Thoughts on Steward Breds

[Gwayne's World]

Some folks would pay dearly for an early Festivus gallop result?

Such as 'Ask The Bloodstock Agent' format.

[Lily Wilkins]

I was also thinking earlier about the colt/filly balances and how there have been times in the past that I would have happily forked over a fee in order to breed just. one. more. filly. I know The SIM team put those filly/colt breeding balances in place for a reason, but sometimes it would be nice to have a way to get some extra filly slots without HAVING to breed more colts to do it. Say, if you lease a nice mare toward the end of the season and you're already at 20 fillies but only have 15 colts.

Some folks would pay dearly for an early Festivus gallop result?

Such as 'Ask The Bloodstock Agent' format.

Oooh, paying for the sweet sting of early disappointment? I LIKE it!

[Kent Saunders]

There has now been quite a few threads with ideas for reducing the available cash in the Sim. Maybe could someone attempt to document all those ideas? (No time here). Then maybe we could have some discussion and possibly vote and try and narrow down the ones that have the most support. I realize there are alot so we could do it in waves? Just a thought as I see some good/easy ones that are doable but since we don't keep track they get lost.

[Doug Cuomo]

I am sure someone has suggested this before but how about rotating between SB auctions and steward mare lease auctions? For example even sim years being steward bred foal auctions and odd sim years being steward mare lease auctions? Every other 3 year old crop wouldn't have any steward breds competing in such things as the triple crown races. Em would only have to breed every other season and relieve some of her stress and work load breeding wise. Use the same type of limits on the mare lease auctions that we use with SB auctions (high bid on 5 and can win 2 or 3). I'd think the mare auction might even produce higher bids then the SB ones. Then again maybe I am totally wrong, wouldn't be the first time.

[Mara Jade Vess]

There has now been quite a few threads with ideas for reducing the available cash in the Sim. Maybe could someone attempt to document all those ideas? (No time here). Then maybe we could have some discussion and possibly vote and try and narrow down the ones that have the most support. I realize there are alot so we could do it in waves? Just a thought as I see some good/easy ones that are doable but since we don't keep track they get lost.

I had some time and went through the two main threads where most of the ideas came from (plus this one), and I think I got most of them. Some of them have been debated quite a bit and a few of them have been shot down outright, but I kept them in as inspiration of sorts.

sorry if i butchered your idea i was trying to not make this look like a wall of text (even though that didn't really happen)

Taxes
% based on bankroll
Brackets
Income tax
↳ Tax that excludes article writing income
↳ % income tax based on player status
End-of-year tax
Weekly tax
Luxury tax
just straight up take away the money needed to bring inflation into check at the end of the year
Drop bank account totals
Sales Tax
Stud fee income tax
Tax based on # of horses owned

Increase in Existing Fees
Increase stakes entry fee
Increase day rate
↳ Different care types
Increases on vet, horses whisperer, BSA, etc.
Pay for peak/progress/late bloomer comments

New Fees
Foaling fee
SIM money fee for gallop pieces
Yearly stallion fees
Entry fee % for all race types
Fee that allows an extra race per year out of a horses
Pay jockeys a % of purses
Fee to ship directly to closest farm after a race
Bloodstock agent comments for males
Pre-entry fee (enter races more than 2 weeks out)
Fee to slightly increase chance of twins
Pay for additional improvement in geldings
↳ Subject to random slide
Expand BSA capabilities (stallion suggestions)
Pay for a new gallop comment without actually galloping it
Grooms & fees
Increase shipping fees
Increase nomination fees
Fees on breeding (booking, vetting, etc)
Early Festivus gallop result
Pay for the ability to exceed colt/filly balance

Farms & Related
Horses in training to be kept at a track or game-owned facility
↳ Training centres in addiction to farms and tracks
Barn additions that increase rest, renewed yearly
Farm specializations
Farm perks for breeding boosts
Statues of horses at farms or tracks

Steward-bred Specific
Steward-breds do not come pre-insured
Taxes on steward-breds (higher day rate)
Steward-bred racing stable in which all earnings go to The Steward, done by proxy
New player-only steward-bred auction
Rotate between sale auctions and lease auctions

Other
Bank account caps
Page where a target active money goal is shown, up to the community to bring it down by donating to the pool
Stallion sponsored races
↳ Specific to progeny
Expanded betting
↳ Win odds displayed for big races
SIM lottery
Companion pet shows
Ribbon additions
↳ Headshots
Article requests – requester pays for the article
Construction of personal HOFs
More stallion ad options
Transportation upgrades
Asst. trainer to prepare yearlings
Asst. trainer per region
RL stallions to stand for SIM$ instead of game points

Some additional things:
- The Steward has stated that there is currently around $300 million more than is preferred in the active SIM economy.
- From The Admin, some suggestions when coming up with ideas (from the Purse Cuts thread):

Some of the suggestions are clever but address the issue in a backwards way. A huge source invented money is the purses. Does it really make sense to keep purses high, but to impose fees directly related to those purses? That is exactly the same as reducing the purses.

Taxing your bank balance doesn't make sense. Should someone with $100mil in cash be taxed, but someone with $10,000 in cash, and a million horses not taxed?

Betting was partially designed to get money out of the game. The house takes a cut. But, we have minimum win amounts which can create money, and the starting pools is invented money.

We added some big ticket items like farms (any others for SIM$?) That helps. And the ongoing fees help. Can we think of more big ticket SIM$ things that only rich people can afford? Something that doesn’t give them a big advantage, but just prestige or notoriety. Rich people may be willing to do that. We could add in-SIM humanitarian causes. Maybe a version of sponsoring a race that only costs SIM$ or less GPs where the purse money comes from the sponsor?

Perhaps a graduated day-rate based on the number of horses you have? Increasing the farm recurring fees? Something costs you more unless you donate bunches of money to a pretend SIM cause (build a better pool for the AJ horses?)

The better a horse is (lifetime earnings including breeding?), the more things cost for that horse because they get better stalls and more expensive food.?

I am brainstorming about ways to have people use their money without taxing.

Hopefully this is somewhat helpful!

[Dylan Christensen]

Thank you Tamara!

[Joe Bengston]

What if we re opened bidding restrictions to none and no limits on SB'S

But we had stew bred auctions only available to new through Advanced? Players
I forget how they all go so I don't know if that would be too high or low.

New
Intermediate
Adavanced
Veteran
Expert
?

But then have other stew bred auctions as they have been but open to all and allow players to own as many stew breeds as they want. Since as mentioned limiting this limits the amount a richer stable can actually take out of the sim.

I understand no one wants to pay taxes but this isn't real money. And there's no other way really to take money out on a consistent sim year basis without taxing us or raising costs of board/ day rate etc. Because paying for early gallops might work one sim year but not the next based on if a player pays for the same amount of horses each year.


I do think entry fees for stakes/graded races should be raised. I looked up stakes for thoroughbreds and a g1 had a 2k entry fee where the winner won 100,000. Even fifth place made a net profit I believe (not counting travel/other fees). But 2k to win 100,000 is a bit ridiculous imo. That's a 98,000 dollar profit. A regular stakes with an entry fee of 500 the winner won 25,000 that's a 24,500 dollar profit. I'm not calling to jack the entry fees but raising them should in theory take more money out of the sim.

But I would keep the bigger races stewards cups triple crown etc the same.

This is just an observation I had when looking at what Spencer had to say. We have way more races than horses that are active. There's been over a million races run but only 308,000 or so living horses and not all of those are actively racing. (Either pensioned, or retired as mare/stallion)

Do we use the same race schedules every year? I know the stakes are but I'm talking everything else? Because in real life the racing secretary would make a new schedule every year based on the horse population at that track.


So I believed we have too many races but someone in the chat pointed out they were having a hard time finding races for some of their horses and I run into that sometimes to. But I don't believe there isn't enough especially if the sim needs to take money out

Sorry I write so much

[Joe Bengston]

Yeah maybe purses should be cut more. The only issue with purse cuts is when it goes into other breeds since they lack big money purses.

After reading Tamaras post I realize that yeah raising entry fees is the same as cutting purses. So sorry for that bad idea.

[Lee Tuttle]

There has now been quite a few threads with ideas for reducing the available cash in the Sim. Maybe could someone attempt to document all those ideas? (No time here). Then maybe we could have some discussion and possibly vote and try and narrow down the ones that have the most support. I realize there are alot so we could do it in waves? Just a thought as I see some good/easy ones that are doable but since we don't keep track they get lost.

I had some time and went through the two main threads where most of the ideas came from (plus this one), and I think I got most of them. Some of them have been debated quite a bit and a few of them have been shot down outright, but I kept them in as inspiration of sorts.

sorry if i butchered your idea i was trying to not make this look like a wall of text (even though that didn't really happen)

Taxes
% based on bankroll
Brackets
Income tax
↳ Tax that excludes article writing income
↳ % income tax based on player status
End-of-year tax
Weekly tax
Luxury tax
just straight up take away the money needed to bring inflation into check at the end of the year
Drop bank account totals
Sales Tax
Stud fee income tax
Tax based on # of horses owned

Increase in Existing Fees
Increase stakes entry fee
Increase day rate
↳ Different care types
Increases on vet, horses whisperer, BSA, etc.
Pay for peak/progress/late bloomer comments

New Fees
Foaling fee
SIM money fee for gallop pieces
Yearly stallion fees
Entry fee % for all race types
Fee that allows an extra race per year out of a horses
Pay jockeys a % of purses
Fee to ship directly to closest farm after a race
Bloodstock agent comments for males
Pre-entry fee (enter races more than 2 weeks out)
Fee to slightly increase chance of twins
Pay for additional improvement in geldings
↳ Subject to random slide
Expand BSA capabilities (stallion suggestions)
Pay for a new gallop comment without actually galloping it
Grooms & fees
Increase shipping fees
Increase nomination fees
Fees on breeding (booking, vetting, etc)
Early Festivus gallop result
Pay for the ability to exceed colt/filly balance

Farms & Related
Horses in training to be kept at a track or game-owned facility
↳ Training centres in addiction to farms and tracks
Barn additions that increase rest, renewed yearly
Farm specializations
Farm perks for breeding boosts
Statues of horses at farms or tracks

Steward-bred Specific
Steward-breds do not come pre-insured
Taxes on steward-breds (higher day rate)
Steward-bred racing stable in which all earnings go to The Steward, done by proxy
New player-only steward-bred auction
Rotate between sale auctions and lease auctions

Other
Bank account caps
Page where a target active money goal is shown, up to the community to bring it down by donating to the pool
Stallion sponsored races
↳ Specific to progeny
Expanded betting
↳ Win odds displayed for big races
SIM lottery
Companion pet shows
Ribbon additions
↳ Headshots
Article requests – requester pays for the article
Construction of personal HOFs
More stallion ad options
Transportation upgrades
Asst. trainer to prepare yearlings
Asst. trainer per region
RL stallions to stand for SIM$ instead of game points

Some additional things:
- The Steward has stated that there is currently around $300 million more than is preferred in the active SIM economy.
- From The Admin, some suggestions when coming up with ideas (from the Purse Cuts thread):

Some of the suggestions are clever but address the issue in a backwards way. A huge source invented money is the purses. Does it really make sense to keep purses high, but to impose fees directly related to those purses? That is exactly the same as reducing the purses.

Taxing your bank balance doesn't make sense. Should someone with $100mil in cash be taxed, but someone with $10,000 in cash, and a million horses not taxed?

Betting was partially designed to get money out of the game. The house takes a cut. But, we have minimum win amounts which can create money, and the starting pools is invented money.

We added some big ticket items like farms (any others for SIM$?) That helps. And the ongoing fees help. Can we think of more big ticket SIM$ things that only rich people can afford? Something that doesn’t give them a big advantage, but just prestige or notoriety. Rich people may be willing to do that. We could add in-SIM humanitarian causes. Maybe a version of sponsoring a race that only costs SIM$ or less GPs where the purse money comes from the sponsor?

Perhaps a graduated day-rate based on the number of horses you have? Increasing the farm recurring fees? Something costs you more unless you donate bunches of money to a pretend SIM cause (build a better pool for the AJ horses?)

The better a horse is (lifetime earnings including breeding?), the more things cost for that horse because they get better stalls and more expensive food.?

I am brainstorming about ways to have people use their money without taxing.

Hopefully this is somewhat helpful!

*I believe someone also suggested being able to buy a jet that would get you to any track on the planet within x amount of time. For a high initial cost and weekly or periodical upkeep costs.

*Another thing for stables with extra cash could throw money away on... personal stable museum. They can add any of their horses to it that they please. And the museum would remain in the game even if the stable someday gets recycled.(Probably the same as construction of personal H.O.F.)

*Option of paying a fee to have their stable name used for a steward cup race.

[Laura Ferguson]

Oh and I have another idea to irritate the status quo. It may not be original?
3% breeding fee. Everytime you breed, 3% of your stable balance goes out of the game. That's aside from the stud fee that you pay. So for those that mass breed and want to corner the market on certain studs and only share them with their pals for free...Merry Christmas or Happy Birthday or whatever

The math of this proposal is a game killer. If you pay no stud fees, because you are using your own stallion, after _10_ foals, you have lost 27% of your bankroll through this proposed breeding fee. After 23 foals, you have lost 51% of your bankroll to the breeding fee, and at 45 foals, you have lost 75% of your bankroll to the breeding fee. If you're also paying stud fees, your bankroll is in even worse shape. These are hardly mass breeder numbers. It is not unusual for a player to breed 10-45 foals, or more, after Week 16 results, when the only money coming in is from stud fees/sales that might otherwise build the stable balance back up (and who would buy/lease your discards, when they're facing the same draconian breeding fee?).

I think people need to keep in mind that the goal is to suck money out of the game, not players.

[Stormy Peak]

Again.

Why not try something Voluntary first before coming up with complicated concoctions that will irritate some into even quitting this game.

I suggested weekly donations...if some player is having a bad few weeks of no wins...then they are not forced to pay out via taxes, or fees... but if they are having a good week and wish to donate 1, 3, 5, 10 percent...and the fake money is destroyed at the end of they year. Let's see how something like that works first...maybe Em could even set a goal for how much she would like to see drawn out of the game and show the progress on some kind of donation gauge. I know this isn't a 'fix' for an economy in the traditional sense, but if the goal is to get money out of the system...why can't this work?

Stormy

[Dave Trainer]

Oh and I have another idea to irritate the status quo. It may not be original?
3% breeding fee. Everytime you breed, 3% of your stable balance goes out of the game. That's aside from the stud fee that you pay. So for those that mass breed and want to corner the market on certain studs and only share them with their pals for free...Merry Christmas or Happy Birthday or whatever

The math of this proposal is a game killer. If you pay no stud fees, because you are using your own stallion, after _10_ foals, you have lost 27% of your bankroll through this proposed breeding fee. After 23 foals, you have lost 51% of your bankroll to the breeding fee, and at 45 foals, you have lost 75% of your bankroll to the breeding fee. If you're also paying stud fees, your bankroll is in even worse shape. These are hardly mass breeder numbers. It is not unusual for a player to breed 10-45 foals, or more, after Week 16 results, when the only money coming in is from stud fees/sales that might otherwise build the stable balance back up (and who would buy/lease your discards, when they're facing the same draconian breeding fee?).

I think people need to keep in mind that the goal is to suck money out of the game, not players.

Anyone breeding 60 foals, which isn't excessive, would lose 83% of their original starting balance. In numerical terms starting with 1 million they would be left with around 170k even if they paid no stud fees.

If there was 1 billion in the Sim economy before breeding and every player bred 60 foals only 170m would remain. That reduction is far in excess of what was aimed for.

[Kent Saunders]

Thanks Tamara!

[Joe Bengston]

What about something like a lottery but not with invented money. The pools would be the total of how much money we spend on raffle tickets but a percentage would be taken out. The prize wouldn't have to always be money either as it could getting to check a piece of equipment for free or the horses preferred weather. This falls in line with stormys voluntary idea. Also what if we got rid of the pick 4s daily double and those exotic type wagers? I don't think many would have a problem with them going away.

Now as a real life horse player it would be awesome if we had wps and ex tri etc wagers and we could be like real life and jack up the take out rates lol. And if we don't get rid of the daily double etc what about implementing take out rates for those if they don't have them already?

[Tom Lin]

Now as a real life horse player it would be awesome if we had wps and ex tri etc wagers and we could be like real life and jack up the take out rates lol. And if we don't get rid of the daily double etc what about implementing take out rates for those if they don't have them already?

And that is because RL horse players like high take out rates? Who is going to bet if the end goal is to lose money overall.
At least with the lottery idea the prize of winning makes it attractive despite a high take out.