clarify please

[rjdispoto]

Does it do more harm than good to play a bunch in a row. I feel that when I spend extended time playing my deliveries fail to deliver back prizes, my butterflies and moles often are not collectors and I just wondered if there was time limits on how often you could collect on these types of items?

Does that make sense?
There is so much that confuses me or I have questions about that. Why do some orders bring back stuff and most don't? Why do u get 1 tool out of a huge collection of moles when u can get up to 10....what a waste of hard work.

Why do I almost always get anchovies in my Pond...why are some saying u can get treasure (is that ios only?) Why why why ..lol

Thanks for listening in to me whine!

[reewinder]

I think it's all random. I do however recommend that if you play for extended periods of time that you exit the game and force close it and then go back into the game. They recommend doing this after awhile....especially if you visit a lot of other people's farms to avoid having the screen where buildings disappear and everything turns blue.
As for the pond....I don't even try to fish in it unless I have at least 10 fish baits to work with.....other wise like you said, they all turn up as anchovies. I usually go and fish when I have 20 baits and usually within that 20 I'll get several catfish and maybe a bass or 2.....more if there's the hotspots to fish from. Also every now and then you will get anything from a wooden plank or nail or can of paint while fishing....same is true when digging in the mine.
Deliveries seem to be random as well.....seems like if you only do 1 or 2 you get nothing. I don't really send out many deliveries unless there's an event going on but I seem to get mostly shovels and pick axes when I get something.
I'm in the same boat with turning in collections.....usually almost always get 1 tool instead of 10 or whatever. I did get 10 salmon or tuna once when I turned in the otter collection. I really love the butterfly one when it says win up to 100 gems and then I get like 1000 coins and not even 1 gem.
I think the only time players are truly blessed is in those first 5 or 6 levels in the game. They hit the jackpot with like every delivery so they can expand to the news stand and repair it.....after that they get random drops like the rest of us.

[Aernak]

Everything in this game seems to be luck based - mostly bad luck. LOL.

I was so excited today - I finally got that elusive white butterfly I have been waiting for, and I turned in the collection hoping for a shovel, as I need like 6 of them to clear grassy patches, and I got 500 coins. UGH!

[Eliza_Azile]

Butterflies only give money or gems; moles get you tools.

[queentina3]

I can give some helpful advice on the fish pond, and it has worked for me from the start. I usually have 3 or 4 of the yellow bait as a hold out for anchovies. Once I have the anchovies I make the other two types of bait and HOLD THEM. Don't use those higher baits until you see there are fish swimming in the pond. Once you see the fish, that is when you use the higher bait. If there are no fish, I just use the lower bait to continue to catch anchovies and use them to create more higher bait or for the pizza.

I've caught more tools and the bigger fish by waiting until they're swimming and using the higher bait then I do when I just fish with any bait and the pond is in a lull.

[puppynox]

I don't think there's harm in playing for a long time at once, and I don't see a drop in quality of play if I'm playing for a while. In fact, I feel the opposite. The longer I play, the more deliveries I do and the more butterflies/moles I pick up, so I'm more likely to get more drops from the sheer number I'm finding.

Best to accept that the game is what it is. Most of what you're asking about is because the game was designed to play that way. You won't get parts or papers with every delivery. However, I feel like I've gotten more as I've climbed in levels. For example, once I opened my mine, I found picks and shovels dropping more often. Once I could plant trees to cut down for wood, I saw an increase in saws dropping. This makes sense, since you have little need to have a ton of these tools when you're low level and only use them when expanding to a new area and need to cut down an occasional tree, break a rock, or dig up a bush or grass patch.

Also, once I reached high levels and felt I could afford to do a lot of deliveries, I started getting a lot more papers, screws, paint, tools, etc. from my deliveries, again, just from the sheer number I was doing. When you're low level and poor and saving up precious coins for buildings and such, you really don't need to be doing a lot of deliveries, because it makes you lose money/profit. But I have all but one building (and won't reach the level required to get it for a while yet), so I send probably 30 deliveries a day, and I get drops all the time now. It used to take me several weeks to get enough papers to expand or parts to expand my barn/silo, but now I can do it every week or two.

As for butterfly and mole collections, the game was not designed to give you several gems or tools most of the time. I would say about 1/3 of the time I get cash, and 2/3 of the time I get one gem or tool. Very, very, very rarely I have gotten more than one. Once, I got 5 gems for turning in a butterfly collection, but only once.

For fishing, it mostly depends on what lure you're using. The dough lure will get you anchovies most of the time, catfish occasionally, and bass more rarely. The anchovy lure will get you catfish most of the time, bass sometimes, and anchovies more rarely. The spicy lure will get you bass most of the time, catfish sometimes, and rarely a salmon or tuna. The fancy/colorful lure (can't remember what it's called) will get you salmon or tuna almost always. So if you're using the dough lure all of the time, it makes sense that you're getting almost all anchovies. As for parts and paint, yes, you will very rarely run across one of those while fishing, but again, the game wasn't designed to make it a frequent event.

Don't get me wrong, the game can feel frustrating at times, but it would be boring if it were easy. You would expand all the way and level up fast, and there would be nothing left to do and no challenge to the game to make it fun.