If you're curious about the model viewing program shown several times throughout this video, it's Dark Souls Animation Studio by Meowmaritus, which now supports Elden Ring. Song used: Windfall Island - The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker OST
Some of the NPCs with RideRequests in their AI, like the Manserpents, also even have entries in the Throw Param for the special critical attack where they can be stabbed on the ground after falling off their mounts. There's a missing spot in the character list after Manserpents as well, so their mount was probably at least partly worked on before being cut. I wonder what it could possibly have been.
I imagine the Manserpents could have ridden something similar to the Abductor Virgins or the Flame Chariots since they fit the aesthetic of their area. As to why it was cut, they probably deemed Volcano Manor was too cramped for a mounted enemy to not look awkward.
My headcannon is that Mohg's second phase was originally going to have him flying on a hover board like the Green Goblin, but they ended up just giving him wings.
Makes sense enough, as, if I recall correctly, his second phase doesn't have a cutscene or anything, inloke every other demigod, as far as I am aware atleast.
As much as I love Torrent, the thought of fighting Radahn while piggybacking on Blaidd’s back would be so badass that I think I kind of want that instead.
"Blaidd let's you mount him." And the collective, terrible, enthusiastic shriek of furries rolled across the land and left untold destruction in its wake.
Being able to hop onto Blaidd's back like yoda and Luke would have made my day in elden ring Blaidd is already my favorite npc being able to fight with him more regularly would have been amazing
And here I thought Blaidd being rideable was a bersek reference. Imagine Ranni getting on Blaidd's back if he was defending her, like Guts and Schierke. That'd be a fun image
Literally exactly what I thought the moment I read the thumbnail. Was 100% convinced it was Blaidd protecting Ranni from a black knives ambush while she was inanimate.
Looking at the Godskin Duo and the fact they have mount points, it makes me imagine some kind of horrific combination attack, with the Acolyte standing atop the Noble. In general, this video gives me more reasons to wish that the mounting system overall, and Torrent in particular, had gotten significantly more depth than it did.
Wasn't there a runebear in the ruins you find Blaidd that upsets him if it dies? I wouldn't be surprised if at some point he was meant to ride that runebear into battle, but even the guy that brought us the Lake of Rot realized how terrifying that would've been.
If you look on the heels of the banished knight's greaves, you can see spurs, the little star wheels. These spurs were used to send directions to the horse for more ease of riding and steering it. I remember looking at them thinking it was strange since they don't ride anything, but now knowing that this, they probably were designed with mounts in mind but the mounts were cut for whatever reason. I find that super interesting and it sorta confirms the suspicion I had!
Even without a mount, it makes sense for them to have spurs on; as elite heavy cavalry, the spur is emblematic of knighthood. Becoming a knight is sometimes referred to as "receiving your spurs," and being handed one's new spurs was sometimes part of the knighting ritual. Having lost lands, titles, and even their horses (and arguably, their honor, since they seem to now work as mercenaries), the Banished Knights are still knights, proudly wearing their spurs. ...and their gigantic codpieces.
I'm thinking maybe we were gonna ride Blaisdell throught the lake of rot cause he's practically immortal because rannis connection to the 2 fingers before we meet her
I choose to believe that the RidePoints on the Godskin Apostle and Noble were meant to interact with each other, and that the original planned Phase 2 of the Godskin Duo fight was that they would fuse together and you would have to fight some kind of Black Fire Voltron.
LMAO, Apostle running in place on top of Noble while he rolls around would have easily turned that into the best boss fight in the game for comedy value alone.
Based off the thumbnail alone I want to be able to ride Godskin Noble around, rolling around everywhere and inflicting pain and suffering wherever I go
Probably might not warrant a whole video, but I was wondering if there is some way to check to see if Torrent was originally planned to be used for the Elden Beast boss fight? Ik myself and many other players felt that the scale of the boss arena would have made it a perfect fit for Torrent along with being a nice way to tie up the game (Torrent being with you from the beginning of the game and all). Anyway, great video as usual!
Okay so hear me out: the fact that ancestral followers have rider AI leads me to believe that at one point you could fight one that was mounted on an ancestral spirit
For the sake of my sanity, I will now just assume Blaidd was gonna offer piggyback rides like a cool big brother, and dismiss all filthy assumptions pouring out of the internet's horny jail.
You could have highlighted a myriad of other NPCs for the thumbnail and bulk of this video, but we know why you chose Blaidd and we are grateful. He's a very good boi.
Two ideas as to why blaidd has that capability. 1: does the tower he's perched on when you meet him for the first time have one too? B: maybe blaidd was going to be used to carry Ranni at some point, for some reason?
But he is the rider, not the mount, as Zully explained due to his attach point, so having the attach point where it is it's impossible to carry Ranni other than inside him.
I imagine that a lot of them have mount points without having mounts is that the devs did a lot of testing with which NPCs worked better on mounts and which didn't.
"Mogh's situation might have been much stranger, as his attach point is significantly lower than you'd expect." *attach point is swinging below the knees* Christ, dear Miquella indeed...
It's possible that one early plan for reaching Nokstella could have involved finding Blaidd in Siofra and hopping on his back while he leaps up the cliffs in a canned animation.
@@abyss5600 That's true, but it still doesn't make a lot of sense why this specific area gets uncovered due to the stars falling. Like, I feel like it would make more sense for multiple new dungeons to be created rather than just one dungeon.
Of course Blaidd has a ride animation, he's everybody's werewolf boyfriend! In all seriousness, though, I expect Blaidd's mount would have been some modified rune bear model, as killing any of the rune bears in the forest where you meet him still results in him becoming hostile.
Hostile? Was this an thing they patched out? I killed bears before meeting him, including the one directly below him and i didnt have him attack me at any point
@@Taevarth They might have patched it out, I remember vaatividya making a video about it, but he might have said in the original release as opposed to the current version.
My first thought beyond mounting any beast, was seeing the ability to “mount” other riders and be placed inside their torso. This could be used for a really cool mod when you “possess” other enemies using the mount system to take control of them and use them to fight
@@pavloydus that actually seems kinda valid since their final phase is some orenstein smough shit where one gets stronger as the other dies - maybe it couldve been used as some lothric-like animation where one picks up the other before they transform in to one entity
Mohg's mounting point is likely used during his intro cutscene, where he slowly rises from a pool of blood. They probably put an invisible dummy mount for him to ride up for that shot to create the illusion of rising from the pool, which is why it's positioned so low.
@@kfogo7459 Interestingly, Morgott doesn't mention Mohg in his list of Traitors to the Erdtree despite them being brothers and both of the Golden Lineage. This may be because he acknowledges that Mohg, being an Omen like he was, had no real reason to be loyal to the Erdtree to begin with. The only character in Elden Ring that could prompt them to work together to fight against would be Ranni, because her Age of Stars is presumed to be a method of severing the gods from the Lands Between, something that they probably don't want seeing as they both worship gods.
I like to imagine that Mohg was going to ride in on a pimped up version of those giant birds and make motor sounds with his mouth as he rides around the arena.
What I find interesting about Blaidd's example is that he clearly has some kind of animation tied to his mounting mechanic. He kneels down for you, then stands back up, complete with a short "grunt" sound effect to go along with it, while all other examples just have the entity either become immobile (sometimes with a static model pose) or just... don't react at all while you snap to them. Blaidd's seems as though it had more consideration for it than just a generic snap point for a rider. Further, his animation doesn't appear to mimic that of a rider climbing onto their mount, but of a mount accepting a rider, since he kneels down for you to get on his back. It's clearly unfinished, certainly, but it seems like there was more work put into him specifically than most other ridable entities. I imagine the goal was to allow him to piggy-back another entity in some instance that was cut part-way through the dev cycle, after they'd gotten a rough animation down and programmed in a sound effect, but before it was fleshed-out into a more clean, complete idea. My best guess is that it's either (a) a cut concept in which he would give the player a piggy-back for some reason or (b) a cut concept in which he would give another entity a piggy-back for some reason (my bets are on Ranni). Depending on when Torrent was finalized as a phantom steed that could appear and disappear at will (since he seems to have been intended to act more like a normal horse at an earlier point in development), it might be that he could become inaccessible at certain points in the game and alternative mounting options would be available for the player, including other horses or bewitched giant ants for example. My guess is that you were, perhaps, intended to hop on Blaidd's back in areas where you'd fight alongside him, like in Radahn's boss fight, to allow you to maintain mobility in an otherwise huge arena against a fast boss. Likewise, if he was scripted to allow other NPCs to mount him, I could imagine an instance in which you fight him and his rider, much like the Lorian & Lothric boss fight in DS3; of course, the obvious assumption is that it would be him and Ranni, with him providing the melee side of combat and Ranni providing the ranged/magic side of combat, creating a tough duo boss that can fight effectively from far away or up close. It's one of those mechanics that, as a whole, feels like there was much more ambition considered for it than we ended up getting in the final game, with a plethora of mounting options for the player to make use of besides Torrent as well as many enemy/rider types that just... never happened. I can imagine why they ultimately chose to scale back the concept, but there's always that part of me that wishes we could have seen it really meet its full potential for the final game.
I very much think it's only Ranni who would "mount" him. I can see that being something they intended at some point, to have him pick her up and tote her around.
I feel like in Blaidd's case, maybe at one point he would have carried Ranni around on his back. Would've be very cute to see if that was actually the case lol
Seeing that the Godskins have a RideRequest function makes me envision Godskin Horse. It'd be a pale, grosser version of the Night Cavalry horse, all covered in skin, rising up from a pool of Blackflame at the whistle of it's masters.
Your videos are very interesting not only as a souls* fan but as a game developer. Seeing some of the internals of how these features are accomplished is fascinating
Frankly, I'm aghast at the lack of mountability for Blaidd in the final product. You gave a 10 foot wolfman that voice and didn't think we'd want to ride him? Frankly, riding Blaidd was the first thing on my mind
The RideRequest behavior actually explains that really weird glitch where the Latenna summon can mount on an enemy Wolf npc. There are albinaurics mounted on wolves in the Consecreated snowfields, so latenna is probably a copy of those enemies and an oversight allows summoned npcs to request from hostile ones.
Mohg's attach point reminds me of visually where Leonard is positioned on Radahn. As Radahn & Leonard were eventually implemented as a single entity, I'd guess that Mohg & Radahn's character models were made from the same base template really early on before Radahn's riding mechanics were changed. If Mohg never had anything to ride, that would explain why Mohg's unused attach point was just left in place, since that feature was never directly modified for him during the development like it was for Radahn. I'm not sure if there's any data that might help to support or refute that possibility, but it might be worth poking around at!
Came here to say this! Reusing the Radahn rig to save re-rigging Mohg from scratch. I bet this is the same reason all NPCs have attach points. It's likely almost every humanoid is built from the same character rig. It's not lazy, it's cost effective and produces the same results as re-rigging every character.
I get that this is a sex joke but imagine if he rode atop miquella's shoulders kaiju style. But then again its likely that they want Miquella to be his own encounter and not a glorified horse mount for Mohg
The unused rideRequest call for each object, could be the result of inheritance pattern. Maybe there was nothing planned at all for the most of them. Just inherited from other objects.
I know something like this won't ever happen because Fromsoft, but I can easily imagine an "episode" stage, for examlle one where you play as Blaidd for a short while fighting off the Black Knives on Ranni's Rise before he goes insane. Or something like AC Nexus' ending where there is no win condition and you can only "lose".
@@enderkatze6129 I'm not to that point myself, but it's part of Ranni's quest. Something happens (I think he thinks she's dead or something, but I'm very likely wrong) and he goes nuts and you have to fight and kill him. Happens after you free him from the evergaol if you choose to free him at that point in the game. I think nothing happens if you leave him there, but it won't progress Ranni's quest (again, I could be wrong with how it's connected).
Maybe a Fan Made Mod but It might take years robe Made AND It might Also be Uber expensive, just look at Skyblivion or Fallout London. It's been years AND they're not fully completed
@@SolaScientia As far as I know, Blaidd exists because of the two fingers and he was created to serve Ranni, who's also supposed to serve the two fingers. But because Ranni disobeyed them, Blaidd went insane because he's supposed to kill Ranni if she goes against the two fingers. Given that they're childhood friends and Blaidd is very loyal, he fights against that as best as he can, up until the Tarnished kills him due to Blaidd being insane and attacking the player on sight. Freeing him from the Evergoal is optional and he'll get out either way when you progress through Ranni's quest, so I don't believe it's connected to that in any way. You can find him at the bottom of her tower after returning from giving her the Dark Moon ring.
Edit: the changed thumbnail really killed this joke, I guess it was too much. :D Because some people are into that. I won't judge. "re-enabling the Ride prompt lets you mount him", oh myyyyy.
I'm really hoping that we get a rider-type boss in the future that mounts up or dismounts as part of a phase change, like the nameless king did. Also... Something something Blaidd simps. Heh.
2:03 it might also be worth noting that Blaidd was a cut summonable spirit that Rannala could use against you as there are audio files of her calling his name for assistance. This could imply that the Blaidd that was to be a part of this boss fight could have been using a mount
i think it was an early concept of the fight against radahn, with an arena that huge and most summons beeing just basic character models (exept for alexander) who should all be able to ride. Radahn riding aswell (not really riding but atleast looking like he does), making blaidd ride something in that fight would make sense.
