This is a pretty big update and a welcome one! Our horses now have the ability to be released so they can run around within 100 meters of the player. You can whistle to get them to come back. They even have their own favorite things! This, plus the update allowing use of a lead rope and halter, really makes me feel like I have a companion with a unique personality rather than just a pixel pony.
Rope Halters and Lead Ropes
You can craft them in your workshop and this will allow you to lead any horse, including a newborn foal. How well a horse leads depends a lot on their personality. Finally, a fun way to show off those tiny little foals and unrideable ponies! Halters are dyeable too, and the shortcut is U. Cause it looks like a droopy lead rope.
Roaming
From the Trick Menu, which is Ctrl + Z, you can select the “unlock” icon to let the horse roam freely, up to 100 meters away. If you select the Magnifying Glass icon instead, the horse will automatically try to find its favorite thing. If such a thing isn’t within 100 meters, then you’ll get a message saying that.
If a horse is let loose to wander without any particular goal, it will do things like graze if it’s hungry, find water if it’s thirsty, move towards people if it’s social, move away if it’s antisocial and so on. If it’s fully healthy, fed and watered, it’ll run and play and gain some mood! A quick whistle (F) will bring them right back again.
Affinities
So you know by now that each horse has its own Favorite Thing. It can be something simple like rocks or twigs, or it can be wild horses, people, and more. It can be pretty funny watching a horse run around looking for them! It can be useful, too. Say you need to find mushrooms in the Dark Forest Biome. Pain in the tail, right? Well, if you find a horse that likes mushrooms you can use them like a hunting dog! The same is true for things like Essence, Ores, and so on. Another use might be if you are supposed to find a rare flower, like Red Roses or Poppies, get a horse with a flower affinity and follow them!
So you don’t lose track, once a horse finds out what it likes, the affinity shows up permanently on their profile.
Full list of Affinities by rarity
Common: Berries, Cloth, Critters, Essence, Flower, Fruit, People, Poison Ivy, Rocks, Sticks, Wild Horses
Half as common: Caves, Course Starts, Epics, Gemstones, Mushrooms, Quest Tables, Spices, Sweets
10x rarer: Minigames, Ores, Tappable Trees.
200x rarer: Crystal, Treasure
A note about Cloth: That will cause a horse to find silk cocoons, flax, or cotton plants.
Since some affinities are really rare, a Crystal hunting horse or a Treasure hunting horse is worth some cash should you decide to sell it.
Interested in joining?
Click HERE or go to the HI3 site and put in my user ID, 1023.
Whenever you buy your first subscription, you’ll be rewarded with 10 Esroh Essence (good for more energy) and 1000 gold dust to help you along!
Mindflight 