We’ve made significant changes to the show system in V2. We covered many of these updates last year in this blog post, but there have been some additional developments since then that we want to share.
Our Vision for V2 Shows: Start Showing Young
One of our primary goals was to allow horses to start showing successfully at younger ages. This meant accounting for less training and fewer developed performance traits at lower levels. We’re achieving this partly by adjusting the show formulas to factor in the level of competition (more details in the previous post).
However, we ran into a design issue: in the old system, horses needed to hit a minimum score to earn a title at each level. This didn’t align with our new focus on letting younger, less-developed horses compete and succeed at lower levels. So we created a new advancement system.
How Titling & Advancement Work Now
Titling Requirements (Simplified):
We’ve completely removed the score requirement. In V2, a horse simply needs to:
- Earn the required points for that level
- Place first at least once at that level
Advancement to Next Level (New System):
A title alone is no longer enough to move up. We’ve implemented an expert evaluation system.
Once your horse has been titled, you’ll have the option to have them evaluated for the next level. An expert will assess whether your horse qualifies to compete at the next level based on their genetic potential for that discipline. If they don’t qualify, the expert will provide general feedback explaining why, and your horse will stay at the current level. If they pass, you will be able to enter your horse into shows at the next level.
Important Note: The specific trait requirements for advancement are intentionally hidden—we won’t be sharing exact number cutoffs for each discipline. Instead, the expert will tell you which discipline-related traits are lacking if your horse doesn’t advance.
Current Status
This system was recently completed and is currently being tested by Patreon members. So far, we have received comments that not needing to check score minimums in the Wiki is nice, and the new system helps take the guesswork out of knowing if a horse will do well at higher levels. We’re very happy with how it’s working so far, but as always, we’ll make any necessary tweaks and adjustments based on feedback and real gameplay.