Hey Howdy Hey Tappers!
Just a quick note…an in-game update hit and fixed a few issues. Along with the bug fixes it also dropped currency payouts for the Excavation Site and Dinosaurs tapped…
Excavation Site now pays out 36 
per square you did (instead of 42) and the dinosaurs now pay out 5 when tapped (instead of 7). It also lowered the Specimen and Techyon payouts from the Dig Site as well.
It also changed the you can earn from the Daily Challenges, lowered each group by a few hundred.
Looks like EA saw players were completing it quickly and adjusted accordingly. Still very doable, just keep doing what you were doing!
If EA can change the currency that quick, why can’t they do something with the mountain region, they are blanked out in my Springfield but not in nights?
I already unlocked all the prizes for this act so I don’t blame them for lowering the payout. This one was a lot easier to win the prizes or maybe it’s because I spend up booberella’s task more than I thought.
And just so everyone knows Caveman Moe (who you unlock as the final prize along with his cave) is a separate character. He is not a skin for regular moe.
Yes i covered that here
http://tstoaddicts.com/2017/05/31/addicts-question-corner-ttt-prehistoric-era/
You know not everyone has hordes of donuts from farming or can log 6 or 7 times a day.
Some of us just casually play the game for fun and have these things that get in the way, like jobs and a life…
Is this a reply to me? I don’t have hordes of donuts. I spend actual money on this game regularly. I also have a full time job. Please don’t assume crap. I just noticed that this event has been easier to earn prizes. Usually I am not finished this fast.
Ok fair enough Steve, but I can assure you that there will be a lot of players who are no where near to having all the prizes. So lowering the payouts is not good news for them.
Not everyone can afford to spend money on the game like yourself but EA certainly needs players like you.
EA sets up this game such that everyone (except for low-level players) can complete events by the last day without spending any money, as long as they’re willing to check in four times a day (sometimes even three will do it), at least four hours apart. If it looks like the average player will finish before the last day, they decrease currency or do something else to slow things down. If it looks like the average person isn’t gonna finish I time, they increase the drop rate.
The real problem for Act 1 is when someone gets a late start. That’s why people tend to miss the first act prize more than the others.
I buy scratch R’s so don’t play the “I spend actual money” card.
Dude if you’re already finished there’s no way you don’t play at work. I have a 100 friends and not one is over 45,000 shells. Most are around 30,000. Just because you play all day and all night doesn’t mean it’s easy for the rest of us.
I do not play at work. I was able to earn quickly by speeding up Booberella’s task. Did not take a lot of donuts. I’m sure I didn’t spend more than 100 donuts doing. Not only do you earn the shovels, you earn seashells each time so it really speeds up the process. All I’m saying is this event has been the easiest one to win prizes. In no other event was I able to complete it so quickly without spending a massive about of donuts. That is all.
Y’all might trying storming the Darwin fish and placing it again. Something helpful occurs.😮
Thanks for the hint! This also works if you store/retreive the baby dinosaur.
Excellent tip – thanks! 😀
I did it. Nothing happened
Boo-urns! EA Boo-urns!
Changing the rules in the middle of the game!!!
I can’t play while at work so I only get to log in 2-3 times a day and now I will not get everything 🙁
Shame on you EA!
Boo-urns indeed!! 😡
It definitely is an annoying move. Like you said, not everyone can stick to a 4-hour schedule or pull an all-nighter just to get ahead…so why not keep levels where they are, instead of punishing players because some are ahead of the game?
“Hey, Bob, looks like some people are getting farther ahead in the event than we expected.”
“Really? Well, decrease currency for taps and tasks!”
“But it’s only some of the players…”
“DECREASE THE CURRENCY!”
I know. 95% of us get punished because the other 5% can’t put their iPhone down
I’m someone who can log in every 4 hours, from around 6-8am until 10pm. But…I’m on track with the calendar here, mostly due to the fact that I can’t always keep that schedule. I totally feel for those that can’t even do that. And in my defense, I don’t think I’m among the “way too far ahead crowd”; just saying I’m probably in the middle…able to keep up with some wiggle room.
On track is definitely not way too far ahead.
Some people are actually finished the prize track
Oh, please…nobody’s being punished, and they don’t decide things based on what just 5% of the players do. Plenty of times they’ve increased the currency drop when they see that folks are struggling. As long as you play three or four times a day (at least four hours apart), you should normally be able to get everything from the prize tracks.
My motto, which had almost always worked is, “Trust EA.” people always freak out at the beginning of every event and most of them end up coming out just fine.
And for those who got a late start, remember for next time that major events always require a app store install, so either check the app store every day, or, better (since sometimes on iOS you don’t see the upgrade unless you uninstall/reinstall), subscribe to this blog, so you get an email when a post comes out alerting us that there’s a new event! 🙂
“Trust EA”
That’s rich! Do you work for them or something?
EA has a proven history in the gaming industry well outside of Tapped Out for doing what’s best for them, not for the customers. They didn’t win the award for most evil company multiple years for nothing.
I play 3 times a day, have purchased grave digger billy and still only have 35,000 shells. No way I’m going to get everything.
I wish some of you hardcore players would realize that not all of us casual players find these events easy especially when they decrease the payouts. 😞
I’ve been saying that for years. If you don’t log in every 4hrs at least 4 times a day you aren’t going to get everything. If you have all of the premium characters you can get away with logging in 2-3 times a day.
But it is a grind for casual players, it always has been. The difference between this game and say Family Guy the Quest for Stuff, is you can earn everything without spending money…but in exchange for the free aspect you have to grind like hell. In Family Guy you can grind like hell and you still won’t get everything if you don’t spend money.
When I say, “trust EA,” I’m not ascribing altruistic motives to them, I’m saying that they’re very good at recalibrating during events to make things go according to the goal they started with.
From what I can tell, it you play completely freemium, most major events are calibrated such that they can be successfully completed with 4 visits a day (maybe with an occasional day of only 3 visits). That’s the level of “casual” they have in mind. (Keep in mind that, for event purposes, a “visit” can take literally less than five minutes…longer, if you’re resetting your whole town, of course.) If that level of commitment isn’t what someone is looking for, they can still play, but they just might not get everything.
Think of the time spent playing as the “price” for getting stuff. If I’m not willing to spend $100 for a particular pair of shoes, then those shoes aren’t for me. I don’t complain that the manufacturer is “evil” for not making them less expensive. Obviously, there are enough people willing to pay that particular price that it makes the game/shoes profitable for the manufacturer. If they ask too much, then people won’t pay and the manufacturer goes out of business.
So, it’s in EA’s best interest to make sure that they keep the kinds of players that they’ve determined are most profitable (by not asking too much of them), while not giving away the store just to keep some additional, but less profitable, players. Nothing to do with altruism, everything to do with profit.
UK kindlers ALWAYS get updates late, doesn’t matter how often Yer check. On average its around 48 hours after going live,this time was closer to 80. So don’t assume its always down to the player not stalking app updates.
Well its 4am, Tuesday 6th, just off to find calendar to see how far my 32117 Puts me.
PS not normally awake at this time, but got belly ache, n not just about the game 😉
That’s unfair and they really should fix it. Not even sure why that is to begin with, either.
@Sandrashill
I do spend money on the game. I buy Scratch R’s.
And as for EA being “evil” it’s a consumer voted title they earned multiple years, not something I’m making up. Google it if you like.
EA makes a lot console games outside of Tapped Out and have P.Oed a lot of their customers of the years with underhanded business practices mostly with DLC. You pay $60-$70 for a game then hold the best parts back to force you to buy the DLC. All games now have DLC but most companies offer it as extra or bonus add on to your game. I’ve seen EA games that you couldn’t properly complete without buying the DLC for as much as $50. You already paid $70 for the games. That’s just greedy. So your “pair of shoes” analogy doesn’t really work for this. Imagine if paid $100 for shoes only to realize you need to pay another $50 for the heels and straps.
Again I do spend money on the game (I bought grave digger billy to help with the event) and I don’t mind because I got the game for free. But I do mind when they lower the pay out when I was barely keep up because I have a job where I cannot spend 5-10 mins every 4 hours playing a game on my phone.
I wasn’t commenting I EA’s practices with any other games. I’m not defending EA as a company. And I never said you don’t spend money on the game. I’m just saying that this game was designed for people who can check in every four hours, at least four times a day. If you can’t, and it bothers you that that means that you can’t get all of the prizes, then this game isn’t for you. That’s all I’m saying.
See, I was keeping up, until they changed the currency payout. THATS what bothered me.
And just because you’re a hardcore player who cannot relate to other players issues doesn’t give you the right to say who this game is or isn’t for.
*I’m* not saying who the game is our isn’t for….*EA* is by the way they design the game. (And, actually, I didn’t even say that….I only said that EA designs the game so that, to get all of the prizes, you have to log in at least four times a day…if someone is fine with possibly not getting them all, then the game can still be for them, even if they play less often.)
Believe it or not, I’m not all that “hardcore” a player…I only make collections of the four-hour stuff four times a day (not five, like plenty of folks), and I’ve probably spent less than $70 over almost three years I’ve been playing. I don’t set alarms during the night to tap stuff, like some people do. I only have one town, not multiple towns, like some people. I’d say I’m a fairly dedicated tapper, but not in the “hardcore” category. Actually, in terms of frequency, I’d say that I’m the “average” of what what EA is looking for (although they’d probably prefer that I spent mote money, lol!)
And I totally understand why you would be upset with the change…it certainly must feel frustrating to be on pace and then not to be. My only point was that EA was making an adjustment to bring the game back in line with their four-visits-a-day plan, just as they’ve adjusted the drop rates upward when, in previous events, it’s looked like four visits a day wasn’t going to be sufficient. My bottom line message is only that that’s what EA aims for, so one needs to play with that in mind and either met that goal (at least most days) or accept that one may not get everything from the prize track.
(The good news is that, if you come close, sometimes you can rush the final item by spending just a few donuts – much fewer than if you had to buy the prize outright, later.)
Hi,
Sorry didn’t know where to ask this.
Since this event started has anyone else experienced their neighbours have mostly stopped visiting their town?
It’s odd because I had some really excellent neighboureenos which visited me almost every day previous to this event.
I now realise there’s a cap for collecting fossils from neighbours and I think it’s set at 90 friend actions a day because I visited 30 neighbours yesterday and received fossils and specimens by tapping on dinos in their respective towns but then switched to just collecting friend points if I visited any more.
Does it help my neighbours with this particular event if I visit them or not?
I’m not sure.
Mille grazie
I don’t think that they have stopped visiting, there is just no record of their visit during this event. When you tap dinosaurs in a neighbor’s town, no icon appears in their town for them (or you) to see. So, they are probably still coming by…you just can’t see it.
During this event, you can’t tell when neighbors have visited you, and it didn’t benefit your neighbours to visit them – it only benefits you. But on the plus side, during the event, you can harvest all of your buildings as often as you’d like, because you don’t have to worry about leaving something for your neighbors to tap.
You’re best neighbors are more than likely still visiting, just no easy way for you to tell. But as a freemium player, I need to visit every day to keep up with the calendar. And if you are freemium too, then keep visiting. Every tap helps you collect needed items. Getting back to your neighbors, they are tapping the dinos also. As far as I can tell, this event does not help neighbors like some in the past, but this is two sided- it gives people a chance to dig out non-playing neighbors (the ones who just don’t seem to clear their buildings). All neighbors are useful in this event 🙂
you won’t see you neighbour visit since they tap dinosaur instead of building. I continued visiting them past the event limit because they still give doughnuts .
For benefit from being visited I did not see any
Your neighbours are probably still visiting you, however as you can only tap dinosaurs, not buildings, you no longer see who has visited you. Sadly, there is no benefit to your neighbours from you visiting during this event.
Visiting neighbors won’t do anything for them in this event. Most likely your neighbors have been visiting your Springfield but you won’t know it because you don’t receive anything from them.
Thanks for all the helpful replies.
🙂
It won’t even let me play. Uninstalled and installed 10 times.
Another note from this update- they “fixed” the turtle tap mini-game from the chili pot. 1 tap per turtle now.
This makes me sad. I’ll still do it because I use it as my eight hour timer to remind me to go to Krustyland to pop those balloons. I only get around 20 turtles now.
It’s what happened that? I was wondering why I was suddenly so much worse at that game than I used to be, lol!
Thanks for the explanation. I was wondering what had happened. I thought something was wrong with my tapping finger.
I got the baby TRex already thanks to the fellow tapper and his/her 6×6 grid.
Should I save my shovels or keep digging?
You still get other game currency…I got Baby Rex a few days ago, but I will continue to excavate until all the other prizes (and crafting) are finished.
But once you get baby t-rex, should one’s strategy change to trying NOT to find the gem, to maximize getting as many fossils as possible?
No… You get a reward for every space you dig, yes, but think of it as one reward for each shovel you spend – find the gem and you still get one reward for each shovel spent in the next dig…
Thank you! I really needed someone to help me think this through, especially since I now have baby t-rex. 🙂
Keep digging until you earn CaveMan Moe ……… then horde your shovels for the next act
I’ve lost my addict status on this event. To put it simply… I wish it was more… FUN. I don’t want to stress about getting everything, and the event feels very complicated and confusing. The items we can buy with in game cash or donuts… there are just too many options. Still a big fan of the game, but I’m becoming less interested in these events. Anyways… good luck to you all!
Did anyone else lose almost all their in game cash with this update? I had 10 million dollars and then I logged on this morning and now I have 159,000???? I’m emailing EA but jist wondering if anyone else had the same thing happen?
If you did the mini game some of the events cecil goes on cost 4-10 million dollars
It seems that this update also should of fixed the bug of not awarding the 1000 specimens in the Act 1 prizes.
I’m really struggling with keeping up with the calendar. i tap every dinosaur use my freemium characters for the shovels and i am digging like crazy plus i visited every neighbor. but i have just earned a little more than 2500 currency after two rounds. how am i supposed to reach 6000 without 5 or 6 log ins? am i doing something wrong? it has never happened to me and ea’s new update is not helping me a lot for obvious reasons.
Well that sucks! Normally we see EA raise stuff to help us… not reduce it. Not everyone can tap every four hours all day and night. Some of us need our beauty sleep! And yes some of us even work!!!
Boo-urns. 🙁
I agree, there was no need for EA to reduce the payouts. Not sure but as a freemium player I may struggle to finish this event in time, will be tight.
I guarantee you it’s because of the bonuts. They’re getting super-stingy with those lately.
Out of curiosity, how are they getting stingy? You can still farm as you always good for them. Every time they changed the XP amount for leveling up people complained and they lowered it again. There are still a TON of options to earn bonuts in the game (Monorail, Maggie etc). And they have them with this event after the prize track. There have been events where there were no bonuts..so just trying to figure out how they’re getting super stingy with them lately..
The Xp Collider in my Springfield got involved in the update, I lost the 10 days charge i bought 2 days ago, still what’s upsetting me the most is that i tapped all the 30 kems in my donuts factory befere realizing that i was losing Xp … “oooooh, look, EA changed the color of the xp letters … nice!” 🙁
???… No loss of charge or color change there…
… just when I thought I was going to be okay 😞
Hey, I think they should have made the items more expensive.
Who’s with me
Love the Dino icon – Du-oh! (Cringe) they reduced he payouts!
thought it was fitting lol
Can’t wait to get my own baby Dino 😊
Since this update, I can’t visit neighbors or Krustyland. The game crashes. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling. 🙁
Ohhh… problem fixed. Uninstall, HARD close, reinstall. Alissa’s explanation of corrupted file in an earlier post was VERY helpful.
This is kinda … … jerk-y of them, and they’ve done it before. Would be nice of them to recognize that the slight increase helps players who can’t log in every 4 hours. Curious to know the percentage that is ahead vs everyone else.
I’d bet money that they’d change it back at some point lol
Yeah…guess if they hear enough on the forums (and maybe here, since we know they creep the site 🙂 )
Yup, they still tweek all the way along. We would think by now, considering the same format, that they would have the rhythm pegged by now from the starting gate.
Yep, l think there is a good chance they will. Especially through the dino stage as usually we get a bit of help in parts 2 & 3 anyhow, with more characters collecting items etc.
Will have to be quick though !!!
Man, you are really on top of things, Alissa! This site is humming along like a well-oiled machine! 🙂
My update just hit and created problems…..no dinosaurs in my town at all (last time I played was approx 8 hrs ago so there should be some) and excavation site isn’t allowing me to dig!!! Good old EA! Once again, they release a fix because they screwed up and then they screw up the fix! it’s 2am now and way too late to sort it so I hope they fix this bug by the time I awake!
I think mine is slightly broken on this too. Very few of them and i swaer the press has reset its timer at least twice
Boo!
They only just got me caught up to the questline. I’m now right at the point where the glitch hit me on day one. I’m a little afraid to tap in a couple hours in case it happens again.
Now they’ve reduced the payout because “some” players are ahead. Not fair.
Off topic: I have been getting re-routed from a pop up ad on the blog and finally remembered to get a screenshot of it before closing the window and reopening in a new one. First screenshot is what popped up initially, second one is what showed up when I went to swipe the browser window closed.
https://flic.kr/p/VqaMo4
https://flic.kr/p/Ubv98c
WordPress always tells me when these start popping up it’s related to malware on your device. But ill submit them and see what they say
I’ve been getting them, too. And only here. Load the page, start reading the first story…and randomly, I’ll get one of these.
Go to any other page, nothing. Can go and read something else for a while without a pop-up.
Come back here…bam! Pop-up that I have to close the browsing window completely to eradicate.
So…let WordPress know that, too 🙂
Yeah – I’ve got gotten a couple of these in the last day or two (for the first time on this device?), too. Super annoying, and something WordPress should never allow to happen. (Seriously doubt it’s malware, either, since it only happens on this site, on my iPad.)
Wonder if it’s an ios thing
Maybe…sounds like the are folks who reporting it here seem to mention having one, when the mention what type of device they have. It’s happened to me several times today (not always the exact same ad, but same general thing) and it’s pretty annoying. Thank you for reporting it (again), though. Maybe if they get enough complaints at the same time, they’ll investigate this time.
I’ve been getting those recently too, and only when I’m on here. (I use my iPhone, if that helps narrow anything down)
You should mention that it wouldn’t appear to be malware on the device – if it was, surely it would be affecting more than just this site.
I have, over and over again. But ive reported it again.
I’ve been getting something similar but saying I’ve been selected to trial iPhone 7 or something. No way to get rid of it except for ditching the browser window.
I’m using an iPad. Only happens on these pages. Latest version of iOS.
This is happening to me too, but only when I visit this site.
Me, too. Only here.
EA you are not fair play. Booooooh EA. I am ahead but I play during the night as well!
Not everyone was ahead of the calendar … 😢
I’m a full day or more ahead on the calender on my A, B and C games. Not worried.
Well EA, that really blows!
Because real life issues has the audacity to interfere with my routine of tapping several times a day, I didn’t think I’d be able to keep up with the event. But was pleased when I saw the payouts were allowing me to stay on track. Now with the change maybe I won’t be able to.
Do you know if the visiting friends payouts changed too?
I don’t think so but i didn’t to check lol
Boooo EA👎👎
Daily Challenges : 1625 to 1100.
I lost 500 event currency 😭
Boo – I didn’t get started until Thursday so I was enjoying catching up! Fingers crossed I still can!