HGG Community Forums

I'm a fan of the limit on the number of maxes per season. I like a limit at 5. That's enough to help a single project but not enough that people can just max everything!

I think the limit on max-ability-boosts is an interesting development! It brings it closer to the way you originally pitched the option - a way to turn a maybe foal into a definite keeper! I do think 5 is a good limit; it is enough to allow folks to use them on a couple projects (thinking of my one era line, my even line, and my bootstrap line!).

I have really enjoyed having this tool, and I realize that in many ways I am one of the 'bigger' barns by simple volume. I don't want to run over others. I've only just started becoming competitive on a few boards, but I've managed to make it into the top GMT winners on Forest.

Personally, I think moving it to IVs could also be fair and encourage a larger show herd development! I buy 200 IVs every week or so to skim off the top of my HBs. They tend to pile up until I max horses or invest in another barn.

I think it would be awesome if there was a limit on maxing (say maybe 10 per season) and there be an option to max with either currency.

I honestly have not observed that the horses I’ve maxed have done much better on the leaderboards… other than maxed double boosted era 0s that I’ve purchased from other players that make the best producing boards, I don’t think any of my maxed early generation horses have won me anything outside of futurities. The bulk of my GMTs come from just run of the mill foundations and 2Gs. Simply GMTing consistency has more influence on those horses. Where maxing does help me is letting me pick a favorite foal or two from a foal crop based on looks and not have to worry about loosing it to testing, freeing me up to speld the natural born higher PT foals for showing and saveing me GMTs that I can then use for foundations and in GE rather than spending them on altering genes on lined horses. The maxing helps me beat mare lag in 3G-5G, but my 3G-5G foundation lines are not competitive on the boards either way because it’s mostly bootstrap foals from boosted stock dominating the points by lined horses division of the color clubs anyway.

Anyone can win GMTs in Foundation and 2G classes if they are strategic and enter their horses in the least represented clubs and if they use their GMTs to make their foundations eligible for the least represented clubs. If more people were strategically registering their foundations and two year olds that would make the color club foundation and 2G leader boards more diverse. The “register all” button is not your friend when registering foals if you want to be in those boards consistently. I’ve been dominating several of the foundation and 2G boards just based on strategic registering, and maxing hasn’t played into my wins in those categories much at all. My wins also increased when I started manually showing my barns.

I was disappointed when I heard maxing would change currency because I’m more limited on hbs than GMTs because I do most of my futurity breeding with embryos and that gets costly. It would mean that I’d have to choose between flushing mares, maxing, occasional boosting, and buying barns with my hbs. Maxing with IVs would run my hb budget very thin. I’m not to the point with my daily payout that I have to buy IVs to skim my hbs, I still have to budget for IV purchases.

If you wanted to even the playing field, I feel what would really help is limiting how many boosts can be purchased with IVs. It’s the big accounts that can afford the most boosts that dominate the leaderboards in all but the foundation and 2G classes. This could also have the added bonus of encouraging more cash boost purchases which would put more money in your pocket.

I love the idea of a limit. 5 is a great choice. It also slows down the stuff a bit, where right now it’s pretty rapid.
It’s kind of the best of both worlds that way- we still can invest some GMTs into maxing that we’ve earned and build up our programs, and then we can’t completely steamroll the baby barns. It makes room for newer and smaller barns to compete while not making larger barns feel penalized for doing well. Over the last year I’ve been playing, I make about 40-60 GMTs a season and 300k in daily hb bonus. I’m up in the ribbons a lot but I am NOT in the position to compete with the really large barns who have tons of IVs stashed. And I think that’s a point too- those larger barns who are dominating the entire competition have a ton of IVs stashed, so this shift wont impact them unless there’s a limit!

HighstormFarm - Did you mix up boosting and maxing?

Answering a question I saw. Maxing does impact not only which foal will win the best PT category it also improves the LB standing of both parents and can push then higher. In a tight race maxing foals will determine who wins best breeder.

Technically it could be. Realistically it would be a nightmare and I don't understand why we would want to do that or what value that would add to the game.

As an avid bootstrap breeder (and someone who has tons of horses on the LB) I am very much FOR a maxing limit. I make a conscious effort not to just mass-max foals every year, so a limit of 5 would be perfect for my barn. Everyone having a fair shot, and there being a variety of barns represented on the leaderboard makes things way more fun!

I am going to write one thought process, on one server instead of commenting on all for my different accounts.

My messa account (BlaxDiamond) was a baby account when I crawled my way to the leaderboard. The max came into play about generation 6 for me. I only maxed 1-5 horses on that account per season. But I had saved all previously won GMTs, to make me able to do that consistently. Plus I kept my generations tiny 2-4 maxed out mares and utilized embryo use. I was only competitive in era 1, black, and warmblood leaderboards. I also had a huge head-start on era 1, by the time I was on generation 6 the only other player breeding them internationally was generation 2-3. So it’s doable to be on the leaderboards with a small young account previous to maxing out. With maxing out you have to play smart to stay on top, but it’s doable. My account started out at 20k daily bonus and was at about 60k by the time era 1 was the primary era, after 2 years of playing.

My Forest account (present) isn’t competitive on any leaderboards, unless a horse gets there without my knowledge, or planning. I use maxing here for personal enjoyment and to keep my favorite babies intact.

My Bluegrass account (Silverstar) was/is very well established, and is competitive in era 0 and in many colors. While I use maxing out a lot over there, and I love not having to geld or spay the babies I love the most. I use Maxing out a lot to up my foals PT more than improving their breeding ability much, my horses are mostly on cap level already, so that only gets adjusted minimally. For me on Bluegrass PT adjustment is it’s biggest advantage. I adore the ability to change the PT score much more than a consistent GMT. I’m more that a little obsessed with PT scores. I don’t know how many horses I use it on monthly over there. It wouldn’t be a big adjustment for me on the leaderboards as far as best producers go, it would only impact the foals PT. I feel like a lot of the foals are already on the leaderboards, I just like making them better even, if they are already on top. I already boost most of my leaderboard horses.

I guess what I’m trying to say is with a lot of comparison testing and ruthless nipers, I was at the top of my chosen leaderboard previously to max. I don’t know if limiting the max would make much of a difference in leaderboards besides those lower eras. But I don’t know the hidden numbers, and admittedly I have only been paying attention to my barns, not the community as a whole. I like the idea of limiting the number to 5. Alternatively I would say limit the number to 5 for GMT use, and unlimited with IV purchases. But that’s more work for you. The only reason why I say unlimited with IV purchases, is because of my PT addiction.

Edit. Overall I believe a hard limit per season is the best way to even out the playing field.

I want to have an addiction to PT scores but I can't afford that addiction, yet. :D
Great conversation. I'm a new barn and barely understand all the details of this. I'll be happy with whatever is decided.

If we did have a switch to IVs after a GMT max limit, it wouldn’t impact the big barns which is where I see an issue with a system that switches. The people who would get impacted by that are the medium barns or people just starting to climb, because they don’t have the hbs. I think an overall limit of maxing each season is better. We wouldn’t need to switch to IVs if that happens, because it would solve the GMT issue by making space for smaller barns. Switching to IVs after kind of just defeats the entire checks and balances system, and will keep the huge barns at the top and untouchable. The GMT limit plus IVs being allowed after would make the gap even wider than it is now, because the only people affected by that would be folks who don’t yet have massive show strings but compete on the boards.

I like the idea of making a limit per season. I only max horses that have the perfect genes for my program (that got a good combination of sty/dp, or have optimal fantasy combo, and so on), so maybe 4-5 a season at the very most.

However, I do use the GMTs won from the leaderboard to do those. I'm not sure what we define as a big stable, I make ~150k daily payout right now, I could possibly afford to purchase maxing that many with IVs but I would have to cut back other things like my bad to best line, my other lines that I don't max, or the futurity breeding I do. So it would change my play style a bit.

That being said, the maxed horses I have don't necessarily do better on the boards, it mostly just increases the genetic variability I have to work with by increasing the number of available mares and stallions each generation. If I did more with embryos or making certain I got all mares to a 30 day bonus before breeding, I may not need to max as many anyway.

Just tossing this out there… would leaving the currency the same with a five horse limit, plus adding a max token, for say, $5 perhaps be a good all around solution? That would effectively make maxes available for both GMTs and HBs, plus generate a bit of money for the game. It would also make maxing more accessible to smaller accounts who are not on the leader boards yet.

I prefer option 1, I'm okay with the switch to IVs.

I think that is a great idea Ammit. I would prefer to do that.

I haven’t been as active in the later eras anymore, but I had a small side account when the 12th era came out that I would compete on and did well enough and stayed on the boards. When maxing came out, I didn’t have a large show bonus but was able to max 3-4 horses a season due to the gmt awards. And just with that, I stayed on the boards and improved my lines without trouble, so I think that option would work well.

Perfect! ❤️

That sounds perfect! I don't chase the leaderboards, but I have been maxing a lot of mares lately to get decent numbers in my 4th gen and higher pastures.

Thanks for being super reasonable and just talking to me about it, and for trusting me. :x

Maxing does not impact those boards. Foals by *** horses are already perfect breeding ability if they pass SBA and don't require maxing.

The color leaderboards are not for new players. They are for established accounts. The futurity is a much better place for new players to get a foothold. For accounts just getting into leaderboard competition, the eras are there for them.

Also though, if there were a max token reasonable priced for real $, I would enjoy tossing them towards new accounts in RAoG.

Apparently I wasn't paying attention cause I thought the switch to IVs had already happened. I mostly don't max enough for a limit to affect me, but I'm a fan of the IV plan.

I'm a little late to the conversation but I did read through the entire thread. I'll admit this does not affect me because I don't max out any of my foals and I am just recently trying to get back into being active in the game. That said, I first want to agree with others in giving a huge shout out and thank you to Ammit for allowing this discussion to happen and for players to have a say in what changes are coming, and to shape how those changes are implemented through open conversation. It's something you don't see nearly enough even in the real world and I am so here for it. :) In regards to the actual question option 3 and the maxing limit applying to primary and beyond era sounds like it is going to make the most sense and address the issue at hand by helping to level the playing field.

I'm the horror that you all fear. ^_^ Anyway, I mostly max because I have literally nothing else to do with my GMTs. The fact is, changing to MAX will not impact any of the era 0 leaderboards because all those horses need is a GMT - consistent as they are pretty often at cap already. All of my double-boosted horses essentially guarantee a cap foal (there are a few that fall). So I don't see this impacting the era 0 leaderboards at all.

As far as limiting Max, I will work with what I have. It would be better for me to have IVS personally, as I max a great number of horses every season. And I earn 1.3 million on one account, and over 500k on my other account. I don't store IVS because I use that entire amount every season. :) I have so many projects going at all times that I am constantly out of money. But limiting maxing will only slightly alter my trajected path.

I think what will happen if limits of maxes occur: Nothing will change with the leaderboards, there will just be a LOT more horse waste. For instance instead of breeding 2 mares every season for LBs, I will probably be flushing 6/7 to maintain the same level of efficiency with LB running. The only time MAX actually has a huge affect is bad horses/otherwise it will give around the same bonus as a typical Superior. (give or take 1%)

The people who put in the work/testing will still be on the top of the leaderboard. Those who don't have access to as much testing or don't understand the programming will still not win. I think it's cute to give a false hope that anything with LBS will change. But I honestly don't think there will be that large of a shift. It's primarily date of breeding/amount of breeding that will shift for me and pretty much anybody else who is running era 0 leaderboards. Nothing with Stallion leaderboards will shift (maxing only slightly affects this, as per paper level).

I am assuming you are hoping the change will be greater with Futurities and show potential? I haven't been following the futurities as I haven't cared to yet. I am assuming you are seeing a pattern between maxed foals/futurity winners. I haven't looked into this trend.

TLDR: I will work with whatever comes my way and I don't think anything will shift drastically.

Dinascar’s too busy cleaning up with show horses ^_^