Any *good* teams should have no problems with getting to 100 blup, Excelsis Deo always used to 100 blup and that only changed in the last year or so of the team's existence when everyone else was pushing so hard, as low as 50 blup. We even held our own one time when seriously challenged for top spot, still 100 blupping.

It's not exactly hard to bold all 3 skills, get wins and age to 10, especially if your team fills. Although I must admit I have watched some players 100 blup when they want to tear for skillers and some do have some trouble with it ... it's just something you learn to do quickly.

I think it adds value to the game, howrse always intended for the best horses to be 100 blupped and I guess they finally decided to redress the loophole, where people can take shortcuts and not get any penalties

While getting 100 blup is likely easy at the top, if you are low down getting those wins is insanely hard. I know it can be argued that those lower down will not be hit as much due to how ranged the gp is at that point (with it being the lower you are the more you gain), but I feel we should still be able to get the max gain when it comes to gp for our horses.

Even horses of high gp can struggle. I am part of a highland pony team and even if these horses are trained for rookie comps with skills at the max possible and many bonuses they still have a hard time winning. At least when simply bolding and aging we could still get the max gain, but I worry our gp gains will now take a hit through no fault of our own.

It makes sense that if you max blup you get max gain in GP, and was always Howrse's intention. It isn't the first time that they've fixed such a loophole and there are always complaints, but generally they don't make any difference.

I've not only blupped top GP team horses, but low skill divines, foundies (the ones with 350 GP and no innate skills, not the later ones with higher GP) and it can be done, you just have to pick your comps and have help filling, which anyone in a team shouldn't have an issue with.

With lower GP and skill ranges, lower teams can also use strategies to enable them to pick their comps under where the higher team range is.

I know and can understand that, but I wish they would at least keep the gains the same so 70 was still possible without wins and gave that tiny bit more of a gain. I too have blupped lower gp horses (that being foundies with low gp), but back then "rookie" comps were not taken over by horses which could very easily get to the max possible amount and blanket.
If Howrse wants to go through with this I feel they really need to take a look at the way comps as a whole work first so everyone, even low gp, have a chance to get their wins.

I wasn't talking about people in top teams though, I was talking about solo breeders or people who might be in less competitive teams. There's already a lot of complaints from users who have trouble getting wins. Not everyone has access to co-management for fillers. Not everyone has a lot of teammates who can be online when you need them to be to fill for you. And not everyone has enough aging points to blup to 100 just because other players think that's what they "should" be doing. And yet now it's going to be *required* for better GP gains, instead of letting people decide for themselves what they want to blup to for good gains.

If you see my response to Link's Courage message, you'll see that I was also referring to solo breeders, lower GP teams etc.

People will still have the choice - they can decide to 70 blup and get a small penalty or they can 100 blup and get the max.

It's not what "other players" think players should be doing, it's what Howrse/Owlient want to rectify a loophole. According to the TOS they can change whatever they want, whenever they want and every player accepts those terms when they sign up

The people that are complaining about the difficulty of blupping low gp horses are vastly compensated as it is, because the very low 350 to 1000 gp horses literally get 20 - 40 gp points for breeding a pair of 70 blups, while I noted that the current lead TB team was getting about .04 for breeding a pair of 50 blups. The massive gp growth at the lower end will quickly allow the breeders to get the horses to a point where they can max out the skills strategically for rookie comps and use BMI's and be successful at 100 blupping if they want to. be.

I don't mind that people want this change to not happen, but it is what Howrse thinks is necessary, and it makes it more fair for everyone. however, I see no need to make it so that comps give you more GP than Skills since comps are very difficult to win.

Adding on to what sly has said...

I don't think "top" teams will be hit as hard as people think. There have always been teams who are online to fill for each other, and from what I've seen, usually teams with many members typically have people online at all times to help with filling. However, semi-casual or solo projects (slash teams) will have a difficult time. Some of those players may be on for an hour per day, max, or have extremely varying schedules where there may be one person in a "weird" timezone that has no one to fill for them.

These people are going to be the ones hit hardest by the change. I'm not saying that gains at 70 should be THE SAME as gains at 100, but I do think that increasing the amount of work needed for 70-100 BLUP is not the answer. It's hard enough as-is for casual teams and players to *somewhat* keep up with the GP race at their own speed. Individual breeders, especially, are going to have a hard time with wins, and that's going to make them wait hours or days between breedings.

Adding on to the BLUP changes conversation...anyone who thinks it's "easy" to get wins without filling or having teammates online probably hasn't had an extensive amount of experience with blupping unicorns, low GP breeds, breeds with top 3 skills that aren't correlated to a comp type, etc...

It's hard to get wins on low-GP horses, especially when target-trained top GP blups (who have teammates to fill) are blanketing most "winnable" competitions. This is in no way a complaint, because I like the challenge when I'm blupping foundations or GAs. But I think it should be my choice whether to take the challenge or not, especially when working for a team where I should be able to run through several generations in an hour.

This horse has taken several weeks to get 20 wins organically (without aging points or fillers) and it's hard to determine how long it would've taken using lots of AP per day. Definitely several hours of waiting for wins.

Additionally, with the new BLUP changes, everyone will be forced to work with finding wins and fills for their horses, leading to more target-trained top GP horses (which, I understand, is most convenient for top teams and a process that I use/have used with several of my own teams). As more and more of these horses blanket the comps, I can only imagine how hard it will be for my lower-GP horses to find wins.

Well said.

Yes, I know lower GP horses get more of a gain, but why should we be denied the full gain just because our horses have low GP and struggle to win? Maybe we should just give up if getting wins for us will be near impossible and it becomes stressful.

As someone who works with unicorn teams where the top GP is around 4-6k and breeds on teams with only 1-3 other members who are from other countries/time zones, filling is something 19 times out of 20 I have to do entirely by myself due to other players not being logged on and that's a struggle when comps are very full! The new blup change is frustrating. I'm all for rewarding hard working players, but don't punish everyone to accomplish this!

"If you see my response to Link's Courage message, you'll see that I was also referring to solo breeders, lower GP teams etc. "

Yes, you said: "it can be done, you just have to pick your comps and have help filling, which anyone in a team shouldn't have an issue with."

But the thing is, a lot of people Don't have people to help them fill. It can be hard to imagine this when you have been in top teams and have co. But the simple fact is that there are already so many people who struggle with wins, precisely because they don't have teammates who can help them fill. And then there are those small teams who *do* have access to co-management, but it is very time consuming to quad-fill for yourself. Not everyone is on Howrse for long periods of time. Not everyone has a lot of friends/teammates online to fill as they are blupping.

In regards to it being what Howrse "always intended"...it just doesn't make much sense to me for this to be the argument. It's not like the current system is a mistake. It's been this way for years and years and years. It's always been that 70 blup is needed for max GP gain, and the benefit of blupping to 100 is in order to make IBS better.

And when you say that "It's not what other players think players should be doing" - then wouldn't you be indifferent for this change? If you blup to 100 either way, before and after this change, then why would it matter if it happens or not? If it won't affect you?

If the reason you support this change is to make it "more fair" - then that means that you do think other players should be blupping to 100 to get the full gains. Hence, I still stand by what I said earlier - Not everyone should have to blup to 100 for the full gains just because that's what other people think they "should" be doing. Some teams make the choice to blup to 100, some teams make the choice to blup to 70. The gains are the same, only the freedom of choice differs. But with this coming change, that choice won't be there anymore - it'll be required to full gains.

That's not entirely true. There's always been a difference in how BLUP affects GP between 70 and 100, but the difference is small and most people miss it unless they look at the data of hundreds of horses.

This has been done, and the old BLUP formula is known, as shown below. Based on preliminary data, the new formula for how BLUP affects GP is also shown below, but the exponent value of 2 has not been confirmed, and may be something between 1.8 - 2.1.

Old BLUP/GP modifier formula:


New BLUP/GP modifier formula:


Basically, by using exponentials they can make higher BLUPs more and more rewarding. Here's a table showing the differences. So for 70 BLUP before this change, you could get up to 85% of the GP gain. Now, with only bolding and no wins being only 60 BLUP, PLUS the drop, you'd get only 64% of the GP gain.

If I am to be honest, I think I will step back and accept people will have their own views on this change. I personally dislike it for my own reasons but other people can like it for their own reasons. I will wait and see how it develops and see how I truely feel about it when it has been present for a while.