Improving Conformation of Foundation Stock

Recently I have been buying new horses from the EC to refresh my herds.

How disappointing to say the least! I spend $50K EVD on new stock and ONLY keep 3 or 4!
All I am looking for at this point is a Foundation horse with no "poor" ratings in the conformation! 

Would it be possible to improve the conformation of Foundation Stock so that maybe 50% have at least all "good" in the conformation score?

Conformation is the most difficult part of the horse to improve, why make it that much harder?

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Last edited on 2022-12-26 at 09:36:13 by 𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖆

And maybe have more of a chance of better nss or better patterns? 
Supported. 
Just spent 26k on 26 paint mares, not one was Western (Spd, Int)
Very disappointing. Now I can't buy any more till next week. :/

Last edited on 2022-04-17 at 23:38:01 by ♥Ⓥⓘⓒⓚⓨ♥

I support this yet the fact that it is hard makes the feeling when you manage to reach a goal so much sweeter. Honestly I’d prefer a way to actively breed better conformation, maybe  something similar to the colour genetics you can test to so you can see the genetics for each “health stat”. Every part has a 0-4 grade with 4 numbers. Where 0 is best and 4 is worst.

Let’s say a horse has “poor” legs with the stats 4444. If I bred this horse with a horse that had 3344 for the legs there would be a chance to get 3344, 3444, 4444. If the horse has 100 in happiness, up to date with the vet etc there would be an increased chance of getting 3344, (each number would have a separate percentage of chance) and a small chance of getting an increase by one in all places maybe like 1%? so every number would have 1% of getting an increase so that the foal would get 2233 instead. 

Age and amount of foals (mares only) would affect the chance as well. If the horse has bad health, is too old/very young, need to go to the vet etc there could be an increased chance of getting worse stats. If a horse has 2222 it might get 4444 in worst case scenario (old and having given birth to a foal a year, starving, no vet, no shoes and so on).  

Does this make sense?

So yes, I support but I’d rather have a way to actively breed better stats instead. 

Don’t support. The whole challenge of the game is to improve through breeding and showing. Along with the inbreeding blockers it forces a player to either continue looking for good stock from foundation horses or utilize other players lines

Last edited on 2022-04-18 at 08:18:57 by ☭ ʀᴇᴀᴘᴇʀ

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Last edited on 2022-12-26 at 09:36:27 by 𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖆

@Lucia which is why I support but prefer the possibility to actively breed for better stats. I don’t want to spend 5 years to get good conformation stats (yikes!), so if we could see what pairs would give a larger chance of getting better conformation it would go a lot faster. Breeding a 2233 with a 3322 would give a good chance of getting 2222 if the horse is healthy. It would only take a couple of generations of selective breeding to get to perfect conformation stats that way. Something to make it easier, better stats from ec and/or the ability to actively breed healthier horses. 

Don't we get better confo when we buy custom horses? Stats of custom horses are definitely better, so I think that confo is also higher in customs.

I totally agree with Reaper, no support. If you want to start with better foundations, you can buy customs which are 60+ confo (usually around 65, I think, but once I could get a 70.38) and nice lower NSS. If you can get perfect conformations in just a few generations, what's the point of sticking to the game?
Also, you don't need to wait till your horse hits 18-20 age (although it's recommended, as the work you put into your horses somehow affects the quality of the foal), you can breed away when it's 3 years old. I know some breeders just breed their stock as soon as possible till they get the desired foal in respect of confo or NSS and then they start to actually playing the game (I mean training, showing etc). You can do that for NSS or for confo as well. 
Also, you can still buy other players' horses or ask for a foal from desired stock to start with better horses.

Honestly, I like the challenge and that you need a good breeding strategy and dedication to get somewhere with your horses. On the basis of my horses, conformation is much harder to raise, but not impossible - I can see the slow process on my horses, but I think it will speed up with upcoming generations.

If there is a modification needed, I'd rather support TinyFoxOwl's idea when you can get a "look into" if your foal would be born with better conformation.

@Lenka, not everyone has 15 credits to make custom horses. (Not meant to be rude, just stating it)

It is ridiculously hard to improve conformation. I have been selectively breeding for conformation (matching poors to high goods and so on) - currently on generation 4 (2 years continuous) and have increased the average of the herd by less than 6%. At this rate, getting to 90% conformation would take the best part of a decade even with lucky custom foundations.

Note that all horses with high conformation are pre-recode descendants. Suggesting breeding to higher confo. to improve is not a real solution.

Would love to see credit items for small bonus to confo. or to 'smooth' confo. profiles; change/improvement to breeding algorithm to make the increase better; more variety in foundation stock - so there are some new lines with 'high' confo. especially with customs - why pay 15 EVC for a custom with 60 confo when you can get a 60 confo. store use other credit items to get the right colour (and probably better NSS stats).

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Last edited on 2022-12-26 at 09:36:57 by 𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖆

A foundation is intended to be just that, a baseline to work stock from. Overstocking of foundation horses is a player created problem, they're not intended to be amazing or as good as custom horses. 

I notice that the problem described isn't with the foundation horses themselves, it's the breeding of conformation, which I agree is very punishing for no particular reason. The current formula is an average of the parents then +/- up to 10 points in each trait, and is very rng based. I'd prefer to see a change to the conformation formula itself (reduce the chance of big negatives), rather than how foundation horses are generated as again, they're just baseline horses. 

@ Maple, I would support (along with TinyFoxOwl's suggestion) that if there's a solution for pre-recode horses vs post-recode horses. I also would like to see some kind of changes to stats as well. My biggest concern is that there's a LARGE gap between those two horses in both conformation and NSS. Just modifying the formula will only boost pre-recode horses even further since the formula will apply to all horses not just foundations. There will be always a gap between those horses. That's why fixing the foundation baseline can be a simpler solution to help close the gaps since it will not affect any existing horses. If someone has an idea that will help close gaps between pre-recode and post-recode horses in both stats and conformation, then I am willing to support it. However, I haven't seen any good suggestions on that yet. (IMO, we should just cull all horses after fixing the formulas so all horses will come from the same formulas but I know people will be against it... so that's why I am not suggesting this lol)

*let me clarify when I said pre-recode and post-recode, I am not saying that foundation horses should be equal to lined horses. I am saying that lined horses that are created after the formula change should be able to reach the pre-recode lined horses' level in a reasonable time period (that's not 5+ years). The foundation should be a baseline that will help create more good-lined horses, instead of slowing down post-recode horses from reaching pre-recode horses' level.

Last edited on 2022-04-19 at 15:01:41 by 𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖆

i think there's not much point to increasing foundie confo if the system for increasing confo stays the same. like stat breeding is extremely straightforward, NSS breeding as well. color breeding is partly random as in real life, but you can more or less understand why you ended up with the colors you have if you understand genetics. but with confo it's frustrating enough that i don't really bother anymore. in real life you would generally get a well built horse from 2 well built parents, but it's not really the case over here. you have to breed multiple times and hope for the best before your horses run out of breeding years.

if the confo system itself is improved then we don't have to throw out all our existing foundies to create new ones, we can just start breeding for better confo right away. upping the foundie limit feels like a temporary solution to a bigger constant issue...