HGG Community Forums

My herd is barely at 12+pt, but I seem to recall a conversation that the pt cap was 15.

Yeah, I believe that is the vapored. It would be so cool if it was raised and possibly another paper level so we could keep on moving forward, but since it has been reached for so long in first server I doubt it will change because people here got there. Right ow I am doing breeding up projects again with different genes, but there is only so much that can be done with bootstraps nowadays. It isn't like the glory days when it started and everybody got excited about the new home bred high guys.

Yes, and since I can't go any further without paying premium for double boosted stallions (Is it even kosher for non premium accounts to buy double boosters if they become available?) I have decided to instead worry about color instead of quality as much, breeding up a bunch of more primitive looking genes into my herd including the DFP genes and next one will be pang are +. It is kinda sad because I kinda got addicted to being at the head of the pack and having one of my studs at the top of the leaderboard for his entire life and having my horses valued, but now I feel second rate to everyone else... But at least I will get my herd looking cool with lots of genes not originally in the founding bootstrap herds.

These are my two boys with a lot of the colors I have bred in (DFP2 is still at the mare only level past foundation but not bootstrap stud worthy, plus I don't know how much of my herd I want to have exclusive genes in it)

Burden of Knighthood sup

Secret Chocolate X
And here is the pangery + boy I created to throw in next month and get some of that in.

Dunbar
Hoping to get some primitive Exmore/ mongolian/ konick/ Kyger mustang type looking horses in the future. True, with all the ND1 and sooty plus I can't really see the DFP1, but I think at this point I can focus a little less on bringing all the genes in on each horse and see what pops up, hopefully there will be a few eventually where I can see the stripes without relying on DFP2, but in real life they are more unique and special anyway.

Yes, and I know somewhere it says don't pay other people to use upgraded features, so I wonder if that means I shouldn't get cloned horses from other people, but I know completely non upgraded people buy paper tested horses from basic upgrade players without issues... so it is kinda a grey area in my mind without me knowing what is appropriate. It would be great to see if I could one day pay someone to clone a boosted boy once I had one I liked enough, but that relies on when I get that boy, how much it costs people to clone horses (I have no clue) and how kosher that would be. Just because I feel like I am hitting a wall doesn't mean I am quite ready to become a trouble maker and at worst risk getting banned quite yet. XD

Ah. That answers some questions about why some horses weren't cloned that I thought would have.

Ah, does that mean you can't clone clones? The complicated world of cloning.

Oh. Interesting. I wonder why natural brindles are different from created brindles? Here I am feeling rather seasoned being here for several years now, but when it comes to the premium stuff I am just clueless goldfish. There is always new stuff to learn.

If there was no cap I feel like it would be toxic to the game. It would destroy the showing system and make it so new players never had a chance because mega lines from the very beginning over the server would totally dominate the top levels of shows and prevent anything else from even having a chance. It would also force only a tiny narrow line of those horses bred like that to be the only valuable horses in the game because they would be the only ones capable of winning those shows. It would in short benefit only a few players and make the game punishing and unfun for everyone else. It also would mean people would never start new lines because a new line would never be able to catch up.

Cap is there to serve a very important purpose.

What about restarting with a legacy line or a certain type of coat and breeding back up to the cap? I'm trying that with a Day of the Moon line and a legacy line. I also have my ROF and Enlightened Mind mix I'm going to give it a go with.

Who knows? Maybe you have the next legacy stud and you just don't know it yet?

I just don’t understand why it isn’t capped, but just made extremely difficult to get higher. I know most bootstrap breeders sell off their stock that are 1 pt score below where they breed. This server constantly has 13 pts available to the public. I always sell straws to my boys to anybody who asks except for 1/2 of them. I believe this would continue even if it wasn’t capped. ((I literally joined sever one, found a stud & boosted and had #16 on that server leaderboard like 2 months in.))

Also pt will never be fulfilling because I can’t compete with anybody else. The only reason the pt chase is fun, is because everybody on the server is trying to get that high pt. Since there’s a cap there’s no competition. Nothing I can do can change the fact of where my pt stands. I figured out double boosting to progress pt score faster. I was able to experiment and figure out what levels to keep/what were worth boosting/buying others horses to see where they stood in my lineup. Now there’s just….a funny magical number to compete against that I can in no way surpass.

Which is fine I’m closing my accounts on the other servers and…deciding on whether I am closing this one. I know that my needs don’t matter. But I know I am not the first person to leave because of caps and I won’t be the last. If I had known there was a cap I wouldn’t have put time or money into my bootstraps. Maybe add it to the information somewhere? Either way It’ll save me a bunch of money. ^_^

Also sorry @wildland acres I’m the one who started the double boosting. ^_^

Yeah, it is just hard. When I started out true, someone breeding from the bottom couldn't dream to compete with darkstar, but I got horses from her and bred them using her as a goal to breed towards, and then when she left there was a sort of competition, and edge, a feeling of accomplishing something and feeling valued. Now there is no way to be up there than to use the cloning double boost techniques that only premium people can use, and even then there doesn't seem to be much point because the boards are already saturated with double boost horses so you can't even pay money to do well anymore. The game has turned from a challenge and an achievement to feeling like I am clicking buttons to suck. I know I am not in a good state right now to really judge things right now as everything I have worked for or taken any enjoyment in in real life has been destroyed and some times I find it almost too much effort to so much as force myself to continue breathing nowadays, but I was kinda hoping I could just pour the hours into enjoying this game like I used to and use this as a lifeline to keep myself alive at the moment, but I have been finding that I haven't felt it worth it to show my barns anymore, to click the buttons to pasture breed all my pastures, or even remove the foals that I do breed out of pasture anymore, there doesn't seem to be much point in it anymore, which is hard, because I want to be into this game more than ever right now to at least have something I want to do other than lie in bed not moving and forgetting to eat all day. I am trying to do better in this game to at least not feel like a failure in it too, but third week went by again without me showing horses and I haven't looked at most of my pastures yet this month. I guess conversations like this one just make it harder for me, because it just reminds me, are my horses doing well this month? no. Did my horses improve this month? No. Are my striped horses striped this month? No. Do I want to breed color over quality? No Can I think of anything better to do? No. And I feel like a failure feeling such a downer with the game right now because it has been really amazing and supportive of me for many years, and Ammit has done so much amazing, and me broodingly glaring at a wall all day as opposed to being a proper player here or a proper anything is fairly bad repayment for that. Hearing the good reasons for why pt and papers can't be added though I am wondering if I should switch to my mesa server account instead, or check to see if any of my pangery flaxen black liver piney creek horses are still alive on this server, but I have a hard time internally not seeing that as another betrayal of all of you or giving up. I don't know. Things are complicated, and I know I am not living up to what this game and the people inside it deserves, but I don't know how to be enough anymore. It has just lead to me feeling that my life in lakeland has become just as much of a faliure and a waste as it is in real life, though I know that is nothing the fault of the game, it is all my fault for sucking so bad. I just don't know what to do and wish there were ways to keep improving and having achievement like I could in the past... I don't know. Maybe I should just abandon this account and go to one of my stagnant accounts instead, though that means I won't be able to help anybody with anything of the things I have built up here anymore... but my stock is subpar nowadays anyway, so I am probably flattering myself too much thinking that this account would be missed.

Hmm Maybe I should start an errand specific line with my new guy. he is era 7, though if I boost him he goes to era 6, right?

I am thinking social recognition is what is needed. So the game as an entity needs to be celebrating that race to make people interested.

ETA: Making it era specific also addresses all the boosting since you won't be able to boost like made and stay in the era. Makes the competition more accessible.

They start in June and January now.

Note Era 8 is the current "primary" era. The one that would be chasing the title if there was one. The primary era is always the prior one to the most recent giving people a chance to do some breeding up.

That can change though. Right now the system would reward the best after one real life year of breeding. We might want to give it 18 months or two years? Era 7 which just finished it's run as primary era maxed out at 11.7 PT. But I am also guessing they are not chasing PT.

I should do some math.

It's a rolling focus from the game side. Only one era can be THE era that gets all the special kudos at any given time. (Though the race in the newer eras might get some attention as well.) The intention with eras was always to have the big show and then the younger ones coming up that WILL be the big show when it's their time to shine. It's why primary era gets bigger trophies than other eras.

Clearly we have failed to implement this in a meaningful way.

Here is the start of that math if anyone would like to see it
https://www.facebook.com/groups/huntandjump/posts/6076030412437852/

I have an almost exclusively home bred Era 3 bootstrap herd and i am just now getting 13.9pt. I started with 5-7 gens at the end of 2019. At first i had Era0 bootstraps mixed in, but i seperated the two groups when i noticed i was getting some Era3 on the LB. I back stepped once to introduce a specific color, but overall i'm quite happy with where it sits. Now i breed Era 0-2 and Era 3 on as separate herds. 18 of the top 25 prodicing Era 3 mares are mine and i routinely have 3+ stallions in the top 10.

I guess what i'm saying is i feel it's definitely a viable option for a satisfying game for those that chase PT because I have been doing it for over a year and it's a point of pride for me. (Like seriously, you can look at my past posts and see several about by Era 3 herd.) :D

Yeah, I quit entering my horses on the leaderboards because they are so dominated by bootstraps that those of us who primarily breed even have no chance unless we are consistently breeding up over gen 7 on most boards (for top producer). My bootstrap herd is a side pasture I breed when I have time and space for the foals, which means maybe once every 3 or 4 months. I’m chasing Star at gen 3, not highest PT in the game. I never even look at the era boards..so maybe making the era competition a little more specific and highlighted would make chasing leaderboards more interesting.

The trophies are SUPER underutilized. Part of tack overhaul that is being suggested (vote in our fb group) is to get trophies able to be added to horses pages. But ya a proper notification system is a must. An automated forum post would be a good idea as well.