Redwood Valley Equestrian Centre || Discussion

[caf.]

thanks iStarz! i’ll update the entries shortly!

[OutFoxed]

Hi,
I've noticed a few things with the showing system and ended up doing a bit of brainstorming. I love all of the hard work Sydney and caf. have done with the shows - you've done a wonderful job.

I have horses who need a job - ie showing, but can't compete currently due to either the classes filling up from my barn, or being far under the skill level. As horses are qualifying, it'll take the higher ranking horses hopefully out of the schooling classes (at least, that's my goal/hope/plan) - but I've got to get them qualified first. Trying to compete horses who's highest suited discipline is barely half of what another's stats are (ex. a horse with 35 vs 65 physical stats) - even with all the show calculations, the best hope is for a major fault to give an even playing field - which is unsportsmanlike wish even for a sim. Winning on a technicality or injury is never fun.
If there was some way to help with the horses who are just starting out careers, or will always be at a novice level, the low level reliables; a baby greens class, a novice level class, or something similar. I understand that the current system (which is lovely and I understand the undertaking in just adding in the Regionals), but there seems to be a gap in the shows.

I was also wondering about the classes that have limited horses (cough marathon cough) and the possibility to judge classes that haven't run in a long time. Maybe adding NPC horses in, taking a payout cut, a payout cut with a stat bonus (+1 train). There would definitely have to be some stiff rules to discourage barns from entering a limited number of horses into unpopular classes just to reap the benefits.
Maybe a "Disciplines Days" where adopts are focused on the 'rarer' disciplines and potentially adopted with tack - to help push those classes.

Maybe the associations can be involved and offer "inspections" to help 'scout' out qualified horses for upper levels, so that the schooling shows are less flooded with higher ranking horses waiting to be qualified.

Is there a specific location to submit Invitational Prompts? (is it easier to keep track of on a separate area or is the show thread still the best area to post it?)

The Show Thread needs a small amount of updating, a post for the Regionals, the Hall of Fame needs updating ( obviously not a priority), and a little bit of name changing (open shows to schooling shows)

I apologize for the scattered thoughts and rambling - was noticing a problem while trying to schedule shows, and figured that if I was having a problem, then others with larger barns must be having similar issues.

[SydneyandStorm]

Thank you so much for all the thought you've put into this, OutFoxed! I've got to be somewhere shortly so I'm not sure how much I'll have time to type but I'll try to at least address your first concern first and then get around to the others later ^^

That is a big problem, and one I'd really like to fix... From what I've seen, there seem to be two major classes of horses that excel at their discipline: those with stats that gear them towards that discipline in a big big way and those with strong training points that may not have the best stats but will still win simply because their training has gotten them so far. So horses that fall outside of those categories would really struggle in any shows run as normal.

I see two more obvious solutions to this, the first of which is some kind of class (novice, for example) in which a cap on training restricts which horses can enter. This would allow younger horses to have competition at their own level, since competing against horses with high training really puts them at a disadvantage, but wouldn't really help horses with low stats all the way around. The other would be some kind of class (like maiden races, more or less) for horses that have lost X number of shows at the schooling level or placed below a certain place X number of times. This would cover more horses but it would also mean that the skill gap would still be there -- there would just be less horses to compete against and they would at least be less skilled than most horses they'd be going against in schooling shows. The reason this is such a hard solution to come up with, of course, is that some level of that will always be there; setting a cap on total physical stats allowed in a certain show is difficult to do because there will be horses that fall over and under that amount that will still have either a strong advantage or disadvantage, whether due to training or stat makeup, and setting a cap on training will favor horses that have higher base stats overall. And then, of course, the more shows we add for as long as we still have caps on the number of disciplines/shows that can be entered per horse, the less horses we'll have to fill the shows in general, which makes it more difficult to make sure each discipline runs. It's a vicious cycle ^^'

I wouldn't be opposed, however, to adding divisions in shows, much like is done with barrel racing to my understanding. This may be the easiest and fastest way to address the problem, but it would only be possible for disciplines that have six horses entering or more. With this, after a show is run (using six entered horses as an assumption), the top three horses will be in the higher division (probably division AAA or something like that, because lots of sports use that notation I guess) and the bottom three horses will be in the lower division (AA?) and placings will be given out 1-3, so even lower placing horses may still have the opportunity to win a "1st" -- maybe just not the breeding bonus I already have such a hard time keeping up with and perhaps a lower payout than first in the top divison ^^' -- and we don't have to worry about asking horses to enter an entirely new, separate division that may never fill. The divisions would fill from the top down -- so seven horses means four in AAA and three in AA and eight horses means four in AAA and four in AA -- until another multiple of three is reached, and then we create a third division or something? Of course, this means that the more horses that enter, the more divisions are created, and with a regular show this might mean that any horse placing 4th or 5th gets pretty rare. And, of course, this doesn't help horses that are struggling in shows where not many horses are being entered in the first place, because six is a pretty high number for a standard show at RVEC to reach. The plus side of this is that it would hopefully mean minimal extra work for caf., because there'd be no change in judging the shows, just a slight alteration in giving out the results.

One final solution, for the horses that will always fall to the bottom of the pile, is to add what would essentially be a "job" system for showing -- lesson ponies. I know we tried this a while ago with older horses that didn't quite work out, but... I mean, we can't ignore the massive percentage of the equestrian population comprised of little kids riding around on rented ponies (and horses) all day in the hot sun and chasing a bunch of blue ribbons that net them exactly nothing in monetary value but plenty of life lessons in patience, humility, and sportsmanship while their parents empty their pockets to the ponies' real owners. And these ponies, while nice, reliable, and usually somewhat skilled at their discipline, are usually not the most talented of the bunch in terms of international competition ability. So... one solution I can think of for horses that will never rank very high in their selected discipline is to have them enter shows as lesson ponies to earn a fixed amount of income for each show. Huge caveat here: Horses and ponies entered as lesson ponies could not be entered in any other disciplines. If they are no longer being used as lesson ponies they could be entered into shows normally again, but they couldn't enter one schooling/regional/invitational show and one lesson pony show at the same time; they just wouldn't have the energy (or something like that to justify the fact that a fixed amount of income per horse could be very easily abused). How complicated this would be would be dependent on general opinions but it could be anything from any lesson pony, regardless of stats, attitude, training, or natural talent, receives X amount of money (probably equivalent to 4th or 5th place of a schooling show) to lesson ponies with better stats or with attitudes conducive to children showing them receive more money than others -- and in the interest of caf.'s sanity, for this I could draw up a spreadsheet with all submitted lesson ponies and the amount of money they would receive for being entered in a show if it's decided that it should vary by pony. There would be no placings, no random factors, and probably no disciplines -- just submit the horse and the money is yours next time the showing cycle ends -- but on the flip side, there'd be no waiting for others to enter sufficient horses either. So there's one thought that could really give horses and ponies whose stats are not in their favor an opportunity to earn money for their trainer... the big problem, of course, like all these solutions, is that it pulls horses out of the showing pool and risks making classes smaller if a lot of people favor a set amount of money they'll make to the random factor or stiff competition in real shows. Naturally, there's a lot to talk about with that as a possible solution ^^

While I'm not entirely opposed to adding NPC horses, the problem with these guys has always been that their stats invariably are either way better than or way lower than their competitors. While this is also the case with real horses, it can get kind of frustrating to be going against horses that don't even exist and consistently losing to them because while their stats are well within the expected range for their disciplines, they're still higher than others' horses, and on the flip side, it's way too easy money to always fill shows with horses a little worse than their competitors and also a lot when it comes to judging -- since rather than having to score anywhere from 5-7 shows on a good day, you're having to run random events for all 16 (and that's if you don't count futurities, regionals, or invitationals). So I'm not entirely opposed to the idea but that's probably something I'll leave up to caf. in the long run since they're the one who'd have to deal with all that would come along with that -- I just know from prior experience that NPCs can be very difficult to make fair in a showing system and can often add a lot of work to judging the results ^^'

I do like the idea of "discipline days" where horses are adopted out with their tack already equipped! The only problem is that when I've offered adopts specifically for certain disciplines in the past, they still aren't always entered in those disciplines because RVEC is really dominated by discipline-specific barns and usually a horse who's good at one discipline shows enough promise for another to make them attractive even to adopters who generally show horses in an entirely different discipline. But having their tack equipped might very well be enough to sway adopters into taking advantage of a good deal! cx

Anything associations can do to be more in the mix of things I would love. Do you have any particular idea as to how these "inspections" might work?

I'm afraid I don't feel confident enough that I'll answer the invitational prompts question correctly -- we'll have to wait for caf. to come on here and remind me ^^

Thanks for pointing out those updates, by the way! I'll get around to them as soon as possible c: I think I'd done so much of that on the comprehensive guide I forgot to come back here, haha ^^

[OutFoxed]

Super short and quick, as I'd love to hear from caf. first (and anyone else interested) before I reply to everything you've said.

I am very much drawn to the idea of having 'sections' or 'grades' or 'divisions' or what have you - the ability to separate the same class down to allow the top ranking horses to be 'pitted' against each other, while the lower ranking horses are able to be pitted against themselves. With some disciplines, it could very well turn out to be as though several classes are being offered simultaneously without being a the qualification tier point system. I would definitely utilize this system and almost my entire barn could be entered into one discipline - which has been my problem, too many horses for one discipline spread across the board on ability. Limited point in entering low-end horses, or horses without a hope to qualify higher, when only six get paid for placing (such an opposite mindset to real life x.x); but having an ability to challenge all entered horses to those within their set would be really interesting. And hopefully not a pain to formulate in with the current system.

(I will reply in full after others post - but just wanted to jump on that idea)

[maybe another poll could be helpful to see what disciplines current and future members enjoy or would like to participate in; might be helpful in organizing or incorporating more members, with the shows or associations.]

{if anyone would be willing to discuss and soundboard talk on associations - help with creating a general skeleton to build multiple associations off of - and find out what is truly in need or would get used; driving association, combined driving, working cow, reining, western pleasure, stock horse, draft, and maybe finally get the H/J assoc. up and running - but getting a form/skeleton/foundation to then help get them up and running, then maybe someone who is interested won't find it such a daunting task to operate by themselves. I will do what I can in the next week to start working on something. Syd and caf., I love the associations pages you've made and manage, and would love to utilize a building block from those. I'm so hoping that members will want to be more involved if there are simple steps for them to take. I for one will strive to be more active within those realms as well as in the daily community.

[caf.]

thank you, OutFoxed, your input is much appreciated! i'll try and address your points as clearly as i can, but it has been a very busy night, haha.

yeah, i certainly see what you mean, i have some horses that just never get into the ribbons because their competitors are simply too good. really, the horses with good physical stats aren't the ones i see succeeding as overwhelmingly as the ones with high training - that's a big part of the reason i added the age penalty, and i'm honestly considering making it more severe and perhaps applying it to horses over 16, or something similar. still, i want to be careful to ensure that players with older horses that are very well-trained are rewarded, while still being realistic about the abilities of an older horse! it's a tricky balance.

i'm not that opposed to adding in a green class separate from the schooling shows, but i just see it as another class we'll struggle to fill and run regularly. this divisions idea, though, is interesting! good thinking, Syd! i like what you've suggested, for sure (we can work on names - i truthfully haven't a clue how hunter divisions work, but then i know eventing divisions are even more ridiculous and nonsensical) (though, on second thought, maybe we could just call the divisions "open," "green," and so forth?), i just have a couple of concerns.

for one, i worry a little about prize money. like you said, the lower division would likely pay out less, but still, competing against three horses instead of six nets a whole lot of money. plus, of course, most show classes in real life aren't only three horses. i'd either suggest upping the minimum for divisions to start to eight horses (four horses per division - 4-6 horses seems pretty ideal to create sufficient competition), or perhaps altering the prizes a little bit to be sure that there's still some challenge to winning and building sizeable wealth? eight does sound like a lot though, i'll have to run back through the previous results and see what the average class size really is. again, trying to balance reward with realism!

also, i might suggest a slight alteration in how divisions are formed. i've debated between basing the divisions on age (hard because i don't check age, really, until a horse is starting to get up there in its years) and physical stats (hard because these don't have as much effect on showing as other elements), but i'd much rather base it off training than off the horse's final performance. after all, in real life, when a show steward is dividing up the class, they'd never place a 12-time barrel champion in the same division as a five-year-old greenie, because they simply can't predict if the champion horse will fall or experience a major setback. it seems more realistic to base the divisions off of some quantifiable quality of the horse, because that's something that can be evaluated before the class, but doesn't require me to dig around to see if the horse has so many wins and whatever else.

i've wondered about the possibilities of lesson ponies! honestly, at times i've thought about suggesting "lessons" as an alternative to training, in which an owner can make a little money off their horse each week instead of training it. however, i hesitate to remove them from the placings entirely - i have a friend who, when her horse was lame, ended up riding a lesson horse in shows, qualifying him for regional championships, and actually winning her class, boosting his value significantly. perhaps, in order to allow them to place without messing up others' horses, you could impose a rather significant penalty on lesson ponies (after all, being ridden by a child/unfamiliar rider, they simply aren't as likely to perform as well)? similarly, like you suggested, it could remove horses from the showing cycle that we really need. it's an interesting thought, for sure, and a good discussion to be had!

i've always liked the idea of NPC horses - you can gather that from my association page, haha. i think the nice thing about using horses like those from the AI bank is that there are enough of them that it's truly random, whether you generate one that's extremely well-suited to the discipline or extremely poorly so. of course, though, i hesitate to run NPCs for every show because i honestly think i'd go insane, haha. perhaps a compromise - NPCs can be run for schooling classes that have not run in three or more cycles, and they aren't available for regionals, futurities, or invitationals?

ah, i love the idea of discipline days! i'm not sure if this was meant to be a surprise, but i was bouncing some ideas for a combined driving event off of Syd earlier, so that could certainly help things bump up too. my hope is that, should we start putting some horses into the game of a variety of disciplines, players might be tempted to start branching out!

as for invitational prompts, i've been considering starting another thread in character storage. you could even do it on a google doc and link-share it, if you wanted! actually, you're welcome to pm them to me, too, if you'd rather not have to find a place for them. i'd have a more standard response for you, but right now i'm mostly focused on getting the regionals and schooling shows chugging along and keeping up with the water balloon points, so since invitational entries have been so low i truthfully don't mind there being some loose ends - as long as i have proof that you wrote the prompt, feel free to do it however you like, and i'll have a better system come up with soon. actually, now that i think of it, do you think a separate, RVEC-managed thread specifically for invitational prompts would be useful to players?

i would love to chat about associations and share what i know - it'd be awesome to have a slew of discipline associations around to promote a variety of classes! i think having associations work together might help produce more of them, honestly, so i'm very excited to hear your thoughts and suggestions on the matter.

[OutFoxed]

Splitting Classes -
A possible way to split the classes might be to split them at the median or whatever fraction would work best with the size. Either by assigning a Show Number to each horse so the split is completely random, or stacking the horses who have the best Physical Stats on down and splitting at the median (or other equal measurement) - so that the horses who would all intents and purposes be in a lower level class or higher class; Novice vs Intermediate; without adding in the random events, training, or bonus/penalty system.
Although horses who could have been in say 4th place earning 300c but with the split are down to 200c?

Is there a way to do a 'pretend' or screening of it? To see how many potential entries there really could be for each discipline? To see if it would in any way benefit (the masses not just one barn)
I could in theory have 22 horses entered into the hunter classes in just one round of showing; hopefully spread out over the two divisions though. I'm sure caf.'s barns could churn out a ton more and I believe there are a few other members with stables full of competitive horses. If we're looking at those types of numbers having a split division system will definitely work and should kick in. Looking at a class with six or so entries, the split system is unlikely to be anything but a headache.

(I think I gave myself a headache trying to explain and think that through, glad I just edited it, yikes)

...

Lesson ponies -
What horses would be the ones to be utilized the most in this? The horses who are at the end of their active career - age 18+? (is this where you mean the age penalty? to limit those who have been successfully 'trained' for 15+ years and have racked up the training points to then put them in a dominating position over the horses just starting out in their lifespan but might have the physical stats the former is lacking.)The horses with low stats who don't have a pray to catch up to the stacked competition horses? (but how many of them are there? - and of those, how many have attempted at regular competitions but couldn't place above (insert rank here)? What could the limitations be? - What are some current examples of horses already in the sim that could benefit from this program? [should they be 'retired' from regular shows (not even schooling)]
A reward could be a Raffle system - a number of tickets are won by each horse dependent on 'factors'. It could get rather complicated. Or just random number generation. Number of students who rode in a show; number of classes in a show; placement in show (3 tickets for a first, 2 for second, 1 for third?); Condition after show?
If a horse is consistently placing 'in the money', then maybe it could qualify for a higher level (gain a bonus for schooling show, or the ability to come out of retirement) - but if it is all random, then disregard.

...

Association Help -

So I've attempted at putting a 'guide' of sorts - something to help anyone who is interested, and also to help me feel a little less overwhelmed with the prospect. Any and all input is completely and totally wanted. Leaving the document to Edit - feel free to grab a color and edit. When I've done something similar, I've used colors on the text to edit and then comments on the side to explain. Whatever works best for you.

RVEC Discipline Association Skeleton/Guide

I based it off several real associations pages (USEA, NRHA, USHJA, along with the ones already set up on RVEC)

[caf.]

i've been thinking on this subject a lot, so i'm gonna do my best to get some thoughts out before i address the points you make just to see if it's worth considering!

the more i think about it, the more i realize that discipline specific barns are very disadvantaged (which i'm sure you realized a lot faster than i did, haha, which is why it's so good for y'all to offer this kind of feedback!). now, in a real-world situation, horses from a very mixed-discipline barn like Cavallo simply wouldn't succeed as well in a specific division like, say, hunters, as those from a barn like Foxtail that focuses primarily on that discipline, because the former likely wouldn't have very hunter-specialized trainers and riders and such. so, do you think it would help to significantly increase the bonuses for discipline-specific, dual-discipline, and english/western/driving barns? or, alternatively, some sort of training bonus, since horses that are trained by someone very specialized tend to get more out of their sessions than those trained by someone who tends to "dabble." just thoughts, of course - it wouldn't solve the problem we're having with the large classes, but it might help discipline-specific barns make a more steady income while still allowing the type, breed, and all-around barns to make some money and win every now and again thanks to random events.

i may not be fully understanding what you mean in your first paragraph on splitting classes, but that's likely because my brain is a little fried, aha. i think it might be best to poll players on what they'd rather classes be divided by - physical stats, training, base scores, randomly, or whatever else. i can see the pros and cons of each, and all of them are fairly simple, so unless someone makes a very compelling argument for or against one i really don't mind going with any of them. as for prizes, perhaps the upper division could start at the first place mark, and the lower division could start at the third place mark? like, for example:
Upper division
1st - 1,000c
2nd - 700c
3rd - 500c
Lower division
1st - 500c
2nd - 300c
3rd - 150c
obviously, this is rudimentary and perhaps somewhat arbitrary, but it's a possibility.

while we're on the subject, would it make more sense to change the regional qualification criteria from a placement to a percentile? like, for example, the top 25% of horses in each division advance to the regional level? so, say, in a class of four horses, only the first horse would advance, but in a division of twelve, the first, second, and third place finishers would all move up. it might help very large schooling divisions move horses out faster to keep the levels somewhat even and fair.

the thing with predicting class sizes is, that, well, you kinda can't, haha. the simple fact is, all of us are real people whose lives get in the way, and it's hard to guess who's going to enter what and how often. for example. iStarz & Everly makes up a staggering proportion of our western show entries - our western classes almost always fill with around 8 horses per class, but because they were out this week some of them didn't fill at all. that being said, though, aside from the driving classes, most of the classes at RVEC have started to fill with semi-regularity with between four and eight horses, at least by my guesses. i'm happy to run some numbers if you want to know the firm statistics, of course!

i'm going to leave the questions on lesson ponies to Syd, since it's her proposition and i'm sure she has better answers than i do. as for the age penalty, it's pretty much what you said - horses do begin to deteriorate as they age, so i wanted to put that penalty in both to facilitate realism and to ensure that horses in the prime of their lives are the primary forces in competition.

that association guide looks amazing - really, very lovely work! i'm super impressed! i don't know that i have time tonight, but i may well go in and add some things of my own at some point. ah, i can't wait to see the new associations hopefully starting to pop up soon!

[iStarz & Everly]

I know for myself, i try focusing more on westerm classes, if stats allow. However, i do have a few english classed horses as well. As id noticed that before i joined the weekly shows, most western classes werent filled at all.

[razzberry]

I really like all these new ideas, especially with the associations since I myself have been looking at the list of associations that we have so far. Some aren't so active anymore which makes me more inclined to create one or two associations, so that's what i've wanted to ask you guys as the community; what type of association(s) would you like to see?

Now, I find myself more comfortable with handling breed, type and colour associations so that's what I'll stick with for the time being, but like I said I've noticed that some associations, such as those for Quarter Horses, has become inactive over time and I'd really like to give horses that don't have an association somewhere they can fit in!

I also had the idea to make an association for horses of rare breeds, to promote them in the sim so that we might start to see more of them around the community. If I do this i'd want to organize some sort of reward system when a rare breed reaches a certain number of registered horses in the sim, something like a raffle for an imported horse that the members of the association could participate in. Let me know what you guys think though, because I don't want to create an association that's going to become inactive after a short time! c:

[caf.]

i promise, i'm going to get to the points all of you brought up! ideally, i'd like to wait for Syd to add her own two cents since there are some subjects in which she's simply more knowledgable than i am, but i'm definitely toying with all of these ideas and i'd love to get them implemented at some point not too far off!

it is the World Equestrian Games time of year, and i was wondering if you guys would like me to throw together some kind of mini-event for that? nothing fancy, perhaps just a special competition event where everyone competed on teams of four like they do at the games? here are just the ideas i jotted down while thinking on this last night:

- maybe it could be a water-balloon-fight event, but i was honestly considering having it be separate, both to allow myself more freedom to put the teams together and also allow non-participating players to join in?

- i also debated on whether to restrict the event to only the WEG disciplines, or open it up to all sixteen RVEC disciplines (or maybe just the 15 ridden/driven disciplines). on one hand, i hate to be unfair to anyone who specializes in, say, hunters or western pleasure, but on the other, it might get everyone in interested in trying out some new disciplines, and perhaps i could even put together an endurance discipline for the occasion. in the case that i were to restrict it to only WEG disciplines, i'd probably make it so that tack isn't a requirement, just so nobody's scrambling to spend money for one single competition, haha.

- i'd probably just have everyone submit all the horses they'd like to enter, then divide them into evenly-skilled teams of four (that is, the horse with the most physical stats goes to team A, the second to team B, and so forth), with a limitation that there are a maximum of two horses per player per team. there can also be teams of three if necessary (see below).

- the team's scoring is a composite of the individual scores of each team member, with the worst score dropped. for teams of three, there is simply no drop score, and an individual elimination will eliminate the team.

- of course, since this would take me awhile to actually put into practice, i'd have to shut down regular competitions for a couple of weeks to give myself time to make it all happen. no longer than two and a half weeks, though, then we'd be back on schedule.

so, thoughts? i haven't posited this to Syd in private, yet, so i may be overstepping my boundaries, eek. let me know if this sounds like something fun, or if you all would rather just stick to the regular competitions! of course, i can explain in more detail, too, if anyone needs that!