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horse farm confusion

ArtmakerArtmaker Posts: 415
I just don't get this thing.

I bread my horses finally. Now I see I have the option to "buy" a new horse with a lower value than the one I have been training, and also the option to set my horse free.

What is the point? Are we breeding to dumb down the already stupid horses?

I don't get the competitions either. Even when I'm up against a horse with less training I still lose.

The thing is a real drag. And I can't advance anything because horse shoes are few and far between and of course now the ship is asking for stuff I don't have...... again.
I'm well stocked up on seeds bought with seashells. Now I need stuff only obtainable from the viking island which is way too young to collect anything from. By the time that starts producing the event will be over.


This is really becoming a drag here.


IS there a guide somewhere as to what the breeding thing is all about?
After they bread I got some window I can't get rid of unless I check the box. Only I have no idea what that does or means.
Post edited by Artmaker on
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Comments

  • farmerjohn 22 (US1)farmerjohn 22 (US1) US1 Posts: 37,770
    edited 22.12.2014
    Totally agree with you, Artmaker! Nothing about the horse ranch is making any sense. And if the horse breeding baffles experienced players like yourself, just think what kind of confusion a Level 16 player would have!
  • rhon (GB1)rhon (GB1) GB1 Posts: 1,542
    edited 22.12.2014
    I'm with both of you on this

    I don't understand what I'm doing or why

    All this has virtually ruined a game I loved. I'm hanging on here, for now, hoping it will all hang together eventually, but it's getting very close to my quitting.

    I'm ignoring the airport events, and therefore the green house and one third of the ship, and the ranch.
    So I'm currently ignoring almost as much of the game than I'm taking part in, which makes one think hard if its worth continuing
  • bustaa (US1)bustaa (US1) Posts: 126
    edited 23.12.2014
    Yes, they took a simple game and tried go in so many different directions.. im just kinda doing my own thing also .. just wished they would have maybe made more levels for the things we already had going.. maybe even made the main farm bigger.. but horses., islands ,,all for a bunch of decorations that are totally out of place on a farm ..
  • God1034 (US1)God1034 (US1) Posts: 2
    edited 24.12.2014
    I'm confused. I bred my horses, then lost both of them! Did we get warned about that and I just missed it? I thought we'd just get a third horse. I want my other horses back! I wouldn't have bred them if I knew I was losing them! Or are they just gone temporarily?

    Any help?
  • pippo (GB1)pippo (GB1) GB1 Posts: 7
    edited 24.12.2014
    Indeed. I'm disappointed losing my favorite horse. If I knew I did not breed that one! They should explain fully what may happen if we click some buttons there.
  • holidayrox (US1)holidayrox (US1) US1 Posts: 328
    edited 24.12.2014
    The window with the box is the special attribute that your new horse received from its parents. The more you breed, the more options you will get to choose from.
  • Latten (DE1)Latten (DE1) Posts: 6,246
    edited 24.12.2014
    The horse farm is still in its beginnings, there are many features to come quite soon :)
  • BriannospamGame (SKN1)BriannospamGame (SKN1) Posts: 1,803
    edited 24.12.2014
    God10342 wrote: »
    I'm confused. I bred my horses, then lost both of them! Did we get warned about that and I just missed it? I thought we'd just get a third horse. I want my other horses back! I wouldn't have bred them if I knew I was losing them! Or are they just gone temporarily?

    Any help?
    pippo4 wrote: »
    Indeed. I'm disappointed losing my favorite horse. If I knew I did not breed that one! They should explain fully what may happen if we click some buttons there.

    And many other players who are confused that you lost parent horses by breeding:
    If you have read the horse breeding manual before you began to breed your horses, you also would have known that you will loose the parents..
  • Latten (DE1)Latten (DE1) Posts: 6,246
    edited 24.12.2014
    We already forwarded to the devs that many, many players are confused by this, and it really isn't explained too well in the game itself.

    We will look into it and clear things up a bit.
  • edited 24.12.2014
    i was lost at first, but i got my two horses up to around level 15 then bred a foal which was i think level 15 and it gained +4 in elegance, the foal was fairly cheap in horse shoes to train and it is up to level 27 across all three disciplines, i challenged the other 3 horses 3 times as i increased the foals levels after each training up 3 levels,i won each time but would say dont keep challenging them until you loose keep checking what levels they are at and stop before they get too close to your horses level then train again up another 3 levels and do it again, you might loose once or twice but you win more often than loosing, as you win more the number of gold horse shoes slowly increases letting you upgrade your stables and training facilities, you definitely get more training for your horse shoes when working with the foal, buy a new horse train that up but you don't have to train it up to very high levels to get a good foal , keep an eye on the possible new foals level while you train up your first foal, the higher the new foals level the less it costs to train in horse shoes
  • Rosamynte1 (INT1)Rosamynte1 (INT1) Posts: 33
    edited 25.12.2014
    Have been training my horse for a long time, took ages, to get level ups. Suddenly it became rediculous much easyer and I could get a new horse, that whas very easy to train.
    Sadly my first horse have dissapeared, and I have been very carefull not to let it loose. Once I renamed it, but that was not, when it dissapeared, came later. In the meantime, it was almost impossible for me to switch.
    Now I have only one horse, with lesser skils, than any of my former horses, and the one of them are shadowed, if the other is active.

    Please give me my old horse back. It was more than level 10, worked up at the time, when getting level ups was hard to get, and please get me my second horse back, with sufficient levels.The one I have now, is a beginner and a looser.

    Rosamynte ( P.S. - excuse me for my bad English in writing.)
  • edited 25.12.2014
    Same thing happened to mine and I am not happy. Won't do that again.
  • salvia4salvia4 Posts: 3
    edited 25.12.2014
    Same to me, now I have only one horse with bad level in any kind of education.
    Most of the time I can not find it. The first horse I got became well trained, but it has disappered.

    How come?
  • La Vonda (US1)La Vonda (US1) Posts: 26
    edited 26.12.2014
    To me this whole horse thing is not worth it nor are the islands. Islands are too expensive and for what can't make any money just runes. The horses don't bring any money in for my farm either so what is the point. Both of my horses are level 12. Never win challenges and when they do its for a few horseshoes. Again horses don't bring any money to the farm. Gathering horseshoes and runes just not worth it to me. But that is just me.
  • Yakoska (US1)Yakoska (US1) Posts: 1,631
    edited 26.12.2014
    Horses are a looong term item. The endgame isn't entirely known, but I don't think it has to be to enjoy them at this point. Patience, on the other hand is required.

    Chickens take 13 minutes to breed eggs. Cows give milk every hours. Etc. Most of the things in the farms are geared for a daily play environment. Whether you check in all the time, or a few times a day. It doesn't take long to fill up your space (though it does take awhile to unlock all the spaces). At reasonable intervals, you get new Farms to play with. Gourmet Farm and Flower farm. In the interim, there are the events, Piggles, UFO, Vikings, etc. each offers a different level of interaction, benefits and time allotted.

    Then there is the horse paddock. The goal (so far) here is to breed the best horse you can. You do this by training up two horses to a more or less reasonable level (depending on their training %). Any new horse you buy, trains to 14s relatively quickly. One training session, if you can manage the 4000 horseshoe cost for intense training, each ability, but the quickly slows down in training gains.

    When you breed two horses, three things happens, which you can see ahead of time (to some extent) in the breed tab in the stable.
    1) Your horse will start at the mid point in each ability of the two parents, rounded down. Thus if you breed a 15/15/15 horse with a 14/14/14/ horse your foal will have 14/14/14 to start with. In addition below each foal's potential stats are % numbers. This is the training cost of the foal. Unless the number is 0%, what this means is the foal will train Faster than either parent. So even if the foal has less ability than one parent, they will surpass them quickly.

    2) you get some breeding effects. from +1 Agility, to +9 Elegance (that I've seen). Early on you may only have 1 breeding effect, and one slot, which is not very exciting, but that changes eventually. How many you can choose will be shown by how many question mark boxes your potential foal shows. You will get to choose from the breeding effects of the parents, and 1 random effect (So far, I have only seen +1 random breeding effect).

    3) Your 'breed quality' might have a chance to improve. This is not always the case. Sometimes there will be no chance of improvement. If there's a chance, you will see a red quality symbol right above where it says "+1 random breeding effect", and the words random chance of a new breeding quality level. The higher the quality level, the better the horse in ways listed, though not fully understood.

    So what does this mean? Well it means the more times you breed your horses the better the foal will be. But you don't want to breed for 0% training benefit (I think all horses above 10 breeding value give a benefit to training time) and you do want to breed when you have a chance to increase quality, and breeding effect boxes. The end goal is to have a horse (or horses) with stats 120/120/120. You will always have a chance to lose, but the NPC horses will only go to 100. But THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN OVERNIGHT. It will take a LOT of patience. This is the Longest Term goal yet offered by Big Farm, and it is obviously frustrating a lot of people.

    My best advice is, train... breed when it seems advantageous. Do not get attached to any one horse (though I have a certain 'lineage' that I am attached to descended from my original horse). Eventually the golden horseshoes will come. Did I mention Be Patient? :)

    And, as stated previously, you will be able to race against other players at some point. And that will probably be fun, if you don't like the 'intricacies' of breeding. I do. :)

    -Y
  • BriannospamGame (SKN1)BriannospamGame (SKN1) Posts: 1,803
    edited 26.12.2014
    Yakoska wrote: »
    2) you get some breeding effects. from +1 Agility, to +9 Elegance (that I've seen). Early on you may only have 1 breeding effect, and one slot, which is not very exciting, but that changes eventually. How many you can choose will be shown by how many question mark boxes your potential foal shows. You will get to choose from the breeding effects of the parents, and 1 random effect (So far, I have only seen +1 random breeding effect).

    FYI I can tell you there also is a speed +7. :)
    At the moment I have these 3 horses:
    This one on my us farm:
    Attachment not found.
    And these 2 on my skn farm:
    Attachment not found.
    I'm not sure about how GGS have translate the words form english to danish? - (I have seen several examples where GGS's translations is totaly wrong and unlogical)
    But my best guess is this (using the small effect-signs in the picture as indicators):
    udholdenhed = endurance
    springkræfter = strength (or maybe the directly translation: jump power?)
    føjelighed = agility
  • Yakoska (US1)Yakoska (US1) Posts: 1,631
    edited 26.12.2014
    Yes I have had a variety of numbers... I was just using my highest +. I am sure all numbers in between are represented.... I can now report that Elegance +10 is also available.

    -Y
  • Yon Beast (US1)Yon Beast (US1) Posts: 60
    edited 26.12.2014
    Thank you Yakoska!!

    Very well explained.
    PATIENCE!!!

    The confusion is that some people are so far along while others haven't missed a beat and yet others are struggling.
    Some that went too far ahead are wishing they had trained a bit more before breeding.

    I am pretty sure that IF you aren't happy with the horse you have....you have the option to start over. Of course, the cost is your losing the shoes you've already put in.

    I am having good success with my first foal (+2 endurance) as i trained both parents to 20....now foal is @ 35....waiting for newly purchased horse to make to 20 at least....
  • farmerjohn 22 (US1)farmerjohn 22 (US1) US1 Posts: 37,770
    edited 26.12.2014
    Yes, I've read and reread the explanations given of the horse breeding, but it all comes back to the same question: Is this FUN? If you were to ask me, the answer would be a definite NO.
  • sableskye (US1)sableskye (US1) US1 Posts: 27
    edited 26.12.2014
    Just to put in my 2 cents:

    For ex: you breed 2 horses; horse A with BV(breed value)20 + horse B BV 14 = 34 Tot BV. Then Divide 34 BV by 2 horses to get the average which will be the foals BV 17.

    This is lower than your original 2 horses but will breed up faster by about +11 BV with training if u train once each attribute to get 28 endurance, 28 strength and 28 agility. So ur horse will start at 17 BV foal + 11BV training = 28 BV foal (for example). (I have trained from a 15 BV foal to a 26 BV foal)

    Keep in mind that when training, ur horse's BV is the average of all its 3 attributes, endurance, strength and agility.

    You also need to train (I suggest) using the 4000 max horseshoes,at each attribute, to get the full benefit of breeding up faster. When breeding slows down, u can choose to train with less horseshoes to save those shoes

    In the meantime, u are also training a new buy horse which u train from 0 BV to 14 BV.

    Then when u will notice that with training, your horses BV average increase slows down with training and u are satisfied with ur horses current BV, u breed ur now 28 BV new foal with ur 14 BV new buy = foal BV 21 average and repeat process.

    As u repeat the whole process, ur horse BV will go higher and higher.

    the challenge is how to get the highest BV for a particular horse or horses lineage and to win in competitions of course.

    Keep competing in the beginning. Nevermind if u lose some, u will also win those gold shoes. Then when u r comfortable enough, compete only to win which means train ur horses BV to be higher than that of the competition so u improve ur chances to win competitions and u don't have to compete all the time.

    Its good to keep in mind that u want to train to win in a certain discipline whether, Jumping, Dressage or Racing for the future.

    Have fun, hope this helps.
  • Trippel (NL1)Trippel (NL1) Posts: 299
    edited 26.12.2014
    Yakoska wrote: »
    Then there is the horse paddock. The goal (so far) here is to breed the best horse you can. You do this by training up two horses to a more or less reasonable level (depending on their training %). Any new horse you buy, trains to 14s relatively quickly. One training session, if you can manage the 4000 horseshoe cost for intense training, each ability, but the quickly slows down in training gains.

    If you can't afford to spend that many horseshoes on one session it will take a month instead of a day to train a horse to level 14, al three training grounds lvl 5.
    2) you get some breeding effects. from +1 Agility, to +9 Elegance (that I've seen). Early on you may only have 1 breeding effect, and one slot, which is not very exciting, but that changes eventually. How many you can choose will be shown by how many question mark boxes your potential foal shows. You will get to choose from the breeding effects of the parents, and 1 random effect (So far, I have only seen +1 random breeding effect).

    A huge difference in breeding effect, purely based on a random chance.
    3) Your 'breed quality' might have a chance to improve. This is not always the case. Sometimes there will be no chance of improvement. If there's a chance, you will see a red quality symbol right above where it says "+1 random breeding effect", and the words random chance of a new breeding quality level. The higher the quality level, the better the horse in ways listed, though not fully understood.

    The word might says it all.
    The end goal is to have a horse (or horses) with stats 120/120/120. You will always have a chance to lose, but the NPC horses will only go to 100.

    Not true, players horses and the NPC horses are both topped at 100. Players horses can gain extra effects with breeding, NPC horses gain extra effects due to experience from their rider, which is topped at 120.
    Nobody knows if this means the NPC horse will eventually be 220.
    And, as stated previously, you will be able to race against other players at some point. And that will probably be fun, if you don't like the 'intricacies' of breeding. I do. :)

    There are some threads about matching.


    Maybe i will get struck by excitement when i can breed a 4th generation horse and I have only 3 slots available and there are 4 effects to choose from, but that wont happen in the first 8-9 months. I'm sure it will be great if the moment is there and I can choose between a +1 and a +9 effect.
  • Rosamynte1 (INT1)Rosamynte1 (INT1) Posts: 33
    edited 26.12.2014
    Could you please tell in advance, before you make big changes to the game as to let us players know, in advance?
    Am totally disappointed. Not only did I Loose my first horse, I also got a new one, starting from fresh and another, or the same one actually , one is named golden glory the other gyldenlok. Allmost the same just in two different laguages. They are the same. But my first horse was Sorte Sol ( or Black sun) but I can not find it anywhere. This horse had reached more than level 10 and was ready for breeding føl ( horse childen).
  • ArtmakerArtmaker Posts: 415
    edited 26.12.2014
    And many other players who are confused that you lost parent horses by breeding:
    If you have read the horse breeding manual before you began to breed your horses, you also would have known that you will loose the parents..



    Ok, Where IN THE GAME does it point to any manual? And even after looking (and omg I don't have hours to decipher the damn thing.) It's so convoluted....

    Listen. Take horse 1 and mate it with horse 2, you should end up with THREE HORSES!!!!!!!!
    It might be fun to train each one differently. Then get to pick who you use to go up against who.

    Which brings up another point. When I go to compete, even if my horse ranks higher than the one I'm up against, why do I still lose?

    Another question for anyone.
    Training. MY GOD it takes some 4000 horse shoes to fully train? So if I only slide the bar over as far as I can to start, (which takes the same amount of time) Does it do anything at all????

    I can't seem to collect any sizable amount of horse shoes because now the ship is asking for cargo I can't supply.
    Money from the island just dribbles in. NO where near enough to do anything with. So the ship sits for hours upon hours waiting.

    Someone posted earlier.... is this fun? NO! A resounding NO.
    THough I am enjoying the islands, especially being a little bit different this time around.
    But the horses? Bah. Set the nags free.


    Finally GG admins said this is a work in progress. Here's a thought,
    WORK IT OUT BEFORE ROLLING IT OUT!!!!

    You do this all the time. Roll out some new thing that is broken. WHY? Are you trying to send your players away? Work out these things first. And please remember the number one rule in any good design
    KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid!



    Ya know, some suggestions might be....
    1. A horse wins something it should not only pay off in gold horseshoes but in cash. Like a real horse competition. The owner gets a purse.

    2. What about stud or breeding service? Your winning horse might be worth money, perhaps to another player, as a breeder. That might be fun.

    3. Seems there is room in the stable for more than ONE horse. Breeding should mean you have more horses, not less. And instead of "setting them free" how about being able to sell them? The more they are trained, the more they have won, the more they are worth. Now that could be a prize worth working on.
  • farmerjohn 22 (US1)farmerjohn 22 (US1) US1 Posts: 37,770
    edited 26.12.2014
    LOL One step forward, THREE steps back, Artmaker! ^^
    Looks like we started in a money pit and wound up in a horseshoe pit!
  • cordia (AU1)cordia (AU1) AU1 Posts: 39
    edited 26.12.2014
    Every now and then I think I get a glimmering of what the horse ranch is about and it seems quite clever - the linkages between the competitions and the training and the upgrading and the breeding. It intrigues me and has promise.

    I think there is probably a simple strategy to play it except I have not seen it yet, still just stumbling along. I don't want to give it up tho. its a challenge. And as I said I think it has promise.

    I think maybe it would be simpler to play the horses part of the game if it was a separate farm - like the gourmet farm and the flower farm. With its own task bar. I hate that its tasks are muddled in with the others. And you cannot get rid of the tasks by completing them - they just sprout more tasks!


    Also I think the linkages with between parts of the game seems complicated when it comes to horses and islands. As one player commented if you decide to ignore the islands and the horses, you are having to ignore huge chunks of the game. If each was more of a standalone option, that would be an improvement I think.
  • Yakoska (US1)Yakoska (US1) Posts: 1,631
    edited 26.12.2014
    Trippel, thanks for your reply to my post, however I don't understand it. This is a thread about being confused about the horse farm. You don't appear confused by the horse farm, or my post.

    -Y
  • farmerjohn 22 (US1)farmerjohn 22 (US1) US1 Posts: 37,770
    edited 26.12.2014
    I'm not sure what percentage of players never look in the the Forum, but I'm pretty sure it's a large number of players. If we who can read all the information that's available on the horse breeding find it confusing, just imagine how those not in the know feel.
  • BriannospamGame (SKN1)BriannospamGame (SKN1) Posts: 1,803
    edited 26.12.2014
    rosamynte3 wrote: »
    Could you please tell in advance, before you make big changes to the game as to let us players know, in advance?
    Am totally disappointed. Not only did I Loose my first horse, I also got a new one, starting from fresh and another, or the same one actually , one is named golden glory the other gyldenlok. Allmost the same just in two different laguages. They are the same. But my first horse was Sorte Sol ( or Black sun) but I can not find it anywhere. This horse had reached more than level 10 and was ready for breeding føl ( horse childen).

    Rosamynte, I have make this danish site with information about my experiments and experiences with the horse breeding, maybe you will find some of my informations there usefull? (I think you are danish because of the name you give your horse. :) )
    If you, or somebody else you know, would like to read the annoncement about horse breeding tranlated to danish, you can find it here.
    Artmaker wrote: »
    Ok, Where IN THE GAME does it point to any manual? And even after looking (and omg I don't have hours to decipher the damn thing.) It's so convoluted....

    The manual is nowhere in the game as a writen document you can read before you start breeding the horses.
    Instead there ingame are some task which should learn us how to breeding our horses....
    - Unfortunately these ingame task do not warning about we loose the parent horses. :(
    Artmaker wrote: »
    I can't seem to collect any sizable amount of horse shoes because now the ship is asking for cargo I can't supply.
    Money from the island just dribbles in. NO where near enough to do anything with. So the ship sits for hours upon hours waiting.

    I have the same problem. :( (and I'm sure lots of other players also have that problem, until they have completed at least book 2 on the viking farm, or until the ship again will take tropical fruits)
    I'm not sure what percentage of players never look in the the Forum, but I'm pretty sure it's a large number of players. If we who can read all the information that's available on the horse breeding find it confusing, just imagine how those not in the know feel.

    Agree, also I think a very high percentage of players never read the annoncement or other things in forum.
    I think most players want to play a game which is easy to play, whitout first need to read complicated manuals. Just take a thing as manuals.... How many people read the manual before they begin to use their brand new computer, tv, washing machine (you name it) - People do first read the manual when they bt lots of experiments still not can get that damn thing working as they want.
    Few weeks ago, in Denmark a tv program make a little inquiry study on how many drivers who knew how to switch on the car fog lights... and a lot of the drivers answered they did'nt know that.
  • Trippel (NL1)Trippel (NL1) Posts: 299
    edited 27.12.2014
    Yakoska wrote: »
    Trippel, thanks for your reply to my post, however I don't understand it. This is a thread about being confused about the horse farm. You don't appear confused by the horse farm, or my post.

    -Y

    I was clearly fooled by the impression your post gave me, I assumed you were giving an explanation about the horsefarm. I was a little confused, you seem to clearly underestimate the number of horses that need to be trained to get 1 6th generation horse. You do know that you need to train 62 horses to get there?
  • sableskye (US1)sableskye (US1) US1 Posts: 27
    edited 27.12.2014
    Hi Trippel,

    I for one am enjoying the Horse Ranch. I make no apologies for that. I also am looking forward to any improvements GGS will make to the Horse Ranch relative to the rest of the farms and the game as a whole.

    I'm not confused at this point by the Ranch and look forward to whatever new Task has been set. I've won a gold mining license which I think is great among other things - to me anyway.

    I am running out of horseshoes so I know at some point I will have to start stocking up on them again. I hope GGS makes it easier to collect horseshoes for training.

    I think KISS is a great acronym for Keep It Simple & Sensible

    And yes I am having lots of fun!

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