HGG Community Forums

ooops never mind!

@cavalynn

@AMMIT, thanks for the clarification. So does this mean that BA is now acting more like SBA?

@AMMIT Is there any way to predict what crosses will work out or not exept by wasting a chance? At least with the other system I could try it and it would give me feedback. Now I'm breeding and it could be random or it could be a bad cross.

@AMMIT So it is all just random? Apparently I have been confused because I've been keeping track of what crosses yield results and repeating those crosses. If a match was less uneven, does that not increase the likelihood of passing foals?

ok I think I've figured it out, just requires comparison testing for me to get the numbers I'm wanting

Well the downside is less passing foals, so yes better quality but less chances to roll the dice for the genes I am targeting. I get it. Not really a fan, but at least I know what I'm doing now.

Posting this PM here as well in case the explanation can help anyone else:

The old BA would compare a foal to the sire, and if it was much worse than the sire, the foal would be altered. If the foal was good enough compared to the sire, it would then be compared to the dam and if it was much worse than the dam, it would be altered. All foals have been compared to both parents when using BA for a long time now in the game, so it's been a while since it could be used to breed crosses that would particularly throw intact fillies instead of colts. (It used to be fillies were only compared to their dams and colts to their sires, and since breeding mares to better stallions is very likely to throw foals better than their dams but not as good as the sires, you could get more intact fillies than colts on average. That hasn't been so for years, because those fillies have been compared to their sires as well.)

The new BA compares the foals to an average of the two parents, so if the foal is as good as or better than average for that cross, it will pass. Picture an imaginary bar being set exactly between the breeding ability of the sire and the breeding ability of the dam. The foal is trying to make it over that bar with the new BA. It doesn't have to be better than both parents to pass, so it's actually easier now to get passing foals with some uneven-ness in the cross. When you're breeding evenly, there's really not much change because both parents have about the same breeding ability, so the average of their breeding abilities is about the same as well.

The new BA evens out the outcomes and levels the playing field when it comes to different crosses. It judges the foals more fairly based on realistic expectations for each particular cross. It used to be that it was very hard or impossible to get passing foals from some uneven or high-papered crosses, because one parent could never throw a foal good enough to pass when compared raw against the other parent. It was also very easy to get passing foals from lower gen and even crosses. Now BA is a little stricter on low-paper crosses, so foals that pass will be better than some foals that were allowed to pass before. And very uneven crosses are now viable because foals are being judged against the average of what's possible for that cross, so it's telling you that the "dice roll" for that foal was good considering what was in the dice for that cross.

Looking at the stud and mare you posted, it looks like it's just down to a bit of bad luck if you didn't get any passing foals this season. I would continue breeding the crosses you have been happy with in the past, and use pastures with full 30-day pasture bonuses on the mares to make it more likely to get better than average foals for those crosses. Also, remember that if you're getting less intact foals since the change, any passing foals you do get will be better than the passing foals you were getting before. Continuing your lines with these foals will help progress your herd faster. Also, you really should keep more altered foals for show because it really will make a difference to your income in a few months. I put that off for years and finally started last year and lately I've been having trouble keeping my hbs under the cap.

@Fiddler do you understand from the posts now why it is acting completely differently from SBA?

@ammit yes I feel a lot more confident now that I understand ... all the explaining is sinking in.

Awesome! I just wanted to be sure.

@OopsDotCom Both changed, but SBA didn't change overall in how it judges horses, it just now always allows cap breeding ability horses to pass, regardless of how they compare against their parents.

@OopsDotCom "Cap breeding ability" is the highest breeding ability a horse can have without boosting. In other words, the highest **star or **gold before you get to ***star and ***gold which can only be done by boosting. Before, foals from boosted ***star/***gold parents would fail SBA because they were at the cap and their parents were above the cap, so they were worse than their parents, even though cap is the best they ever could be without boosting. Now they're treated more fairly by SBA and allowed to pass without boosting.

@OopsDotCom There is a cap on how high breeding ability can go in the game, just where **star/**gold turns to ***star/***gold. No horse can have higher breeding ability than ***star or ***gold, and that's only by boosting. So breeding ability is "capped" in the game. Each generation can't get better and better forever.

PT is for training cap only applies to breeding ability. They are different numbers and no you can not use PT to know what the breeding ability of a horse is. THat is why I am always telling people not to use PT to pick what horses they want to breed.