[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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superauri wrote:

Yes! I had this same thought about the divine. It was the last one I needed but then served no point to me as there was no longer a trophy


There is not a trophy for the Prehistorics any more but they are now listed under collections. What is it that you are missing? a picture to put on your page? A way of telling other players what you have?

You see, for me, I was delighted when I won Tarpan many years ago because he helped me to fill the all coats for all breeds much more quickly. Personally I couldn't care less about whether I had a trophy because I only want Devines for the effect they will have on my game. I want to fill the collections because my OCD part says I should. But thats just me and I understand that others are very different and thats what makes it so hard to please everyone.
deimos
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Wow okay I haven't felt that personally attacked in a while. Close enough to my 13th reason honestly, wow. I liked the trophies, I like collecting things. I don't like the new layout and I liked the old way. DON'T FIZ WHAT AIN'T BROKE. I already have most of the coats anyway and honestly I couldn't be bothered to breed what I'm missing. I wait until it's cheap enough now in the sales. Literally the ONLY reason I still logged I was to look what was on sale for me to buy to finish a trophy. I got that money by my EC however it just takes too long to fix 3000+ boxes so now that's a dwindling game too. It's ever so mentally exhausting pressing the same 3 buttons 900 times.
superauri
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That was not meant as a personal attack. I seriously want to know what people do want. The chances of this going back to how it was before are, in my opinion, zero. In that case we need to say what would make the new layout more acceptable so I am just asking for ideas.

For the boxes perhaps you need to send feedback to Contact asking for a 'repair all' button.
deimos
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I think the new update for the trophies and "collections" completely missed the net in terms of making the game easier/more enjoyable. I can understand wanting to keep updating the game, however the new interfaces are much more bulky and much less user friendly than the old interface. I preferred having separate trophies I could show I achieved on my page as it was a badge of what I had achieved and was interested in. I am thoroughly surprised by the fact that it was completely upended and changed without gradual updates and subsequent community feedback.
It sounds like there is no returning to the same functionality. Is there a better forum to discuss the concern of continued game functionality and enjoyment? As it stands, many players that have been playing this game as I have for well over a decade are likely to leave based on these changes alone.
howrseplayer20
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deimos wrote:

What is it that you are missing? a picture to put on your page? A way of telling other players what you have?


Yes... that's part of it. Part of the fun of collecting the old trophies (at least for me, and I'm sure for many others who have voiced similar opinions) was winning the pretty little icon to put on your page. It's like checking a box when you've completed a task: it's satisfying and rewarding to have your hard work validated tangibly. It made ME happy. And what's so bad about wanting to show others what you've achieved? Trophies used to provide such insight into a player's game style, but now everyone looks the same (if anything having pure numbers on a page just makes it easier to compare players).

Trophies used to be manageable and bite-sized. You could work at collecting all the divines in a family (still an incredibly difficult feat, mind you), knowing that once you did you'd have checked off another trophy. There are SO many relatively useless divines on the game that might serve no purpose for you depending on your game style. For many players the only reason they went for a certain divine at all was for the trophy. Now you will forever have an incomplete % bar on the collections page, reminding you that you will never have every divine on the game. There is nothing gratifying or satisfying about that.

I agree that we're officially stuck with the new system. But they could at least listen to us and make it slightly more bearable. Having individual trophies for divine families is a small part that would help, in my opinion (it would certainly give me some motivation to complete my collections). A big thing would be having some way of displaying which trophies you have exactly, not just 4 unchanging rosettes with cryptic numbers under them.
imaginationcy
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superauri wrote:

Could somebody please let me know if there is a prize list? My EC comp trophy is full now and I got tiny.

Just wish there was a way to fix more than 20 boxes still. A bunch of mine are at 100% and I just don't have the time waste as much time is needed for regular upkeep.
The prizes cycle through:
Bonus Pack, A. Heel, Tears, Fertility Wand, Philosopher Stone, Chronos Timer, Athena's Medal, Horn of Plenty, and Vintage Apple, They go in any order with each cycle.
After you get the 9 items you get a divine.

So far we know it's: Tarpan, Tiny, Tianma, Etrian, and Skinfaxi (don't think I spelled him right.)
We were told there's a Xanthos at some point too
Legacy Ann
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imaginationcy wrote:

. A big thing would be having some way of displaying which trophies you have exactly, not just 4 unchanging rosettes with cryptic numbers under them
We were told on preprod that they'll work on a way to let us customize how the trophies are displayed on our page. Not sure how, if we never get individual icons for each, but it's on their list
Legacy Ann
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deimos wrote:

That was not meant as a personal attack. I seriously want to know what people do want. The chances of this going back to how it was before are, in my opinion, zero. In that case we need to say what would make the new layout more acceptable so I am just asking for ideas.

For the boxes perhaps you need to send feedback to Contact asking for a 'repair all' button.


Personally, I'd like it to count towards the ranking like it used to. Before, the collections actually DID something for the game which was... for me, pretty much the main reason I did it.

I'd also like the layout to be better (it's a scrambled mess right now, hard to see what if anything you have) and, yeah, having a little icon for your page wouldn't be bad. It was fun knowing what people were working towards and what they'd done, and it was a little bit nice to be able to go on your page and see the wall of icons you'd collected.

Yeah, like you said, NOW the only reason to collect Divines is cause they benefit your game, but none of the Divines they've given in lieu of removing all the fun stuff have benefitted my game any (personally) so, not a fair trade in my opinion.
Crookedstar915
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To be fair, the atmosphere in this topic hasn't been the nicest, especially when it comes to how quite a lot of the posts have been targeted at the admins. The anger and frustration is justified, but the way some of it has been shown is not; would you feel comfortable posting when there is a high chance that whatever you say could be torn apart in a similar fashion? It in no ways justifies the silence, but just a little food for though as to why they might not have really said anything.
Oathkeeper
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Crookedstar915 wrote:

Personally, I'd like it to count towards the ranking like it used to. Before, the collections actually DID something for the game which was... for me, pretty much the main reason I did it.
The Collections do count towards our General Ranking Score.
Divines are in the Collections, so collecting them still counts as well
Legacy Ann
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@Legacy Ann - how? They don't seem to; I dropped significantly in the rankings after the trophies updated and yet I haven't lost any collections, so why would that happen if they were still being counted? default smiley :s
Crookedstar915
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Crookedstar915 wrote:

@Legacy Ann - how? They don't seem to; I dropped significantly in the rankings after the trophies updated and yet I haven't lost any collections, so why would that happen if they were still being counted? default smiley :s
We haven't been given the new formula, but it says in the change log, and we were told in preprod that they do count for our General Score.

Our General Score dropped (in my case significantly, because I lost over 200 trophies) the first day because we lost actual "trophies" and not all the old trophies transferred to Collections (such as my H.Ray, 5th Element species, etc)..The issue is that we don't know how much Collections do count, I've asked, so hopefully we get some info.I've been doing experiments on the UK server where I can disregard changing horse skills, and just focus on changes in my Collections. I do see increases in my Score, just from Collections and seniority changes.

The Trophy ranking only considers your actual Trophies.
Legacy Ann
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Hi, I wanted to post some feedback here I the hopes that it will actually be seen. I've noticed that the Rosette Trophies seem to really buggy. Since the update and new trophy system I've earned, for example, over 10 new rosettes with the same horse but the objective to 'win 5 rosettes with the same horse' hasn't budged. Neither has the counter for "Earn 20 Rosettes".

I realize that we don't have this info available, but it would be nice to know when and how these trophies update from the Devs.
BlackwoodEstate
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Oh, another good thing about trophies that collections no longer have - partial credit.

Used to be, you could have 5, 10, 25 Ow's Helios Ray trophies and each one would give you a boost up. Now you have to have ALL of them to get the 100%, and they add more all the time, making it... well, not impossible, but there was something nice in getting rewards as you go along instead of sticking this super-high goal where few can reach and then bumping it higher and higher every time there's a new event.

With RAs it's even sillier. There's no WAY anyone can get all of those, but it used to be perfectly possible to get the RA trophies the old way. You just had to have 1, or 10, or 25 unique ones. Now if you don't have them ALL you may as well not bother.
Crookedstar915
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Adding onto BlackwoodEstate's post about the "trophy" page being buggy my *Latest trophies obtained* box ain't showing me the latest medals obtained very well it continues to revert to medals from 2023-01-03 ( also I'm not vibing with the year/month/day format, maybe its because I'm used to seeing day/month/year all the time, but it just looks wack)
I'm pretty sure others have mentioned LTO box not doing its job correctly and its not just mine playing up. If there's gonna be a massive overhaul with very big potential for major backlash I'd have thought that Howrse would've at least made sure that everything worked correctly before implementing it.

Now some constructive feedback that I've kindly borrowed from the Aus server that I think would help tidy things up somewhat and make navigating pages easier:
-Add a section in Collections for the Golden Apples Coats and Helios Rays we have applied
- Alphabetize the Classic coats section on the Collections page
- Alphabetize the display of breeds in the Horse breeds section
-Set the Collections page out like the old trophy page with the drop down boxes to take out all those unnecessary clicks
-Add a section for -100 RC's or at least make them distinguishable somehow
-Remove the Special Horses section from the collections page, they already have a designated page that's easier to navigate as they are now
ryanchi
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deimos wrote:

That was not meant as a personal attack. I seriously want to know what people do want. The chances of this going back to how it was before are, in my opinion, zero. In that case we need to say what would make the new layout more acceptable so I am just asking for ideas.

For the boxes perhaps you need to send feedback to Contact asking for a 'repair all' button.




You seriously want to know what people want? Read back 30 pages and you'll see all the many suggestions for improving this ugly and awful update default smiley (8)
Crystal Clear
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Not sure how i supposedly climbed 122,000 places in the trophy ranking overnight, considering my spot yesterday was 100ish lower than it has been previously. And that's not taking into account the broken rosette trophies which haven't updated default smiley (o)
wingsforwheels
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Crystal Clear wrote:

You seriously want to know what people want? Read back 30 pages and you'll see all the many suggestions for improving this ugly and awful update default smiley (8)


Thank you. Done that already.
deimos
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I've noticed something else with this new update that hasn't been mentioned anywhere. It seems some competitions are taking significantly longer to post who won the competition. For instance, I entered my Jupiter and Io into two competitions this morning and they haven't posted the winner in more than 15 minutes. Both competitions had 3 horses already in the race before I entered my two, so it was a full competition. Normally it only takes a minute or so to post the winner. It only seems to be some competitions though, not all of them. Did they make a change in how they decide who wins? I know my Jupiter and Io came in first and second, they had to, so why so long to report it? Still not posted in the 5 minutes it took me to write this.
Jade Heart
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ryanchi wrote:

Now some constructive feedback that I've kindly borrowed from the Aus server that I think would help tidy things up somewhat and make navigating pages easier:
-Add a section in Collections for the Golden Apples Coats and Helios Rays we have applied
- Alphabetize the Classic coats section on the Collections page
- Alphabetize the display of breeds in the Horse breeds section
-Set the Collections page out like the old trophy page with the drop down boxes to take out all those unnecessary clicks
-Add a section for -100 RC's or at least make them distinguishable somehow
-Remove the Special Horses section from the collections page, they already have a designated page that's easier to navigate as they are now

According to the French server, there are too many GA coats and landscapes to add to the Collections.
I'm unsure why adding "put a Helios' Ray" to the Trophy page couldn't be done, unless that's something they'll do.

The Special Horses display in the Collections does look a bit redundant to the Special Horse pages, but keeping them in the Collections continues to them count to our General Ranking Score.

I would dearly love for the breeds collection to be reorganized though. I'm glad I have all of the breeds, simply so I don't have to bother navigating that one.
Legacy Ann
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Legacy Ann wrote:

I would dearly love for the breeds collection to be reorganized though. I'm glad I have all of the breeds, simply so I don't have to bother navigating that one.


Yes. I wouldn't have thought it would be too difficult now that they are in list form anyway just to change it to alphabetical.
deimos
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Oathkeeper wrote:

To be fair, the atmosphere in this topic hasn't been the nicest, especially when it comes to how quite a lot of the posts have been targeted at the admins. The anger and frustration is justified, but the way some of it has been shown is not; would you feel comfortable posting when there is a high chance that whatever you say could be torn apart in a similar fashion? It in no ways justifies the silence, but just a little food for though as to why they might not have really said anything.


The thing is, when a big change like this is made, it should be fully explained.

Mods may have a little more information then we do but really no pull with the 'people in power'. It appears that Admins' have no power either. However, since they are the only other connection to information for the players, they should be in this thread talking to us. By talking to us, not just making a blanket statement and disappearing.

Most of us 'old' players remember how the original Ow kept us informed, good or bad. That was pretty much a daily thing around the same time every day. That's important for the health of the game. Believe me, it was much more of a community back then.
Arabians are best
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deimos wrote:


Thank you. Done that already.



I mean no disrespect, but if that's the case then I'm not entirely sure what you're unclear on? We've made it quite evident that displaying trophies aren't the only thing we miss. Nor are displaying trophies only useful for "showing off". If you truly want to see people's suggestions for positive changes to this update, the 30 pages have more than enough information.

We haven't just complained with no offer of solution. It's quite clear Howrse won't change this. We all know them well enough to know that. That's why people have specified what they dislike and want changed.
Crystal Clear
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I'm fully aware how different it was, I've been here since the end of 2008, but I also recall how different the player base was. I might not have frequented the forums enough, but I don't remember it being as tense when changes that the community didn't like happened.
Oathkeeper
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@ Legacy Ann
Not all the GA coats and landscapes, that would be pure insanity just the ones we have applied, they used to track it before I don't see why they wouldn't now. I'd like to see which landscapes I have used cause sometimes I don't favourite them and I can't remember the names or search combination I used for them which makes them hard to track down when I want to use them again. I also loved seeing all my GA coats in one spot from the click of a trophy, I could look at it, see what I had amassed all in one spot and see the names of creations. I hope they address the GAs and landscapes somehow at some point.

If any of that didn't read smoothly I'm tired and I apologize default smiley xd
ryanchi
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