[UPDATED] Devs' Corner: October 2024

Our developers have something to tell you! Every three (3) weeks, our devs will provide you with information about their work in the “Dev’s Corner.”

This publication is a way of keeping everyone updated on what’s happening with the game. We invite you to discuss and leave your feedback for each of the publications.

Note: All posts must adhere to the forum guidelines and be constructively made.

Take a look at our very first Devs' Corner publication!

Warm wishes,

The Howrse Team
 
Ow
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Oathkeeper wrote:

We can already search by category, it's at the top of the page on mobile, while to the right at the top on classic. default smiley :)


Yes but tabs would be much better imo. Rather than having them all jumbled up on the first page, looks messy, then having to click a drop down to sort them.
Rogin
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CrabApple wrote:

I have a couple of questions about GA coats.

I'm wondering if players themselves choose which colour category they put their creation in or whether it is done some other way. The reason I ask is a lot of the coats seem to be in the wrong colour selection. For example if I am looking for a palomino colour coat and select the yellow filter, you can get browns,blacks and greys. I wonder if this could be tightened up so you get the colour your actually looking for.

My second question is can the filters be allowed to offer two choices. For example if I wanted a paint horse which is black and white, I could choose the white and black filter.

Thanks

We choose the colour category ourselves, yes. So it wouldn't be easy to "tighten up" the colour filter without other changes. I expect in some cases people are adding a second colour that is minorly or even not present in hopes it will show for more people who are searching.
But I do hope to get two colour filters - we get to select two colour categories when we submit coats, after all.
Veren
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I am not a fan of the huge carousel popup especially as they kept the little side arrow (I keep clicking it expecting it to show just the next one and then this big brightly coloured thing just pops up). It would be better I think if it was a down arrow to indicate some sort of drop down menu. And if they had a drop down menu instead. Now that I think about it that would be better - still in the corner, still relatively small, but able to see all the things at a glance.


Does anyone know what the "cow breeding" is? Are they talking about raising cows in the EC meadows for leather?
Veren
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Re the new carousel: I'd love to have an option in our account settings to let us pick between either the carousel , or the previous arrow feature. But rather than bringing back the old arrow feature as is, add a back arrow to it, so you can go either left or right.

I wouldn't mind the giant pop-up thing for the offers on days when there are half a dozen offers at once, but if there's only a couple I don't mind scrolling through 2 or 3.

Veren wrote:

Does anyone know what the "cow breeding" is? Are they talking about raising cows in the EC meadows for leather?
Yes, it's referring to cow/leather harvesting. I was thinking it's a bad translation, but the meadows page does refer to it as "raising cows" so perhaps we are breeding them...sort of.
Legacy Ann
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Personally I'm really happy about the new features in the update. LOVE the new carousel and all of the trophies from breeding were an awesome surprise when I logged on! I'm also happy about the numbers on the greyfell - I finally have all of them and can turn an extra one I have into a Palomino Sleipner and now I don't have to dig through them looking for the extra.
Good day today! default smiley :)
PurplePhlox15
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Becky Barnes wrote:

"The divine horse Greyfell now has a number attached to its name, making it easier to identify the different variations you own."

default smiley (n)default smiley (n)default smiley (n)default smiley (n)default smiley (n)

Revolting. There was NO need for this at all.


How is a change that many of us have been requesting for ages revolting? With how similar some of them are in colour, this is a much appreciated change for those of us that are trying to collect the set.
Oathkeeper
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I am so confused with the new breeding trophies. For example: 'give birth 150 unicorns' yet I have bred 376 if you look at the number of births I have next to my name on the team I ran during covid, and then my unicorn affix has 295 births contained in it. That is 671 unicorn births in total. What I wish to know is how was this calculated?
Same can be said with the other species related trophies.
midnight stargazer
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midnight stargazer wrote:

I am so confused with the new breeding trophies. For example: 'give birth 150 unicorns' yet I have bred 376 if you look at the number of births I have next to my name on the team I ran during covid, and then my unicorn affix has 295 births contained in it. That is 671 unicorn births in total. What I wish to know is how was this calculated?
Same can be said with the other species related trophies.


It's only retroactive for the past year. So if you have produced more than that before that time frame they don't count.
Rogin
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I hope to never own a Greyfell, but I do have to say I don't see why they didn't number them sooner. It's a Divine series I don't understand and the "tell a purple Greyfell apart from a slightly bluer-toned purple Greyfell" aspect was a large part of that. default smiley (lol) I guess they could be identified by their markings?

I think the carousel probably would have been better as a drop down menu like some people said, since the popup is now huge, but it's an improvement over the previous "click seventeen times to try and find the thing you want" model.

I still think the trophy page should be better laid out. LOVE the new things to work on, but the more they add the more obvious the cluttered layout is. Very hard to tell where and what anything is. The color-coding for different categories was a nice idea, and I'd have them separated too.

And I've said it before but I have no clue why the Divine trophies are split in half by the Ascent ones instead of all together. default smiley (o)
Crookedstar915
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Thanks for clearing that up, I understand that the logistics of the trophies is hard when there is over 10 years of history to this game.
I just find it a little demoralising knowing that the amount that I used to play this game will not be recorded.
midnight stargazer
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midnight stargazer wrote:

Thanks for clearing that up, I understand that the logistics of the trophies is hard when there is over 10 years of history to this game.
I just find it a little demoralising knowing that the amount that I used to play this game will not be recorded.
According to the Change Log, a full retroactive count would also have meant there wouldn't be anything for the older players to progress, or the amount would be way too high for new players to bother with.

From the Change Log
"Secondly, the gap between old and new players would make progression non-existent for the former (their trophies would have already been completed), while it would be nearly impossible for newer players (the figures required to progress in the trophy would be too high)"
Legacy Ann
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Oathkeeper wrote:

How is a change that many of us have been requesting for ages revolting? With how similar some of them are in colour, this is a much appreciated change for those of us that are trying to collect the set.


While I personally think "revolting" is overdramatic, I dislike the number on my Greyfells because it is more like "collect numbers 1-12 to complete the set" rather than "see if you can get all the different versions." Plus I don't like numbers in names unless it's referencing something (other than a number), like "Impala67" or "007" or something. "Blank 1" and "Blank 2" are just boring.

It's not like they are indistinguishable (though I admit the colours can be rather subtle) - they each have a unique rune (looks like Futhorc from the Ōs on Greyfell 3 but the Yr on Greyfell 9 would be Younger Futhark so I don't really know) on their hindquarters.
Veren
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Oathkeeper wrote:

We can already search by category, it's at the top of the page on mobile, while to the right at the top on classic. default smiley :)


Can you believe I never noticed it being a thing? x)
That will make it quite a bit easier

But still, as Rogin said in message below, I would love actual collapsible menus. I love me a collapsible menu.

I think the difference between system now (which I was unaware of till 5 minutes ago btw, truly magical day for me) and what I'm hoping for is the permanence with adjustability?

Because current one displays ONLY competitions, or ONLY customization.
I'd love to be able to scroll through all the option but without it taking a week and a half, ya know?

To be completely honest, if they
put all inactive promo trophies (aka the ones I can NOT work on at any given moment) at the very moment,
put ones I can NOT influence - seniority above,
and then put ascent right above it, I'd be chuffed.



As for the greyfell number I honestly feel like calling it revolting is a bit of a stretch. Considering most of us sees their greyfells once a month at best default smiley ;) I do think that the number could be a bit less obvious, but then we did love that S by Shutterfly back in the days so ya know. It's not that bad. Nowhere near as bad as NEW by companions was and we lived through that.

Carousel will take some getting used to, but as long as I can click away from it, I'm happy.
paranoya
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It'd be nice if completed trophies could be taken out of the list as well. Like yay I filled out the gold bar, do I now have to scroll past the ever-increasing slog of gold bars every time I want to see my progress? default smiley (lol)
Crookedstar915
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The numbers in the greyfell names looks terrible. They were already identifiable by the symbol on them default smiley :@
abc123cde
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Can't edit my previous comment so adding this as extra

If the greyfell's need to have numbers, putting them in roman numerals would look a lot better than a basic number

e.g. Greyfell VI as opposed to Greyfell 6
abc123cde
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I like the numbers as I find it a pain to have to peer at the symbol on the body to see which is which. I'm not sure Roman numerals would be easier for everyone either. Now I can go to the farm they're in and easily see which is which. No change will be popular with everyone and there are often changes I don't like but the game has to evolve to keep old and attract new players. This one is such a small change.
minkthepink
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Wow the new carousel is awful. I agree that we should have the option to either have the carousel, or go back to the old way.
Also I do like the Roman numeral idea for the Greyfells! It's jarring to just see "Greyfell 7". It looks ugly and makes me want to twitch. I thought maybe the numbering would be in the description or something. OR, like the Shutterfly comment above, a cute little symbol that is more like an image. Nope, just "Greyfell 7". default smiley (d)default smiley (lol)
Redwallfan12
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I actually really like the new carousel for some reason. I think it'll take some getting used to but as long as the core features stay in the same place each time the promos change e.g. olympus, it should be a positive default smiley :)
wingsforwheels
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So now that the weekend offers have triggered the Ascent of Olympus has been removed from the carousel. Is there a reason why it can't stay in the carousel?
Crystal Coven
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Crystal Coven wrote:

So now that the weekend offers have triggered the Ascent of Olympus has been removed from the carousel. Is there a reason why it can't stay in the carousel?


I was about to ask the same thing. I understand removing it when you had to switch through tons of tabs, but why remove it when there is enough space for 8? Unless they are going to suggest we can expect 6 offers alongside the promo and crown at some point?
Oathkeeper
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Maybe I read wrong, but I had thought the pass offers were going to be in the carousel too...
gaff
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[quote=1404421447]I am not a fan of the huge carousel popup especially as they kept the little side arrow (I keep clicking it expecting it to show just the next one and then this big brightly coloured thing just pops up). It would be better I think if it was a down arrow to indicate some sort of drop down menu. And if they had a drop down menu instead. Now that I think about it that would be better - still in the corner, still relatively small, but able to see all the things at a glance.


Agreed. I'm also not a fan of the popup. I wasn't paying any attention to the update (I honestly had no clue what "Carousel" meant in their context, and they didn't give any further info on what it was). So today I legitimately thought it was a bug.

I didn't mind the 'cycling through' format all that much. Sure, it was a little inconvenient if you were going back and forth between the event page and your horse's page if you were completing objectives for the event, but at least it was tucked up out of the way. The popup feels like an assault in terms of visuals.

A drop-down menu (with an indicator arrow) would be convenient, and in my opinion, a bit more pleasing to the eye.

I don't often discuss updates, let alone make any effort to give negative feedback, since I know the team works hard on this stuff; but since I thought this particular update was a bug, I feel like it warrants mentioning.
CharlieA
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I find the Greyfell numbers quite helpful, and I love the breeder trophies! Not a huge fan of the new carousel since it takes me by surprise every time default smiley xd But I'm sure I will get used to it!
wishuwell74
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I too like the new carousel look. I always got lost clicking (forgot what I was looking for or what the name was) and would often skip the thing I was searching for.
Also, I don't know when this was changed but the way we shuffled through the special horses on mobile finally works! Thats awesome, thank you!
m5rik
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