Bunny here. Putting on my glasses, getting out my pocket protector, and getting my magic fingers and thumbs ready to type those zeroes and ones. Basically…it’s Nerdy Time!!
For whatever various reasons, our game likes to frak with our minds and heads and nothing seems to quite go right. We panic. Throw our device. Scream. Yell. There may be many tears as well. Just slowly take your thumbs/fingers off the device or you may crack the screen. Lol. It’s ok. I am here to help. All of us are. Promise.
In this post, I will be going over the basics of Vandalism. The Pros and Cons of it. Why it is such a controversial issue. Mainly…. WHAT IS IT??!!
VANDALISM/ TAG/ SPRAY PAINT
So you are new to the game or new to our site and wondering what the frak it means to Vandalize someone’s town. Well here is the basic idea. You visit your neighbors and they visit you. You BOTH are looking for things to tap on. Normally you just tap on the basic icons like this.
Dollar Signs
Cash Register
Money Stack
Check/Menu Book
But there are some building that do not have a money payout so the ONLY way to get a payout from them it to “tag” or “Vandalize” them. This is the Police Station, Springfield Town Hall, Springfield Elementary, and Moe’s. This is the icon you will see instead on those 4 Buildings.
Spray Paint Can (This is what causes Vandalism!)
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I TAP THE SPRAY CAN?
Well the game causes that building to be spray painted and Vandalized. You will then see one of the 4 images of graffiti on the building. (Or a glitch one if you are lucky. Lol.)
But it does not end there. For those of you concerned about your Conform-O-Meter ratings, you just took a BIG hit to your Righteousness Rating and made your neighbors drop too. A drop of FIVE points for each of you. As of Level 47 you need a total of 260 points to make Righteousness 5 stars. (Tap HERE for more of a breakdown.) Why is it such a big deal? Well the higher the stars the MORE bonus % which means MORE $$ and XP earned. (This on top of any Premium Items that earn % too.) IT ADDS UP!
The current buildings that help with Righteousness barely even cover half of what is needed. So it takes a LOT to get it to 5 stars and keep it there. There are other things that can hurt Righteousness too, like missing a Sideshow Bob Capture in yours or your neighbors town, sending criminals to do bad things, etc. ALL will cause a drop. Some as much as from 5 stars to 1.5 stars. Tagging and Sideshow being the worst hits. (The results are at times delayed and not instant, but you will notice.)
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS/PROS OF VANDALISM?
Vandalism is the ONLY way to get a payout from some of the Buildings. So it will be the only way to get $$, XP, FP, or any other items that would drop from buildings during events. Otherwise these 4 buildings will just sit around without collecting rent.
After the building is spray painted, it does leave some pretty funny images on the buildings that you would usually see Bart making within in the Simpsons T.V. Series Episodes. (See above.)
WHAT ARE THE DOWNSIDES/CONS OF VANDALISM?
Main thing, YOUR Righteousness hit HARD! Every tag will cost YOU FIVE points. It also will cost the Neighbor you tagged FIVE points from their rating too. Those add up fast. This is the MAIN reason many do not want to be Vandalized. Hitting and maintaining that 5 stars rating WITHOUT the use of Training Walls (or if they aren’t leveled up enough to buy them) is almost impossible when someone keeps tagging you. It is MORE work to get it back to 5 stars again and have to keep doing it over and over and over.
HOW DO I GET RID OF VANDALISM?
If you have been vandalized, you will see the spray paint design on one of the 4 buildings (as shown above) along with a Mop Icon to clean it up.
Mop Icon (Vandalized)
If you tap on it you will ONLY get ONE point back for Righteousness and will get the payout for the building. (Payout will vary on YOUR current bonus % on Conform-O-Meter.)
CAN ANYTHING ELSE HELP WITH RIGHTEOUSNESS BESIDES CLEANING UP THE VANDALISM?
Yes. Here are a list of items that will help you.
Capture Sideshow Bob: Grab him while he is running around in yours or your neighbors town and get ONE point. (Missing him drops your rating FIVE points.)
Springfield Police Station: You can have only one but it will give you TEN points. (At Game Play Level 17, you can unlock this for purchase.)
Springfield Penitentiary: You can have only one but it will give you TEN points. (At Game Play Level 19, you can unlock this for purchase.)
S.W.A.T. Van: You can only have the one but it will give you TEN points once placed in your town. (At Game Play Level 33, you can unlock this for purchase.)
Training Walls: Each one purchased and placed in your town will add TEN points. You can buy as many as you want. (At Game Play Level 33, you can unlock this for purchase.) You will find them in your Decorations Icon in both Menu and Inventory.
Now as you can see Training Walls are a great help. You can put them in the open and decorate with them. 
Or you can hide them behind taller buildings. At times you can even get 3 or 4 back there depending on the building. Out of sight, out of mind. 
Without Training Walls your Righteousness will take a hit over and over and over. (Can you see why many don’t like it?)
There you have it. The basics of Vandalism. Now if YOU don’t like Vandalism and want friends that are on the same page, feel free to use the NO VANDALISM Friend Page. For those that do not care, use our regular ones. Either option you take is completely up to you. Just have fun with it no matter which way you go. This is just a game after all. 🙂
As always, we are here to help in anyway we can. (I even try to harass…errr…I mean contact EA on our readers behalf to see if there is anything more I can find out too.) Just keep hanging in there. Changes happen. We will all get used to it eventually. 😉
***Bunny****
What soes the hand shake icon do when you visit other peoples towns?
Nothing just means that that building was tapped by a neighbor
Thanksss i figured that out after I felt dumb lol. New to the friend adding thing and I just learned that tagging people is bad so I was scared to mess up anyones town
Tagging is only bad if you got your friends from a “No Tagging” thread. Lots of people don’t care whether you tag them or not, and some folks actively want to be tagged.
Why would someone WANT to be tagged? Their rating would never hit 5 stars, without a load of walls.
Wookiee, Bunny and I all enjoy being tagged. (and we all get tagged quite often) It’s the fun of the game..
I guess, but its also the frusteration of the game when you are trying to maintain 5 stars lol.
Hide some more training walls or Nero walls and you never have to worry about the potential of losing that big 1% again!
Any idea how many it takes exactly, to never have to worry about it I mean? No matter how many I have, give it so many days and I still require more it seems. Heck since my last message to you I got tagged 3 more times.
When I was a lower-level player, I actively wanted to be tagged, because that was the only way I could earn money from those buildings (and, back then, money was tight and I needed every in-game dollar I could get). I assumed everyone felt the same way and went out of my way to tag stuff! (But I never got any neighbors from the “no-tagging” thread.)
I’ve also seen some people say that they like getting tagged because they find the graffiti an amusing little touch in their town.
Apart from you, I added you because you are a regular on here (and I like your town :D), all my neighbors are specifically from the no-tagging thread, yet I seem to get tagged more often than not. Kinda feel like its how drivers of cars should be here. After so long of having your lisence, you should need to re-test/re-pledge lol. Not sure if some of my neighbors forget being on the no-tag list or what.
Well, it’s also not that difficult to do accidentally. Plenty of times I’m hurrying around and I tag someone without ever intending to.
Also (and this shouldn’t apply if you’ve gotten your neighbors from the no-tagging thread, but…), I think the chances of getting tagged are inversely proportional to the frequency with which you clear your town. I usually try to avoid tagging these days (because I never can remember which of the food from here really don’t like it but have made an exception for me), but if that’s all that’s left to tap, then I tap it. I don’t have time to make multiple visits in a day, like I used to when I first started playing because I was stuck in bed in disability.
Oh, and I’m glad you like my town! 🙂 🙂
Understandable, and I do agree with everything you’ve just said. What gets to me the most is the ones that tag twice in a visit. Once, is an accident. Twice is almost deliberate imo. That, and I’ve got enough buildings that even if I do tap them, they should regenerate quick enough that twice shouldn’t have to happen.
LOL we just have this discussion, I go out for a few hours, come home and two more people have tagged me. (Again, not you, but to show you how frequently its happening lately… )
Oh, well right now, that’s because of the event! If you’ve finished the fire event and they haven’t, they’re still seeing matches on those buildings, which is being registered in your town (as you see it) as tagging.
I wouldn’t judge anyone who seems to be tagging you right now…until the event ends, you won’t know whether they even know that that’s what they’re doing to you.
Guess I jumped the gun on that one 🙁 Forgot about that “glitch” in this event, looking like its tagging on one end but not on the other. Just knew my star rating took a hit. Sorry to all that were effected, if I had deleted you please re-send a request and I will re-add.
Bunny,
Thank you for taking the time to explain the effects of vandalism on our conformity meters……the sneaky EA bastards……while reading your explanation I got to thinking abt how else EA might be arranging ‘friendship tap play’…..Upto this point I thought no matter which icon you choose in a friends town to tap, you’ll receive the same numeric values……that is until now….so I ask kindly of you the following…..……preface……I try to be respectful as possible before posting, reading previous threads to be sure i wont be duplicating a question or comment. But may have here unintentionally……..for which I apologize in advance…..Anywhooooo
Would you be so kind as to explain or even layout (you do such a wonderful job w ur calendars’ during events) any differences in the cash returns on the Dollar sign, cash register, money stack, check/menu book, when tapping within a friends Springfield….?!?……are there differences in money amounts as is true in our own towns….……and do our friends get extra money or EX points on the ones we have tapped?!??……and if so which icon is best to tap?? As always thank you soooo much for keeping us informed…..
As far as neighbor taps, there is… or was a post here from waaaaaaaaaay back. As for payouts, that is impossible to say as it will depend on what YOUR multiplier in your town is. So what you get paid depends all on your Conform rating. Both in your town and while in Neighbors. It is something that would be WAY to time consuming to try and figure out with the thousands upon thousands of possibilities.
As for Vandalism, yes it impacts your Righteousness, however it is the ONLY way to get a payment out of those buildings. So for those that do not even mind, it becomes more of just a fun “tag you’re it” game. I personally like seeing the Bart Graffiti and have a ton of Training Walls, so it don’t bother me any bit.
As for the icons, that is all they are… icons. Just a fun thing to see instead of just a $$$ over everything. It is really up to you on what item you tap on. If you know it is a building that may take a long time to regenerate, tap on it… that will help your neighbor in the way it restarts the time on the collection and allows them to collect from the building on their side faster.
During an Event however, do NOT tap on any Building until you used all your daily allotted taps to collect Event Currency. Like right now Pacifiers from Bears first. (around 45-60 taps) Once you stop getting Pacifiers, you can then switch to building taps.
Wow. I’ve been playing for over a year and I never realized that tapping a spraycan was any different than tapping the other icons.
I won’t be doing THAT again… Thanks for the info!
I never knew that either! I feel horrible if I ticked any of my friends off! I won’t do it anymore either! Thanks for the info!!
Depends on the person. When I was first playing, I *liked* when people vandalized me, since it was the only way I could earn money and XP from those buildings. Later, when I no longer cared about the money that much, I just bought a bunch of training walls to counteract the effect and don’t really care one way or the other whether someone tags me or not. But, if you get neighbors from the Add Friends Who Pledge Not to Vandalize thread, of course you should never tag them.
My reaction exactly. And I’ve been playing since more than an year ! :/
At level 56 my righteousness rating was at 5 stars. When level 57 hit, it fell to 4.5 stars, but now I’m at level 58 and it’s back to 5 stars. I didn’t place any additional training walls in the meantime. There must be something missing from that equation!
I remember reading elsewhere on this blog that righteousness was also affected by your “criminal population and what tasks you send them on”, or something to that effect. I’m assuming this is not the case, though, or we wouldn’t keep getting side quests for Snake to rob the Kwik-E-Mart and so on.
Also, once Sideshow Bob appears in a town you’re in, how much time do you have to capture him before it affects your righteousness rating? When I get the message that Sideshow Bob has been spotted (in friends’ towns, I have him as a playable character in my own), I usually leave that town and go back in, so that the game will automatically direct me to him. So far it seems to have been working…
I have been playing for 1.5yrs, and have seen the occasional comment on “vandalizing,” but I had no idea what it was referring to, and didn’t really care. Now, though, I feel terrible that I never knew that it was a negative to tap on those spray cans! Always thought it was just “cute.” I’d venture to say that many who “vandalize” are like me; too busy with everything else in life to read threads, and so we remain ignorant until we do. I hope my own neighbors will forgive my ignorance. It has now been resolved. Thanks for the new update, and continuing to educate us players!
***
http://tstoaddicts.com/category/add-tsto-friends/
Has vandalism been removed? I don’t see it in the game anymore. I personally don’t care, even though now I know that righteousness takes a big hit. I’m not at 5 stars and idk if I want to spend the resources to get there…I’m so behind on building anyway.
See this post for more..
http://tstoaddicts.com/2015/07/23/the-great-donut-caper-missing-donuts-and-other-issues-with-springfield-heights/
While in other neighborhoods, do you make more money by tapping on the $, cash register, check/menu or stack of cash? Or does it make a difference?
Doesn’t make a difference.
Thank you Wookiee! B.
Have EA ever commented on vandalism? The information here cannot be complete, something must be missing – my friends vandalize me all the time and I never have to recover by building training walls etc. About twice a year my righteousness drops to half a star for some unknown reason but it’s always back to five stars within a week. My partner has exactly the same thing happening on her account and she’s played since launch.
Nope never anything from them
Silly me. I am still confused. Where do I sign up for vandalising neighbours (‘regular list’)? Could you put a hyperlink from this page and/or make the ‘regular list’ more obvious on the Add Friends page because I would so like not to see things like, ‘Sorry! I accidentally tapped on Moe’s when I was using my big toe to scroll thru Springfield.’ Thanks
Regular list is here
http://tstoaddicts.com/2015/06/17/add-friends-and-neighbor-eenos-4/
I’ve got your email, it’s just been a crazy week I haven’t had a second to read it. But i will look at tomorrow, I should have some time. 🙂
Graffit hasn’t seemed to have made an impact lately. I’ve gotten vandalized pretty often since the end of Terwilliger and have seen no change in my Righteousness rating. I’ve also vandalized a bit as well. Still nothing.
I’m level 18, and only have points from tapping SSB, maybe 10 times. Where else would I get points from? I’m wondering if there was a change in the game since then.
Cleaning a building when someone tags you. Otherwise you’ll have to wait until level 33 (I believe) when the training walls unlock to max it out.
HA, I thought it was awesome as my name is Bart and it was a great way of showing my friends I visited. I guess I won’t let them know about this ‘feature’ haha
do you think EA will ever get rid of this feture
No.
I have a question I didn’t see an answer to. What about the ring over film set and the head over the radio station/channel 6 , will these give any negatives or just Fp and money
Those are task icons. Like the dog on racetrack, channel 6 icons, ticket on moon bounce, crops over Cletus Farm. Just means that place has unique tasks for it that you can choose from.
So if I tap one in a friends town it will not give any negative effect or count as tagging?
Only spray paint cans
I don’t have a conform o meter….sorry to those of my friends I vandalized I didn’t know. I am new. I didn’t know it hurt people. I got no conform o meter. When do you get one anyhow? I am level 14 and got none
You’ve got one…it’s those stars in the bottom left of your screen 🙂
http://tstoaddicts.com/2013/09/03/conforming-to-ea-breaking-down-the-conform-o-meter/
http://tstoaddicts.com/guides-to-tsto/conform-o-meter/
From the description you give, it looks like Righteousness can take permanent hits from which it could never recover. For example, if I keep losing points for vandalism, all of the positive things I have built would eventually be doing nothing. So if I built a training wall, but got vandalised a few times, it would be like I had never built that wall. The negatives can keep happening, but there is only so much space for the positives. Is that correct?
Eh…in theory. But I can tell you I have about 20-30 walls in my Springfield and my rating as never taken a hit. And I get vandalized A LOT
I don’t think so…I have a theory that righteousness “dings” wear off eventually. When I was first playing the game, before I had any trading walls, my righteousness meter used to swing wildly…it would go from 5 stars down to 1 and then back up to 5 again over time, despite the fact that I was tagging and being tagged quite frequently. (I always welcomed tagging as a way to earn money on buildings that otherwise wouldn’t, especially early on in the game, when every dollar counted.)
Once I was further along and had the money to buy bunches of training walls the swings stopped, despite the fact that I was still getting vandalized and still sometimes vandalizing others. If, after hitting a new level, I see a drop, I just add another couple of training walls and I’m good. However, I have, on rare occasion, still seen the rating suddenly have one off those wild swings for no reason I can determine, but, over a few days, it always recovers. So, basically, I just don’t sweat it when it happens.
Has this been patched recently? I’ve been sitting on 3* righteousness for ages cause I don’t care about it and today had three buildings vandalised. After cleaning up the graffiti my righteousness rating is now 5*.
Nope still reads the same way in the files.
Please add me. I never vandalize. Play Daily.*********
Requests need to go on the Add Friends feed.
http://tstoaddicts.com/2015/01/28/add-friends-who-pledge-not-to-vandalize-you-part-8/
Smart! I learn new things every day.
Tikkeltjes
Hey, thank you for refer to this publication, is of great appreciation for me now that on the end of the game trying to understand some details to greater rewards of all kinds. The truth, I did not need to use much the dictionary to translate into Spanish as the article is very well explained and concise in content
–
[Oye, gracias por remitirme a esta publicacion, es de gran aprecio para mi ahora que sobre el final del juego trato de entender algunos detalles para obtener mejores recompensas de todo tipo. La verdad, no tuve necesidad de utilizar mucho el diccionario para traducir al español ya que el articulo esta muy bien explicado y conciso en su contenido]
You are welcome. 😉
Ahh, I see! Thanks for this post 🙂 I just saw someone’s very scary sounding comment on the Don Vittorio walkthrough and couldn’t understand why they were threatening their neighbours quite so harshly. I still don’t really see why the intense anger, as it is a bit of fun, but I suppose I do understand their frustration if their Rightiousness is low. I get an average amount of graffiti, every building every day, but I always have around 5 * Rightiousness. Sometimes it drops now and then, so now I know about the training walls I’m just going to build loads of them!!
OMG this is the first time I heard about vandalism, I though it was helpful to
spray paint a building, not harmful, well I won’t spray paint anyone’s building anymore. Although have not done it often in the past ,will stop altogether now. Ty for the info.
.
It’s both harmful AND helpful…. While it can be a hit to righteousness (for those folks who don’t have enough training walls), it’s also the only way to make money on those buildings (which can be important for those folks who don’t have a lot yet). So, IMO, whether or not to vandalize comes down to where you got your friends from- if they were from the “no vandalism” friends page, then never, ever intentionally vandalize them. I’d not, then I think it’s up to you whether you do (especially if those are the only untapped buildings they have left).
Man so criminal activity DOES affect righteousness! Snake will be sent to prison! Lol don’t worry he’s used to it: )
Please add me robinson3574 I am a daily player.
Did not know about the righteousness thing, thanks for the heads up 🙂
I want to say, “Thank you!” I had no idea sending criminals on tasks to do bad thing effected my Righteous rating. Also the tip about hiding training walls is awesome! Now I can keep my righteous rating at 5 stars easily.
🙂 Welcome
where are the training walls in the new build menu?
In Decorations.
How many “tags” are too many to be in the “No Tag” friends list? Japandeeros hit me three days in a row. Add this person at your own risk.
It’s all very well asking people not to vandalize but at least have a load of houses to tap on, some of my neighbours don’t have enough houses to neighbours. I give people a week, if I can’t tap on anything they’re gone. I have liars of houses, 50 – 60 at least.
The first thing I do when I go to a neighbours town or to Krustyland or even back to my own Springfield is to zoom out, i.e. make all the buildings look a bit smaller. One or two neighbours have a vandalisable (!?) building right in front of me when I visit them, occasionally I graffiti them by accident and feel bad for a while – I don’t mean it! I’ve decided not to feel bad, after all it’s (at least partly) their own fault, right? 😉
I’m going with no on their own fault, that being said accidents do happen: )