Elf spawn

Elves did spawn at the faster rate on the three days of Xmas, which helped build up an initial surplus (provided you could play on those days, of course). After that they reverted to the current slower rate. (But the slow rate is still sufficient to get all the prizes, if you're patient, and if you're not too badly affected by server issues.)

It's been mentioned in another thread that they might soon be offering some premium purchase to increase elf spawn rates though.

annettemarc wrote:
Wasn't there a past event when they adjusted something when they finally realized their math was going to keep lots of people from reaching the end goal? They gave more of something partway through the event ... Might have been related to community prizes ...

That was the Halloween 2013 Community Prizes. They revised the community thresholds down significantly, as the rate wouldn't reach the community prizes in time.

annettemarc wrote:
I had read very very early in this event that the original plan was to have elves spawn at twice the current rate (3 every fifteen minutes rather than three every thirty minutes.) Was that merely unsubstantiated rumor or was it in the files somewhere?

It was found in the files. 8am GMT 25/12 to 8am GMT 26/12 was "double elves" - similar to how, for last Xmas 2013, we got double Gift Cards for that period. It was (seemingly) a Holiday bonus thing.

The normal rate is 6 Elves/hr.

annettemarc wrote:
At the LEAST, they could extend the date of deadline to earn all prizes to be the same date as the event end-date! Just how much work would it take for them to do THAT?

They've done it before. Souldn't imagine it'd be too hard, just a matter of changing all the spots with the end date/time.

Mirality wrote:
It's been mentioned in another thread that they might soon be offering some premium purchase to increase elf spawn rates though.

I'd take that with a grain of salt until there's actual proof - there's no evidence whatsoever to suggest that's anything more than wishful thinking at the moment.

There's only 2 possible ways EA could introduce more Elves (short of tweaking the spawn rate itself):

*Sell new item(s) that spawn Elves.
There's no additional buildings/decos in the game files, so anything new would have to be introduced via an update (and by that, it's obviously a catch-up patch release & not something planned prior).

*Adjust existing item(s) to spawn Elves (& sell said item(s) to players again).
The obvious item to spawn Elves is the Elf Home, so they could just enable it like how they issued presents for Part 1. However, just like possibility #1, it's a reactionary thing as they haven't been doing so for the last week or more.

Either way, it's obvious that any tweaks would be reactionary to a miscalculation (or bad planning), and not something we as players can say with any certainty is actually going to happen. And with all the issues they had at the start of Part 2, I don't know if EA would have many regular staff on hand to do the legwork over the public holidays.


TL;DR - there's nothing in the game coding to say that, so don't believe it until EA sends out game patches.

TheWriterer wrote:
Your maths is wrong.

For instance, a level 8 cannon will fire 33 elves 8 times a day (24 hours divided by a 3 hour cooldown = 8) which is 264 elves per day (8*33).

Compare the number 264 against the number of spawning elves, which is 156 per day (including tunnel) and you'll notice that one number is considerably higher than the other. And, unfortunately, not in favour of the player.

The disparity between the number of elves you can fire in a day and the number of elves that spawn in a day grows even larger the higher the cannon is upgraded, until eventually the ratio of Elves Fired (EF) to Elves Spawned (ES) is 3:1 at 468:156.

I was trying to demonstrate the logic they put behind the rates. I know with a few upgrades the cannon exceeds the spawns heck it probably does before upgrading we just had twice the spawn rate during that time. But you can't think that the math working out to an even number like this is just coincidence. I would put money on this being exactly their reasoning behind the design. They know people sleep 6-8 hours leaving 16-18 hours. And most people work or school full time with 2-3 breaks. Leaving about 8 hours left of their day at home. This figures to people having the ability to check in 4 times a day. Keeping in mind this doesn't include the lesser statistical group size player that will check in the moment something is available to be done. But as I demonstrated in the other thread 4 sets of cannon shots along with the other ways bells are obtained there is no real reason to need to be able to shoot the cannon as soon as it is ready all day long. Hopefully this clears up any confusion as to why I was working out all the math.

Raven_Darkstorm wrote:

TheWriterer wrote:
Your maths is wrong.

For instance, a level 8 cannon will fire 33 elves 8 times a day (24 hours divided by a 3 hour cooldown = 8) which is 264 elves per day (8*33).

Compare the number 264 against the number of spawning elves, which is 156 per day (including tunnel) and you'll notice that one number is considerably higher than the other. And, unfortunately, not in favour of the player.

The disparity between the number of elves you can fire in a day and the number of elves that spawn in a day grows even larger the higher the cannon is upgraded, until eventually the ratio of Elves Fired (EF) to Elves Spawned (ES) is 3:1 at 468:156.

I was trying to demonstrate the logic they put behind the rates. I know with a few upgrades the cannon exceeds the spawns heck it probably does before upgrading we just had twice the spawn rate during that time. But you can't think that the math working out to an even number like this is just coincidence. I would put money on this being exactly their reasoning behind the design. They know people sleep 6-8 hours leaving 16-18 hours. And most people work or school full time with 2-3 breaks. Leaving about 8 hours left of their day at home. This figures to people having the ability to check in 4 times a day. Keeping in mind this doesn't include the lesser statistical group size player that will check in the moment something is available to be done. But as I demonstrated in the other thread 4 sets of cannon shots along with the other ways bells are obtained there is no real reason to need to be able to shoot the cannon as soon as it is ready all day long. Hopefully this clears up any confusion as to why I was working out all the math.

I agree with your assumption. Since people complain that they can't sign in all the time, they made the rate so people could sign in a few times a day and still shoot off all of their elves. Now the people that are on more times than that are complaining because they don't have enough elves. I think there needs to be a more balanced approach to the release of elves.

meinaz wrote:
Since people complain that they can't sign in all the time, they made the rate so people could sign in a few times a day and still shoot off all of their elves. Now the people that are on more times than that are complaining because they don't have enough elves. I think there needs to be a more balanced approach to the release of elves.

Four times a day sounds pretty well balanced to me. If they release them too fast then there'll just be the people who complain that they've finished the whole event in a week and have nothing to do. (Or start trying to farm bonus donuts.) There just isn't any way to satisfy everybody.

meinaz wrote:
Now the people that are on more times than that are complaining because they don't have enough elves.

Yes, there is no particular reason why the number of elves spawned should equal the number of elves able to be shot. People might think it ought to be so, they may wish it was so, but there is no reason to assume that the failure of the two numbers to correlate is a fault or an oversight.
The focus of this thread is mostly ignoring the fact that it's not actually elves you need, it's bells. Elves are a means to get bells, of course, but if you're on track to get all the prizes, then you have enough elves.
The existing elf/cannon arrangement works particularly well for the more casual or intermittent player - a surplus of bottled elves will accumulate on days of less game activity, and this can then be discharged on days of more intensive play later in the game when there are higher numbers of elves per shot and faster cannon cool down rates.
The faster cool down rates mean that players can catch up by shooting off elves several times a day if they feel like it (and this is quite a fun thing to do), but the spawn rate means that they don't have to log on on every two hours, day and night, just to complete the event.

I use a timer to see how long it took the elves to appear and it went to 20 minutes before they appeared better than half an hour which some thought it was so it be 9 every hour but it should be 12 every hour if that was the case.

Athewhofan2 wrote:
I use a timer to see how long it took the elves to appear and it went to 20 minutes before they appeared better than half an hour which some thought it was so it be 9 every hour but it should be 12 every hour if that was the case.

true sorry I thought I quoted the one above it mine how did that happen

How do you delete a post that posted twice?