HGG Community Forums

Sorry for having to do rounds of posts but people to struggle read forum posts and the only way I have found to keep the conversation moving is to make new posts. If you have not read the entirety of first post please do so before posting here.

https://mesa.horsegeneticsgame.com/forum/index.php?p=/discussion/9559/changes-coming-to-the-era-system-in-december-for-bluegrass-and-forest-feedback-wanted

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It has been about 5 days now and convo has died down on all three servers so lets recap where we are at and then look at some new things to ponder.

I asked: How many clubs should stay distinct?
The solution that seems to make the most sense is to have a combo system. We have a hard limit of 15 era clubs, but any server might have less than 15 clubs depending on the activity level.

The system would work like this:
If a server already has 15 active clubs at the start of a new era there WILL be a merge of an older era to keep the total number of clubs to 15. The least active era will be merged to make room for the new era.

However; even if a server has less than 15 era clubs there might be merging. Any club with less than 20k is at risk for merging in the future. Any club with less than 10k horses WILL be merged.

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When looking at the futurities however I found that the activity level of a club does not correlate to the activity level of that futurity era. I really think we will need to handle era clubs and futurity merging separately.

For era clubs we can classify them like this
Very healthy: over 20K registered
At risk: sub 15k registered
In danger: sub 10k registered

For futurity eras we can classify them as:
Very health: triple digit points to 25th place.
At risk: Triple digits past 20th but not to 25th place.
In danger: Double digits at 20th place or single digit points at all.

On Bluegrass there are 3 in danger era clubs, 2 at risk clubs and 14 healthy era clubs. There are 2 in danger futurity eras, 8 at risk futurity eras and, 9 healthy eras. The two in danger futurity eras are HEALTHY clubs with over 20k registered horses. Some of the most at risk clubs have healthy futurities and vice versa.

Another example mesa does not have a single in danger era club, but 7 of it's 9 futurity are at risk or in critical danger.

To put it short they need to be handled separately.

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The initial form of this idea was to have a single club that eras merged into, but with more thought and feedback it seems to make the most sense to have a number of clustered clubs. Our era board might look like [0, 1/2/3, 4, 5/6, 7/8, 10, 11] as the possible era clubs. These groups would be flexible and might change every six month. There would be no need to change registration on your clubs or your programs. They would still act like independent clubs as far as registration and breeding goes but would simple share a common prize pool.

This is the same as real life horse shows that might combine the maiden and amateur classes if there is not enough entries. If at the next show there is enough entries they would be separate again.

The bonus of the clumped era system is instead of a single combined "retired era club" that could become rather large I can balance the older eras to keep competition more evening spread out. That would have the most minimal impact on anyone's programs.

Remember as I said in my first post, this is only about older eras, not limited or primary eras.


I asked: How fast should the merging happen?
I would have needed to see an extremely compelling reason presented as to why we should rush merging. Not only did I not see any (as expected) there was a lot of reason given for a slow roll out. So we will be going the slow wind down of total number of active eras and futurities for sure.

Re bluegrass: I let bluegrass discuss if they needed some support with futurity era numbers in June but I really did not see enough support or clear consensus on that to justify doing anything in June. Still open to feedback on that but it can't just be the same players commenting. If you have feedback on this please speak up.


I asked: What do we call the new combined/retired eras?
This was asked with the original assumption that we would have a single merged down to era but I think that probably will not be the case now. That means we won't have a specific name for the merged eras. They will just be "Era 1/2/3" for example and be listed in the older eras.


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Thank you everyone for your feedback and suggestions so far. I also really appreciate everyone working so hard to keep this a positive and respectful community.

Please let me know your feedback for round two, and again please read the original post before posting.