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Geldings, More Geldings, and Maturity...Hooray! | |
Issa (#1) | |
08/09/20 6:31 pm | |
Happy December everyone! I hope you all had successful World Championship Festival results to wrap up another exciting racing season. Although the racing season has wrapped up for many, don't forget to enter the International Stock Horse Championships this week! December also marks the first card of Initiate's Quest races for all you "newbies" out there. Be sure to enter! We have some big news coming at ya today, but first I wanted to touch base on the region change again. Although the Pacific region itself is closing down, we've brought Olive Pink Racing Club and Saddle Hill Park back to the European region they formerly called home. If you're one of our friends down under, feel free to move right back to these tracks. Additionally, some legs of the Zodiac Zenith and Elemental Seniority races will still be held at the Pacific series track -- adding just a little extra spice to those series! For those who aren't sure how to go above moving, here's a quick list of steps: 1) Visit Stable > Settings and change your region. You'll pick a new home track in the process. 2) Visit Stable > Training Assistants. Select the track your horses are currently at and the track you wish to move them to. (This may be slow to run.) 3) Cancel contracts with any unnecessary assistants. If at any part in the process you end up with horses at no track, simply repeat step 2 and select 'No Track' as the Current Track and then move horses to the desired New Track. Without further ado, let's dive into the more anticipated updates! Yearling Buddies Yes, you heard that right! You can now assign buddies to your yearlings. Buddies will hang out with yearlings in their turnouts and help teach them a thing or two about gettin' old. To be eligible to hang out with your yearlings, a gelding must be under 20 years old and must be transitioned to yearling buddying. Once transitioned, they can never become a workout buddy again. Yearling buddies can be assigned (and unassigned) from Yearling Exercise pages. You can also view a list of assignments from Gelding Manage pages, where you can also unassign yearlings as needed. Each gelding can buddy with a maximum of 3 yearlings at a time. All yearlings with a buddy will see a few benefits at each month's rollover: chance to improve Courage and Consistency, increased Morale, increased Peak, increased Maturity, and decreased Risk. If their buddy has earned a Gelding Advancement trait (see below), they may experience additional benefits. Gelding Advancement Throughout a colt or gelding's career, they will earn Advancement points which are displayed as a meter on their Manage page. The points earned are based upon their PR in races -- the more they race and the higher their PR, the faster their meter will fill. (All horses who have raced within the past few years have received some Advancement points already!) A horse must be gelded before he can take advantage of Advancement, even though colts earn points too. He must also reach at least 50% Advancement. Once eligible, you may choose from a list of available Advancement Traits. The traits you can choose from will depend on several factors, including Advancement Tier. Eligibility for the 3 tiers is determined by how full your gelding's meter is: 50% for Tier I, 75% for Tier II, and 100% for Tier III. You can find a full list of tiers below, but there are a couple more things to keep in mind. First, geldings are much like Cinderella's carriage and will turn into pumpkins when they turn 11 -- you must choose a trait by the time a gelding is 10 years old! Second, any stallion who is used for breeding will lose Advancement based upon the number of mares he covers. This is not to say that you cannot ever breed a stallion and later assign a trait, but your options will likely be more limited. Tier I Traits Kind Eye: A sweet guy who is so fun to be around he helps yearlings and racers improve Morale. Gelding must have Excellent+ Temperament. Body Builder: A gelding who helps yearlings grow big and strong, improving their Maturity. Yearlings ONLY. Gelding must have Excellent+ Development. Bromantic: A brotherly figure who helps horses build Courage and Consistency. He will help racers improve their current Courage/Consistency and yearlings improve their maximum Courage/Consistency. Tier II Traits Fierce Competitor: A competitive horse who will push your horse to perform at its best, improving Experience. Buddy workouts ONLY. Patient Pal: A great partner for a green horse, this buddy helps yearlings and racers improve their Peak. Steady Eddy: A sure-footed gelding who will help your racer improve their Soundness. Buddy workouts ONLY. Gelding must have Excellent+ Conformation. Tier III Traits Career Coach: If you want a long career from your racer, this guy is their best friend! He will help racers and yearlings improve Prime. Jumps for Joy: A gelding who loves jumping so much he'll help your Steeplechase horses gain bonus Experience. Buddy workouts ONLY. Gelding must have competed in Steeplechase. Mirror: This gelding is a pro at mirroring exactly what your horse does. He will always run within 5 points of his buddy's workout score. Buddy workouts ONLY. Gelding must have Excellent+ Intelligence. Silver Senior: A gelding who never seems to get old. His buddy workout score won't decrease when he turns 12. Buddy workouts ONLY. Gelding must have Excellent+ Health. Trialed and Triumphed: A gelding who knows what it takes to win a Driving Trial and will help your transitioned horses gain bonus Experience. Buddy workouts ONLY. Gelding must have competed in Driving Trials. Unflurried: A cool as a cucumber gelding who has his eyes so locked on the prize he's never distracted. He will help yearlings improve their Colt Composure and Filly Power. Yearlings ONLY. Workout Buddies Unrelated to the above changes, geldings must now have a minimum of 80% soundness to perform buddy workouts. You can't exactly expect a lame gelding to keep up with your best racers! Maturity We have significantly adjusted Maturity rates to better reflect realistic growth curves. Growth here on FFH will still be a little bit accelerated overall, but you should no longer expect to see fully-grown 2 year olds. What this means for you is that fast-maturing horses will reach full growth sometime during their 3 year old year and slow-maturing horses will reach full growth into their 5 year old year. Existing yearlings through 3 year olds will be adjusted (either tonight or later this week) to better reflect the new rates. This change cannot function without some adjustments to training and racing standards. Since horses grow slower, we no longer expect them to reach the same level of Maturity before embarking upon training and/or racing. It is now considered safe to train horses at 25% and 40% Maturity (formerly 60% and 80%) and safe to race at 60% Maturity. It should be noted that racing a little below 60% is not the end of the world -- horses are not at considerable risk unless their Maturity is significantly lower. |
Replies |
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joeysjockey (#6723) | |
08/09/20 6:35 pm | |
love this new concept! kinda like Thunder Gulch and American Pharoah when the latter first entered stud! |
Kelso (#1083) | |
08/09/20 6:37 pm | |
I'm so glad the safe maturity %s were lowered because that worried me at first! I'm really excited about the yearling buddies though. Definitely makes geldings even more valuable. |
Isabella (#1563) | |
08/09/20 6:41 pm | |
OHHHHH as a lover of my geldings i just flat out love this. a lot of info to take in though, so i think i might have to go ang out in chat for a bit... |
Lady Revna (#2458) | |
08/09/20 6:45 pm | |
very interesting changes! curious to see how the yearling buddies work! racing 2 year olds with lower maturity will take some getting used to, but I do like the changes made overall! I am excited to see them at work. |
Qulka (#7243) | |
08/09/20 6:52 pm | |
Really interesting update. Need to used to that after I just learned the old system but that looks like a good changes. |
Okro (#2872) | |
08/09/20 6:52 pm | |
Really excited about these changes, will add a dimension to buddies and more engagement with yearlings I'm sure! :) |
Ursula (#6380) | |
08/09/20 7:16 pm | |
This is awesome!! I’m so excited for the yearling buddies!! I’m glad my geldings will have some more value, too! |
Arthenia (#602) | |
08/09/20 7:31 pm | |
Very interesting!! I may have to actually keep some geldings now xD |
Sapphire (#3825) | |
08/09/20 8:04 pm | |
Oh awesome! Time to go get my yearlings a couple buddies! |
Erin B (#6174) | |
08/09/20 8:30 pm | |
Very interesting changes. I can't wait to see them in gameplay. |
Charlie (#6108) | |
08/09/20 8:42 pm | |
Wow... Nice changes. Looking forward to learning all the new tricks :) |
Emily (#4291) | |
08/09/20 8:44 pm | |
Will their traits show up in the bar where u select a buddy? That would be awesome 😊 |
Morgan (#4071) | |
08/09/20 9:20 pm | |
That's a lot to take in, I'll have to read over the post again to be sure I'm clear on it all. I do like the maturity changes though. |
Jarvis (#2080) | |
08/09/20 10:43 pm | |
These changes are so cool! I look forward to figuring out how to apply them to my stable. I'm excited that buddies have gotten a revamp since I basically stopped using buddy workouts when they started using energy. |
Liesel (#2560) | |
08/09/20 10:43 pm | |
Super cool news for geldings. Glad to see them get more uses :) |
Eve (#27) | |
08/09/20 11:04 pm | |
I'm excited that some of my fav geldings will have more jobs to do once they retire!! I also like the maturity changes, i think it will make things more realistic and make getting ready for gemstones easier. |
Jack Colton (#4064) | |
08/09/20 11:45 pm | |
Those sound like good changes. |
Wolf (#4154) | |
08/10/20 12:30 am | |
This is a different change and im liking it I was thinking about getting rid of most of my buddies as Im not really buddy working anymore but I will for sure keep them now |
Maeve (#1539) | |
08/10/20 1:01 am | |
these changes sound super interesting, can't wait to play around with them! |
Dea Invidia (#3750) | |
08/10/20 2:06 am | |
Ooh can't wait to see how some of these change the game for my barn, especially geldings! |
Anjan (#5822) | |
08/10/20 3:39 am | |
That is a lot of changes. Loving the yearling buddy idea - might give me something to do with some of my extra buddies that pretty much never gets to work after the changes to the buddy workout last year. Also liking that geldings are getting a bit more interesting with these advancements. The maturity update is interesting and I will have to see how it actually plays out in the long run... |
King (#6759) | |
08/10/20 7:57 am | |
I was wondering what the gelding achievements were. That’s a cool add on |
AtticaRose (#717) | |
08/10/20 8:38 am | |
Excellent adjustments. I might have to read and re-read this a few times to take everything in and remember. :) |
KayleighB (#757) | |
08/10/20 8:51 am | |
These changes are really cool. I'm also excited about Olive Pink coming back :) It was my original home track. |
smakie (#2889) | |
08/10/20 8:55 am | |
A lot to take in! Excited about the yearling buddies though, what a cool concept |
endless (#2304) | |
08/10/20 9:48 am | |
Excited to have a more detailed use for all my retired guys! |
Electra (#2789) | |
08/10/20 10:49 am | |
Thanks for the excellent update! |
Cal (#7414) | |
08/10/20 10:52 am | |
Thank you so much! This is so cool. But how do you set up buddy work outs? im sorta new. |
Firestorm (#2063) | |
08/10/20 11:00 am | |
I love these changes!!! Especially the maturity! |
Nicolas (#7368) | |
08/10/20 11:17 am | |
Seriously amazing update! The yearling buddies and overall change of the buddy system sounds so promising |
Joanie (#4115) | |
08/10/20 11:48 am | |
Honestly, a little panicked at first. I was thinking ‘this is majorly complicated. But after absorbing it a little. I’m seeing the value that has now been bestowed on retired geldings that performed at the highest levels. Still a little uncertain how it will all piece together. But I like the change. |
Keiser (#6346) | |
08/10/20 5:14 pm | |
Very exciting changes indeed! Need to go and get some more retired geldings now! |
dragonfyre (#6286) | |
08/11/20 3:03 pm | |
Really liking these changes for Geldings, should provide some interesting Buddy Workout influences in future. And I love being able to have Yearling buddies! |
Emily Ann (#7041) | |
08/11/20 10:19 pm | |
Great changes. Definitely love the idea of yearling buddy idea. Definitely gonna need to get some more buddies now. |
Rendezvous (#5831) | |
08/17/20 11:00 am | |
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how my geldings excel even in retirement as buddies. This adds even more potential to our lovely boys |
notajockey (#7406) | |
08/19/20 4:22 pm | |
awesome, always great to see the geldings get some love |
Ainsley Lawson (#8530) | |
8/28/2021 08:35 PM | |
I love that these new posts have been a thing for a long time and how involved the community gets in on saying hi and hello |