TheRealAtropos
04-27-11, 07:59 AM
I'm sure most of these will not be news to anybody, but I just thought I would compile my list of things that are bugging me most at the moment about this game.
Firstly, this forum. I can login from the name/password box at the top right corner, but the one in the middle of the web page doesn't work and always says my name/password are incorrect. I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one having this problem, judging by the low number of posts.
Second, visiting neighbors is a huge chore that sucks the fun out of this game.
a) There's no way to know whether or not you have already a visited a neighbor until you go there. There's no way to know whether you've visited but can still water them. The game obviously keeps track of this information, it should really display it in the neighbor list.
b) When you are done with one neighbor and need to go to the next, you have to scroll through a huge long list and remember where you left off to find the next one. Sometimes the list remembers, usually not, and it's more annoying than the other games since it's absolutely critical to have lots of neighbors if you want to have enough energy to harvest crops and rob your pets of their coins. A button to visit the next random unvisited neighbor would be great!
c) When somebody gives you a gift like the energy drink, you can't get rid of the message on your gift screen until you either use the gift or gift them back. And the button that says you want to gift them back makes you scroll through and find them in a huge long list rather than just automatically selecting that one person. Ugh, bad bad design.
d) There should be some way to know whether or not you have already received your 20 gifts for the day. I am absolutely bombarded by neighbors begging for parts, who can't seem to grasp that they already reached their gift limit hours ago.
e) There needs to be a "tour all" button when viewing neighbors zoos. It is really difficult to pick out which tiles are already toured unless you zoom all the way in and mentally adjust for the 3d shift the hovering sparkles present. Also I shouldn't have to sit and wait for all of the paws to bounce on the ground before going to the next neighbor, everybody's zoo looks pretty much the same and making me spend 10 more seconds staring at it isn't doing them or me any good.
Third point, planting, harvesting, and robbing your animals:
I know the game is new and you like to release them in stages for some reason instead of having a mostly finished product ready to go, but
a) the crop selection is underwhelming. There really needs to be crops for 30 minutes, 1 hour and 2 hours. People need more options rather than just 2 minutes, 15 minutes and 4 hours when playing during the day. And you can't do much if you don't have food stockpiled.
b) The way the game decides what animals can be bred seems arbitrary and random at best. I can seemingly breed my reptiles endlessly, but other animals can't have more than 3 or 4 in a cage. Some documentation on what the restrictions are would be great, or atleast some kind of popup message saying why I failed to breed them would be wonderful
c) Did I mention it bugs me when you release new games that I max out in about 2 hours, then having to wait weeks for new content that I am already way too high up to care about? And tweaking fundamental things like the energy timer during the first few days makes me question if the game was tested at all before being released.
d) Why are my animals earning money? Do my bears eat the corn I feed them and poop out coins? Why do I have to steal it from them? Why does taking pictures of them make them shiny? I know we are trying to borrow mechanics from all the other games, especially Farm Story, but it all just looks like people watering crops and buildings again.
Fourthly, gems
a) I *know* Team Lava needs to get paid, but this game appears to be the pinnacle of money-grubbing. I agree there is good short-term entertainment in the free parts of the game, but the obvious lengths they have gone to try to trick money out of people seems stronger than ever here. It's much easier than ever to accidentally spend gems since the game encourages wild tapping to pick up all the bouncing coins and stars. I'd be surprised if anybody didn't waste their 10 starter gems in the first few minutes like I did by accidentally accepting one of the horribly wrong popups saying you were out of energy and wanted to spend gems on it. So much for me buying anything I want if I ever decided to spend real money on gems.
b) The prices on creatures is completely crazy. I know you don't *have* to spend real money on this game, but to get a few choice buildings and creatures it will cost you maybe $40-100? that is nuts. I'm sure some people will pay it, but it seems like more money could be made if $5 could get you a few choice items and some significant gameplay enhancement. The amount of money I spend on an iOS game to make it worthwhile should not be more than what I spend on a PS3 game or a family night at the movies.
Sorry this is long, I really do think this has potential to be a great game, even better than the other story games. I just hope the designers take some of my suggestions and criticisms to heart rather than just ignoring them to rush out the next Story game with all of the same frustrating shortcomings we've been living with since Farm Story.
Firstly, this forum. I can login from the name/password box at the top right corner, but the one in the middle of the web page doesn't work and always says my name/password are incorrect. I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one having this problem, judging by the low number of posts.
Second, visiting neighbors is a huge chore that sucks the fun out of this game.
a) There's no way to know whether or not you have already a visited a neighbor until you go there. There's no way to know whether you've visited but can still water them. The game obviously keeps track of this information, it should really display it in the neighbor list.
b) When you are done with one neighbor and need to go to the next, you have to scroll through a huge long list and remember where you left off to find the next one. Sometimes the list remembers, usually not, and it's more annoying than the other games since it's absolutely critical to have lots of neighbors if you want to have enough energy to harvest crops and rob your pets of their coins. A button to visit the next random unvisited neighbor would be great!
c) When somebody gives you a gift like the energy drink, you can't get rid of the message on your gift screen until you either use the gift or gift them back. And the button that says you want to gift them back makes you scroll through and find them in a huge long list rather than just automatically selecting that one person. Ugh, bad bad design.
d) There should be some way to know whether or not you have already received your 20 gifts for the day. I am absolutely bombarded by neighbors begging for parts, who can't seem to grasp that they already reached their gift limit hours ago.
e) There needs to be a "tour all" button when viewing neighbors zoos. It is really difficult to pick out which tiles are already toured unless you zoom all the way in and mentally adjust for the 3d shift the hovering sparkles present. Also I shouldn't have to sit and wait for all of the paws to bounce on the ground before going to the next neighbor, everybody's zoo looks pretty much the same and making me spend 10 more seconds staring at it isn't doing them or me any good.
Third point, planting, harvesting, and robbing your animals:
I know the game is new and you like to release them in stages for some reason instead of having a mostly finished product ready to go, but
a) the crop selection is underwhelming. There really needs to be crops for 30 minutes, 1 hour and 2 hours. People need more options rather than just 2 minutes, 15 minutes and 4 hours when playing during the day. And you can't do much if you don't have food stockpiled.
b) The way the game decides what animals can be bred seems arbitrary and random at best. I can seemingly breed my reptiles endlessly, but other animals can't have more than 3 or 4 in a cage. Some documentation on what the restrictions are would be great, or atleast some kind of popup message saying why I failed to breed them would be wonderful
c) Did I mention it bugs me when you release new games that I max out in about 2 hours, then having to wait weeks for new content that I am already way too high up to care about? And tweaking fundamental things like the energy timer during the first few days makes me question if the game was tested at all before being released.
d) Why are my animals earning money? Do my bears eat the corn I feed them and poop out coins? Why do I have to steal it from them? Why does taking pictures of them make them shiny? I know we are trying to borrow mechanics from all the other games, especially Farm Story, but it all just looks like people watering crops and buildings again.
Fourthly, gems
a) I *know* Team Lava needs to get paid, but this game appears to be the pinnacle of money-grubbing. I agree there is good short-term entertainment in the free parts of the game, but the obvious lengths they have gone to try to trick money out of people seems stronger than ever here. It's much easier than ever to accidentally spend gems since the game encourages wild tapping to pick up all the bouncing coins and stars. I'd be surprised if anybody didn't waste their 10 starter gems in the first few minutes like I did by accidentally accepting one of the horribly wrong popups saying you were out of energy and wanted to spend gems on it. So much for me buying anything I want if I ever decided to spend real money on gems.
b) The prices on creatures is completely crazy. I know you don't *have* to spend real money on this game, but to get a few choice buildings and creatures it will cost you maybe $40-100? that is nuts. I'm sure some people will pay it, but it seems like more money could be made if $5 could get you a few choice items and some significant gameplay enhancement. The amount of money I spend on an iOS game to make it worthwhile should not be more than what I spend on a PS3 game or a family night at the movies.
Sorry this is long, I really do think this has potential to be a great game, even better than the other story games. I just hope the designers take some of my suggestions and criticisms to heart rather than just ignoring them to rush out the next Story game with all of the same frustrating shortcomings we've been living with since Farm Story.