[UPDATED] Devs' Corner: April 2024

Our developers have something to tell you! Every three (3) weeks, our devs will provide you with information about their work in the “Dev’s Corner.”

This publication is a way of keeping everyone updated on what’s happening with the game. We invite you to discuss and leave your feedback for each of the publications.

Note: All posts must adhere to the forum guidelines and be constructively made.

Take a look at our very first Devs' Corner publication!

Warm wishes,

The Howrse Team
 
Ow
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I feel that this will cause an even bigger divide. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to see some new challenges thrown in, but most of them are out of reach for a good chunk of the players. Needing to get the fala bonus, for example, is way out of reach of most, especially when you factor in they don't go for equus outside of auction, but with these new tasks making the objectives harder to complete, how are players going to be able to get a fala without spending ages gathering up luck items and passes? Challenge is good, but when that challenge is out of reach for most, it takes all of the fun out of trying to achieve it; having to care for any special/divine should be the most when it comes to that.
Oathkeeper
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I have to agree that some of these new objectives are tricky, not to mention time and resource consuming for established players, so how are they welcoming to newer accounts?

The ability to swap one out is great BUT only if you don't get a worse one in the process, i often use it if i get cover a draft for example, but sometimes it bites you!

Some of these are just not worth even bothering with, some of us do have lots of items hanging around, but that doesn't mean we really want to use them wily nily. I already have a fair few draft and donkey uni's sat with breeding items on from the current objectives list.

These more difficult objectives should definitely take into account the players account, if there are no divines then they should not be getting impossible objectives like trigger the fala bonus or an account with only 3/4 horses needing to do 40 hours of rides or missions.
haffyfan
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No, sorry not appreciative of having to work harder for the passes, I thought we were getting an additional objective.
Saracen 101
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Not a fan of this new update and objectives. I agree with most of the above, these will be especially hard for beginning players. There were lots of better options to choose from than what they did.

Drop the requirements for removing unicorn horns and medusa bloods, and water of youth. No requirements should be made for doing anything with a specific divine, plus many players don't have a divine at all.
We shouldn't have to spend hard earned and saved BMI's to get a few passes as the BMI's are worth way more.
Jade Heart
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Agree with all of the sentiments expressed above. Adding an increasing number of difficult objectives is just going to upset players and restrict the number of passes coming into the game economy. Although, let's all be honest with ourselves here, Howrse isn't too terribly concerned about the second half.

These objectives aren't the pass horse system, but *that* system was at least something that most players could participate in. The objectives used to be the same way, but these new objectives are slowly chiseling away at that.
The Fifth Queen
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Why was there even a need to add more objectives, players have been asking for certain objectives to be deleted (especially uni related) but NO Howrse thinks it’s a good idea to add even more that will annoy everyone, you would think that a company would actually like to please their players and make this game an enjoyable experience, but they seem to go out of their way to continually annoy us default smiley (m)default smiley (m)
bugaluggs
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"New daily objectives have been added and the number of objectives available for each player has increased."

Does that mean we'll have more than two objectives per day, thus a chance to win more passes than before? Or that instead of x number of possible objectives, there are x + y number of possible objectives now (with most of the y ones generally seen as more difficult than the others) thus we have less of a chance to win passes than before?

There's hardly ever an objective that I can't do since I've been here longer than I ever should have been and have so much stuff hoarded on my account, but players shouldn't have to be rich to get rich... If I was starting from scratch today, I don't know if I'd stick around. The only reason I have a steady flow of passes these days is all my rainbow divines, love divines, and a few others that provide me passive pass-income. I get free passes every day without doing anything, but if I were new and had no divines, these objectives would be it... and they're hardest for new people. That's sad.

Sounds like we're moving toward free passes being a thing of the past... Or just so rare that they might as well be. (Especially for new people - the rich will keep getting richer, and new players aren't going to stick around...)

If this comes with a third objective for 30 passes, with that being the hardest one... I'll be happy... But judging from the comments of others, I'm not expecting that to be the case.
Somethin
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I've sent a ticket through to Contact Us requesting further clarification on the new player objectives - lets see if Admin follow through. default smiley (a)
bronze1983
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Somethin wrote:

"New daily objectives have been added and the number of objectives available for each player has increased."

Does that mean we'll have more than two objectives per day, thus a chance to win more passes than before? Or that instead of x number of possible objectives, there are x + y number of possible objectives now (with most of the y ones generally seen as more difficult than the others) thus we have less of a chance to win passes than before?
More objectives have been added to the pool. We still only get 2 per day.
Legacy Ann
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i have no problem with adding new obj. i feel it was needed. but some of the obj they added are ridiculous. some are fine. reach 13 with a horse we already do 15 and 20 13 no big deal. play 20 hours with a foal no big deal. start a new production that's a problem. the add a new companion isn't a huge deal i have hundreds that are unused (people will just need to start always having a few on hand) . they just need to make the wording more clear
Hiram Farmer
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Please, can we also get rid of "produce a unicorn?"

I've always disliked this objective, but today especially. I have the 1 in 4 perk, and even used a draft uni because of their better odds, but bad luck struck, and it took me 17 covers to get a unicorn.

I'm glad I have a gazillion unicorns to try this, but it's such a time sink since I have to go through all of my farms to find the unicorns (I recently retired a bunch of low GP ones so I'm not producing low value fails anymore), set up the covers, and then foal them. And that's after first going through the multiple mares I already had in foal to start with. There was still a risk I couldn't complete this as I had to use both cover sessions, and only had a couple of mares left to foal by the time I got a unicorn.

I used to exchange this one, but with a couple of the new ones I didn't want to risk getting a really impossible objective like "start a crop"
If it's super difficult for players that are able to plan ahead for this objective, perhaps it's too difficult to remain in the pool at all.
Legacy Ann
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Legacy Ann wrote:

Please, can we also get rid of "produce a unicorn?"

I've always disliked this objective, but today especially. I have the 1 in 4 perk, and even used a draft uni because of their better odds, but bad luck struck, and it took me 17 covers to get a unicorn.

I'm glad I have a gazillion unicorns to try this, but it's such a time sink since I have to go through all of my farms to find the unicorns (I recently retired a bunch of low GP ones so I'm not producing low value fails anymore), set up the covers, and then foal them. And that's after first going through the multiple mares I already had in foal to start with. There was still a risk I couldn't complete this as I had to use both cover sessions, and only had a couple of mares left to foal by the time I got a unicorn.

I used to exchange this one, but with a couple of the new ones I didn't want to risk getting a really impossible objective like "start a crop"
If it's super difficult for players that are able to plan ahead for this objective, perhaps it's too difficult to remain in the pool at all.


Exactly. There have been times I've gotten that particular objective and I've had no unicorns on hand to breed and I didn't have the means to get one at the time.
Captain Canada
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Hiram Farmer wrote:

the add a new companion isn't a huge deal


The problem is, people that have had this have said it means put a companion on a divine or special, not a certain companion on a regular horse.
Oathkeeper
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Start a new crop! Two days in a row! First, all my possible fields are already in use and there are NO CROPs that are done in less than 24 hours. So you want me to leave a production empty just in case I get this obj?

Not to mention a friend has gotten the "activate the falla bonus" when that friend doesn't have a falla and doesn't have the resources to get one.

Another friend got "Add to a horse a special companion". Poorly worded as what she finally figured out it meant add a companion to a special horse. So you have to have a special horse to add a companion to as well as have a companion to add to such special horse.

Really, these new obj. options (because that's what they are, not additional objectives to do to earn passes) really are impossible.

default smiley (n) on this new development to the game.
The Legacy
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The one update I (and likely every tearing player on the site) would love to see is reduce the IBS gap or fix it so a mare produces IBS within 10 of top at least once before she turns 30 (when Morpheus Arrms fall off). For the 2nd mare in a row I've had to breed 23 times to get something within 20 of top IBS. Last time it cost me 23 Hera from inventory. This time it cost me 7.1 MILLION equus. default smiley (li)default smiley (li)

For the teams that provide preps/skillers for Prix the IBS range is over 500 points. That is too much. For the time and supplies invested, selling preps and skillers and making a profit is out of reach for anyone without the tears privilege (which seems impossible to get the last year) It used to be so fun to log in but lately it's felt more like a disliked job that you only do to pay the rent/mortgage.
Crystal Coven
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Thankfully, I have not gotten the "start a crop" objective yet, but I am still worried I might in the time between now and the time my earliest cattle harvest is done, that being 4 days. Thankfully, I got a saddler in the HoP promo, so it's going to allow me to build a bit of a stockpile of leather so that I can leave a meadow free for quick crops, but why should I or anyone else have to do this? I'm literally going to miss out on 35750 leather a month, which is 178750 equus if I just sold it, 357500 if I had to buy it. It's a big loss. default smiley :(

Factor in that Howrse values 178750 equus at roughly 280 passes based on the closest to that amount when converting passes to equus, so, by their decided worth, I'm going to lose 280 passes worth of equus each month for a measly 10/20 passes just so that I can keep a meadow free. How is this fair?

All objectives should be doable within one day, any that aren't are unreasonable and unfair. I've worked hard to build up my EC and profit from it, why should I take such a big cut because of the chance of getting such an unfair objective? If this objective is going to stay, please at least let us do part harvests to keep it fair.
Oathkeeper
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glad to see not a single ounce of feedback was listened to about the objectives before they went live... not.

why do they even bother putting them up for feedback on prepod if they have never once listened? and it took how many months, over a year to remove the dehorning objective?

also, apparently "put a special companion on a horse" is completely incorrect for what they mean, which is "give a companion to a divine"??? they didn't even fix *that*?
answrs
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Is 'cover a draft uni' a new one because I'm pretty sure i've gone through all the objectives at least once or twice and haven't seen this one... I'm not thrilled at the thought of them wanting me to spend alot of equus or a week's worth of objective passes just to do this *one* that gives me twenty. I know I can skip it (and will be) but that this one is even on here is irritating.
MatchaBlossom
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Wait until you hear the 'cover a winged donkey (unicorn?)'.. I think I've heard of that somewhere, but I don't remember if it was a unicorn or just a winged donkey.

My objectives have been resetting daily on UK since this irritating objectives change. I will NOT buy a donkeycorn just to give it a carrot for 20p when the donkeycorn costs at least 10× more. And I definitely will NOT buy one just to waste it's covers. And there's no point in wasting 20k to switch out to get something equally as bad. 20k is a lot of equus and I'm not going to waste it on your useless objectives pool draw between bad, worse and worst.

I suppose it's time I start considering collecting Quindecim passes once every 2 years because clearly I won't be doing my "daily objectives" daily, and collecting the passes before I hit at least a few hundred would be a waste.

You know what, Howrse? Keep your objective passes. default smiley (li) I'll continue hoarding pass droppers until I don't need to bother with your useless objectives for passes. This change just emphasizes your outright greed by showing us that you are more than happy to almost force us into buying passes by making them almost impossible to come by in the game.

And you know what? I'm even further away from sinking money into your game like you want me to. And just to let you know, whenever someone I know shows even the slightest interest in this game, I tell them that the developers treat their customers like droppings (because they do) and that the developers are so greedy for money that they make it almost impossible to get anywhere unless you sink money into the game. And yes, I have done that recently. I simply will not let my friends fall into your trap of greed. And this change that you made just proves my point when I do everything that I can to discourage my friends from bothering. You've trained me well default smiley (y)
ShadowKokufu
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I sent a ticket to Contact Us informing them that these objective changes are awful. Maybe if enough people bombard them with tickets they'll listen to us.

answrs wrote:

why do they even bother putting them up for feedback on prepod if they have never once listened?

This is why I don't even do preprod anymore. They reserve a number of spots on preprod for VIP players to test, in addition to the dedicated testers/players who have been specifically asked for feedback. The preprod banner used to be gone within the first day (sometimes even within hours) of preprod going up. I remember my friend group used to get all excited when the banner went up, and if one of us couldn't be online then someone would use co-management to get them their preprod slot. But now the banner sits around for literally the entire preprod period because we're all so disillusioned, and we know now that the devs/admin don't listen to player feedback one bit. There's currently 283 slots for VIP players left on the current preprod banner, which ends in about 10 days.
qwerty9air
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Got the 20 hours if mountain rides one today...I don't even have a horse currently BLUPing that NEEDS mountain rides yet, and why waste energy on horses who have already done it when I can get equus from comps or missions :l
jsniper
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I would like to add that swapping 'cover a draft uni' gave me 'give birth to a uni' so *insert choice words* I'd be alot more irritated if I was on day 6 or 7 of the weekly objectives and had to scrap it all because of this. The only successful uni I've bred was because of Hestia's Gift, so you need to it easier to do successfully breed unicorns or get rid of it. I'm not going to sit here and age my unicorns multiple years to do an objective that gives me 20 passes. The Daily Objectives should be doable by everybody and not cost the player a net negative in doing them.
MatchaBlossom
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Once again asking for the ability to disable random friend requests, I always get tons during these kind of promos, despite having it on my page that I don't accept them.
Oathkeeper
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Just like pretty much everyone else, I'm not a fan of the new objectives. I got ''Cover a draft unicorn'' today, had to swap as I don't have any, and draft unis cost 100+ passes per in sales. When I swapped, I got ''Give a carrot to a donkey unicorn''. I don't have any donkey unis either, and they're also super expensive. Thankfully a team member sent me a donkey uni, but if they hadn't, I wouldn't have been able to complete my objectives today.

It's starting to get really tiring that none of the feedback given by players are taken seriously.

Lastly, please fix the error with the new companion objective. I've seen many players waste multiple inventory companions, simply because it's been written wrong(you're suppoused to give a companion to a special horse). This game just keeps taking steps in the wrong direction...
ᴇᴜɴoɪᴀ
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So yesterday one of my objectives was to put a Black Market item from the Optimization category on a horse. This was showing as already being validated and wasn't letting me click it to validate or anything and nothing was showing in my inventory as getting the passes for it. Sent a ticket to contact and of course they are aware and working on it. Today when I got on my progress is back to the beginning as it says I didn't do all the objectives yesterday. Added to my note to contact again letting them know..
Can I say again how much I hate this changedefault smiley (n)default smiley (n)
sofizzy
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