I _really_ have a problem with the 15 farmhand cap

[Ohfor]

I mean, why?

Once you reach a certain level, it becomes a game of buying out land as you level up and can afford to. Money becomes less of an issue, and the bottle next to moving forward is to

a) Get enough ribbons to buy farmhands
b) Getting enough tickets to keep them going
c) Getting more land unlocked

And eventually end up with a Mega Farm(tm)

Right? At least that's how my wife and I have been approaching this.

Up until yesterday. We both have 15 farm hands placed (they're getting quite expensive; up to 53 or so ribbons now) and for some reason, we found, that even with enough ribbons the game would not enable the option to place another one. Strange, I thought.

So I did some research and turns out, apparently this is the limit.

It makes NO sense. Whatsoever. I have maybe 10% of my current land covered by farmhands and I've not even unlocked all of the map yet. Why does this arbitrary line in the sand exist at all?

Same thing with houses. Why can I place only 1 tree house? what if I want a couple of them, in a haunted forest? Again some arbitrary limitation that doesn't make any sense.

I opened the game this morning and found, I was completely unmotivated to actually do much about anything. I've lost the point. Them sky should be the limit. A full farm, busy, bustling, cracking through those ever more demanding quests. Not... "hey 15 is a good number. Yea. Let's go with that."

[Ohfor]

Originally posted by YuffieG:

This is a really good site[feedback.userreport.com] to visit for giving the Farm Together devs feedback on stuff that you want added/changed.

Cheers for this :-) I've added the idea. Can't hurt.

If anyone else wants to support the idea, here's the URL: https://feedback.userreport.com/9ac3d976-4c65-45af-aa23-a03935985c51#idea/240530

[krunjar]

@Upana I never said you couldn't voice your opinion .. I ridiculed it. There's a differencence. I mean seriously. Let's say you remove the farmhand cap eventually you will get to the point where all you are doing is teleporting around ticketing farmhands. Does that sound FUN to you!?

[YuffieG]

Originally posted by krunjar:

@Upana I never said you couldn't voice your opinion .. I ridiculed it. There's a differencence. I mean seriously. Let's say you remove the farmhand cap eventually you will get to the point where all you are doing is teleporting around ticketing farmhands. Does that sound FUN to you!?

Why ridicule it though? I don't see the need to have unlimted farm hands and I can see why there's a limit, but isn't it really up to Upana how he/she would like to play the game?

[krunjar]

Not really no .. Every game needs limitations in order to be a game. And the developers set those limitations. What is up to us is whether we choose to play the game .. or not. It's perfectly reasonable to make requests of the developers to change the rules. But the entitled attitude that it shouldn't be up to them is not a correct position. As you said having unlimited farmhands would undermine the game. And turn it into a grind for farm tickets. Therefore the sensible position for the developers is to hold their ground.

It is absolutely up to those that created and referee the game to set the rules. We can complain about the rules sure. Or we can leave and play another game. But to suggest that it is somehow your right to play a game, Whether a video game or not. The way YOU want to. Is entitled whiney and farcical. Their game .. their rules. This is true from football to dungeons and dragons. You don't suddenly decide handling the ball is fine. You don't suddenly have a potion of 20str when you need it. And you don't get to decide that you are owed unlimited farmhands. Period.

In order to address the point about cheating I will simply state that those who have decided to cheat have already decided to break the rules of the game. That isn't the same as modifying the base rules that everyone use to the players whims. If you find a way to get unlimited farmhands with a mod or through cheating. Go you. You aren't effecting the rest of the playerbase with your cheating. Not unless you consider competition between farms to be the point of the game. And most don't. Which is why the devs have concluded they have better things to do than fight cheaters. Fighting cheaters is HARD. They're an ingenious lot. Makes you wonder why they don't just put all that effort into playing. But it's not up to me.

[Nathiri]

Originally posted by krunjar:

Their game .. their rules. This is true from football to dungeons and dragons. You don't suddenly decide handling the ball is fine. You don't suddenly have a potion of 20str when you need it. And you don't get to decide that you are owed unlimited farmhands. Period.

Yes, it is their game and their rules.
-snip-

The OP is stating an opinion that people should be legitimately able to have more farmhands if they want, and can afford them. Not cheat them in, mind you. If the OP wanted to cheat them in s/he could surely have done so.

If the cap were raised, you (and others) could opt not to use them since you don't think it's fun to have too many. It doesn't necessarily affect you. If multiplayer and farming together with random players were so vital we wouldn't be able to set our games to private, or local. So I don't put too much weight on that argument either. But maybe I feel differently about that because I've had a grand total of 4 visitors in the entire time I've played, no doubt hunting for cursed pumpkins, and when finding none, seemingly leaving without harvesting a single thing.

Last, the escalating and eventually prohibitive cost of farmhands would also come at the cost of sprinklers, for legitimate players at least.

Edit: maybe if more of the larger farms had access to more farmhands and automation, growing farms would get more visitors ;)

[Thryden]

Originally posted by Liguar:

Edit: maybe if more of the larger farms had access to more farmhands and automation, growing farms would get more visitors ;)

I would think just the opposite. While there are people who visit farms to just explore, several people, me included, go to visit farms to get the booster. If I visit a farm, and half of it is automated, that doesn't leave much for me to do. I'll go try my luck on another farm.

[Nathiri]

Originally posted by Bramblestar:

Originally posted by Liguar:

Edit: maybe if more of the larger farms had access to more farmhands and automation, growing farms would get more visitors ;)

I would think just the opposite. While there are people who visit farms to just explore, several people, me included, go to visit farms to get the booster. If I visit a farm, and half of it is automated, that doesn't leave much for me to do. I'll go try my luck on another farm.

That was my point :)

It seems that the bigger farms get a lot of attention, and smaller farms don't get so many visitors, aside from friends. At least in my experience. Bigger farms might have more stuff to harvest but, arguably, are less in need of help than lower leveled farms/farmers who are actrively trying to grow.

I don't see any harm in giving people more incentive to visit smaller farms.

[Thryden]

Originally posted by Liguar:

Originally posted by Bramblestar:

I would think just the opposite. While there are people who visit farms to just explore, several people, me included, go to visit farms to get the booster. If I visit a farm, and half of it is automated, that doesn't leave much for me to do. I'll go try my luck on another farm.

That was my point :)

It seems that the bigger farms get a lot of attention, and smaller farms don't get so many visitors, aside from friends. At least in my experience. Bigger farms might have more stuff to harvest but, arguably, are less in need of help than lower leveled farms/farmers who are actrively trying to grow.

I don't see any harm in giving people more incentive to visit smaller farms.

Well, I have to disagree with you there, but this is going off topic so I'm not going to list my reasons. :)

[wevs (cloaca)]

I know I'm late to the thread, but what if you just made the farmhands exponentially expensive? After 15, cost jumps 10 per, after 20, cost jumps 15 per, etc. At the point of hundreds of hours played in a single farm, who cares if they have 40 helpers?

[YuffieG]

The Farm Hands already have the increase in price as you buy. The more Farm Hands you have the bigger the ribbons it costs to place another one. Or did you mean how many tickets you need to employ your Farm Hands?

[Silky Rough]

Don't know if it's been said but the limit may quite easily be for performance reasons. If that's the case, it's not a matter of what they could do, it's a matter of what they can't do.

I haven't hit the 15 cap yet so can't agree that they're needed/not needed yet so I reserve my opinion on it. At first thought, a fully automated farm with unlimited farmhands would seem kinda' pointless.

[cynergy]

Originally posted by krunjar:

Actually it is up to the game devs to decide how you play a game because.. they developed it. That would be like telling the inventor of football that kicking the fudge out of other players should be okay because it's not up to them to tell you how to play the game. Yes .. It .. Is. Don't like it? Too bad .. play another game. If the game were faulty I could understand. But you're complaining because the dev's don't want to take away people's reason to co op. An entirely sensible decision seeing as how they are presenting and developing their game. Yes eventually I will fill up my farm. I'll probably get bored of the game entirely eventually. So what. I had a blast. Money well spent. What world do we live in that we expect 15 quid to entertain you forever?

Exactly right! Every game has rules and limitations. If you can't deal with it, don't play the game.

I also wonder if having more than fifteen farmhands takes up an unreasonable amount of memory. We have limits on teleport flags for that reason.

[Nathiri]

Originally posted by Bramblestar:

Well, I have to disagree with you there, but this is going off topic so I'm not going to list my reasons. :)

Disagreeing is part of having a discussion, it would be boring if we were just one big echo chamber :)

Anyway, since my last post I've grown quite a bit (farm lvl 55) and though I haven't reached the farmhand limit yet, I've got 11, and I have grown beyond what I can actively manage. I have crop fields on about 1/4 of the map and most of it sits ready to harvest for hours. Pineapples, pineapples everywhere and no one to harvest them, sad times.

I wouldn't use farmhands on crop fields, but short of filling my map with fish ponds and flowers with sprinklers I cannot possibly hope to use my whole farm. I still have 5 sectors to unlock, and loads of unused space. #flatfarmproblems

If the farmhand limit is due to performance, as cynergy postulated, then that is the most valid reason for the limit I've seen in this thread :)

[Thryden]

Originally posted by Liguar:

If the farmhand limit is due to performance, as cynergy postulated, then that is the most valid reason for the limit I've seen in this thread :)

I agree there. I would like to have more farmhands, maybe 20-25?, unless it would cause a performance issue. The main things I like farmhands to do on my farm is:
1. Fish. Fishing just becomes monotonous for me, especially once I get a lot of fish.
2. Feeding animals. I don't mind harvesting them, but having to stop what I'm doing every so ofter to check on my animals, especially once I get a ton of animals going (I want 9x9 squares for EVERYTHING on my farm, except crops, which I have 8 18x18 plots to plant whatever I want).

And while I would only need one farmhand to fish, I'll need several to feed my animals and would like it if I could get most of my trees covered by farmhands, so I'd only have to worry about crops,flowers, houses, and decorating/expanding.

So while I wouldn't want unlimited farmhands (that would turn this game into an idle game), I'd want at least a few more, unless of course, it would cause performance issues. In which I'd have to settle with what we got. :)

[YuffieG]

Originally posted by Bramblestar:

Originally posted by Liguar:

If the farmhand limit is due to performance, as cynergy postulated, then that is the most valid reason for the limit I've seen in this thread :)

I agree there. I would like to have more farmhands, maybe 20-25?, unless it would cause a performance issue. The main things I like farmhands to do on my farm is:
1. Fish. Fishing just becomes monotonous for me, especially once I get a lot of fish.
2. Feeding animals. I don't mind harvesting them, but having to stop what I'm doing every so ofter to check on my animals, especially once I get a ton of animals going (I want 9x9 squares for EVERYTHING on my farm, except crops, which I have 8 18x18 plots to plant whatever I want).

And while I would only need one farmhand to fish, I'll need several to feed my animals and would like it if I could get most of my trees covered by farmhands, so I'd only have to worry about crops,flowers, houses, and decorating/expanding.

So while I wouldn't want unlimited farmhands (that would turn this game into an idle game), I'd want at least a few more, unless of course, it would cause performance issues. In which I'd have to settle with what we got. :)

+1 I'd also like to see a few more Farm Hands added to the game. I haven't reached my limit yet (think I have like 10-11 atm) but the more animals I'll be adding eventually will probably make me get to the limit and I really really hate feeding my animals lol.