The “Art” of Friendship: Vandalizing

Hey Howdy Hey Tappers!

How are you all enjoying visiting your neighbors?  Are you taking the time to enjoy their towns and designs?  Remember this is not a limited-time event.  There is no countdown clock going on the Friendship Rewards…so take your time with it.  And enjoy looking at what your neighbors created!

Ok so now that all of that “lovey-dovey” stuff is out of the way I want to take a minute to discuss a hot button issue with this event.  Something that seems to have a lot of you either really giddy or really ticked.  And that something is….Graffiti!

Ah yes vandalizing your neighbors…which for the longest time has been something many of us have tried to avoid (and some of us only do) because of the negative dip in Righteousness Rating points.  BUT with the Friendship event vandalizing your neighbors seems to be beneficial to BOTH of you when it comes to earning those precious FPs!  So let’s take a closer look at some of the pros, cons & solutions of spraying that graffiti…

The case FOR Vandalizing:

Vandalizing your neighbors benefits you AND them.  It’s the ONE thing you can do during this event to help your neighbor earn FP.  When you spray paint one of their buildings you earn the FP points you’re currently eligible for AND they’ll earn 1 FP for every one of their buildings that they “mop up” (plus cash and XP).  (Note: with this event you can no longer “mop up” a neighbor’s building for them.  Only they can clean them)

The four buildings you can currently vandalize are all buildings that do not generate income: The Springfield Elementary School, Town Hall, Police Station & Moe’s.  So you’re actually helping your neighbor earn a little extra cash & XP…in addition to the awesome FP bonus.

As long as they’re cleaned regularly you pretty much can always tap on one of those 4 buildings in a friend’s town to earn FP.

Boost to Righteousness Rating: Cleaning up your buildings will raise your Righteousness rating by 1 point for every building you clean.

The case AGAINST Vandalizing:

So far the only case I can make against vandalizing is…it messes with your Righteousness Rating.  The way the files have been coded in the past shows -Spray painting your neighbor’s buildings (and having yours painted). Every building you “tag” causes your Righteousness rating to drop 5 points.  So if you vandalize 3 buildings in your friend’s town that’s a drop of 15 points…in just 1 town!

The “Solution”: 

Personally, I’ve never really cared too much one way or another on spray painting or getting spray painted.   I do have a 5-Star Springfield…which means my Righteousness Rating is maxed out…so it’s not as if I don’t care because I don’t care about my Conform-o-Meter.

I take great pride in my 5-Star Springfield…it took me a LONG time to achieve it (with out building 10 Kwik-E-Marts) and I’d be pretty miffed if something caused it to drop.  BUT the 5 point drop in Righteousness for Spray paint doesn’t bother me.  Why?  Because of Training Walls.  That’s right my friends Training Walls help boost your Righteousness rating by 10 points for every wall you own.  (that’s 2 spray painted buildings per wall!)

Training walls are unlocked at Level 33 and cost $270.  You can have as many as you wish in your Springfield…and believe me I do.  I’ve got them hidden EVERYWHERE (and quite a few not so hidden).  You can even design with them!  Here’s an early design from Bunny’s town back when they first introduced Level 33:

Now I realize because they unlock at Level 33 it doesn’t benefit you Tappers that are just starting out or at a lower level.  However, if you’re at a lower level it’s really difficult to obtain a 5-star Springfield to begin with.  They didn’t start adding buildings that benefit some of the harder categories to max out (Righteousness, Consumerism) until Level 33 and higher.  So if this is you…I say don’t worry about it.  Benefit from those extra FP points your neighbors are gifting you…and you gift them!

So what’s the real solution?  Here’s my take…if you have 100 neighbors (the max you can have 99 + Other Springfield) you should max out your Friendship Prizes in about a week…assuming you visit your neighbors regularly.  So here’s what I say…Vandalize each other for about a week to 2 weeks.  After that there’s no point in doing it because neither of you will earn FP for it.

What do YOU think?  Is that a solution you can live with?  Workable for everyone?  Do you vandalize your neighbors?  Sound off in the comments below…you know we LOVE hearing from you!

Oh and before I let you go…let’s take a quick poll on the issue.  Let us know if you want to be vandalized to earn the extra FP or if you want your neighbors to stop painting your town red!

And just a reminder…as always…if you’re looking for more neighbor-eenos check out our Add Me Posts here.  Any Add me requests posted anywhere else (unless it’s with a comment to a post and you’re only using your ID to sign your post) risks getting deleted.  Trust me…you’ll find A LOT more friends on the Add Me page than you will on any other post. 🙂

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