In my time on the Ark, I’ve run into a few things that have bothered me and I think I have an interesting solution.
The issues consist of:
1)Losing a flying mount in the middle of nowhere because you either accidentally dismounted, or were disconnected for some reason. (This could also apply to other mounts)
2)Being forcibly dismounted by one of the dinos that have that capability. I’m looking at you Kapros.
3)Taking peculiar fall damage with a Beelzebufo or finding myself falling a distance with a mount and having no options but to dismount to save them.
The goal of this project is to add a harness item which could be equipped to the player, would add an option in a saddled dino’s UI for attaching or detaching. This would tether that player to the mount until he/she manually detach themselves, thus fixing the issue of accidental dismounts. If the tether could persist through disconnect (as with recent handcuff functionality) the player would log back on to find themselves still mounted. Which would remedy the issue with flying mounts and the like. Now, being able to remove a player from a dino is actually really cool and there are plenty of options in doing so. I wouldn’t want to lose that, but there is definitely a large issue in swamps where you are bound to get grabbed regardless of how careful you are. So Like many items in the game, the harness would have durability that would be used when any dismounting act (Hit with lance, grabbed at by Kapro, or damage hits you) until it breaks, untethering the player from the dino and finally allowing dismount. While it wouldn’t make it impossible to dismount a prepared player, it would make it much harder. This would definitely bring some balance back to beelzebufo which are a fool hardy mount to use in swamps with those Kapros and barys lurking under the water. As for the last issue of fall damage and falling. I don’t think beelzebufo should be immune from fall damage, but I think there should be an option should you take a little too large a leap. A harness used in conjunction with Parachutes would be that option. I think any dino that is carry-able by an argy should be able to remain attached to the player (via the harness) while the player uses a parachute, slowing the fall and saving said dino and player. Any dino larger than that, would simply break the harness.
I have no modding experience, but I’ve got the Dev kit downloading and a goal in mind. Anybody who has any interest in the idea or helpful advice, I’m all ears!