[UPDATED] Devs' Corner: November 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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[quote=1404391625]So in taking a poll of players who have taken the time to comment on this update, I have tabulated the following. (Yes i was bored and had too much time on my hands)default smiley (a)

23 players are for the Update

What they loved

Prizes!



I believe someone else pointed this out, we're being pacified, bribed, given the ol' carrot tied to a stick method to keep us quiet and continue playing the game. The BMI's offered as "rewards" you can win from events, or if you've worked hard for a divine, you can get them from a divine.

Also I will always kick up stink about Etrian being handed out to every player and their pony because his literal description goes as follows;
Etrian is a divine horse that appeared as a reward for Horse Adventure players.
He was supposed to be elusive, yes he's just pretty and doesn't really offer anything but he was my very first divine, so yes my feathers are ruffled default smiley xd

If anything rather than overhauling everything, adding onto what already existed would've been the better move. Howrse if y'all wanted to bring back the reward for fufilling an objective thing that badly it should have been implemented how it used to be years back, just in a different section or added as an extension to the objectives page.

A small side note the trophies we used to earn were the reward themselves.
ryanchi
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tangobay wrote:

Does anyone know how we can view our recent winnings from completing winning a trophy? I opened my mobile app this morning and clicked 'get' to claim my prize for earning a trophy and the app glitched and it showed a blank page so now I have no idea what I won.


Go to your black market page, scroll to the bottom and click 'Item History'. Most of the prizes are BM items. If there's nothing there marked 'trophies' then go to your My Horses page and see if there's a new divine lurking default smiley :)
Dr Zig
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tangobay wrote:

Does anyone know how we can view our recent winnings from completing winning a trophy? I opened my mobile app this morning and clicked 'get' to claim my prize for earning a trophy and the app glitched and it showed a blank page so now I have no idea what I won.

You can check your inventory history.
On the mobile version, click the icon to go to the Trade section (the coins). Then tap "my inventory", and you'll see a History tab on the right
Legacy Ann
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oh my goodness I did find a divine lurking! I got Tarpan - cool beans
tangobay
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censurer This message has been censored since it does not follow the forum rules.
lavakirl12 wrote:

makes me cackle to see Yggy still as a trophy though default smiley xd the priorities are astounding


Wow, I totally agree with that!
Arabians are best
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ryanchi wrote:

He was supposed to be elusive, yes he's just pretty and doesn't really offer anything but he was my very first divine, so yes my feathers are ruffled default smiley xd

If he was your first divine why he can't be somebodys else first?
I really hope i can get him one day default smiley (8)
RumorHasIt
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I have to politely say I hate the new update. All the coat trophies I dumped a ton of money into are no longer here and the trophies that we have now all seem impossible. I also dislike the rosette look. I liked the aesthetic of the old trophies. And the "rewards" we're getting can be easily gained by doing the events.
copper1123lol
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And tarpan the new divine we are getting in the trophies, is really only useful for the coat trophies, which we no longer have.
copper1123lol
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copper1123lol wrote:

And tarpan the new divine we are getting in the trophies, is really only useful for the coat trophies, which we no longer have.


They may not be called trophies but they are still all there in the collections
deimos
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Please remember that you are allowed to be negative. If you say why that is better. If you can give some positive solutions for improvement, that is even better.

Just being rude to people who work hard behind the scenes is not allowed and will be censored.
deimos
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I think the main reason that I like this change is because, despite what my ranking suggests, I've never really cared about it, same with the trophies. Getting things I can actually use for my game is a higher priority to me, so I am happy with what has been done to it.
Oathkeeper
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Given that the Special Coat trophies can now no longer be completed by simply buying a horse with the coat, (we have to place it ourselves), perhaps the Special Coat items should be added to the Exchanges?

It's still too early to say how these changes will affect value of horses with Companions and Special Coats, but if Trophies are where the rewards are, how many players are now going to be willing to spend their money buying these horses just for Collections? Given how many points my General Score dropped, it seems Collections don't count much for that (unless it hasn't actually been added to it yet), so how many players will bother with Collections just for their General Ranking?

Adding these items to the Exchanges will at least keep some value for these items should the value of horses drop.
Legacy Ann
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Legacy Ann wrote:

Given that the Special Coat trophies can now no longer be completed by simply buying a horse with the coat, (we have to place it ourselves), perhaps the Special Coat items should be added to the Exchanges?

It's still too early to say how these changes will affect value of horses with Companions and Special Coats, but if Trophies are where the rewards are, how many players are now going to be willing to spend their money buying these horses just for Collections? Given how many points my General Score dropped, it seems Collections don't count much for that (unless it hasn't actually been added to it yet), so how many players will bother with Collections just for their General Ranking?

Adding these items to the Exchanges will at least keep some value for these items should the value of horses drop.


I agree. I have so many of the Special Coat items that I could give away or trade them if that were possible and still have enough left to complete my own collections.
Captain Canada
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Legacy Ann wrote:

Given that the Special Coat trophies can now no longer be completed by simply buying a horse with the coat, (we have to place it ourselves), perhaps the Special Coat items should be added to the Exchanges?

It's still too early to say how these changes will affect value of horses with Companions and Special Coats, but if Trophies are where the rewards are, how many players are now going to be willing to spend their money buying these horses just for Collections? Given how many points my General Score dropped, it seems Collections don't count much for that (unless it hasn't actually been added to it yet), so how many players will bother with Collections just for their General Ranking?

Adding these items to the Exchanges will at least keep some value for these items should the value of horses drop.


I definitely agree too! I have lots of companions and special coats stashed away in my inventory, which I had been saving to eventually sell on horses. Now these seem pretty worthless to anyone but me. Divines that give out companions or special coats will not be as valuable either, apart from applying them for the trophy. Many I tried for specifically so I could sell the special coats on if I got ones I didn’t need for my own collection... Applying 40 bears to a horse doesn’t really seem like an achievement, in comparison to carefully searching for every companion you need for a collection.
Batgirl
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Pretty disappointed that the nice looking trophies are gone. As a player who has spent the last few years collecting trophies and had them displayed on my page and liked looking at what trophies other players had gotten, I'm sad to see only the ribbon 'trophies' now. I just removed the trophy box from my page now.

Aside from that, I do like that we get rewards now and can no longer lose the trophies. So those are definite pluses to this change.
Rogin
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deimos wrote:

Please remember that you are allowed to be negative. If you say why that is better. If you can give some positive solutions for improvement, that is even better.

Just being rude to people who work hard behind the scenes is not allowed and will be censored.


The issue is that this update feels very rude towards us, the players. Howrse isn't listening to the players and changes are not thought out before implementing :/
If the hard work they're doing results in effort (consisting of time, money and planning) being annulled and replaced by childlike and cheap looking ribbons, maybe what is needed is a rude awakening...
I agree that insults aren't the way to go but this is real money we're talking about. So many players basically got scammed because they invested and now what they value has been taken away. And we can't get a refund for that or the time we invested ... so yeah, I truly have devs are reading all the feedback here, even the rude ones
MsAnirine
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MsAnirine wrote:

I truly have devs are reading all the feedback here, even the rude ones


There is now 10+ pages of negative feedback on this... I seriously hope they don't just ignore this!
Bell_z
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And I might add that the ideas that are being pitched here are only focusing on damage control. The problems that are trying to be fixed right now are Not to make howrse better but to partially get back to how the system was before. The feedback here is not as much focused on upgrading the system but downgrading it more to get back to how it was before :/
Don't fix what's not broken. Well, now people are trying to fix what's broken in hopes of having it at least half repaired default smiley xd
MsAnirine
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I can't quote you since you quoted my message (page 87), but thank you for the reply Nalu93! My confusion I suppose came more from me expecting those changes to be somewhat implemented before being released, where it feels at the moment kind of like the prepod testing has just moved over to the regular server.

With the divine trophies specifically, my concern was that people who do have collections of older divines are currently getting no benefit from them, whereas if you have lots of Grails or Dragons you can at least use the numbers to progress more quickly. If they are added in relatively soon then it wouldn't make too much of a difference, but if it takes a year to get everything added that would be frustrating.
wishuwell74
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As a 15-year veteran of the game, I'm very displeased with the new trophy update. As it is, I rarely log on after I found that the developers weren't really listening to what was more logical and important. It all seems to be just cosmetic work since they brought in the ambassador system.

Firstly, I'll discuss the look of it. It's just too simplified and boring. When I visited another player's page, one of my favorite things to do was look at how many trophies they had and which ones they had. There was a huge sense of pride and respect for the person when you clicked that dropdown arrow and saw so many trophies. Now, that pride and respect has been reduced to a mere number displayed on their page. Very disappointing and sad to see all the hard work be simplified and basically made universal to make everyone feel special. What I mean is that by seeing all of the trophies, it was more encouraging to work hard to collect them rather than just work hard for a single digit to be added.

Secondly, I'll discuss the objectives themselves. It reads like a video game achievement list from ARK, Minecraft, etc. I enjoyed Howrse for being more unique than that. Now, you've just made it like every other game. The trophies that involved the most work are no longer available and have been taken away from those who put in that work for them. The only good thing I see from that would be the coat trophies, where I've seen people (and I'm guilty of it too) buy all the coats then never use that horse. The horses remain in their farm for literal years. If there was an automatic aging thing put in place, it would make the coat collecting trophy that much more difficult and fun. As is, looking at the trophies remaining, I can see that some of mine have been reset as well. For example, the Great Challenge I: Collect 700 horseshoes has been reverted back to 0 for me when I had almost completed what would now be considered the "Gold" trophy version of said objective. Despite this, it is cool seeing a "Zonkey" trophy, which is new to me.

Thirdly, I'll discuss the positives. I really like seeing what the "Next Trophies" are. It helps tremendously when looking back to remind myself what I was doing last time I logged on. I also think it's kind of cool getting a little more incentive to complete trophies by implementing a reward system, though I think this would be even better if the original trophy display was continued on a player's page as well. Lastly, I enjoy the filter system as well. Despite the old categorized system of before being just as easy, I think that the filter system is just as helpful and probably should be implemented on all pages with lists.

Regardless of these positives, I believe that some aspects (as highlighted above) would be great if mixed with the old system. There are a few perks that I find very helpful, but overall, the motivation to complete these trophies has been hindered due to the lack of a display to match it. The reward isn't enough when you reduce the trophy display to just a number. Which that is exactly how I feel...like another number. We have enough numbers with the ranking system, do we really need to make everyone feel even less special or important by taking away one of the prides and points of having a player's page? Those are my final thoughts. I hope someone finds this helpful or insightful. Happy Howrsing!
Livey
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I just realized why the trophy display on pages is bothering me so much (besides everything that was mentioned so far)
It reduces every player to a linear and singular line of achievement. It´s now only about "how many diamond trophies do they have?"
it objectifies the gaming experiences and makes those with the most diamonds appear as if theyre supposed to be considered the best at the game.

Some players are very good at blupping and focused on that. Their trophies regaridng rosettes were impressive. Others had lots of horses and their diversity with their coat collections was astonishing. Again others focused on customisation, helios rays, fifth element, etc. There was so much individuality and now everything has been reduced to one single number - literally, because diamonds are deemed the best. It´s being pushed on us that your progress can be quantified by the sole number of how many diamond trophies you have

To me that is quite depressing
MsAnirine
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I will try to phrase this as politely as I can.

I think, to me, this feels like a dishonest move. I know that I, and many other players, have invested a large amount of money into the game. By my/our own choice, of course, but within the existing framework that used to be, and with those terms in mind, and in order to achieve the goals that were achievable in the game that was prior to this update.

I would personally NOT have elected to make those investments in the game, had this new set of playing rules and trophies been what was available at the time.

Instead of making radical, drastic changes to an existing and much-loved game, developers really should take care not to alter the game too much. They should always keep in mind that the current, loyal, old playerbase chose the game - and to stick with the game - for a reason. With such radical changes, theymight find that the reason many stuck with the game is suddenly no longer there.

Adding rewards for certain milestones is a good idea in itself, but removing the old trophies to do so is quite possibly one of the worst moves I have ever witnessed a game make. Howrse removed something that was liked and appreciated, and did not replace it with something better or more beautiful. Instead quite the opposite has happened.

The poor, player-unfriendly design and increased clicks needed to navigate is the "icing on the cake" for me as a desktop player.

Howrse will never win a typical desktop player over with aiming the game design at a mobile target audience, simplifying and dumbing the content down.

The irony is that if Howrse had simply added rewards for achieving milestones on top of the old trophies, I would have applauded such an update.
Cranedaughter
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I would just like to stress that Ambassadors were 'let go' at the beginning of 2019 and are in no way responsible for any of this.
Just thought I'd leave this out before they're pulled in a conversation they had nothing to do with. default smiley :)
Nalu93
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Cranedaughter wrote:

The irony is that if Howrse had simply added rewards for achieving milestones on top of the old trophies, I would have applauded such an update.


Same here
The milestones are a great idea for people to get into the game and level up, to get black market items or special horses. The old trophies were for those who cared about the trophies. Having both side by side would have literally made everyone happy
MsAnirine
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