You are a lot nicer than I am. I had never deleted any of my friends before this update, but once it was costing me friend points, I did a big purge. Now if I find nothing to tap in a couple of days, I delete the person. It is so easy to get friends that I don't feel too bad. The only exception is new players, because they have so little to tap but I have found that I can usually get them on one of my trips through my friends list.

I see how many actions I have left at the end of the day. As long as it's below 50 or 40 or so, I figure I'm not missing out on too many FPs. Usually I'm around 30 actions left over which means 10% of my friends had nothing to tap. If they haven't been active for weeks, I will drop them, though. The main problem with inactive friends isn't just that they have nothing to tap, it's that I waste a minute or two scrolling through the whole darn town. It really slows down the visits.

I give them a week tops. Yeah, it might make me a witch but it's a give and take thing.

Regulars here tend to be more serious about the game, so if they're not playing for awhile, I assume there's an issue rather than that they've quit. If I have an inactive neighbor who isn't a forumite I'll give them a week or two before I delete them. (I've got a couple neighbors who are close to being deleted in favor of more forum members.)

Water finds its own level. If you play everyday it makes sense that you want neighbors that play everyday. If someone plays once every week or two they should be fine with neighbors that do the same.I've played multiple times per day for a year now. I want 100 friends that do the same. In the past week I deleted 2 longtime neighbors who hadn't played in a week. Their priorities didn't match mine. No big deal. I would rather be proactive than frustrated.

I got rid of a lot of inactive players when the friend system came in, it really helped show who the non players were. Anyone who says their last log in is 'unknown' get rid of immediately, I then started with the two weekers, and recently I've ditched a couple of 1 week non active ppl purely cos I have so many daily players on my friend request list that are actually clearing their towns!

Inactive Neighbors | EA Forums

NeoSEC28
11 years ago
Generally i give people about a month as there are cases where some people get locked out their game for weeks at a time, but generally if it goes over a month and the person is not a forum member (someone i can contact) then i will delete them.
drosax1
11 years ago
I give a few days unless they been visitors then they get longer

v210e wrote:
Im not a regular forum member but I do come on here to see about new updates and what not. Im currently level 38. Daily & active player. In & out game all day. I also visit my friends daily. I do help clicking your boardwalk. I've been removing and adding friends. I'm once again going to remove friends because of this. Either they dont play anymore or just dont visit friends. Please feel free to add me if you need a real daily player. Thank you & god bless. :)

ID:v210e

Top of the discussion page is a sticky for this
EldarOfSuburbia
11 years ago
I'm starting to solidify my rules for what to do with inactive players.

- My family and real-life friends do not get deleted, except at their request/mutual agreement.
- If the last played time is 'Unknown' and there's nothing to tap, they get deleted.
- Neighbors below Level 38 get some leeway, especially if they're still small and still playing. Some of my bigger, obviously inactive, neighbors below Level 38 still have house farms that are tappable, but the well is drying up.
- Level 38 players get 5 days before they're hidden. This will last until Level 39. If they don't come back and level up, they're gone.
NeoSEC28
11 years ago
firesoul19 wrote:
NeoSEC28 wrote:
Generally i give people about a month as there are cases where some people get locked out their game for weeks at a time, but generally if it goes over a month and the person is not a forum member (someone i can contact) then i will delete them.

What a good idea...to contact them on the boards I mean. I've had several people go dormant in the last couple weeks and I just assumed they quit after consistently finding nothing to tap for a good while. So I deleted them, probably too hastily (except for some that I've been friends with since WD, my first event...those I gave quite a bit longer).

I've had one person on my friends list since the re-lease of the game, although i dont think i have ever seen the persons name appear in my town once i can not delete this person being he/she one of my 1st friends
nibs22932
11 years ago
Thanks for the feedback. I guess it is time to clean my inactive neighbors out. I play multiple times per day so if you have space add me. I'm going to look at this thread as a reference point as I know you are actively playing.
frogger53
11 years ago
There are too many variables to consider when judging your neighboreenos. This game has developed a lot of technical issues, like crashing or not being able to log in, to name a few. One of my neighbors had his friends list dumped after the Valentine's Day update.. I had their main town and six feeder towns on my friends list. Only their main town disappeared from my list....the feeder towns were still there but inactive. I had to delete them. The only way I knew what happened was when I sent them a pm. You don't know the circumstances behind the inactivity, so you have to be a little tolerant.
halo_nothing
11 years ago
I haven't deleted inactive players prior to this update. I did a recent purge of anyone inactive and requested new daily players in an attempt to maximize my daily FPs. I have many requests sitting in a pending state so if I visit someone's town and if there's nothing to tap (regardless of last sign in) I bump them out in favor of someone more likely to have daily tappables.
neuroheart
11 years ago
WolfyDiesel wrote:
I have the opposite problem. I feel like visiting overly active players has too many spoilers (i.e., someone got Stampy before I did and now I miss out on the surprise of what Stampy looks like.)

?????

We all know what Stampy looks like already because he's from the show.
nascarchamp0
11 years ago
I agree with Frogger53!

I keep a pretty tight schedule for visiting neighbours. Very early in the morning, and with the advantages to spray painting, I was running out of the time I had to look for the cans. Here's what I did. Opened all 3 towns at once, tapped 1 thing, and moved on. That way I could go back when I had more time to look around for the cans or wait till people had at least had a chance to clean up from the night before. Worked great sometimes, others I found myself on the short end of the stick, since there was nothing to tap. Their fault? Nope, bad timing, try again tomorrow.

Well I guess that some must have thought that I was doing the visit till you reach 1 FP/ action stage and deleted me. A few others thought putting a zero in front of their name would gain them something. Nope, you got deleted.

With all the weird things that have been happening over the last few weeks with peoples towns, please be patient. If you haven't experienced any of these things, count your lucky stars. I'm am experiencing friends list completely disappearing, friend names changing to what appears to be their real name and back to screen name the next day.

As we speak, I cannot log into any of my towns and therefore haven't visited you. As for those few of you who haven't had anything to tap over the last few days and have been regular visitors in the past, I will not remove you and hope that whatever problems you may be having get themselves worked quickly.
xamovo
11 years ago
I don't usually feel bad about deleting people. It's real easy to make new friends. I do hesitate more with friends I've had for a while. I have one friend who was really good Halloween-Valentine's, but hasn't had anything to tap for a few days. People take vacations, drop their device and break it, have connectivity issues, have real lives, so if they've been a good friend overall and it's not been too terribly long, I keep them. What's 3 FP for giving someone who is good most of the time? So that user gets to stay for a while longer.

If I get a random friend request and that person is obviously inactive quickly, they get booted, regardless of what their last login says.

I didn't delete farmers before just for farming's sake, but I did try to get rid of the ones who crashed my game all the time or the landing zone dumped me in the middle of their farm.

I try not to delete people for not visiting me, but during Christmas, some of them got booted too.