okay but did you read the rest of what I wrote or the opinions of other players? I mean the opinions that contradicted with your campaign

I think a bunch if us have missed some crucial information bits.
They were not trying to change (reduce) the amount of AP gained daily from the 1000 horses. Instead the goals was to not have an even distribution and have a higher chance of finding them during the first few hundred.

What ZOwey has been saying and doing here with gathering the data we provide is that this change did something unexpected and not planned and they are looking into it.

So again for the back row:
Howrse did NOT try to reduce the amount of APs gained per day.

Just had some time to look at my AP history:

May 22: 179 APs (with Shenma)

May 21: 106 APs

May 20: 109 APs

May 19: 157 APs (with Shenma)

May 18: 176 APs (with Shenma)

May 17: 109 APs

May 16: 93 APs


23 april: 174 APs

24 april: 173 APs

25 April: 1

Sorry posted the previous message by mistake. Last number should be 143, and I had to go waaay back because I couldn't take care of 1000 horses for the first two weeks of May, so I looked at april's AP history to be sure I took care of all 1000 of them

It was an accident that we went from earning between 180 aging points and more than 200 aging points from taking care of 1,000 horses to earning less than 100 aging points from taking care of 1,000 horses at the same time as the re-introduction of the purchase of aging points?

Yes. It wasn't the goal to change the AP numbers earned total.

It’s shady from our prospective. Howrse has done things like this many times in the past so we are not really content to just let these “mishaps” slide.

But I must ask - where are all these new players howrse is referring to? In forums, I am not seeing the "newer players" that they are making these changes for.
I am seeing players with accounts since 2014 and earlier, along with the actual log in numbers reduced in the last year alone.

I do believe in the last 2-3 years, players have left and the majority of players actively playing are senior members with 1000+ senority.

Maybe cater to us since we take up the population and worry about senior retention rates instead of flakey new guys.

@ZOwey
Could you take a look at my comment on page 2326 please? I think it's an idea worth looking into. AP farming 1,000 horses is such a time commitment. If we halved the amount of horses we have to take care of in a day to get ap, but kept the overall amount of AP found in a day the same, it would double the rate at which everyone would find AP, big accounts and small ones too.

See, this is not the case because I usually make at least 150 a day from farming 1000 horses and now I am not even pulling in 70. They have definitely changes how much we are getting, several friends are saying that same.

Howrse you have screwed up again, by adding ANOTHER change without ANNOUNCING it to your players AGAIN. Seriously how can you call yourself a company when you don’t announce anything to your PLAYERS. Other games I’ve played ALWAYS announce changes...yet you howrse still seem to not do it. This game is seriously pathetic when it comes to us players.

And, "somehow," it DID change...at the same time as the re-introduction of the purchase of aging points... I wouldn't be ok with it, however, I would be less upset with it, if Howrse was honest about it.

I mean you can keep saying that, but it doesn't make it true.

People can count and see that they aren't getting the numbers that they were before. Even if you believe what was said by the team's rep that the odds were raised within the first certain number of horses worked, they were clearly lowered overall. Because if all they did was raise the odds within the initial numbers, people would have more aging points and not less. That fact doesn't even require that anyone do math; its just basic logic.

Frankly Howrse's intent with this change isn't all that relevant in any case. What matters isn't really what's true; what matters is what people believe. It was their choice to make this change behind the scenes, and according to statements here its clear that it was intended that no one know that this was changed, otherwise this wouldn't be happening this way. No one owes Howrse the benefit of the doubt on this.

If Howrse wants to trade on good will, they might start by coming to the post with clean hands, and being transparent with their paying customers. And to be frank, I've counted my own aging points and I'm not even seeing the numbers that I normally do day to day. Now that could simply be bad luck, but again, this situation is entirely of the team's own making, and its on them to fix it, not the rest of us to just accept it.

No, no, you're thinking of Congress.

"Let me make an example. Previously you could get around 150 APs per day.
Now, if you really want to help players with less time available, make the odds 1 out of 5 for the first 600 horses (120 APs) and then make it 1 out of 12 for the last 400 horses (around 33). The total amount would be the same, but those who farm less would still be able to get very close to the amount of APs that those who farm more would get."

THIS!

I think some of you might have misunderstood me.
I didn't say the numbers are the same. I can see the drop rate has reduced. i counted for 2 days now.
What I was saying is the reason ZOwey is here communicating with us and gathering the data is because they did not try to make that reduction happen. The goals was something else and it also caused the lower AP drop in general so since it is something not planned I personally would hope they change it a bit to get closer to older numbers.

Quoting from ZOwey's comments here:
[quote]The amount should be *roughly* the same as it was before, just less from the later horses. We're going to monitor the situation. Adjusting the rates is not out of the question. We just ask that you spend some time with the new odds and give us some feedback.
//
However, the change was designed to be barely noticeable by most players so if that is not the case, it's possible that we need to take a look at it.
//
Generally, when there is a change that we know players are going to be upset about, we're prepared ahead of time and we announce it. However, I honestly don't think they expected it to affect players as much as you are saying that it does. We expected it to only noticeably affect a small percentage of players on each version.
There is also the possibility that the system isn't functioning exactly as planned, that's why it's important to collect lots of feedback.
//
I just wanted to let you know that your feedback has prompted us to take a closer look at this.

We're currently looking at how many AP players were getting before and after the change.

If you know that you've definitely seen a big change, please let me know here so I can include your AP history in the investigation.

[/quote]

@Rhysand

Call it whatever you want. Regardless, it does feel like we are being punished for taking care of many horses. I do not understand why should the AP chances decrease over the horses' count. On the contrary, the NORMAL and LOGICAL thing to do is INCREASE over the horses' count. Just like IRL - input more effort to get better rewards. Whoever does not want or does not have the ability to work harder gets less payment. It's just the way Universe works. Period.

@PrimeHellix: I think the point is that out in the real world playing games is not seen as work, it's seen as a waste of time. And games that encourage people (especially children) to spend all day, every day playing are seen as an evil addiction. ZOwey seems to be saying that Howrse wants to encourage more 'moderate' playing, rather than spending hours a day getting carpal tunnel syndrome. They are trying to look after the mental and physical health of players!

(Not commenting myself... just trying to translate!)

@PrimeHellix

I personally love the idea of the change simply because i don't mind doing less horses and getting a slightly higher amount of Aging Points and when i feel like there is time for me to do all 1000 I could do the maximum. In a way the old pass horse system worked the same way. 10 guranteed and after that the chances went down.

This change is not only beneficial to new players but also those who dont want to/can't spend that much time farming horses. This is a game an not real life.

IF they change the amount of APs gained per 1k back to similar rates it was how can it be punishment really? It is the same for absolutely every single person in the game, you would get the same amount (IF it is changed, which I hope for).

It is punishment, because I am taking care of 2000 horses, but I am rewarded for the 1001-2000 horse at rate of (for example) 30% of the reward I am getting for horses 1-1000.

Its not about being rewarded more than other players for the same thing. Its about being rewarded the SAME "amount of reward" for the same thing over and over again regardless of how many times you DO that thing.

Why not increasing the rate for first 1000 horses and keeping the same as until now for horses 1001-2000? That would make us all happy, and the effect will be the same, if we're considering your arguments.

And lets not get started about real life and game life, and the famous stand that "this is just a game, and is not supposed to be like real life" because exactly the opposite argument was thrown at us when they introduced the brilliant idea of the Piggy Bank. So here would be where I can point out the obvious dual standards applied to the different aspects of the game. Seems like any argument becomes invalid on the next change that put us to disadvantage in some way, despite the fact few weeks ago it was a perfectly valid argument they shoved in our faces during those sharp discussions.

And finally, my point was not to object so much on the change rather than on the way they did it without announcement. Which is, at the least to say, offensive to us. Like we don't matter enough to be told those things. And now that I think of it, we probably don't matter to Howrse. Everything happening during the last year is showing that.

Has anyone got a list of the lottery prizes?

What I don't get is why are the players choosing to spend MORE time on the game to take the time to farm getting 'punished' for spending time on the game.. The numbers shouldnt change just because some people don't want to farm, NOW if the numbers stay the same sure, by all means, but that is simply NOT what is happening..

<font color="#b402cf">Hello again,

I've been able to catch up with the comments I've missed.

First, what was communicated to us was that it was just a change in how the AP were received, not a change in the amount of AP received. That's why I said 'roughly' because if there was an intended decrease it was likely supposed to be very small (or it would have been mentioned to us).

Clearly, that's not what happened. The team has asked admin from all versions to provide numbers from individual players showing how many AP they received before the change and then after the change. We compared those numbers to the number of horses woke that day to make sure we were comparing apples to apples.

So far what we are seeing is a drop in AP gained per day on most days since the change. We admin have submitted this information to the team and now we're awaiting further instructions.

I can only imagine that they wanted those numbers because they wanted to see if they matched up to what they predicted. I know this will SHOCK all of you, but sometimes we have bugs! Sometimes our coding does not work exactly like we expect.

Why didn't we test this change, you ask? Well, there are actually lots of little changes (I know, I know, this one turned out NOT to be little) that go into updates that our player testers don't test. We do have an internal QA department that handles a lot of the smaller changes that don't require a large amount of testing. You could definitely make the argument that this one should have been tested more and I can't argue with that.

Many of you have asked why we made this change and I have said that it was because we don't want people to feel like they have to care for 1000 horses a day to compete with those who do. If you want to spend a lot of time caring for all 1000 then you do get a benefit, it's just smaller than it would be if the odds were the same for all 1000 horses start to finish. I'm pretty sure THAT was the intention.

Additionally, we do think that large amounts of repetitive tasks cause people to try and cheat by using automation. We have made many changes that discourage that sort of behavior, so I would bet (though I haven't been told specifically) that this probably does have something to do with it. If the benefit is mostly in the first several hundred horses, then the benefits of cheating do not outweigh the risk. That's good for all players. I'm sure those that do try to use automation do so because they don't like to sit and press a button over and over and over!

I will share any new info I get.

</font>

<font color="#b402cf">I have collected the ideas in this topic (looking at you GeneralLee and ~Echo~) and I have shared them directly with Ow.

It may take a few days for this to be resolved. We're heading into a weekend and it's likely that whatever we do won't happen until early next week. That's not ideal, but this isn't a simple issue anymore and so we need to make sure we don't make things worse!

FYI, I've come close to censoring a few posts in this topic in the last few days, but I haven't because I don't want players to feel like we don't want to hear their criticism.

Again, I ask you to consider if what you're saying to staff would earn you a sanction if you said it to a player. Feel free to complain about the changes all you want. But please don't complain about the people who make this game. Those are the comments that are generally rude. If you're telling us that we're bad at our jobs, etc, then you have made it personal when it doesn't need to be.

I know people are upset but we[i] can[/i] discuss this calmly and politely, I believe.

</font>

So glad to hear that you actually try to fix this. I hope it won't take too long though, because every day we lose those aging points that we were supposed to earn all along.