New features

(Also just want to say caps isn't me shouting, just wanted to emphasize and don't think we can use italics)

This may have already been mentioned at some point, but maybe to help incorporate the collections aspect into the trophies more, there could be a trophy for " xx collections completed." For example, completing every coat color for a breed would be a collection completed just as having all the companions or the seven seas wanderers. This would help people with large collections that they spend time and passes to get still get credit for having them.

So after I got over my giddiness at receiving all those lovely bmis I have started to look further into this "improvement" : just doing the simple and only thing I used to do on there which was to check and see if I needed a horse... it is now mind boggling....

So I sadly must agree with all the complaints and now I will completely ignore the trophies/collections ..

I am sorry for the players that have been impacted so negatively by this change..

Also as an og player may I say that having been a passbuyer for quite some time and a preprodder as well (is that a word ? lol) when I realised what Ubisoft et al were doing I vowed to never purchase another pass and I havent..

So if Howrse is trying to attract new players who apparently are the ones spending real money on passes..maybe be smart and offer us old timers some incentive as well.. we do have the means you know

Hello Lovely Howrse community,
I wanted to post my feelings on the new Trophies. A lot of players worked really hard on our Trophies. I was nice to see the change at first and see prizes for our work. I was even happy to see a new divine for my hard work. However when I seen what the divine did I felt a little cheated. I like to randomly pick a breed and get into a BULP war with the top teams just for fun. I don't want to think I may wind up with a line of black or bay horses from the new Divines help. I think a lot of players felt this way too. Then I did some breeding and did not see that the divine really made a difference in coat patter for me. SO I let that go. The next thing the change did that is off putting for players is not being able to see our progress. For instance my trophy saying I have been playing for 15 years. A lot of players take pride in having that kind of trophy on their page. Players also like to look at others to see how their game is going and see what we can learn form them. A lot of players use it as part of their identity. I also understand changing it may make coding the game easier and less codes to fail.
Change is not easy for us older players that have been here a long time. Some things are easier for game play others are to make it a calling. It's not easy for developers to really know what the effects will be until its too late to go back.

I hope you all have a happy game and are able to adapt to the ever changing world we play in.
~Bex

I doubt anyone will get anything other than the canned "thank you for playing goodbye" response from contact us, but if anyone does please post it here. I personally haven't written anything in because I get emotional when frustrated and all definitely not feeling polite about it (and the probably like 2 interns they likely have fielding all the messages don't deserve to read me venting at them)

Just received this response from Contact us

'
Hello WeaverofDreams,

Thank you for your contact and constructive feedback.

Your feedback will be shared with the team. We use player suggestions for further development of the game. However, we cannot guarantee that changes will be made or that possible changes will be exactly what you would like.

Don't hesitate to contact us again if you have further suggestions or questions.

Kind regards,
The Howrse Team
'

I would urge everyone to continue to submit contact us tickets with constructive feedback, I was surprised to get even this much of a response from the horse feedback team. I can only hope that with enough feedback saying the same thing sent to them directly, we may eventually see some action on this. Even if just some minor improvements as time goes on.

I love this game and was loving it even more than the first time i played (many years ago now) right up until this update came in. I will continue to play and continue to submit feedback tickets in the hope that something changes. I hope you all will join me.

@answrs if you would like some help writing something constructive feel free to shoot me a private message.

@ WeaverofDreams,

That is their usual "can" response. You will see it over and over and over and over again, as long as you keep playing the game.

They're definitely reading out contact us responses!

My message says

"Thank you for your suggestion about the trophies" etc

Everyone with feedback should send it in to contact us, it's the most reliable way to get them to see our feedback!

I'm actually more annoyed about the loss of our game progress than the display. I lost over 150 trophies and 13 positions in the ranking because of this. I'm certainly not going to be bothering to progress on the game in any way anymore, since they took away all incentive to do that with one move. I mean why try if they're just gonna send me back down the line with an update that was NO fault of mine.

Not to mention how bizarre it is that the small handful of things that even count towards trophies include a one-yearly event, a couple of uber-specific Divines that tons of people don't even own, and other things that you couldn't work towards even if you WANTED to. The only things I can even do to progress now are entering comps and putting coats on my horses.

And collecting dung and UFOs, I guess. Although I haven't seen a single UFO since the update, that I can recall.

That's the same message I got. I hope they are actually reading our messages, it's a little depressing to get a cookie cutter response.

RIGHT! I was ranked 48th in trophies and dropped down to 94th after the update Literally over 300 of my trophies were gone.

Okay, first time chiming in for me
I was actually ~eh, whatever~ about the update, definitely not as bummed out and affected as others, since my gameplay wasn't focused much on collecting (i joined fairly recently, so i haven't had enough time to get into it, i suppose haha) I did only passionately hated the new look of the trophies , though, and it still upsets me each time i see them ugh
But.
Generally, I felt okay with it for the past days, especially thanks to receiving that stack of prizes we did. I thought, hey, great! If I get more chances to win such amazing BMI items, and loads of equus - I've got no problem, I mostly focus on competitions anyway.
But on that first day of update I was a step behind everyone in my achievements, seemed like, so I didn't get the divine at first. And then I quickly caught up to the new milestone, very short after the initial one, an I was excited for more fun items, clicked - it was just Tarpan. Hmm, thought I, maybe since it's a divine, it's worth , like, A LOT, so that's why I only get one reward.
And then today I reached the next milestone after Tarpan, and was ready for at least 2-3 fun new items - since I am completing these objectives in this new system so hyped up by the game makers, there should be something to show for it, right? Wrong. I click, and I get ONE special item. Great one, I'm sure, thanks, but like. Don't want to sound ungrateful, however in all fairness...... Is this what it's gonna be like? Long tedious progress and you get one prize for it?
This is somehow upsetting, truly feels like they tried to buy the players' sympathies and compliance with that fat stack of bonuses upon the announcement. Feels nasty, but maybe its' just me. Cuz there's only so much progress you can make with new trophies, entering comps, collecting manure and catching UFOs, because, as people have correctly pointed out, -- a certain number of objectives can only be achieved with very specific divines, or hinge on a once-a-year event or, i'm sorry, *wth do i need 700 horses for ??? and just to get a bronze trophy! how many would i need for a diamond one - a million?**
So what's the upside for players, again?...
An unwanted divine? - no matter its supposed benefits, it's still forced into players' stables, and they can't even complete any objectives with it.
Pretty trophies RIPPED OUT of players' pages and replaced with that visual abomination? Now even on non-VIP pages. Like. I couldn't put the pretty trophies on my page (had to buy a membership) but this eyesore is an obligatory display now???! FIRE YOUR DESIGNERS
An occasional random reward for some accidentally completed set of objectives?
none of it feels worth the aggregation it cause the players

so yeah, after 3 days it all feels ~just unpleasant and inconsiderate. And seeing how strongly it has affected the long-term players.. I'm starting to share the negative feelings about the update, too. Stupid objectives, even more stupid design, just an overall ick.

How sad that none of this would be taken in by and improved on by the team.

Yes, and I love to appreciate the artwork of all the detailed trophies and I feel sad that they can no longer be recognized.

i sink no real money into the game, but good lord can we organize the collections a little better? trying to see if i have a certain coat color for a certain breed is such a chore now, they arent even in an order!
it does suck that you cant even see if someone has completed a collection, and having all breeds in all species before that collection is completed? it just seems so monumental its almost not even worth trying
i was slowly chipping away at coat colors just for bragging rights, and now i dont even get to do that?

i dont really expect anything to improve really, this is how these things always seem to go. but please, at least alphabetize the breeds for goodness sake

you get one prize for every 100 points you earn. each trophy level gives different points. prizes 1-9 are a bunch of prizes like bonus packs, HOPS, timers etc. prize 10 is a divine. then you start over again with prizes 11-19 being same prizes as before but maybe in a different order. prize 20 is a divine. and so on. you got a bunch of prizes to start cause it's for all the trophies you had when the update happened. you can figure out what prize level is next by adding up the points for you trophies and figure out where you are and how close you are to the next divine.
Points for each trophy type are:
diamond-80
gold-50
silver-30
bronze-20

Has howrse put out a statement or anything about all the outrage over the new update? I've been checking in every so often and I don't know why I'm expecting some sort of response. I'm so frustrated and baffled by this whole situation.

I will never understand why they invalidated so much progress we all made towards our trophies and collections. Why make such a significant change to the game play? Ugh. I've never been opposed to updating the trophies. Aspects of this update are interesting. The reward system is cool in theory. But the whole page makes no sense the longer you stare at it. The economy is in trouble. I'm just so frustrated and confused and I wish there was a way to remedy this whole mess.

I think one of the most disappointing things about this is that it has become extremely clear that Howrse, Owlient, Ubisoft, really just don't care about this game or it's players anymore. THE FACT they GAVE US A TARPAN WITHOUT WARNING is COMPLETELY DISREPECTFUL. Tarpan totally changes the game of a player if they are a breeder. Sure I guess they 'got rid' of the trophy for having all coats, but the collections are still there, so clearly Howrse wants coat collecting to still be part of a game. Yet, just made it harder for everyone who got a Tarpan to collect the coats they want to have. They have absolutely zero regard for how players play their game now.

There was pretty much no warning and no instruction of what was going to happen and what we were supposed to do. Sure, there's prepod, but not everyone has access to that, not everyone reads the forums - the large majority of players just play their game and don't come in here.

At the very least, Howrse should have given us some sort of explanation of how the rankings were going to change, where everything would be located, what kind of prizes we would get, when it would happen, and more visible progress on our trophies. We should've been able to see all the trophies we could get and not just blindly completing them.

The fact that they completely neglected to explain to us that such a fundamental mechanic of the game, rankings, would change, totally upending the progress that players have spent years working on, makes it evident they really don't care. None of the new changes for the past few years have been for the benefit of the players. It's truly sad.

^^ No one asked for these changes. It is simply, without a doubt, unkind, selfish, disgusting and insensitive to just bestow something on players that could totally change their game without even giving them an inkling it was coming.

[quote=1404392154]Just received this response from Contact us

'
Hello WeaverofDreams,

Thank you for your contact and constructive feedback.

Your feedback will be shared with the team. We use player suggestions for further development of the game. However, we cannot guarantee that changes will be made or that possible changes will be exactly what you would like.

Don't hesitate to contact us again if you have further suggestions or questions.

Kind regards,
The Howrse Team
'


I got the exact same 'cookie cutter' response on the AU server, and that's exactly what every one else will get, our disapproval will make not an ounce of difference. The Howrse team don't give a flying xxxx as long as people keep sending money on the game

I don‘t know about anyone else but since the update came out I haven't cared for my horses, participated in events or done objectives. It's not because I'm rebelling, I simply lost incentive and motivation to play the game. I log in daily to check this thread but that's about it :/ I loved howrse and it baffles me that this change sucked all the energy out of me

Does anyone have any idea or any theories on how the new collections are used to calculate rankings? I am curious if what % you are at counts towards the ranking, or only how many complete collections you have? Obviously for things like RCs it will be almost impossible to collect them all, so only the % could be used, unless they don’t count RCs at all..

I'm not going to venture a guess at how they designed this (or how much or how little thought went into it)

But as far as retired coats go, I think counting/tallying the number a player has but leaving percentages out of it is the only way to do it fairly.

According to admin on the French server, they want the Browser and Mobile version to be completely identical, and "Numbers don't work on mobile" so it HAS to be percentages.

That is the absolute weirdest reasoning I have heard in a while.

(On the admin's part, not yours!)

In any case... I hate it when games decide to go the cheap route and force the OG desktop version into a mobile mold because it is cheaper than developing a separate app. It never ends well.

So we can basically kiss goodbye to the entire website as we know it then? What a way to kill a game...