I realize it’s done this way to be realistic, but one of the things I find highly offputting is the extreme complexity of the nominations system. It’s hard to decide who to nominate for what, it’s hard to keep track of which races require nomination (commonly resulting in ineligible horses being entered, which then ticks people off).
Maybe we could reduce the number of races that require nomination and rework the system so it’s actually user friendly, instead of kinda forcing people to spend hours thinking about it.
Thank you for the suggestion but I have been doing this already, as I mentioned earlier, some other members have helped me out. This is what some have been doing for me. But I hate to keep asking other people to do things for me, particularly when I can’t do much in return. I don’t want to run out of goodwill
If Shanthi is able to get resting stables organised in the new year, my troubles will be over so I will keep my fingers crossed. But she does sound to still have an awful lot of real life to deal with.
Also a lot of links for nominations lead to out of date pages which is really frustrating, so even if you’re willing to look you end up looking at the wrong thing which is insanely confusing.
I’ve also had quite a few issues with the bug system the last few times I wanted to report stuff (such as the race nomination page link for the BS Series being out of date after you updated it) but couldn’t figure out how to log into the bug system and after trying for half an hour gave up b/c I was so annoyed. So yes the complexity of a lot of the features we have is very frustrating.
Some of the nomination fees are quite ridiculous (10% of the purse) and would discourage the majority of players from entering horses, this means a small number of stables plus plenty of FF horses go around in these races.
I’d suggest having 1st, 2nd, 3rd declarations and your final declaration being your entry fee for each race, I know it wouldn’t be the easiest to implement but maybe having a pop up or note when you first log in with up coming nominations or declarations … as an example, something like ‘1st payment for Japan Cup due in 3 days’ and have it set at a fairly nominal fee, and then as we get closer the other declarations are called and paid for, still imho 10% of the purse is too high.
We need away to encourage more people to enter these races because the current system doesn’t do that
I would vote for that, or a slight modification to what Andy suggested about 1st, 2nd, 3rd declarations (subject, naturally, to ease of coding). Obviously, you don’t want a 10-0-0-0-0=$0 Bag of Bones being entered in the Kentucky Derby, so you’d make the entry fee for “Nomination” races 7% of the purse. Maybe something like 1st declaration about 1 month before the actual race, at which time you’d have to pay 1% of the purse; 2nd declaration about 2 weeks before the race, at which time you’d have to pay another 2% of the purse; 3rd (final) declaration 1 week before the race at which time you’d have to pay another 4% of the purse. No horse could be declared at the 2nd declaration stage if they hadn’t been declared at the 1st declaration stage and no horse could be declared at the 3rd declaration stage if they hadn’t been declared at the 2nd declaration stage. You could have a supplemental entry at the final declaration stage for horses that hadn’t been declared at the 2nd declaration stage for which you’d have to pay 10% of the purse (they’d still have to pay the full 10% even if they’d been declared at the 1st stage).
This would bring it closer to real-life, but probably be hell to code.
I had one 2-Y-O filly that hadn’t been Breeder’s Cup nominated for this year’s races. In September, I took a gamble and paid $180,000 to Supplement her into the Juvenile Fillies (plus the entry fee for the race) and she promptly won.
Even if you decide to do away with Nominations except for BC and BS races, maybe you could make the entry fees for all the other Nomination-currently-required races 10% of the purse, rather than the current 5%, to keep out my 10-0-0-0-0=$0 Bag of Bones. Perhaps you could create a new Grade for these races, say 1A and restrict them only to horses that have earned a certain number of points, e.g. 25 points for 2-Y-O races, 50 points for 3-Y-O races and 100 points for 3-Y-O+ races.
Shanthi - It’s easy for me to sit here and think of these ideas. I’m sure that it is a completely different thing for you to sit there, read my ramblings and think “How on earth would I code that?” Anyhow, enjoy London and try not to get washed away while in “sunny” England.
I do also. The entry fees for those races are high enough that they will weed out the bad horses. And in the real KD etc there are always those horses that make you go “you have a record of what and you’re here? why?” but then they surprise you or they simply do as you thought they would and fail. Its really up to the owners and their pocketbooks.
I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to actually implement the code by the new year, but my plan is to implement the policy for 2014, anyway. (In which case I’d just manually set statuses to Stallion as appropriate, since hopefully there wouldn’t be more than a dozen or so retiring.)
Shanthi - What is the final decision on what would qualify a horse to be a stallion? From your last post on this subject, it sounds like it is 7 Stakes wins (including at least 1 in Gr. 1) plus 3 or more Stakes top three finishes (including at least 1 in Gr. 1). Is this an accurate summary of the qualifications?
I have four horses that I think are close to being qualified. Based on your post, it looks like 2 of them would be qualified and 2 wouldn’t.
W-2-3 W-2-3
Horse (All Grades) (Gr 1 Only) Qualified?
Cool Thief 7-1-3 4-1-3 Yes - Has 7 wins (incl 1+ Gr1) plus 3 places (incl 1+ Gr1)
Golden Text 7-10-5 2-0-0 No - Needs 1 more Stakes win (any Grade) or 1 more Gr1 1st, 2nd or 3rd
Native Justice 5-0-4 1-0-1 No - Needs 2 more Stakes wins, any grade
Slip In The Mud 9-5-3 3-3-2 Yes - Has 7 wins (incl 1+ Gr1) plus 3 places (incl 1+ Gr1)
The flow chart that you’ve laid out makes it so much easier to understand, at least I think so anyway.
I don’t know if this will help but I can see what, to me, looks like a fairly simple way to program it using some coding languages but don’t know if it would work for FF:-
Q1=if(SW>=7) then 1 else 0 {SW=Stakes Wins, all grades}
Q2=if(G1W>=1) then 1 else 0 {G1W=Stakes Wins, Gr. 1 only}
Q3=if(SW+SP>=10) then 1 else 0 {SP=Stakes 2nds & 3rds, all grades}
Q4=if(G1W+G1P>=2) then 1 else 0 {G1P=Stakes 2nds & 3rds, Gr. 1 only}
SQ=if(Q1Q2Q3Q4=1) then"Y" else “N” {SQ=Stallion Qualified}
Regardless of the answers to all of the questions, Q1Q2Q3Q4 can only be 1 or 0. If all four answers are true then Q1Q2Q3Q4 will be 1, but if even one answer is false then Q1Q2Q3Q4 will be 0, regardless of which or how many are false. This does assume that FF code already has separate variables to track G1W & G1P (we know that it already appears to track SW & SP, or at least S2 and S3, Stakes 2nds, Stakes 3rds)
I am thinking of doing some Programming Courses next year (I used to be a Computer Programmer). What language does FF use? If I could find a course in it, maybe I could provide some assistance to you to help reduce your workload. I have a bit more spare time on my hands and would love to put it to some good use, and, if I can do that and help to reduce your burden, then that could benefit both of us, as well as the other FF users. I would obviously expect that, if and when that time came, you would want to check over any work I did and test it to make sure that it works the way it is supposed to.
Is this definitely going to happen in 2014? Reason I ask is that I am interested in a horse in one of the Auctions, but only because he would be Stallion eligible under your new proposed rules. Under the old rules, he would still be 2SW shy of qualifying and his recent racing record shows no indication that he will ever get the required SW’s. I would have to go to quite a high figure to win the Auction, but would only go that high if I knew that the new rules were going to be implemented starting next year (2014) and he would definitely be qualified for Stallion duties.
I don’t know if you ever replied to Spudly’s post, above. If the answer is “Yes”, is there a particular time frame for us to PM you with our lists of horses to be switched to Stallion Status?
Yes to both. I may get a chance to change the retirement code as well. If not, you will need to PM me between Jan 1 and Feb 13, before the breeding season begins.
