Suggestions/Feedback Summary, February 2025

Every month, by request, I will be making a post summarizing that month's anonymous suggestions/feedback, and my response to them. Each submission will have also been shared with the other admins for their feedback as well (especially if the submission specifically pertains to their job), and their views are also expressed here in my summary, as indicated. Feedback from other admins is in their words...I just copy and paste it into the post.

#1: Could we do a community survey and see if limiting breeds, especially known kennel club breeds, is really benefitting HP? What's the main goal of this limitation? I feel new/returning people may be less likely to stick around if they have to wait to start up the breed they want. I understand that adding/re-adding isn't super hard but it's still a hoop to jump through.

Koni says: "Hey there! Great question. The reason we do a breed cull each year is to keep things looking tidy, as well as help highlight the breeds we do currently have active on the game. While this hasn't been an issue in the past several years, we can certainly do an anonymous survey this year on it!"

Blitz says: For what it's worth, there are certain VERY common breeds in the offline world that in breed-eatings past haven't had anyone actively breeding them at the time, that Koni and I have chosen to veto the deletion of because they're so common. So in how Koni and I review the breeds now, there are some very popular well-known breeds that we won't eat regardless of their current game popularity.

#2: Um is the bonus activity stuff that BV was running still going on? It's been a really long time since that's been sent out.

BV says: "The bonus activity participation is still a thing. We have a monthly participation tracker sheet that each EC plus myself are responsible for making notes on who did which activity on top of individual activity prize threads we create for each activity and make notes on for if said prize from said activity has been awarded or not. I've been a bit buried and stressed since January but the Sept-Dec 2024 tracker, it's still on my radar and once I get past this next week of Mascot related tasks I'll be sitting down and double checking everything before sending out messages to qualifying players. I have no idea what happened with the last two months, it's been a bit crazy. So apologies to anyone waiting on me! D: "

#3: any word on the patchwork? hopefully by the time this is answered it's not needed because it was completed! tia

It's on my (blitz) to-do list! It's a bit time-consuming to download all the images, put it together, award the achievement, etc. I've also unfortunately pretty much every weekend since the deadline to submit patches had to try to fix cron issues. The one weekend I wasn't messing with that I was handing out Discount Candy Day stuff lol. I am hoping on working on it tonight (Saturday night), so by the time I get this posted it might be done? Who knows lol

#4: is there a way to make it so we can preview our posts before posting? I am not very... good at making things look good and I always seem to be editing or deleting and retrying to make something pretty.

With the way the forum is coded, no, unfortunately not!

#5: Is there any chance the HPP breeding fix can be undone? I know it wasn't supposed to do that but it's something that's been in place for 10 years. HP has been able to get by all this time and it was a nice little bump that directly affected breeding and sharing lines.

At this point, no, I'm not willing to re-break the feature. 

With complete honesty, the bug was being widely exploited by many players on the game for years. I'm not even sure how many players exploited it in the 10 years, but it was that massive amount of exploitation lately that caused me to buckle down and spend every night for a week and a half after work trying to figure out how to fix it. I'm actually amazed I did sort it out in the end (with the help of my friend Kyle and ChatGPT LOL) considering Sam tried several times before she stepped back and could never sort it out. 

To give you an idea of the extent of just how much HPP it was handing out freely like candy on Hallowe'en for every breeding that has been done, I give you the top 5 players on the game by amount of HPP they currently have, vs the number of achievements listed on their page:

1) 3855 points, 22 achievements

2) 3702 points, 98 achievements

3) 2505 points, 46 achievements

4) 1537 points, 179 achievements

5) 563 points,  87 achievements

(and this is obviously just listing players who haven't exploited the bug then turned around and spent their HPP immediately, but it gives you an idea just how free the HPP was being handed out by this bug!)

I'm also not sure how the bug directly affected breeding and sharing lines...from what I could see, its only affect on breeding was that a lot of extra foals and pups were born long before the age of typical breeding, then immediately marked for deletion, and sharing lines isn't a hugely common thing on HP?

For those of you who have moved around animals in the past few years and bred them in order to get more HPP to then upgrade more accounts, I invite you to think about how often you did that. Then, multiply that number by $6 USD, because every time the bug was exploited for a month of upgrade time by a single player, that's how much money the game wasn't making and thus couldn't be then put back into the game through new features, etc. Then, think about how many other players on the game were doing the exact same thing as you, possibly as often, or even more often than you were. Because it all adds up. 

I hope now you can understand exactly why I'm not going to undo the bug just because it lasted at least 10 years.

#5: When will we get a player rankings for 2025, like there is for all the other years?

Oh yeah. It's 2025 LOL.

Done!

-bump-

Honestly I didn't know about the hpp thing until like a year ago 😝

...and I also didn't know until now that it was a bug LOL sad day!!

This HPP thing is blowing my mind. I only breed 1, now two breeds, so very rarely breed. I always wondered how people got enough HPP to keep up with their upgrades xD definitely a superb point about that RL$$ not going into the game. We all love this game and it's important we support the game financially as well! Nothing in life comes free, unfortunately:P

”Sometimes people think if they love a broken person enough, they can be what finally repairs them, but the problem with that is the other person just ends up broken, too.” -Colleen Hoover

I was just thinking about the patchwork! Glad to hear it's coming out soon :D

From the average player's perspective, the HPP thing just has poor optics. It feels like something was taken away without notice or indication that it was even a concern. While I fully understand that HP isn't obligated to explain every change to the players, this was my immediate gut reaction.
I would challange Sam on the financial aspect, that reasoning has been used often, yet from the player's point of view, the game development appears stagnant. Surely, there must be a log of when HPP is converted to upgrade time. This is a figure I would be genuinely curious about. Showing unused HPP is informative but doesn't directly support the reasoning behind this correction. There haven't been any significant advancements or discussion of game development in quite some time. The last 'major update' mentioned in the Change Log dates back to 2019, focusing on staff-related features. It gives the impression that upgrades are primarily funding server bills and staff salaries—period. If that's not the case, it would be great to see some of the topics in the Suggestions forum revisited. If none of those fit the direction that Sam wants HP to go in, then what can be expected as far as future development of HP?

I had absolutely no idea the HPP with breeding was a bug or that people were exploiting it! I thought it was a feature that automatically awarded for any animal born with more than 50k points. I don't have many breeds so didn't accumulate masses of HPP and it never occurred to me either to trade for upgrade time. I always wondered why some players had such massive animal numbers lol. Some good points made and some scary figures given! 

Well said Trig, much more eloquently than I ever could! 

Rosa is awesome, Rosa is fine, Rosa didn't write this...

I didn't even know that HPP was a thing! glad it was fixed. 

@Trig:

To answer your question on the stats of trading in HPP for upgrade time (only upgrade time, not including the other two options for trading in HPP for points, HPD or HPB), I took a look at the HPP Trade-In file to check and see if there's anywhere else it might log the transaction. It logs it in a payments file, which also logs any other upgrade or HPB purchases on the Upgrades page, as well as when admins manually award upgrade time. 

I did a search of that table in the database, and between January 1st, 2015 at 12:01am and now, there has been 3345 transactions specifically of trading in HPP for a 1-month upgrade. The problem is, I actually have no way of knowing how those HPP were acquired in the first place...was it through the bug? Was it the user/account getting 15 brand new to them achievements awarded, and when I go find their page there are only 15 achievements listed? Short of manually checking, I have no way of knowing that info, and even then that wouldn't be an exact science. 

Regarding your comment on the money and where it goes...I recognize I'm saying this as someone who the game pays (lol), but the server stuff and paying staff is how we still have this game to play, especially the server part of that. We don't pay for it, we don't have one, we don't have a game. And that server stuff with the number of accounts and animals and everything we have isn't cheap. 

Editing to add this: I'm going to work on getting a site-wide survey up sometime this month, because we haven't had one in awhile. On it I'll make sure to add something about new features and breed culling, based on the anon feedback this month.

As someone who has used the HPP for upgrades, it wildly comes down to the amount of upgrades I have. Which of course is on my own doing and not HP's fault or what not. I only used it in a crisis where I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to upgrade an account in time or to space out accounts, but most of my HPP came from back ups and final breedings, not extra breedings. However, I do get the fact that it wasn't supposed to be a thing, so therefore I am not challenging the fact that it has been fixed. Just wanted to state that not all of us took advantage of it for bad reasonings. haha. Just that, if I didn't, then I wouldn't be putting much money back into HP with selling upgrades and upgrading my own accounts when I could. Edit: I also did not know this was a bug till pointed out recently lol..

As far as what Trig said, it is kind of disheartening to pay so much in a game(that we all love of course!) to be just doing the same things over and over with nothing "new & exciting" at the end of the tunnel, if that makes sense. I'm not even sure what the last new feature was considering I've only been back for a year. I in turn love the game and don't know what I would do without it, so please don't think I am trying to knock the game or any of the staff, because you guys are awesome. 

I also will gladly 'out' myself in this debate. 

I personally have had anywhere between 10-20 upgraded accounts on this game, so I consider myself a "medium-sized, average" player.  I learned about the HPP *AFTER* I had 15 upgrades, and I learned about it 2 years ago. Previously, I often struggled to find movitiation in this game to do more than one line, and my one line consisted of 2 horses (peak at my paint lines for example).

When I found out about the hpp trade in, I was instantly motiviated to reach out into other lines -- in fact, I have flirted with dog lines, which I would never. AND I made my own anglo line -- which, you can't find in the store, you must have an arab line and a TB line or of that sort.

Over the last two years, yes.. I have used the hpp to supplement my upgrades, but it was NEVER a sole "income" persay to afford upgrades. You all have probably seen me in chats asking for upgrades or looking for upgrades... because at the end of the day, you have to have 20+ animals per generation in order to actually get 15 hpp a month.

So if anything, my first point is -- I have become more invested in time and energy AND real life money because of the hpp trade in option. I would never have been able to afford 10-20 upgrades and I often lacked the movitiation to do it as well..

You listed the top 5 transactions -- but what's the average user doing? Certainly not everyone is abusing the system. 

________________

Secondly, I wonder what this will do to the HP economy; Animal counts will go down with less people will be training lines, and therefore the average public show will have less entries but that also means less income from those. Additionally, in my experience, I hired an account trainer for 7 of my 10 lines. That was roughly 35 mil a month going to another player... and that's accounting for not the amount of money that into the SHOW/VET/FAIRRER fees of each animal.  So how will this affect the points of animals, the price of animals, how will this affect the flooding of shows? How will effect people who make HP income on training? Because I know I just had to let my account trainer go....

I also, because of the lift of the pressure of RLD spent, or a slight decrease in HPD spent on upgrades, I was then able to do things like double shows and double tickets - I was able to buy cash shop items in HPD and HPB because of the relief I felt from the HPP. I even was able to BUY upgrades to offer to others because I had the hpp and didn't need the upgrade time for that month. 

You listed over 3300 transactions for the upgrade trade... and I get it - that's alot, more than 1000 accounts a month, but because of those 1000 upgrades a month - what in return did the game get? Did they get more HPD spent? HPB spent? Or like in my case, allowed players to actually spend real money on offering others upgrades? What is it going to do to the price of upgrades themselves? I remember a few years back where the inflation was CRAZY -- htix for 500k, dog tickets for 350k was the NORMAL. Upgrades were insane to pay for... 

So what's our HP going to look like now?  

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So I agree with @trig in the fact that it came out of no where without warning, and my gut reaction was repulsive (trig was probably more mild in her reaction than I am). But really, I understand there are players on here that absuse the system... but the changes here lately seem to be attacking the "middle-class" of HP with no hope to future advancements. 

I believe our staff team has gotten smaller, and yet we don't see our "money" going towards anything new. I'm not saying staff should be paid less, I'm saying the decision was made in a way that caught people off guard. It's like ripping the rug from underneath the average player and it feels harsh and unwelcoming. Aka making game more about real life money rather than a place where the average person can thrive a bit.

With the world today and everything being more expensive, a "pay to play" approach is a little abrasive in a place that is supposed to be about community. Again, I don't think you guys should get paid less, but I do think a compromise should be made. Something could have been put into place as a common ground.  Could even be something as simple as HPP with an expiration date?! Something -- a warning -- a conversation -- ANYTHING. "Point animals" are already against the rules on HP -- so why not make "HPP horses" against the rules as well, and then go after the cheating individuals?

_______________

Its one of those cases where "one bad apple ruins the bunch". Well I'm in the bunch and I am unhappy about it - and have honestly thought that this may be one of the things that drives middle-range players back to a single account and/or leave the game entirely.

I wouldn't ask you to sort through all of those accounts by any means xD that makes my eyes cross just thinking about it! I'm a numbers person so let's just say that all those transactions were due to the glitch, we're talking $650/year of lost revenue. Without knowing the budget for HP (which is none of my business) I can't gauge how significant that is. How I can put that into perspective, is that HP missed out on about 19 upgraded account per year for the past 10 years (again, assuming all those transactions were from glitch HPP). With the size of our community, knowing that people come and go throughout the years, and knowing that not all of that was abuse of the glitch, that difference feels like a fairly normal variation in revenue.

Just food for thought on the staff salary piece: For a game like HP, I would expect Admin-level staff to receive some form of compensation since they're essentially "on call" to address any issues that arise. In our case, that compensation is a paid salary. However, I wouldn't expect staff below the Admin level to receive similar compensation. I don't know when the other support roles made the switch to paid but is the reasoning behind that something that can be shared? Is the interest in being on staff just not there without it being paid? Could more people be added to increase coverage but also decrease the individual demand? Could an alternative option be considered in place of an hourly wage? Something with a direct incentive tied to the game's success. This isn’t to say that I don’t value the time and effort put in by the support staff—I absolutely do! I see their contributions through forum posts and news updates, and I truly appreciate the dedication.

I'd just like to see more emphasis placed on game development from the leadership level, beyond just player-driven efforts. A survey could be a great way to gather feedback from the community, but ensuring sustainability is the real challenge. Perhaps forming a development committee could provide a consistent driving force for player suggestions, ensuring ideas are actively pursued rather than shelved. I realize this may require a significant commitment, but it could be worth exploring. At its core, HP is a game deeply rooted in nostalgia, which is part of what makes it so special. If further development isn’t part of the current vision for HP, some transparent communication around that would go a long way in managing expectations.

Is there a way to make it harder to cheat the HPP system like certain point requirements? Say it doesn't reward you with HPP for breeding store animals you just bought, but you get HPP for breeding animals with certain milestones like 2mill points on the animal or animals with X-amount of awards. I think that would make it more challenging to cheat the system. Consider how long it takes to get high pointed animals, like several weeks of training. Another idea is to award HPP for just one breeding per pair of parents. That way you can only get the HPP for one breeding vs. for each breeding and it would make it almost pointless to breed more than twice per pair. I'm just wondering if there's room for compromise.

Just sticking my neck out to agree with everything that Trig and Lyn have summed up so well. And I say this as someone who has very rarely used HPP to purchase upgrade time because I am privileged enough to be able to earn a significant amount of HPD in order to buy upgrades through the auctions (I am very, very rarely able to spend real money on HP). I do, however, transfer HPP into HPB at times, so I'm not entirely without a horse in this race. The changes won't, however, drastically alter how I personally play HP, so I'm not really speaking with myself in mind here.

After 10 years, I really doubt that any of HPs active players would have considered the way that HPP was awarded to be a bug rather than a resident feature, one that they would likely consider they were simply enjoying the benefits of rather than purposefully exploiting. I was not aware that players were breeding animals multiple times over (far above the usual 2 breedings per pair), and can absolutely see how that would be frustrating to see given that it's blatantly being done for a specific purpose. Even so, it feels a bit like the rest of the playerbase is being slapped on the wrist for the actions of a few.

It's also a feature that enabled players who were less likely to be able to afford perks that are relatively normalised in-game a chance to earn access to those perks through time and effort - or even just to afford to own and breed animals in game (having 10 horses in public shows can eat into basic funds pretty quickly!). By changing that system so drastically, you're not only de-incentivising play - as owning strings of different breeds no longer offers any long-term payout and, with the sales market being so stagnant, there's no point in trying to sell backups that nobody wants - but also making it more difficult for players without the funds to purchase upgrades to get a toe-hold in-game. I recognise that the coding is incredibly difficult to play with and routinely breaks, but making it so that HPP was only awarded once for a breeding between any given pair would cut out the ability to farm breedings for HPP whilst still enabling players to slowly build up enough HPP for the effort to be worth it.

Please, Blitz, I do not want you to feel that we are piling in on you. I can understand, from a business perspective, why the change was made. The game is a business after all, and in order to keep running it needs to be profitable. However, as Trig says, the optics of it just aren't great and it really does feel like it's kind of been jumped on us after a whole decade of this 'bug' being a routine feature in the game. I know that we've had discussions in the forums about the staff being within their rights to make changes without warning or consulation before and you absolutely are within your rights to do so - just as players are absolutely within their rights to be disappointed with the decisions that were made.

@delphic 

The HPP was only award if the foal was born with a minium of 50k points, which means the parents need to have at least 700k (but again, ideally 1 mil) before the foal would achieve 50k. 

With your basic store animal, it takes weeks to achieve that considering a store horse in only 80 public shows a week, reaches about 1.5 mil at retirement.

@uta

You might be on to something -- what about putting a breeding limit on HP animals? You know, 2-3 breedings per animal - that could cap the overbreeding for HPP off.