Breeding bug?

[Lady Briar]

I'm not sure if I've encountered a bug or what, but, in the breeding guide in game it says, and I quote, "A newborn foal's Base Stats is most likely to be the average of the parents' respective Base Stats. For example: if the mare has A+ Speed, and the stud has B Speed, the resulting foal is likely to have A Speed."

I've spent three straight days and something like 70 million and so far easily 95% of my foals have come out with flat D's across the board. This isn't supposed to happen, obviously. I've got mares and studs with NOTHING but A's and A+'s across the board, so the "average" of the parents is, at worst, an A. I should, according to the game itself, be getting foals that are ALSO A across the board.

I'm not.

70 million and three days of trying... I'm beyond frustrated. So, my question is, does anyone know if this is a known bug and if they're working on a fix? Or do I need to report this? I've ALSO noticed that, since the update, my game freezes up a lot more often and it always happens after the portraits or the portraits AND the horse itself disappear. Meaning I can look at races or my stables and it's a blank icon with no horse face or no horse. All the stats and info are there, but the horses are invisible. So I'm wondering if its just that this update is particularly buggy or not. I haven't played in a while, so, any info would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[noodle]

I have noticed the same problems. Also my game always freezes when reaching the second jump in steeplechase races. But I have found no fix for it.

[thelefthorse]

OP, are you breeding two horses that are the same level? If you are and they have A and B stats and you're getting flat D's, then yes, that's a bug.

However, the most important bit is that to improve stats via breeding, you MUST be breeding two horses of the SAME level. An A in a level 5 is many points below an A of a level 6, so your new level 6 foal isn't inheriting a number between two level 6 A's -- which would be more likely to result in an A, it's inheriting the average between the equivalent of a level 6 A and a level 6 F. And that usually ends up as a D.

Does that, finally, make sense? I keep seeing these threads and they're making my head spin. Myself and others keep explaining the above and yet you guys keep not understanding.

EDIT: I'd like to make a suggestion. STOP looking at the letters and pay attention to the NUMBERS -- just the actual base stats. Forget letters, because the letters of a 6, as I said, do NOT correlate to the letters of a 5 -- or a 7. Just look at the actual base number stats for the two horses you breed and then look at the base number stats of the foal they produce.

[hiraethmangata]

This has been an issue for forever and I just emailed support about it. They said they're adding the suggestion to add a modify button for pc.

[hiraethmangata]

Originally posted by thelefthorse:

OP, are you breeding two horses that are the same level? If you are and they have A and B stats and you're getting flat D's, then yes, that's a bug.

However, the most important bit is that to improve stats via breeding, you MUST be breeding two horses of the SAME level. An A in a level 5 is many points below an A of a level 6, so your new level 6 foal isn't inheriting a number between two level 6 A's -- which would be more likely to result in an A, it's inheriting the average between the equivalent of a level 6 A and a level 6 F. And that usually ends up as a D.

Does that, finally, make sense? I keep seeing these threads and they're making my head spin. Myself and others keep explaining the above and yet you guys keep not understanding.

EDIT: I'd like to make a suggestion. STOP looking at the letters and pay attention to the NUMBERS -- just the actual base stats. Forget letters, because the letters of a 6, as I said, do NOT correlate to the letters of a 5 -- or a 7. Just look at the actual base number stats for the two horses you breed and then look at the base number stats of the foal they produce.

It's not a bug to get poor stats between two great horses, even if they're all the same rank, it's actually the breeding mechanics and they need to fix it ASAP.

[Leptin]

If the foal has a higher grade than one or both of the parents, it'll have relatively bad stats (or "lower than the average of the parent's stat quality"). They mention that in the "grade" section of the breeding guide (it probably should be in the stats section, but yeah). On mobile you can modify the breeding odds to guarantee that the foal is the same grade of the lowest grade parent, but that's not on desktop so you have to play the odds.

You technically can use two parents of different grades and still get "good" stats as long as the foal's grade doesn't exceed one or both of the parent's grade. For example:

I just bred a 5* mare with A+/A+/A+/A+/A+ base stats with a 3* stallion with A+/A+/A+/A/A+ base stats and got a 3* foal that had A+/A/A+/A+/A+ base stats.
A 4* foal from the same parents had B/B/B/B/B base stats.

The game says that a foal is "most likely" to be the average of the parent's base stats but that "most likely" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. There's plenty of variance with the breeding in this game. I've found that It's completely normal to sometimes have foals (that don't exceed the grade of the parents) that end up with B's in random stats even when breeding parents that have all A+ base stats.

I think I've read somewhere on facebook where people were talking about this and it was mentioned that a stat can vary up or down by 2 or so (maybe very rarely 3?) letter grades (assuming the foal's grade isn't higher than the parents). Anecdotally this seems to be the case; if two parents have an A in a particular stat, it seems like the foal could have a C, B, A, or A+ in that stat. In theory, getting an A in that stat should be "most likely" since that's the average, but the internal probabilities could be (and I'm just making these numbers up): 21% chance for a C, 30% chance for a B, 31% chance for an A and 18% chance for an A+ and this technically would meet the definition of an A being most likely (if I understand things correctly). But a 51% chance of Cs and Bs in this example would make anyone question if breeding was working as intended.

[Lady Briar]

Originally posted by thelefthorse:

OP, are you breeding two horses that are the same level? If you are and they have A and B stats and you're getting flat D's, then yes, that's a bug.

However, the most important bit is that to improve stats via breeding, you MUST be breeding two horses of the SAME level. An A in a level 5 is many points below an A of a level 6, so your new level 6 foal isn't inheriting a number between two level 6 A's -- which would be more likely to result in an A, it's inheriting the average between the equivalent of a level 6 A and a level 6 F. And that usually ends up as a D.

Does that, finally, make sense? I keep seeing these threads and they're making my head spin. Myself and others keep explaining the above and yet you guys keep not understanding.

EDIT: I'd like to make a suggestion. STOP looking at the letters and pay attention to the NUMBERS -- just the actual base stats. Forget letters, because the letters of a 6, as I said, do NOT correlate to the letters of a 5 -- or a 7. Just look at the actual base number stats for the two horses you breed and then look at the base number stats of the foal they produce.

Some are the same star level, some aren't. I still get flat D's either way. Star level is different from the stat letters, though. And breeding horses of the same level for reasons other than to cross traits is moot. The whole point is to raise the star level. Otherwise how would you EVER get a higher star level horse with B or better stats? That wouldn't make any sense, and goes against what it says in the actual game text. It literally says the stats are the AVERAGE of the parents, not the average of the parents modified by star level. Which, again, would make no sense.

I'm trying to get the star level and the stats of my legacy horse up, but it just isn't working. You say people aren't understanding, but the game text is very explicit, and what you're saying both doesn't match up with the game's information, and would also make breeding pointless??? You'd have to just stay at set star ratings and never progress, which would be beyond stupid.

[Lady Briar]

Originally posted by hiraethmangata:

This has been an issue for forever and I just emailed support about it. They said they're adding the suggestion to add a modify button for pc.

Modify what? Stat levels? That already exists in custom creations. I'm talking about actual breeding.

[Lady Briar]

Originally posted by hiraethmangata:

It's not a bug to get poor stats between two great horses, even if they're all the same rank, it's actually the breeding mechanics and they need to fix it ASAP.

100%

[Lady Briar]

Originally posted by Leptin:

If the foal has a higher grade than one or both of the parents, it'll have relatively bad stats (or "lower than the average of the parent's stat quality"). They mention that in the "grade" section of the breeding guide (it probably should be in the stats section, but yeah). On mobile you can modify the breeding odds to guarantee that the foal is the same grade of the lowest grade parent, but that's not on desktop so you have to play the odds.

You technically can use two parents of different grades and still get "good" stats as long as the foal's grade doesn't exceed one or both of the parent's grade. For example:

I just bred a 5* mare with A+/A+/A+/A+/A+ base stats with a 3* stallion with A+/A+/A+/A/A+ base stats and got a 3* foal that had A+/A/A+/A+/A+ base stats.
A 4* foal from the same parents had B/B/B/B/B base stats.

The game says that a foal is "most likely" to be the average of the parent's base stats but that "most likely" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. There's plenty of variance with the breeding in this game. I've found that It's completely normal to sometimes have foals (that don't exceed the grade of the parents) that end up with B's in random stats even when breeding parents that have all A+ base stats.

I think I've read somewhere on facebook where people were talking about this and it was mentioned that a stat can vary up or down by 2 or so (maybe very rarely 3?) letter grades (assuming the foal's grade isn't higher than the parents). Anecdotally this seems to be the case; if two parents have an A in a particular stat, it seems like the foal could have a C, B, A, or A+ in that stat. In theory, getting an A in that stat should be "most likely" since that's the average, but the internal probabilities could be (and I'm just making these numbers up): 21% chance for a C, 30% chance for a B, 31% chance for an A and 18% chance for an A+ and this technically would meet the definition of an A being most likely (if I understand things correctly). But a 51% chance of Cs and Bs in this example would make anyone question if breeding was working as intended.

Why *wouldn't* I want to increase the star level? That doesn't make sense. And regardless of same or different star levels, I'm getting foal after foal with flat Ds. I run all three of my foal stalls at the same time with one stud at a time, and with mares of 1 lower, same, and 1 higher star level than the stud, 99% were D D D D D.

It.

Is.

Broken.

I tracked my breeding in a notebook. Lemme count real quick.

73.


73 foals and only a handful of those had even ONE stat above a D.

[Leptin]

Originally posted by Lady Briar:

Why *wouldn't* I want to increase the star level? That doesn't make sense. And regardless of same or different star levels, I'm getting foal after foal with flat Ds. I run all three of my foal stalls at the same time with one stud at a time, and with mares of 1 lower, same, and 1 higher star level than the stud, 99% were D D D D D.

It.

Is.

Broken.

I tracked my breeding in a notebook. Lemme count real quick.

73.


73 foals and only a handful of those had even ONE stat above a D.

Oh, if even the foals that don't exceed the star level of one of the parents get straight D's from all A/A+ parents, then your breeding is bugged. I think it may not affect everyone though because from the ~30 foals I got from two 3* all A+ parents the other day, my 3* foals generally had a mix of A's/A+s and the 4* foals were mostly B's with 1 or 2 C's. Your upgraded star level foals should also generally be getting a healthy mix of B's, C's and D's from all A/A+ parents. So you're right, straight D's doesn't seem normal as well. Historically, the best foal I've gotten with an upgraded star level was straight B's though.

I have managed to get a 10* legacy horse with 4 A+ stats and 1 A a couple of months ago, so maybe this bug was something recent?

Sorry this is happening to you; 73 foals is a ton of effort to be stuck with a bug.