Energy Usage

[Argent II]

Admin Edit
This post has stirred up a lot of trouble so I'm going to set the record straight. Nothing posted here was Larissa's plan for HWO and it was never going to happen. We are looking at small changes to discourage immortal horses, but nothing to punish people who like to enter a lot of shows or breed a lot of horses each turn. Please keep in mind look at changes very hard before making them and wouldn't do something that would stop people from enjoying HWO.
Thanks,
Tom
Admin Edit Over

Since boss is adding an energy tax for breeding, I think one should also be added to showing. I don't want to kill the competition side of the game completely, as it is already pretty slow, but I think some tweaking should be done. From what I can see, in real life, competing twice a month is doable for most horses in most disciplines, especially at lower levels, and once a month or less is more the norm at higher levels. IRL, show seasons are moderate in length - maybe six to eight months - and most people cant afford to show more often than once or twice a month, and even if they can, if your goal is moving up the levels, then spacing out shows so you have time to improve inbetween is beneficial. I don't want a hard-fast limit of one-entry-per-turn or anything, but having a base energy cost of like 25% per show - lessened by increased fitness, but increased by higher level of competition -- might be workable.

On the topic of energy usage from breeding, the typical hand-bred Thoroughbred stallions will cover two, perhaps three, mares per day for a total of 15 (JC average) to 70 (Storm Cat average) mares in foal; stallions that breed at pasture can be run with 15 to 35 mares with a 90% conception rate. HWO doesn't have proper breeding seasons, but I think a comfortable breeding rate is about 30 mares per year.... so whatever energy is used for one breeding should be completely regained in one turn for a stallion on a sufficient diet. This energy recover should not be based on fitness, I think. And mares should also have an energy tax on breeding, maybe something around 25%?

[Buzzsaw]

If you do this, will you wipe the competition points that people have earned so that we can start with a level playing field? It is very hard for new players to train their horses to a good level, and some of the people who have been on here for a long time have thousands of competition points. Newbies will just give up if there's no chance of getting on a leader board, it just seems like a good way to kill any incentives to enter competitions. Also I don't think I would bother breeding or putting my horses up for stud so much.

[Scythian]

POV from another free-to-play participant: please give the game a chance. There is a great deal of relevant, necessary information in User Guides and many of the posts; I hope you can take the time to study this. You already have an advantage I did not have when I started: mowing pastures for income. This can help a great deal.

Amended: I'd suggested having some "eye candy" == horses that make you feel better just to look at. Now having visited your farm, I see it's a lovely place and you have good horses! And I was touched by Cornelia's story, and glad and proud that you have this memorial to her. There's more to enjoy here than competition.

[Argent II]

If you do this, will you wipe the competition points that people have earned so that we can start with a level playing field? It is very hard for new players to train their horses to a good level, and some of the people who have been on here for a long time have thousands of competition points. Newbies will just give up if there's no chance of getting on a leader board, it just seems like a good way to kill any incentives to enter competitions. Also I don't think I would bother breeding or putting my horses up for stud so much.

Probably not, and I don't see why they would be. Those points were earned regardless of the system they were earned under. If seeing other players with thousands of point keeps someone from competing, then no new player will ever compete, unless you expect to have points reset every time someone new joins. Even if points were reset now, players with superior horses would still rack up points in a short amount of time and we'll be right back where we started.

POV from another free-to-play participant: please give the game a chance. There is a great deal of relevant, necessary information in User Guides and many of the posts; I hope you can take the time to study this. You already have an advantage I did not have when I started: mowing pastures for income. This can help a great deal.

Amended: I'd suggested having some "eye candy" == horses that make you feel better just to look at. Now having visited your farm, I see it's a lovely place and you have good horses! And I was touched by Cornelia's story, and glad and proud that you have this memorial to her. There's more to enjoy here than competition.

Wrong thread...? Nope. Now I see your train of thought.

[Electron]

I see your point Argent, and I could get behind a small energy tax for showing (a few percent), but not anything big.

While I know that HWO strives to be as realistic as possible, it is also only a game, and as such, needs to be entertaining or no one will play. If you can only enter a horse into shows every couple of turns, it makes the game more complicated, discourages showing (which as you've pointed out is already slow), and just seems to be all around less fun.

Same with breeding- a small energy tax seems like it could be beneficial (to keep people from spam breeding from one stud in order to maximize the chance they'll get a good foal), but too much of one and it can really kick up the difficulty level, which seems unwarranted for a game that still seems to be in the beginning phases.

[Argent II]

Last night I chatted with boss, and it sounds like the energy tax for breeding will be about 5% per mare bred, so 20 mares per turn and 480 mares a year. A soft, high limit.

A 10-25% tax for showing is still reasonable/workable (10% minimum, for a very fit horse) and would still allow you to enter a show every turn, if not several once you get to that point where training takes up very little energy.

[Electron]

Like I said, it all depends on how realistic vs enjoyable the game is. Right now, you can enter multiple shows per real life day, as opposed to multiple ones every turn. While that may have its own benefit, it could also affect the playing time of people, as not everyone has the time to both enter in shows and train/breed/flip turns. Doing it that way would eliminate the problem of some horses staying at the top ranking forever because they are kept in stasis, but I believe it would also discourage showing in general. Another possible thing that could happen is that we could still enter as many shows as we wanted, but the energy would go down after each show, so that if I wanted to over enter a horse into shows, he would not compete as well towards the end due to low energy.

I wouldn't mind the breeding tax, as not many people currently breed horses 20 at a time to one stud.

[larissar]

I'm just going to jump in here and say the main purpose of a breeding and competing tax is to prevent players from keeping horses immortal while benefiting from their genes/training. The exact value is undetermined but will be very low in both cases so as to have a fairly minor effect on general game-play.

I'm considering many things to affect the value, including the ability to learn player skills to reduce the tax (competition), or horse fitness having a benefit (breeding). But nothing is set in stone.

[Randi Potos]

I have to be honest, I really don't like this idea (tax on shows). I agree with Electron that it feels as though it would be a sacrifice of enjoyment for realism. Having been on a game where this became an issue for me in the past, I know that it's something I, personally, would find highly discouraging. I appreciate realism to a degree. As long as the game remains fun and entertaining. Of course I'm only one player, so if this is something many people like/want I won't fuss about it. I will just continue to keep showing to a minimum.

[GlacierLake]

I will stop my daily competitions when this is implemented. and just have weekly competitons. This also means I wasted the money to upgrade and will not upgrade in the future.

I only get to play for less than one hour daily and a few hours on my days off. I only age my horses on my two days off. I don't have the time during the work week.

As it is, there are disciplines that limit to only one player to enter at a time. My competitons with this restriction run every other day, cause there aren't enough entries to run daily.