World Water Mounts & Boat Improvements [10+ Supporters!!!]

DISCLAIMER: I know that this has already been suggested, but all the threads I could find about it had very little detail, were old, and had many differences from my idea. I didn't copy them or anything because I did all the work on this suggestion before writing this thread, and I only looked up other similar suggestions a moment ago. If you had a similar idea, then please tell me (Other people have unintentionally had the same suggestions as me in the past, though more detailed, so I know how you feel)

Now, on to the suggestion itself!
We all know the pain of travelling around the ocean in our slow boats which you have to re-buy every time you decide to get out of one. Some quests require you to swim through the entire ocean in a giant circle (e.g. Zhight Island) which takes ages. While some people did suggest things such as ships, I think that something more similar to what we have already would make ocean travel much easier and, in conjunction with a more interesting ocean (more mobs), much more fun!

As you have probably read the title, you know that I'm talking about water mounts. But you may be wondering, "would that not just be the same thing as boats?". Well, not really. You see, on land we have horses to travel with. They would be pretty boring if not for the tiers, and their crucial place in the economy. Boats, on the other hand, are boring. No tiers, no place in the economy, no nothing. So what if we had water mounts? Here is my take on them:

(This is quite long, go to tl;dr section for a quick overview if you don't want to read all of the technical stuff)
Detailed Description

Spoiler: How they work

There are three tiers of water mounts - Tier 1 is a boat (not quite what you'd consider a "mount", but that's the only word I could think of to describe all three tiers). Tier 2 is a squid, and Tier 3 is a guardian. The old boats would still be in the game, but the "mount" boats are better. You can re-use them as much as you want, just like squids, guardians, and horses, and they can be faster by boosting (I'll talk about this after the next paragraph)

All water mounts except for boats have levels (you can't really train a boat now, can you?). To level up, you need to travel a certain amount of blocks. For every metre (aka block) you travel, your mount gains 1 xp. To level up, you need 1000*2^(lvl - 1) xp. So if your mount is level one, it needs 1000*(2^0) xp, which is 1000*1 xp, which is 1000 xp. To get from lvl 2 to lvl 3, it's twice that, so 2000 xp. Pretty much, you start of with 1000 xp to level up, and then the amount required doubles for every level.
Squids can go up to level 5, and guardians up to level 6.

But what do these levels do? Well, to answer that, we need to talk about Energy. All water mounts have a certain amount of energy, which allows the user to "boost" by holding right-click. This increases the speed of the mount by 2 m/s (for reference, a normal boat travels at 8 m/s) but uses 1 energy per second. When right-click is released, the mount can regenerate energy at a rate of 10 every 10 seconds. This "boost" is useful when you want to travel to a place quickly, but you can't use it all the time.
Boats are limited to 10 energy (the mount boats, not the single-use ones. Single-use boats would remain unchanged) as they can't level up. Squids will start at a maximum of 5 energy, but as they level up they gain +5 max energy per level. At level 5, they will have a maximum of 25 energy. Guardians start at 20 energy, and with every level they gain +5 just like squids. At level 6, they will have a maximum of 45 energy.

Another thing I want to briefly mention is that to spawn the mount, you must be in water and you have to right click with the summoning item (more on that later). It's pretty much the same as spawning a horse, but you can't do it on land. If a mount lands on land, then it despawns if it doesn't return to water within 1 second.

Lastly, you can attack with your weapons while riding on these mounts but you can't use spells. This allows for combat on the sea, making it less boring and more exciting. If it's possible, then archers would hold left click to boost and shoot with right click as normal, but if that's not possible then they'd have to shoot using the left mouse button.

Spoiler: How to get them

Getting a Tier 1 mount (boat) is simple. Just go to Nemract and speak to a Boat Merchant. these are the same merchants as the ones in-game right now, but you can buy not only the single-use boats but also these new boats from them. They cost 16 EB as they can be used infinitely. It's not intended for level 20 something players to buy them, as they probably can't afford them. Once you have to go to Gavel (level 39), you should have more than enough emeralds to afford one of these boats. You will get a boat item called "Summon Boat" which is used to spawn the boat. See pics for more info on how the item looks.

There are two ways to get Tier 2 mounts - By buying them from a merchant, or by getting them from eggs (which I will discuss in just a moment). A Boat Merchant outside Llevigar sells single-use boats, these new boats, and also squids. The squids cost 3 LE. You will get an ink sack used to spawn it. See pics for more info on how the item looks.

To get Tier 3 mounts you have to buy Eggs. You can find Egg Merchants in Olux, Cinfras and Dogovi (to give it some use, as Rodoroc overshadows it). They sell eggs for 2 LE each (See pics for how they look). When you right-click with an egg in hand, the egg is deleted and you get either:
-A Lv. 1 Squid (70% Chance)
-A Lv. 1 Guardian (10% Chance)
-A chicken (20% Chance, it simply spawns a baby chicken at your position, which is useless)
This is statistically a better way to get a Squid, as it will cost 2.85ish LE on average, but if you prefer the safe option then you can buy a Squid from a merchant (as described above).

Pics + Stats
Here are the mounts' stats, and pics of what the items look like.
(Nemract > Selchar is the time it takes to travel there without boosting. The distance is about 777 metres)
Tier 1 - Boat



Tier 2 - Squid



Tier 3 - Guardian



Egg:
(70% Squid (Tier 2 water mount), 10% Guardian, (Tier 3 water mount), 20% Chicken (useless))


tl;dr version/summary
You get these mounts from Boat Merchants (Nemract for boat, Llevigar for boat and squid) or from eggs which Egg Merchants sell (in Cinfras and Dogovi). They randomly hatch into a Squid, Guardian or useless Chicken as you can see above.
You ride and spawn them just like horses but in water, and you can't go on land with them or spawn them outside of the water. You can use your weapon to attack while on the mount (but no spells), which allows for combat on the ocean so it's not boring.
Squids and Guardians have levels (max lvl is 5 and 6, respectively), 1 metre travelled = 1 xp. XP requirement doubles every level and starts at 1000. Each level increases the mount's max energy by 5 which allows it to boost (by holding right-click). Boosting adds 2 m/s to the mount's speed (8.0 m/s is the speed of a normal boat in minecraft FYI) but uses 1 energy per second. When not boosting, energy regenerates at a rate of 10 energy every 10 seconds.
Boats have max 10 energy, Squids at lvl 1 have 5 and at lvl 5 have 25, and Guardians have 20 at lvl 1 and 45 at lvl 6.

Sorry for this thread being a bit of a wall of text, but I couldn't find a better way to explain everything I needed to. Please tell me what you think in the comments! Constructive criticism is appreciated :)

 

I think this would be neat, but I think it should be like horse breeding, you take two of the eggs. Craft them together and pray for the next tier. Squid>Guardian>That one bigger guardian>etc etc. We could have a whole new economy based on watermounts. And it would be another E Sink

 

I was thinking of that but there were a few problems. First off, the Elder Guardian is really big which would complicate riding on it. Secondly, I didn't want it to be too similar to horses as it wouldn't make much sense (It'd be weird if you bred 2 squids and then *poof* out comes a guardian). Though this is also an option if the admins don't have a problem with it being unrealistic. But what would the tiers be? Squid -> Guardian -> Elder Guardian (if it's not annoying to ride because of its size) -> What now? Thanks for the feedback though!

 

Squid->Guardian->Elder Guardian->Zombie Horse
It has been discovered that whilst you can paint your horses skin in zombie colors, If you actually find a horse made out of zombie skin, it's surprisingly waterproof, and can float!

 

I think I like the ships idea or the squids idea better.

 

But you can already have a Zombie Horse (buy a zombie skin with GC) and it also doesn't really fit the ocean theme. I guess it could go like:
Fish (Lapis Lazuli block or something?) -> Squid -> Guardian -> (Possibly) Elder Guardian

 

"IT HAS BEEN DISCOVERED THAT WHILST YOU CAN PINT YOUR HORSES SKIN IN ZOMBIE COLORS", also nice idea with the lapis lazuli

 

Yes but it still seems a bit absurd and doesn't fit the theme. It's like adding a toaster as the next tier for horses and saying that toasters have been found to be surprisingly faster than white horses when unplugged. I think it's better if there is fewer tiers but they all fit the theme than having an additional tier which doesn't.

 

That's true, also lapiz lazuli