Understanding the Breeders Report and Conformation Evaluation

[larissar]

The Breeders Report is your best determination of the conformation potential of your horse, but even the Breeders Report is not 100%. This post is a detailed explanation of how the Breeders Report is determined and how it relates to the Conformation Evaluation.

Horse Gene Basics
Every horse has 8 stats (Speed, Stamina, Strength, Intelligence, Balance, Agility, Tempo, Movement). Each stat has a gene which determines the raw stat value. This gene functions like Incomplete Dominant. Each stat is also affected by the horses Height, Build, Temperament and Gender (also Incomplete Dominates) which raises or lowers these values. Next the stat is affected by the conformation (many genes, one for each conformation point, each also functions as an Incomplete Dominant). Each stat has an ideal value for 5 to 7 of the conformation points. Some conformation points are more important than others and as such would have a greater effect on the stat value. Premium Users can value the breakdown by stat and conformation point for their horses by viewing the Conformation Evaluation tab.

The final value for each stat is then reported in the Breeders Report. The specific sentence is chosen based on a small range of possible sentences close to the stats value. So two horses with the exact same stat value won't end up with the exact same chosen sentence. This is designed so that you can't map a hard value to each sentence.

Breeding Tips
- Since the stats primary function as Incomplete Dominates you can be sure that if your horse has a great comment, his genes must be great, and conversely if the horse has poor comments, his genes must be poor. An average horse could be hiding great or poor genes. Paying close attention to the Breeders Report of his ancestors or children can help determine what genes the horse is hiding.

- Green Stats are stats who's value is greater than 65 out of a maximum of 100. That is a very low threshold which means you still have a lot more room for improvement.

- Red stats are stats who's value is less than 10

- Conformation Evaluation values represent the conformation portion of the Breeders Report. So if your horse has a great breeders report comment, and a poor conformation value, you can guess that the horse must then have very high natural genes to overcome the poor conformation and still end up with a great comment. However if the horse has poor natural genes then even a high conformation value won't help him because conformation doesn't actually ADD anything to the stat value. It can only subtract from the value. However these high conformation values can still be passed on to their foals.

- Breeding good horses to good horses results in any range of poor, good or great horses. Breeding to great horses increases your chance of good or great horses.

Relevant Chat Conversations
Occasionally a conversation will take place in chat which is informative about this topic. I will try to include these conversations here to help you better understand.

(15:29:54) Argent_II: is the BR comment tied to the base/un-buffed score? because I get ponies like this: http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/281751 and http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/282176
(15:30:24) Argent_II: ignoring the differences in conformation point distribution, they have the same total score, but one has a much better comment that is not green
(15:30:44) Argent_II: so is his genetic potential higher, which is why he's given the better comment?
(15:31:29) larissar: BR comment is tired to the final buffed score
(15:31:43) Argent_II: hm
(15:32:00) Argent_II: so he still has a better final buffed score despite the confo being the same
(15:32:01) larissar: Remember, two horses with the exact same stats could have different comments
(15:32:06) Argent_II: yus
(15:32:34) Argent_II: second question, Laina's actually: how big is the overlap between the stat ranges for comments?
(15:32:58) larissar: it depends on how many comments there are to choose from
(15:33:04) Argent_II: cuz there are only about 30 per stat, so they have to overlap some, and BR's are 100% accurate
(15:33:16) larissar: I believe its 2 or 3 +/- comments
(15:33:17) Argent_II: *aren'
(15:33:38) Argent_II: each numerical value can have 2 or 3 comments?
(15:34:14) larissar: mm... probably more like 5 (+2 / -2 range)
(15:34:31) Argent_II: I assumed it would be: values 1-4 have comment A, 3-6 have comment B, and so on
(15:34:47) larissar: nope
(15:34:51) larissar: more like:
(15:35:23) larissar: comment A can over (for example) values 1-10, comment B can cover values 5-15, Comment B can cover 10-20
(15:35:45) larissar: except the ranges re probably smaller, and a comment can cover over a new different stat ranges
(15:36:12) larissar: so maybe comment A covers 1-10, comment B covers 2-9, comment C covers 3-10 etc etc
(15:36:13) Alaina: Ahhhh, this makes sense
(15:36:17) Argent_II: kk but there is a natural progression
(15:36:23) Argent_II: and a top comment
(15:36:37) larissar: yes, the comments do have a specific order of important
(15:37:14) Argent_II: speaking of which, can you easily access how many comments there are per stat? I'm curious if I have them all
(15:37:18) larissar: 5 sequential comments on 5 horses can't be reliably sorted due to the random element
(15:37:30) larissar: I can, but I won't
(15:37:37) Argent_II: D:
(15:37:42) Argent_II: not even number??
(15:37:59) larissar: The only thing I will say for sure is that there isn't a same number of total comments for each stat, some have more than others
(15:38:34) Argent_II: doh
(15:38:40) Argent_II: have noticed that though
(15:38:51) Argent_II: I think I have anywhere from 32 to 40 for any one stat
(15:38:52) Alaina: So if you start with two horses at the bottom and work your way up (like start with two horses with poopy/average comments) then chances are the order that the better comments appear to you would be close to being the actual order of importance?
(15:39:37) larissar: mmm... maybe if evaluated over a long period of time
(15:39:48) Argent_II: or much many turns >.>

[Amber]

very useful! Thanks Larissa!!

[Rapori]

We need a "like" button here!

Thanks for the explanation!

[larissar]

Editted first post to add in a copy of a chat conversation from today which has some additional information.

[Midnight Rose]

I have a question.
Does the breeding report change? I've always assumed it was fixed (not that I really check them after birth), but you've listed temperament as one of the modifiers for the final reported values.

[Revenant]

Ooooh.

[larissar]

Breeders Report should not change after birth as it's based on the horses Potential stats and mature height not actual stats/height. Yes temperament plays a part but it looks at the horses genetic "base" temperament which doesn't change. The actual temperament value can change depending on what the horse is fed, and that would affect the current stats, potentially improving them, but this is currently not reflected in the BR.

[Midnight Rose]

Got it. Thanks for clarifying!

[QuesthavenFarms]

Editted first post to add in a copy of a chat conversation from today which has some additional information.

Thanks! Very helpful!

[Amber]

Editted first post to add in a copy of a chat conversation from today which has some additional information.

Thanks! Very helpful!

Ditto. Thank you! Also this:

(15:31:29) larissar: BR comment is tied to the final buffed score.


Yes.