Anyone else really not liking the NSS system?

I'll start by saying that I'm relatively new to the game. As I understand, the "NSS" were introduced to the game mechanics at some point in the past, and I don't know how showing worked before that. Perhaps there's a reason why this feature is essential for the current game balance, but I just wanted to share my experience in how personally I find NSS system burdensome, counter-intuitive and borderline annoying. Meaning totally no offense to the devs or players who enjoy it!

Of all the browser horse games I played, EV is the only one where you have to breed your horses to actually be WORSE at something. Realistically, how does being agile or smart prevents your horse from being a good racer?.. If anything, high non-specialty stats should act as small boosts to performance, not detriments. Of course, we can see this as an imitation of some horses being genetically more "geared" towards certain disciplines. But I still fail to see why not leave this job to actual specialty stats, and have the horse's grade be determined by the sum of these two. The performance variety between the competitors can still come through different training levels, tack quality and luck roll. We can also see NSS-lowering just as an extra challenge, but for me, it's kind of sad to realize your otherwise great horses are destined for a lifetime of riding schools just because they were born too smart/fast/strong/etc. for their own good. Breeding horses to be better at everything would make so much more sense and feel much more satisfying to me. It's such a shame because I like EV a LOT, and I'm definitely not saying it's a bad game. It's a great one, and it would be perfect for me if not for the NSS.

Naturally, I wouldn't go to the "Suggestions" board and post something like "Let's ditch NSS" -- I realize it probably won't get much support since it's such a core mechanic now and people invested so much in the NSS breeding at this point. But still I'm curious to know what both old and new players think about this system, and how many people feel the same way about it as I do.


Last edited on 2022-05-06 at 16:05:46 by Ria Sinclair

The nss system has been around quite some years now. Personally I like having it there, as it means that for those of us who want a challenge, we can try and breed our horses down, until they hit very low numbers in the stats that are not preferred by a horses discipline. 

While I do understand that for some players it can be annoying to be constantly forced to Riding School just because their horses have those really high nss, to me it can't be a game ruiner, as each player plays the game however they want. I've been around for quite some time now, and I wouldn't want things any other way. 

Say you don't want to breed for nss? That's fine, you could breed for colour, or conformation instead as a challenge. Not everyone has to show their horses, we've never been a game aimed specifically at one aspect of looking after horses. 

I even feed haycubes or sugar cubes to my foals and convert them to put the stats where I want them when they're three so I can maximise stat gain in every geveration. So, I certainly have nothing against those who do choose not to breed for stats, each to their own. 

Last edited on 2022-05-06 at 14:32:43 by нєямєѕ ѕтυ∂

I've only been playing for three years, will be four in December. The thing that immediately drew me into playing the game was the different approach to stats and how stats are distributed. From what I can gather NSS has been around for ages, probably since the beginning of the game (don't quote me on this) therefore people have been breeding and showing their horses for a long time, and some have been playing the game for nearly 10 or so years. Therefore players have been putting years (in real life) trying to breed and establish the best horses and trying to drop the NSS as low as possible. I know that 0 NSS is no longer possible but players have gotten close to it. 

Changing the way NSS is used in shows would quite literally turn all those years of hard work into nothing overnight. The whole point of the game is to get the NSS as low as possible, it's supposed to be challenging. I've been playing for nearly 4 years and have managed to get the NSS of multiple breeds down to 30 NSS. I'm trying to go lower but due to the in-game economy and lack of players, it's hard to go down further as I start to run out of pairs and I don't want to inbreed or line breed my horses. Therefore, getting NSS as low as possible is a challenge, but one that I am happy to take onboard. 

"Breeding horses to be better at everything would make so much more sense and feel much more satisfying to me." but changing or getting rid of NSS altogether will completely destroy the game, and turn Equiverse into a copy of all the other horse sims, and will lose the unique charm that makes it different. What also makes EV different is also the choice players have over their horses, I understand not everyone breeds for NSS, some breed for color or conformation instead (it's all entirely up to the player) as everyone can have different styles and play however it suits them. 

This is why the riding school was created to accommodate players who favor things, other than NSS. But like I said, NSS is the core or main goal within the game, and by changing that you basically favoring one group of players over another, and therefore disregarding the time, and money people have spent on this game, (including US dollars) and do not wish to see it changed. 

I like the NSS system. 

I think (even though I have not been playing long.) that the devs have done a wonderful job making it so if you don't want to breed for NSS you have other options. getting rid of it would be a waste of peoples hard work when there is so many other ways to play.

^ i'm the same as Laureal, while i do understand the frustration people can have and i think some changes need to be made, i specifically feel more drawn to EV than other games because the system is different. not saying that it's better or worse, just different. i like the planning and strategy more, instead of just focusing all my resources on the best items and food i have to choose my shows carefully and plan out future foals. and nss isn't the only focus here, lots of people go for confo or color and never worry about showing at all.

also, i've never actually seen high nss = horse literally has too much in that aspect. i mean considering there are a handful of horses with 0 nss... a horse with 0 strength would probably not be able to even move lol. i've just never seen it as literal xD but that could just be me

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Last edited on 2022-12-26 at 10:05:24 by 𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖆

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts!

нєямєѕ ѕтυ∂, I get your point of "everyone can play their own way". Still, I find myself in a difficult situation as a "bit of everything" kind of player. I like to breed for stats, color, and confo at the same time, which is already challenging to mix-and-match, and I do like showing -- which means I also need to hunt for low NSS. For example, I took a stroll through the stud market recently, and found myself with 2 options -- either pair my horses with foundies and take a grade+confo drop in the next gen, or pair them with high grade, high NSS horses and get an entire riding school generation until I breed NSS down again. It's near impossible to find a perfect match, especially with less popular breeds/disciplines. It's challenging, sure, but for me it kinda takes away the joy of breeding better-faster-stronger horses. I could just disregard stats and breed for color/confo, like you mentioned, but that means I'd have to abandon many game aspects like showing/training/horse trade (not much buyers for nigh NSS), which is sad. Oh well.

Laureal, like I said in the original post, I totally understand that people already invested in this system! Wouldn't advocate for it to be removed or changed. But some alternative options would be nice - for example, making high NSS beneficial for something. Maybe we could have two show types, say "NSS minus" where you'd need to have as low NSS as possible, and "NSS plus" where high NSS give you a bonus. So breeding nigh NSS horses would not be penalized but would be a challenge, just a lesser one. I know this much work won't be made for just one player, but one can dream :)

𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖆, thanks for the support and for adding great thoughts and ideas!

Last edited on 2022-05-06 at 17:05:16 by Ria Sinclair

I totally do not agree with the above, not only is highly complex but I can imagine a lot of players getting confused, and it would be hard to introduce it to new players. The stats have been working fine, and I do not see how reshuffling would help, also it brings into the factor EV becomes like every other animal sim, where you try to get the stats as high as possible. Not only that it would also cause the showing system to be recoded as well as the ENTIRE code of the game to be reworked, but it would cause a huge number of players to leave EV as the horses they have spent YEARS breeding would become useless. All of which are just not plassiable. 

The code is created such that when horses who are in the same discipline are bred together the NSS will drop. By changing that you are basically asking for the entire code to be written. I understand there are many frustrations with having to factor in NSS but like said before, a lot of players enjoy the challenge, and most people have been playing for years with no issues with the NSS system. The reason so many players have stayed is that it is different, and requires a fair amount of planning and strategizing to pair up the best horses (something which the majority enjoy) rather than simply breeding two random horses together, just to get a foal. 

I have stayed around, not only because of the community but also because I can see how my horses are improving with each generation, and it makes me excited to see the outcome of my horses and see my hard work paying off. I know a lot of newer players get confused at first, but honestly, it is very easy to explain and I was able to pick it up fairly quickly. 

By recoding the game, you are basically asking everyone who has been around since the pre-code to change the game fundamentals just to keep a few new players happy.  

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Last edited on 2022-12-26 at 10:06:56 by 𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖆

𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖆, yep, giving high NSS horses an opportunity to do literally anything other than just twiddling their thumbs... err, hooves in riding schools would already be a huge step forward. Add experience points and breeding boosts like you described, and we already have an in-depth alternative system. In which high NSS are not penalized, and we still have an incentive to invest in certain disciplines rather than being all over the place (which some people feel would take away the charm of the game). Besides, there could be even more meaning to NSS in such a system -- some of them could give a bonus to one group of disciplines, and some -- to another. Could go for interesting combos instead of just making them as low as possible.

Although I can understand the frustration of some players regarding the NSS system, I'm rather on Laureal's side on this. I really like that NSS was introduced, and after the fine tuning (random NSS drop when breeding horses) I can say its a nicely working system. It gives a great aim to work towards, but even if you have high NSS horses, but you hit a certain level and overall stats with your horses, you can still win in competitions (I saw some players with good competition horses with over 100+NSS in certain levels if I remember well). To lower NSS you need some strategy (as we managed out the math for this, you can ask almost every older player to help) but it's not neuroscience. 

Regarding cross-discipline, I'm not lying when I say that I hate this concept whole-heartedly. I know other horse sims where cross discipline is not forced but advised, to give (kind of) more all-rounded horses, but I always end up sticking to one discipline per breed and leaving the game in the end. As my main love interest is racing Thoroughbreds, I don't want to bother with training them in other discipline as well (although I know well that in real life, after a few years TBs are retired to breeding or sold and trained into other disciplines). I just want outstanding racing TBs for generations.
Having said that, I'm not entirely against implementing cross-discipline to favour players who want to breed all-round horses, if a concept can be worked out which doesn't force other players into it and don't have disadvantages for us. But, to be honest, I'd rather vote for other things implemented than this (for example the revamp of competition levels or a tiny boost to confo when breeding horses).
I'm on the verge regarding Lucia's idea - I like some parts of it, but it's a highly complex idea and I think it may need some additional fine tuning. 

I understand the trouble of mixing and matching for stats, confo and colour all at once. I've sunk a lot of credits into horses when colours just don't breed as I wanted them to at times. I do breed for all three, but I end up letting the deciding factor for my kept foal of my three attempts to always be the one with the highest conformation, since that is the hardest I find to breed for. My horses already have decent nss so that can work itself out as I go. Colour I am starting to get the hang of, I tend to pair horses as much as possible with genetics that will hopefully pass in the foal. 

You don't have to drop your plans for what you want to do, depending on what breeds you do, there is a chance you might find someone who is willing to work with you to try and improve on that particular breed and speciality. Try asking around on the forums to see if anyone else breeds what you seek, breeding partners can be found that way. If there's any that I do, that you also do (I'm planning to start lines across the breeds that I currently have active for all disciplines) I would be happy to help. My horses aren't always up for public breeding, but never hurts to ask members at times.

There are a lot of lovely people here who I have known for quite some time, who would also be willing to help I'm sure.  

I also agree with the others that this game is different. I have played others and will never go back to them, because they were all the same and I lost interest. I couldn't play for fun and work on something different to the others because there was no way to do so. Here, we have options. 

Last edited on 2022-05-07 at 02:21:24 by нєямєѕ ѕтυ∂

At first it does feel very counter-intuitive for the reasons you laid out but I've come to appreciate the system because of the breeding challenge.  It's different from all the other sim games out there which is why I've stayed.

I have found that there is more than NSS that makes a successful show horse though. Training level and being closer to the grade cut-off makes a huge impact. I've had 100+ NSS horses that brought in some big bucks when shown at the right time. 

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Last edited on 2022-12-26 at 10:07:06 by 𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖆