I am basically in complete agreement with most ppl. I do NOT like the changes in the 12/22 update. Some of us have families & jobs & can not spend close to 2 hrs at a time trying to farm. I have been playing since the beginning & actually took a break from the game for a while because it took so long to work a full farm before the queing was introduced. Then the Devs gave us that great gift & I came back & fell in love with the game all over. Some of us have to log in on our lunch breaks or between dealing with personal life stuff to get as much done as possible on our beautiful farms. We don't have time to wait 45 mins or longer for our employee to harvest & plow just so we can start planting again. Now in saying that...YES, I know that I could hire more than one person to work on my farm to speed up the process, but I prefer to hire neighbors as I am guilty of being greedy for one, plus I enjoy hiring my neighbors to help friends out that are saving for the same things I am. I do hire from the market on occasion but mostly from my neighbor list. In my opinion that's kinda the perks of being my facebook/farm town buddy, we work together & help each other. We enjoy getting together & chatting. When I hire from the marketplace, we don't usually talk which in turn makes the long process of the new update even more boring.
I really like the idea that a few people ahead of me brought up about allowing the amount of employees you can hire to be based on the size of farm you have if that's possible. It gives you something to work towards, just like when you first start you can't use all the plow options, or you have to have so many neighbors before you can hire. You'll have to earn it. So then we won't run into the situation of having the smallest size farm with 10 people all trying to work on it. But don't make it so a huge 2 farm player can only hire one or two people. If you get hired & don't want to work with that many people, leave & go back to the market place, you only lost a minute or less of your time. I personally have been one of the people that has lost coins & xp and to tell you the truth that really didn't bother me personally. I can see how others might be upset & I don't hold that against them. I have a gaming tower, keyboard & mouse that I have spec'd for my hard core mmorpg's with a speedy connection. It is most likely my own fault that I lost out on coins & xp for being skilled at fast farming, I have no issues personally with being punished for that by the small amount of loss I may receive, but I am NOT pleased with being punished for it by having to play the game at a snails crawl. When I work on a farm that has many other employees there also, I pick a corner do a few rows, say thank you & move on. I know that their are others out there that may plot steal but those of us that don't shouldn't have to feel tempted to leave the game because of the changes that were made to try to solve that.
I know that most people say, "It's a free game, just relax". Well some of us actually donate to the game through paypal on a reg basis to buy FarmCash, so when I think about all the real life money we have spent on a game that we may no longer have the time to play is rather heart breaking. I had decided to leave the game again due to this so I am very GRATEFUL that you are changing it back so I can stay. We don't mind donating to help support a game that we enjoy playing but if it's a chore to log & get our crops before they rot, then we won't enjoy it & will not continue to play. It was nice to see the Devs attempt to try something else to fix the problems, but the bad out weighs the good this time. It's great that the Devs are willing to listen to us & revert back when need be, unlike most of the other apps on facebook...kudos to you!!

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