All about “Hopping”

[Nevada]

There’s been a lot of talk about hopping over the last few months. Some love it, some hate it, and many seem reluctant to talk about it at all. But here we have it - a place on the forum to learn about/discuss hopping.
Please remember everyone’s opinion is valid.
It has been confirmed that Playrix don't consider hopping to be against the fair play policy.

What is “hopping”?
Hopping is when, instead of staying in your co-op during Interseasonal Week and getting just one set of rewards, you temporarily leave your co-op and 'hop' from one to another and collect co-op goal rewards each time. So, you accept an invite to a hop co-op, your new team reaches the final goal (which should only be 17 tasks in total), you all grab the rewards, then you leave again. That's it.

So how does it actually work?
There are two main roles in hopping - the “Guest”, and the “Host”.

The Guest.
•Leave normal co-op after collecting previous race rewards.
•Once “Hop Week” starts, wait for invites.
•Click on an invite to see who sent it.
•Join co-op. (Don’t worry if it’s already full, there’ll be other invites).
•Check the coop description for instructions.
•Say “Thank you” to whoever invited you, and the host.
•DO NOT TOUCH THE BOARD! You may look for a task you can do, but DO NOT START!
•You may choose to watch the co-op member count, and say in chat once “full” or “30”.
•Once HOST says “Start tasks please”, you may take a task.
•If there are not enough tasks, you may choose to refresh chests.
•Note your actions in chat. “HoL done”. “Chest refreshed”. “Plane done”.
Once all required tasks are complete, you may collect your rewards and leave. If you have time, a quick “Ty” is appreciated.

The Host.
Many hosts prefer to have a “Main Town” (the town they normally play), and a “Baby Town” (a town at level 19-24 used solely for creating co-ops during hop week). A baby town is absolutely not necessary, so don’t worry if you only have one town.
•Baby town creates co-op (1,000 coin). The name should reflect your main town name, and the fact it’s a hop co-op. (eg: “Nevada Hops” or “Hosting Nevada”).
•Baby town invites main town, and starts dumping any chests with no good tasks.
BABY TOWN MUST NOT START A TASK! DUMP ONLY!
•Main town joins the co-op and completes the required number of tasks (standard hop is 10 completed tasks before inviting).
•Main town may leave the co-op at any point to join other hops, and return to continue taking tasks.
•Edit your co-op description at this point to reflect which sort of hop you are hosting, eg: STANDARD HOP. Host does 1-11, Guests do 12-17. Collect 2 rewards. DO NOT START TASKS EARLY.
•Once main town has started (but not completed) the 11th task, Main town invites guests. (Eg: start a heli task, send 16/18 and make sure you have two more green orders ready to send).
•Once the co-op is full, Main town completes 11th task, and types “GO” in chat.
•Thank people for coming to your hop.
Once all required tasks are complete, you may collect your rewards and leave.

The End.
That’s it. That’s how to hop. As both guest and host.
It’s almost like a brand new game. Opposite to normal Township; it’s fast. It’s intense. It’ll leave you feeling windswept and giddy the first few times. It is also a lot of fun.
If you’re interested, you can read on for some “Top Tips” below.

Here’s a quick reference sheet for the different kinds of hop you may come across/decide to host.

[Nevada]

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Top Tips!
•Prep your barn for incoming ingots. Smelt plenty of bronze and silver ingots prior to hopping so you can immediately upgrade as gold and platinum ingots come in.
•Prep your factories/animals/crops/boats for instant tasks.
•Screenshot your Coin/TC/Gems/Boosters/Barn mats/Building mats/Ingots/Completed animals/Fill coupons before the week starts, and once the week ends to compare goodies.

Guest.
•Turn on in-game notifications, and device volume. That way you can still get off-game stuff done.
•Screenshot the name of the person that invited you so you can invite them back later.
•Use your devices predictive text function to turn “ty” into “Thank you for invite and hosting”.
•NEVER use words like “Go”, “Start”, or “Begin” in chat as it can cause confusion and error with task-taking.

Host.
•Starting a co-op with a baby town produces much easier tasks.
•Starting a co-op with a baby town allows you to continue hopping whilst prepping your host co-op, as you can leave and rejoin.
•Promote some friends to elder to help you invite quicker.
•Leave your co-op, DO NOT disband it. Disbanding will kick everyone. Leaving will pass leadership along until everyone has got their rewards, and the last person left will disband.

Here’s a quick reference sheet for the tasks you’re looking out for/prepping for.




Here are some basic “cheat sheets”.

[Bessville]

A small aside for non-hoppers who might be looking to recruit new permanent team members during Interseasonal, most Hoppers add a tag to their name (often starting with $ but not always). That's a great way to identify them and avoid inviting them into your coop by mistake. Most Hoppers are really well-organised now and will try to avoid arriving in non-hop coops in error. They're not looking to cause upset or disappointment, or be embarrassed themselves, and they're far too busy zooming around to want to wait for hours or days to share your rewards anyway, lol. So if you do get one, it's 99.9% certain they didn't mean to.

'Jumpers' are different, though. These apparently are troll-type people who will either join open coops in sequence to collect coop rewards in each, or who may accept an invitation issued in good faith either before or during Interseasonal, and then pose as a new permanent recruit just long enough to get the coop rewards. Then they'll abandon ship and move on to the next one.

I'm saying "apparently" because, while I've heard a few suggestions that jumping is a thing, I haven't experienced it my own self. Whether that's only because I haven't done any recruiting, or because it's not actually happening very much at all, I don't know. I'm just saying be aware of the possibility if it might apply to you.

[Cody Lyons]

Nevada and Bess .... Thank you so much for all of this info! I don't know if I will ever do any hopping but I really appreciate the time and effort involved in providing me (us) with such a thorough tutorial. Thank you!!

[Talpa]

Nevada and Bess .... Thank you so much for all of this info! I don't know if I will ever do any hopping but I really appreciate the time and effort involved in providing me (us) with such a thorough tutorial. Thank you!!

I may be very stupid to ask this but how can you have a "baby town" ? I don't see how you can have two towns on the same platform at the same time.

[Nevada]

I may be very stupid to ask this but how can you have a "baby town" ? I don't see how you can have two towns on the same platform at the same time.

Not stupid at all.

First and typical option is a second compatible device. Eg: I play on my iPhone, and use my sons Kindle.

Second potential option is for android: there’s an app you can download (Parallel, I think it’s called but can check if anyone wants it) that allows you to have two (or more) towns on an android device. I’ve not personally used it, but I know several people have said they do and with good results.

Many people don’t have either option available, which is why it was important to emphasise that a baby town is definitely NOT a requirement.

ETA: What Dreader said since I took too long

[Pink]

I may be very stupid to ask this but how can you have a "baby town" ? I don't see how you can have two towns on the same platform at the same time.

Some tablets actually have the facility for multiple user and guest accounts, which work in exactly the same way as multiple users on a pc or mac. This allows multiple towns to be played on the one device, whether that be for each person in a household, or, for 1 person with two towns. Each user can only see and access their own apps relating to their account and they can also be password protected.

[Ann]

Thanks for this! It will come in very handy next week!

[Snow's town]

I am 1 of many who have seen posts about hopping and have opted out. The following questions are being asked for my loyal co-op members.

If only 1 person is marked as racing at the start of the Interseasonal week how many tasks are needed to gain maximum rewards?

Can players marked as Not Racing select tasks, join the game, without that number being reset?

We are aware the chests may not all be gained, but is the maximum co-op reward sacrificing chest rewards?

[Nevada]

These are some open-to-interpretation questions, so I’ll do my best to answer and hope I’ve got the right idea.

I’m thinking you’re asking these, not to hop, but to try to make your own co-ops goals a little easier during IS?

Unfortunately that won’t work. The reason so many new co-ops are created is because established co-ops will automatically have a higher goal rate.

Who’s marked as racing seems to be irrelevant, and it seems to be more based on number of participants in the final seasonal week, although this is “best guess” and not confirmed. The goal numbers are also set by how many people take tasks to start with.

Players marked as “not racing” can absolutely take tasks during IS, but it will increase your required task amount to reach any subsequent goals.

If you are staying in one co-op through IS, there is no reason to sacrifice personal chests. These are separate from co-op goals. Every task completed gets you another task closer to co-op goal, whereas you get chests from all tasks in that chest being completed (either all three tasks by one person, or three tasks by two or three different people).

Personal chests are awarded at the end of the week, whereas co-op goals are rewarded as they are completed.

If you have people who only want to do one or two tasks, they should wait to take a task until AFTER the fourth goal is completed. That way your last goal is set and can’t be altered by additional people taking tasks.

Your best bet, would be to have ONE person do easy, quick, wooden chest tasks, and dump the chests once one or two easy tasks have been done, then once the fourth goal is collected, have everyone else start their tasks, and work on personal chests, which should automatically complete your final goal.