New Release -- January 8th, 2014

[Dad Shadow]

All those that worked hard / spent real cash on big tools received a kick in the face today.
WHY ?

[nijntje]

Originally Posted by Dad Shadow

All those that worked hard / spent real cash on big tools received a kick in the face today.
WHY ?

yep, I agree !! It should be an advantage that others can use your tools ... if the system worked of course

[Qivis]

Originally Posted by Dad Shadow

All those that worked hard / spent real cash on big tools received a kick in the face today.
WHY ?

Because we BEGGED to let people use our tools for over a year and no one said it was a bad idea in the suggestions thread. They just gave us what we wanted - a way to hire people without tools to use ours instead of taking more time trying to hire someone to do trees, flowers, and / or fish than it would take to do the work ourselves. And by the way, they have already said they are going to make it optional. So look for an additional update in the next few weeks that will do just that.

[KnightRider]

Originally Posted by Qivis

Because we BEGGED to let people use our tools for over a year and no one said it was a bad idea in the suggestions thread. They just gave us what we wanted - a way to hire people without tools to use ours instead of taking more time trying to hire someone to do trees, flowers, and / or fish than it would take to do the work ourselves. And by the way, they have already said they are going to make it optional. So look for an additional update in the next few weeks that will do just that.

I have never BEGGED for this change and since comments on suggestions is not allowed in the suggestion section, can't make comments there.

Where did the dev's say that this was going to be added to the game, it has never been in any of the release notes, I just went through July and there was no mention of this. The only mention was that maybe it would be added that the employee could use their coin tools, that I believe most people don't have a problem with, but being able to do more on the farm was one of the perks of owning the larger tools, now that perk has been taken away.

[Ellsinore]

Originally Posted by Dad Shadow

All those that worked hard / spent real cash on big tools received a kick in the face today.
WHY ?

I don't usually read through the comments on the update threads, but did this morning to try to figure out the reason for the notation about adding the checkbox to prevent people using our tools -- why would anyone want to do that? I'm guessing this comment pretty much sums it up. LOL! Interestingly, I thought the tool thing was best part of this update.

I hardly ever hire anyone to work on my farms any more because it doesn't really help me at all, time-wise.

I like to hire people in the lower XP range because they're the ones who really need the help. Unfortunately, they also need tools to work my farms within a reasonable time frame. So what I end up with is people who go through and do the harvesting/plowing -- if they finish THAT at all -- and then I have to go back to clean up everything else, and then sow the crops. So I spend just as much time working my farms with a hire as I would if I just did it myself. So I rarely bother.

Just this weekend I hired someone to do "everything." They did half of the crop of the first farm, and nothing else. If you hire multiple people "just in case," they see that there are others already working the farm and leave.

The concept of hiring people to work farms is a great idea, but it's got so many flaws, it doesn't really work yet, even after all this time. I applaud the ability to use the owner's tools as an effort to fix the problem. I think it would help even more if the reward for doing the trees, etc., were greater. It just doesn't "pay" to do that work, so very few do.

I, personally, have no problem sharing the tools I paid good money for. When I could afford it, I bought tools for people who worked my farms regularly and did a good job, even though they didn't have them. Unfortunately, that's not an option for me anymore, so this is the next best thing. :-)

The polyester fiber thing, though, is a major fail. There's so much of it required already -- I think the Slashkey economists missed the mark on this one. :-D

Thank you, Devs, once again for a great update and for tirelessly trying to do the impossible "Make Everyone Happy" dance. :-)