Dressage competition difficulty

By Smiley, 20th January 2025 07:39:52
Hi everyone,

Does anyone know how the difficulty for dressage competitions is calculated? It seems impossible to create a dressage competition with 100% difficulty - the highest I've seen is 91.14% - and the highest I can actually work out how to create is 89.49% default smiley (o)

I've tried playing around with different arrangements on the competition creation page, and the calculation for the difficulty percentage seems incredibly complex, I sat down with a calculator etc. trying things out for well over 2 hours and still can't work out any logic to the difficulty accumulation.

It's an issue on the other server I play on too, where there are basically no rosette-earning dressage competitions because it's impossible make them at a high enough difficulty. Nobody there knows the answer either so I thought I'd ask over here default smiley ^)

If anyone could please tell me why there seems to be this cap on the difficulty of dressage comps - or provide me with some numbers on how the calculation works - I would be so so grateful! Thanks in advance! default smiley :)
Smiley
  • Posted messages: 11
  • Karma: 10 points
  • Page:
  • 1
By modelhorsemad, 20th January 2025 08:24:18
For whatever reason, 91.14% is the highest you can create.
I can't remember the exact order; my competition won't let me edit it as it's yet to run so I cannot give you the arrangement for it immediately. However, I remember googling it when I was making it and finding somewhere else people posted it on some of the fan help sites. I have no idea if what can be found is still up to date.
modelhorsemad
  • Posted messages: 1,889
  • Karma: 10 points
By Smiley, 20th January 2025 09:51:43
Thanks so much for the answer! I found the 89% formula on a fan site some years ago, and so I tried googling it more recently when I ran into the problem again, but with no luck. I think you're right, most of the fan sites are really old so the info isn't up to date anymore.

I wonder if there is an explanation for the inability to make a 100% difficulty comp, but I suppose we'll never know. It does create the interesting phenomenon where rosettes for dressage are really hard to get, maybe that's the idea? (compared with gallop, for instance, where the difficulty can just be selected from a dropdown!). I've never had an account with a Western specialised EC but I wonder if there is a western competition type with the same issue.

I'll leave the topic open for now, if you're happy to share the 91.14 formula when you can see it again (no hurry!) that would be a great help default smiley :)
Smiley
  • Posted messages: 11
  • Karma: 10 points
By modelhorsemad, 21st January 2025 10:51:07
5
Woo it ran, here's the order: Extended Trot, Extended Walk, Extended Canter, Leg Yielding, Passage, Leg Yielding, Change of Lead, Piaffe, Leg Yielding and then Half Pass. That should be 91.14%.
I'm going to guess the reason they don't allow for 100% is because that would only allow the 1 horse that has the very top skill to enter. Other horses couldn't until the next horse that beats its dressage is skilled. 91% means only the top 9% can enter. Although, as the top skills increase what falls within 9% becomes much larger (Any horse with up to 730 less than the current top dressage horse would be within this on this server). I could see 95% being a nice option someday. But if you're on a newer server with a lower top GP, that 9% will limit entry more than on here.
modelhorsemad
  • Posted messages: 1,889
  • Karma: 10 points
By Smiley, 27th January 2025 00:29:54
Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!!

I wonder if it's because it's *technically* easier to make a skilled dressage horse (energy requirements for training in dressage are lower than stamina and speed, for instance), since - at least on the HU server - 100% difficulty in gallop and trot competitions is definitely not limited to 1 horse. But I can see that it probably would be for dressage. That's a really interesting point that I hadn't thought of.

Our GP over on .hu is pretty much the same as here, but all the top dressage horses get specialised in Western, so there's no good horses entering the high-level dressage comps to boost the prestige. And then, annoyingly, the all-breeds comps fill up with unbeatable divines.

Anyway, that's just me thinking out loud default smiley :p I'll try out the lineup you shared - thanks again for your help!
Smiley
  • Posted messages: 11
  • Karma: 10 points
  • Page:
  • 1