Gelding Incentives

I feel that creating a more gelding-positive culture would be helpful for the game. As it stands now, there are very few geldings in the game and they are (in general) considered undesirable. In real life, geldings (for the most part) are easier to train and show than their studly counterparts. Hence my suggestion:

Training Increase: 25-50% increase in stats earned after using the stat boost points
Showing Increase: 0-10% increase in the secret luck factor for showing

Pros
More money making potential in shows
Less low quality horses produced/offered at stud
Increase in value of stud fee (less studs = more demand = higher prices)

Cons
Slightly harder for stallions/mares to gain stats/earn money in shows (I don't believe it would be significant)
Less diversity in studs possible

I know that I personally would be willing to geld a fair amount of horses if these incentives were in place.

Thoughts?

Edited to change showing increase percentage.

Last edited on 2016-05-08 at 09:03:48 by Summerset Stables

I thiiink that gelding incentives have been suggested in the past, and while I DO support it over all, I don't think the advantage should be THAAAAT high.

Percentages can be adjusted of course. :) I didn't see it suggested on this forum but maybe I just overlooked it?

I don't support

Mainly because I'm the odd person who has many issues with geldings in real life and find they are far more temperamental knotheads than mares or stallions....

I've dealt with babies, geldings, stallions and mares. Generally I find that geldings are more even tempered - or at least they aren't as moody. They may be jerks but they're jerks all the time lol. There's a reason that large teams of draft horses are geldings.

I currently have a whole string of geldings just to show for points - so I'd love to see some sort of gelding initiative.

I would say a 10% increase for showing is reasonable

I would definitely consider buying more project horses for showing, though I wouldn't ever use my own stock for this. It'd be nice for the potential money boost, but I would probably buy RC horses that are usually undesirable to start with and would never be quite as good as a foundation treated and shown as early as possible.

Honestly I usually use discarded horses that have crap confo but are easy on the eyes. :) Plus it's a nice way to have a good assortment of breeds without the commitment of breeding.

I disagree with any advantages to geldings. Geldings are great in real life, don't get me wrong however I believe the purpose of them stops there. What cannot be trained, shown and bred when its career is over, has no place on a game.

I hope I don't sound too harsh, however, if geldings were given perks here this will be yet another game I leave behind. There is nothing worse than working DAILY, for hours to train, care and show your horses for your breeding program only to be CONTINUALLY beaten by geldings, pushing breeding horses quality down (the average gelding WILL receive more bonuses to their stats, points and training speed, and that will result in a quality drop in stallions and mares of equal gen&age- as more geldings fill the shows and out train them).

Alternatively, I wouldn't mind geldings EARNING more money from shows. Its not realistic at all, I know but as long as they don't have training or show performance advantages I will be happy.

Dawnblade, your horses would still win. Geldings need to be trained and shown just like any other horse, they would just have a bit higher of a luck factor.

However, in disciplines like racing, I'm not sure if you ever see many successful geldings, whether it's because horses aren't gelded for breeding purposes or they actually do have a disadvantage there. Thoughts on this?

I'm just curious what's the purpose of giving them more stats if they arent breedable? It's not like you can reverse that gelding effect anymore, so you couldn't change them to studs or something later.

Slightly more points earned for the player would be cool, though I for one don't ever have geldings so I would say it might be best not to make it to high of an increase since that would start to leave others in the dust. But that's just my opinion on the matter, take it as you will :)

Dawnblade, I understand your concern but the perks aren't that much. And like Mardi Gras said, the geldings would still have to be trained to win.

Let's do some math. Horses on EV are active (0-20) for 140 days. 119 of those days the horse can be shown and trained. For the sake of calculations we'll use 120 days. When using stat boost, the average horse earns between 11 and 13 stat points. So we'll use 12 stat points earned for every 10 days.

Stallion - (120 days / 10 days) * 12 stat points = 144 stat point gain
Gelding (10% increase) - (120 days / 10 days) * 13.2 stat points = 158.4 stat point gain
Gelding (25% increase) - (120 days / 10 days) * 15 stat points = 180 stat point gain
Gelding (50% increase) - (120 days / 10 days) * 18 stat points = 216 stat point gain

So you're talking between 14.4 and 72 stat point advantage over the lifetime of the horse.

As for showing, yes if geldings win more shows they will earn more stats. However, I am talking about increasing the luck factor. As I understand it, the luck factor is a small boost that every one can get. My suggestion is that geldings have a chance (hence the 0-10% increase) of having an increased luck factor.

Example of my made up show score formula
Stats - 60%
Confo - 30%
Luck 10%

Gelding: 100 stats| 60 confo | 10 Luck * 10% increase = 11 Luck
Stallion: 110 stats | 60 confo | 10 Luck

Gelding (100*.6)+(60*.3)+(11*.1)= 79.1
Stallion (110*.6)+(60*.3)+(10*.1)= 85

So with only 10 more stats, the stallion still wins.

I would actually use this quite a bit with my own stock. I have fairly strict culling standards for my foals and only about 50% are retained. I would love to geld and keep some of the prettier ones if they could earn their keep.

I like this idea!
I'm one of those people who likes to keep all my horses, but that unfortunately results in a vast number of pointless stallions who aren't worth bothering with because I can't breed them or don't need them because I have better horses.

I've seen plenty of games make it work so that the mechanic is that you have a show string of geldings to rake the money whilst your mares and studs just sort of do their thing.
The probable benefit to this would be that newer players would be encouraged to earn money by gelding and showing, rather than optimistically breeding anything in their stable for the sake of having foals. This in turn lowers the chances of players ending up with billions of unwanted horses that just end up abandoned in the rescue centre and increases the likelihood that even low-stat stallions could be put to good use (by players of all experience levels).
Yes, this would be a lot of work to implement, but I wholeheartedly see the point in it.

I'd equally suggest though, that if this is a chosen addition, that mares, stallions and geldings get separated out on the leaderboards, so as to allow horses from each category to be shown as the best, rather than it getting clogged up with only successful career show horses. (This would also add a touch of realism too, in truth).

I disagree completely. Geldings would always end up being better then a stallion and mare, in that, trying to get your stallions and mares up would be pointless as geldings would always turn out with better points, stats and training. What's the point of trying to put a lot of time and effort in a great breeding stallion or mare if your geldings were to train faster and take most of the winnings in shows.

Trying not to sound rude or "attack" anyone, but that is my firm opinion and what I believe. I also agree entirely with Dawnblade, she has made valid points that are very true.

Last edited on 2016-05-10 at 00:51:22 by Western Outback Stables

I support, though I don't really think there should be so much of a training/stat increase but more of a show winnings increase in experience and/or EVD.

If a stat increase for geldings were to be implemented, I think it should be very minimal so that mares and stallions wouldn't have much of an issue competing against geldings.

Small increase in luck would also be fine with me.