that’s an entirely different topic. Masteries work like levels, but you can choose which one to work on/where experience you earn will go to pick which skills you want to work on. Further, in order to gain those skills, you have to complete special achievements to “buy” the skill after you’ve earned the experience. Points can be earned from simply completing the story, by meditating at special and difficult to reach locations, or by hunting down special quests. Additionally, when you complete all masteries, you start gaining a special currency for the game.
Now, this does a lot of things for the game. For the most part, you only have to earn the first level of a mastery to progress the story, meaning you can choose when you continue your additional mastery tracks. This adds a lot to giving you continued objectives in the game. It also caps out all the stats in the game, meaning there is, for the majority, a max level any one class can have in any stats. This can make balancing the game a lot easier since you’re not always having to rebalance the game for new levels and power levels. Additionally, it moves the game away from getting stronger, and into becoming smarter, creating new unique ways to play the game and interact with the world, which I would argue is more engaging content.
I particularly like how they handle mount masteries. Mounts all have unique ways of movement, but they also have unique acquisition methods too. Some you get from completing the story. Others have long quest chains to build saddles for them, or raise them from their eggs. The focus after you get the mount though is still centered around building a bond with your creature, unlocking special abilities that that mount alone can do.
This is why I think GW2′s system is way better for SSO than say looking at FFXIV or WoW, which just move their level caps with new expanions. SSO already doesn’t have combat, but it does have a broken stat system. Capping the stats would mean moving SSO in a direction where they can theoretically spend less time on balancing competitions (though there still needs to be a serious overhaul to be a good base), and into interacting with the world in more unique ways, which fits much better with SSO’s exploration focus. 
It also would help with the experience gap between new players and old players, like myself, who have had access to experience pools no one will ever be able to access again from old quests. This can help close the level gap. And it also means SSO can reprogram quests to actually give good experience amounts again to make the player feel like they’re making genuine progress.
But what would it look like?
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So this is obviously speculation, but I have some suggestions. I’ve made two mock-up mastery systems for the two major areas of the game: the player’s powers and horses. And there are a couple things that would need to happen for these to work, but they both pair with one of the tracks, so I’ll discuss those first and then their corresponding track. 
The Wheel of the Year/octagon track focuses on the player’s ability. Now, obviously there needs to be a level cap to start this. I’d recommend player level 20, since 21 and 22 are kinda achieved just through, well, at least 50% from event exp, which like I said, is no longer achievable for new players. It’s also closer to the current horse level and as a D&D nerd, I like level 20. I also think level cap should represent in this case an above average skill level. Like, by level 20, you are basically an Olympian rider in skill level and a basic intent in magic.
The track itself would focus on moving past that “human” level of understanding, moving into the almost supernatural abilities the player should be developing in narrative. So there are skills to make races more interesting, which would help when more competition types are added, but basically this is along the lines of the abilities and special skills SSO has teased before, like the straight to gallop leap or immediate recoveries from failed jump, so on. Meanwhile, the Druid Circle tracks represent magic abilities we should be gaining as Aideen’s Chosen, so things like learning Soul Strike or being able to open Pandoria portals wherever, so on. I personally think if we got a full Pandoria map the size of Silverglade or something, it should be a survival focus map to help emphasize the whole dangerous magic aspect, but building these masteries could open ways to survive in that magic. On this system, little circles are passive abilities, like reducing cool downs on skills or boosting stats passively, where as big circles are actual active abilities. This should obviously vary to match each system, but there’s a lot of flexibility in this system and working these skills together, either with branches extending further out, or inbetween.
The second track is based on the Tree of Life, and it’s focused on the Wild Whisperer abilities and horses, since that seems to operate outside the other circle magics. Now, in order for this to work, SSO needs to expand the number of horses we can get in story, either for free or for a nominal shilling cost (talked about this in the Star Coin bloat conversation). I think this would also help balance the more premium cost of horses, because at least there’s a base option with any special abilities horses may have, more along the lines of weather resistant horses right now, unless special abilities were to become a part of dressage or something for bonus points. It also could help expand the “Soul Steed” system from it having to be the starter, to it being just horses for Aideen’s Chosen, because, well, supposed to be connected to all horses. This could open up more players being able to choose their actual Soul Steed, since not everyone wants to play the story with their starter.
This track would focus on expanding the abilities of those special abilities horses have. It could also make SSO’s map design way more inventive if they give all players an easy option to enter all these play styles. Imagine maps designed with super narrow areas, where there are still roads anyone can travel through, but also taking a pony through it will give you access to bonus secret areas from ducking into those tight and narrow corners. Or the inverse, traversing a canyon, and being able to leap off your a larger draft horse to high ledges and explore from there. SSO also toyed with this when the first Frisians came out around Midsummers, where there were branches you could grab without jumping on a bigger horse. I think a great addition to this would be that the standard/starter horse does become a kinda catch all, with some modified version of all of these abilities, particularly if there’s a shilling cost, or that there’s some kind of temporary stat system.
A feature I’ve seen a lot of players asking for is the starter to be a cold resistant horse, which I think would work well in this system. I think it also opens the option of potions that give temporary abilities, like the Tonic of Warming to negate the cold, or the Potion of Flying for boosting up off of your horse, as well as more expensive tack sets to equip that will give the horse wearing it the abilities of the starter and the horse with the ability a boosted one. It could still be linked back to this system, where leveling up the track even if you don’t like the free horse for it, you can still play with another horse you do like, or to combo abilities to explore the map in new and exciting ways.
Obviously, this would be a huge overhaul of the system, but I think it would mean the devs could move into a more interesting design for leveling than before, and could seriously expand what a new map in SSO means. For one, it opens all of the possibilities of the skills in a base overhaul, but moving forward, it means new ways to explore the maps and relearn the game with new abilities.
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