Feedback Mill Changes (Part II), Producer Newsletter and Compensation

Overall it seems OK, but I still do not get it why the 10% faster Rune had to be deactivated...it looks like many players will be unhappy and BP can not reverse the situation once the new mill was put in place. I am in the same situation, but I try not to let this get in the way of me enjoying the game; I take the good with the bad and I will continue to enjoy until...who knows, so thanks for the bonus code

 

bonus code to me even though i used it ..... was more like a slap in the face .... i already have a mill subscription ..that isn't working right I have the milling rune that isn't working right .... i have the cloud row again that isn't working right so what use is a bonus code to more stuff that isn't working right LOL ''
don't get we wrong i understand those that haven't paid for a mill subscription to be well chuffed about getting a bonus code ... anything to make milling shorter works .....

but Meh i would like it fixed i dont think thats to much to ask .... Fixed or give us the option to revert back to the old mill

 

I do not have the cloud row or the mill subscription. Even so I am not pleased with the changes that have come into effect. I have not used the bonus code as it smacks of being a placebo handed to the players

 

Although not related to this, and it benefits all of us who did purchase on previous occasions.
But I would like to see mega EP day cancelled???????!!!!!!!! as a gesture not to have our cash until we get answers and things 'fixed'.
Suppose too much to ask a money making company
Or maybe give us it for free

 

Greetings lovely Farmers,

Despite the whole Mill situation, I wish you all a wonderful and relaxing weekend .

Thank you all for your feedback!
​

Dear igotfrogs,

We appreciate your understanding and we know that your anger is not directed towards us, but the higher ups will not be able to address your concerns individually because there are too many languages available and they surely cannot keep up with all the Forums. But that's why we are here, to collect all, and I literally mean ALL your feedback, and forward it to the Game Team.​

Dear woody,

Thank you for your kind words . It's not easy, but you all are making it easy for us.​

Dear hatzeva,

Thank you for your kind words, understanding, and the chocolate bar .​

Dear squigglegiggle,

Can I be completely honest, again ? It may be inappropriate, but I have added this as a personal note to the Feedback sent, and I also mentioned it after the initial redesign was included as a preview in the newsletter: One of the saddest part of all this situation, is that it all started wonderfully - the Mill queue was a community wish, not only EN community wish but suggested by other languages as well, for as long as I've been playing and modding. It is really a shame that things turned out this way .​

Dear marlenef24,

The 10% faster rune was not deactivated, I am not sure where this misunderstanding comes from. Probably from the way buffs are added now. However, the way buffs are added will only affect you if, in addition to the 10% reduction rune, you are using the Mill Subscription and/or the Valentine's Cloud Row.
​

Dear mackboy,

I see your point of view, but I think it came out a bit wrong. I'd assume you are referring to postponing sales, not cancelling Mega EP day, which would most likely cause more disappointment, because what it does, is reward players who spend money on this particular day. Some players will hold on to making purchases, and buy BBs during Mega EP days, to benefit from the extra EP bonus. Removing it would be just taking away a bonus from players.

Thank you all, once again, for your input.
​

Best regards,
teddy.bear

 

i like it but i don't,so there you go, confusion on the farm.

 

I just found out another negative on this "new, improved" Mill. Just been reading through and noticed a comment regarding feed not available till the whole batch is done and ... sure enough ... incredibly so, it's true. How on earth did those making "improvements" think that would be a "good" thing! I am completely gobsmacked!

I do believe this is one of the worst changes I have ever witnessed in more than five years.

 

Well, I will just add what practically every player is saying. Just in short.

It makes no sense to have to wait until the whole order of feed is done. Often enough I needed some feed now, like after getting a secret stable. It also makes no sense (to me) that the milling time is prolonged. Which I found out by reading this thread.

And for once I am really glad not to have things like the CR. BP needs to find a solution for the players who have them.

My surprise was big (after reading here) that the bonus code works or all players. At least some thing good for me. But CR players need more than that. They payed or it.

 

I have been thinking about the feedback to the previous newsletter. As I recall it was met with cautious optimism. Respect for admitting mistakes, but that also gave hope for something different in the time to come, we expected action, not only words. It seemed to me that a lot depended on the solution to the cloud row issue.

Personally I think that not only the solution presented was unsatisfactory, but that the way it was presented was a disaster. We were promised compensation, ok the buff time was doubled, which is a compromise that might have been acceptable if it had been the only change. But at the same time, without a word in the newsletter (where you hoping we wouldn't notice, or what?), to also change the mill subscription, leaving us worse off than ever, it can no longer be regarded as a fair compensation.

I can understand that the cloud row effect was a mistake, and that it was too good an offer, and that you "can't" offer us anything we will be happy with instead. But then, let us have our BBs back! I would have spent many of them on seedlings this weekend anyway. Now I am not buying any seedlings.

About the mill subscription: I can actually (although it pains me to say it here and now) understand the change of how the bonus works. I always thought the total reduction would be 55% together with the rune, that is logical considering how most of the other bonuses work. Ironically enough, it was in February at the time of the cloud row sale I found out that the mill subscription bonus was added with the rune bonus and with the cloud row bonus if I were to buy that.

So I can understand the change, but not the way it was handled. My suggestion would have been to make an announcement in advance stating that from some date the mill subscription would be changed. Anyone having a subscription running past this date could have it cancelled if they wanted to. Sure, people would probably not be happy about the change, but they would have an option to decide whether or not to buy, based on correct information. I would have respected this change as honest and fair, which is something I can not say about what was actually done.

For me it was always a question of buying either mill subscription or PF. With a change announced the way I explained, I would just have cancelled my mill subscription and bought PF for that money instead. I would see no reason for complaining. I don't mind spending the money, but I want to decide myself how to spend it. Now I have a mill subscription running two more months that I don't want (and tried unsuccessfully to cancel). I did not choose to buy the mill subscription under these conditions, I feel cheated.

All I am asking is to get enough information before I buy something, to be able to make an informed decision. What could be more reasonable than that?

 

That's the key: they can sell whatever they want, and we can buy whatever we want and can, but, if they change conditions afterwards,without proper compensation, then we were cheated, even if they didn't have the intention to do so. Otherwise, you erode trust -a not so elusive complex emotion, hard to build and very easy to destroy with reckless behaviour-.

It all sums up to what matselleste said here:

I can understand that they can make mistakes and then "fix" them, but I cannot justify they do the "fix" after they realize they've made a commercial mistake and must scale back their original offer so that it doesn't harm their revenue stream estimates.

I also think the power of the fora as a means to effectively advertise or condemn as useless any BP's offer is being understated and underestimated by BP when they consider how to properly compensate the players who paid for the CR, regardless of the fact that what matselleste said shows the only right path to follow.

Though I know the addition of mill-related buffs is now working as it should (I know I said the opposite before: I was wrong and I'll edit my previous post in accordance), they must keep it the way it originally worked -EDIT: including that effect goes beyond the buffing window, as it happens with every other buff- or refund our expense, with real money or BBs. Why? In relation to my previous paragraph, I know for certain that some players bought the mill-CR after I posted 1 PF took only 3 hs to make. They wouldn't have probably bought it if it had been different. So, BP has no way to tell how many players were lured to buying that offer after many players in many fora advertised how the effect worked on PF.

Bottom line: this outrageous commercial behaviour is born from two things: laziness to devise other ways to keep their business healthy while keeping their customers (us) happy -and weak business ethics- and legendary incompetence to rightly implement changes to the game, from the SW development and project management standpoints.

They actually have so many other options to help keeping their revenue stream strong and healthy, but laziness and lack of sound ideas is the path they choose to beat.

Some ideas that I find legitimate? They must be incremental, enhancements, never decremental, and they must be as fair as other already existing options.

For instance -I may buy some or all of these if they existed-:
* implementing an in-game alert service, hired via subscription using BBs -small amount per month-, to warn us of running out of buffs and/or the soon to happen ripening of items we can choose in a dialog box (CRs, for instance);
* creating an option of additional land that can be rented using BBs, on top of any additional land they may open for all players -they must keep a balance in this sense-;
* introducing some kind of Suzy-spray to be used on EP/B-EP-givers, for reducing their ripening time, and another for increasing their EP/B-EP yield; the same that already exists for trees, adapted to givers;
* a BBs option to link both Baha and Main lands water tanks, either temporarily or via subscription - very small charge here-, or another to temporarily (24 hs, 48 hs, and so on) expand their capacity;
* etc., etc.

BP should think thrice the next time they decide to scale back any offer they had made and we paid for and they should remember a game is made out of players, not only payers they can deceive as they wish without any consequences.

 

I just realised (a bit late) that I won't be able to interrupt a milling if an emergency feed shortage for another animal occurs (which happens all the time!) without losing ALL the previously milled feed! WHAT?!?

I've been waiting a very long time for the ability to queue feed production and not have to micro-manage milling so much and was mighty excited when the new mill was implemented, but with this change you've actually made milling WORSE not BETTER. What does it matter if I can add a different feed to be milled after I'm done with the first batch if I am in need of that feed right away? For emergencies as mentioned or for events? This change means that any large-batch milling will become impossible and that I will actually have to spend MORE time micro-managing milling than before because I wont dare to start any large batches and everything will have to be done small-scale.

I'm not affected by the CR or the Mill subscription debacles but I understand other players' frustration. What is going on lately with BP?


ETA: AAAARGH! I just found out another crappy side-effect of this new mill. I am growing pandas right now and I ran out of feed earlier today. I put the Mill to produce 100 panda feeds (without realising the change) and so far it has produced 14. I have an island of panda stables done and ready and they need feeding now. AND I CAN'T FEED THEM. Despite having been producing their feed the whole evening! So now I either have to scrap my panda stables and not make anymore for days (totally messing up my game plan), or buy incredibly expensive panda feed in the market. I don't normally let games affect me all that much but right now I'm so irritated I could spit nails.

I don't understand how BP thinks we'll be able to farm in any effective way if we constantly have to make small batches of feed and then plan and watch for days in andvance what feed we need to make. I agree with what others have said above, this is starting to feel more like work than a game.

 

At this point I am even glad that the advent calendar debacle happened (paying for missed days was a real eye opener to me). I stopped paying money for the monthly harvesters and occasional powerfood shortly after that. I am also happy that I stopped mostly playing and therefore completely missed the sale of the Milling CR. It might actually have tempted me to put some money into this game again. But luckily I had already mostly given up playing this game. I am so sad to hear me say that, considering how much I loved my little farm not very long ago. Now everything seems to just go wrong.

Yes, it is more than upsetting to buy something in good faith just to find out that the package was labelled wrong after opening it. At least in most countries you can return the product. Is the company registered in Germay? They used to have very good customer protection rules.
And realistically I don't even think that the old way the CR worked was such a big give-away in the first place. One hour per PF being milled doesn't sound too generous. And most of the people that are actually complaining about the CR are doing so in addition to the Mill Subscription (okay maybe 3 hours seems short, but realistically that only happens after already purchasing the Subscription). So possibly if applied in the original way, it might even have led to people being more likely to buy the Mill subscription. Instead a lot of people seem to have decided to not buy anything at all anymore. How well can I understand them as I have made that decision already a while back. I am not even really participating in Baby Boom Day anymore (which means that by now I have a stash of PF that I don't even care to use anymore).

By the way to all the people that think that the bonus should not affect everybody: Of course it has to.
If I understand correctly, because of the “problems” (no harsh wording here, even if I would love to) with the CR every player has to deal with a longer production time of feed in the first place. How is that fair at all? And that considering that players need immense amounts of PF now with all the new quests asking for disrespectfully large numbers of breeders or high level ones. And players would like to build upgrades for stables as well as to maximise the production in the limited space available.

Then we got slots to queue up production, which is great especially for me because I can mill different things over a longer period of time and whenever I felt like visiting my farm I could cancel whatever I was milling and change over the production. Two slots available and more coming soon. Of course I knew straight away that every new slot will have to be paid for. So I guess BP feels very generous when giving all of us the third slot for free.

Generous? Not at all! I could manage well enough with two slots. And so they noticed: That is why partial production had to be removed. BP is literally banking on the fear of lost production time when putting up big batches of food that might have to be cancelled due to an event or other reasons. Milling for events is the biggest factor in that mind game and has been slowly introduced and accepted by the players. Of course people can spend BB's to finish the milling time (the bigger the batch and the longer the running time already past, the more likely are some players to spend those BB's). Or you buy 10 slots worth of queue for BB's and you will be able to set up small batches so that the loss is lower when one has to cancel. I would like to point out that I rather will stop completely playing this game than being caught in a net like this. This is really not the game anymore that I signed up for, let alone supported with real money for quite a long time.

Then there are missing stars, new trees and animals that nobody wants anymore. New quests that come out of my ears by now (might end up being overwhelming to new players to even check through all those in the farmers society).
No corral reef! Not even mentioned in newsletters anymore and instead the value of GB will be increased? Hell, aren't they valuable enough already? Everybody needs them and the access of them should be made easier. The new quest is giving 6000 BEP at a step, I rather eat 3 Red punches than throw away valuable goods for that!

And I might want to say that I was playing this game because I saw it as a communal game and as such I would like to be able to post about what is going on in other forums as well because it should be all of our concern what is going on around us. I can post findings from other forums in the Grapevine (like pictures, etc.) but I am not allowed to talk about what is actually going on in a different forum? We should grow together more and not be separated by virtual rules and borders. Don't we have enough of those already? For example I can grow chameleons on my normal farm (no, no not Bahama)! Shouldn't I be able to communicate with a countrie's forum that actually has chameleons as native animals and share my findings in this forum?

And why am I still writing now? It is 5:00 in the morning here in Thailand and realistically I have lost hope for my little farmerama world where people of all countries can share common goals, experiences and stories independent from which forum they originally belong to.

 

Well said, jennifersiegel!

 

Well said, except one point.... we are allowed to communicate with other forums, except on the one mod issue. Your mention of Germany's laws show you probably have an idea why that would be. Germany has some pretty tough rules when it comes to privacy type issues, regardless of whether the issues are negative or positive. Staying essentially "within" that country, even in a forum is legally necessary.

If you go to some other threads, you will see people from other countries posting and being made welcome, as long as they write English (even if just translated) and don't violate general "decorum" rules.

Anyway, thank you. You are missed, though I have to say I am seriously evaluating my continuance as well. (likely I will stay, but as a freebie player, to the extent they still allow those).

Mods, forum folks are one of the definite positives of this game!

 

most will not like what i have to say but hey, c'est la vie.
the mill, not being able to use feed until the entire production is finished, to me is a step in the right direction. in all games there has to be strategy. without strategy games quickly become boring and die. the way the mill was set up before, it was basically a bot. you didnt have to think about anything but set an infinite amount and click go. you now have to take an extra minute and decide what you really need to produce and when you need it. the mill is probably the single most important aspect of the game and should not be taken for granted.

 

I would just like to add after having just read @jennifersiegel 's post that if it does affect everybody then yeah fair enough if everyone receives compensation for it but I still think that the people who paid out for the Cloud Row and Mill Sub (esp the Cloud Row!) should be compensated accordingly considering we/they paid in good faith for items paid for with BB's which I would imagine in the main was paid for with RL ££!

 

I do want to clarify that for most of us, the issue is BP integrity, how this happened. We went ahead and bought a cloud row because of how we were told it would work, only to have BP change the rules after we have bought it... and without offering us any chance for a refund, even. The fact that BP more or less tried to imply this was an improvement added insult to injury and is what drove most of us to anger.

The strategy point is a separate issue that perhaps can be debated elsewhere, in an appropriate thread. However, for me, at least, it is less about any strategy and more about plain practicalities of real time life. I just don't have the time to babysit a video game constantly.

 

The main issues for me is I'm not getting what i paid for ..... I paid to be able to mill power feed in 3 hours with cloud row and the mill rune (that I worked to open) ..... Not to have invested money in it to have them decide they would up the time it takes per unit to mill .... Its a pure and utter pile of BS .... and the longer it's taking for something to be done about it the more PO'ed I'm getting NOTHING has been addressed ... i feel we are being fobbed off ... given the just don't talk about it it might go away approach and i must say it's making me pretty angry i bet if we were getting more of a little sumthin sumthin than what they had planed it would be fixed quick smart ... Oh say like the Crow egg or whatever it was in Renzo's .... they quicksmart fixed that the next day .... NOT very cool .... NOT nice .... Thats is tantamount to taking peoples money on false pretences ... SHAME on BP! .... SHAME on the POWERS THAT BE!

 

I guess bp is going to ignore all our feedback. It has been 4 days and there are no changes. Shame on you, bp for taking such a long time... Are you having a vacation?

 

Yes on our Money!