How's edit mode working out for you??
Edit mode was the "big reveal" in the spring update, and it appears to have instantly dropped of the radar here in the forums. After seeing the sneak peeks for the summer update, I decided to use edit mode to help me make a serious attempt at farm reorganization in anticipation of the new fruit trees and new machines.
I had played with the edit mode when it first was introduced in the spring update. I had always wanted a traditional orchard on my farm and I wanted to see if it was possible. I also hadn't moved my dairy/cows/goats since I first started farming and I thought they might enjoy a change of scenery. I was able to get that layout to the point where I could activate it and "worked" it a couple of times. I had done no decorating. It was a completely practical working farm and was satisfying in that I could tell exactly how many of everything I had. Basically I had too many. With my beautiful spacious orchard and my giant berry patches, I had little room for much in the way of creativity. The most entertaining thing about moving between active layouts was seeing my pets sleeping in very strange places until I fed them or called them.
This time, I went back and cleared that entire layout. I was using erase mode until I reread the directions and discovered that I could clear everything very easily.:thumbsup::thumbsup: However, I'm getting a bit discouraged. The requirement to use every last item from my original farm really limits the amount of experimenting I can do with how I manage my farm. I understand the reasoning behind requiring that we use all the basic farming features, but here's a plea for offering the option to have a layout that can be activated with less than everything. I'd be willing to pay, say, 100 diamonds for a "flexible" layout. Here's what I think the "flexible" layout could offer:
- The possibility of working a true "scorched earth" challenge for high level farmers. As it stands, people have to park all their crop plots, machines, animal pens, etc. over in a corner of the farm and bring them into play as they reach the level of that feature. I think it would offer a more authentic experience if you could just bring things out of storage into the "scorched earth" active layout. You'd still have to sell off everything in the barn/silo, but I'd certainly try it.
- Some high level farmers have a "baby farm" that gives them more than just extra dairy and sugar. It offers a return to the experience of starting a farm and working with fewer resources. The active "flexible" layout could offer that feeling (without the extra dairy and sugar) for those of us who don't have a baby farm and who can't quite face "scorched earth".
- A regular request is to be able to store unwanted pet houses that were purchased accidentally and pens of animals that the farmer considers surplus to requirements. I imagine that the rationale to have all our animals on the farm rather than in storage is that it puts animal products into the farming economy. Some farmers just hide the animals they don't need behind a bunch of olive trees and ignore them. This doesn't add to the economy; it just takes up space on the farm. I think it would be more interesting to be able to experiment with the number of pens/animals that work for each farmer's style of resource management.
This all came about as I was trying to set up a nice orchard with the new orange and peach trees. I'm stuck with dozens of extra olive and cherry trees that are doing decorative duty on the active farm. I would really like to experiment with how many of each type of tree I need in order to run a level 89 farm. I wound up creating little plantations of about 20 of each tree and bush--and still had a bunch in "storage" that I am required to use. :p Fortunately, I don't have all the animal pens (3 cows pens, 2 of everything else which has always been plenty). I'm sure there are farmers out there who would love to try farming with fewer than 3 pens of each type of animal.
If I want to try farming with "less", I will lose a lot of what I worked hard to create on my main farm. Trees and berry bushes at varying stages of development that are carefully arranged to create natural gardens will disappear as they are chopped down in the other layout. Crop plots that are part of garden beds will change to different crops depending upon what is planted in the other layout. I'm "hog-tied" when it comes to really creative farm management exploration because of the "use it all" requirement for layout activation. Does anyone else out there think they would use the edit mode more if the requirements for activation were "flexible"?
Finally, does anyone else have problems with accidentally moving items every time you try to scroll around the farm in edit mode?
