View unanswered posts | View active topics It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 5:14 pm



Reply to topic  [ 6 posts ] 
 What I would like 
Author Message
Selling plater
User avatar

Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:45 pm
Posts: 79
Location: Leicester
Post What I would like
I have given up on SO7 gone back to SO6. For me the next edition (if there is going to be one) should have the Breeding & Racing of SO6 with the added features of SO7 plus bigger & better schedules. I only play the game, not interested in the League & never will be it just needs to be Fun.


Mon Mar 01, 2021 8:34 pm
Profile
Handicapper

Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:42 pm
Posts: 111
Location: Lincolnshire, England
Post Re: What I would like
Spot on, Gerry.

I am a computer games addict, even more so at the moment in these difficult times. I got into SO in October 2019, and since then have put in over two thousand five hundred hours on a single save and have just started season 27. And in all my born days, I have never encountered a pc game that is so relentlessly loaded against the player. The only reason I keep playing SO7 is that I like horse racing – not because the game is any particular fun. But it is very much on borrowed time for me. I know from first hand experience that it is impossible to use the same breeding methods that the AI uses. I have tried everything (and I mean everything) and each year my foal drop is by and large average to poor. A few with 80% plus potential that go on to be nice runners and provide me with a good number of wins. But nothing like the monsters the AI turns out year after year. And I get so many that actually look pretty good, but five seasons later turn out to be duds. I have been able to develop a couple of bloodlines on the flat, though both have some issues that were not immediately apparent. As for producing good NH bloodlines – absolutely hopeless. It’s entirely pot luck and not worth spending any time on. The vast majority of AI big money winners have deceased sires (to be expected in NH but why would stallions producing really good two, three or four year olds no longer be available to the player? Hang on, I think I know the answer!).

I am left scratching my head as to why a developer would have wanted to produce such a game. There may have been calls for something more difficult than SO6. But the minute you block players off from actually getting a monster or two every ten seasons, the point is no longer about difficulty. It is about the game becoming humdrum and repetitive. I have been banging on for the last twelve months on this forum about the game having more for the casual player (a term I use to define those not excited by the prospect of playing online league, or absorbing themselves in modding). Because there is little in SO7 to keep players engaged once they realise the ultimate thrill will never be achievable. For goodness sake it’s a game. Give players a break or two.

Anyway, the developer has made it clear that he now spends all his time developing SO for other platforms, so at least we know where we stand. Many of the long term casual players have voted with their feet if this forum is anything to go by. Nobody wants an easy experience but even the most addicted do want to see some reward for all the hard work put in. If the intention was to make SO7 realistic than that too has failed – I don’t think real life trainers can replay a day in their life (as you can on SO7 with the lack of auto-save), make twenty million pounds within days of starting up (as you can on SO7 with the money cheat) or zoom forward thirty seasons in breeding to maximise their horse quality (as you can on SO7 with the export facility). Don’t get me wrong. I have no axe to grind with people who do these things to make their gaming experience more pleasurable. I just find it somewhat ironic that those who simply want to play the game ‘properly’ are left behind.

SO7 is not particularly difficult to play. And SO7 is not particularly realistic. It is, simply, the most ‘anti player’ game I have ever encountered in over twenty years of playing pc strategy games. And I no longer have any expectation that it will ever be any different.


Tue Mar 02, 2021 11:59 am
Profile
Group 3 winner
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:41 pm
Posts: 679
Location: Newburgh, Scotland
Post Re: What I would like
Have to disagree with you for once Harry, I find the game is fun, though that fun is hampered by the shortcomings of the schedule and other less serious issues.

Personally I don't want to find 'monsters' per se, and, I do seem to unearth a decent horse or two each season. It would be wholly unrealistic to find say a Derby or Oaks winner every season. A stable in reality does not win a classic every year. I accept the breeding needs one or two tweaks, but, on the whole it is much more realistic than previous versions as it shouldn't be an exact science. Breed two decent horses together and you could hopefully get a decent offspring, but not guaranteed. I currently have an unbeaten 3 year old filly that won the Oaks and a couple of other filly group 1's and now she's entered in the Arc with fingers crossed. I have many who have flattered to deceive, as horses do.

It is seriously annoying that horses frequently run well at 2, then poorly at 3 and 4 until they mature after that. This is totally unrealistic, yes you get late maturing horses, but not to the percentages the game uses.

I believe SO7 is realistic as far as the parameters allow it to be, with the stock schedule seriously inhibiting this once your stable grows and that this does quickly, along with the other less major niggles, seems to be putting off players going by the complete nosedive of activity on the forum.

I sincerely hope the PC version is not being abandoned, I for one will not be going near a mobile version due to the limitations of that genre. My eyesight is bad enough without trying to play a PC game on a mobile device with its small screen. Hopefully Mark will be catering for all markets.


Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:51 am
Profile
Handicapper

Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:42 pm
Posts: 111
Location: Lincolnshire, England
Post Re: What I would like
And I must disagree with you for once neves_rats !!!!

You seem to overlook that I am in season 27. I didn't say I wanted monsters every season (I think I said one or two every ten seasons or so), but after the length of time I have been playing I shouldn't still be so far behind the best AI horses, so often. Yes, I have over 2500 career winners and a winning percentage well over 25%. I win graded races. Featured races. I finish as champion trainer (though this of course is due to the numerical advantage over the AI trainers). It can often be fun. But I still think the game fundamentally needs the player to get the occasional top horse, legend, monster (call it what you want). Without that ability, the game just gets mundane and eventually reaches the end of it's shelf life. I think from memory you are only a few seasons in and with the level of depth you play to, you should reach season 27 in about 2030 (in real time) !!!! If by then you have still not landed a legend, you may see things differently.

Let's play a bit of a scenario here :

Somebody new to SO buys the game, and after say 30 hours has worked out by and large the best way to play. It will take a few more hours to undo some of their early mistakes but the next 250 hours should see the player winning lots of good races with good horses. If in the next 100 hours the player wins the Grand National, three big races at Cheltenham, the Derby, the Oaks etc etc with a couple of legends this is really great. The purchaser is a really happy bunny. This is a great game. I progressed from nothing to this. So.......what happens next. Probably a few more hundred hours - five times National winner, three times the Derby. You get my point. This is an amazing game, but taken to it's limit. Beaten ? No, the player knows nothing about Australian flat racing. Wow, a few more hundred hours there for sure and great fun as long as you can get hold of those super horses the AI users so you can truly compete at the top. America maybe after that. And then start all over again with the horse stats hidden, which would then be difficult. All 100% unrealistic compared to real life but SO7 is not real life, it is a game. So make it a playable game. Some of the new players that are well and truly hooked will move onto league racing, which is great for those involved in that. And the developer does not need to make SO8. The existing SO7 is so entertaining people will regularly buy extensions to it. Those extensions would not even need huge amounts of new content for goodness sake, just another gentle nudge forward.

I appreciate I am relatively new to SO and my views may well go against the grain with those who have been part of the series for a long time (and probably the developer as well). And maybe the scenario above was actually SO6, and therefore Gerry was right in his OP. But I suspect for every one player who says SO7 is a great game because it is so difficult and realistic, ten players have walked away. And many of them newbies. Marketing suicide if you ask me, but then I have never produced a long running successful pc game series, so I probably don't know what I am talking about. But I do worry for the future, and only because I do care.

And finally neves_rats I liked your 'nosedive of activity' - were you maybe thinking of your experiences on Flight Simulator when writing that lol


Thu Mar 04, 2021 2:46 pm
Profile
Group 3 winner
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:41 pm
Posts: 679
Location: Newburgh, Scotland
Post Re: What I would like
Chalk and cheese Harry with regard flight sim and SO7, and yes I've nosedived a lot, but what a sim, breath taking.

I do appreciate your point that I am in season 4, I believe, I do play very slowly and do get bored very quickly these days, sometimes only playing one game day and then I'm offski .

As with your good self I am also champion trainer every season NH & flat and you're correct in the assertion it's because there are no other major numerical stables, a huge flaw in my opinion. There should be 5-10 major other stables with large strings of horses, and these stables should get the lions share of the decent AI horses, as in real life, that would massively improve realism. I have also long asked that the horses we buy and recruit come from different owners and thereby all our stable runners don't all run in the same colours, they don't in real life unless you're Godolphin. I agree we do need the hope of getting a really top horse, a Frankel or a Desert Orchid , every once in a while.

It is all too easy to dominate, especially once money isn't a problem, but that's a choice thing I guess, though I didn't cheat to get my £180million , I just learned to play the reversed forecast on 2 over priced runners in a handicap that have been running in pattern races. Won it on one race, gambling now not even relevant in my game.

The game does appear to have plateaued and it all depends on whether CPR will be applied or it will be left in a coma, time will tell.


Thu Mar 04, 2021 3:34 pm
Profile
Selling plater

Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2018 1:28 am
Posts: 15
Post Re: What I would like
I think perhaps the best way to look at it, is that the AI trainers are keeping up with your breeding efforts. I've been in my current file for 30ish seasons now and the main thing I've noticed is that (depending on your schedule/where your racing out of) it seems that the AI will trend/skew towards certain distances. For my US file it's mainly milers, maybe 7f-1.2f that they really go ham on. My random 1.4f-2m horses will almost always clean house in the G1s because they aren't being breed as heavily, and most of them are coming from my miler broods with a good range on the "important" stats.

But I find that, when your breeding for the favored distances (generally speaking, for that file) it's tougher to produce consistent g1 winners. I tend to not run mine as frequently (3-5 races per season), because I have about 100 to sift through, but it is a healthy amount of challenge to get a "good" G1 horse.

I've come to accept that not every monster G1 stallion will produce good offspring. Infact I think most of them on my file are generally poor producers in the shed. I don't know why, but it certainly is a trend. I have about 100ish broods to cover every season, and some seasons are better than others. But even getting a high potential foal doesn't really feel like it means much when you take in all the other stats/factors it takes to make them be actually good runners. I tend to favour higher body stats (just pure speed/accel usually), and the other stats will tend to follow suit. Yes it's generally RNG in terms of the other stats, but it doesn't seem like those matter as much as the "core" 4-5 ones, beyond what your personal preference is.

I tried running a UK flat file and only breed sprinters (this was a few updates ago) and it was wayyyyy more difficult to even win higher level handicaps. Super challenging for sure.

I think over time, if you have the energy out time to do so, running other files in tandem to your main one would probably be the best benefit to your breeding program. I haven't tried testing it yet, but when I get the energy to start a new one, I think that is what I'll try. My main file is going pretty well, lots of G2/G3 winners consistently, but my targeted distance is getting stale with G1s.


Sat Mar 06, 2021 10:50 pm
Profile
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Reply to topic   [ 6 posts ] 

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group.
Designed by STSoftware for PTF.