Improving Conformation of Foundation Stock

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Last edited on 2022-12-26 at 09:39:43 by 𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖆

@Lucia 
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 3 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.

"Plus, I don't see any benefit in restricting players from breeding cross-discipline" this basically goes against everything the game is set out to do. Having horses with high NSS stops them from being able to show and basically turns horses that were once well breed, useless. The game mechanics run well, and it's easier enough to learn about what makes a good horse through the help guides and by asking questions in the forum.  I refuse to offer any of my horses for stud/brood if they are intending to breed cross-discipline as it effects the stats WAY too much and turns them useless. There is already a huge amount of poorly breed horses that people can't rid of. 

The issue isn't so much the game itself it's the lack of players and ending up in a genetic bottleneck due to the limited number of horses in certain disciplines. Conformation, although I don't breed for it or care much about it, can be easily achieved. I've managed to breed around 55 to 60 conformation in most the breeds without really trying, so it can be done it just takes time like most things in this game. You shouldn't expect to get a perfect foundation all the time, it's designed to be a challenge and if people utilized the custom horse creator they will be able to get foundation horses with all "good" stats. 

I honestly don't believe anything about conformation should be changed

Last edited on 2022-04-21 at 00:44:54 by Laureal

Just to clear up on nss changes:  The nss system changed between the recode. As a result a lot of precode horses ended up with a lower nss than what they had before due to the distribution of stats. You used to be able to get over 100 base stats on a foundation. The original expectation was that the older horses would be bred out and horses would balance themselves closer to foundation level. There wasn’t any kind of tweaking of the formula for years until recently in which the nss can be randomly dropped in breedings. It is possible to lower nss to 0 again, but the chance becomes much harder the lower you go in order to keep the balance in showing fair. 

@ Laureal

I understand how NSS works. I just don't understand why we are designing the game this way. As I said, most games I've been to encourage players to raise stats, including NSS. They designed the show system differently than we do. In order to win, NSS plays a huge role which is why we are encouraged to lower it. 

"The issue isn't so much the game itself it's the lack of players and ending up in a genetic bottleneck due to the limited number of horses in certain disciplines."

I've been to games that have smaller communities than this game and they have an easier time selling/breeding/buying than we do. Discipline is the main issue of the genetic "bottleneck" not because of the lack of players. Two common factors I've seen that helped them:

1) The game designed its show system differently and allow players to breed cross-discipline without any penalty. This method allows players to buy/sell/breed from breeders who trained their horses in different disciplines without worrying about them rendering their lines useless.

or/and

2) The store favors stats distribution toward one discipline for each breed. For example, the Clydesdale foundation will have a high chance of getting stats distribution for Driving than any other discipline. Quarter Horse will get a higher chance in Western distribution than other disciplines. This basically "steers" players toward the correct discipline so a breed will have a lot of horses in the same discipline by discouraging players to select random disciplines like racing Clydesdale. 

Another proof that it's not a lack of players that is the problem.
You are contributing to a genetic bottleneck by "I refuse to offer any of my horses for stud/brood if they are intending to breed cross-discipline as it effects the stats WAY too much and turns them useless." even though you are an active player. You are actively rejecting stud/brood requests from another active player because of discipline. I am not accusing you or anything, I would've done the same thing due to how the game is designed. It's not you and the "lack of active players" that is the problem. It's because the game is designed to "bottleneck" by discouraging players to breed cross-discipline without penalty. It also solidifies the bottleneck even further by preventing players from getting a decent foundation stock with correct stats distribution. The 50 foundation horses per week are the final nail to the coffin.

My best foundation pull was a gorgeous GV with one of the best stats distribution I've seen. 49 NSS. One teeny tiny problem... the distribution is for Show Jumping. From the statistic, the popular discipline for GV is Driving. There is no overlap between Show Jumping and Driving. If I kept that horse and assigned Driving as his discipline, their NSS would've been not as great. Unfortunately, a lot of my best foundation pulls are in similar situations. Wrong stats distribution and I can't just keep them because of the breeding penalty so I culled them. Sure, I can go and breed my horse to an outside line. However, we eventually will reach another genetic bottleneck due to a lack of decent fresh lines in the correct discipline. Eventually, all of my horses will have a relation to all studs/broods in that breed+discipline. Then we will find ourselves in the current situation again.

Yes, EV is a game with a smaller community (not the smallest tho!). We need to consider that and also consider their playing styles when we design the game. It's possible for a small game to function well even with a small number of active players. We can't just sit around and expect players to change their playing style and agree to choose driving instead of show jumping for GV even if its stats are suitable for SJ. However, we can fix the game and design it with the players in the mind.

Last edited on 2022-04-21 at 08:14:48 by 𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖆

hmm... i feel like this is getting a bit too much about NSS (i only mentioned NSS briefly as a comparison to confo lol, sorry if i started everything) but i'm not sure how i feel about shifting EV's stat system to be more like other games. part of EV's appeal to me is that the stat and showing system is more about selective breeding, treating, and planning unlike other games where you can just grind out stats and not care about priority. i enjoy the other games i play but i feel like without that key difference EV kind of loses a part of it's charm, i'd probably start to feel like i'd get a similar experience playing one of my mobile games lol.

Yeah, I agree. We did kinda got off the topic lol. my bad. I am willing to discuss this further on a different thread or via DM if anyone wants to. I feel like we can find a way to keep EV's selective charm but without bottlenecking the game so much.

I still support the original suggestion tho :)