Quote Originally Posted by Linkurrra View Post
It's not a matter of what you suggested. It's what ppl will do with it *IF* it is implemented.
Mounts of different speeds just cause problems in parties trying to stay together when moving from one location to another.
If you add combat stats to them, variety goes out the window because everybody is getting mounts based on stats not what they look like! So everybody will strive to get the so called "best" one.
Honestly, some sort of endurance mechanic could probably fix the difference in speed pretty well. Slow mounts will run a bit faster, pressing their endurance slightly, and fast mounts will build up a bit of bonus endurance in preparation for a raid or whatnot, with a total shared endurance pool averaging out the individuals somewhat. So, the party simply enters a "Caravan Mode" or whatnot and ends up moving at the same pace, given by the total composition of the party, rather than being hampered by any given individual speed.

Best stats will still be differentiated based on class, the fight itself, and party-role, which should be diverse enough as long as the stats as a whole don't enforce class-wide used-for-all-situations formulas (again). I'm really hoping stats will be more adjustable in ARR, for both mounts and their riders.

Even then though, there should also be ways in which a player might stray from role-pure. A white mage may want his personal guard chocobo for instance, armoring him with defensive stats that will in no way benefit the player or the player's role directly. At the same time, that could be used for sticking closer to the front line (if that actually gave benefits in this game...).