Topic

Frustration with Firefly Catching

Is anyone else as frustrated as I am with the inconsistency of catching fireflies? It seems that maybe half of the time I can catch a full jar in the first try, but other times it takes more tries. Once it took me 4 tries to catch a full jar out of a swarm of 11 fireflies. The amount of energy needed to collect fireflies and the success rate of collecting them outweighs the profit of the fireflies (from making bricks or crystals). Unless an update is coming soon that makes fireflies go up in demand, I don't see any point in making this resource so difficult to obtain in the long run.

Posted 9 months ago by Foodfight Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • You'll get better luck if the firefly are smaller

    One thing they could implement to make the whole thing more fun is "interactive" catching
    Like, helping the fireflies go into the jar by moving your mouse around (or keyboard arrows)
    Posted 9 months ago by Lemo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Some fireflies in some swarms can get buggy btw, in that they will fly in strange or small patterns and refuse to be caught. If there aren't enough unbugged fireflies in a swarm that you're whistling at, you'll lose the max energy (65) while whistling in vain :\

    I tend to report the buggy 'flies with an in-game bug report when I encounter them, but they come back now and again.
    Posted 9 months ago by Millie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • We will look into this.
    Posted 9 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Lol, I always just figured this was cause "whistling is hard work." I have over 300 jars collected and the only time there's real problems is with a swarm you try to collect from more than once. I.E. you just caught some fireflies, filled your jar, and then you try to do so again with a new jar on the same swarm.

    Every once in a while if someone else just collected from a swarm you won't be able to do so with much success right away. 

    Also the fireflies drift from their swarm spawn point to wherever a whistler is standing, so you may see the fireflies well away from where the swarm point is actually located. This can cause some confusion I imagine since generally you need to be where the swarm originates while whistling in order to catch them. But it's probably even more confusing when two swarms originate relatively near each other, since the fireflies from point A are hovering over point B which has just been emptied. You see fireflies at your current location but they belong to a different swarm. You may not be able to catch any fireflies where you're standing when this is the case.
    Posted 9 months ago by Moehr Ossum Subscriber! | Permalink
  • One thing I noticed was if you positioned your jar off to the left of a swarm, it works very well for me about 80% of the time. It definitely was not effective whenever I positioned the jar directly below a swarm.
    Posted 9 months ago by TomC Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yeah, there's been a consistent bug of fireflies flying to the right of where we see the jars since a while back :\

    Also, try jumping towards the swarm so that the mouth of the jar is just under/at the bottom of the swarm that you're whistling at. The shorter the distance they have to fly to the invisible jar that's to the right of the image of the jar, the more likely you'll catch the fireflies.
    Posted 9 months ago by Millie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Also if you see one or two of them that are Much brighter than the rest they won't be caught either.  Best idea is count to see if there's 7, try once to catch them if there are, then move on.  You can use partial jars to make blocks or bricks with, can't remember right off hand which it is.
    Posted 9 months ago by BlackWolf Subscriber! | Permalink
  • count if there's at least seven, then open the firefly a little to the left of the center of swarm.
    Posted 9 months ago by AwesomeCardinal2000 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I can't tell you how many times I've died while catching fireflies. I agree that there should be a more efficient way to do this.
    Posted 9 months ago by ☠ lala512 ☠ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The people replying have supplied a lot of inconsistent info as to how best catch them. It would seem to me that this confirms a lack of understanding as to what is that best method. To me, there shouldn't be a "best-method." There should be one method that works all the time and every time. I may be wrong, but I believe firefly catching is the only resource gathering activity that involves a not-100%-chance of actually getting the resource or not. The closest thing to this is mining, where you are at least guaranteed ores every time, but the number you harvest for each attempt is varied.

    I kind of like Lemo's idea of making it interactive, but I'm not sure if it could be incorporated into the game without changing the current mechanic drastically. I also somewhat like the whistling to lure the fireflies and the quest to gain a firefly whistle. It's very Glitchesque. Perhaps whistling could allow the Glitch to control the jar and move it around like a net, capturing the fireflies. This makes the harvest based entirely on the player's control and not dumb luck.

    Any other ideas?

    Thanks to the Glitch staffers for considering this!
    Posted 9 months ago by Foodfight Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Firefly catching is a breeze for me every time. If there's seven, I always get it full.
    Posted 9 months ago by AwesomeCardinal2000 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Actually like the inconsistency of it, makes it more of a challenge than just running up to a barnacle and knowing you're always going to get one.
    Maybe a whistling skill that cuts the energy by half could be added ?
    It would really make the skill one that you'd "want" to get but not need to have.
    Posted 9 months ago by BlackWolf Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Btw, I would love to press [enter] and get a firefly menu, instead of searching for a jar each time^^
    Posted 9 months ago by Lemo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm using the search hotkey to find my jars now
    However, it would be neat to have "Empty Firefly Jar" & "Firefly Jar" as item names
    so people could search for "empty"
    edit: nvm it seems to be sorted by number already :]
    Posted 9 months ago by Lemo Subscriber! | Permalink