Has the v-day update changed when you visit friends? Low heart yield?

XBL, you seem to be collecting valentines okay in my town because I'm getting hearts from you. I've been able to tap three valentines usually in one visit from you without coming back. I agree the pay out of hearts from visiting other people towns is very low. I'll visit four towns and maybe only get one heart, but then I visit one town and get three. The only 100% guarantee of getting hearts is having people visit you. I've been trying to clear out valentines as much as possible. I'm sad to say I actually got up at 2 AM and checked my phone in the bathroom to clear out my valentines. The nice thing was I had a whole new batch when I woke up at 8. :D

XBL-Heretic wrote:


I'm keeping my characters on 12 or 24 hour tasks to minimize the mount of time they are not on task and am collecting cards in my town at least every two hours while I'm awake.

I guess I haven't quite figured out how the hearts work. So, are you saying that my characters need to be on task in order for me to be able to earn hearts? What if they have finished the task, but I haven't yet clicked the thumbs up?

Also, I haven't rounded to the nearest hundredth place, :roll: but your statistic for heart visits seems about right for me too.

creepyulee wrote:
XBL, you seem to be collecting valentines okay in my town because I'm getting hearts from you. I've been able to tap three valentines usually in one visit from you without coming back.

Creepy, I've had pretty good luck with you so far too. You look to be in the Pacific time zone, so maybe our playing times are a bit more compatible. Me visiting 11:00 pm to 1:00 am ET puts you at 8:00- 10:00 pm your time.

creepyulee wrote:
The only 100% guarantee of getting hearts is having people visit you. I've been trying to clear out valentines as much as possible.

Maybe my post seemed a little negative or selfish in that I was only worried about getting hearts from my friends. If so, it wasn't my intention to give that impression. I want to be a good neighbor-ino. Yes, i want to collect cards/hearts from my neighbors, but if I can't collect, i can't give my friends three hearts either :(

zuzupj wrote:
It has been difficult to find the right time to visit while my neighbor is actively playing. If I visit while they are asleep the chances finding cards available in their town are slim. I have been slowly trying to shift some of the visit times on my neighbors to the time I know they are active here and will have a better chance at giving them hearts.

If I visit a neighbor and don't see any cards, I will just keep checking back with them.

Thanks, zuzu! I don't which time zone most of my friends are in. Seems I'm experiencing the same thing you are with many of my neighbors probably sleeping when I usually visit. Over the weekend, I can keep checking back. But during the work week, it's going to be much more difficult for me to visit friends at many different times during the day. :(

It's terrible for me! I'm almost on opposite timezones from all my neighbors. I make 3-4 rounds a day so I can collect from everyone and it's causing massive delays in collection times daily. Even when I do that, it's impossible for me to collect from all my neighbors. The only way I can collect from everyone(safe estimate) is about 2-5am for me. It's not really an option I like even though I sleep late. :?

Everything is off sync and it's driving me nuts.

It's definitely taking me longer to collect than before, and I get about 1/4-1/3 of my friends each time. I do vandalize instead when I can, but it seems that's more rarely available now so mostly I just leave and check back later. My heart yield is also very low. One or no hearts is the most common. Visited about 15 friends earlier and got about 10 hearts. As far as collecting cards in my town, I'm on at least every 2-3 hours and I'm certainly not awash in hearts. I'm getting enough to get through the v-day quests, but I'm only on Howard's Flowers while a couple of my neighbors long since finished and have TONS of heart trees and rose bushes (100+)! I have no idea how they're doing it. All my neighbors log in daily or close to it, so I'm not sure if I'm not clearing cards fast enough or if they're unable to visit often, or if there aren't cards available when they do.

I did read the breakdown of how cards and hearts work. What I'm not sure about is the mechanics of clearing cards, because I've had two cards on one character a few times now which implies I don't need to clear every card for them to regenerate.

Anyhow, for me the dynamic has changed to "frustrating"! I want to visit everyone and spread the love, but I often don't have time to spent 2+ hours visiting friends each day. And though I'm altruistic about it, a better ROI heart-wise would be nice...

I've been collecting from about 60-70 percent of my friends on my "initial friends run." I don't really have any new rules, but I try to visit at more "peak" times when I think people will have been on recently. There's no formula, but I probably won't be visiting any of my UK friends later in the US evening, since they are probably sleeping (except neo NEVER sleeps!). I've been making 2 or 3 attempts at visiting my friends from my main account each day. I don't think I've cleared everyone; there will always be a few regulars that have been busy for the few days.

Here's the link for my "heart payout rate" data collection thread; it's still a very small sample size.
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/0/9276801.page#27026639

Im getting about 2 hearts each town. I wasted bout 20 minutes doing the friend glitch only to realize its been fixed. $16 each house is lame.

MaggieLisa33 wrote:
I think by now people have figured out that it is beneficial to clear your hearts as often as possible. The whole process does take a bit longer, but I'm not holding it against anyone that can't give me cards everyday and I hope people are understanding of me as well.

Some good comments so far in this thread. Melly captured my sentiments exactly - everything is off sync and its frustrating me :(

Maggie, your comments ring true as well. I always try to be a good neighbor-ino for my friends, but this process it taking quite a bit longer for me. Some towns are quite a bit larger now, and it takes more time per town to scroll the entire town looking for cards. I'm certainly not holding it against anyone... i just hope friends are understanding of this condition.

Thanks for the responses to my questions so far - it help me a lot!

Reflects my sentiments as well. I seem to have only one friend that I'm somewhat in sync with enough to generate cards on a normal cycle. Everyone else is hit or miss at best. I've been trying to keep myself from just vandalizing or collecting money when I dont see any cards to feel it out a bit but haven't had much success. I've had one friend with one action remaining for most of the day one or two others I can't collect cards at all. Assuming it has to do with card clearing on their end. Definitely frustrating especially when your friends list is more quality than it is quantity like mine. I may have to resort to drastic measures like <gulp> an add me thread. :oops: Don't judge me! :wink:

Although based on everyone else's comments not sure that would help anyway. Here's hoping everyone's neighbor-inos are an understanding lot...at least until we can all figure out the timing a bit better.