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Is the Game..Slowing?

ForumsEquiverse Chat → Is the Game..Slowing?

Is the Game..Slowing?

#203586 Posted on 2019-05-22 10:15:22

@River I know you didn't mean it would solve issues but only help, though a real worry of mine is that advertising EV in it's current state may actually have to potential to be damaging as more people would come in, have the potential to be unhappy with the game's issues, then leave unhappily and deter other people from joining (this is already starting to happen on sites that allow for a section to promote other games).

@snowlowranch
I think that's great! I'm currently working on a slow project to introduce more quality horses to the market myself. I bought up all the show quality horses of one breed I could find within my budget (which only ended up being about 10 horses) and plan on breeding/selling them once they're older just to try to put more show horses out there.
The market currently has a shortage of show quality horses, there's some good ones out there but many have a common pedigree which runs into issues with the inbreeding block. So the market could do with more lower gen/moderately bred horses that are suitable for showing. There's plenty of horses out there going for most stats in general, which is currently flooding the market and making showable horses hard to find. If we could search by non-specialty stats then finding them would be a lot easier and not have to sift through 50+ horses just to find a few good ones xP


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#203587 Posted on 2019-05-22 10:34:44

Maple covered the main points very well. Those are main reasons why I stopped playing this game. There are many known issues that need to be fixed years ago but got ignored (studs, no cap to foundation horses, delete tool, broken show system, etc). Some players are more patient due to their different playing style. For me, I like to aims for top show horses. However, that goal is pointless due to broken show system. I also aims for conformation but it's pointless because conformation have zero role in this game. Due to that, I don't have any purpose in this game so my patience runs out faster than others' because I now just log in daily get my interest money. I also like to see some actual updates other than bug fixes. It also doesn't look good that River does all updates instead of Abbey. I've seen many games got shutdown without notices (both active and inactive games). With Abbey being MIA, I don't trust her to keep this game alive. I feel like she will shut down this game without a notice because she's no longer interested in this game. There's no trust in this game.

To be honest, EV does get recommended in other games' forums. However, you will see many former/current players (including myself) comments on those threads. Those comments aren't positive and often contains complaints such as dead market, lack of updates, etc. Naturally, most players choose to not join EV. Brave ones would quit after a month because they realized that comments are true. 

I don't think credit sales are the issue tho.. any values change based on market's supply and demands. if the price increases, and people buys them. then it's right price. if people doesn't buy them, then seller need to lower the price. In my case, I usually sold credits at 200k without any problems so I don't lower the price. 
The problem is the fact that this game is pay to play basically. there are so many clicks involved and missing genes from foundation store. those drives us to buy auto tools and tweaks so we can enjoy this game more. that's not how a game should be.

Last edited on 2019-05-22 at 13:10:37 by Bye bye


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#203588 Posted on 2019-05-22 10:34:55

Maybe for one thing, the tutorial is a little bit outdated? It's good enough to get started, but as maplɛ mentioned it doesn't mention schooling and other things.
The better quality your horse is the more often you can show them yes, and schooling is covered in the help section. But for a new player the first thing the game tells them to do is enter shows with a low stat foundie, this may cause them to think they have to show every day, eventually they get tired of not winning anything and quit.
Other things that are a major part of gameplay are only explained by other players. If I hadn't read the guides forum thoroughly the day I started, I would have never known about how breeding works and how the results of shows are decided. I don't mean that the game should push players to do things like keep NSS down, breed for confo, price a certain way etc. since those are things we decide whether or not to do. But the mechanics of the game seem 'hidden'.

I think a way to help might be to add tutorials that correspond to your new level. Like for example when you hit level 6 you get a tutorial explaining how breeding works and how stats, color, and confo are passed down. Nothing complicated, just a brief rundown. There could be a 'read more' option that links to a page with more detail, maybe even to the guides we already have since they're still up to date. And like the current tutorial these can be skippable.

@ξιίzα Ð that is also a concern of mine. I've seen so many sim games with active social media result in nothing but players asking when X feature is coming over and over again. Being more active on social media seems to attract impatient and unappreciative players, I'm guessing since it gives them a way to publicly voice their thoughts with a chance of the developers seeing. Using social media to promote EV would probably work best once the major issues are dealt with.

Last edited on 2019-05-22 at 10:50:18 by BubblesTheSandDragon


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#203590 Posted on 2019-05-22 10:44:49

Good point Eliza, making an advertising push should be planned strategically for when things are going more smoothly. 

The tutorial question is a very valid point too. That's what new players interact with, and if it's not up to date enough or clear enough or covering all the features they're seeing, then they're being left out at sea and that's not going to help retention at all either. 

Last edited on 2019-05-22 at 10:46:02 by River


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#203591 Posted on 2019-05-22 10:50:18

^ I love the staggered tutorials suggestion! It being set up in a way so that newbies aren't overloaded with new information at the start that they may forget by the time they level up enough to breed, etc., but instead are presented with said information at the time of unlocking those features, is an excellent idea.

Last edited on 2019-05-22 at 10:52:21 by Raptor


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#203593 Posted on 2019-05-22 10:58:32

^^I also think a more in depth but staggered tuto would be very helpful to newer players.
Though maybe in the tutorial also state along the way "so and so feature will be unlocked at level X"
and I think somewhere in the first tuto section it should list ways to earn experience so players know what kind of direction to go in order to start unlocking things

Last edited on 2019-05-22 at 11:07:35 by Dee


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#203594 Posted on 2019-05-22 11:00:12

^ Yeah, explaining in the first one that there will be more in the future and explaining how to unlock them would be pretty important.

Last edited on 2019-05-22 at 11:00:29 by Raptor


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#203596 Posted on 2019-05-22 11:05:41

That would definitely help as well. Out of all the features and functions EV has, gaining EXP would be the only one whose importance isn't an opinion. Unless a player just wants 5 horses, no breeding, no auction house, and no forums for some reason XD


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#203599 Posted on 2019-05-22 11:27:07

I love the staggered tutorial idea. The only reason I wasn't confused as hell after the current tutorial is because I've already learned the basics of the game years ago when I use to be really active. 

I think having an ongoing list of objectives or goals for players would be a good idea, too. Have a few objectives going at once that are replaced with increasingly harder objectives upon completion... breed a certain color or pattern, place in x amount of shows, level up a horse, etc, and have small $ prizes or other bonuses. New objective possibilities could be added with updates so players don't eventually run out.

I think that would also help players not struggle as much to earn money within the game through their breeding and showing.

Last edited on 2019-05-22 at 11:28:56 by ShowLowRanch


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#203600 Posted on 2019-05-22 11:29:57

I think it may help to introduce a small bonus for posting in the forums. Small amounts of money or EXP, maybe a random treat at times. Nothing big that would encourage spamming, but something to entice players to post and make the game look more active. It's a problem that much discussion has moved to Discord because it makes the forums, and thus the site, look dead. Even if new people notice that there's a Discord chat, and actually have a Discord account, they may think that since the forums are dead that the Discord will be too. It's not a good thing to have so many barriers around connecting with other players.

If a reward is created for forum posting, though, it should be limited. We want more good discussion, not spam. Perhaps there is a tiny reward for posting, and then you get a slightly better reward for each person who likes the post. (Your own vote does not count.) The rewards keep increasing very slightly in quality the more people like it. Perhaps 10 posts per day should be rewarded, and only 10 separate posts each day can be rewarded for a like. Perhaps there's just not a good enough way to regulate it and spam would reign anyway. People will always like their friends' posts and may even set up clubs dedicated to going around liking each other's posts to hit their daily limits. This is quite obviously not what we want, but I'm unsure of the best way to prevent this. We could of course punish people for doing it (perhaps turn off that player's ability to earn rewards for posts or likes/cannot give other people rewards for likes), but that would require a ton of moderation. I think it would eventually stabilize, but it may be too hard to get to that point, and new waves of newbies would bring this problem back. If anyone has any solutions to this, I'd love to hear.

It's not very nice to say that there's no trust in this game. Yes, Abbey has been absent, and that's a valid cause for concern. However, if she didn't care about the site, she would have just shut it down already, or sold it at the least. If you lack trust in the site, that's fine, but that doesn't mean you should go about saying no one should have trust in it. I'm sure Abbey will be back when she has the ability. As far as I know she loves this game deeply, so her absence must be truly necessary. Speculation like that will only hurt the game.


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#203609 Posted on 2019-05-22 12:04:07

I also want to pipe up on a slightly unrelated yet still relevant note since this is turning into a bunch of suggestions. Abbey still has the creative team if she ever needs help with testing anything! There's still active creative team members (and I'm sure players who have been active after the fact who would like to join) who want to help Abbey improve EV so she's not having to deal with everything by herself.

We want to help in keeping EV moving forward, bug fixing/testing and wherever else we can. I know Abbey wants to keep the coding aspect to herself though there are other areas where we'd be glad to help. Especially when that means we could have events, updates, or fixes tested out and running smoother before they're even implemented in the game to cut down on potential bugs. 

I understand there was some difficulties last time around with the creative team in people not being available to test, though this was mostly due to not having much warning when testing was needed. Having a longer time span to test functions allows for more bugs to be found and have a better idea as to how the function will be received by the community. If there was more communication and a few days to test so more creative members would have the opportunity to hash out the bugs then we could get a lot accomplished!

I'm sure with the bigger updates that have been taking awhile there's some monotonous busywork involved that takes up time and energy, chances are there may be some of those things that could be delegated.

Please utilize the creative team(!!!) so abbey doesn't have to bear so much of the brunt of the load in terms of site work. We want to help


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#203610 Posted on 2019-05-22 12:09:32

I have news - I will very much needing to use you guys, because we have the go-ahead to rework the tutorial. c;


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#203611 Posted on 2019-05-22 12:40:03

Something I would like to add in, too, regarding the testing team. Along with having a few days notice to get ready, how about implementing a task board similar to JIRA, so we can organize bugs and know who all worked on what. Details on bugs would be greatly appreciated. Helpful information such as what the players did to encounter the bug, what the fix was meant to do, etc, that way we can recreate the steps and then mess around and try to break the fix, then verify that nothing else broke in the process.


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#203612 Posted on 2019-05-22 12:47:10

We have the bug zapper to manage bugs - it's linked in the footer.


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#203617 Posted on 2019-05-22 13:35:47

@River
Woo-hoo!


I have to say it again, it's very encouraging to see so many trying to actively pep up EV. Gives a lot of hope. There's so much potential still, and especially with this player base. c:


It didn't occur to me that a social media account for the game could bring in more players, only to find what things most aren't all too happy with; Could also lead to those who tried the game potentially saying "don't try it". Good catch...Although, when the game's got some improvements going (updated tutorial!!) and some new functions, hopefully, it may help to get the word circulating to those who may have given up, a little?

I agree with Syrien, somewhat.  Discord is obviously a very popular platform now, but it does give off the feel that no one really wants to converse ON the game anymore, slightly.  Like me, I don't have a Disc account. But love talking..yet there's not much conversation anymore. I know there used to be a big roleplay community, too, but that seems to also have faded a little.  It's good to have both options, but just wishing it was a little more equal.


As for the options of a 'delete' button for horses, I'm all for it with just a few concerns. The game does feel bloated with horses that people don't really want to buy, or wait days to just let them die of virtual neglect. Which seems a little morbid in it of itself, eek!  Maybe instead of calling it "Delete this horse?" It could be.."You sent this horse to greener pastures" something slightly sentimental so we don't feel so guilty about our pixel ponies. c;  But, that does leave the problem of players deleting horses that someone would've gladly liked to have. And could lead to the horse market taking a deeper dive, because everyone's just deleting instead of selling. Although, it'd clear out the horses most are passing over (low stat/confo foundies), so those who've put time into their herds can get a little more spotlight when they put they're prized product up for sale. Hm?

Eh, also, I don't really show my horses..ever. I've never understood the benefits of it, or the useful tips to get good at it! I think that's where the tutorial could greatly help, because it'd make the thought of it less daunting and more inviting! And with that, I also don't know the problems going on with it, thus I can't really speak on any solutions.. :c

A bigger creative team would be nice if it meant more updates, and even small features like hair styles, mane & tail ribbons, more arrays of colors for tack, etc. Personally, I'm not creative enough to think of anymore..

And what about more difficult to achieve items? Not pay to play ones. But if you achieve so and so thing, you get this bonus (treats, money). Somewhat like the Winner's Circle background. I don't know what exactly you'd do to achieve such things, but I'm someone could come up with it!

yikes, long post, sorry. Just onnne more thing though. What about Foundation horses? It's nice in some ways that more colors and A LOT of markings are becoming..very common when using that function, but I feel like it decreases their values. Like Few Spot leopard. I used to search and search for horses with that, and consider it very rare, but Now? Now it feels so general, that what's the use of having one. Pretty much anyone could buy/create one with little to no effort.  Maybe cut back on the possibility of getting those markings/colors. Bring some rarity or value back to them. I think the conformation should still be kept in the 50's. If and when confo. ever becomes valuable, there shouldn't be a chance that it tanks right away because it's made common again by foundation producing 60+ confo.

i'll stop talking for a while, i promise. xD


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