Newspaper alert ! - not such a good idea

When I first read that the newspaper ads would now include an alert symbol for those farms needing help I thought what a great idea. Right away I saw that it wasn't such a good idea. I used to help a few dozen farms every day by leisurely scouring the newspaper for farms in need. This assured me of my 5 gift cards per day. Now I can't find a single farm needing tree or boat help. By the time I tap on an ad and get to that farm the alert is gone. Suddenly finding a bush to water is like finding a coved expansion item. It's an all out race to get there first and I almost always come up short.

I'm kind of tired of playing a game that depends a lot on a period of frantic racing to be the first or you're out of luck. It's a little too nerve racking for me. It has become impossible to find expansion materials so I have resigned myself that I will just have to depend on the mystery boxes and harvesting to get what I need (and help from my wonderful friends that put unadvertised goodies in their shop). Now that I can't find farms to help that means no gift cards which means no tractor (I'm not spending a million and a half dollars). This was yet another good idea that wasn't so well thought out by Supercell. Funny they claim to be "testing a diamond confirmation button" for months and months but other ideas seem to pop right out of their heads and go into the game without much thought or surely no test period on how the game would be affected. Too many people frantically fighting over too few coveted items...kinda feels like Black Friday shopping. No thanks. Not for me. On the other hand I do love the shaded out ads that are visited. That does make using the newspaper easier and faster.

I have to agree with you.

Since I had all my achievements, I had to set my own goals to keep me playing. One of them is helping random ppl filling their crates and reviving trees. It was kind of a game in a game to find those.

First I had to tap a farm in the DD, check their dock to see if they needed help and a quick view over the farm to see if there were any hopping trees or bushes.
Then I had to tap a farm in the DD, check if they had a ! next to their ava, if yes I would check their dock and farm, if not I would move on to the next farm.
Now it's like you said, a rush to any ! marked ad and try to help before others do.

Nope, this introduced feature is a game spoiler to me, sorry.

I suppose it would be an issue if you spent time actively looking for farms to help earlier. But for someone like me who hardly uses the DD, I've been able to help more strangers with their boats and trees than usual since the update.
And I have friends who don't advertise, so I've been able to help them the same as ever.

Those help requests certainly do disappear fast!

It doesn't bother me though, as I have plenty of friends who need help during the course of a day so I always get my gift cards. Maybe you could acquire a few more neighbours?

I do the exact opposite: avoid farms with alerts and go to the others first. Am still finding as many farms needing help as before but i can target them much better now.

Mmm. I only looked at it from my own point of view. I read in another thread that ppl who do place an ad and need help, are helped quicker. That's possitive ... for them.

And no, I'm not actively looking for more neighbors, I think I have enough. Combined with the followers I have and I check those too at least twice a day if they need help with anything. Maybe that would be a nice addition: let the followers who need help appear in the help tab too.

Yes, followers needing help in the help tab or at least showing an exclamation mark in the followers section would be great

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Originally Posted by CEMFF

Yes, followers needing help in the help tab or at least showing an exclamation mark in the followers section would be great

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My followers who need help have been appearing with the exclamation mark in my followers tab for a few weeks now.

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Originally Posted by Gymgirl4a

My followers who need help have been appearing with the exclamation mark in my followers tab for a few weeks now.

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In mine too: after I visited and left their farm. And the exclamation mark never went away, no matter if they still need help.

I like the DD changes, especially blanking out farms you have visited. Whilst I did find a few farms which had already been helped before I got there I still managed to fill 7 crates yesterday.

I have just spent 10 minutes looking at the DD and filled four crates, revived two trees and could have filled another five crates if I had had the items. I didn't feel I was racing to grab them. Maybe people have calmed down now the novelty has worn off!

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Originally Posted by moomoocows

I like the DD changes, especially blanking out farms you have visited. Whilst I did find a few farms which had already been helped before I got there I still managed to fill 7 crates yesterday.

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I like your name for obvious reason. :D For me being kinda new to the game and lower level it has been nice to have a help request filled faster. I don't have any friends from Facebook on there, dare I admit I don't have a Facebook account, so having the ability to get help faster for us lower levels has been nice. But yes on the other side I did find myself frantically looking through the newspaper to find the help icon.

I love the new update! So many times I have noticed farms that need help, but their RSS is sold out and not one person bothered to fill their crates, many times with LEMs, BEMs or SEMs :D So I go ahead and fill many crates without buying... I have plenty of friends (maybe too many for my liking as it seems many don't play anymore or don't have avatars :mad:, I don't like to just see gingerbread men on my friends bar :() I really enjoy the feature to let me know I have already visited a farm ;):p;)

Happy Farming :cool:

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Originally Posted by Sna1ley

Those help requests certainly do disappear fast!

It doesn't bother me though, as I have plenty of friends who need help during the course of a day so I always get my gift cards. Maybe you could acquire a few more neighbours?

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i agree with this. Even though I like raiders, I kinda got scared off from helping random strangers because of the last helped bar. i imagine if i had someone hanging around all the time i'd be afraid to trade. i get more than enough gift cards just helping my neighbors

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Originally Posted by CEMFF

I do the exact opposite: avoid farms with alerts and go to the others first. Am still finding as many farms needing help as before but i can target them much better now.

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I do this too. my daughter likes to shop the DD and we noticed that before we found lots of goodies un bought, now with the help thingy, those farms are bought out first, so we just avoid them. I still kind of like the feature though because if you don't have a lot of higher level friends (or they are not in your time awake zone), it helps to get boat help. So it's good for that if not good for shopping. just considered it a sort of help wanted page separate from the food ads. lol

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Originally Posted by Chappy675

When I first read that the newspaper ads would now include an alert symbol for those farms needing help I thought what a great idea. Right away I saw that it wasn't such a good idea. I used to help a few dozen farms every day by leisurely scouring the newspaper for farms in need. This assured me of my 5 gift cards per day. Now I can't find a single farm needing tree or boat help. By the time I tap on an ad and get to that farm the alert is gone. Suddenly finding a bush to water is like finding a coved expansion item. It's an all out race to get there first and I almost always come up short.

I'm kind of tired of playing a game that depends a lot on a period of frantic racing to be the first or you're out of luck. It's a little too nerve racking for me. It has become impossible to find expansion materials so I have resigned myself that I will just have to depend on the mystery boxes and harvesting to get what I need (and help from my wonderful friends that put unadvertised goodies in their shop). Now that I can't find farms to help that means no gift cards which means no tractor (I'm not spending a million and a half dollars). This was yet another good idea that wasn't so well thought out by Supercell. Funny they claim to be "testing a diamond confirmation button" for months and months but other ideas seem to pop right out of their heads and go into the game without much thought or surely no test period on how the game would be affected. Too many people frantically fighting over too few coveted items...kinda feels like Black Friday shopping. No thanks. Not for me. On the other hand I do love the shaded out ads that are visited. That does make using the newspaper easier and faster.

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Totally agree. I think some people may have bots running. Where before I could help water trees a lot, it is few and far between.

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Originally Posted by Tiggerr129

i agree with this. Even though I like raiders, I kinda got scared off from helping random strangers because of the last helped bar. i imagine if i had someone hanging around all the time i'd be afraid to trade. i get more than enough gift cards just helping my neighbors

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I have to admit, I was afraid of ppl stealing a trade too. But I have been helping strangers for months now, and I trade as much as I used to, and maybe 1 or 2 trades have been bought by other ppl. Including 1 with 30 BEM and the other side lost connection to the game, the person who bought the BEM at base price must have been very happy with them and jumping up and down the room (sorry can't be bothered by that anymore, it's part of the risk and I harvested new ones and/or found replacements in the DD ;-)).