[UPDATED] Devs' Corner: May 2026

By Ow, 28th July 2020 10:48:55
72

New features



HellOw,

Our developers have something to tell you!

Every three weeks, approximately, our devs will provide you with information about their work in the “Dev’s Corner.”

This topic 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 constructive.

Take a look at our Devs' Corner here!

Warm wishes,
The Howrse Team
 
Ow
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By Columbus, 23rd February 2026 12:33:36
21
arasteia wrote:

I decided - against my better judgement - to continue playing because I've already poured a bunch of my saved Obols and Drachmas into this season, and I would like to try and build a buffer of fragments for the side gods.
Now that I have tried out some Drachmas, I have to say, the energy distribution is abysmal. I am continuously going rounds and rounds without being offered any energy. Even when I have gone multiple rounds without being offered energy, still manage to pass a round, but no longer have any energy left on any of my cards, it still offers me a bunch of bonuses instead of energy, so of course I go into the next round with 0% chance of winning. It's worse for this than Obols.
I am now on 1 win out of 19 Obols, and 1 win out of 11 Drachmas. It feels terrible and if nothing is changed before next season, I don't care what divines they're putting on, I'm not playing. And I'm absolutely not spending passes. I might have, if this were like the previous Ascent, to try and get some of the side divines. Not now.

How strange, since they made energy rewards more common in the final threshold. Maybe you are not using enough finesse? Just be more strategic!

(Disclaimer: I'm joking.)
Columbus
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By Avre, 23rd February 2026 12:44:00
20
Columbus wrote:

How strange, since they made energy rewards more common in the final threshold. Maybe you are not using enough finesse? Just be more strategic!

(Disclaimer: I'm joking.)

Ahhh, that's it; I haven't been finessing hard enough. I knew I was going wrong somewhere.
My bad, Owlient. I'll finesse harder in future. /j
Avre
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By Nemesis., 23rd February 2026 15:25:53
16
At this point, I'm done with the ascent, I don't care about any of the new Gods or any other divines that are rotated in. The only reason I went for the new gods is so I could inch closer to having 100% for the divine collection. Which, let's be honest, will never happen with all the divines that get added behind a paywall. And I refuse to give howrse a dime of my money. The gods don't even have a perk so why would I dump tons of passes to get them while barely getting anything for the other divines?
Nemesis.
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By arasteia, 23rd February 2026 20:41:48
7
@Columbus - who said anything about making it to the final threshold? default smiley xd I usually run out of energy in threshold two!
arasteia
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By ShadowKokufu, 24th February 2026 03:02:01
17
Long on ascent:
Click to display
I played 2x obel round and lost both. Definitely not impressed with 3x energy for 2 horses on the final threshold. That's where I use ALL the top divines in my hand and they ALL run out of energy. The 2x energy for 3 horses is SO MUCH better there. Huge downgrade - I hate it. default smiley (n)

Came here to see if it's worth bothering with this any further because I died at around 87% win chance both times *rolls eyes* Gotta wonder if that 'make you more likely to win when the chances are higher than 90%' nonsense equates to lowering the chances for winning with just under 90% because I'm pretty sure I won more rounds at 80% in the past default smiley (o)

Needless to say, I've got like max or almost max obels and drachmas on both servers. And I'll be saving them all for the next round. Nice try howrse, but this approach to cash grabbing is going to put me off ascent completely before I ever consider coughing up default smiley xd

I'll give it one more try next round. Then I'll stop bothering completely because it's a complete waste of time now.
_________
Also, you killed the game mode intentionally. The whole point of playing it was using it collect a few extra divines for cheap because everything is overpriced outside that game mode. So don't go saying that you didn't intend to kill it when you obviously did just by removing the main incentive to play in the first place by making it impossible to win. We warned you and you didn't listen... again default smiley (8) don't go acting like this wasn't your intention when you even admit to doing it to stop us from getting the extra divines so easily. They were the only reason to play it.

The Greek gods are absolutely useless and worthless and I'd never bother with ascent just for them. They're just a side divine that you're forced to collect before you can work on collecting the ones you're actually interested in. That's why I never spent my drachmas or passes on them in the first place - the first 1.5 ascent rotations was to collect drachmas so I can have a pile of them ready for after I collected the useless God. I didn't usualy have left at the start of a new season because I spent them all on the other divines. The gods were a waste of drachmas - I only spent obels on them. Although, I did skip a few rotations to avoid getting fragments for divines that I don't want in my farm at all even though there were others that I kind of wanted. Don't think that I can't figure out that you reduced the season length to force me into spending my dramas on your useless gods instead of hoarding them for the divines that I actually want because it's pretty obvious to anyone who's played. I'm not interested in playing ascent if it's just going to be pay to win. Especially if it's actually going to end up being pay to lose default smiley :o

It's simple. Make it easier to win a round, give us a reason to try again. Leave the difficulty at level impossible, expect nobody to play. If we can't win the other divines on offer, there's no reason to bother at all. Your gods are worthless and I don't see anyone playing ascent just for them. Unless they're THAT dedicated to collecting them. But I'm not, so I'll just drop ascent completely without considering it again. That's what I'm doing for this round. I'll try again one more time before dropping it completely.

Keep in mind that we're still waiting for the trophy update that lets us put our divine trophies on our page with the pretty little icons we had. Maybe then there'll be some incentive to collect your useless gods because we'll get our pretty little icon. But we don't even have that right now, so there's just no reason to waste the time on them. As it is, I'm sure that the only reason most ascent players have them is because they MUST collect them before collecting other divines. The gods are worthless and useless and I'm not going out of my way to collect them when I don't even get my pretty little icon. We get nothing out of the waste of time it takes to win a round right now, so why bother?

Start learning from your mistakes before you kill this game mode completely. You've already said that there's little interest in it. Don't go pushing that little interest away like this and then acting surprised or disappointed when the players saw this coming from a mile away.

Or I have a better idea: revert ascent or stop developing it completely and put your efforts into the trophy upgrade or a graphics rehaul. Quit ruining more things and do something to improve the game for once. If you want money, give the players what they want instead of persistently ignoring them and ruining everything they like. They're the ones who decide if and how much money to pour into the game after all. If you want this to be profitable that is. You've already killed ascent, so stop putting resources into it unless you intend to revert it because nobody is going to play it again if this is where it's going. Developing it won't be profitable to you anymore. I doubt it's even profitable to you now given how you just turned your entire ascent playerbase against it... as expected default smiley xd there's better upgrades to put resources towards than ruining ascent further.

It's quite funny to see you get blindsided by the things we've been repeatedly saying as if we didn't see it coming. You're the only ones oblivious to it default smiley xd
ShadowKokufu
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By CurlyMambo, 24th February 2026 05:37:31
14
> you are not using enough finesse?

Was "finance" misspelled here? default smiley ;) I feel like even if anyone bankrolled, they'd still have a poor chance
CurlyMambo
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By fletcher, 24th February 2026 05:57:25
16
ShadowKokufu wrote:

Your gods are worthless
Absolutely raw quote without context.

That aside, 100% agree with them intentionally killing the game mode. Did anyone seriously look at the changes they were making and think, 'ah yes, this is exactly what it'll take to make more people play'?
fletcher
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By Argorok, 24th February 2026 08:20:26
19
So, I'm finally done, and I wanted to give my overall thoughts on it.

It cannot be said enough, this mode has been made impossible. Not difficult, impossible. It's not even a challenge, it's just mindlessly throwing yourself at it and hoping you get lucky. If it was a challenge and skill based, you'd get better with time, not continuously losing and maybe winning 1/10 obols, with a high chance of drachmas losing, even if you have a fully balanced hand like mine.

I had 8(?) obols where I didn't get any fragments, as the difficulty rises so fast that your cards often do not keep up. This was the case when getting good starting hands as well. These obols were all paid for with passes, which I am going to consider unacceptable, as that's 240 passes I paid and got nothing in return for. For purchased currency, the fragments in the first threshold should be on stage 1 to ensure you aren't paying and getting nothing. It's not fair that I paid and so frequently didn't get anything.

While I did have a good run yesterday, winning 8 out of 20, it went straight back to losing a ton of rounds when I played this morning. Honestly, I think I might have only won a few out of the 28 obols I played. How is this acceptable? That was almost a 90% loss ratio from this morning alone. And no, this wasn't from bad playing, this was from simply not being given good cards or losing at high percentages when I actually had a good game going.

I'm strongly of the opinion that you should attempt to meet us halfway. By that, I mean rebalance to put the difficulty in the middle. So 20 for the final level, not 22, as 20 would have been in the middle. This amount can be achieved with a balanced hand of fully levelled five star cards.

At present, it's been made impossible to play and actually enjoy it. I do not see myself playing much in future rounds. Not much from a cost standpoint for me, but from the standpoint that my time is valuable. With the way it is now, I feel that my time isn't valued, and that it was just by luck that I actually finished and got all the divines as fast as I did.

Please take our feedback into account and actually make changes as, if it stays like this, I feel that the mode will eventually die, because we will all just lose motivation to even try and play it.
Argorok
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By Oʙʟɪᴠɪoɴ, 25th February 2026 15:16:36
14
If you are unhappy with the change there's a petition you can sign by posting a message in the Ascent forum, created by Sissy Long Stockings. Let's make our voices heard (but get ready to be ignoreddefault smiley (lol))

Link to the petition
Oʙʟɪᴠɪoɴ
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By Ravenknight, 25th February 2026 16:08:33
I played to get greek divines but i wished they came with the perk associated with their name. It seems more luck based now. Thankfully nyx fragments are at the end of the round. We might get better cards sooner on obol rounds and it might only take 11/12 good rounds to feel the meter instead of 20. Those 20 rounds were easier.
Ravenknight
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By SkipinChex, 26th February 2026 12:05:41
7
Back with more information..

I’ve won Nyx. So have 284 other people as my Nyx had a number 285. It took 10 Obols (all lost) and 15 Drachmas (3 lost). Energy offerings were still dismal, with one particularly bad instance having no energy offered at all in threshold 3; as far as I got anyways before being forced to lose.

It is possible to get more than 50 Nyx fragments per game, so in theory it would take less Drachma’s to win the Greek god than it did before (50 per game before so 20 games to win) but before we could win those 50 fragments with Obols, now that is really impossible. At 90 passes per Drachma, this can get expensive if you don’t have Drachmas saved up.

After winning the Greek God divine, Obols might be useful to gather fragments of the others default smiley (8)

Will report back after I play some more
SkipinChex
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By SkipinChex, 26th February 2026 13:49:27
7
Finally made it to Nyx after 20, yes, twenty lost Obols, and lost with a 96.1% chance default smiley (d)
SkipinChex
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By Ravenknight, 26th February 2026 16:39:36
1
285 oh my i never tried to win one with a number but i think before that went in daysdefault smiley :o
Ravenknight
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By Gurgy, 26th February 2026 19:29:23
10
Chiming in to agree with the other comments. Energy is not being distributed enough in round 3 and on the occasion I am lucky enough to claw my way onto the final level, I normally find myself losing despite an apparent 90+% chance of winning. I defended the percentages in the forums once before, but I'm not at all convinced that this update isn't rigged...

I understand that Howrse is a business and that it needs to make money in order to pay staff wages and make a profit. I have no idea how well it is doing financially (although I hope it's doing well!). But I think you made your mistake years ago, when you made divines easily obtainable. To fix that, you watered them down and reduced the benefits of owning them, thus cheapening them in an attempt to minimise the loss done to yourselves. However, now you're suddenly trying to make divines more scarce - and naturally, that creates resentment among players, because we've had it so good for so long that we took it for granted, and now we've lost a personal advantage.

I believe your mistake on this occasion is not increasing the value of the divines. To agree with others and state it bluntly, they are largely "worthless". Most of them don't provide worthwhile perks. I believe many of us would feel more inclined to chase if you produce a divine/alternative series with bigger game playing benefits - and keep them very rare this time.

I'd also appreciate it if you were more transparent with Ascent. If there is more luck involved than skill on those final levels, let us know - but perhaps remove a level so it isn't such a drag to get there and state that it's basically spin-the-wheel at the end of it, while keeping the small prizes along the way.

So, in short - sure, make it harder. But make it worth it.
Gurgy
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By Ravenknight, 26th February 2026 19:44:22
3
I think they should've gave nyx her perk the nyx pack. I stated somewhere in the post. Then the update being this hard would make sense.
Ravenknight
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By BeeefJerky, 26th February 2026 23:00:46
8
I lost all 20 of my obol plays
BeeefJerky
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By SkipinChex, 28th February 2026 08:39:43
10
BeeefJerky wrote:

I lost all 20 of my obol plays


I have yet to win on an Obol play. Only one person on this thread has won with an Obol and it was only once.

I just got all the way up to Nyx twice in a row with Obols - and lost both times with over 90%.

One Obol started with a 4*, 3* and 2* card, second Obol was with two 5* cards and a 3*

Was not given the option to level up a single time in Threshold 2 on one of the plays.

It's infuriating.
SkipinChex
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By Miruna, 28th February 2026 12:20:08
@SkipinChex:
I’ve won 7 out of 25 games with an Obol.
Miruna
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By ascentia, 28th February 2026 13:29:37
5
@Miruna

For every 5 obol games played (doesn't matter if won or lost) you win a free drachma to play again. You'll have to go collect them from the Ascent page though, they don't show automatically! The benefit of the drachma is that you can choose three starting cards based on the divines you own. Most of us have *much* better luck winning with the drachmas than the obols.

Just mentioning this since you have a newer account and it looks like maybe you've been spending passes on obols (25 in 12 days) but not playing with drachmas as well (0 games). If you're aiming for the divines, the free drachmas will help you get there with fewer passes default smiley 8-)
ascentia
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By Miruna, 28th February 2026 16:36:57
7
ascentia wrote:

@Miruna

For every 5 obol games played (doesn't matter if won or lost) you win a free drachma to play again. You'll have to go collect them from the Ascent page though, they don't show automatically! The benefit of the drachma is that you can choose three starting cards based on the divines you own. Most of us have *much* better luck winning with the drachmas than the obols.

Just mentioning this since you have a newer account and it looks like maybe you've been spending passes on obols (25 in 12 days) but not playing with drachmas as well (0 games). If you're aiming for the divines, the free drachmas will help you get there with fewer passes default smiley 8-)


Thanks for your advice. default smiley :) I am very familiar with the Olymp system. On the german server I have almost 4000 login days and was playing the Olymp a lot default smiley ;)
It just sounded like SkipinChex was sayin that the Obol-mode isn’t playable anymore because of constantly losing - which isn’t true. My success rate on the german server is pretty much the same (even a little better), so I am pretty sure it isn’t pure luck with ~60 Obol games in total on both servers.

I have spend just a few passes on Obols (5 were free to start) to finish some trophies and make sure to get Nyx at the end (I have approx 700 Fragments so far). Playing with Drachmas doesn’t make sense for me at the moment because the play mode just uses owned divines. Since I don’t have any 5* once and only one 4* my chances with Obols is MUCH higher. I just collect Drachmas for the time, when I have good enough divines.

And no, even with divines to choose for Drachma-mode it is still cheaper to buy Obols with my success rate. I win approximately between 1 out of 4 and 1 out of 3 games with an Obol. And I collect fragments each Obol-game.

Before this fre*aking update, my success rate with Obols was approx. 60% and with Drachmas 100%. And now it is 30% and approx 50%. I play exactly the same strategy as before. The just put in a luck-factor which has approximately doubled the prices. I WISH they would have been honest and just doubled the Obol and Drachma-prices instead of making the mode frustrating.
Miruna
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By Miruna, 28th February 2026 16:50:38
Correction: Succes rate with Drachmas on the German server was about 60%. I’ve played only a few rounds and I think, I was pretty unlucky… But still, with a ~30% success rate with Obols it is cheaper to buy Obols anyway.
Miruna
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By Miruna, 28th February 2026 16:54:26
*is currently about, not was
Miruna
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By ascentia, 28th February 2026 16:55:20
5
Hey, you do you - if you'd prefer to spend more passes and not use your *free* drachmas, nobody is going to stop you.

My apologies for the offense, was merely trying to help. As an aside, could care less about "seniority" - this isn't my first account either default smiley ;)
ascentia
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By ascentia, 28th February 2026 17:02:56
5
@SkipinChex 100% agree. My experience is in line with 99% of other players, the win rate for obols is abysmal now since the edits. Having much better luck with the drachmas, but I'm unwilling to spend passes on more drachmas out of principle now. I doubt we'll see another update to reverse the changes (even to meet us in the middle would be nice) but one can hope default smiley (a)
ascentia
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By Miruna, 28th February 2026 17:28:02
7
ascentia wrote:

Hey, you do you - if you'd prefer to spend more passes and not use your *free* drachmas, nobody is going to stop you.

My apologies for the offense, was merely trying to help. As an aside, could care less about "seniority" - this isn't my first account either default smiley ;)


Oh come on. Please try to understand what I wrote. I totally got, that you were trying to help. And I really appreciate it - as I already said. But your advice doesn’t make sense at all - as I explained - because I do not own good divines to play the Drachma mode. Even if I would own good enough divines for the Drachma mode, I’d still need to have an approx. 90% success rate to be cheaper with buying Drachmas.

To make it clear once again: I would have wasted passes if I would have bought Drachmas instead of Obols!

I mentioned my seniority just to explain that I know, what I am doing. You must have visited my page (otherwise you wouldn’t have known my Drachma statistics). I also wrote in my profile, that I am not new to this game and I read your profile too before I commented you back default smiley ;)

And of course I won’t let go any Drachma go to waste. But until this point I have 50 more Obol games to play default smiley ;) And hopefully own better divines then so it make sense to use a Drachma.
Miruna
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