Birthday Surprise Quest and Birthday Hat Collection Mission
Dessert Party Farm Beauty Contest
I do feel perhaps that developers should take an interest in some of what I write here, as it represents a growing trend among veteran farmers.
This post was prompted by the fact that our Community lost one of our beloved members today for the second time. She is a wonderful, generous farmer and human being, but she has serious medical problems and has been finding the game more stressful than fun of late, more expensive than worth the cost. She is not the only farmer to feel this way. In fact, she is not simply quitting our Community. She is thinking of quitting the game.
I was introduced to FunPlus through the original Family Farm game, played on laptop or PC through Facebook. It was a very beautiful farming simulation game, and I enjoyed it immensely for a couple of years. What occurred gradually, however, was a very determined decision on the part of the developers to expand the game, and it finally became unwieldy, far too massive for any casual enjoyment and indeed too expensive for farmers who could not be slaving on their farmers 24/7 to complete all the Quests that gave only SOME of the new animals or machines. Spending real money became more and more urgent for those players who took the game and their farms seriously. A competitive factor was introduced that, to me, made the game actually unpleasant.
Family Farm Seaside began as a relaxing alternative to the original. Both the original Family Farm and Seaside have wonderful graphics and developers demonstrate remarkable creativity, BUT now in Seaside we are seeing the same desperate push towards greater spending and more and more competition between farmers. Add to that a BURDEN to visit all neighbours (maximum 310) and it is a game that no longer is fun and relaxing for many.
Furthermore, as a game that is played on mobile devices, every new expansion, every new update brings a new set of problems in terms of memory and connections to the games own servers. Veteran farmers who have achieved all expansions and upgrades often ironically are punished for their accomplishments because the data required by their farmers is greater than that needed for a low level farm.
Many of the farmers I know are older people or, whether old or young, have significant medical problems in their real lives. The last thing they want or need is more stress. They were drawn to Seaside for its beauty and the ability to create a little 'safe haven' where they could perform many tasks they once enjoyed in reality but now only could perform in a virtual setting.
At the same time, the game is becoming increasingly expensive for EVERY farmer. I always believed that, if you enjoy a game, you should be willing to invest a little money in it, as I have seen too many wonderful games disappear simply because players were not willing to acknowledge any connection between their own investments and the need for the game firm to pay their developers and other expenses. Games are advertised as 'free' and indeed can be played without investing real money, but it always amazes me when players see only their own cleverness in avoiding any investment... and then are shocked when the game no longer is available.
Still, there has to be some middle ground, some 'reasonable' amount of money that is requested or needed to enjoy all aspects of the game. FunPlus recently has not shown any intention of limiting this, and is is becoming discouraging even to loyal veterans of the game.
New Farmers: Do not expect to be able to do everything immediately! I have been playing this game for six years and sometimes, I do not participate in all of the competitive activities. Pace yourself. Decide what you want most and try to make that your goal.
GIFT BOX REWARDS
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Gift Boxes: Various activities have gift boxes of different colours as their rewards. Some activities are available only during a specific time period. Others can be accessed LATER. In particular, the 11 day Quests that are linked to Collection Missions usually can be accessed from the Lighthouse once the time period expires and you can complete them from there. What you will not find later, however, is the Collection Mission that is paired with the traditional Quest sequence. I therefore urge farmers to complete the Collection Mission while it is active. Although the premium items that are the Collection Mission Rewards will be found in the Market once the Quest expires, you will be forced to pay RC usually for them. These Rewards include new premium Trees, Collectables and Stove House Recipes. Try to complete the Collection Mission even if you cannot complete the traditional Quest. (The traditional 16 part Quest is divided into four sections. Complete a section if you do not wish to perform those tasks again. In other words, the Quest is divided as follows: 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16. The final Reward for completing ALL tasks (through part 16) is a Seaside Decoration that gives a Purple Gift Box when cleaned.
The Cooking Stand Contests include many farm aid rewards, but only one Decoration Reward. This Decoration gives a Gold Gift Box when cleaned. I always believe that the Gold Gift Boxes are better than the Purple. If you have a choice between completing an 11 day Quest or the Cooking Stand Contest, focus on the Cooking Stand Contest.
Community Challenges: These can deplete a member's resources badly, especially if the member is a new farmer or at a low or medium level in the game. Try to belong to a Community that will waive your allotment in any Challenge if you need to complete other goals.
Neighbour Visits: Batch cleaning can be a godsend for players who have difficulty with the game in technical terms. After some updates, I barely can move from Seaside to the Island or to the Community. Do not expect too much of yourself or your neighbours. If you have the Clean Tickets, use them by all means, even if the developers have not made this consistent and often your host will not see that you made a visit, nor that you cleaned any decorations. Have as many decent cleanable Decorations on YOUR farm so that your neighbour has an incentive to visit. Any neighbour who visits my farm should be able to go home with a Blue Gift Box or an Island Blue or Purple Gift Box as well as XP and Coins. That has to be worth something surely!
I used to write guides for series like Harvest Moon and Rune Factory.. In those games, progress comes slowly and one has to look at the 'long game' for rewards. I think the online mobile games encourage a philosophy of instant gratification, and that is stressful. For example, registration of flowers in the Gallery can occur at any time, but the moment any new flower is introduced, game chat is filled with requests to borrow or trade one. I try to keep one of each of the Friendship Flowers for other players to register, but I cannot place flowers immediately often. If a player knows the flower exists and can be borrowed, that should be a viable alternative to instant registration.
SHIFT IN PHILOSOPHY
There have been a couple of very negative shifts in the perception of what is needed to play this game.
One is the 'need' to visit all neighbours. The game on the one hand, offers batch cleaning tickets to its farmers and on the other hand, limits the benefit of such a visit to the visiting farmer. More often than not, the host farmer cannot collect gift boxes from the farmers that used tickets, and indeed batch visits are not counted in the total of daily visitors. This is very discouraging to farmers who have made their farms attractive to visitors by investing in premium decorations that give the best gift boxes. Why should a batch visit not work to their advantage as well as that of the visitor? This is poor programming, and instead of continuing to load the game with new options that neither the farmer's device nor the server of the game can handle properly, the developers should make certain that batch visits count for both parties!
This causes another negative shift in perspective where a farmer feels a terrible burden to visit ALL neighbours on a daily basis. Once upon a time, farmers understood that a visit to another farm gave him or her many benefits, irrespective of whether or not that visit was reciprocated. Now I see farmers apologising on a daily basis for not having the time to visit 300 neighbours and finally surrendering to the ungodly pressure by quitting the game completely,.
The other negative shift is the increasingly competitive nature of this game. The Farm Beauty Contests have nothing whatsoever to do with beauty and indeed, I am convinced that cheating is necessary to reach a total of 45000 votes when you have a limit of 310 neighbours who can vote for you. There are far too many Farm Beauty Contests, each of which offers a new Base and new premium Decorations. A new contest is released mow hard on the heels of the one that preceded it. One is given only a few days to draw breath.
The developers now do give higher values to some of the old premium decorations in these Contests but for the most part, a low level or fairly new farmer MUST buy all the new premium Decorations if they wish to be able to earn the 4000 vote Decoration Reward. That should not be the case. Every farmer should be able to earn 4000 votes in every contest, without being forced to beg for votes from neighbours. They should be able to organise their own farms to receive those votes from the four Characters. The developers should modify the rules and values to make this possible.
I only ask for votes because of my work on this site, and the connection of Freyashawk to the guide on this site. There are two separate contests really. One is the personal goal of reaching 4000 or 6000 votrs to obtain a new Decoration and then a new Avatar and a total of 3 RC, I believe. The other is the goal of rank. Rank is global. I need the votes of my neighbours to rank in the Farm Beauty Contest. It is becoming more and more difficult to do this, especially when there are players who appear to be able to rack up a total of 45,000 Votes somehow. I am not competitive by nature. If I stop updating this guide, I no longer will care about the rank of HM. Freyashawk in the Farm Beauty Contests but I do feel that, as long as this site is being updated, seeing HM. Freyashawk in the top 10 will remind farmers that the site exists and contains information about all Quests and new options.
The real point though is that a new or low level farmer cannot expect to be able to achieve everything, especially if he/she cannot invest real cash in the game. It is possible for a low level farmer to obtain 4000 votes without any neighbour votes, but that probably would require outfitting 4 Pets and buying new premium Decorations, among other things. If you cannot do that, simply wait for the next Contest! The Decoration Rewards for completing 11 day Quests are being featured in the Farm Beauty Contests. If you can complete those Quests, you are on the way to amassing a good collection of Theme Items. The Bases are features as Theme items as well, so try to complete those.
There are other new options that I personally find unattractive such as the weekly Order Champion challenges. This is simply designed to empty farmers' barns of all of their stored products so that they must produce constantly in order to keep abreast of all new Quests, Cooking Contests, Guest Orders, Order Board/Helicopter Orders, Resort shop orders and Coffee House demands. This is not relaxing. This is simply being a skullery maid on a 24 hour basis.
The Community option should be cooperative, not competitive, and yet, members of some communities are constantly quibbling about who gets to do what, and either are berated for doing too much or for doing too little. When the option first was introduced, we had to create a system that would be practical and we were stricter than we are now. At this point, we are a true Community, consisting of farmers who help one another, who understand when some one cannot do their allotment and who are willing to pick up whatever tasks are needed to ocmplete an assignment. I would not want to belong to a Community that made my life more stressful. We do not have 30 members at the moment but are not desperate to fill the slots, but if you want to belong to a Community that is based more on friendship and mutual support than making goals as quickly as possible, send me a message please.
What I wanted to say quite simply is PLAY THE GAME TO MAKE YOUR OWN LIFE LESS STRESSFUL. Try to find that beauty and charm that existed originally and do not worry if you are not meeting the expectations of others. Who put them in charge of your virtual reality? There is more than enough pain and suffering in this life. The reason I write a guide still is to try to help farmers have a less stressful experience, to attempt to give details that are needed about options both old and new on a single site so that farmers do not have to be hunting endlessly for answers.
This past year has been brutal for me, but I am damned if I am going to let a game that I love become an ordeal. If you are my neighbour and you do not like me as a person, delete me please. I feel that our Community is a supportive group of REAL people who help one another. All of our neighbours should be that way, and indeed, there are a lot of fabulous men and women who play this game and who do try to help their neighbours. Unfortunately, there are those who feel somehow entitled to tell others how to play, and who evidently instill a terrible sense of guilt in those who CANNOT or do not wish to play according to these invented standards and 'rules'.
I hope that farmers can believe they are entitled to a little escape from the rigours of their lives, and that they will ignore all attempts to burden them with the expectations of others. Please do not think that any of you have to apologise for doing less than the maximum. If you continue to play the game at all, you are an asset to it, and your presence reminds us of the journey we have made together in this virtual universe through the years. Bless you all!
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