New player questions

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to the game and man there's so much information to be had about this game that it makes my head spin lol. 

So my question too all the vet players out there is. What is the one advice that you would give to a new player such as myself that you wish you had known before hand?

Any and all tips are welcome I really want to succeed in this game.

Thanks 

You can't breed for a horse that is good at all competitions. I see a lot of new players attempting to do this, but it doesn't work. On the same vein of information, a show jumping horse would take generations of breeding to make into a good western horse and years to make into a good driving horse. 

You need low non-spec stats for a good competition horse, so low STR, END, and AGI to make a good western horse. 

this might help

Hi there! I hope I can give you a few tips...
The RC is an excellent place to pick up cheap horses, as opposed to the EC which is much more expensive. 
One thing I have found is that new players are generally more interested in horses, as opposed to things like art. Not everyone, but I found this in myself (when I started) and lots of new players. There is nothing wrong with this, but one thing I found super useful was to think up a breeding plan and stick to it. Try to keep to 2-3 breeds at first, since there's nothing worse (in my opinion) as when you have to constantly expand to accommodate new breeds. There are three (main) aspects to breed for in a horse. 
One is stats (in which you will want to avoid cross-discipline breeding in order to get the most speciality stats)
Another is colour (which is quite complicated and can (really) only be achieved in certain breeds which have more colours/patterns. There's info about genetics here)
And the last main one is conformation...found here. Highest confo is best.
Some helpful links - 
Help centre
Guides
Statistics
Club House
Help board
Feel free to message me any questions!

See I'm confused by confirmation and stats. the help section doesn't really cover it for someone who has no clue about horses in real life . I see alot of mentioning that the longer you wait to breed your horses the better foals you get and also this conf and stat stuff.

Last edited on 2018-04-10 at 07:06:17 by Dee

The biggest advice I know is to watch what treats you give your horses, if you plan to show.

There are two kinds of treats.  The first kind gives you stats in one trait only.  The second kind gives you stats in a random trait.

These are the specific trait treats and what they give:

1) Carrots - speed
2) Turnips - endurance
3) Green Apples - intelligence
4) Red Apples - strength
5) Yellow Apples - agility

All of them give 1-2 stats.

There are many random trait treats, but many are very rare.  These are the three most common of them, and what they give:

1) Sugar Cubes - 1-5 random stats
2) Hay Cubes - 1-10 random stats
3) Peppermints - 1-15 random stats

Random trait treats tend to give more stats BUT they will spoil your horse for showing.  Why?  Because, for each showing discipline, your horse's strength depends on two specific traits.  These are the showing disciplines and their associated traits:

1) Dressage - agility and intelligence
2) Driving - strength and endurance
3) Endurance - intelligence and endurance
4) Jumping - agility and speed
5) Racing - speed and endurance
6) Western - speed and intelligence

So, that means that, if you want your horse to excel at driving, you should give them red apples or turnips for treats, because they will increase the horse's strength and endurance.

Random trait treats are dangerous for show horses because they will raise traits that are not associated with your horse's discipline.  This is bad for show horses because their grades (Novice 1-5, Local 1-5, Regional 1-5, National 1-5, and International 1-5) are based on total stats, which means that your horse will be competing against other horses with similar stat totals.  However, winning the show is based on the total of only those two discipline traits.  In other words, two horses that each have 200 total stats will compete against each other, but if Horse A has all 200 stats in the two discipline traits, and Horse B has them evenly distributed with 40 stats in each trait, Horse A will always beat Horse B.

So, in short, if you care at all about showing, or if you care about selling your horses to people who show, choose your treats carefully.

@Dee: 
I'll just add some stuff to what Confessor said...
Conformation is (from my very limited knowledge of rl horses) the health and strength of a horse. If you breed two high-conformation horses (the average confo in the box), the foal will be high confo also. The same goes for two low-confo horses, but the result will be a lower-confo foal. 
Same is for stats (but one thing to bear in mind is that horses with non-speciality stats will perform worse in shows). Non-speciality stats are the stats that are not needed for the horse's discipline. 
Yes, if you wait until the horses are older until you breed them, the foal will have higher stats (since horses gain stats throughout their lives, which impacts the breeding formula. When a horse is bred does not impact the foal's colouring, or confo. I wait until 15 years old until I breed my horses.

Conformation is kind of decorative, because it really doesn't affect showing or anything else.  It's just a fun challenge to try to breed it better.  You can't change a horse's conformation over its life - you can only increase it by careful breeding.

I just explained stats as they relate to treats and showing, but there are other ways to raise stats.  

1) Riding schools/showing - Every horse has 10 slots a day they can use for riding schools or showing.  You can do one or the other, or divide between the two.  Showing is riskier, but gives a bigger stat payout if you play things well.  Riding schools give a smaller but dependable payout.

2) Training - you can train foals on their page, and cash that in for a big stat boost when they turn 3, and you can train an adult horse every day in an arena until they retire at age 21.  Every ten times you train your horse, you get a stat boost that you can click on to give your horse a significant stat increase.

If you treat and train your horse daily, and always use its ten riding school/showing slots, you should be able to get a respectable stat gain over your horse's life.

The reason why people recommend waiting until the horse is older to breed it is because the horse's stats grow over its lifetime (if you do what I just described.)  Foals receive a percentage of their parents' stats, so to get the highest-statted foal, you would want to breed at the end of your horses' lives.  Horses cannot be bred after they turn 21, so your best possible foal would come from a breeding that happened when the parents were 20 years old, aging tomorrow.

wow this is all great advice thank you so much! . I have been dying to ask these questions but couldn't access the forums till today when i reached level 3 ha..Thank you so much for this awesome advice! Some of it doesn't make much sense to me but it will come to me there's so much to learn and I want to do everything right so I can have a nice stock to horses!! 

Is there a certain way you work foals? I'm afraid I'm doing it wrong and going to mess up a foal.

For foal training, you should do a large range of every training you can do to maximise stats at the end of foal training. Some players like to use treats that give random treats to their foals, then switch disciplines (I don't use this method so I would ask someone who does for more details c: )

Yeah that's what I'm wondering if I do certain things would it give them stats in a certain area..All I've been doing is picking what is first on the drop down box. 

0% Imprint, 4% Halter Train, 9% Weaning, 14% Handling, 19% Leading, 24% Commands, 29% Playtime, 33% Lunging, 38% Trailer Loading, 42% Road Training, 47% Ground Training, 52% Desensitization, 57% Introduce to Tack, 61% players choice, 66% + Break In

You might find this helpful, at each percentage listed you complete the action listed with it. 

If you don't do them all you will get less stats after foal training, but you won't get stats in the wrong disciplines or anything like that c:

Last edited on 2018-04-15 at 05:23:53 by insomniaglet