Debate: Is farming cheating/stealing?

simpsonare · July 18, 2022 6:17PM

I'm curious to hear your current thoughts and the current viewpoint of farming donuts. Do you consider farming a fair alternative between customers + EA?

frosted1414 · July 18, 2022 7:20PM

When you reach the cash limit you get this message. It seems to encourage farming.

sideshowdan9 · July 19, 2022 12:47AM

Any mechanism allowed by the game is fair.

As if EA don't realise...

lucienleon519 · July 19, 2022 3:05AM

Alternative thread: Is not farming ignorant/stupid?

pokerdude666 · July 19, 2022 8:11AM

I totally agree with sideshowdan that any system EA allows is not theft .
Personally I keep my donut stock by farming in such a way that I can comfortably
purchase the items I want.
But I don’t need to own 20.000 donuts either.
I don’t see the point in that.
But everyone does their own thing with this of course .
Happy tapping and farming

surefirein93 · July 19, 2022 10:47AM

One of the things - perhaps even THE thing that keeps users playing this game over the long haul - is the ability to do whatever you want with the game systems as long as the game itself allows you to do that. Donut farming has, undoubtedly, kept many of the long-term players aboard simply because it allowed users to improve their towns without spending a ton of actual cash to upgrade, enlarge and develop. Land expansion has always been a driving force in the game and without d-farming, that would be severely limited and likely cause some users to drop out. Clearly, EA made a determination YEARS ago that d-farming - though not necessarily planned - was a good thing for the game's longevity. Otherwise it would have been toast by now. Ergo, it's not cheating. Instead, it's using TSTO's innermost workings to advance your game, which EA most assuredly wants to encourage.

4junk3000 · July 19, 2022 3:56PM

This "debate" is kinda obsolete. Years ago it was relevant, but not anymore, because they've made far too many in-game wise-cracks about farming. Clearly they're aware and haven't shut it down, so it's legit in my mind.

I sincerely appreciate them letting us continue to do so. I was not a house farmer in the beginning, and i'm not farming now; but I did have a chance to utilize the technique and I appreciate it greatly.

frosted1414 · July 19, 2022 5:05PM

4junk3000 wrote: »

...because they've made far too many in-game wise-cracks about farming.

Yes they have but I can't find them.

umnikke8 · July 19, 2022 9:37PM

I'd say it's a bit gray. An unintentional play feature because of the way the game mechanics work. I believe EA is fully aware of it and has transitioned game play around it. They could have made moves to stop it, but didn't. Now the in game value of donuts has been decreased and there is more reliance on real world cash purchases for other things. The value of donuts in game was decreasing due to EA making them more accessible and prevalent through in game actions prior and subsequent to farming taking hold as well.

Surfcitygal · July 20, 2022 4:51AM

I am thankfully at the stage in all my games that I no longer have to waste land on farming. If I’m short on donuts I sell and buy back the Krusty oil rig a few times to get enough to buy that Gil deal or speed up tasks. Cheating/stealing? Hardly - EA keeps tying some characters to donut purchases with real-world money

zlevell786 · July 20, 2022 10:17AM

No. I don’t see how it could be.

Lobes06 · July 20, 2022 6:15PM

My Conform-o-meter bonus is currently at 9366.74%, due to the mistakes of selling the Wailing Wall (2.25%) and the Burning Bush (0.5%) for cash during previous events. They corrected the mistakes fairly quickly but did not rollback or punish those who took advantage of the oversight (I am assuming this was not done on purpose).

Is this cheating or stealing? That definition is entirely up to EA and considering they did not rollback or punish those that took advantage, they must either A) not consider it such, or

do not want to spend the time and resources to find everyone that did and perform a rollback or apply punitive actions to.

I am still playing my game with "the glitch" from several years ago. So, my game is severely limited. Those of you with hundreds of characters like me, just think how arduous it is to find a specific character, when your character finder does not work. I have to scroll through my 550+ character list in my Town Hall to find someone. And if I don't know their name? I have to look for their face. Not fun. My other option is to rollback years worth of time and effort to a pre-glitch version of my save file. Not gonna happen.

devilhunt1449 · July 20, 2022 7:03PM

Lobes06 wrote: »

My Conform-o-meter bonus is currently at 9366.74%, due to the mistakes of selling the Wailing Wall (2.25%) and the Burning Bush (0.5%) for cash during previous events. They corrected the mistakes fairly quickly but did not rollback or punish those who took advantage of the oversight (I am assuming this was not done on purpose).

Is this cheating or stealing? That definition is entirely up to EA and considering they did not rollback or punish those that took advantage, they must either A) not consider it such, or do not want to spend the time and resources to find everyone that did and perform a rollback or apply punitive actions to.

I am still playing my game with "the glitch" from several years ago. So, my game is severely limited. Those of you with hundreds of characters like me, just think how arduous it is to find a specific character, when your character finder does not work. I have to scroll through my 550+ character list in my Town Hall to find someone. And if I don't know their name? I have to look for their face. Not fun. My other option is to rollback years worth of time and effort to a pre-glitch version of my save file. Not gonna happen.

I know exactly your pain, it's great fun trying to find Gil when he's wandering around your Springfield, oh and rolling back is no guarantee of a fix as I speak from experience, after 3 roll backs and losing multiple items i got glitched again each time, I got so annoyed with this I left the game for over 18 months but eventually came back.

anjasundq82 · July 21, 2022 6:40AM

First of all in the beginning the trait of building lots of blue houses was because EA introduced the trophy buildings. If I wanted to build popsicle skyscraper I needed lots of money and building lots of blue houses was the answer. Then they nerfed the blue building farming because of their own mistake.

IMHO EA's todays answer to donut farming is to give in each event the tray of 132 donut with unique gift that cannot be get anywhere else. If person is keen to get all the items in the game they will spend the money in every event. That's lots of money to EA.

On the other hand my games suffer a bug that prevents me to buy golden scratchers and certain trays of donuts as the game states that I already own the items. And EA is not even interrested to figure out that bug. So they clearly do not care about my ability to spend money on the game.

This bug came up when EA "fixed" the bug where one got the founding fathers, Sven Gully & Ned's RV for free if one tried to buy the Sven Gully offer. All my games exploited that bug and something now in the code think that certain amounts of donuts still carry those extra items and I can't buy them because I already own the items. Why this also affects the golden scratchers I don't know. I actually don't miss the golden scratchers I'm only little bit miffed on the "You would have won..." message on normal scratchers as it is now false because I can't buy golden scratchers. Hate it when a game gives false information.

willp_70 · July 22, 2022 11:55AM

Ending farming would take only a few key strokes by ending the 939 limit. They know this, so I I don't consider farming illegal.
It does however, exploit a weakness.

4junk3000 · July 22, 2022 2:36PM

lucienleon519 wrote: »

Alternative thread: Is not farming ignorant/stupid?

I dont think so, no.
Not everyone is compulsively obsessed to obtain every feature offered in the game. I played for years just collecting what was available for free. I never had a house farm. I was delighted there was as much free content as there is. But it became more compelling over time. I did not expect to become a daily player for ten years running.

It was the lucky glitches of the wailing walls and burning bushes that allowed me to increase my bonus multiplier, and THAT is when I started focusing on efficient bonus increases using jetbikes and nuclear bombs from the Vault.

fishingguy73 · July 22, 2022 5:58PM

you have to put in work in the game to properly farm so that doesn’t feel like cheating. Using hacks is cheating so if it is built into the game (XP collider, high XP items, et….) then it’s just a strategy

bluntcard · July 22, 2022 6:51PM

Offering decorations with XP for real money in the early years of the game means that you have purchased the right to eventually reduce the amount of real money you spend buying premium currency, or eliminate the need to purchase altogether.

Debate: Is farming cheating/stealing?

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