Belt System Updates -- June 2nd, 2011

[rockhopper]

This 12 hour limit is no better, now we are just locked out of the bonuses for longer than ever. This is just so FARMVILLE (sorry had to mention THAT game). I stopped playing it and only play FT because I hated all the popups so much.

All these posts llittering my newsfeed which I have no hope of claiming is making it very difficult to even find any factory work posts to help my neighbours.

The ingredients requests were working fine for me with the 3 hour limits so why was that changed? There were no complaints as far as I know about ingredients, this all began since the launch of the belts. Belts have nothing to do with farming so why belts ?? - even if it were named something different it would feel better. Different grades of wellies LOL ??

This is making me much less inclined to play at the moment.

Please devs sort it out, put the ingredient requests back to 3hrs

The belts are way too complicated. Too many levels, too much asking for the bonuses. Why can we not just have a bonus which is one-off and not conditional on someone clicking, and just receive all instead of having to post and choose which one to post and hope we are not already maxed out. You could use my suggestion and relaunch it as wellies with only about 4 or 5 levels

The devs normally listen to our requests and I'm hoping they will listen to this and make FT fun again. Thanks to the team for all you do.

[AussieGecko]

I've had a quick look throughout the forum and can't seem to find a list of sorts that clearly shows how many harvests it takes to reach each belt. Is it the same for each item?
Also, if I hire someone to harvest do both our belt levels rise? If I work my own farm does it rise? It's as clear as mud for me and I love to have things clearly in black and white. Can someone please help me understand this better?

[capricorn1]

Originally Posted by Inge Jones

1 million coins is too low a limit anyway, considering the inflation going on in the game. I can easily make 100million a day just from my factory turnover.

I can make "only" 5 million from my factories and "only" 5 million more from working on friends' facilities.

You are correct! the 1 million coins is too low threshold by any standard.

Originally Posted by Inge Jones

Basically to reach that million I only have to help THREE friends with their dan belt bonuses and that's me wiped out for the day. It really limits the interactivity of the game rather than increasing it.

What is worse is that it appears the program accumulates in the 1.000.000 coins even the clicks to bonuses that EXPIRED.

Farmtown you need to provide the information about how many coins each "click on bonuses" collects and the total since the 12 hour period start. Then you can prove to us that your code is not faulty.

Farmtown, this is not about clicking; it is basic psychology:

Someone tells you that you won the lotto, only to find out that it was a LIE.


This is what really upsets players.


"No items were sent to your storage by the Mayor since you already reached the limit of 1,000,000 Coins worth of products every 12 hours. "
NO WAY - YOUR CODE CANNOT COUNT - By not providing the statistics to prove that the limit was reached, you are brushing me off and telling me to take a hike

Why doesn't the program :

1) state clearly when the 12-hour period started?
2) keep informing the player about the total coins collected through bonuses since the start of the period?


This omission is adding insult to injury!


Farmtown, this is not about clicking; it is basic psychology:


Hope for a bonus and excitement on account of winning something; and a second later the excitement is gone and is followed by disappointment.

To put it in simple terms, we feel cheated by the game and let down by the software team.

You know what, we don't play to feel cheated, we don't like to be let down and we hate to be told to "take a hike".

It doesn't matter that so far we liked the game;
this flop in awarding the bonuses is equivalent to your telling us that we are not worth the bonus/gift/ EXCITEMENT and that it is ok for the code to back away on a promise.

Have you ever promised an ice-cream or a lollipop to a kid and then failed to deliver?

This is the kind of stuff that kills friendships.

This will kill the players' loyalty to the game and will diminish your income, unless you do something about it.

[Mama*Mia]

[quote=Double T Dude Ranch;4694354]

Originally Posted by Mama*Mia

The coins limit is a combination from you working on friends requests and them working on yours. Any gift you get from posting on the wall will show up in your gift box in game for you to add.

Thank you for responding to my post. I now understand that the 1 million coins in 12 housrs is the sum of what I receive from others when they click my belt request as well as what I send to others when I click their belt request.
So now, as others have pointed out, I need to decide if I help out my neighbors and reach my 12 hour limit or if I know I have harvesting to do, wait so I can post and receive more for myself. I also have the option of postponing my harvesting for 12 hours for any crops that are close to giving me a higher belt/dan level. Or I could just max out and then wait for 12 hours.

I have a suggestions that would certainly eliminate all the "record keeping" for the belt/dan system. I would eliminate the 1 million coin limit. Instead, I would place a limit on the number of times, in 12 hours, you can post a request and respond to a request. For example, I could post 4 requests as well as respond to 4 requests in 12 hours or whatever time limit is imposed and eliminate the need to count coins. It is much easier for me to keep track of my requests and my responses than to calculate the coin value of crops sent and received. If I have a lot of fields to harvest, I can be selective on what I post when I move to a next belt/don level. I can also keep track of the number of neighbors' requests I have satisfied by looking at my wall and viewing the number of "like" comments I have posted. THis is certainly not a novel idea because I have seen others suggest similar solutions to this record keeping situation.

My other request is for the game in general... I read somewhere in the forum that the devs actually share updates with a select few so they can "test drive" the updates before the updates are sent out to the general populace. This is a good idea. However, maybe the devs should include in this group FT users who do not make assumptions on how something works. In other words, many of the directions given for updates are lacking "little steps" or clarifications that certainly take away from the clarity of the directions. As a beta game, I'm sure the devs want only the best product that they can create. However, the directions given for many of these updates leaves a lot to be desired and resuls in a lot of confusion.

Thank you to everyone who continues to work on making FT an excellent game.

[InePine]

I like the belt system, i think it adds some much needed flavour to the game after youre maxed out on levels and gives you something to work towards, and i also think its alot of fun to go over my neighbors posts in the morning when i log on, its kind of like a little FT-shopping on my wall, its great
But i have my thoughts on the limits and "cooldowns" as alot of other people do, so here is my 2c.

The limit should be 6 hours. 12 hours is just too long, i dont work and i still cant get max potential out of my 12 hour cooldown, im going to miss alot of bonuses more or less every day, and im sure people that have alot more then me on their real life plates everyday must have even bigger problems with the 12h cooldown. We cant really be expected to plan our day around getting the most out of our FT bonuses.

The 3 hour cooldown on ingredients was fine, i apprechiate that you made them seperate requests, but you didnt really have to change the timer on ingredients, it was fine like it was.

The thing i really, really wish you would separate is how much you can earn from your own belt-posts and how much you can get from helping friends. The way its working now it discourages people from helping others get their bonus, because it eats away at the benefit they will get from their own posts.

Alot of the stuff i have earned belts on so far is not so useful to me to get more of, but im sure my neighbors need alot of it, sadly right now im hesitant to post it because i will get stuff i dont need and use my 1 mill limit on that instead of clicking my neighbors posts and getting stuff i really do need. So please make seperate limits for helping your neighbors and the bonuses you get from your own posts. And it wouldnt hurt to leave them both at 1 million, because you dont get much from crops with long harvest time with the current 1 mill limit.

[Grammy 11]

It occurs to me that it is quite difficult for new players to be restricted to 1 bonus from each neighbor in a 12 hour period. Those more advanced players with multitudes of neighbors have no problem. But someone just starting out would benefit from being able to use 2 or 3 bonuses from the same neighbor in a 12 hour period until, let's say, level 50. Maybe that will encourage newbies to continue when they are able to see how much fun this is.

[capricorn1]

Originally Posted by Taz D

Maybe I am dense and just don't understand how people can get so worked up over a game and at that over one item in a game.

Have you ever promised an ice-cream or a lollipop to a kid and failed to deliver? How did the kid feel about it and what was the kid's reaction to you?

Have you ever been disappointed by missing the winning lottery number by one digit?

These are the bad feelings that the game is stirring up, when it promises a reward (click here and you will get 50% of that) and then backs off on its promise,
presumably because a coin threshold was hit during a non specified (or badly computed) time interval that keeps growing until the day ends.


Who plays the game? the grown-up or the kid in the player psyche?

Originally Posted by Taz D

My observations are these:
1. The 12 hr/1,000,000 coins is not working for many or there is a misunderstanding on this. We need a detailed explanation from Raul on this to determine whether it is working or not. The key factor here seems to be are the two parts posting bonuses (and receiving the crops) and helping neighbors with bonuses (getting half in return) tied/added together for the 1,000,000? If so then that would explain why it seems to take much longer than 12 hrs to be able to help anyone. IMHO these should not be connected. It should be 1,000,000 for each.

What we need is simple rules that need not be explained.

The development team has always provided sparse information on how things work. They let the forum guys take up the slack.

Originally Posted by Taz D

2. The Ingredients Requests should have been left alone. It was working fine and there was no problem with it. The amounts in the requests for this are far less in value because the quantities were lower.

You bet your boots. Somebody was not thinking straight when he created this mess.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

..

[StoneFace]

I think something has changed

I just worked a friends farm and collected bonuses

I must have gotten at least 8 bonuses.. many of them Dan Degrees... so bigger numbers....

and I got them all .... no problems, and seemingly no limits....


hhmmmm


.

[bagoshen]

Originally Posted by Taz D

Maybe I am dense and just don't understand how people can get so worked up over a game and at that over one item in a game. Instead of threatening to quit because it isn't working right how about offering some constructive criticism or information to help the developers fix what isn't working right. Just stating you are quitting because it isn't working right doesn't help them to fix it so it does work right. Now getting off the soapbox.
My observations are these:
1. The 12 hr/1,000,000 coins is not working for many or there is a misunderstanding on this. We need a detailed explanation from Raul on this to determine whether it is working or not. The key factor here seems to be are the two parts posting bonuses (and receiving the crops) and helping neighbors with bonuses (getting half in return) tied/added together for the 1,000,000? If so then that would explain why it seems to take much longer than 12 hrs to be able to help anyone. IMHO these should not be connected. It should be 1,000,000 for each.
2. The Ingredients Requests should have been left alone. It was working fine and there was no problem with it. The amounts in the requests for this are far less in value because the quantities were lower.

Taz I agree people are getting worked up they ask to much, it is just a game.

[enough facilities]

After reading lots of posts and experiencing it first hand I think in the best interests of your company & for the good of the game, remove the time and coin limits and let each farmer collect one post from each neighbor per farm town day. Right now I have a choice of helping 2 or 3 neighbours per 12 hours or ignoring them and trying to collect from my posts. That is not a good scenario. I have found this game in the past to be the easiest game to understand rules & guidelines etc. This system has brought chaos to the game we love
I like the fact we get bonuses and I do like the Dan system. I think the problem lies within the structure of limits & the way it was setup. I give you credit for trying something new, but I feel its time to let the players actually benefit from the bonus structure after all this is a one time thing for the bonuses & you are giving coins or ingredients not farm cash. I see many posts going to waste and I know that was not your intention but it is a fact