So far all the events have rewarded clearing obstacles, but none have rewarded buying islands.
True, but they do tend to tweak one or two things for each event to keep things fresh. Still, I don't think it's very likely. The 60 hours metric is definitely worth keeping in mind.
Since you "only" have 2B coins, it may not be a bad idea not summoning until the next event. You may need those 2B coins if BFS comes out with a new thing (?). When you get about 3B coins, you may summon the 11th island but defer clearing until the next event.
Yes, it's probably a good idea to build my war chest a little bit before squandering my wealth on such a luxury!
I bought and summoned the island because I actually think it is nice looking with the arrangement of obstacles. However, to give myself a little less crowding on some of the other islands, I moved all my shrines to the 11th island. They fit scattered here and there, and with a few luminous crystals out of my storage tower, I'm now happy to wait to clear it until the next event or I really need the room.
I quite like this idea. Press the island into "service" without losing the clearing option...
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
Apologies if this has been covered, I had a look around but this is such a fast moving thread I never really found an answer. I finally hit 2B coins and was wondering if there's community consensus about the most strategic way to use the last island. Seems like the choices are:
A) Summon and clear the island now and put it into production.
B) Summon now but defer clearing until the next event since clearing obstructions usually pays event currency. From what I've seen of the new island the smaller and fewer objects might not pay very much this time around.
C) Defer summoning until the next event. This might be useful if event currency is awarded for purchasing the island, though I don't think this has ever actually happened. There's also the risk that the event might be too short to get the full benefit of clearing obstacles, though I don't think this was an issue in the previous events (I already had all my islands during previous events and may not have paid enough attention).
D) Other?
I'd appreciate any thoughts and advice you guys might have!
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
Congratulations ElektronX! I have happily re-gifted you the very gem you sent me last month for my POTM spoils, only slightly scuffed and marginally worse for wear from my daily wallow in my gem horde.
Paid!
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
Second Sunstruck in the cave. I decided if I'm going to lose my first Last Call comp, then by the gods I'm going to do so decisively!
And now, to demonstrate my superior inferiority, I have produced a third Sunstruck destined for egging, and with a full day and a half on the clock. All in all, a rousingly successful failure, and much better luck than I had with the accursed Sprout dragon...
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
25:36 in the island after 5 attempts! Looks like my luck this time is good... er, bad... no, good (still haven't decided how I feel about losing... er, winning... ... ... losing? this competition!)
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
I assume it's acceptable to allow my current breedings to complete naturally, correct (i.e. no need to speed one up)?
In other news, I have a Daydream sitting in my Nursery even as I type this and so would have lost the last Last Call if I hadn't missed the registration! Maybe for Sunstruck I'll have better (worse?) luck!
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
Heh. Literally just last night I was thinking my 1.5B (1.6 currently from all the Daydream fails!) war chest was probably too small if a new island were made available. But I still ran a bunch of beanstalk rounds to knock it down some. One day I will learn to trust my gut...
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
I know I paid crumble, I think I paid Skitch but I'm not 100% certain. Skitch, let me know if you got my gem? I'm scatter-brained...
I'm going to say... yes? I'm fairly certain I saw your name zip past in my Gifts tab, but I cleared the POTM gems pretty quickly so as not to lose track of my daily partners. I'm more than thrilled by the payout in any case, so no worries either way!
Well, shoot! I just saw the new dragon a short while ago and thought I'd give Last Call a go, especially since I lost 3 (can you believe it? 3!) daily gem partners during the Firefly event, so I'm feeling a bit gem depleted. Ah, well, I'll jump in on the next one.
Meantime, I know I saw a find a friend type thread in here somewhere, guess I'll go track that down...
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
Never did end up sending that preemptive email. Ugh. (I was gonna send it because I thought I would only lose gems, but it was obviously so much worse) Atleast I got my screengrabs... butut ugh I could have helped my case SO MUCH if a had sent an email ahead of time. They would have looked into my park BEFORE the ffs dissapeared, and would be able to be on record of the issue. sadface sadface sad face
I've worked in software development for many years. I don't know what kind of policies BFS has, but at every company where I have worked, if there's any doubt about what happened, the presumption is always in the favor of the customer. My expectation is that BFS will have similar policies in place. If their database stores a detailed record of a user's every transaction then they'll easily be able to tell that you accomplished the steps necessary to receive the reward. If their database only stores the current state of a user's park then, if they're like most software companies, they should take you at your word and credit you the reward (especially if you have screenshots and forum posts backing you up and lots of others are reporting a similar glitch). I think the outcome is highly likely to be in your favor.
I'm sure we're all rooting for you and any others that have experienced this glitch!
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
I fell backwards into a pretty good (lucky) strategy. I wasn't aware of the behavior that double ffs would continue until something caused the app to re-synch with the server, but it paid off for me rather handsomely. I had saved Kairos for the last day as I posted about earlier with an eye toward getting as close to a full 180 ffs as possible after reset Sunday night (assuming doubles would be over and my goal would be to simply get as many singles as I could before end of event). I had finished my habitats as early as possible Sunday during the day so most habitats were full and ready for collection and I had a full planting of pumpermelons ready to harvest. Right after reset I swept everything, harvested my melons, bought and sold a large hab, hatched some saved eggs, grew several rounds of dragon snaps, planted melons, swept the habs one last time and then fired off Kairos before sweeping and harvesting one last time. Of course I noticed I was getting doubles for all of this but didn't realize it was apparently just a timing glitch. Luckily I deferred visiting the friends I had reserved because when I finally did so, doubling ended for me. Ended up netting about 280 ffs instead of the nearly 180 I was expecting.
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
Thank goodness! I'll be able to get the tower without cash outlay!
I have to say, though, I still need to think about whether I like the new Backflip enough to stay with the game. I don't mind tossing some cash their way (I've gotten plenty of enjoyment over the years), and I don't mind grinding to achieve rewards. But I thoroughly dislike grinding for rewards only to discover that I still have to pay cash at the end or planning from the beginning to pay cash but then discovering at the end that I could have gotten everything if I'd just spent some time grinding. Please, Backflip, just give me enough info to know how the event is going to work (they don't have to tell me outright, but structure these events so that I can figure it out with a little experimentation the way other games do). Their lack of transparency seems designed to heighten uncertainty and spur panic buying.
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
I hate to say it, because I love this game and have played it since it was first released, but if there are no double ffs this weekend I'll have to think hard about continuing to play. This feels like Backflip is trying to defy our expectations (set during the previous events) for the purpose of increasing anxiety about getting enough fireflies with the specific goal of forcing more cash purchases.
Edited to add: To be clear, I have no problem with them making money, and I've spent money on the game many times over the years in gratitude for the entertainment value I've received. But I've never had to spend money to achieve my goals until the last event, and now it looks like they might be taking that approach once again.
Last Edit: Jul 25, 2014 11:45:30 GMT -6 by Skitch: Clarification
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
Thanks for the replies and suggestions! I've got about several billion so I'm okay with forgoing the earnings! It just feels weird to see those treasure chests and not collect them for close to 10 hours!
If that makes you feel weird, here's something that'll make you feel even weirder: hold on to Kairos until early Monday after ff reset.
Like you, I have plenty of resources so I can afford to just sit on things until it's most advantageous to use them. I posted about the full strategy on this thread last weekend, but here's the gist (this works best if your reset times give you a good chunk of hours between ff reset and end of ff doubling on Monday morning). Spend Sunday collecting habitats as aggressively as you can to finish as early as possible with the goal of leaving habitats uncollected for as many hours as possible Sunday evening (also, only collect from 5 friends on Sunday, reserving 5 more, if you have them, for double collection on Monday morning). Then do as much as you can for a half hour or so after ff reset, sweeping habitats, growing dragon snaps, gem spending, etc., before using Kairos. Then plant pumpermelons and use Kairos. Sweep everything again, then go to bed and get up Monday morning before doubling ends to sweep everything one last time. This gives you the maximum number of opportunities to collect the diminishing returns categories.
Using this technique I was able to get 4 full cycles of 360 ffs for a total of 1440 ffs last weekend. It was so successful that I've been sitting on Kairos all week to use him again at the end of this weekend!
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
I followed the plan I posted about earlier, leaving my habitats alone for the last 11 hours of the day yesterday (!) and then doing a full sweep, a bunch of other ff busy work, another sweep (maybe a half dozen or so habitats had refilled by then), firing Kairos, and then a final sweep. This actually gave me all but 4 ffs! For the dragon treat sweeps I grew Dragon Snaps until I got two full rounds without any ffs and then planted pumpermelons for Kairos. This gave me all but 16 ffs. I planted pumpermelons before going to bed. This morning I got the final 4 ffs from the habitats that had refilled overnight and got 12 ffs from the pumpermelon round (I too am beginning to suspect that the longer crops might have a higher chance of yielding ffs). I planted Zazzberries while I finished getting ready and got my final 4 treat fireflies before leaving for work.
So to summarize, I got 4 full 360 ff yields from this double ff weekend for a total of 1440 ffs! And the best part? I'm done for the day and can relax until tomorrow!
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
It's now about 11 hours to ff reset for me and I just collected my last habitat ff for a total of 80. I'll leave them alone now until after reset so I have as many chances as possible in the Kairos strategy I outlined before. I've finished my egg and gem categories, have 12 ffs remaining for food, and have yet to collect from friends (they reset in about 6 hours). I was able to get a full 360 on Friday and Saturday and should be able to easily hit a full 360 today while leaving myself ideally positioned to get the better part of 360 tonight after midnight and tomorrow before doubling ends.
A good weekend!
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
I posted the other day wondering about how best to use Kairos during the event. I’ve been thinking about ways to leverage him and strategies to maximize ffs in general. Thought I’d share a few tips related to him and double ff weekends.
Warning: only for fanatics like me! If you’re trying to not stress about ffs, read no further!
In my situation I’ve got about 10 hours between ff reset at midnight and the end of double ff weekend Monday morning. This offers a great chance to grab more ffs during a fourth collection opportunity. If your ff reset is close to the end of double ff weekend it’s tougher for you to leverage this very well. Some of the following is applicable if you don’t have Kairos, but if your situation allows it, save Kairos for ff reset late Sunday night to get the biggest bang.
1. On Sunday collect from habitats aggressively during the day, emptying the more rapidly-filling habitats as often as possible to maximize ff chances. The goal here is to finish habitat collection as many hours as possible before ff reset so that a maximum number of habitats will be ready for collection at reset.
2. After friends have reset on Sunday evening (happens about 7 PM for me), Visit only 5 friends. The goal here is to leave some friends until after reset to collect double ffs from them Monday morning rather than getting single ffs from them after they’ve reset again on Monday evening.
3. During the day, manage your eggs to ensure you have 80 ffs worth to hatch out between ff reset and end of ff doubling. Also, manage your dragon treats to make sure you have free farms at reset.
4. Then, at reset, do the following before using Kairos:
a. Sweep all habitats, hopefully netting most of your ffs from this first pass. But don’t use Kairos yet, instead spend some time collecting your other ff categories in the following steps. The goal here is to allow several of the quicker-filling habitats to fill up while you’re doing the other ff busy work for a few more shots at ffs before you use kairos.
b. Plant several rounds of dragon snaps, continuing for as long as you’re getting a useful number of collections per round. When you’re done, plant pumpermelons for maturing under Kairos shortly.
c. Get 80 ffs from the eggs set up for hatching during the day (if egg availability doesn’t work out there’ll be another opportunity to hatch more eggs in the morning, so keep aware and set up breedings appropriately). Keep in mind that you’ve got Kairos coming up shortly and adjust your approach accordingly.
d. Buy one giant habitat for 25 gems and sell it back for 10 gems. This will net you 50 ffs. Next, spend 15 more gems for 30 ffs wherever you can (manage it with your breeding and incubating and whatever other purchases you might need). If you have to, use dragon treats to fine tune the gem spending. It may go against the grain to speed up food production, but you can precisely plant exactly 15 gems worth of sped-up food easily.
e. Visit the friends you left available from earlier in the evening. If you had 5 friends left over, this will net you 40 ffs rather than the 20 you would have gotten waiting for friend reset monday evening.
f. Now you can sweep the habitats one more time to catch any that have filled while you were doing all that other stuff!
5. NOW use Kairos. Sweep your habitats again for any that Kairos filled up for you, harvest your pumpermelons, empty and restart your breeding areas, hatch any eggs that have finished, plant another round of pumpermelons, etc.
6. Next, go to bed and get 5 or 6 good hours of sleep! When you get up in the morning, sweep your habitats, harvest your second batch of pumpermelons if you planted them, and do whatever else you may have left before double ff weekend expires.
If you’re both efficient and lucky, you should be pretty close to a full 360 ffs for Monday rather than the 180 you’d get if you start after doubling finishes. Finally, apologies for the length, but I hope you found some of the preceding useful!
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
Does anybody have any thoughts on the best way to manage Kairos? I haven't been paying attention and just noticed he's ready to go. My first thought is to leave him until after ff reset, do a full habitat sweep and a full cycle of pumpermelons, fire off Kairos, and then do another sweep with whatever habits have refilled. This will make it easier to get to max habitat ffs quickly.
But am I missing something more effective?
GCID: akaSkitch
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas, which if left alone in large enough quantities, for long enough, will begin to think about itself.
'... overwhelming goodwill, and witty humour, profound grace and compassion blended with the spice of relentless taunts.'
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