Feedback Gone Fishin' (Official Discussion)

This is one of the first events that I've been really upset with in a long while. Its clear the event mechanic is bugged, the closer you are to overlapping lines the more minnows you get. Too bad I didn't realize this until the bulk of my lures were gone, when I started to miss by a bit consistently it was only then I won things other than minnows.

I think BP really needs to admit this massive screw up and find a way to get the prizes to the people that should have won them, instead of hauling in minnow after minnow

 

This event reminds me of the birthday event about 2 years ago. Almost everyone who played ended up with an incomplete cloud row and enough of us complained that they decided to make the row non themed. Hopefully they do it with this one too/ I play on 5 farms and have not completed the row anywhere and not looking likely with only 20 minutes in the event. This was not a very well thought out event with the cloud row given with the first few casts. At the very least they should have given the givers first then unlocked the cloud row, then they would not have as many upset players.

 

I loved the concept of this event and eagerly set off fishing.
Now I have that empty cloud row sitting there.
It would have been nice to have had the cloud row fillers given as the first three prizes after the cloud row. Alternatively, only give the cloud row as an extra bonus when you had the three fillers.

I might have been tempted to buy a basket of goodies but the mechanics of the game meant that even then I would not have been guaranteed a full cloud row as there did not seem to be much skill involved - too much randomness.

With a few adjustments this would be wonderful event to repeat.

I did love all the prizes that I did win, even the turbo mulch!

 

I liked the concept of this game. It was nice to be able to continue to build up crops & animals in my barn while doing the event.
The graphics were good, however skill did not factor into it at all. I got the minnow row 67 times which means I caught 335 minnows while only getting 10 golden fish! Like others I found that a perfect circle would give a minnow while one that was really off would give a rainbow. Two the same would give entirely different results.
Like others suggested it would have been nice to receive the cloud row as an extra bonus after receiving the 3 prizes for it. That way you would not have another empty cloud row.
The prizes were nice & with a few tweeks this would be a lot of fun. If it was more accurate & not random it would be a nice addition to Renzo's Fair.

 

Cons
Agree with what others have said about skill having no perceived difference in type of fish caught (despite what is said in the instructions) and about the premium lures being a waste of time with no better results than normal lures.

Since the cloud row was only able to be won once, the same mechanism should have been present for the givers. It is disappointing - and frustrating - for players to win a particular giver multiple times but not be able to get a complete cloud row.

The premium lures should not have caught minnows since they cost more to produce.

Turbo mulch should not have been a golden trout prize.

Feather drops not in balance with other drops.

Pros
Nice prizes that would benefit everyone.
Very happy that no animals or crops were required for donation to complete the event.
Appreciate the developers efforts to create a very attractive game!

 

I really liked that we didn't have to grow event crops. It is nice to have such events every now and then.
This event was based on pure luck. No matter where you hit the circle you could get any of the 4 fish. There could be an adjustment to this so it would be based on skills too.

I support this idea because everyone could have real chances of winning all items.

 

For the first time since I started to play Farmerama (will be 4 years in Sep/Oct): I officially hated the event . Normally I enjoy and welcome the challenge of even hard level events - and this one was supposedly a 'medium'! - as long as it requires time, commitment and good planning to fullfill the task. But this one sucked. Big time.

The idea itself was great, very interesting and challenging:
1. A lot of diversity, two drop items, two kinds of lures, four kinds of fish and prize boxes, even more kinds of rewards.
2. A lot of planning involved to get enough of both drops, when/where to plant crops, when/where to grow animals, strategy as a must which is always welcomed in a game.
3. Mini-game inside the event.
4. Absolutely lovely graphics!

And then everything crashed against the reality.
1. Very poor droprate for feathers (OK, I admit I didn't have much time to replace fields and stables back and forth due to a very busy week but still - playing 3-4 times a day, with 1,5 field as always filled with stables, using EP boosts, CRs at almost the end of the event I got 264 feathers... and 36 of those came from Magic Trees), and inconsistent too.
2. 'Random' chance of 'winning' givers necessary to fill the CR. Oh come on! Random chance of winning wonder tree or stable, or flower/scarecrow is the whole point - a thrill of surprize. But WE CAN GET THEM NEXT TIME. Or buy the animals/fruit in the market. Here, after the event is over, the possibility of getting giver items is gone for good. (I somehow doubt many players will have a lot of spare items to trade during the next Gift & Trade event...)
3. 'Winning' itself. Bad joke. As many noticed, type of fish caught has very little or nothing at all to do with the position of the circles. Why lie? And please don't tell me it's a new script that didn't work well. It's practically the same as for Match-o-Meter and that one seems to be fine.

I managed to catch about 15 Golden Trouts and I got 2 out of 3 giver items (so the grand prize, CR, is pretty much useless... Surprize, surprize ). Granted, I won some GB which normally would make me beyond happy but now I'm too angry with VERY faulty event mechanics to be thankful for that.

Worst event ever.

 

For once I got very lucky and I feel sorry for those who have a incomplete cloud row.
With only 65 normal lure, I manage to get 1 complete cloud row and 1 best friend and 1 pond monster. I'wil offer tem in the next trade and gift for those who need them.

Golden trout 17 percent of the time, 15 % for Rainbows, then 43 % for Bass and Minnows 25 % of my casts.

Good thing about this event:
- the reward in general where very interesting
- the idea is really great
- everyone can play because you just have to plant what you have or use stable that you have.
- the graphic is excellent

Bad thing about this event:
- matching the circle when you fish doesn't get you any advantage, the catch are totally by chance
- using premium lure is absolutly not a big advantage as you can get a minnow with it and it's taking 5 minnow to get a box, so it cost too much ressource for the gain

Sugestion to upgrade this event:
- having 4 different circle to get the 4 different fish
- winning the cloud row and the item for filling it after you got a certain number of catches. (exemple: 10 golden trout for the cloud row, 10 rainbow trout for a item, 20 bass for an other item and 30 minnow for an other)
- or you could use a meter to progress in the event. Each fish make you progress further and the bigger the fish, bigger the progression.
- with premium lure, you should not be able to get a minnow

 

Here's my performance. A total of 32 awards, here are summed review:

Magic Row + every item for row
Sticker
154 000 BEP
102 000 CC
6 000 EP
11 PF
9 Super Grow
8 Suzy Super Grow
8 Spring Wreaths
7 Lyra Wonder Stablees
6 Rio Wonder Trees
4 GB
4 XL Toolbox
2x12h Cupons

Besides the already mentioned problems with the random results a very good and a different event.

 

As most players I love the idea of this game. I love Renso's meter game and I am very good at it so thought this will be lots of fun. It was not! It was very frustrating as getting the rings in exactly the same position was giving different result every time. It wasn't a game of skill it was a game of lack and I hate those! I used around 100 lures and end up with a cloud row missing one item! Also feathers were not coming very well. Yesterday morning I put pens on ALL my fields (all XXL pens ) and in over 24 hours till the end of event I managed to get feathers for less then 20 regular lures! I would have 1 feather from 6/8 pens being ready at the same time! If this game is to come back PLEAS make sure that like in Renzo there are clear rules of getting a better catch!

 

What can I say...
Thanks for managing to make a good idea go bad again?
As most people already said, the fishing prizes were completely random. Clicking at the same time every time gives a different result each time.
And giving the row and the sticker guaranteed and just rely on luck to get the deco's required? Completely stupid!!!

What looked like something that could have been fun, turned out to be very disappointing. I tried until the last second to get the last required deco, against better judgement and indeed no way. Made 3 perfect catches and got...3x Nice.

So yes, I would say thanks for spoiling this event...

 

Final thoughts on this event. I think the concept was excellent, the graphics superb, and the prizes very sought after. Unfortunately, I still feel it didn't work as advertised. I think if the FAQ says the better you do at aligning the rings, the better the fish you will catch, then that should be the way it is. Minnows should never have been allowed to be catches for perfect casts. If all casts were going to net random results, it should have been clearly stated; I think this would have prevented a lot of frustration and bad feelings. In the future in similar events it might be more considerate if, when a cloud row is a top prize and it is a themed row and basically guaranteed, make the ep givers to fill it guaranteed as well. In other words, the cloud row was guaranteed on your first gold fish catch. I think it would have worked a lot better if the ep givers were also guaranteed on first prizes - 2 trout or 4 bass (or subsequent gold fish in the case of Best Friends and Fishin Fun). Some of the sting of the constant minnow catches would have been lessened if, when I did make a good catch, I could reasonably expect to be able to fill the cloud row. I don't mind the randomness of the other prizes, but it seems a little mean to show us the pot of gold but make it almost impossible to cross the rainbow to it.

All in all, this event still has the potential to be a lot fun if it is reworked. I would probably be willing to participate again if it were brought back as a mini event, as long as the problems many of us feel it contained were considered and improved upon. Drop rates seemed to be a continuing issue throughout the event, maybe because there were 3 elements and this made it more difficult to program, I don't know. Quite frankly, drops were the least of my irritations, even tho I struggled with them. I find it actually extremely funny that with all the extra machine parts you dropped on us (thank you for that, by the way, much appreciated), I wound up with only about 80 or so more than when I started . Despite any disappointment or frustration I have expressed here and elsewhere in the forum about the fishing event, I would like it understood by the Devs that, like many others have stated (and reminded me when I wasn't out of my mind over minnows), I am very appreciative of the basic nature of this event. That we could grow whatever suited us and not have to donate from our barns was a nice change of pace and a great chance to catch up. It was also great to get "free" prizes, I didn't even mind the mulch (at least not once I got all the ep givers). Combined with the summer prize calendar, you clearly are trying hard to make this a fun game for us, and it is not completely unnoticed. Thank you for your hard work. Once again, you're not going to please all of us, but I do think you try to listen and improve the game from our comments, which is more than most game developers, I think. Hopefully we can all continue to grow the farm together, because even when it's not exactly as good as we'd like it to be, it's still a pretty cool place to come.

 

I enjoyed the prizes, the design, the concept of the event.

The drops were a little inconsistent. I would harvest a field of stables and get anywhere from 3-40 feathers. The tools and worms were more evenly obtained. I left my trees up and consistently got about 50-70 per field on them. I tried roses and didn't get as many, but the harvest was shorter too.

The making of the lures was fun as you could use both mills and it was very quick. The fishing would have been more fun if it had worked as intended. One day, I would need to click as the circle moved outward and try for the 2 together, the next day it was as the moving circle moved inward. Some days the sweet spot was outside the stationary circle and some days inside. I wasted a bunch of lures trying to find where to aim each time I logged in or refreshed my page.

I really wanted to get the finished cloud row as that is my primary goal now in game after playing for more than 5 years. I was unable to finish my cloud row and did get doubles of 2 cloud items but the 3rd item eluded me entirely. This is the second cloud row I missed as I missed the one for the 30 day give away because I lost connection and the game crashed during my play one day and I was unable to get the coconut that day. So, now 2 in a row of missed cloud rows. I really am feeling no incentive at all after these events to even keep playing. To much luck in how the game rewards you and too much strictness in not allowing someone to get a coconut even though the logs show they logged in that day. Too much luck in too many sectors of the game any more makes it very not fun at all.

 

Cloud row obtained in the first 2 casts then over 30 casts later only 1 of the 3 giver items received. So in total I have 2 cloud rows unfinished on my farm and my daughter playing on her farms also has unfinished rows on all of hers. Not a single farm received the best friends giver item. In fact, on one farm she received no giver items but won the 250000 cc multiple times yet the first cast was the cloud row.
I liked the idea of getting part from crops/trees and part from stables. I liked the fact that there was no event crop and I enjoyed the availability of milling on both island and main farms.
It was fun fishing but the random factor in the circle producing minnows etc made this part not consistent. It would have been better to have the givers first then once all three were obtained then allowing the cloud row to be unlocked.
The idea was great but the follow-though was not well done.
Please consider allowing the prizes missed to be awarded OR changing the cloud row to a non-themed one.

 

Unfortunately, although I can see that a lot of work has gone into producing it, I feel pretty negative about this event. I feel the fish caught with premium lure should have been a bass as a minimum. The FAQ alluded to the fish caught being relative to how close one got to the glowing circle but this did not appear to be the case - I mean, a minnow for being just outside the overlapping circle with premium lure, really?! And my prize for 5 minnows....... 6k EP - which was really quite irritating. Great winning the cloud row - but useless if you only achieved one of the items for it, like I did.

On the positive side, good drops on the machine parts and I did win a few good items............ but it was soured by the negative elements, which was a shame.

 

I enjoyed the fishing but no matter how I aligned the circles the prizes were random and, probably like many players, I am left with an incomplete cloud row. If this type of event is run again I agree with previous comments in that it needs a lot of work first.. I am grateful for the trees, coins, etc that. I won and could have done without trying to get all the deco items for the cloud row.

 

My final thoughts on this one is that I did eventually enjoy it, not quite as much as gifting the bunnies but it was good. It was nice not to have to rip the farm up although obviously concentrating on long term crops was a strategy to be used. The feather drops eventually got better when I figured out my strategy. However, there are a couple of things I don't like:
1. Turbo mulch from a golden or rainbow, as you have continuously seen most of us do not hold it in the same vain as the devs do i.e. it has no value to us and therefore, no place as a top end prize.
2. The ability to win the top prize was not skilled based but random and in fact, I did better not hitting the green at all.
3. The ease of getting the cloud row compared to the difficulty in getting the giver items - I do hope they are made giftable in a future gift n trade.
4. And finally, the stables ... why oh why have you decided to put yellows back in there? I received a plethora of them which means when the next secret stable comes along I don't care what new animal you offer I'm not going to buy something for BB that could turn into something I can buy for cc, so loss of revenue for you...

 

I am hoping that BP puts the deco items either up for sale in the shop or available for G&T at the soonest possible date as I was unable to get the completed cloud row in spite of all the fishing I did. I hope to be able to trade my "extra" "Best Friends" for the missing "Fishin Fun" at some point in the future to make my cloud row work.

I do not believe that the Premium Lure should have only changed the pace of the circles. With the lag time issues, there was no way that skill worked the way the game was advertised. A Premium Lure should have eliminated the "Minnow" catch considering the cost in lure feathers, gummy worms and machine parts. Too much "luck" (or lack therein) involved in this game. Could have been much more fun.

I also agree with TCRooster. Turbo Mulch does not have the same value to me that it apparently does to BP. Yellow stalls are almost as bad. At least with Yellow stalls, you get a base you can use with an upgrade procured elsewhere. (I have yet to put out the trees and stalls I won. Will do that tonight.)

 

Hello Farmerama team!

There are many things I liked - the prizes were worth the effort which is great. However despite many "casts" of my lure, I was unable to procure all three items for the cloud row - bummer to just get two. I suggest building in some kind of algorithm where after (for example) ten or fifteen tries you get one of the cloud items, that way we would know that we would, in fact, get the items eventually. We'd happily collect other prizes in the meantime. By the way, getting the circle exactly seemingly had no impact whatsoever on what kind of fish you were given, which was pretty random rather than rewarding accuracy.

Thanks and keep the ideas coming, even if I am disappointed about the cloud row

 

I am very disappointed with the Gone Fishin' event. Not because of what I did or didn't get, but because this event lacks most of the elements that makes Farmerama a great game to play. This event lacked balance, fairness, and execution.

The drops required for the mill items was out of balance. The results from the milled items was out of balance. The game itself lacked any element of skill, despite what the FAQ expressed, with seemingly random outcomes. The results of the game (i.e. the rewards for the fish caught) were seemingly random making the entire game chaotic. This chaotic mess created a severe unbalance for players to receive prime rewards; destroying any semblance of fairness for all players.

In the two plus years I have been playing this game, this is by fair the worst event released by the development team. I sincerely hope that the team takes the time to evaluate and discuss the feedback from the player community and develops a serious lessons learned from this event to guide future development.

Dreamer013