Comment on features or suggest new features for inclusion in the game.
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Electron Offline Visit My Farm Visit My Farm Joined: Sat Oct 31, 2015 5:44 pm Posts: 67

Re: Energy Usage

Post by Electron »

Argent II wrote:
GlacierLake wrote:This also means I wasted the money to upgrade and will not upgrade in the future.
Seriously? The entire upgrade is a waste because you can't run auto shows? Being able to see conformation, have more banked days, and regenerate days faster -- and whatever future perks are yet to be added -- is completely worthless to you? That's extreme, and unfortunate.
For many of us, entering horses into shows and seeing how they perform is one of the best attributes of the game, especially when this is combined with breeding certain genetics into our own horses. I believe GlacierLake's point was that if a stiff energy tax was enacted on both shows and breeding, it would kill the competition side of the game, and would make it harder for competitions to run, eliminating the need for daily competitions. For someone who shows quite heavily, or who relies on shows as a source of income and does not breed as much, I could see the point of canceling an upgrade. Theoretically, with an energy tax, Glacier would not be able to pre-enter shows for the next week during their off time. Doesn't seem so extreme to me.

I can definitely see your point Argent, but lets try and keep this civil. Just because you may think it doesn't make any sense to cancel an upgrade over it, doesn't mean it's not a huge concern for other players.

Larissa- perhaps if you made some sort of official announcement denouncing keeping horses in stasis, it would help until something else can be implemented? Some people may not fully realize that it's a bit of a cheat, or they may be pretending not to realize.
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Skraythrax Offline Visit My Farm Visit My Farm Joined: Sat Sep 26, 2015 3:38 pm Posts: 78

Re: Energy Usage

Post by Skraythrax »

The showing aspect is easily one of my favorite parts of the game, even in its current un-sortable stage. It acts as one of my first filters in choosing mare-stallion matches. If I have a horse that does not perform well, it does not go into my breeding pool. I have also had horses that looked terrible on paper but showed well and produced good competitors.

If the goal is to add more realism, I think this might push it too far. I personally don't think it is very realistic to churn through breedings and rehome horses constantly until you get what you want, but since it is a game it makes it acceptable and there are as many different "right" ways to play as there are members. I could count the number of horses I have rehomed on one hand, but that doesn't fit with the goals of other members. Another point on realism: if this energy tax is implemented, the entire nature of competitions would need to change. There would need to be more time in between events to more closely resemble how the shows work in the real world. This could only be accomplished by ending player organized events, and instead relying on permanent, developer created competitions at fixed intervals. As it currently works, it could take an unnecessarily long time to obtain enough entries to run a show. And what about the people who use shows that allow multiple entries to pit their horses against each other? Should they have to use an entire day of game time just to compare horse performance?

If the goal is to prevent immortal horses from competing indefinitely, I can certainly understand the incentive to add an energy tax and/or breeding tax. It can seem unfair to newer players, or to experienced users who cycle through their horses quickly. I will offer a counter argument.

To start, there is the issue of opportunity cost. If a player immortalizes a horse or multiple horses, that is one or more spots that cannot be used to advance or change their breeding program. The horses in the game overall will improve over time, so a horse that is really great right now may not be six months from now. I have seen this happen to one of my own horses. Also, in events such as racing there is the one horse cap. If a person enters the same horse all the time, then they also experience the opportunity cost of not getting to race a different horse. I feel like it is acceptable if a person chooses to do these, because there are definite drawbacks along with the potential benefits to their own game if choosing either long term.

Secondly, I personally play very slowly. I think it is great that I can log on today, not touch the game for two weeks, and still be right where I left off when I log in again. I have only bred to four generations of horses at this point, and only with a few individuals. I spend a lot of time simply looking through pedigrees, conformations, stats, studying color genetics, entering competitions, looking at results, and making my own pedigree book of my lines and the lines other players have made with my horses (I am a data person). None of these activities advance in game time, but they do use a lot of real life time. There are so many competitions that I don't have time to spam the entries every day of every week. I do speed up projects on my side account, but I am always limited by the total cap on horses I am capable of owning. This ensures that I cannot go crazy on the second account; eventually I will get to a point where I will need to either sell or age out if I want to advance the quality of my horses. The benefit in competitions that a slower player has over faster players is also countered by the fact that a faster player can improve their overall herd at a quicker rate.

It also takes a huge in-game time investment to fully train a horse, especially as you are slowly learning all the training courses. For that reason alone I think a person should be able to use a horse in any way as long as their best judgement dictates. One of the main reasons I put my main account on a screeching halt is because I wanted to improve my training ability first before I aged out my favorite horse to make sure I could train him as best as possible.

Lastly, what makes this game so great is the individuality each player can have with their farm. You can breed for anything you want! Performance in a plethora of disciplines, conformation, genetics, color, breed, or you can just make up your own goal. Adding an aspect to the game like a competition or breeding tax does close a loophole, but it does so at the cost of the freedom that makes the game so inherently good. And how can it be determined if Player A is keeping their horses in stasis permanently? Like Argent said with her Lipizzaner project, that player may be waiting on something before advancing. Should they be banned from competing in the meantime?
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Argent II Offline
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Re: Energy Usage

Post by Argent II »

Electron wrote:For many of us, entering horses into shows and seeing how they perform is one of the best attributes of the game, especially when this is combined with breeding certain genetics into our own horses. I believe GlacierLake's point was that if a stiff energy tax was enacted on both shows and breeding, it would kill the competition side of the game, and would make it harder for competitions to run, eliminating the need for daily competitions. For someone who shows quite heavily, or who relies on shows as a source of income and does not breed as much, I could see the point of canceling an upgrade. Theoretically, with an energy tax, Glacier would not be able to pre-enter shows for the next week during their off time. Doesn't seem so extreme to me.

I can definitely see your point Argent, but lets try and keep this civil. Just because you may think it doesn't make any sense to cancel an upgrade over it, doesn't mean it's not a huge concern for other players.

Larissa- perhaps if you made some sort of official announcement denouncing keeping horses in stasis, it would help until something else can be implemented? Some people may not fully realize that it's a bit of a cheat, or they may be pretending not to realize.
On the contrary, energy taxation would probably increase the value of competitive horses. As of right now, any mediocre horse can reach level 10 and earn a champion title; both "achievements" are relatively meaningless. Energy taxing shows means that each horse is equally limited in it's ability to earn points (rather than being limited by the players' available time) so each win is infinitely more valuable. I've seen several players who seem to be confused by the fact that their horses are level 10 in open competition, but cannot win over level 3 in local shows; their horse made it to level 10 not because it's objectively good, but because there are many other horses who are relatively worse. Same with earning a lower championship title. Any horse can do that; it's not impressive - just enter it enough shows, place in the top 5 a couple times, and voila. I enjoy seeing my horses' show performance just as much as the next person; I purposely entered my horses in as many shows as possible when they were still level 1 for everything because I wanted to set records in as many levels as possible. I like being #1 in dressage points, and top 2 or 3 in earnings and wins, but I recognize that there isn't much value attached to most of those achievements because they are easily achieved by high volume showing.

Competition is slow right now because entering shows is tedious and unprofitable. A new interface for entering shows would help greatly.

Taxing breeding would force players to make more careful choices of what mares to allow to be bred to their stallions - especially when private studs is added - and think carefully about when it would be best to start using a stallion in his performance career.

And I don't need you to police my tone, thanks.
Skraythrax wrote:If the goal is to add more realism, I think this might push it too far. I personally don't think it is very realistic to churn through breedings and rehome horses constantly until you get what you want, but since it is a game it makes it acceptable and there are as many different "right" ways to play as there are members. I could count the number of horses I have rehomed on one hand, but that doesn't fit with the goals of other members. Another point on realism: if this energy tax is implemented, the entire nature of competitions would need to change. There would need to be more time in between events to more closely resemble how the shows work in the real world. This could only be accomplished by ending player organized events, and instead relying on permanent, developer created competitions at fixed intervals. As it currently works, it could take an unnecessarily long time to obtain enough entries to run a show. And what about the people who use shows that allow multiple entries to pit their horses against each other? Should they have to use an entire day of game time just to compare horse performance?
It actually is quite realistic to breed huge volumes of horses. There are stud farms, such as those in the Thoroughbred industry, that drop a hundred foals every year, 90% of which will never amount to much of anything, but every year they keep trying to make crosses that produce a champion. And as I recall, there are literally thousands of European warmbloods hanging out on stud farms across various countries because horse breeding is in part a government affair. The entire purpose of state studs is to produce high quality horses for the public and offer quality stallions. The "rejects" are "rehomed" insofar as anything that isn't quality enough to be kept by the stud as a replacement is sold off to the public. Individuals do not breed in high volumes with strong culling (not in horses at least, but this is the norm in every other livestock animal) but industries sure do. Some players play as individuals, others as industries.

Additional time between shows would be unnecessary. On any given day, the average player is going to progress through at least two weeks in game time, probably more, so the passage of time is a non-issue. The times would line up oddly because you could in theory have two horses of the same age entered in the same show at different times (horse A entered as 5 year old, account ages forward 3 years, horse B is entered as an 8 year old), but that's already a quirk in game. Regardless, every other game I've encountered has done just fine with limited show entries (typically ten per animal) and player runs shows (typically 10 per account), though most do not also combine this with turn-based aging.

I don't see what game time has to do with comparing performance; entering shows would take up energy, not time.
Image


(14:43:36) Nate: argie goes around the farm at foaling time with a tape measurer, an angle measurer, and a club
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Scythian Offline Visit My Farm Visit My Farm Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 4:35 pm Posts: 426

Re: Energy Usage

Post by Scythian »

Immortality

How is the "Retire" option on the Profile page planned to work? Does the horse stay "alive" but become unavailable for competition, breeding, or sale?

If that is the result, I would use this option for many of my animals as they become 19 or 20. I will happily allocate them pasture room. I assume that BCS/energy/fatigue stats would not change, and that each individual could be moved from one pasture to another.
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Scythian Offline Visit My Farm Visit My Farm Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 4:35 pm Posts: 426

Re: Energy Usage

Post by Scythian »

Public showing has changed since I joined in November 2015. (I am not addressing breeding here.)

First, higher entry fees. $20 used to be far more common. Now the average is rising, and some level 1 or 2 competitions cost $500.

Second, spamming. Sometimes more than 50 horses in one class from one stable. More and more I seek to avoid entering a class with more than about 10, but I don't have time to hover over every possible class and enter at the last minute. There are some underentered shows, but not enough to let any one animal progress through a given discipline.

Third, the beyond-champion levels, so that many Level 10 events are populated by "ordinary" champions questing for Grands, Grands for Masters, and Masters for Supremes. How long before we have pressure for Super, Ultra, Ludicrous, ad infinitum?

Meanwhile, there are some people who like versatility. I enter, and seek "ordinary" championships in, many divisions -- horizontal rather than vertical. I don't consider this trivial, as no one animal is that good in everything.

Establishing limits of any kind, whether for entries, breeding, or any other activity, is difficult at best. The "energy tax" may or may not work as it's intended to, and as described it will only affect "spamming" directly.

If there is danger of harming my horses and especially if a pregnant mare can lose her foal, I will probably limit or quit public showing. And that would spoil a lot, though not all, of the pleasure of the game for me.

I'm a small-scale owner who wants to have some fun and recognition for my less-than-devastatingly-brilliant horses. Do I matter? Do other members like me matter?
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Electron Offline Visit My Farm Visit My Farm Joined: Sat Oct 31, 2015 5:44 pm Posts: 67

Re: Energy Usage

Post by Electron »

Skraythrax wrote:-everything just said above-
Because we cannot "like" posts, I just wanted to say that I agree with much of this, and give you kudos for taking the time to write such a lengthy and well written post. I wish that I had the time/energy/desire to create multiple spreadsheets/data entry for my horses.. but I end up all to often saying "Ehhhh... this stud doesn't do too bad, and this mare does pretty good. Maybe if I breed them together their offspring will magically decide to be a superstar." :)
Scythian wrote: Third, the beyond-champion levels, so that many Level 10 events are populated by "ordinary" champions questing for Grands, Grands for Masters, and Masters for Supremes. How long before we have pressure for Super, Ultra, Ludicrous, ad infinitum?

Meanwhile, there are some people who like versatility. I enter, and seek "ordinary" championships in, many divisions -- horizontal rather than vertical. I don't consider this trivial, as no one animal is that good in everything.

Establishing limits of any kind, whether for entries, breeding, or any other activity, is difficult at best. The "energy tax" may or may not work as it's intended to, and as described it will only affect "spamming" directly.
I was actually planning to take one of my best prospects to Super Ultra Ludicrous Infinitum Grand Master Champion soon, don't knock it until you've tried it. :lol:

What other indirect effects could you think of? As I've said, I have no problem with a small energy tax, as many horses get aged up anyways. But I find the idea of a 25% tax ridiculous. I think that a 5%-10% tax would be workable, as many people who actively use their horses go through turns anyways while training, and they could enter between 10-20 shows at a time that way, enabling the more casual players to pre-enter throughout the course of the next several days and then use their last turn to boost the energy back up for the shows. But this is all very theoretical, and I don't believe that Larissa would do something to limit game play so much as to make it unenjoyable. I am very much enjoying this discussion for the most part though.
Scythian wrote: I'm a small-scale owner who wants to have some fun and recognition for my less-than-devastatingly-brilliant horses.
Same here bud, same here. Owners of less-than-devastatingly-brilliant-horses-who-still-crave-recognition unite! Let's call ourselves the "Dull Diamonds" and fight travesty's such as horses kept in stasis, spammed shows, and brilliant horses that make ours look bad. 8-)
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Weaving Offline Visit My Farm Visit My Farm Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2015 4:48 pm Posts: 354

Re: Energy Usage

Post by Weaving »

I've been following this very closely and it has definitely been making me think about how I play. I have to admit I have been totally hold my hands up guilty of keeping horses 'in stasis'. I have a whole account full of horses that never do a thing (that I frequently used to enter into competitions.) Since reading this I have decided that perhaps that is unfair and have stopped doing it (but I'm not throwing the ponies away oh noooo, far too attached!!)

However, for what its worth. I think adding an energy tax would really slow down the game for me. I like to rumble through my twelve turns training all my horses as I go in about half an hour. I simply would not be able to do this if I was entering shows as well. Mostly because there are simply not enough shows for more than a couple of turns full of energy. Even if there were enough shows, it would take so much real life time to enter every horse every turn and train.

I think this game is great because it moves at the speed you want it to. Sometimes I like to have a binge day, enter shows, train for a few years, breed some youngstock and waste hours and hours. Some days I want to click on, enter some events for the next day and maybe take one turn to see if any babies pop out. An energy tax would ruin this for me.

This still begs the question how to prevent horses being kept in stasis and to be honest I dont' have an answer, but I do have an alternative viewpoint. Why does it matter? This game moves quickly, horses improve enormously over a short period of time, eventually the champions of yesterday kept in stasis entered in events over and over will be usurped by greater new horses. I say this from personal experience of breeding a record breaker, keeping him like a precious thing, only for his offspring to *just* top his record and then the next offspring to totally smash it. If this has happened to me in the space of just a couple of weeks, then I imagine with a community so keen and active, this will happen again and again.

Of course the above viewpoint doesn't address the Master/Supreme/Grand Champion debate that average horses are getting really good titles because people have more time to devote to the game and are freezing their horses. Maybe it would be good to show a w/p/s ratio to easily weed out the wheat from the chaff? Some of the players on here I imagine are quite young and *reeeaaalllyyyy* want their first ever horse to be a champion, or the really shiny one with average stats to be a master champion. I think imposing the energy rule would make it impossible for those kids to achieve their goals. It should be about the best user experience possible for everyone, not just for the grown-ups like myself to fill a few hours and get a sense of achievement they don't get from real life! </rant over>
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larissar Offline
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Re: Energy Usage

Post by larissar »

Please clarify something for me. I cannot access the database at the moment to determine the actual values.

1) Do any of you enter a single horse into more than 50 competitions Each Turn?

2) Do any of you enter a single horse into more than 100 competitions Each Turn?

It sounds from the comments in this thread that most of you are not entering this many competitions regularly, and you all seem concerned that you'll be forced to enter LESS competitions than you currently do?

3) Do you even enter a single horse in more than 10 competitions Each Turn?
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Argent II Offline
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Re: Energy Usage

Post by Argent II »

Electron wrote:Some people may not fully realize that it's a bit of a cheat, or they may be pretending not to realize.
Or maybe they recognize that it isn't a cheat at all - because there are exactly zero rules regarding the topic.
Scythian wrote:How is the "Retire" option on the Profile page planned to work? Does the horse stay "alive" but become unavailable for competition, breeding, or sale?

If that is the result, I would use this option for many of my animals as they become 19 or 20. I will happily allocate them pasture room. I assume that BCS/energy/fatigue stats would not change, and that each individual could be moved from one pasture to another.
The retire button is a remnant from an old layout; last I asked, Larissa doesn't have any plans for that particular button.
Scythian wrote:First, higher entry fees. $20 used to be far more common. Now the average is rising, and some level 1 or 2 competitions cost $500.

Second, spamming. Sometimes more than 50 horses in one class from one stable. More and more I seek to avoid entering a class with more than about 10, but I don't have time to hover over every possible class and enter at the last minute. There are some underentered shows, but not enough to let any one animal progress through a given discipline.

Third, the beyond-champion levels, so that many Level 10 events are populated by "ordinary" champions questing for Grands, Grands for Masters, and Masters for Supremes. How long before we have pressure for Super, Ultra, Ludicrous, ad infinitum?

Meanwhile, there are some people who like versatility. I enter, and seek "ordinary" championships in, many divisions -- horizontal rather than vertical. I don't consider this trivial, as no one animal is that good in everything.

Establishing limits of any kind, whether for entries, breeding, or any other activity, is difficult at best. The "energy tax" may or may not work as it's intended to, and as described it will only affect "spamming" directly.

If there is danger of harming my horses and especially if a pregnant mare can lose her foal, I will probably limit or quit public showing. And that would spoil a lot, though not all, of the pleasure of the game for me.

I'm a small-scale owner who wants to have some fun and recognition for my less-than-devastatingly-brilliant horses. Do I matter? Do other members like me matter?
I suggested entry fee maximums a long while back to curb show hosts from shafting entrants with exorbitantly high fees that prevent them from earning anything back in winnings.

Maximum entrants might need to be a thing (I believe boss is adding a maximum number of entries per account), but I imagine "spamming" shows is actually a result of players trying to performance test all of their horses at once. I used to do this, but I would use non-repeating shows. Also, hunting for multiple shows to enter is tedious currently.

The energy tax is not meant to prevent spamming, but to prevent players from being able to show a horse forever.

Pregnant mares should not be shown in the second half or so of their pregnancy anyway (irl).
Electron wrote:But I find the idea of a 25% tax ridiculous. I think that a 5%-10% tax would be workable, as many people who actively use their horses go through turns anyways while training, and they could enter between 10-20 shows at a time that way, enabling the more casual players to pre-enter throughout the course of the next several days and then use their last turn to boost the energy back up for the shows.
Unless you literally only go through one turn per day, you'd have very little trouble entering horses in 10 shows per day with a 25% energy tax. Based on this thread http://www.horseworldonline.net/forum/v ... &hilit=day the average player who commented worked through at least 12 turns, and often over 24, per day.
Weaving wrote:Since reading this I have decided that perhaps that is unfair and have stopped doing it (but I'm not throwing the ponies away oh noooo, far too attached!!)

However, for what its worth. I think adding an energy tax would really slow down the game for me. I like to rumble through my twelve turns training all my horses as I go in about half an hour. I simply would not be able to do this if I was entering shows as well. Mostly because there are simply not enough shows for more than a couple of turns full of energy. Even if there were enough shows, it would take so much real life time to enter every horse every turn and train.

Maybe it would be good to show a w/p/s ratio to easily weed out the wheat from the chaff?
It can't possibly be unfair to do something that everyone can do. That's the definition of fairness.

You could easily alternate between training for a couple of turns, then only entering shows for a couple of turns, and then showing again.

WPS would be great, as would a ratio of entries to points earned, or something similar.
larissar wrote:Please clarify something for me. I cannot access the database at the moment to determine the actual values.

1) Do any of you enter a single horse into more than 50 competitions Each Turn?

2) Do any of you enter a single horse into more than 100 competitions Each Turn?

It sounds from the comments in this thread that most of you are not entering this many competitions regularly, and you all seem concerned that you'll be forced to enter LESS competitions than you currently do?

3) Do you even enter a single horse in more than 10 competitions Each Turn?
1. I have, when I trained up my greenie studs. I spammed them in shows to try to set records at as many levels a possible. It's not something that I would do in the future.
2. Same as above.
3. Nope, not any of my general horses. Eventually I might want to enter my young horses in 10 shows in one turn for performance testing purposes; the only reason doing it in one turn would be necessary would be to make sure everyone was at the same point in training.
Image


(14:43:36) Nate: argie goes around the farm at foaling time with a tape measurer, an angle measurer, and a club
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Weaving Offline Visit My Farm Visit My Farm Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2015 4:48 pm Posts: 354

Re: Energy Usage

Post by Weaving »

larissar wrote:Please clarify something for me. I cannot access the database at the moment to determine the actual values.

1) Do any of you enter a single horse into more than 50 competitions Each Turn?

2) Do any of you enter a single horse into more than 100 competitions Each Turn?

It sounds from the comments in this thread that most of you are not entering this many competitions regularly, and you all seem concerned that you'll be forced to enter LESS competitions than you currently do?

3) Do you even enter a single horse in more than 10 competitions Each Turn?
1)Occasionally
2) Never
3) Often

No more than 60 per turn for multi discipline horses, though usually no more than 40ish. I tend to do all entering in one big block before taking a lot of turns just to cut down switching between farm and competitions. If it were divided equally between all turns it would probably be less than 10.

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