In this test, two streets in Alakol were flooded with pigs. This has happened before, during alpha testing, with pig farms and fountains, and was the source of much hilarity (and meat!) until the devs stepped in to remove pigs from overcrowded streets and then implemented the idea of sad animals in overcrowded conditions. I guess they somehow move themselves to the next street over, but if a pig cannot get off a rock then I'm not sure how they are ever going to walk over to a street sign.
I'm not sure why devs changed the game to not allow massive amounts of pigs on a street (unless it's about performance, which is a good thing) but I do think the current dealio needs some tweaking since it's rather a downer to come upon a street with 100 pigs that are freaking out.
I can only capture a pig from a given street once in a lifetime? Huh?
In attempting to help the sad pigs by moving them, I bought some pig bait and captured a pig. I knew I couldn't right then capture another pig, so I waited until the next game day to do so. I couldn't. I asked in Global and was told that you can only capture a pig from a given street once. Um, why? Now that we have 100s of sad pigs, this is not helpful.
Do sad pigs really have the ability to walk to the next street over?
If so... it doesn't seem to work. The pigs in Alakol were on a rock ledge which they could not get off of. So, do they then just die eventually if they get sad enough? How does this work?
You can heal a sad pig?
When I came back to the pig laden street, they were all happy again and I was told that people fed them and petted them back to happiness. Yet on a 3rd visit, they got sad again and I could not pet or feed any of them (menu items grayed out). So, how does this work?
If pigs don't like to be overcrowded, why not just prevent them from being dropped off on a crowded street rather than go through all this sadness sorrow stuff?
I mean, one or two pigs acting drunk and leaning against each other being sad is very funny to stumble across and easily rectified by removing one of them. Cool - witty and amusing.
But finding 100 pigs all depressed and suicidal is kinda sucky, especially since it's not clear what needs to happen to make them happy again.
Can we not have achievements foster downer behavior?
The idea of someone just sitting there creating 100 pigs that will just get sad to 'finish a quest' is annoying. There is no such quest, but there is an achievement for bringing 100 pigs to life (more or less) so I predict a future in which more players, eager to get all the achievements, drop 100 pigs on every street. How about not awarding the achievement if it was accomplished by doing something negative in the world, like overcrowding.
For example, you've been dropping 5 or 6 pigs on different streets throughout your life and then you reach 100 and you get an award. Yay, go you.
But someone else just makes 100 pigs on one street, causing overcrowding and sad sad piggies. Sorry! No achievement for you! Instead, you die. Sad.
Is this about performance or something else?
If the sadness trip was implemented for performance, then surely having 100 sad pigs on multiple adjoining streets is not really any different in flash than having just 100 pigs on a street who are not sad, right? So, what is the point again?
How about some sort of floating limit instead? Say up to 15 pigs can be dropped on a street, then some can get sad and wander off, but a hard limit if the street has 15-20 pigs on it and - sorry - no one can drop anymore pigs on that street, period. The pig just won't leave your bag. Or it does and goes up in a poof of smoke and you die for causing overcrowding, too.
Or let us be able to remove more than 1 pig from a given street to compensate for us now having sad pigs.
Pig bait fails sometime?
So, even on a street where I can capture a pig, sometimes the bait just fails but also gets used. Why? If the pig doesn't want the bait, then how about the bait not being used, plz? I have all AK skillz, so it's not about a lack of ability - the pig just refuses to be tied up while eating the bait. That's not fun. In fact, it makes want to say, 'screw you, pig, get sad, go ahead and jump then why don't you'.
Actually, maybe that would be the more amusing and simplest solution. If there are 100 pigs on a street and they all get sad, at least give us an animation where they all mass jump off the nearest cliff and kill themselves, flinging up mounds of meat as their parting hurrah. ;-)
Thanks for the listen!