Who Plans to Buy Big Water/Dark/Gemstone Habitats?

[SANDSCApe]

Are these critter homes in your budget?

Big Water Way costs 520,000 coins. Holds 3 animals with capacity of 10,000 coins.

Big Dark Cove costs 900,000 coins. Holds 3 animals with capacity of 15,000 coins.

Big Gem Grove costs 6,100,000 coins. Holds 3 animals with capacity of 80,000 coins.

That's one helluva real estate market! So what do you say? Some day? Or no way?

[igames4me]

Some day. Soon we will have millions of coins

[hansmolln]

Coincidentally, I was just thinking about this myself. I don't think that I will buy them any time soon. My reasoning is the following:

Coins:
- At first, this seemed like a good reason to upgrade; When I'm not playing for a longer time and can only collect the max limit of coins for a habitat, I would get more coins - e.g. the Big Water Way would give me 5000 coins more than the water way; if I'm assuming that this happens only during the night or let's say twice per day, and the Water Way costs 512.000 coins more than the normal one then it would take 51 days to break even (512000/10000 unless I'm calculating that incorrectly); so the coins alone are no reason at all to buy it


Habitat Limit:
- I don't have enough space to reach my current habitat limit (limit is 25 at level 24) so that is no reason to buy it


Space:
- Space is my main limit at the moment; with the Big Water Way, I could house 3 animals in 4x4 squares (5,3 squares per animal), with the normal water way I could house 2 in 3x3 (4,5 squares per animal); however, the frost island that I'm expanding to right now seems to have a size of 12x12 squares; so I could either place 3x3 big habitats there or 4x4 smaller ones (which would be 27 animals in big habitats vs 32 in smaller ones unless I'm mistaken); while some other places might be more efficiently used by a big habitat compared to multiple smaller ones, that doesn't seem like a good reason either


So, to sum things up: no, I was initially planning to save up for one or for another dark cove but I don't see a reason right now to do so (not now, nor in the future). What would be your reason to do it, is there something that I haven't thought about?

[willb09]

Not now. I'm barely scraping by as it is. Maybe in the future when I have millions of coins doing nothing.

[SANDSCApe]

Nearly all the big habitats offer relatively little increase in capacity relative to the increased cost. What they save us in space is not very significant. You can house 6 creatures in 3 small ones on 27 squares of space or in 2 big ones on 32 squares.

The benefit, if any, would be the convevience of collection hours. We had no trouble with the big Nature habitat costing 65 times the cost of a small one, because a habitat holding only 1800 coins would fill up in no time. The big Water habitat also costs 65 times the cost of the small one, but it seems like a more drastic increase due to the sheer challenge of raising 520,000 coins.

Although the big Gem and Dark habitats are only 18 times and 3.3 times the cost of small ones, again, the sheer magnitude of those numbers makes the cost prohibitive.

For me, the big Water habitat is "some day" but I may buy no more than one or two.

Right now, I'm thinking "no way" on the big Dark & Gem homes. I am many moons away from making that kind of money, especially since I've bred only one super-rare and one rare creature so far. Income from ultra rares should eventually make up for that. Or so I hope.

[zenobia42]

NOT planning on building any of those because they are so expensive. In fact, I am not even going to build a second SMALL Dark Cove. All my dark mixtures will go in the other habitats. My one dark cove I had to buy to house my skyger (now 2 skygers) is the only dark cove I will buy for a LONG time. I am building more of all the other types of habitats as I level, though.

[flowless]

I did with the big dark habit
I mean of iam gonna buy a small habit for 270000
Might as well buy the big one
Sooner or later I would need to upgrade it

[hansmolln]

Here's a list I made concerning this topic. It takes much longer to break even on the big & expensive habitats, unless I'm calculating that wrong. You can also see what flowless meant: the big dark habitat only takes twice as long to break even compared to the small dark habitat. Unlike all other habitats, here you have a real reason to consider buying the big one immediately (but if you view it absolutely, not relatively, it's still an expensive investment that takes a long time to break even).



Habitat
Cost
Capacity
Number of collects to break even (*1)
Days to break even (*2)


Fire
200
250
0.8
0.3



Fire Big
10000
2500
4
1.3




Nature
550
1800
0.3
0.1



Nature Big
36000
5000
7.2
2.4



Earth
1000
2300
0.43
0.14



Earth Big
43000
7500
5.7
1.9





Water
8000
5000
1.6
0.5



Water Big
520000
10000
52
17.3



Dark
270000
10000
27
9



Dark Big
900000
15000
60
20



Gem
340000
50000
6.8
2.3




Gem Big
6100000
80000
76.3
25.4



(*1): Number of times you'd have to collect a fully filled up habitat to break even
(*2): Number of days to break even, assuming that you could collect a fully filled habitat 3 times per day

(I have not included grand habitats because honestly... I'm not ever planning on buying something like that with real money. I'm not against spending money on gems but it would have to be for something that is fun and not as pricey.)

[chalupa2030]

I just saw I have to buy a habitat for a common creature, Skyger, @ $270K? Am I seeing that right?

[SANDSCApe]

I just saw I have to buy a habitat for a common creature, Skyger, @ $270K? Am I seeing that right?

Ultimately, you're not buying it for the Skyger. It's for the super-rare Dark-Fire and Dark-Nature hybrids whose earnings will overwhelm the big Fire and Nature habitats.

As Flowless, Hansmolln and I have noted, the Big Dark Cove costs 3.3 times as much and increases both animal capacity and coin capacity by 50%. Cost-wise, this is by far the best ratio between the cost of the small and big habitat for any of the 6 elements. Buying it directly, it costs 3.3 times the price of the small. But upgrading from small would cost 4.3 times as much: 1,170,000 coins!

[hansmolln]

well... I just ran into another issue that may cause me to rethink my strategy: I just expanded to the 4th square of the frost island (I've alredy expanded to all squares in the main island) and I can't expand any further at the moment. I'm not sure if I need a higher level (25 at the moment - i have to get back to my real life soon anyway...) or if that is the current limit of the game, no matter which level you are at.

but now that my space is even more limited than before, I might rethink my strategy and buy more expensive habitats. or maybe a second grand farm and invest all my coins into food. that's too bad, I was expecting to be able to expand much further :(

[Snowfall0]

The big gem grove is no way. Just no.

[SANDSCApe]

Here's another way of looking at it. From a small to a big habitat, the increase in animal capacity is always 50% (from 2 animals to 3). So for any upgrade to provide a collection boost, the increase in coin capacity needs to be much more than 50%.
Big Water Way offers a 100% increase (from 5,000 coins to 10,000).
Big Dark Cove offers a 50% increase ( from 10,000 coins to 15,000).
Big Gem Grove offers a 60% increase (from 50,000 coins to 80,000).
Only the Big Water Way significantly extends the habitat's fill-up time. The other two will fill up as quickly with 3 animals in them as the small ones do with 2 animals (assuming animals of equal incomes).
Even if their prices were slashed to 25% of the current price tag, I would still have trouble seeing the value of a Big Dark Cove or Big Gem Grove.

These may be an option for me late, late, late in the game when I've developed a prosperous enterprise after adding Gem-Earth, Gem-Water and Gem-Dark hybrids to my forest. Hah!

[zenobia42]

I keep holding out on buying a Big Water Way's price to go down. I need to hold more water creatures but I got burned buying Water Ways when they were disproportionately expensive at 27,000 coins and then they went down to 8,000 coins after I bought them. I keep thinking the disproportionate price on the Big Water Way will come down as well. But it doesn't seem to be doing so.

The prices are
for: fire - nature - earth - water
small - 200 - 550 - 1000 - 8000
big - 10k - 36k - 43k - 520k

It's a HUGE jump for the big water way still even though the little one's price makes sense now. Put another way, the little water way costs 8x what the little earth plateau costs. But the big water is 12x the earth's cost. It would make SO much more sense if it were 344,000 - 8x the price of the earth, the same price ratio as the small ones. Or even go by the ratio of the little water costs 40x the little fire. The big water at 40x the big fire would be 400,000. 520,000 is just TOO MUCH, and out of line with everything else IMO.

And I'm probably going to give in and buy one soon anyway... so everyone else wait a couple days. The price is SURE to go down AFTER I fork over all the dough, lol. Just like with the little water way. :p

[hansmolln]

I changed my mind and bought one, just because I ran out of things to do and to complete the water goal. So maybe you are lucky and this time it will go down after I bought it instead of you ;)

[SANDSCApe]

I changed my mind and bought one, just because I ran out of things to do and to complete the water goal. So maybe you are lucky and this time it will go down after I bought it instead of you ;)

LOL. My coin balance reached 7 digits yesterday for the first time. I toyed with the idea of buying a Big Dark Cove only because I could. But I'm so cramped for space that I can only fit another big habitat by selling one of my big ones or two of my small ones.
I bought another Gem Grove instead, because my Gemmies, Darkies, and the drones on my Panda Farm are what's gonna make these luxuries a reality down the road.

[hansmolln]

LOL. My coin balance reached 7 digits yesterday for the first time. I toyed with the idea of buying a Big Dark Cove only because I could. But I'm so cramped for space that I can only fit another big habitat by selling one of my big ones or two of my small ones.
I bought another Gem Grove instead, because my Gemmies, Darkies, and the drones on my Panda Farm are what's gonna make these luxuries a reality down the road.


I saw your panda and crystal farm :) I think you might be able to at least upgrade one of your smaller habitats and fit more on your island than you think, the layout just needs a little bit of tinkering. You could e.g. sell your small farms temporarily (or have a look if all your habitats are full and there is a smaller one that you could sell?) , then you would have more space to move everything around (because for a big rearrangement you need at least one empty spot) and then you could figure out a more effective way to use your space. I did the same thing and found room for at least one or even two additional habitats. We're neighbours, you can have a look if you want to. It's "HappyPets".


I think I'll next save up money for the dark cove but I will have to sell my big earth habitat to make space. I'll probably have to sell some duplicates :( and do a lot of moving animals around between habitats before I can do that. Things would be easier if we could put everything into storage...

[hugpete]

Are these critter homes in your budget?

Big Water Way costs 520,000 coins. Holds 3 animals with capacity of 10,000 coins.

Big Dark Cove costs 900,000 coins. Holds 3 animals with capacity of 15,000 coins.

Big Gem Grove costs 6,100,000 coins. Holds 3 animals with capacity of 80,000 coins.

That's one helluva real estate market! So what do you say? Some day? Or no way?

Well, I've already bought a big dark & big water (had to for goals) but now the prices have dropped! I want a refund!

https://fbcdn-photos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-0/10357592_858831524127860_6107189884911308049_n.jpg

[zenobia42]

Unless they open a TON of new expansions, I (and most players who want to maximize their number of animals) won't be buying any more big habitats any time soon, so it's kinda moot.

[JeannesThinkin]

In the distant future. You have to make a living to get one of those. Study hard, my animals! And later, you will get your reward! ;).

BTW, SANDSCApe, teach me your ways of taming an unicorn, oh great master. *Bows to you*

[danni7788]

Looks like the price of the dark cove dropped even more...

[zenobia42]

Looks like the price of the dark cove dropped even more...

ARGH! After I bought freaking SIX of them. The last one not 6 hours ago! *Bangs head on wall.*

Well, that does it. Even if they give us another dozen expansions, I am NOT upgrading my dark coves to big ones until that absurd price is reduced too. If I have to lose 480,000 coins that I have to work twice as hard as people with unicorns & emeralds have to work for the same coins, I'm at LEAST going to not do that on the big coves.