Feed -- more ideas

The team put forward a poll about animals in feed. However, reading the responses and thinking over the issues, I think we have several other issues and though maybe this would be a good place to voice those.

SO.. this is for everything EXCEPT "do you want animals used for feed"

For me:
1. many of the feed types are "unbalanced" in that the feed costs more in the market than the animals themselves cost. I just checked cuckoos and the feed is going for 1400, but the cuckoos themselves only for 800 CC. This is likely an anomaly, in part due to the BBD, but there are many other issues. Roosters would probably not be bad if they did not require so much corn, an item that is used for so many things already. Kiwis feed is high, but right now, being able to mill kiwis feed is about the only thing to look forward to past level 90 (chamomile, etc have little use).

2. Part of the problem lies on the animal "demand" side. That is, a few animals are required in the bigger quests and have more or less steady demand from newer folks. Others, not so much. Its tricky to use rare animals for events, since many people won't have them. However, maybe we could have more permanent quests that use these animals.

3. Corn is very much overused. Either shift some to other types of grain OR even introduce a new lower level crop, one that would fit right around carrots and wheat. (maybe a tad more, but not over 30 minutes grow time).

4. Also evaluate use of eggs and milk as feed products. In some cases, it will be find to keep it, but consider changes.

 

i'd didn't think i'd every say this but woody is right. i know the problem is, upper level player's are stuck.same ole same ole.there need's more it's getting old. i don't know what to do with everything i have, 700 plus trees and all the rest of everything we get, space is small,
there need's a spot for Master Farmer's ROOM To Grow

 

This is not an anomaly, it has been this way since cuckoo feed was introduced. I still have over 30,000 cuckoos in my barn that came from the cuckoo events when cuckoos dropped from stables (i.e., no feed required to make them). Feeding cuckoos has always been a huge loss. But the feed is also required for making fake moustaches.

I am curios, you would like to drop it from 1 milk per cat feed to what? 0.67? Egg and milk are still cheap products and there are plenty of production trees in the game, I think it is good that there is a steady demand on these products.

I looked through the feed "recipes", the only ingredient requirements that I think are over the top are those for the roosters and anacondas. But those feeds are not, relatively speaking, expensive, they are often sold for less than the cost of the ingredients. On the other hand, ingredients for beaver feed cost a little over 300 CC, whereas the feed is often sold for 1500. Now beaver feed is the mainland feed that takes longest to mill. In my opinion it is not the cost of ingredients that is driving the price of feed up, but the demand on milling time. The mainland mill has the option to produce PF, which is the first choice for a lot of players. The rainforest with extra space for stalls has drastically increased the demand on baha feed, which take sooo long to mill. And a mill of choice is required in so many of the events.

 

I don't want more land to grow stuff. I want the ability to get more from the land we already have. Another mill would be really nice and/or the ability to mill Power Feed in both mills since PF can be used in both places. (Not that I use PF or recommend using it for anything other than breeding.) Already the game has been modified to change how it loads because the time to load all takes too long. It's been split up so we don't notice it as much but it is still there. If you add more land, it will only strain the resources needed to load and play the game. Stop putting so many new trees and animals in. Start giving us the ability to support what we already have.

 

I don't remember it being this high, but I have not checked for a couple of months.

I thought it was 2.... well, that is my mistake, then. I will change that. the biggest way to reduce milk prices would be to offer more milk trees, but I am not sure the team wants to do that.

I do think the feed for frogs is a bit much if they become food (which was what someone above my post in the feedback thread suggested). Milling time no doubt adds to the price variations, but a lot of it is just that many people don't really care about the prices, don't necessarily compare the price of feed to the price of the animals.

There's another reason I think the prices are more driven by people wanting to produce animals/products. The oddest feed prices, the ones that tend to cost more than the feeds, are, aside from cuckoos, rare pens. If it were based on people wanting to just have the animals -- that is, if it were a "cost to produce" versus "cost to just buy" factor, then one would think that the feeds for the animals with orange and pink pens would be higher, since people should be willing to pay more for feed when they can produce 2 or 3 animals per feed unit. However, that is not the case. It seems that there are a fair number of farmers who either don't think about or don't want to buy animals, they just want to feed their pens, no matter the cost of the feed.

 

Since BP is considering changing the feed requirements to include more animals, I think it is absolutely necessary to provide a way for us to get more land to farm.

Please note, the following doesn't include any animals or trees for BahamaRama.

Based on the number of animal and production pens in the game, you have to place 108 pens on your farm if you want to produce at least one of each product and enough animal pens to cover the feed requirements for those production pens and grow at least one of every animal which does not have a production pen, as well as the extra pens to cover the production pens that use more than one animal for feeding. The main field and the green meadow have room for either 43 or 44 pens, depending on your set up. I place 43 pens on each of those fields, so that is what I'm using as the basis for my math. The magical glade holds 39 pens. That means a total of 125 pens can placed on those three fields. That leaves 16 additional spots for pens - not nearly enough if BP is considering changing feed recipes to include more animals, or worse yet, adding new animals that would require animals for feed.

With 43 pens on the main field and the green meadow, you can place 30 trees on each field. With 39 pens in the magical glade, you can only place 28 trees. At this time, there are 51 different types of trees. Since I like to place 5 of each type of tree, I need 255 spaces for trees. This need will only get worse with the introduction of new trees.

Basically, with all of these animal, production pens, and trees, there is no room left on which to grow crops.

I think we need at least two fields that are dedicated to growing trees, three fields dedicated to raising animals - with more space added as new animal and production pens are introduced to the game, and at least two fields dedicated to growing crops.

I haven't done the figures for BahamaRama yet, but I know I could use at least one more field there.

I think the ability to get these additional fields should be added as runes to the Tree of Wisdom.

The inability to acquire more land has been an issue in this game since the beginning. New animals and trees are constantly being added without consideration to the space it takes to grow them. It's great that BP is looking at adjusting the feed requirements, hopefully to a more realistic level, but without the space to grow the ingredients, what's the point?

 

All of you make very valid points.

However; as a mostly manual farmer, please don't add any more land unless you are willing to change the dynamics of the game to decrease the amount of clicking required for harvesting, planting, and feeding the crops, trees and animals we have now. It takes me almost an hour each morning to harvest, replant, feed and water the crops, stables, workshops and trees I have now! It quickly ceases to be fun and becomes a dreaded chore.
In my humble opinion, there are already too many different types of plants, trees, and animals. I realize BP wants to keep introducing new things to keep the older players interested and challenged, but You are driving away those of us who are newer and can't afford all the automatic harvesters.

If you add more animals to the feed I don't know what to do. I really enjoy farmerama for the game, but mainly for the people. Everyone is correct. If we need more animals to make feed we rapidly run out of space for crops, or even enough animals and that's not even taking into account people trying to increase their trophy levels and complete FSQs.
Please BP, adding more animals to feed requirements is a BAD IDEA!

 

This is one of the reasons why I suggested a tiered system with a separate land with unique animals that would only be available to grow, sell, etc for higher level players. That way, higher players could not just buy up the products, etc. Also, it would be something "to shoot for", something more when the other things are done. However, a lot of lower level players just see it as something they are excluded from, not something they will get eventually.


At any rate, that's a different suggestion.... it IS good to hear different perspectives. Not sure how much farmerama will pay attention, but thank you anyway.

 

Sorry - I double posted these two comments.....

As a RL company, this is BP's bottom line.