Festivus Disappointment

[Kelly Haggerty]

Could someone please explain what :
"has shown she comes from the clouds and needs a pace to run at" means.

Not being 100% ( if any !) up in horsey speak, I'm guessing she's not a front runner. If that's the case how do I control that anyhow ?

ta muchly....

The horse likes to close from far back and will probably do best in races where there are multiple front-runners. If other players don't enter enough pure speed, you can sacrifice a "rabbit" to set a hot pace, even a sprinter if needed.

[Andrea Bouwkamp]

Check the other entries in races that you want to enter her in. If a lot of the other entries have led all the way in their wins, then they're probably speed horses and multiple speed horses in a race usually means a quicker pace, giving closers something to close into.

Example: 2022 Kentucky Derby, it was unexpected but there was a speed duel up front which gave Rich Strike the opportunity to close.

Oh, I knew that a closer was going to win the Derby. There was too much early speed in the race. I just picked the wrong closer.

My tri came 2nd, 3rd, 4th.

OMG! So did mine.

[Rold Gold]

Sadly, and I mean that, I’m solidly with Paul and Ryan….

This is just terrible. WHO CARES how many runners out of a given crop an owner chooses to race? What happened to “play your own game?”

I’ll need to cut my barn in half now, at a minimum.

[Kelly Haggerty]

Sadly, and I mean that, I’m solidly with Paul and Ryan….

This is just terrible. WHO CARES how many runners out of a given crop an owner chooses to race? What happened to “play your own game?”

I’ll need to cut my barn in half now, at a minimum.

Without invalidating or disagreeing with you, maybe I can offer an explanation? Imagine that I breed so many horses that I can fill each division with stakes and high freaks. I kill off the rest, or sell them to you, but they can't beat the ones I've kept. Now a new player tries to join, but there is nothing for them to race. They are never going to get ahold of competitive stock, and even the $500 claimers are crammed with high stakes and freaks. At that point, like in Monopoly, the game is basically over.

I'm guessing if Admin could have their perfect world, claimer gallops would run in claimers, solids in higher claimers, and so on. This is what happens more IRL because no one really can get enough access to the top stock to run the board like that and there is no magic place where you can pay $5000 one time to keep a horse in a pasture forever. But, though difficult, it is possible in a game like this. The more horses people pension early, the higher the bar is set in the lowest level of races. The gallop comments are soon outdated, and the game cannot attract new players to keep afloat.

[Art K Stables]

My main disappointment is trying to figure out what a pediree is

[Jack Christensen]

Steward "I'm going to get rid of gallop comments on yearlings because you all take them way to serious and freak out when you don't like them"

Players "No you're ruining our lives"

Gallops accidentally still show on some pages

Players "OMG my gallops are low you've ruined our lives"

See also

Players "I have all these dud freaks, gallop comments are meaningless"

Steward adjusts gallop comments to make more meaningful

Players "I don't have enough high gallop comments, you've ruined my life"

How she doesn't rage quit is beyond me.

Yep. Also, the scale change is a positive. I'm a fan

[Randall Allen]

Sadly, and I mean that, I’m solidly with Paul and Ryan….

This is just terrible. WHO CARES how many runners out of a given crop an owner chooses to race? What happened to “play your own game?”

I’ll need to cut my barn in half now, at a minimum.

Without invalidating or disagreeing with you, maybe I can offer an explanation? Imagine that I breed so many horses that I can fill each division with stakes and high freaks. I kill off the rest, or sell them to you, but they can't beat the ones I've kept. Now a new player tries to join, but there is nothing for them to race. They are never going to get ahold of competitive stock, and even the $500 claimers are crammed with high stakes and freaks. At that point, like in Monopoly, the game is basically over.

I'm guessing if Admin could have their perfect world, claimer gallops would run in claimers, solids in higher claimers, and so on. This is what happens more IRL because no one really can get enough access to the top stock to run the board like that and there is no magic place where you can pay $5000 one time to keep a horse in a pasture forever. But, though difficult, it is possible in a game like this. The more horses people pension early, the higher the bar is set in the lowest level of races. The gallop comments are soon outdated, and the game cannot attract new players to keep afloat.

There is a way to cut this down Kelly, claim those stakes and freaks that are racing in the claiming races. I probably claimed a dozen young stakes gallopers last year, including some thoroughbreds.

[Rold Gold]

(Thx Kelly. I’m not wanting to figure out all the quote stuff I’ll just respond in general….

Has that ever happened though? Someone flooding a division with so many horses that they effectively monopolized a single division? I only race in one so I wouldn’t know.

I don’t think all the bad horses I’ve bred and pensioned without a start could keep any new players away from anything….because they’re mostly terrible and not worth racing. This is essentially a move to try to force those types of horses horses back onto the track. I get it, I’m just not interested.

For me this will eventually have the effect of no longer taking chances on making weird pedigrees and odd inbreeding out of my formidable and low end star mares. Those almost never work out, but when they do it’s easily the coolest part of the game for me. Look at a mare like Gator’s Moonshine, she probably wouldn’t even exist under the new changes. Heck, Shiloh probably wouldn’t either.

[Calia Mendez]

I'm guessing if Admin could have their perfect world, claimer gallops would run in claimers, solids in higher claimers, and so on. This is what happens more IRL because no one really can get enough access to the top stock to run the board like that and there is no magic place where you can pay $5000 one time to keep a horse in a pasture forever. But, though difficult, it is possible in a game like this. The more horses people pension early, the higher the bar is set in the lowest level of races. The gallop comments are soon outdated, and the game cannot attract new players to keep afloat.

I've played a game before that "solved" this by forcing players to race every single horse, regardless of quality, for as long as the horse was able to race (each horse had a max race limit based on soundness). If your horses didn't race at least once a month, they were taken away. It was an unfun, punitive system and I'm so glad the SIM doesn't try to pull things like that.

It's definitely a problem that games have when they revolve around on player competition. I mean, sure, people complain every time you change something, and the choices you make to address a problem are never going to be perfect, but the SIM handles these kinds of balancing issues a lot better than other sites I've seen. And takes feedback much more graciously.

[Kelly Haggerty]

(Thx Kelly. I’m not wanting to figure out all the quote stuff I’ll just respond in general….

Has that ever happened though? Someone flooding a division with so many horses that they effectively monopolized a single division? I only race in one so I wouldn’t know.

I don’t think all the bad horses I’ve bred and pensioned without a start could keep any new players away from anything….because they’re mostly terrible and not worth racing. This is essentially a move to try to force those types of horses horses back onto the track. I get it, I’m just not interested.

For me this will eventually have the effect of no longer taking chances on making weird pedigrees and odd inbreeding out of my formidable and low end star mares. Those almost never work out, but when they do it’s easily the coolest part of the game for me. Look at a mare like Gator’s Moonshine, she probably wouldn’t even exist under the new changes. Heck, Shiloh probably wouldn’t either.

It happened on another horse game I was part of, long ago. Maybe someone else will explain all the math and whatnot. Just for a quick example if all the horses in the game have an ability that ranges from 1-100, maybe ones through fives should be in low claimers, 5-x in mid claimers....95-100 in graded stakes. But, if we throw away everything that isn't at least a 50, then the new threshold to be competitive in the bottom claimers isn't 1-5, it's 50. And so on. Next year it's 60. Then 75. Because the longer we play the better our stock and the more money we accumulate. Our bad horses wouldn't be terrible and not worth racing if they only faced others of the same caliber, but all those get tossed.

Anyhow, this post will soon make someone upset, so I am going to stop. I am not trying to say that things should be one way or another. What I can say is that I played another racing game years ago that got "bought" like this with a new player that dumped thousands of RL money in and just ran off with everything. It was actually really sad, because there were a lot of players for whom that game was a community, but they didn't have the funds to keep up.

[Rold Gold]

I appreciate your comments as always, Kelly. No upset on this end.

[Kelly Haggerty]

I appreciate your comments as always, Kelly. No upset on this end.

Thanks. And no Gator or no Shiloh?!? Agree that's a horrible thought.

We don't see the money side of this so it's hard to know what may be behind some of these things. Right now, thankfully, there doesn't seem to be a huge issue in the divisions that I race in. There are a mix of veteran and newer players with nice horses, including some surprises, and it keeps things fun.

[Anthony Zappulla]

I'm guessing if Admin could have their perfect world, claimer gallops would run in claimers, solids in higher claimers, and so on. This is what happens more IRL because no one really can get enough access to the top stock to run the board like that and there is no magic place where you can pay $5000 one time to keep a horse in a pasture forever. But, though difficult, it is possible in a game like this. The more horses people pension early, the higher the bar is set in the lowest level of races. The gallop comments are soon outdated, and the game cannot attract new players to keep afloat.

I've played a game before that "solved" this by forcing players to race every single horse, regardless of quality, for as long as the horse was able to race (each horse had a max race limit based on soundness). If your horses didn't race at least once a month, they were taken away. It was an unfun, punitive system and I'm so glad the SIM doesn't try to pull things like that.

It's definitely a problem that games have when they revolve around on player competition. I mean, sure, people complain every time you change something, and the choices you make to address a problem are never going to be perfect, but the SIM handles these kinds of balancing issues a lot better than other sites I've seen. And takes feedback much more graciously.

If they were taken away and sold at action that would be cool lol

[Tamara Estes]

Steward "I'm going to get rid of gallop comments on yearlings because you all take them way to serious and freak out when you don't like them"

Players "No you're ruining our lives"

Gallops accidentally still show on some pages

Players "OMG my gallops are low you've ruined our lives"

See also

Players "I have all these dud freaks, gallop comments are meaningless"

Steward adjusts gallop comments to make more meaningful

Players "I don't have enough high gallop comments, you've ruined my life"

I agree with Tammy Stawicki. There is NO pleasing the Sim. However, I have noticed NOT ONE player has complained that they got gallop comments, just that they didn't like the comments they got. The gallops needed to be adjusted and I have no issue with that. I am happy to see a truer indication of my horses ability, but know that there will always be horses that do no live up to what we think we deserve or expect.

I would love to see us keep the new comments and learn to incorporate those into the gallop comments and hopefully improve our game play. I know that I can use any help I can get. More information is always better in my book, so please don't take away information even if it is the "evil" gallop comments.

[Ronnie Dee]

Steward "I'm going to get rid of gallop comments on yearlings because you all take them way to serious and freak out when you don't like them"
...
Gallops accidentally still show on some pages

I was really looking forward to the end of displaying gallop categories (e.g., freak) for yearlings. I was hoping that this change would rejuvenate my interest in the Sim. I even developed a training plan for my Year 62 yearlings.

If I was not retired with too much time on my hands, I would seriously consider rage quitting after this Festivus Fiasco. If a major change is announced, the change should be tested thoroughly before the release so "accidents" do not occur.