New features

I thought there was supposed to be a better balance of energy points. In Obol maybe it’s gotten a tad better, but my first Drachma round was a failure because it never gave me more than 1 for 2 or 2 for 1. And I made it most of the way into the second room, your rewards should match by then. I’ve only gotten to the final room once in my 5 or 6 times playing today, that’s dismal. Highly disappointed.

Seeing the outrage over this rancid update over here is giving me life. Keep up the good work y’all.

I wish Howrse would let us know about the changes they implemented... that's what the whole Devs' Corner was supposed to be, and it's not the first time they've made a change without mentioning it.

Agreed, I like the affix change (as with another change they did without mentioning, adding a 'your horse has reached 100 BLUP' notif), but it feels disingenuous not being straightforward with which changes they're making.

Can't make a comment on the Ascent yet considering I haven't tried it, but I'm dreading the attempt. I was even excited when I saw it was back! Before I read the reactions...

I reckon the changes are gonna make even less people play it, despite the 3 week break they added.

Also, don't forget to rate the Ascent change 1 star if you dislike it in the Change Log

The thing is, shortening the time period like they did would have been enough to keep people from winning too many Divines, if that was their goal. With only a 3-week runtime, it's pretty difficult for anyone except the majorly skilled players to get the boss Divine, and therefore the 25-fragment jackpots needed to pick up the other featured ones.

As it is, making it THAT much harder is just going to turn people away and encourage people not to spend any money or time on it, and for no reason.

Well done shooting yourselves in the foot, Howrse! Looking forward to the announcement of Ascent's closure due to lack of player interest in 6 months or so. Will surely be a shock to no one except you.

Disgusting update making it HARDER and totally unenjoyable... even more than before >.<
I am honestly so angry rn


GARBAGE!

I agree with all the above. This newer version of Olympus is not fun, my reason for having a nice old rant every night i played has been replaced with, why am i ev en trying to play this now.

The game is user unfriendly, as in how can you lose with over 90%, why would a player even contemplate buying anything to complete this.

I actually got fed up waiting for the new ascent to start, so this isn't helping my intention to play it much, if at all.

So here's what players actually want as far as I myself have read:

There needs to be a decent threshold where you are guaranteed to get the top fragments.
I mean if you lose and have over 80% what's the point?

Please, PLEASE stop the 3 week break.

Please reintroduce the length of time we have to play the ascent, that was part of the encouragement, you can play and still earn gold tokens.

Players didn't ask for this, they asked for something else. Listen to them and the game will thrive just as long as it has.

I’ve observed my own playing style in these first few games today, and I’ve noticed that with Obols I’ve started approaching the game with the mentality I used to have when I would play for divines other than the Greek Gods. In those games I wouldn’t care about beating the final boss unless it was 25 fragments for the divines I wanted. Similarly, Obols now make me just not care about winning the game. I care mostly about making it past the thresholds to get 5, 10 and 15 Nyx fragments.

Very disappointed with these changes to the Ascent.

Commenting again!

New strategy:

1) Stop caring about Obol win trophies and the other divines
2) Lose Obol games to collect Drachmas
3) Use Drachmas to get Nyx
4) Laugh? Cry?

Genuinely, what was the point of these changes? The new ascent is absolutely atrocious. The balancing is horrific, between the amount of energy offered, whether you can actually level your horses, and how tough stage 3 is. I haven't been able to beat a single obol run. It feels impossible. If my run doesn't end from a lack of energy, then it's me getting filtered by the final levels in stage 3 because of how strong the bosses are now. The old ascent was still challenging but fair. I'm sure making the ascent basically impossible to beat will *surely* get more people play it. Also, if you're not going to incorporate feedback from beta testers, what is the point of having them? Might as well get rid of them, because you're just wasting their time. Between this and the Ephemerals, you guys really are knocking it out of the park with these new events.

I played once... that was enough for me.
I was surprised to see 5* Jade very early. If two of my three weren't out of energy I would have gotten her instead of the +1 for two.
There wasn't a single +2 energy in two rounds, the ones I got were always +1 for two and a single +1 for four.
I never remember being out of energy so early or even having to use three cards. I didn't even care that the % ranged from 30-80, there was no chance I could ever get to the last room because I couldn't get more energy. There would never be enough opportunities to refill energy, max the cards I had, and have a few cards available.

Too bad we didn't know this before the christmas packs, I would have not gotten a heracles and am now stuck with it and the hippolight.

Did I miss the announcement that said all pages would now look really silly because the affixes are a different color? I don't think I care they're not clickable but they look ridiculous.

Bring back ephemerals. Put greek god as the end prize like rainbows were ladt time with passes . Charge 20 to 30 dollars. When i buy passes im buying the packs. I have 2 children and a herding type dog thankfully not my avatar.

Like crooked star said they could had old ascent for 3 weeks and up to six weeks. I got pretty skilled but wouldve had to spend passes from objectives . I was getting boss for free at 4/5 weeks.

>Get flamed on preprod due to poor changes
>Ignore all feedback, make ascent get worse
>It's a nightmare on the regular server

"Why isn't anyone playing Ascent of Olympus??"


Since you guys obviously aren't looking to make the game any better, are you open to suggestions on making it worse? I think there are still some enjoyable aspects to the game that could be ruined or paywalled.

Came here to see if everyone else was having the same dissatisfaction with the new Ascent as I was and it seems like we are all in agreement - the update has made the game nearly impossible to play with Obol’s (another cash grab to get players to buy Drachma?).

I had to use three cards for nearly every level, which was not the case in the past. I read that they were going to offer more energy? I think that must have been a joke because I hardly got anything at all and when I did it was +1 for 1 or +2 for one card. Couldn’t continue playing because my cards all lost energy. Had to use boosters in the first threshold?

Not fun at all. Not worth the stress to get 5 fragments of a divine.

I have gotten a good chunk of my divines from this because I don't have the means to buy passes on a regular basis. When it first came out I was really excited about it.

Now it's just a mess.

I think the update would have been better if they hadn't gone so extreme with the changes. For example, about the points/power needed to clear each level, why is the final stage of Threshold 2 the same as the old final stage of Threshold 3 (needing 15 points)? And why is the final boss stage 22 points for each ability? For drachmas, I use three 5* horses that have an even spread of abilities, I maxed them out, and only had a 92% chance of passing the boss. Why is it now forcing that we pick up boosters along the way? Or is there a combination of just horses that can get 100% for the boss level? I would have understood if they raised the boss from 18 to 20. But up to 22 seems like too much of an increase.

I do like that there kind of seems to be more energy options, and the addition of the +3 energy. And I like that 4* and 5* horses seem to come in the early stages. Also like that clearing each threshold gives you some fragments for the Greek God boss (I don't think it did that earlier right?)

But I would have rather they pushed the higher star horses to middle stages and then had the slightly higher boss level, rather than having higher star horses in the early stages and then a significantly higher boss level. Just finding a middle ground between the old Ascent and the changes they have done currently, if that makes sense.

I feel I am one of the rare people who actually enjoyed playing Ascent, but now, I don't know. I think I'll play at least to get Nyx and to see if I can find a strategy, but so far it is definitely not as fun for me as it was before.

The affix thing should be an optional setting we as players select, because I for one actually click on my affixes so I can check out what I have in a certain affix. The colour change is also doing my head in. Also more clicks? if I want to get the full spread of an affix I know have to navigate my way into a horse or office?

Can things start being made optional settings? please?

I sure as heck won't be buying the Excellence Fragments pack, as I have low amounts of fragments for all but one, and its very unlikely I will win enough Ascents to get them.

Statement from Howrse on Discord:

I am sorry, but "more easily than before" is a joke. When a drachma equates to 5 fragments of the Banner divine, when in the past it used to equate to 50, we're looking at sabotage.

To entice more Players to play it regulary? Is this a really bad Joke?

,,But we also must bring back the number of free fragments you can get from the Ascent closer to something more in line with what we need to keep the game economy healthy, thus allowing us to keep the game running for many years to come, and that means increasing the overall difficulty."

Sure, that's a nice excuse for us getting fragments too easily and therefore increasing the difficulty; we should just spend more money/passes.-_-

Wait, you really think that DROPPING the rate at which we get fragments for the season Divine, removing the ability to get the threshold fragments for the rotation divines before we get the season Divine, and making it impossible to win a round of Ascent is going to *incentivize* people to play Ascent???

“Did you take stupid pills with your breakfast, Mr. President?”

SOME.
PEOPLE.
WILL.
NEVER.
PLAY.
ASCENT.

Some people have no interest in playing a card game in a horse breeding game. You have to accept this basic fact. Some people find it too grindy/a chore. They aren’t going to play any more once they determine this. And new players aren’t going to be incentivized to play a game mode that has been made much harder and for which the rewards have been dropped to a staggeringly low amount.

But what you HAVE done is made sure that people who DID play Ascent now won’t, or will only use free rounds of their Obols & Drachmas. Congratulations. Takes talent.

Ascent needs to be made for players who actually play it. This isn’t rocket science, people.

We get it, Ubisoft has been breathing down your neck after recent, massive failures to make Howrse into a cash cow. But you aren’t going to do that by alienating your players.

,,We know that some of you are very attached to it, but the fact is that the vast majority of Howrse players don't play the mode regularly or don't play it at all."

It somehow seems as if they are blaming us players, somehow I'am afraid of the next Features they adding to the Olympus

100%. I already asked for this setting to be optional on the german test server. I don’t see the problem to make it optional. The more you can set to your personal style of playing the better.

I never use the affixes to navigate. And I play on a tablet in classic mode. So I absolutely love this feature because I had false clicks pretty much daily which was annoying. But I also understand, that other players may have used this function more frequently. For them it is a big minus. So why not give the choice?