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 Issue with Ready Indicator: Green but Jaded. 
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Selling plater

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Post Issue with Ready Indicator: Green but Jaded.
Am I misunderstanding something? To me the ready indicator is a notification that this horse is ready to go in every way. Now I'm finding my head lad continually noting things like the horse being jaded or my being on the cusp of overrunning the horse.

This ends up having me check every single horse every single race which then makes the Ready indicator pretty useless.

What am I missing?


Thu May 09, 2019 6:46 pm
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Post Re: Issue with Ready Indicator: Green but Jaded.
I look at the green bar on the horses screen and if it is full the horse is raring to go. I never consult the head lad.


Thu May 09, 2019 7:07 pm
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Post Re: Issue with Ready Indicator: Green but Jaded.
Wannabe wrote:
I look at the green bar on the horses screen and if it is full the horse is raring to go. I never consult the head lad.


Thanks. That saves one click, but I'd still like to know what use the green icon is given this situation.


Thu May 09, 2019 11:04 pm
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Post Re: Issue with Ready Indicator: Green but Jaded.
The indicator turns green to show that your horse has trained up to a level of fitness that allows it to race reasonably - if you race a horse that isn't showing green you run more risk of an injury, and almost certainly won't win. However, this isn't all of it - if you check the fitness bar for a 'green' indicated horse you'll see it shows green from 80% (it looks like) or higher, so a 'green' horse can be at anything from 80 to 100% fit, to win a race you want to be as close to 100 as uoi can get. More on that in a moment.

Next up is the condition of the horse - this is another vertical bar on the horse data display. As a horse runs you'll see this bar reduce in height, it represents a sort of physical 'tank' of energy, and if you run it too low then your horse doesn't want to race, to simplify the idea a bit. It's <insert expletive of choice here>, worn out. It's an interesting idea that adds depth, but confuses unless you get the hang of it - by resting the horse after racing, and watching that condition bar move back up the screen, you can see what sort of a break your horse needs between races - after all, in real life, they don't run every day and many better horses run only a few times a season.

Several races in quick succession will deplete the horse's condition - so they may still be trained until their muscles are bulging (fit), but due to lack of condition (physical well being) those muscles aren't as big and heavy as they ought to be. This is when your head lead implies you are over racing the horse. Over racing them will tend to reduce their chance of winning, and is 'fixed' by giving them some time off. It's up to you how high you want that condition bar before running.

Fitness - to get to peak fitness you need to know how many days to train (red indicator on training) each horse - some need longer than others. To get a handle on this you need to see how many days it takes for the fitness indicator to go green after you select the red level of training (this period can vary depending on the fitness level prior to upping the level to race training). Check the fitness, and if it's below 100% (likely) you can keep training and checking the level daily to see how long it takes to peak at 100. One of my current runners, as an example, will hit 100% fitness in 6 days when training for a race, provided it's at 70% fitness (training on level 2/orange) when I click to the red level of prep. Another horse takes 12 days to do the same, and will go 'green' after 4 or 5 days, but it'll only be 80-85% fit for another week before that fitness indicator jumps to 100...... different horses take different lengths of time to train and to recover.

Dave


Sat May 11, 2019 2:04 pm
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Post Re: Issue with Ready Indicator: Green but Jaded.
Dave,

Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated.

davejb wrote:
However, this isn't all of it - if you check the fitness bar for a 'green' indicated horse you'll see it shows green from 80% (it looks like)


This is one of the things I'd love to ask Mark. It'd be awesome if we didn't need to guess at these numbers throughout the app. Perhaps a mouse-over tool-tip could be used to display the actual numbers in such cases so that people don't really need to guess. The counter argument would be that we don't have such numbers for horses in real life, but if you're going to supply a bar then you've already crossed that line and might as well make it granular. Otherwise it might be better to just provide general text that gives a vague idea of a hidden stat instead of a bar.

Quote:
after all, in real life, they don't run every day and many better horses run only a few times a season.


Agreed. My position is pretty simple on this. It would be a help if, in on one look of the summary page, I could see that the horse is, according to my staff, fully ready to go by ALL indications. The green icon, to my view, serves little such purpose as is as. It seems from this discussion that it would be wise to click the horse and look at multiple items. To me that's sort of the difference between delegating authority and micro-managing. If I have staff to determine this overall readiness, then why not provide a means to see their "go/no-go" recommendation right on the summary page?

Quote:
different horses take different lengths of time to train and to recover.


That's very much a part of the beauty of this game and design. Do remember that I generally come at these things from a different perspective than most. I mainly think about the UI of a product and how I believe I'm expected to react to it and how it informs me and if that's optimal. That's what I did in game development. For example, a simple improvement that could be done without impacting much would be to just add commas (or periods where geographically normal) to break up long currency values. As displayed the numbers are less than ideal on quick view, often requiring a careful look to be sure you're not seeing a number that's off by $900,000 (for example .... $1000000 vs $100000). Those get even harder to read when they're not all zeros. People who are dedicated learn to accept a product's nuances. I'm more concerned about appealing to an ever-wider new audience and what might keep such people from becoming dedicated loyalists.

I'm a big fan of the game, but my vocational background forces me to comment where I think things might be improved or made more clear, especially for new players. There's a ton of depth to adjust to in this sim so whenever it can streamline that process I think it's beneficial to have a dialogue about it. This green icon was just one of those areas. I talked to another user who stopped playing in v6 because, in large part, they found the product too daunting to use. That, to me, comes off as an opportunity so I hope it comes across that way. I read the manual and my take of the green icon was that it was a means to know that your horse was "ready" to race and "ready" suggested "optimal". Now finding it doesn't mean that just left me thinking that this box really doesn't provide what I'd hoped it provided. At a minimum I'd prefer to also use a bit of space on the summary screen to show a condition icon or Head Lad status icon to get out of that summary what would be most useful.


Sun May 12, 2019 7:14 pm
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Post Re: Issue with Ready Indicator: Green but Jaded.
Agrajag wrote:

davejb wrote:
However, this isn't all of it - if you check the fitness bar for a 'green' indicated horse you'll see it shows green from 80% (it looks like)


This is one of the things I'd love to ask Mark. It'd be awesome if we didn't need to guess at these numbers throughout the app. Perhaps a mouse-over tool-tip could be used to display the actual numbers in such cases so that people don't really need to guess. The counter argument would be that we don't have such numbers for horses in real life, but if you're going to supply a bar then you've already crossed that line and might as well make it granular. Otherwise it might be better to just provide general text that gives a vague idea of a hidden stat instead of a bar.


I think what you need are Sirius' increment bars which are available in the game mods forum. They take some of the guess work out of percentages.

http://www.startersorders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=17036

They are easy to install. To find the instructions on how to do so you will need to scroll 2/3rds way down page link above.

Jim


Sun May 12, 2019 7:38 pm
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Post Re: Issue with Ready Indicator: Green but Jaded.
Wannabe wrote:
I think what you need are Sirius' increment bars which are available in the game mods forum. They take some of the guess work out of percentages.


I have them installed. There's still guesswork that just seems unnecessary to me when all guesswork could be removed pretty easily or, if that's not what Mark wanted, then remove the bars entirely and use vague "range" language to describe states. That's really all you'd have in real life and then it would come down to the quality of your staff. Frankly, it might be kind of neat to have different levels of staff see a horse differently. Might even be a nice skill level setting.


Mon May 13, 2019 6:13 pm
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Post Re: Issue with Ready Indicator: Green but Jaded.
If I remember correctly the bars are all there to give an approximation of whatever it represents, at least that's the impression I got when they were introduced. And that seems to bear out when I consider the stamina bar. So are the bars any use?

I say yes, at least they give you an idea of the possible/maybe capabilities of the horse. But then I'm an old player and personally liked the game without bars, where I had to run the 2yos a few times and work it all out then watch my donkeys get gelded and go win gr1 races galore after selling them. I still retire horses rather than sell them because it hurt too much lol.


I don`t agree to horses running every day/week in the game by the AI but I have seen many times horses in real life running the day after a race and winning, especially in Ireland, I can think of quite a few Willy Mullins horses doing such.


Tue May 14, 2019 2:03 am
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Post Re: Issue with Ready Indicator: Green but Jaded.
dragontrainer wrote:
But then I'm an old player and personally liked the game without bars, where I had to run the 2yos a few times and work it all out then watch my donkeys get gelded and go win gr1 races galore after selling them. I still retire horses rather than sell them because it hurt too much lol.


This. Except early game when I need the money, I don't sell my horses, I retire them. For this basic reason. It kills me when a horse I bred and sold wins a big race that I wanted to win.


Tue May 14, 2019 4:00 am
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Post Re: Issue with Ready Indicator: Green but Jaded.
dragontrainer wrote:
I say yes, at least they give you an idea of the possible/maybe capabilities of the horse. But then I'm an old player and personally liked the game without bars, where I had to run the 2yos a few times and work it all out then watch my donkeys get gelded and go win gr1 races galore after selling them. I still retire horses rather than sell them because it hurt too much lol.


I'm quickly coming to see it your way. I clearly have a LOT to learn yet as I can't even remotely get a grip on how I have a horse with a 120 rating that wins 3 in a row easily and then can't win or even come close for an entire year after that, as if they never were any good. I keep thinking I have a G1 horse only to fail time and again and then try to be content with them winning C2's or C1 Allowance races.

I also just got into breeding my own horses and was thinking about breeding one of my top mares with the second-highest sire (first was $1.8MM and this one was only $700k). Then when I looked at the start of this year, that #2 horse is now asking EIGHTEEN MILLION!!! WHAT?!?!? So missed that boat.


Tue May 14, 2019 6:02 am
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Post Re: Issue with Ready Indicator: Green but Jaded.
jstu9 wrote:
dragontrainer wrote:

This. Except early game when I need the money, I don't sell my horses, I retire them. For this basic reason. It kills me when a horse I bred and sold wins a big race that I wanted to win.


I think I'd be one to also want no bars. Design-wise bars suggest hard numbers. Since there can't be hard numbers in reality I'd really like what I mentioned above and have my staff (which I can improve) provide insight on the horses over time along with my own notes.

I'm also already aware that I'm seeing the same horses showing up that I race against which is really cool, but now dreading that some of them will be my erroneous cast-offs.


Tue May 14, 2019 6:06 am
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