Feedback and Bug Reports Megathread!

[cozybeegames]

Share your feedback and issues with The Ranch of Rivershine here! I'll be reviewing this thread to know what to focus on and fix for future updates!

[kake212]

When riding bareback, the player howers above the horse as if it had a saddle on. That bugs me a bit!

[youtex123]

*FEEDBACK/SUGGESTION FOR ACCESSIBILITY - CONTROLS*
So far, it's looking pretty good! My only issue so far is the controls. As someone who was born without a left hand, the current control scheme is stopping me from being able to play to give any further feedback or highlight any bugs. If an option to control the horse/player by simply using WASD and an auto-rotating camera was added, or something similar, I'd be over the moon!

Keep up the good work though! <3

[kake212]

I wish the controls would be set permanentely... I don't know if it's a bug or supposed to be like that, but my control settings change everytime I do a race. That is a bit annoying.

The difficulty is of the game could be improved. It's hard to play for kids, I'm sure, and jumping is a challenge for me too (I like that I needed severel attempts to win first place in some races!), but getting rare horses is too easy. It was fun for the demo to try out those rare breeds, but it took me 14 ingame days to get a rare breed and at the end of the demo I could have had multiple without the possibility of using them. When you can get multiple horses within one season and the game is based on having multiple seasons... I think rare horses should be harder to get.

The potential of the horse goes down very fast. At first, I didn't really get how neccessary it is to use all of the riding time for training. Maybe you could change that and make it a little bit slower.

The world could be filled with more things, like treasures to find if you look all around the map... I checked out all of the hidden places, like waterfalls and stuff, hoping to find some rare items or cash... that would be fun!

The quests could be a little more complex... not just doing races. I wish the characters would interact more, but I'm sure that will be in the full game anyways!

The obstacles could be a little more fun, especially with cross country. I would like to see different obstacles for show jumping and cross country! More realism in general...

Speaking of realism, the tack could be improved too. The english saddle looks a bit off? Maybe you could also add leg wraps or stuff like that. I really love realistic horse games!

But I really enjoyed playing the demo, it was a lot of fun! Can't wait for the full game and the breeding system!

[Anubiis]

i absolutely love this game,the graphics are stunning, its so relaxing and cozy
but i have a few things i'd like you guys to look into-

►first of all, the UI disappearing bug, sometimes everything just..vanishes and the only solution to fix this is alt f4 which can be quite annoying if i already farmed some material or did competitions to earn money as getting first place is not guaranteed each run

►Second, the money. I find the money quite challenging to earn,it gets repetetive very quickly as the competitions are the main source of income as of for now, i'd greatly appreciate more options to earn money,something less grindy than competitions
such as, i don't know.. lending a horse to npcs for a day, or getting to take care of npc horses/do chores around the town barn

►third thing i'd like to mention, i'd really love to see the ability of getting a stable hand because i can imagine taking care of a lot of horses being tedious and once again,grindy/repetetive

►fourth, i find the animations really good but the walk is a bit awkward, (the horse is sliding xD) so i'd love for you guys to fix that

►fifth, the quests can be a tiny teeny bit confusing in my opinion, like with "do the river challenge" ..its been a while since i did quests so i didnt remember what was before this and it wasn't really clear to me,so maybe try considering making the quests a bit easier to understand/add an explanation into the quest log when the player opens it,it would really help a ton

►you could also consider adding hide the UI hotkey for nice pictures ♥

--

Overall:
i am madly in love with the game and im seeing myself playing this for years to come, i am very proud of you being able to make such awesome demo and cant wait to see how the game will look when fully released <33
Thank you for your hard work! ♥♥

[Kiemari]

There seems to be a bug where if you hit the hot key for the map while loading between areas, the screen will go black and briefly flicker back/flicker when you press the hotkey again (this flickering was bad enough I'd consider it a possible epilepsy/seizure inducing risk). With some determination I managed to manoeuvre my horse to the different gates (with some help from the go to entrance button in the map), and the bug eventually stopped once I crossed from the town and into the ranch. But unless you were holding the map key down the screen would stay black so I had to move my horse blind and open the map to check if I was heading in the right direction xD

[Muivin]

I played for 19 hours, finished all available quests, and the full demo and so here are my thoughts:

Bugs:

• Despite being specifically told a horse would not earn skill during competitions, I found that my horses were. Markedly there was one I specifically was very careful to only canter to level up more speed, and only galloped during competition. They gained both speed and endurance during the competitions.
  
• Had the character customization reset only once, but including hair color, eye color, and name.
  
• If the horse runs out of energy while training speed, the +speed icon does not go away until you change gaits out of the canter.
  
• Had to change the horse control to mouse/camera instead of keyboard every time I mounted from inside the stable.
  
• Several times the energy bar was incorrect (did not reflect the amount of charge as listed in the horse information), and after spending it all and waiting for it to recharge it would recharge to the correct amount of energy.

Overall I didn't encounter many bugs in the 28 Day play through with finishing all quests.

Feedback:
I didn't really like the difficulty curve of the races. It felt strange that I would need 'rare' horses to win intermediate races, when I unlocked the common ones around the same time. It seemed that 'wild' would be for beginners, 'common' would be for intermediate, 'rare' would be for advanced, and 'legendary' would be for expert. Now I admit this is perhaps a error on training on my part and that I could have potentially focused on other stats to have a common horse able to win intermediate...but I do think it deserves consideration and potential revamp.

I love the trust system, and find it super adorable how my horse gets more and more excited to see me or to come when I call. However it absolutely pains me that I cannot return their affection through pets and rubs. They whinny and nicker so cutely and I just :(

• Allow the player to interact more affectionately with their horse while on the ground
  
• Allow the player to at least pat the horse on command when riding. (This gives more of a sense of affection than the times the character just pats the horse on it's own while riding.)

I did notice that some of the tack incorrectly collides with the horse models, going through their necks etc. I also noticed that when riding with just a blanket or completely bareback, the tack jingle sound still played.

I also really like the statue system, it gives an additional reason to grind races, as well as if someone is very attached to one of their 'lower' class horses they can make them more viable this way. -Now it isn't very clear in just the 28 days how *exactly* this system works... but a few things I would like to see would be:

• You CAN apply it multiple times to the same horse.
  
• The harder the race the more it 'charges' the statue's glow.
  
• Definitely doesn't have to be applied to the horse you won the last 'charge' race on.

With grooming, I like it except that the brush is always active. There were several times I unintentionally moused over the horse's legs or face and then felt bad for upsetting them. I would like the brushes to only be active when the mouse button is held down. I would also have the mouse pointer disappear during this activity and the player just know where the pointer is by the brush position.

Aesthetically, I would create a mouse pointer that matches the vibe of the game. I was a little disappointed that it was just the default mouse haha...

Hopes:
I figured I'd mention some of my hopes in reference to some features that are planned, and some I would hope to be added.

• Horse shoes?
  
• Rain & winter blankets for horses (in the barn or pasture)
  
• Ability to geld stallions
  
• Need for keeping mares and stallions separate or face 'unexpected' pregnancy
  
• Ability to designate which pasture the horse goes to (ability to name the pastures for clarity with this?)
  
• Wide variety of horse mane and tail styles (perhaps eventual community vote on additional styles?)
  
• Ability to turn the manure into fertilizer

My ending comment is, I enjoyed this game very much. I'm looking forward to the early access release so I can snatch it up immediately.

[Eve]

Seriously enjoyed the demo and can not wait for Early Access to come out!

Where to begin?

The first "bug" I ran into was right away after purchasing my first horse and meeting River in the arena. After she gives you the initial quest and you're supposed to lead your horse into the arena, I lead them into a scene transition (I can't remember the exact transition) and got soft-locked in a 2/3 first-person-view and couldn't move and had to really fight my keyboard and mouse to get on my horse (this was a "feature" I repeated at least once more. Leading horse into arena/selecting obstacles sometimes breaks the rider/horse model).

Another bug I had briefly experienced was something along the lines of checking my horses stats while moving, feeding them an apple, then playing again and the energy bar not moving/showing the true energy level. This was fixed by making my horse gallop to reset the energy bar.

Model-wise I noticed that for the overalls, you can see two similar dots of skin poking out on the back of the player model's thigh. For the horse, I believe I experienced similar model clipping near the girth, but I'd have to go and look again. Another thing - already mentioned by a few other testers - is the reins clipping through the neck. Not a huge deal, but if it could be fixed, that would be awesome!

I was in awe that the player model not only balanced in accordance to inclines/declines, but also posted at the trot.

As far as gaits go for the horse: Yay! Our training actually effects the movement of the horse!! On the flip side, /if/ possible, minor tweaks to the trot/canter anims could be made. Both are a few frames too stiff, but overall aren't the worst thing I've ever laid eyes upon.

One person stated that the comp to horse system is a little off and I agree. I think beginner to low-timed intermediate should be the wild horses, then the nicer horses are medium to high intermediate, with the 20k auction additions being advanced to low-level expert, etc. In short, it could definitely use a little tweaking, but I'm sure it'll get balanced out eventually :).

That said, I'm not sure what plans there are for training (end, spd, jmp, flx, etc), however, I wouldn't be opposed to a slightly better training system. With the way it is set now, I have to be very cautious about how I would like my horses potential to be utilized (I'm the type of player that if I can ride, I'm going to ride). For a bit during the demo, I had one horse that I was working solely on END. So I would go to a straight path on the ranch and walk to one end, stop and turn while idle, book it, stop, then repeat. Jumping was very similar for me, which took a little bit of the fun out of it, but I digress.

Aside from these nit-picks, I am devastated that this game just has demo access, because it was genuinely a blast! Can't wait for Early Access!!

[Princess Isabella]

I was playing for a little bit, then randomly my HUD disappeared. (Quests, date, and season, horse speed, and what they're learning.) I couldn't open the map or inventory and couldn't talk to the person I was trying to. I could mount and dismount from my horse though.

I'm not sure if I just hit the wrong button or something like that.

[Princess Isabella]

I also hit escape, but it did nothing. :/ But once I closed the game down and tried again the HUD is back.

[ModDog87]

I encountered a new bug tonight. My avatar's clothes were... not there in very important places when I loaded my game. It looked like my girl was wearing chaps without pants underneath, if you catch my drift. Also, the, uh, girls were hanging out in the open air if you know what I mean. I tried changing at the dresser to no effect. I tried entering the auction house and entering competitions hoping to fix it, all to no avail. To any concerned parents though, the avatar looks like a Barbie doll beneath the clothes so it wasn't particularly reveling, just awkward as all get out.

[swiftfeather_]

Really enjoying the demo even after i finished it,

SUPER promising game and i hope you continue to work on it:
However, there is a few things i will note: The hair on the tails is VERY distracting while playing, compared to everything else it really feels out of place how odd it looks,

there's spots near the waterfalls on the cliffs that the water textures are visible,

and horses get stuck, your commands for controlling them don't always go though, this is the worst on the last intermediate race of the demo, trying to weave is incredibly frustrating as your horse stops turning, gets stuck on the building and then doesn't want to jump.

and if you like to ride with the camera free from the horse, the game FORCES your camera back to single and you need to steer with the mouse every time, you then need to quickly press Lalt to stop yourself becoming disoriented

things i like, but would like to see improvement:
the steering when you're using WSAD is really jarring, i'd like just a bit of easing in and out of movements to make it feel smoother,

the hair styles are all super amazing, i'd just love to see some more,

the horse models are stunning, there's currently no difference between mares and stallions however, it would be nice to either have size or model differences, as i had two at one point of the same colour and markings, and i couldn't tell which was my boy and which was my girl

things i just really liked:

the character models look amazing, and i LOVE the drawn art of people as they spoke to you, top notch especially for a demo,

The style is adorable and really fits well together, love the scenery,

i LOVE that you can do more then just train and buy horses, seeds, gathering, selling are all very welcome additions and i'm very excited to see what comes next

[reinium]

I've spent a good chunk of time playing this game and I have to say - I really love it. This is exactly the kind of horse game I would make if I could. I love everything about it, really.

My only suggestion is, and it may have already been mentioned, that we be able to do round pen work and groundwork with our horses to increase their Trust. I noticed that you had included round pens around the map and I thought more than once that it would be a fun way to build trust with my horse. And not just running them in circles, either, but real round pen work and maybe even little games like tag or such that you could play with your horse.

[mmindking]

i am stuck on one of the quest --Lipul meadow intermediate it want me to get
second place and i can't do it I tried 5 times. Can you make it easier or make a button that
skips the quest if you can't do it. thank you.

[K4zK4z]

2/5 Perfect demo. It has enough content for a demo but the fact it resets everything is what brings the rating down. It was a p bad decision considering it takes hours to get some things and there is enough limited content for it to be a demo. Personally I dont mind having to grind on a game but when the reward u get disappears like that its p disappointing. Also the game forcing u into a certain camera mode is lil bothersome considering that the 2nd camera mode where u use WASD keys without turning with ur mouse more confortable for me personally.

Other wise I adore the pasture and stable mechanics and the horse designs even tho they are a little stiff. Character design is great too. The way npcs dont stay in one place makes the whole thing feel alive. The art style of the graphics also feels fitting for the game and I enjoyed it. Overall this wouldve been a 10/10 if it werent for the reset that couldve easily been avoided

[Eve]

Originally posted by mmindking:

i am stuck on one of the quest --Lipul meadow intermediate it want me to get
second place and i can't do it I tried 5 times. Can you make it easier or make a button that
skips the quest if you can't do it. thank you.

I found a trick to it that works pretty well. Assuming you were able to get the horse above the wild horse and trained it, you'll want to make sure your endurance is high as well as speed. Gallop to the gates, but never let the red bar go all the way down. Canter right before the gate, jump, and then if there's another gate, keep canter and jump. After the gates, gallop some more. Keep balancing it between fences over long distances. You should see better time results this way.

If the issue is that you're still with a starter horse, it may be that your speed/end is too low to keep up with the demand. Good luck!