Feedback Animal Feed Survey

Howdy Farmers,

The Team has been discussing internally the animal feed balancing, and they would like a better overview of what the community prefers.

Therefore, please be so kind and vote answer this poll until Monday at 10:00 am CET; please note that the example given is a random example for understanding the question better - the poll is not specifically about the wolf feed being changed to needing chicken(s) as well.
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Best regards,
Your Farmerama Team

 

Personally I don't like using my animals for feed. I bought most of my Anacondas for that reason - mainly because I think the requirement (four chickens and two rabbits) far too high though there is the psychological thing of feeding these animals to snakes.

I don't like using animals for products either - five mice for one cheese just doesn't equate. I usually check out the animal prices before I put out production pens, I prefer to buy the products than waste valuable animals. I have a Snorkel Shop and a Perfumery that will stay in my inventory until the prices of Platypuses and Butterflies come down in price compared to the price of Snorkels and Shimmery Powder.

 

I don't mind using animals for feed provided.....
1) It isn't common.
2) The quantities are reasonable.
3) It makes sense.

Discussion:
1) It's okay for a few feeds (<10) to require animals for production. If >10 feeds require animals for production, then that is too many.
2) It's okay to use animals to make feed, so long as it only takes 1-2 types of animals AND only 1-2 of each animal per feed unit production.
The current anaconda feed requires two types of animals (fine), but requires 4 chickens (not fine).
The current spider feed requires one glowworm (fine and fine).
3) It's okay if the animal that is going to be fed is a real-life carnivore. In addition to the current anaconda feed, using animals to make wolf/bear feed, spiders for crow/frog feed or mice for cat/owl feed would make sense.

 

I would like to feed animals animals.

It's normal! There ARE carnivores, and they eat meat. That's life, and the same goes for the love hotel were babies are made. It's not like we see the baby making activities. And it's not like we see blood splatter all over the place if we feed the chickens and rabbits to the anaconda's. That's just normal! Makes one aware of reality. And as this is a friendly game, no blood is good.
But why not feed animals to animals? The spiders eat glowworms already.

And I too would like the food to make sense, at least a little.

 

1) There are some Animal Feeds such as Cuckoo Feed, Spider Feed,Roaster Feed, Kiwi Feed and Anaconda Feed. These Feeds Prices in the Markets actually cost more than Price of these Animals in the Markets.

2) As Reason of 1) it make no Practical Sense nor it Effective to use these Feeds to Grow these Animals. So if you considering Add Animals to these Feeds it make it is even more Impractical !!!

3) It is Cheaper to Grow Chickens using Chicken Feeds, But still have to Mill Chicken Feed, Plus using Chicken Coop to Grow Chickens. Then you would need to Mill Wolf Feed which include Chicken, Which Takes 15 Mins to Mill Wolf Feed Anyway. It too time consuming to produce New Wolf Feed this way !!!

4) Currently we are getting New Animals introduced into this Game every Month. Meaning New Animal Feed is Added to Main Land Mill to Mill Animal Feed. As we can put out a Maximium of 128 Animal Stables in Main Land Farm. As we can consume more Animal Feeds than we can Actually Mill. By Adding Animals to Animal Feed is not going to help or make a better difference at all !!! Many Farmer cannot keep up Milling Animal Feeds as it is

5) Since that we have been inundated with Constant induction of New Animal Feeds. I am not longer able to Mill any Power Feeds at all !!! Most of the Animal Feed is to Pricey to Buy in the Markets so i can not able to Mill Power Feeds i have to Constantly Balance my Animal Feeds !!!

6) Some Production Pens Needs 1 - Animal Feed +1 Animal to Make Products. Most Production Pens needs more than 1 Animal to Make a Product. If you was to include Animals into Animal Feeds for these Products this would have impact of Refraining the use of Production Workshops due to it make no Practical sense to Produce Products in this Way. !!!

7) Many Products can be brought from the Markets, which is cheaper and Cost Effective to do, if you add Animals to Animal Feeds then it might create a shortage of Products in the Markets as many farmers would be put off using Production Pens due to increase costs of Producing this Products. As All Production Workshops due require a few Animals to Make a Product !!!

I am Crop Farmer. Currently is not all that Practical to Grow Animals or Products for me unless i really have too to cover my shortfall for Events or New Quests. This just puts me off even more Just No Practical Sense to me at all

I am going to Vote No Thanks

 

I voted no.
Not because its feeding animals to animals, but..

1. too many animals, not enough space to put them

2. animal feed using animals as ingredients take much too long to produce.

3. feed production (30+) types already, and only 2 mills to produce them, with restrictions on what you can make in each mill.

 

It's just a personal opinion that I voted "No" as I am vegan and the thought is revolting. Probably quite a good idea to add realism in the game but for me the game is escapism from animal cruelty.

 

I do not want to use my animals for food more than we have to already! I am ok with "meat eaters" in the game eating veggies and other things. It is a GAME after all and I do know what goes on in nature in the real world. Survival of the fittest is not pretty to watch BUT everything must eat! So I am voting NO!

 

I really don't like using animals for feed so I will vote no!

 

I'm really glad that the team is looking at balancing issues as I've always felt the game to be very unbalanced. The market is the best indicator of this. True balance would show market prices to be much more in line with game value prices but they aren't even close and that makes events, quests, and overall gameplay more about making money than about enjoying all the diversity it offers.

What I mean is that I would love to put out stables on a regular basis but there is so little use for the regular stables that they're only needed on rare occasions when an event actually wants them instead of wonder animals. More diversity in event and quest requirements would go a long way towards encouraging more use of stables and bringing more balance into the market prices and therefore game balance.

Trees are also greatly out of balance because of the time it takes, the return they give and the high amounts required by quests. A player is basically left with no choice but to buy the tree produce needed to complete quests because for most of them it would take months if not years to complete a quest that needs tree produce, especially wonder tree produce. This eliminates the fun of using trees because it's so inefficient to use them. Create needs for tree produce that gives a player greater incentive to produce them on their own instead of being forced to buy the fruits and the market prices will begin to balance, again creating game balance.

Increasing the requirements for animal feed will not increase the use of stables, it will only make them even more unappealing than they already are in regards to the need for them which is the hallmark the player is looking for. That is not where the problem lies. Balance the quests and events to require more of the regular animals and trees and players will use them more. There's far too many quests and events wanting wonder animals and wonder trees making them not much fun at all when we've got lots of our regular stuff just sitting in inventory gathering dust.

In conclusion, how about focusing on finding ways of giving players incentive to play all the aspects of the game instead of driving up the market prices even more which is what will happen if animals become a requirement for producing animal feed and then players will only produce animals in order to sell them and that makes it about money, not gameplay. It just creates a vicious circle that doesn't have any real need.

 

I would prefer they not change existing feed requirements seeing as how it would be unfair to those of use who have already produced/bought large supplies of animal feed.

 

I don't have a problem with using animals in feed for other animals, after it's already that way for spiders and anacondas. I would prefer that only 1 animal per unit of feed be required. As long as you're looking at adjusting the ingredients required for feed, the amounts of crops required should be reduced to a more reasonable amount. Some of the requirements are ridiculously high.

 

I don't like feeding animals to my animals so I buy Spiders and Anacondas.
I voted NO!

 

I voted NO. Feeding anaconda itself is a great strain and they are whiling away their time in my inventory. Its not even possible to feed animals to workshops of cuckoo's and goose as you don't have place to place the basic animal pens in your farms. These are just few of many reasons why I voted NO.

I would also like the game developers to reduce the crop quantity required to mix certain feeds like that of Rooster's

 

Nooooooo.... We already give up chickens, rabbits and glowworms. I know that in RL animals eat animals (circle of life and all). But I also know that in real life sheep and pigs don't talk, farm or have "misadventures" in the plane that the ostrich owns. So you can't claim we are trying to make it more "life like" . I agree that maybe we could reconfigure the recipes and milling times using some of the crops we don't use for anything else. I also think we should lay off the products. I know you know the product I am referring to but I refuse to "say" it. Noooooooooooooooo............

 

I made a suggestion to add lions to baharama. It does not make sense to have lions NOT eat animals. However, right now there are several animals with food that is more expensive to buy than the animals themselves. I have not grown spiders or kiwis for some time, just as an example. That the feed costs more than the animal does not make sense "economically". Some people just don't pay attention to market prices. That is actually fine in itself. This is after all a farming game, not a marketing game. However, it does indicate that there is a skew in prices versus demand for many items. I see the problem as being on the "demand" side. There is little demand for many of the items we have.

Chickens make a decent feed source because they grow relatively quickly AND have a cheap feed themselves , just wheat. However, since they are already used for Anaconda feed, I would suggest using something else for wolves -- maybe geese (though preferably also change the food to something other than blackberries) or perhaps ducks (but toss the corn -- use lettuce or something instead) . OR introduce another animal with a shorter growing term like chickens have AND cheap food. (voles maybe -- they could eat oats, carrots, hay or even wheat again) Another option would be to modify one or two of the pens we already have. Pigeons would be an excellent choice, though maybe have oats or sorghum instead of peas for the feed. Frogs would work, but only if you change the frog food so it does not include eggs! Even soybeans are a tad expensive. (say, you could introduce flies as another animal, but make the production high and the turnover short, also feed very cheap -- maybe just lettuce, for example) Any animal used should be a common one, one that we can all buy, not one of the rare pens (this, I think, is part of the glowworm/spider problem)

I have no issue with animals as feed, but if you really want to balance things, you need to introduce some more quests that use not just the latest new animal, but go back and require some of the older animals. Ideally, they could offer things like powerfeed, supergrow, and harvest coupons as rewards since those are "consumables" and consumables that everyone at every level of the game appreciate, provided the requirements are not too, too high. (few people complete the breeding quests, at least of those posting in the forums)

Another issue has to do with polls in general. Few people post in the forums. The normal ratio is about 1 in 10, 10%. Our opinions here might not be reflective of the whole at all. If you really want a broad and complete set of answers, it would be better to have the poll somewhere else, perhaps tied to the news feed that first appears. Offer a small bonus (nothing big-- a random XXL tree maybe or 3 hour harvester coupon, even 2 powerfeed) and more people will participate.

EDIT: Anacondas is a poor example, I believe. I am one of those who did not grow many Anacondas, but it was just because I don't like having the snakes rearing up from my pens, not because they eat rabbits and chickens (except that at times the feed was cheaper to buy than produce). The biggest issue is that you cannot use animals that take either a high level food themselves OR that have a longer growing time. Glowworms, for example, while they make sense per RL spiders just don't make game "sense" because glowworms take too long to grow and have feed that can be rather expensive at times (even though the leaves are not always expensive, they are never as cheap as wheat or carrots).

EDIT2
SUMMARY:

Animals are OK, BUT they have to be short growing animals (4 hours or less is best) that use only cheap feed and which are available to basically everyone, including most newbies. (LETTUCE, wheat, carrots, oats) If each pen were to yield more than one, that would be even better (this would make sense for flies, even voles, just as examples).

Don't use anything that eats corn! Too many already use it.

Introduce flies that eat lettuce, reproduce in 2-4 hours and perhaps even produce 2 at a time.

Also.. for any interested, I have opened a thread in the suggestion forum to discuss OTHER feed modifications we would like to see.

 

Would it be ok for you if an animal feed requires animals? (e.g. wolf feed would be needing chicken)

I think the question is outdated because the game already has this future.

Would it be ok for you if more animal feed requires animals? Yes.

Why yes? Because the Farmarama game is all about more of everything. I wanted more EP at the start, more CCs later on, more stars, more bananas, more quests, more events, more Powerfeed, more, more, more! I love to produce everything cheap and sell it high too. Plus, if possible with less effort as I dislike waiting time, high amounts required for quests and event crops and so on and so on.

OK, I lied on the last line. I like the game as it is and will be in the foreseeable future.

 

I know in RLanimals eat animals to survive but I play this game to escape rl for a while so if this change happens my animals will stay in inventory my vote is no

 

right now, the MILL is seriously INSUFFICIENT when it comes to providing food for all the animals. That IS a big issue when it comes to feeding animals to animals. Maybe stables should give double animals to solve that, to start with.

 

I vote No! I know in real life animals eat animals, on my pretend farm I can pretend the animals are vegetarians.

Thank you BP for asking for our opinion!