FarmVille Prize Pigs Arrive: Problems & solutions for Prize Pig farming

Perhaps you've gotten bored with breeding Dragons and Unicorns and want to try your luck in something more traditionally agricultural on your FarmVille farm. How about rearing piglets with high hopes of raising the talk of the town Prize Pig? Well, you're in luck because FarmVille recently introduced a new Prize Pig feature that is now widely available to all players.

May I remind you that this new feature is completely optional and it's your decision to participate or not. If you're up for the challenge, then simply place the Prize Pig Scale on your farm to get started. Note, you can only have one Prize Pig feature across all of your FarmVille farms. There's no need to collect materials or dread another construction project because this feature is ready to go as soon as it is placed on your farm. Here's a quick look at the Prize Pig basics. (A more detailed guide on the Prize Pig feature can be found here.)

Growing a Prize Pig

Regular FarmVille pigs do not apply and can't be used in this feature. No worries. Everyone will receive a free Prize piglet for starters. To summarize, the Prize Pig feature allows you to partner up with one of your FarmVille neighbors as you work on feeding special piglets with as much Pig Chow as you can in one week or until they've been fed one hundred Pig Chow. If you prefer to work alone that's fine too, but remember recruiting a friend to help can speed up the process of growing a Prize Pig because you will be able to collect more Pig Chow faster if working together.

Then, it's time for the weigh-in, the ultimate test of your labor of love. The faster you are able to fatten up your piglet, the bigger it will become or the more it will weigh. Fattening up your pig fast is an incentive for better rewards. The bigger your Prize Pig, the better the rewards. Rewards include consumables such as Turbo Charges, Unwithers, and new varieties of Prize Pigs. Remember, if you are able to collect one hundred Pig Chow before the seven days expire, you are eligible to weigh in instantly.

The Real Weigh-in

First off, the Prize Pig feature has potential to be great, but there are some pesky flaws that are haltering all the fun. So far, the new feature has been negatively received by the majority of players who are finding it more of a hindrance than good times and here's why.

Too much Chow

The amount of one hundred Pig Chow required to raise a single Prize Pig is excessive, even for players with active neighbors. The interval of time that you are allowed to request Pig Chow is also too long. Crafting Pig Chow for your piglet is a more daunting task as it involves crafting the Pig Chow recipe in your Craftshop, which takes even more time and yields a low return. Easy solution. Lower the amount of Pig Chow needed or at least make it giftable so that we can send and receive it via the FarmVille Gifting Page.

Partner Problems

The success of raising a hefty Prize Pig largely depends on the effort of your partner as well. This means that if your partner gives up or forgets about the commitment to raising your joint piglet, fattening it up for the weigh-in is now your sole responsibility. Not a fan of group projects where you're left doing most the work? Raising a Prize Pig alone is a not a good option either because it leaves the collecting of Pig Chow entirely up to one person which is all the more difficult.

This is a social feature meant to engage neighbor interaction and friend help, which can be a good thing but it's certainly unfair when your partner fails to do their part. One of the things that Zynga has done to help is by making sure that the Prize Pig partner requests aren't going to your FarmVille inbox. This prevents neighbors from unknowingly accepting partnerships that they have no intention of participating in. Good call here. What about the ability to add more Prize Pig partners instead of just one? It takes a village.

Annoying Notice

The Prize Pig feature probably has one of the most annoying in-game meters or notification signs that can be found hovering over any Prize Pig placed on your farm. It's a huge pink eyesore that you are unlikely to miss. Not only is it annoying, it actually interferes with its surrounding areas that may put a damper on any farming tasks located nearby. Easy fix- get rid of it and replace it with something smaller and less intrusive.

The initial feedback from players has been largely negative and players have been slow to take up ventures in raising a Prize Pig, adding to the difficulty of participating in this feature. Less people raising Prize Pigs, means less Pig Chow shared on the Facebook News Feed. This leaves those players attempting to raise Prize Pigs struggling and frustrated. Hey Zynga, why not improve this feature from the start and try to salvage a feature that could be much more enjoyable to existing Prize Pig farmers and more appealing to those unwilling to try it out?

What do you think of the FarmVille Prize Pig feature? How would you improve it? Leave your suggestions in the comments below. Add Comment.

Angela Morales created and manages FarmVille Freak, the largest FarmVille fan site, which provides news, tips and in-game updates for Zynga's Facebook farm game as it happens. She is also the co-author of FarmVille For Dummies book. Yes, it exists.