Anyone else starting to find Hayday hard work?

The reason I ask is that I am finding it difficult to stay on top of some items since the new additions. For example, olive oil, mayonnaise and soy sauce. They're all on the same production machine and you need olive oil to make mayonnaise, soy sauce takes hours and uses loads of soy beans which you also need loads of to make animal feed. Rice is another one. You use loads for the sushi bar! I know it only takes 45 mins to grow but you need to have your whole field growing it to keep up!

I just find that instead of enjoying the game I'm finding it a chore to keep up with everything. And the rewards aren't great at higher levels. How many more topiary, gnomes and weird flower things can one farm support?

The devs also said they wouldn't be doubling up on boat orders. Ok so we're not getting boats with two sugar orders but I recently got 12 x pizza and 12 x cookies, which are on the same machine, and 12 x cheese which I needed to make the pizza. There was no way I could fill that so I sent it on it's way empty.

It used to be a game that I could dip in and out of. Spend 10 mins filling machines and sowing or harvesting and selling a few things. It was fun. But, as I said, it's becoming hard work. Shame as it really is a sweet game.

Barring the impossible boating, I think the new additions are great to the game, upping the difficulty as you level up is a logical step, otherwise it would make the game very one-dimensional.

I agree with you about the difficulty increasing. It's just the time involved. Whereas I could plan and do things that needed to be done I now have to go to the game several times a day to keep up. Like I say, it's becoming a chore rather than a joy. Perhaps I'll work it out but with a full time job and children and animals I wanted something that was a break from it all not something that was another job.

I really do like the game - I think it's beautifully crafted - just not quite as much as I did.

If you haven't expanded your production queues, that probably helps to explain why you need to check on your farm so often. You don't have to have all nine open for all the machines, but having them all open on the dairy, sugar, both feed mills and bakery, plus many slots open on the rest of the machines (except the slowest ones, i.e. smelters, candy, jam) means you can load your machines in the morning and leave them for hours. I call it putting my farm on "auto pilot" for those times I need to be away for a few hours. Loading the dairy with just butter and cream, and loading the sugar mill with just brown and white sugars means I have to check them in two hours. Throw some cheeses and syrups in there and I can let them go longer. It's all about strategy if you want to still play but not spend every waking minute on it. Give your machines more slots and you'll see how much easier farming becomes.

Opening (and filling) those queue slots also means you empty your barn faster! I love having a full barn first thing in the morning, filling all the machines and suddenly having 30-40 openings in it.

Edit: I just added two more slots to my sauce machine today because of the olive oil/mayo conundrum. Just adds to the challenge of the game! :)

I have all my slots on all my machines open and I love not having to worry about my machines not running when I am away for the day. I alway que up the machines with the longest products in the evening so when I get on in the morning it nice seeing all the goodies I have.

I do like the improvements but I'd like to humble ask the debs or devs to decrease the amount of bread need for boat orders. I have to fill 3 crates with 21 breads each. Who has the space, time, and now search in the DD for 61 breads? Is it just me or is it now hard to find bread since they introduced the sandwich shop? Normally, I would send this boat away empty if I wasn't half way prepared, but I had 3 different boats asking for it during the event. Even if you unlock the ques, that's 36-45mins for 9 breads. It's possible to do, but its a chore and I have enough of those IRL.

Eventually it becomes impossible to accomplish all tasks simultaneously. The game is designed that way. So pick and choose what you want to do, don't feel obliged to take on all tasks that are presented to you.

I find that it is not possible to keep the sandwich maker, sushi maker, and salad bar all going simultaneously, so I don't even try. I run them sometimes, when I can, or when I need to for a boat or truck order, and don't worry about keeping them going all the time. These machines compete for the same resources, so mathematically you can't run all three at maximum, all the time, all at the same time. It is the same story with the coffee maker, candy machine and ice cream maker.

You may decide to be a specialist, making lots of sandwiches, but doing salads only on demand (for example). And you are not required to complete every boat order or truck order, nor participate in every special event. Just do the parts you enjoy and don't let the game dictate to you, OK?

~powdermonkey

EXACTLY, powdermonkey. I don't keep the sushi, sandwich and salad bars going simultaneously. There's just no way, and right now I don't care if they're fully mastered or not. The good thing is boats only require one of each per crate so it's real easy to keep a few in the barn and NOT run them full time. I only run them when I'm down to 6 or 7, then make a couple more, then stop. Not sure what I'm going to do when I get bored and have to master them for something new to do. Guess we'll be seeing lots of sandwiches and salads in the RSS! :)

And since when are boats requiring FOUR soy sauces per crate??? Hopefully that was just for the boating event. Wiped me out with one boat and it took two days of making virtually no olive oil or mayo just to get caught back up. :(

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Originally Posted by powdermonkey

I find that it is not possible to keep the sandwich maker, sushi maker, and salad bar all going simultaneously, so I don't even try.

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It is possible, but I had to trade for sauces in order to do it. And it did in my mind make the game too much of a chore. Now that I have gotten stars on those machines, they stay off for the most part. I'm glad I got the stars out of the way as I enjoy the game a lot better not having to always be making rice, bread, sauce, lettuce, etc. I never really liked the addition of those machines to the game.

I so hear what the OP is saying. I, too, was finding HD getting harder, then I realized that I had started organizing my day around the production schedules of a game. REALLY!!!!! So I decided that I needed to take a break and back off the game. It has it's sneaky little fingers in me and I just couldn't go cold turkey. I try much harder not to allow it to plan my day any more, but I'm still on a lot during the day (and night, cuz sleeping is hard for me). I enjoy it, so I don't let it bother me. I also no longer obsess about having everything going all at once. Well not much anyway:rolleyes:.

My suggestion, for what it's worth, just play however gives you pleasure. Those smiley little critters will still be there when you get back and will not hold it against you if feeding time is overdue. Now the little people could be a different story, but then, who cares. I'm still trying to figure out how many times my truck has to hit them before they finally stay down.:cool: