[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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keepsake wrote:

Ann, team covers aren't in publics. They are in team covers. default smiley :p
Possibly bad wording on my partdefault smiley (lol)
What I meant was that my understanding is that the update intends for team covers to be used only by team mares. I thought it always worked that way, that offering a "team cover" could only be accepted by team mares. Perhaps I'm mistaken.

I offered both a reserved cover to a non-team mare with my team stallion, as well as a public cover. So it should still be possible to crossbreed with covers by a team stallion, be it one you buy, or one in public.
Legacy Ann
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I do like the idea that top team covers shouldn't expire. Like...I have a member on my team who does a great job! But she'll be MIA sometimes due to her job and if she has the top stud...we're kinda lost when they expire.
keepsake
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Correct Ann. But only if privately offered, right? Not through team covers. In a team, not everyone owns the top stud. So the only way of getting a private cover, is if they're around to do that. Some of us adults have jobs and can't be on howrse 24/7 lol So that's the issue. I was perfectly able to take covers from the team covers section by mares without the team affix, or to crossbreed as it were, but now since the change...it's impossible.
keepsake
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[quote=1403725503][author]keepsake[/author]Correct Ann. But only if privately offered, right? Not through team covers. In a team, not everyone owns the top stud. So the only way of getting a private cover, is if they're around to do that. Some of us adults have jobs and can't be on howrse 24/7 lol So that's the issue. I was perfectly able to take covers from the team covers section by mares without the team affix, or to crossbreed as it were, but now since the change...it's impossible.[/quote:0]I think private covers last as long as the public ones, which is 72 hours. You'll have 3 days to accept
Legacy Ann
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I'm in favor of some of these changes. I've not been on one of my teams for very long, but within the team I've been on board, we've jumped at least 10 GP points overall, and we had a solid gap on third place, but sometime over the last two days, the top team gave out a high stud cover, which put us basically neck and neck for second.

From my understanding, those horses with team affixes, within the set limits, can only give covers to team affixed horses? If that is the case, I do like that, because it'd stop the issue we're now having, which is fighting for second, when we had a solid, at least 15 point gap.
Bℓue ֆide
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I need not say anything about the SH and how useless it is cause many others already have...

I do appreciate the sales gp cap immensely. Been looking forward to that one.

However, though this will keep loyal members from accidentally dropping gp in sales, it won't keep those "out to sabotage you" players from achieving and leaking horses.
Here is an example, I really hate to give anyone the idea, but I also want to make sure top teams are aware.
Say you have someone leave the team, and they have above release horses on their account.
They can't sell the horses because they are affixed and the affix holds the gp cap.
BUT
They can still breed those mares to the highest, purebred studs in public covers, even with the same affix (as long as the studs gp is under the cap, if it had the same affix)
and produce a foal with gp above the cap, and it won't receive the affix, and can be sold.
So say your gp cap is 1000
your player that left the team has a mare with 1200gp
they breed it to a public, pure stud that has 900gp
the resulting foal would still be 1100 (not doing the math)

so just be aware that leaks are still very possible despite these changes. It takes a few more steps, but still very possible.

The good news is it WILL keep tip top gp horses from being leaked. So it's a step in the right direction whether a player accidentally clicks direct instead of team sales, or you affiliated with the wrong players who are just petty like that and want to sabotage you lol.
DearLivie
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i think this may be some of the worst dev corners in a long time. these are all going to cause issues. are horrible. and i mean where the entire thing is bad. is there anything good in this one? i would love to know why they only upped the regular horse price. why not the uni/uni fails. i only use the SH for obj and only SH uni fails. and will continue only doing if for objectives and only use uni fails
Hiram Farmer
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Re: Safe Haven sakes

I foresee an increase in Contact Us as people will inadvertantly or accidentally seel horses to SH. I hope Howrse has hired additional staff. I'm sure the layout for sales will become as CRYSTAL CLEAR as the current BMi pages default smiley (8)
lin-lin
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Every single time I log onto this game I find something that makes me wish I had the willpower to just delete my account.
The staff don't listen to their userbase at all and for the last four years seem to be doing things just for the sake of doing things.
ᴋᴀᴡᴀsᴀᴋɪ ɴɪɴᴊᴀ
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ᴋᴀᴡᴀsᴀᴋɪ ɴɪɴᴊᴀ wrote:

Every single time I log onto this game I find something that makes me wish I had the willpower to just delete my account.
The staff don't listen to their userbase at all and for the last four years seem to be doing things just for the sake of doing things.


I've noticed that myself. Like the sales tax? You see sales tax on items, not live animals, right? And this last promo...it called jewelry, ingredients. Since when do we eat jewelry? I prefer eating food, personally.

I took a 3 year hiatus and came back to...whatever this is. lol
keepsake
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Whispered Thoughts wrote:

Anyone else see where we can remove someone else's affixes on non team horses? What is the point of affixing if the new owner is just going to remove it?


This is why i am here...I am NOT happy about this at all. I put an affix on every horse i breed. I will NOT remove my affix, as i am proud of my horses and also because it can be fun to "track" my horses through their affix and see where they have ended up. And from what i can tell, it is not just non team horses that can have their affix removed. I am able to do it on horses that come from a team as well. I am extremely unhappy with the fact that someone else can now remove MY affix from horses i bred.default smiley (li)
Famousamos
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It is definitely amusing that Howrse thinks no one uses the safe haven because we're "unaware" of it. It's lesser used because, as many have already stated, it gives you a small fraction of what you could get for even the most basic horse in the direct sales.

Changing the location of things in the game, after they have been there for years, is usually an unnecessary change IMO. Of course there is the occurrence where changing the location of something is an improvement, but a lot of players have been here for years and are used to the location of things (nevermind the fact that this change makes it easier to accidentally SH a horse that you had meant to sell).
azrael
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I can't stand this update. The Safe Haven change makes it a lot easier to make mistakes and accidentally SH a horse you were intending to sell because they are now on the same page, and, like others have mentioned, the SH is a pretty bad deal in the first place. If Howrse really wanted to "improve" it, I think that the devs should have upped the SH sales price to account for the inflation that has occurred in starter horse prices since the server began.

Taking starter horse prices over the last couple years and the max vet fee into account, I would say ~2500e for general horses and ~3500e for unis/uni fails would be reasonable pay for sending a horse to the Safe Haven in today's game. Setting the general price above 2500e (the max vet fee) would look different depending on the exact level it's set at, but would be undesirable in any scenario. It would probably cause a glut of unwanted horses being sent to SH, and if it's set at 3000e or higher it would likely cause a decrease in starter horses sent to public sales, which would be problematic for newer players looking for cheap horses to grow their game with. Setting the price too low would continue to make SH an unattractive option which Howrse has made clear it doesn't want. With pay at 2500e, all players would be able to at least break even, and those with lower reserves (the majority of which are new players) would be able to make a profit. I also like the idea of continuing to incentivize sending unis/uni fails by offering a higher purchase price, and I don't see this affecting the starter horse market too much.

I also don't like the (unannounced?) change that allows players to remove affixes from horses produced by another player. I put affixes on my horses, even those I intend to sell, because I like being able to see where they go in the game, and this update defeats the purpose of even having an affix for me. :/
AspenTree
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It's not possible to remove the affix if you are not the breeder. Several players have tested it, and even though it shows the "..." in the drop down, confirming it does not actually remove it
Legacy Ann
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Legacy Ann wrote:

It's not possible to remove the affix if you are not the breeder. Several players have tested it, and even though it shows the "..." in the drop down, confirming it does not actually remove it


Oh, thank goodness! Thanks for letting us know! I hadn't clicked the button to go through with the change fully. I don't know why they'd even add that "option" if it didn't do anything!
Famousamos
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I've noticed that for a while now that the pass option will show up for an item even if you don't have enough to purchase it with passes, was this an update that was added unannounced or is my side just glitching?
Oathkeeper
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I am with the rest of you, I think that by moving SH to the sales drop down we are going to have a number of horse being sent to SH on accident as players may be in a hurry to get an objective completed or they might be trying to put the horse up in the mobile app and everything is so much smaller to read there.

There are going to be a lot of complaints. They better be ready to take horses out of SH and give them back to their owners & they need to do it quickly, not take days to do it, either.

I just pray that I don't make that mistake. I will try to be very careful from now on when putting horses up for sale.
Gayle5
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Is the "Embryon" ghost foal thing under team affixes a glitch, or a new change?
SmileBuddy
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S.V.H. wrote:

If you were to make a positive safe haven change, you have a round up of safe haven horses and auction/sell them once and awhile or have them actually age and interact instead of being "dead".
As much as I dislike the Safe Haven (mostly because of the financial aspect), I cannot support this kind of thing at all.

In the event that I would ever totally stop playing (and I know who just read that and wished that I would -- I absolutely see you, you're not as subtle as you believe)... Anyway, were I to quit the game, while there are a number of horses I would sell on to friends or place for public sale, there are a few favorites that I would never sell on, and would retire to the Safe Haven. The idea that anyone would think that my choice should be ignored and that the horses should be sold on when that is not what I wanted for them is... Awful. Inappropriate. Tantamount to stealing.

Had I wanted them to "interact", I'd have sold them on myself, yes? Yes. ( <-- Award yourself five bonus points if you read that in Shrek voice.)

Fortunately all Safe Havened horses' details are deleted when they are placed, making them unplayable, so that they can stay where their rightful owners placed them.
Becky Barnes
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To the latest changed in TEAM play

So you have made changes to the way we breed from our team horses....

The changes are not good at all!!

know we can no longer find team horses to breed from when you click to find a stallion for your mare

you know how to manually enter the mares name and get the team member to reserve a cover from one of the studs you would like to breed from.

As if they where just any random horse in public sales

This makes breeding team horses very slow and very irititating! and time consuming for no reason

I hope this change gets taken back as its frustrating and a waste of time for team breeders

The only change i would have done for team covers is seperate into different tabs the stallions from different teams.

So that you dont have to look through different breeds when you need to cover a mare of a certain breed from the team you are working from, to avoid covering the top mare with the wrong breed stallion (or how ive seen it is now that the team affix only sees the afix stasllion so you dont see other team stallions)

Another change i find extreely bad for the teams is that you can no longer pick a specific team member to loan your horse too! why!! why make this change it was working so well as it was.

What if i dont whant just any team member to pick my loan?? you can just reserve the horse to the team sales if you whant anyone to pick that horse up. But loaning was the only way to specifically get your horse to the player you whant to carry on the training or breeding of said horse. ( i do like that you can pick 1 day loan)

For the admin of the team, what happens if they arnt active for the 30days or what if no other vips are active? does that mean the team gets deleted!?? because i find that very unfair after all the hard work that goes into making the team work.

Also if the team member who created the team isnt active for those 30 days and someone else gets the team how would they get the team back!!?? becase i dont find it fair that they would get their team stolen from them in just 1 month (real life exists outside the game)

We have a very small team that works hard to keep it at 4th place with the limited time of game play and different time zones of other players.

I speak for my whole team, this change does not benefit at all our type of game play and it really makes us not whant to bother with teams as its just like breeding any other normal horse in the sense of the amount of time that it takes to breed horses now.

It might work well for a top team that you can only dream about reaching their GP and that they dont need to buy horses in public sales to bump up the GP gain of your own team afixx. So i dont feel that none Team afix horses shouldnt be able to see team Stud covers...As long as they are the same breed it shouldnt matter.

Also we do not agree that you can have your team deleted or taken away from you in just 30 days which is no time at all!! people have real thinggs to deal with in their real llife. The game cost money, and VIP isnt cheap at all! So for members paying for VIP that shouldnt even be an option. At least 6 to 12 months of inactivity to delete a team

I hope tsome of he changes go back to what they where for team play default smiley :'(default smiley :'(
EquineaJK
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Legacy Ann wrote:

I just tested this on preprod, and it looks like you can avoid auto-affix by not setting a sales cap, or setting the cap above the GP you breed as I think the manual says it's auto-affixed if the foal is higher than the maximum set for the sales cap. If you choose to affix you can still do it manually

I don't whether that's efficient based on your team play style, but it's a way to work with it, especially for those who don't want/need the sales cap

Thanks for the suggestion Legacy Ann. Appreciated very much so.
I'll check it out, and see what effect it will have on my game.


It's just, I get so darn tired of having to constantly navigate around more and more changes, that honestly seem to be implemented to try and stop a few, and end up punishing many default smiley :-x
Asfridur
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Famousamos wrote:

I am extremely unhappy with the fact that someone else can now remove MY affix from horses i bred.
As stated by others, they can't. I tested it -- the affix actually can't be removed. Which is a good thing. default smiley (y)
Becky Barnes
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Real life is definitely a thing... but I'm confused why people are so upset over 30 days moving bold admin. It's not like they said you have to blup a horse every 30 days or lose bold. You literally just have to log in. If you go 30 days and you don't even *log in* then yes, your real life has clearly taken a larger priority than Howrse. And your teammates who are still playing and enjoying Howrse shouldn't be barred from things like payouts, which only the bold admin can do.

One would hope that is a group of people who are there to support you. Or maybe you completely abandoned them and they had to continue on with team duties. Either way, if you want *complete and total control* over a team, be the only one on it, or at least be present.

And where was team deletion officially stated? Unless I missed something, then for all we know, if there are no other VIPs or members, then when bold "passes" it might just stay with that same person because it only said it goes to the VIP who contributed the most. If there is no one else eligible, it may stay with the inactive person and restart the 30 day timer. Clarification can be used there.
jericho
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Okay, I sent "Contact" a question about making the Croesus' Fortune fully retroactive as they promised this up-date yesterday morning.....nothing, nada, crickets...

Here we go again, ignoring us players.
Arabians are best
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There is absolutely no reason to put loaned horses up for grabs for the whole team. The express point of loaning is for a specific team member to temporarily "borrow" the horse (mare) for a short period of time. Usually to tear breed. I know lots of teams that have 1 or 2 members with Aphrodites' Privilege and they are the ones who tear breed for other members.

If it doesn't matter who claims a foal (or adult) that's what the existing team sales are for.

I foresee this new loan feature will be a huge headache for Prix teams who use a limited window for producing top GP worthy skillers in order to please the buyers who rely on getting their preps/skillers in a timely manner.
Crystal Coven
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