"Minor Speed Increase" effect with Plainsrunning

[Imonobor]

Hi! I recently got my cow to 40 and was so excited to get Plainsrunning.
However, I was disappointed to find out that my "Minor Speed Increase" enchant on my boots had no effect whatsoever while I was Plainsrunning. This makes no sense, and makes Plainsrunning an inferior version of having a mount, because you can't increase its speed with trinkets like Car Keys and Carrot on a Stick, or with enchants like Mithril Spurs or Riding on gloves either!
Minor Speed Increase only gives 8% movement speed, it won't be that gamebreaking to have it affect Plainsrunning, given that it doesn't stack/can't be increased further by anything, while mounts can be sped up by 3+3 (two trinkets) +4 (or even +7 with the new Thorium spurs, not sure about the exact percentage) +2 (gloves enchant) = 12% increase (or 15% with Thorium Spurs?).
Give running cows some love! <3

[Drubarrymooer]

Yeah I agree with this. I mean, I get lore-wise why carrot and car key wouldn't work. So twow should make movement speed increases like speed to boots work with plains running.

[Jc473]

Hi! I recently got my cow to 40 and was so excited to get Plainsrunning.
However, I was disappointed to find out that my "Minor Speed Increase" enchant on my boots had no effect whatsoever while I was Plainsrunning. This makes no sense, and makes Plainsrunning an inferior version of having a mount, because you can't increase its speed with trinkets like Car Keys and Carrot on a Stick, or with enchants like Mithril Spurs or Riding on gloves either!
Minor Speed Increase only gives 8% movement speed, it won't be that gamebreaking to have it affect Plainsrunning, given that it doesn't stack/can't be increased further by anything, while mounts can be sped up by 3+3 (two trinkets) +4 (or even +7 with the new Thorium spurs, not sure about the exact percentage) +2 (gloves enchant) = 12% increase (or 15% with Thorium Spurs?).
Give running cows some love! <3

But you still get the benefit of a 100% speed mount for 'free' and also the benefit of racial from level 1!

You are focusing on the 'end state' comparison and ignoring the benefit throughout the entire journey.

An equivalent racial would be the human Diplomacy one where eventually it becomes redundant after you've become exalted with all factions. But it doesn't change the fact that you have benefited from it along the way.

[Imonobor]

Plainsrunning is not free - you still need to train riding, which is 90% of the expense for a mount, and even then you need to do a quest chain that requires mats for 4-5 gold and quite a bit of travel time. So I'd say cost-wise it's the same as just buying a kodo for 9g.

I do admit that it would be somewhat powerful at lvl 40, because you can already have enchanted boots at that point, but the same is true for spurs/gloves enchant/trinkets (carrot being the highest level requirement, because you need to clear ZF). They do require more investment of time and money though, but also reward more speed. So I think it balances itself out. And even if it's a bit more "powerful", it's still a tauren-only racial, racials are supposed to give you some bonus after all.

I'm not sure which racial you're referring to from level 1. Plainsrunning unlocks at lvl 40

[Jc473]

Plainsrunning is not free - you still need to train riding, which is 90% of the expense for a mount, and even then you need to do a quest chain that requires mats for 4-5 gold and quite a bit of travel time. So I'd say cost-wise it's the same as just buying a kodo for 9g.

Forgive me, I'm not clear on details. So, it's effectively the same cost at level 40. But what about the epic riding? What is the plainsrunning equivalent cost at 60?

I do admit that it would be somewhat powerful at lvl 40, because you can already have enchanted boots at that point, but the same is true for spurs/gloves enchant/trinkets (carrot being the highest level requirement, because you need to clear ZF). They do require more investment of time and money though, but also reward more speed. So I think it balances itself out. And even if it's a bit more "powerful", it's still a tauren-only racial, racials are supposed to give you some bonus after all.

I'm not sure which racial you're referring to from level 1. Plainsrunning unlocks at lvl 40

Well, I assume the benefit is that taurens don't have to pay for the epic mount itself?. This is the bonus that taurens get during when they are at level 60. Does it eventually become outclassed by a fully souped-up epic mount? Yes, but at that point, the tauren can also conform.

The racial I'm referring to is the human 'Diplomacy' one which increases reputation gains by 10%. People look at this one as useless because, eventually, it becomes redundant once you are capped out with all reputations. However, every seems to neglect the benefit you get with it during the journey. If I was to change anything about plainsrunning, I would ask for it to become available from level 1 and have the speed bonus scale with level (similar to the turtle mount). This would truly mean that the bonus of the racial was mainly during the 1-59 experience.

[Imonobor]

Plainsrunning scales with your riding skill. So you have to pay 900g (810g with honored discount) to make Plainsrunning give you 100% speed. The cost is essentially the same as buying a kodo, because even the 9g kodos scale to 100%, so you don't have to buy the 90g armored ones after you train epic riding.

It's essentially made to be an equal alternative to getting a mount, but it is not equal, because mounts can be sped up with spurs, trinkets and gloves enchant, while plainsrunning can't. That's what my suggestion aims to remedy.

[Jc473]

Plainsrunning scales with your riding skill. So you have to pay 900g (810g with honored discount) to make Plainsrunning give you 100% speed. The cost is essentially the same as buying a kodo, because even the 9g kodos scale to 100%, so you don't have to buy the 90g armored ones after you train epic riding.

It's essentially made to be an equal alternative to getting a mount, but it is not equal, because mounts can be sped up with spurs, trinkets and gloves enchant, while plainsrunning can't. That's what my suggestion aims to remedy.

Yeah, sorry, I edited my last post to reflect that.

So, basically, you avoid having to spend about 95g across both mounts. Is it a lot? Not really, but I think it would've been a better design to have it available at level 1 and scale to epic mount speed by 60 (and avoid all costs). So, the trade off would be earlier speed and no mount costs but eventually outclassed by a souped-up epic mount.

I don't think you'll ever have it be a 'bonus' in your eyes when comparing level 60 mounts. The best they would do would be to allow these existing speed enchancements (e.g. spurs) magically boost your plainsrunning speed. But they'd never make it better than a fully souped-up epic mount.

[Drubarrymooer]

Hi! I recently got my cow to 40 and was so excited to get Plainsrunning.
However, I was disappointed to find out that my "Minor Speed Increase" enchant on my boots had no effect whatsoever while I was Plainsrunning. This makes no sense, and makes Plainsrunning an inferior version of having a mount, because you can't increase its speed with trinkets like Car Keys and Carrot on a Stick, or with enchants like Mithril Spurs or Riding on gloves either!
Minor Speed Increase only gives 8% movement speed, it won't be that gamebreaking to have it affect Plainsrunning, given that it doesn't stack/can't be increased further by anything, while mounts can be sped up by 3+3 (two trinkets) +4 (or even +7 with the new Thorium spurs, not sure about the exact percentage) +2 (gloves enchant) = 12% increase (or 15% with Thorium Spurs?).
Give running cows some love! <3

But you still get the benefit of a 100% speed mount for 'free' and also the benefit of racial from level 1!

You are focusing on the 'end state' comparison and ignoring the benefit throughout the entire journey.

An equivalent racial would be the human Diplomacy one where eventually it becomes redundant after you've become exalted with all factions. But it doesn't change the fact that you have benefited from it along the way.

I would say just up the cost a bit and that solves the problem. However, I will point out that several classes get "free"mounts as well. It's a non issue tbh though. Circumventing less than 100g isn't a big deal. You still pay for the riding skill which are the expensive parts. It doesn't provide any advantage unless you count being able to run in BB an advantage. You still need a mount to participate well in BGs. Also, turtle provides everyone with a free mount at level 20 via a quest, so no one has to even buy their 9g and 90g mounts if they choose not to.

[Imonobor]

There has been a misunderstanding. The only cost that Plainsrunning "circumvents" is 9g for a basic kodo, and that is offset by 5g in mats and quest travel time.
Actually if you get the turtle mount for free, when you learn riding it will scale up to 60% speed (and up to 100% when you get epic riding), so Plainsrunning is actually a 5g investment MORE than just getting a mount (with current fadeleaf AH prices, which is the most expensive material for the quest). Again, this cost is negligible.

Having it completely free will be too overpowered in my opinion though, especially if it allows you to skip on the cost of epic riding training. Even class mounts have steep prices and long quest chains for those.

I am not against the idea of it being learned at level 10-20 and scaling up with your level before you learn riding though. I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement though, since plainsrunning works by stacking 3 copies of a speed buff, so at level 23 for example, the max speed would be 11.5%, which if you divide by 3 to get the speed for each buff, you'd get 3.833333333...%, and you gotta have such buffs for each level up to 60, which is not feasible, and quite janky.

Overall, I am very happy with how the ability is implemeted currently, my only wish is to have it be buffed by the minor speed enchant, so it can stay somewhat competitive with mounts for those cows who would rather trust their own two hooves over riding a kodo.

[Balake]

There is no separation between movement speed increasing buffs. If want to make Plainsrunning work with boots enchant you'll have to make it work with everything from speed Zanza and heart of hakkar buff to swiftness potions.

[Imonobor]

There is no separation between movement speed increasing buffs. If want to make Plainsrunning work with boots enchant you'll have to make it work with everything from speed Zanza and heart of hakkar buff to swiftness potions.

So, it's a technical limitation? All movement speed buffs are inside a class that doesn't stack with one another?
I see, that is a bummer then. I still hope if the devs like this suggestion that they would find some hacky workaround way of implementing it. Thank you for the insight.

I guess another way of implementing a similar feature is to have a tauren-only version of the Mithril/Thorium Spurs that increases the speed of Plainsrunning ONLY. Maybe some horsesh... uhh I mean Taurenshoes?

[Drubarrymooer]

I guess another way of implementing a similar feature is to have a tauren-only version of the Mithril/Thorium Spurs that increases the speed of Plainsrunning ONLY. Maybe some horsesh... uhh I mean Taurenshoes?

That was the first thing that came to my mind as well after reading Balake's reply. I'm not as technically savvy though, so I could be wrong.