Trialing Methods
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Hello,
I've been wanting to write a guide on some of my trialing methods for a while, but I thought I would expand it into a discussion as well. If you have any tips or tricks you've learned, please feel free to share them. If you've never tried extensive trialing before, I encourage you to browse through the various methods and try them for yourself. Trialing can be a great source of income. :)
So, how do you trial? I'm curious about what works best for people, or if laziness keeps a lot of people from being really strategic. Is trialing your main source of income? Do you buy dogs specifically for trialing? Do you use a method I don't know about/talk about here? I'd love to hear from you guys. ^^
Strategic Trial Entering
Random Entering
I know a lot of people do this, so I wanted to include an entry. It takes minimal effort and can be effective with higher TP dogs.
Just find any trial, find the dog to trial, and enter away. With mid to higher TP dogs, there's a good chance that people with lower TP dogs will enter. However, if you're a person with a low TP dog (like a Foundie), I wouldn't advise this.
Strategic Entering: Look at Opponents' TP
Although possibly the most time-consuming method, it also guarantees success (without the pain of filler dogs) and works for any TP dog.
Try not to look at trials with fewer than 2 dogs in them already; you won't have enough information to know whether to enter. Before entering your dog in the trial, scroll down to look at the opponents already entered. If at least 2 of them have TP lower than your dog's TP, enter away because you'll at worst get third place. If there are already 3 dogs with higher TP than your dog, move on to another trial. If there's only 1 dog lower than yours, consider the possibility that a higher TP dog will enter and your dog won't win money. Those maybe-win maybe-lose situations are up to the individual.
Note: TP is not the only factor in trial placing (speed, drive, and personality play a role), but it's pretty dependable and is easy to look at.
Enter Three Dogs
This is a quick method that guarantees you at least one win and some money (though not necessarily profit) and can be done with any team of dogs.
If you enter 3 dogs into a trial, even if the last 2 have higher TP, one of your dogs will get third place and you'll get winnings. As long as your dogs aren't low TP, there's also the possibility that lower TP dogs will enter and more than one of your dogs will win you money. If you're looking at trials with dogs already in them, you can use the strategic entering above.
Trial Filling
Picking a Team
Trial filling will work with any team of 5 dogs. The most important thing to keep in mind is that 3 dogs will place and win money, and the other 2 are just "fillers" who win nothing. Therefore, it wouldn't be wise to have your whole team be TP-monsters. You want the filler dogs to be dogs who wouldn't score you a huge profit if you made a separate team with them.
It's also a good idea to have your filler dogs be at least a hundred TP lower than your winners; every time a dog wins a trial, the price to enter the next trial increases. Therefore, if your filler and winner dogs are too close in TP, they might take turns winning trials, and it will end up costing you more to trial your team of 5 while you aren't earning any additional profit. If you can pick fillers who have only barely made it onto the level of trial that your winners have, you'll minimize your entrance fees.
Maxing Your Trialers
Fully Maxed Dogs
Because fully maxed dogs are desirable for a number of reasons, many people max their dogs completely before trialing. A maxed dog can be used to breed pups with even higher TP who will therefore win you more trial money. A maxed dog also earns the most possible from its trialing (e.g. compared to trialing that dog at 50% and getting half the profit possible at max).
Partially Maxed Dogs
It's not always a terrible idea to trial dogs partially maxed, especially TP monsters who already have a lot of training. Dogs that are halfway trained from a Magical Food Bowl might even pull a profit - for example, my 4500 TP Rue pulls in $6000 per trial. After 50 trials, she would've made up the price of a Magical Food Bowl (if she were a 9000 TP dog halfway trained, for example).
Remember that trialing takes a lot of energy which therefore can't be spent on training the dog further (if you have sessions left that day).
Single Skill Maxed
Training a dog in only 1 of its 9 skills takes a ninth of the time, yet these dogs can earn the same profit as a fully maxed dog as long as you only enter in trials with that one skill tested. On my side account, my A-Framers pull in a huge profit, and I know I've seen other trailers work with one-skilled dogs. I chose A-Frames because many people make A-Frames only trials (it's default). The most time-consuming part of this method is weeding through trials for those with only your desired skill. Being able to make your own trials can really help.
Filler Dogs: Max at all?
If you're planning to fill trials, it's worth considering what training if any you want your filler dogs to have. My filler dogs on this account are all lower TP dogs who are maxed, are the trial winners in lower levels, and as they move up they become fillers to the highest TP dogs. On my side account, the fillers have barely if any training. This takes more maneuvering to get the fillers up to higher levels, but it takes no time to train them.
Thanks for reading! I hope you learned something. Happy Ala-ween!
I've been wanting to write a guide on some of my trialing methods for a while, but I thought I would expand it into a discussion as well. If you have any tips or tricks you've learned, please feel free to share them. If you've never tried extensive trialing before, I encourage you to browse through the various methods and try them for yourself. Trialing can be a great source of income. :)
So, how do you trial? I'm curious about what works best for people, or if laziness keeps a lot of people from being really strategic. Is trialing your main source of income? Do you buy dogs specifically for trialing? Do you use a method I don't know about/talk about here? I'd love to hear from you guys. ^^
Random Entering
I know a lot of people do this, so I wanted to include an entry. It takes minimal effort and can be effective with higher TP dogs.
Just find any trial, find the dog to trial, and enter away. With mid to higher TP dogs, there's a good chance that people with lower TP dogs will enter. However, if you're a person with a low TP dog (like a Foundie), I wouldn't advise this.
Strategic Entering: Look at Opponents' TP
Although possibly the most time-consuming method, it also guarantees success (without the pain of filler dogs) and works for any TP dog.
Try not to look at trials with fewer than 2 dogs in them already; you won't have enough information to know whether to enter. Before entering your dog in the trial, scroll down to look at the opponents already entered. If at least 2 of them have TP lower than your dog's TP, enter away because you'll at worst get third place. If there are already 3 dogs with higher TP than your dog, move on to another trial. If there's only 1 dog lower than yours, consider the possibility that a higher TP dog will enter and your dog won't win money. Those maybe-win maybe-lose situations are up to the individual.
Note: TP is not the only factor in trial placing (speed, drive, and personality play a role), but it's pretty dependable and is easy to look at.
Enter Three Dogs
This is a quick method that guarantees you at least one win and some money (though not necessarily profit) and can be done with any team of dogs.
If you enter 3 dogs into a trial, even if the last 2 have higher TP, one of your dogs will get third place and you'll get winnings. As long as your dogs aren't low TP, there's also the possibility that lower TP dogs will enter and more than one of your dogs will win you money. If you're looking at trials with dogs already in them, you can use the strategic entering above.
Picking a Team
Trial filling will work with any team of 5 dogs. The most important thing to keep in mind is that 3 dogs will place and win money, and the other 2 are just "fillers" who win nothing. Therefore, it wouldn't be wise to have your whole team be TP-monsters. You want the filler dogs to be dogs who wouldn't score you a huge profit if you made a separate team with them.
It's also a good idea to have your filler dogs be at least a hundred TP lower than your winners; every time a dog wins a trial, the price to enter the next trial increases. Therefore, if your filler and winner dogs are too close in TP, they might take turns winning trials, and it will end up costing you more to trial your team of 5 while you aren't earning any additional profit. If you can pick fillers who have only barely made it onto the level of trial that your winners have, you'll minimize your entrance fees.
Fully Maxed Dogs
Because fully maxed dogs are desirable for a number of reasons, many people max their dogs completely before trialing. A maxed dog can be used to breed pups with even higher TP who will therefore win you more trial money. A maxed dog also earns the most possible from its trialing (e.g. compared to trialing that dog at 50% and getting half the profit possible at max).
Partially Maxed Dogs
It's not always a terrible idea to trial dogs partially maxed, especially TP monsters who already have a lot of training. Dogs that are halfway trained from a Magical Food Bowl might even pull a profit - for example, my 4500 TP Rue pulls in $6000 per trial. After 50 trials, she would've made up the price of a Magical Food Bowl (if she were a 9000 TP dog halfway trained, for example).
Remember that trialing takes a lot of energy which therefore can't be spent on training the dog further (if you have sessions left that day).
Single Skill Maxed
Training a dog in only 1 of its 9 skills takes a ninth of the time, yet these dogs can earn the same profit as a fully maxed dog as long as you only enter in trials with that one skill tested. On my side account, my A-Framers pull in a huge profit, and I know I've seen other trailers work with one-skilled dogs. I chose A-Frames because many people make A-Frames only trials (it's default). The most time-consuming part of this method is weeding through trials for those with only your desired skill. Being able to make your own trials can really help.
Filler Dogs: Max at all?
If you're planning to fill trials, it's worth considering what training if any you want your filler dogs to have. My filler dogs on this account are all lower TP dogs who are maxed, are the trial winners in lower levels, and as they move up they become fillers to the highest TP dogs. On my side account, the fillers have barely if any training. This takes more maneuvering to get the fillers up to higher levels, but it takes no time to train them.
Thanks for reading! I hope you learned something. Happy Ala-ween!
Haiden [Husky & Sheltie Breeder] (#18607)
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12-6-2011 at 10:52 PM
these are very helpful, thanks for creating this <3<br /> <br /> For my filler dogs i tend to hunt the pound, more often than not i find1-5TP dogs that i can max with 7TS (including basic)! ^^
Sunblast (#8191)
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11-15-2011 at 11:07 PM
Great post! I have been wondering other peoples methods, and it actually seems as if I already use a number for these mentioned methods. Great to know I'm not the only one!