FarmVille Sheep and Pig Breeding Conga Line: Fantastic or flop?

Alright, so Zynga releases a helluva lot of updates to its games every week, namely FarmVille. Some are awesome, large and in charge, but others are either too small or too complex, at least according to the players. The company's most recent update would probably fall somewhere between "large"and "complex" given that it changes the interface and interactivity of a feature considerably. Do you think the Sheep Breeding Conga Line was awesome, or was it a bummer? We'll let you answer that in the comments, but let's go to the first source of knee-jerk reactions and judgment--the forums!--for a communal perspective, shall we?

Ew, it does not look pretty in there. While there were some responses of joy and acceptance regarding the new feature, most players appear furious, disappointed, generally irate--it's not good, folks. The first response in the thread, by contributor RobToro, reads, "Great for those who still bother with breeding after all we have been through. I'm done with it though. Have fun, guys."

Another response, 16 pages later, reads that it's simply too slow. "I totally agree that it is too slow," writes Silke_farming. "I usually look only at the first four sheep it shows because it takes about one minute (!) until it moves just one sheep forward." Some players even estimated that the feature just plain didn't work refusing to breed patterns outlawed by Zynga. FarmVille community manager Grimwell didn't take kindly to that talk, so he provided this clarifying statement:

    It's working properly. Let me pull back the curtain a little and hopefully make sense of it. You have sheep that aren't patterns we released. You got them from your feed in legit ways and we aren't about to take them away - but we also aren't going to release them for breeding. To get them you have to put values on a sheep that don't jive with the breeding system - what you see is the code freaking out.

    You can't breed those because the server checks when you breed and says "That there is a bad value, reject it!" and prevents the lambs from getting that way. The Conga Line does not use that server check. It would be unnecessary overhead and make performance dip some. Instead it shows you the invalid offspring, saving the performance/network check. It won't breed true though.

    I didn't mention this in the video because most folks have no idea what we are talking about. They don't read the forums and it would have confused the heck out of them. Feel free to point anyone at this note if ya need! Oh, bonus note! I'll give your feedback on getting some Rams that aren't white in the Market. No promises, but you will be heard!

FarmVille: Sheep and Pig Mastery now available

If you've been stocking up on pigs and sheep in FarmVille with the knowledge (or even just hope) that the FarmVille team would launch pig and sheep mastery in the game, your wait is over. Now, if you're wondering how exactly this will work with the literally thousands of possibilities for different kinds of pigs and sheep to be bred in the game, let me calm your fears: this doesn't result in the addition of an equal number of mastery signs; rather, the system is pretty straightforward, once you get past the "rules."

Basically, there are two sets of both sheep and pigs that determine which kind of mastery sign you'll earn. In Sheep Breeding, for an example, if the animal is specifically labeled as a Ram or Ewe, it's considered a "Sheep Pen Ram" or "Sheep Pen Ewe," which makes sense. All Sheep Pen Rams and Sheep Pen Ewes are combined into those two categories and work cumulatively towards a pair of mastery signs. That is, if you have a a purple Ewe on one farm and a pink or yellow Ewe on another farm (or even those with patterns), when harvesting them, they'll all be treated equally, working towards the same mastery sign.

This entire process is replicated when it comes to pigs. If it's a Boar or Sow, it works towards cumulative breeding pig mastery signs. On the other hand, if the animal is a basic pig or basic sheep that can be purchased from the store and doesn't immediately relate to breeding (some examples being a Party Pig, Grape Sheep, Polka Dots Sheep and so on), these do have their own individual signs, giving you plenty of additional signs to work towards.

As you might have guessed, the amount of mastery points required for these cumulative breeding signs are fairly substantial. In the case of pigs, the Pig Pen Boar sign's first star comes at 467 harvests, while the Pig Pen Sow's first star is earned after 588 harvests. For sheep, the Ewe sign's first star is earned at 840 harvests, while the first Ram star is acquired at 560 harvests.

Keep in mind, while pig and sheep mastery is fairly exciting, we still haven't seen the launch of Calf and Foal mastery in the game. That too is "coming soon," and we'll make sure to let you know when it launches in full.

Will you breed more sheep and pigs just to earn these new mastery signs? Will you purchase additional sheep or pigs from the store? Sound off in the comments.