Manure Changes (New Strategy)

You guys are really overthinking this. There is nothing inherently different between the manure you purchase from the market and the manure you produce yourself. They all get added to the same pile regardless of where they came from and not even Bigpoint can tell them apart. It's just that any poo you collect from your stalls will not count if your total has exceeded your manure pile's max storage capacity.

Let's say your max storage capacity is 300 units. You produced 200 units of manure on your farm and then went to the market to purchase an additional 600 units. You now have a total of 800 units of manure and your manure pile will say 800/300. You can still buy more, but when you go to clean out your stalls, the manure from those stalls will not be added to your total because you are already over your limit of 300. If you sell off or use up your manure--again, there is no difference between home grown and store bought manure--so that your total falls to 250, you can collect 50 more units from your stalls until you reach your limit of 300. Anything beyond that will be lost.

If you have 50 stalls that need cleaning and each stall give 2 units of manure, just make sure your manure pile reads 200/300 or under before you clean out your stalls. Just as you've always done.

 

So, that means, I can have unlimited manure as long as I never ever put out my pens to raise animals or make products. Gee, color me thrilled. That only helps out the people who never actually farm and just work the market. Why don't we just call this the NYSE or the Dow Jones game instead of Farmerama? (Just a small note: Many farmers don't have a manure pile that allows 300. Not everyone is at a level to have enough stars for that or is a Premium player.)

 

excellent I love it

 

Yes, I see a lot of people complaining about how this puts actual farmers at a disadvantage. But at the same time, I'm sure that if they did away with the limits altogether, people would be complaining about how they used their stars on a rune that is now effectively useless. :\

Sorry, I thought it was clear that I was using the number 300 as an example... Not really sure how to make it any clearer...

 

zerodegrees, I never advocated for the unlimited manure in any form. I'm just pointing out the poor thought process involved in this particular change. Gee whiz, I thought this game was about actual farmers and farming! (I've already seen complaints about wasted stars so that is nothing new.)

Okay, so 300 is your example. I'll grant you that. Doesn't make anyone with just 100 feel any better. (No neither example applies to me.)

 

Thank you all for your kind words. I appreciate your understanding very much.

That is correct, thank you zerodegrees. I have added the following explanation: The manure produced and the one bought will not be stored separately, nor we can make a difference between the two. Manure will be manure - The "limit" is on the overall amount. For example, if you have the manure pile to the "limit" of 100 - if you have 0 manure units in stock, then buy 100 units, and you harvest your pen after, you will remain at 100. However, if you harvest your pens and get 30 units, and buy 100 units after, you will have 130 stored.

Such a simple change that turned into something so complicated.

 

For myself...

• I can see hoarding enough manure for a whole event. 15k for current event... Not me... at current prices.
• I rarely buy or use manure so the price is not terribly important to me. I sell during events. If it gets down to 3/unit I use it. I don't like raising animals. I'm a crop farmer, mostly. I only use manure, rarely, on crops in the 12h+ range.
• Pretty sure this means fewer players will bother with growing chickens for pooh farming. Meaning the price of chickens will probably go up. Except, reportedly, the price of manure is going up... so it could have the opposite effect. I've never been one of those pooh farmer players. Too much busy work for me.
• I don't spend a lot of time at the Market. Only enough to keep me in CCs to do what I want with the farm. Anymore time I would invest in a real Market with real money. I'd rather do something really productive with my time.
• I expect it to takes months if not a year for the Market and players to adjust to this unfathomable change. I don't see a reason for the change. Was it because players have complained about the price of manure during events? I fail to see how it's going to help anyone but the ppl who like to hang out in the Market all day.

So overall... the change has no effect on the way I play the game.

It seems the opposite change would have been better. I would have preferred spending more stars to open a larger manure pile, creating windrows. But, yes, there is the rune stars. They can credit the stars back to us.

 

Perhaps. I think my tolerance for nonsense is just very, very low and especially for games I play (this one...that's all). I have enjoyed this game, but I think it must have exceeded my threshold for over-complication and poor communication.

Ah well, and so it goes. I will have more free time. If anyone is has any holes in their farm to fill this next G&T, please IGM me.

 

1. Why does it really matter that much if the manure you make manually doesn't count? If you've already got unlimited manure it's not like you'll miss it. Unless I'm stupid and missing something?
2. There is no reason why you shouldn't put out your production pens. You just won't always get the manure from them. You won't "lack" unlimited manure by putting them out.
3. You're also helped by this, aren't you? You can have 800 manure instead of 100.

 

We appreciate all you do.

We don't have unlimited manure storage. The storage we do have is not sufficient to allow for us to produce enough manure to cover our fields even in normal times, never mind during events when many of us take out our pens to make room for event crops. It is necessary to take out pens because the event crop requirements are generally pretty high. Having manure to finish is often also necessary -- not necessarily if you have the luxury of just playing through, but for those of us who have real lives that take us away from our computers for long stretches, manure can make the difference between completing an event or not. Yes, we always do have the option of paying BB, but in quantities that pretty much ensure we have to pay real money.

Now, we can use the relatively small amounts we can save up on our own farms, but if we want to buy any, we will face huge costs. Those of us with the florist shops will be hit particularly hard, since we will have to choose between using the manure we have on crops or for bouquets, etc.


This change benefits those, mostly the older players, who already have large stocks of everything, who have lots of CC . They will buy whatever they want, the rest of us will either do without or find other ways .. probably involving BB, to finish events and such.


The fact that some of us did not get notice makes it a bit worse, but that's not all that significant in the long run.

The right thing to have done would be to set totally unlimited stocks of manure storage, even if only after a certain level. Then manure prices would drop, but since its not something people really buy anyway, that does not seem a terrible option.. more like water.

 

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Hey, Teddy - we all make mistakes a lot of the time. Please don't fret, the manure question will sort itself out in time. My market is selling some now at around 122cc but that is normal during an event.
I would like to know why there is a difference, between the amount of poo from our pens and the amount bought, in the amount we can store. Perhaps you could enlighten me ?

 

I thought the whole point of this new system is that you now do have unlimited storage, it's just not unlimited for self-made manure. Unless I'm insanely foolish and didn't see something saying there was a cap on how much you could purchase.

True, if you're assuming the minimum storage of 100 units. Even opening the first expansion of the manure pile means that you can cover everything on the main farm. One more expansion to include Baha in that. But surely this new system fixes that issue by allowing you to buy more than your pile can fit?

Firstly, there's always the old fashioned way of selling your produce to cover the cost of the extra manure. Secondly, in regards to the florist, surely that conundrum exists regardless of the size of your manure pile? Whether you have 100 units of manure or 1000, the question will always be whether you spend it on your crops or your bouquets.

Yes, it does benefit them. It can also benefit you. If you choose to sell your manure to those who wish to buy it, you can make a hefty profit; which will then in time allow you to buy manure too. However, I'm not understanding why you would "do without" - you're not doing without manure. You still have access to the manure you make yourself, just like old times. You can just buy excess on top of this if you wish to, and if you choose to do so, the manure you make on your own will not count towards your total - but if you have not purchased more manure than your pile can hold, your homemade manure will still count.

Unless I've colossally misunderstood the OA, I don't see what the issue is.

 

Squiggle --

I find a significant difference between truly unlimited manure and unlimited manure only for purchase.. a purchase that basically requires us to either adhere to the vagaries of the market each and every day OR to give up our free stalks in order to keep storage. That is the real point.

This definitely benefits those members who have extra CCs, who hoard already and have large stocks of items. Players willing to spend real cash without much thought can get around this in a variety of ways. But, it definitely hurts players who choose not to pay money.

Selling is only an option/benefit if we can do without using our manure. That can work at various points, but not for events.


EDIT: just to clarify a tad further,
The limit is not enough, even at 600 (which assumes having ALL your manure runes open), because many needed crops have far less harvest times than the pens. though my hours at work are now shortened, so its less an issue for me, it still applies to many that we try to maximize our time and grow whatever crops we can in the time we have available to harvest "immediately", then lay down longer term crops in the "between" times.. sleep, etc. For example, many people who get home between 3-5 PM can lay down the the current event crop, with manure and water, and still have time to harvest before bedtime. (for me that was 8PM, because I had to get up so early, but say a more common 9-10PM, it still applies).


EDIT... this all may now be moot, since it turns out there is a "work-a-round", at least if one of the answers given in the question thread is correct.

Apparently, if you put stuff up for sale and it does not sell, it will go back into your stocks, not lost-- acting basically as if you bought it. IF this is true, then all we have to do is set prices for manure unreasonably high and then wait for it to return to our piles. That will be a major hassle initially, but eventually could be habit.

 

woody, if this is the thread you are referring to, I don't believe that part of the question was really answered. Would be interested to know if anyone experiments with this and what is their result. I'm not optimistic though.

 

The way I see manure is...

I've only used manure for florist when it dropped below 10/unit. I'm level 4 and have a stockpile of the things needed for TerrorB, CryptV and ValentineV. Hopefully by the time I need to make more things will have settled out. For players not in my position... UGH! Good luck!

Water costs 1CC for Main farm. During the current event I napped past one harvest by an hour and forgot about the farm for another harvest by an hour. I'm using roughly 550 sq per round * 2 = 1100CC wasted. I have millions of CC and can "eat" that loss. No sweat. Manure gives half the time benefit as water. For a 5h crop... a reduction of one hour for water, half an hour for manure. It costs around 140CC/unit right now. That is 140 times the cost for half the benefit or a net difference of 280 times the cost. That is why I don't use manure on event crops. Half an hour is usually not a significant difference for me. I'm only doing 3 rounds of event crop a day, 3 * 4:23= 14-15h my time. Then a long crop and bed for me. On the other hand... I can see where it would be a benefit for someone on a tight schedule or for someone struggling for drops. After all... it's imaginary coins and if you got spend 'em. Right, Broke? Personally I prefer to plant a long crop for drops if I can't be around and plant event crops when it's more convenient for me. As long as I can finish before the last day of an event... I'm happy.

As far as the change is concerned...
I see Market speculators selling to each other. Until they get bored. (Is that the correct spelling for bored? I don't mean for them to end up with holes in them. But... sometimes I wonder if they don't already have too many... )

I would prefer to see... I currently have a limit of 300 unit for my pile. I would like to spend more stars and get... 500/750/1250/2500/5000. That should be enough for most events. Then I have to decide if I want to become a chicken farmer or spend more coins in the Market or both... Trying to save up 5000 units manure between events... could take some work. Even then I'll probably only bother using it when the event crop is 8h+.

EDIT:
Forgot to say... for manure to be useful to me... I want a pile of at least 600, 800 if I'm using Baha for event crops.

 

Yes, bored, bored, bored. (Lots of boredom there!)

 

I never said you did. You did, however, say that this change "only helps out the people who never actually farm and just work the market". I was just pointing out how one possible solution to make things more fair for both groups would come with its own set of problems. Not because you specifically asked for unlimited manure, but because the change is already in place, the damage is done, and it would be kind of hard to go back to the old system without angering a lot of players. The easiest way to fix the current system so that it doesn't benefit one group more than the other is to lift the restrictions altogether. That's literally the only reason I brought it up.

Okay...? I'm not sure what I'm supposed to even say to that... but I believe that's like the definition of nitpicking.

Doesn't get any clearer than that! Much more concise than my babbling too. Thank you teddy.

I don't know about anyone else but personally, I found it annoying to have to go back and forth between my fields and the market to get enough manure for all my crops. Say I needed about 600 units and my manure pile only goes up to 100. I have to buy 100 units, go back to my fields and use it up, go back to the market and buy another 100 units, etc. It's very time consuming and it becomes a real problem during events because you end up losing out on some very good deals.

Sad to see you go but I can't really blame you. A 4 hour delay in announcing a major change like this is just not acceptable.

The issue is that the manure business is now subject to manipulation like the rest of the market. It is now possible to buy up manure when it is cheap, hoard it, and then resell it at inflated prices when the time is right. People are going to take advantage of that.

 

I think that's not enough, 800 barely cover the first harvest if you are using 1x1 plots on all fields, I was thinking about that and I would say better to aim at 2400 or 3200 so that will be sufficient to cover the first day needs of manure in an event, so have to wait until this commotion ends and the market prices settle down, then stock for the next event.

 

I usually use 2.5 fields for an event. So for manure to be useful to me I would want to cover at least 500- 600sq. for one round. Premium players already have that. I don't which is part of why I don't bother with manure. I would have to use what I have and then buy more. The other reason is the relative price.

OK, now I see some of the reason for this. Complaints about players not being able to buy the offers of 300-600 and those offers clogging the Market by occupying 2 or more pages of offers. That has caused a problem for me in pricing my offers. Do I price at lower that those offers or do I skip past them to the first reasonable offer. Usually I price above them and wait. It almost always works. But buyers have to really want it. This change eliminates those problems. Market may settle out sooner than I thought. Except prices usually start to dropping more by this point of an event, but haven't.

Still... I don't expect to change my strategy re: manure yet. Hoard/sell what I make, not buy it.

 

what exactly do you mean by premium farmer?