Birdhouse - My Support "letter" for the development team

I just sent this to help and support, and asked them to pass it along to the development team. Will they? Who knows. I thought it worth posting here as I know I'm not alone in being disgusted with the new birdhouse "feature".
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To Support, regarding the new Birdhouse:

You need to pass this along to the development team.

1. This is NOT a daily feature

2. This is NOT a 24 hour feature

3. This IS a "24 hours from the first donation" feature.

4. This means the 24 hour start time will most certainly creep forward daily unless you can donate at EXACTLY the same time every day. Surely SC recognized that fact.

5. It also means that eventually players will always lose an entire day of donating before cycling back to early morning. Its already happened to me. My "start" time to donate was so late in the day, my neighbors were in bed.

6. Either call this something different or, if it is meant to be "daily" then reset the stupid clock at 12:01AM so that donations will start over at the same time every day for every one.

7. "Rewards" are beyond lame. No one in our nh could even figure out what we got for the first 60 donations. Support had to tell us. THAT'S pretty bad!

8. This has done nothing more than make beggers out of neighbors. Our nh is already sick of it and few are participating. As the leader I have pushed it since the update, but with the information that it reallly is 24 hours from first donation I, too, am done with it. Lame, lame, lame.

9. Axe the titlles. No one likes it, and you are pitting one neighbor against the other. You may think that's cool. We don't. Period.

10. ALL we wanted was the ability to lock trades so drive bys and followers didn't get them. Instead of LISTENING, you came up with a half-baked "feature" that doesn't work, isn't fun, has disappointing "rewards", is irritating rather than fun, and isn't being well accepted by most. Go back to the drawing board, use the KISS principle, and give players what they asked for to begin with. No timers, no wait times, NO buying extra anything with diamonds, and no more poorly thought out schemes.

Hi Pilothaggard

Well done for doing something pro active.

I'm not 'disgusted' with it [I'm saving disgusted for stunts like the 'Birthday Decorations' where they made spending real money compulsory for something that should have been part reward/part in game purchase as it has been before & we were led to believe it would be again, and to add insult to injury then said they weren't 'Birthday' deco, and silly us assuming they were! No matter that they were set out on Greg's farm surrounding the Chocolate Fountain Global BIRTHDAY prize. That shenanigans won't be forgotten in a hurry - especially the diabolical response from SC] <pushes soap box to one side>

However, I have to agree with pretty much everything else.

In our 2 person NH we are going to slip back even sooner because (obviously) we only have each other to fill our requests, whereas in a large NH there will be people who can fill the request sooner and there are more requests to fill so they're less hampered by the time constraints (in so far fully utilising the current limits).

Rewards - yes, lame doesn't really cover it does it?! 60 for the change in the birdhouse, fair enough, but a tad boring. But 450 donations to get a change in the formation of the bricks, 4000 to get the Rose Gate Arbour? Seriously?! Though, I don't really mind that the 'rewards' are a bit lame, more that there aren't more changes we can make to that area. I was hoping we'd be able to decorate it ourselves.

Beggars - I don't think it's really that in most cases, though obviously it is in some. Mostly I think it's just two very different thought patterns colliding. My thinking is 'I'd NEVER request expensive/rare/desirable goods in a system where the 'giver' gets basically nothing for them' & (I think) the majority of 'other thinking' is 'I'll request 'blankets' if someone wants to fill it & get the XP great, if they don't, nothing lost'. However, one poster blatantly said they ask for blankets, sell them in their RSS & make loads of coins & that their NH are basically mugs - but lots of outers said that was a horrible attitude.

Titles - yes very stupid, very lame (not to mention ridiculous not to have properly checked the meanings in other languages) and were bound to cause problems. 'Just for fun' - nothing is 'just for fun' anymore. The Derby ruined that.

10: I feel the frustration pulsing out of your post! I'm laughing, hard!, at the thought of them reading 'KISS' and trying to work out why you want to 'kiss' your neighbours. I doubt they've heard of 'KISS' :facepalm:. They're not going to go back to the drawing board, we're too far along the line now. So I think we need to focus on things they can change.

Maybe -

- Change time to 2 hourly requests/donations (because of the Achievement I doubt they'll remove them entirely). Keep it simple, 2 hours from each request/donation.

- Do away with the titles.

- Do away with the 'tally' board entirely OR keep it so you can only see your own.

- Do something about the XP/coins. Lower level players generally want coins, not XP & vice versa with higher levels. Make it so we can choose?


I'm sure others will come up with better ideas, I've not given it much though and especially not to how it could work better in a bigger NH - I've just resigned myself to it being ♥♥♥♥ and trading crops for Achievements & a little more XP.

to the OP number 8. Your hood is probably sick of the new feature because you were pushing it. Not intended as a criticism, although I know it sounds like one, but with a new feature it is often best to let it work itself out before establishing rules or pushing it. This is just an opinion, but we are more laid back in our hood and so far those who use it seem to enjoy it. No pressure makes a lot of difference. Those who like it, use it. No stress.

Number 9 . Sorry no one in your hood likes the titles. We started off enjoying it, now I think it really makes no difference. Definitely not pitting us against each other. However, incorrect to say no one likes them, unless you mean no one in your hood.

Small Change
I like that it is XP. Some on the forum have asked that the items you sell in your RSS give XP. This way, if you want coin, use the RSS. If you want XP use the birdhouse. So there is a choice now.
I have so far ignored the tally board. When I saw it I thought, now there is something for all the people who wanted a derby tally board so I guess SC learned what the forum wants. Guess I was wrong.
I liked your take on the beggars idea. It looks at it from both sides. I know when I request something, that my attitude is that if they fill it, great. Worth a try.

On a positive note, it has almost done away with the chat requests, which I really like.

The one change I would like is for the tasks to disappear after a period of time - after 24 hours not filled or when filled, that type of thing. Someone can always repost, since that is free.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by farmerClem

to the OP number 8. Your hood is probably sick of the new feature because you were pushing it. Not intended as a criticism, although I know it sounds like one, but with a new feature it is often best to let it work itself out before establishing rules or pushing it. This is just an opinion, but we are more laid back in our hood and so far those who use it seem to enjoy it. No pressure makes a lot of difference. Those who like it, use it. No stress.

Number 9 . Sorry no one in your hood likes the titles. We started off enjoying it, now I think it really makes no difference. Definitely not pitting us against each other. However, incorrect to say no one likes them, unless you mean no one in your hood.

Small Change
I like that it is XP. Some on the forum have asked that the items you sell in your RSS give XP. This way, if you want coin, use the RSS. If you want XP use the birdhouse. So there is a choice now.
I have so far ignored the tally board. When I saw it I thought, now there is something for all the people who wanted a derby tally board so I guess SC learned what the forum wants. Guess I was wrong.
I liked your take on the beggars idea. It looks at it from both sides. I know when I request something, that my attitude is that if they fill it, great. Worth a try.

On a positive note, it has almost done away with the chat requests, which I really like.

The one change I would like is for the tasks to disappear after a period of time - after 24 hours not filled or when filled, that type of thing. Someone can always repost, since that is free.

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I like that it's XP as well, but there have been quite a few posts from lower level players who feel they need or want to donate more, but are trying to avoid XP, I just think it would be nice to choose - something new & novel. The choice between RSS & NHD isn't really a straight choice between coins & XP because if you choose the RSS & coins you are not directly helping your NH (if you can't co ordinate) and you aren't getting the achievement credits.

We don't care about the titles either, but I think that's the beauty of smaller NH's that know their fellow NH mates well, it's easy to just ignore them, not so much in larger NH's, especially those who are already using them as a stick to bash players with, and kick them out of their NH's. Same with the Tally Board.

Chat Requests - (my first long termish NH, and you know who you are, were great, a good balance of being able to ask, but no pressure & no taking the wee wee) my previous NH drove me up the wall. They'd get say a truck task then just ask for everything...in between tasks too it was ask, ask, ask... Just grrrrr. It's LOVELY being in a small NH, we rarely ask each other for stuff and it's no bother if we can't help. We do flag the NH crate pretty much each boat, but no expectation there either. Bliss. Most of my friends are experiencing no change in the 'asking' in their NH's because the 'neighbourhood trading' system isn't fast enough or frequent enough. I guess they are maybe more 'asky' NH's than yours?

WRT the 'trashing' of requests, do they not just disappear when you make your next request? Or are you saying someone else is asking for something no one wants to fill & not asking for anything else until that's filled, or they're asking for something else but the original request stays there too? When I've been able to request again, but my NH mate hasn't filled the orevious request (it was wheat so no problem filling it, she was just wait g to be able to donate again) I hadn't realised & went to do another request & I'm sure it asked me if I wanted to cancel the previous request?...

Regarding "begging". In our NH, the only reason for posting a request is to offer neighbors the chance to progress toward the achievements. For the last two days, I've been unable to donate even though I was online a fair amount because there were no requests. I refuse to go on the NH chat "begging" for neighbors to request something so that I can fill the request. (Whenever I have a free request, I post one for 10 wheat.)

I agree about the 24 hours. If there is going to be a "daily" timer, it needs to be like the WoF where it starts at the same time every day.

It appears that an unfilled order (we'll say 5 diamond rings) will not just drop off the board after 24 hours. I would have to spend a diamond in order to remove it and post another order. I looked in all the Support info and rewatched the video. It only mentions using a diamond to post a new request if you want to do so before the 8-hour-reset. I think an unfilled order should disappear after a certain period. Greg and Tom come around and snap up unsold stuff in the RSS. Unfilled requests need a similar system.

I generally agree with your points. Not 100%, but mostly.

I'm skeptical that it will make a difference. Especially the first six points: they know full well how the feature works. I'm not sure why they built it that way, it almost certainly was a conscious decision on their part merely because they made something more complex than just "reset every 24 hours". Most likely when it came time to put a name and description on the feature somebody decided that it would mostly confuse people if they described how it worked, so instead just called it "daily".

As for removing the titles: I hope so. Really I dislike the titles because of the in-your-face placement in the chat. If they used exactly those titles but they were only visible when you clicked on the trading house then they would be ok.

I do agree with the "beggar" comment. I dislike it. More to the point, I don't expect something for nothing. But I do it to help provide achievement opportunities for neighbors.

1. Most are using this feature to gain an achievement (woohoo!!)
2. Some are using it as intended, for products and are being ignored.
3. Words I've seen used to describe this feature: ignore, abuse, frustrated, guilty, begging

Good job, SC.

Two words: massive overhaul

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Haystacker

Two words: massive overhaul

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It's getting much less hatred than the derby did when it was new. :p

Well done on taking the time to do up a decent list; what it will amount to is unknown but good work nevertheless.

It really is a very poor addition; when I saw the sneak peak "Neighborhood trading" I was genuinely excited. But to see the outcome, it's nothing but a major disappointment.

*Cannot exchange nearly enough items.
*Lame titles. That are imbalanced for crops / tools. Crop requests will appear more greedy than tool ones...beyond stupid.
*24 hr donation limit makes it almost useless in a big hood. I could literally reach that in 30 minutes or less.
*Pathetic achievements.
*Just results in a lot of annoying requests like Jams/Lobsters if unregulated by the hood.

All we wanted was a couple of crates that could be withheld for neighbourhood only for about 5 minutes before it was available to the open market.

But instead we get this whole complicated, restrictive bunch of ♥♥♥♥ that insults members in the process with horrible titles. Just because SuperCell is too scared of the minority of 'exploiters'. Just keep working on banning the robots instead of giving the rest of the honest players, who pay your wages mediocre content.

Well done SuperCell. Keep up the hard work. :smirk:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by daz258

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All we wanted was a couple of crates that could be withheld for neighbourhood only for about 5 minutes before it was available to the open market.

. :smirk:

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I understand that is what you wanted. You cannot speak for what everyone wanted. I would not have liked your suggestion at all. Due to time zones, the feature they gave us works better for our hood. But had SC done as you wanted, i simply would not have used the feature.

This is simply a new feature that you can use or chose not to use just like all the rest of the features. Requests are not "annoying", they are requests. Your choice to be annoyed by them.

We have never had a new feature that some did not like. That is fine. I dislike visitors, some adore them. I do not insist SC do away with them. I live for the town, some let it gather dust.

However, i do agree the sneak peek was confusing. At the time i wondered why Nick called it trading when the picture clearly said donate. I am sure this increased the diappointment. Bad PR on SC part.