[ADDED] [DEVELOPMENT] Training Center Changes

Hey all,

Apologies for not posting this sooner - I know I promised Sunday, but Pokemon happened (I know, a really bad excuse).

So the new training center. Here are the ideas I've come up with that have been moulded by the mods to make a bit more sense!

Edit 12th April
I've added strikethroughs for everything I've added so far. Will continue to work on this :)

Arenas
Arenas will now be able to level up, just like horse grades. The difference is that arenas only need to worry about the type of grade, and not the level. So while a horse has to go through N1, N2, N3.. an arena starts at Novice and works its way up to Local. Then instead of needing to pass through L1, L2, L3... the next step is Regional.

How will arenas level up?
Arenas will level up in a similar way to members - they will be given a certain amount of "experience" to meet to get to the next level. The way to gain this "experience" will be through training horses.

What is the point in leveling up arenas?
Arenas of a Novice level will only be able to train Novice horses sufficiently (all other horses WILL be able to train at Novice arenas, but will not see the same benefits). A Regional arena will be able to train horses that are of Regional level AND BELOW (Local and Novice) sufficiently.

But at the start, won't that mean all arenas are Novice? What about horses that are above Novice level and will need to train?
I have a bunch of arenas on my account that I will make different levels from Local through to International to make up for the demand while waiting for arenas to level up.

I have a Regional horse - why should I prioritise a Regional arena over a National or International one?
In order to keep the Novice arenas clear for Novice horses, Local clear for Local horses, etc., there will be a minor bonus to training at the "correct" level - though nothing advantageous over members who are left with the "incorrect" levels (aka. not stat bonuses). So if you are out of options and only have a National arena to train at, you will get the same amount of stats. Or will you?

Training For Stats
I want to remove the flat chance of gaining stats when training. It's just too simple and boring, and is not what I intended to open the game with (but I ran out of time.. and look where we are now).

I would like to introduce two types of training.

Foal Training
You will be able to train your foals from the day they are born up until they are ready to show at the age of 3. You will still visit a training arena to do this, and if you get the foal to 100% of its training you will gain a Specialty-relevant stat boost at the end of the training. If you haven't set a specialty yet, you will be asked to - but I expect that most foals will have a specialty set by the time they reach showing age.

Getting to 100% will not require daily training - there will be some flexibility in case you miss a day or two here and there, but it will require training on a very regular basis. You will, at maximum, be "allowed" to miss 4-5 days before the stat boost will not be attainable. For 3 weeks' worth of training, the stat boost will probably be in the 15-20 range (across two stats, so perhaps +7 END, +8 STA as an example).

Having foal training will also allow for us to have some cute, personalised training messages such as "Currently Imprinting", with a nice little description of how the foal is getting along with you :)

Adult/Specialty Training
Training horses from the age of 3 will change from foals. They will start at Level 1 (or another appropriate name separate from grade). With each training session they will progress through Level 1, to Level 2. The maximum level will be Level 5.

As horses progress through levels, they reduce the amount that "luck" affects their show results. In theory, if two horses are both at Regional 5, both have almost the same amount of stats, same specialty, and entered in the same show, but one is Level 1 and the other is Level 5 - the Level 5 horse will win every time because of the training invested.

Again, training every single day will not be necessary but it will get your horses to Level 5 a lot faster. I plan on, with training every single day, for horses to get from Level 1 to Level 5 by the age of 10. After that, they should no longer need any more training - we can talk about what happens then another time :)

So where do stats come into this?
You will still gain stats from training. It will be slower than a solid +2-3 every day, but then that helps us with stat inflation. Each day you train your horse as an adult, you will gain a Stat Boost Point that will be linked to the horse you train (not transferable to other horses). When you reach 10 SBPs you will be able to Boost your horse's stats. I don't know yet how many stats I will make this stat boost receive but I want to keep it relatively low, perhaps no more than 10 stat points. I will be looking to add in some other bonuses with the stat boost, so it won't be all for nought :)

CAN YOU MAKE IT EASIER TO FIND AN ARENA AND TRAIN A HORSE?!?!
Yes! Of course. I will be increasing the minimum number of slots an arena starts with (all existing arenas will receive the bonus starting slots) and I will be making it so that arena slots renew once an hour instead of once a day. There should *always* be an arena available. I will also do something about making the navigation of the training center a lot easier, though I'm not sure how yet :P

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I would love to hear your thoughts on all of this - and as always, I am open to suggestions and tweaking! I expect to spend most of March coding this in as it's quite a big feature, but I will hope to get a beta version running to test it out possibly in the last week of March. As long as we're all happy with this system anyway.

Last edited on 2016-04-12 at 14:25:17 by Abbey ♥

Yay can't wait to try it out!

Can'the blame you for being distracted by pokemon, because I have too. XD It all sounds lovely! c:

I support all aspects of this. It sounds like a good idea.

Sounds good to me and my herd! :3

I think it is a great idea! I really like that it's okay if you miss a day or two, but in the end it is the horse with the most training invested that will do the best in shows. I like when hard work pays off instead of just chance :).

I am very happy that foals can be trained too! Now that treats don't give as many stats, it is difficult for them to increase stats before showing.

Super excited! Can't wait to try it!

I really like these ideas. I'm happy; but thinking that all my store horses will probably need to be locked until this feature becomes available ;-;

Last edited on 2016-03-02 at 06:56:55 by Aɢʟᴇᴛ

Oooh I like the ideas!

But, I guess that mean majority of my foals-2yrs old are missing out the chance of getting boost stats... :-/ IDK how I feel about that...

I like this idea, and it does make it fair so there isn't such a large boost in one horse's stats that's at a high level. I love the idea of foal training - that will really help with the store foundation horses I've purchased!

That being said, can feed go back to giving at least +1 each day? I've had some horses that have sat at 100 stat from the store for a whole week because they were never lucky with treating, and showing didn't do anything for them, either.

I've locked all my stock for almost a week now because some of my higher quality horses weren't doing so well.

I agree with Elegant. Two of my store foals still are at 100 stats and two other foals haven't gain any stats after first feeding (they are stuck on 103 and 102 stats). It was lucky that I decided to lock them before they passed 5 days because they will need that boost since treating are useless so far..

I'm going to third that about the feed... my entire stock is locked as well since no one was gaining any stats even with showing due to the new show set up (which is totally fair!) but it would be nice to be able to give them at least a +1 so they're not lagging so much behind.

EDIT TO ADD: I think a +1 would be really beneficial to some of the newer members as well. If they can't afford training/showing at least they're getting some sort of increase on their horses stats, as well. :)

Last edited on 2016-03-02 at 11:11:50 by • ARKTISCHES

I agree with above.

I have some horses in shows that are doing quite well and I'm noticing a difference in their stats every day but compared to how many I have they are only a handful.

I notice some others are slowly trudging along with treats but agonizing slowly compared to the old version. Back when you could buy "herd" from the store at 0 years and the majority of them are over 200 stats before 3. These horses I figure will reach a certain stat for their level and start doing well in shows.

The ones I'm worried about are the horses that are unlucky in shows and treating because they seem to be at a standstill and I kept assuring myself that it would change when the training arena came back. While I'm excited about the idea of foal training and levels taking some of the luck out of showing etc., if these horses aren't even getting 10 stats once they have gotten the 10 SBPs then I'm still worried at this rate they won't even reach their parents stats at the end of their life.

This new version of training sounds seriously awesome! I would love to see how it'll turned out. :)

I do plan on adding stats back in different ways though, so I don't want to give stat explosions at the training center and then later down the line have to reduce the amount of stats it gives. I would rather start small and increase if I need to, than start big and have to rein it back in.

With regards to locking horses until the training center opens... ALL horses at the moment are not benefiting from a training center, so I don't see a reason to lock them all until it's released? They're going to be on the same playing field as other horses in the same situation.. I understand it would be nice to have the boosted stats, but if the training center takes longer to code than I anticipate then you could have them locked for a very long time.. for just one game feature?

Idk :P it's your choice at the end of the day.

I really like how it sounds! Thank you!

But i have a question. You say the arenas will level up, and although we can train horses with level below the arena level it should be better to do that in an anena wich fits the horse level. If the arenas level up, does that mean we should be adding new arenas from time to time to make sure we have enough low level arenas?

Could we have our arenas private?

Last edited on 2016-03-07 at 06:41:34 by SyLoBe