I've started playing the jumps game, and there are several issues that really could do with being improved;

1. Horses are running way too oten, this has been mentioned before many times, but it is still very much the case, particularly novices. I think having graded novice races would help a lot with this, as well as tweaking to the AI to make horses run less.

2. Similarly to the above point, horses are running too close together, particularly at cheltenham where two races on consecutive days may have the same preps, I have mentioned beore that this could be fixed with a condition of 'notrunfor=' and the number of days. I think this would be the easiest and most effective way to solve this issue, as conditions are one of the best ways to control entries on the game as they are absolute.

3. International races are not great, it seems international fields, particularly novice races are filling up very strangely, some seasons they are fine, other seasons they are full of home counrtry runners. It doesn't seem that the number of horses allocated to the foreign country matters, as there are plenty enough horses to make it work fine. I think this issue could be solved by having the 'home' tag work, as it doesnt have any effect at the moment and is entirely pointless. Perhaps again, a condition to make the race only available to home nation horses would be best, as again, conditions work very well.

4. Horses seem to run over too wide a distances, they will run over 2 miles and then over 3 miles, regardless of how good they may be, or example, the best 2 mile hurdler on the game will often run over 3 miles, this happens very rarely and makes prepping big races hard, as the horse will have run in races that are preps for two races such as the champion hurdle and the stayers hurdle, and thereore then run in both off these races, which is very unrealistic.

5. Novice hurdler ages, this is a huge issue for me, there is a problem with the game that is only allowing horses off certain ages to run in novice hurdle races, these races are open to any age, but are only being run in by horses of one age group, this is a bug and really needs fixing, as it feeds into the next point.

6. Horses are not progressing through bumpers, hurdles and jumps. This has got better since so6 i think, but is still not enough, far too many horses are going straight into jumping without having been hurdling first, this just doesnt happen in real life.

7. Novice horses dont seem to be able to run in handicap races, again, this would seem to be a bug with the game.

These are just some issues that are really making the jumps game very difficult to play in a realistic way, I think there are solutions to these issues, if there are any ways we as players can help implement any changes to these issues, I would be very happy to help.

Thank you very much

Another issue.

8. NHF races and Juvenile races should only be 2 miles, there shouldnt be any of these races over longer trips than this.

9. I also think in the jumps game there should be a higher ratio of male horses to female horses to more realistically represent the real life population of jumps horses if possible.

I do hope all of these suggestions are implemented in the jumps game by Mark, it would make the game much more playable, realistic and appealing than it currently is.

There were a number of compromises made in order to get the jumps game working way back. SO7 has improved on SO6 in many areas but there is clearly room for further improvement.

Improving the jumps game in some of these areas is like playing whack-a-mole. You fix one thing and this can cause other issues elsewhere.

There are a couple of jumps improvements coming next patch (just released 0.104). It is important people provide feedback on these changes as they may or may not work in the context of the simulation as a whole. Ongoing tweaks will improve the game further but it may be a slow progress and it (SO7) is a game and not reality and will never please everyone.

Thanks Mark, I am not posting these as criticisms, but as points that I think need improving. I appreciate that its not as simple as I suggest. Its great to see some improvements coming to the jumps game. One thing that I mentioned, is it possible or extra conditions to be added such as not run for however many days, and limiting races to home horses? Is this something that can be quite simply added or is it very difficult, as I really feel these would help a lot.

Again, thank you very much, I will provide feedback to the points above with each patch where tweaks have been made.

The latest tweak to make all juvenile and NHF races 2 miles is great, it adds a lot of realism to the game. Also there seems to be more progression through hurdles to jumps, although only very slightly, I think there are too many horses going straight to jumping instead of hurdling first, and there still seems to only be 4/5 year olds novice hurdling and no horses older than this.

Also, horses seem to be running over too much of a variety of distances, for example they will run over 3 miles and win a grade one, and then drop down to 2 miles next time. Horses dont tend to be sticking to distances that are clearly their best, and as a result horses are having poorer form because they are running in races that are at a sub optimal trip for them. This also makes prepping harder as by running in races at a range of distances, they are running in races that are preps for a number of different races, making them more likely to run in both the champion chase and the gold cup or example.

There does also seem to be a lot of mares, I presume the game has about 50/50 male/female horses, but I wonder if this can be tweaked in the jumps game to be more skewed towards male horses, so the large majority of horses would be males.

It really is great to see progress being made to the jumps game, to have a well functioning, realistic jumps game will add so much to the game as a whole.

Thanks Mark.

I echo QWSA 's comments. Improvement to the jumps side of the game is very welcome, no matter how gradual.