Has anyone else had the frustration of trying to get the latest request for the Crystal birds?  I have gone through my 118 levels,  not once but twice, and have received exactly zero of these.  Oh yah all kinds of those stupid colored balls, flying pigs and who knows what else.  Apparently the Castle has found a way to keep you playing for hours (frustratingly), trying to find the elusive request.  I've just about come to the end of my patience and am considering leaving for the rest of the event.  Why I put myself through this nonsense is beyond me.  I'm going to keep a close watch on how these requests roll out in future events and if this is how they are going, moving forward, my play time on events will end.

Sometimes I find if I just wait a day, then they will appear more often.

Yes, I've noticed that.  Why do they have to do that??  Some players are often scrambling to finish as they need items that are not very plentiful.  Just ends up frustrating a lot of players.

Bingo (manybears) said:

Has anyone else had the frustration of trying to get the latest request for the Crystal birds? 

I had an issue getting the Ice Figurines, but certainly not as badly as your experience.

I'm one of the few who actually purchased the Ghost No Cooldown amulet, which has proved very helpful now that there are so many of the flying objects.

It lasts for 60 minutes....the floating objects appear on your screen immediately....if you go back and forth between just 2 scenes, it will change every time.

That said...I went through all my areas 3x and also completed 3 of the DQs for ghosts and 1 DQ for candies before I got all 11 of them.

WITH the amulet, it took me 33 minutes......so I can't imagine how others are able to do these ghost tasks that require the collecting of more than 5-6.

Oh......and I did the next task of feeding pets.....when I reset my pet to a non-sleeping pet, I'm sure you can guess which floating object went across my screen when I came out of the pet inventory area.....yep....an Ice Figurine!

The whole thing is sort of screwy.  I think a lot of people have left (I have lost at least 50 friends since the game started...wonder where they went).  I'm sure some have never returned.  A shame, really, maybe laughable.  Keep on Truckin'

Bingo (manybears) said:

wonder where they went).

Many players get to Level 20, which has been totally gutted and made very easy to get through with few character tasks. However, the levels beyond those first 20 are far more lengthy and increasingly expensive. Many players just don't have the patience to play the same HOS over and over and over or figure out how to gain coins without crafting for profit (which uses up precious stamps) or feeding pets for items (which uses up all pet food) or play the puzzles for the items (which cheats them out of the other stuff they get by playing the HOSs....stamps, pet food, airship items in addition to the coins and a smattering of inventory).

Other players have upgraded their computers....started a new game....and had BF techs transfer their game progress from their old ID to the new one. You probably still only know about the old one, which has now turned red.

Those are two possibilities.....unless your question was rhetorical. 

I agree, sometimes if you just shut down the game it will reset and give the requested ghost more frequently. Although I  must admit that this quest tested my patience! I had those thoughts of "why am I doing this?" but persisted and it finally came through for me.

I feel your pain. Sometimes it seems deliberately programmed to make sure the thing you need to search for is the rarest one.

Even though I have the cooldown amulet, I try not to use it for this as it uses up a lot of energy balls. I got lucky this time round with 6 the first go round, 4 the second, and the final 1 coming not too far into the third. It's not always this easy, so I take my good luck and be thankful.

It gets harder and harder every year to complete these sort of tasks. Every year they add three more types of floating objects, so the ratio of how often you find each one decreases. Back at the beginning when the floating objects first started it was so much easier to do these.

Like you, I am seriously tired of those piggies. So many piggies.

Boy, did you hit the nail on the head!!  Now I've been trying for many days to get my last piece of the last puzzle.  Again, for every new puzzle, even more pieces to find and not all rooms give them to you.  So, onward we go.....

Bingo (manybears) said:

Now I've been trying for many days to get my last piece of the last puzzle.  Again, for every new puzzle, even more pieces to find and not all rooms give them to you.

Actually, the puzzles can get easier all the time as long as you remember to disenchant the sparkles (meaning trade in duplicate pieces) before you try to solve a new puzzle.  You trade in the duplicates for a fewer number of random pieces, which may or may not be the ones you need.  Here's how:

You click on the Disenchant All button, where the blue hand is pointing.  Next you click on the the purple rectangle with the faces to access the puzzle packs. Then you will see this:

If you're on a PC, use the scroll dial on your mouse to select which size puzzle pack (how may random pieces) you want to buy with your saved sparkles. Or, as you see, you can purchase the puzzle packs with diamonds (not really the best idea since there is no guarantee you will get the piece(s) you need).  Once you buy the pack, the word "Open" will appear in the half circle below the purchase price, then click on "Open".  Then, go back to the puzzle and check out the new pieces. Be sure to disenchant sparkles on those new duplicates too.

If you always remember to click on "Disenchant All" before you solve a new puzzle for the first time, you'll rack up tons of sparkles. And if you patiently wait until you have most of the puzzle pieces before you buy a puzzle pack or two per new puzzle, you'll always have more than you really need. 

As for the constant shortage of the specific ghosts needed for a CC or DQ, YES, it drives me crazy too. It really is almost like they do that on purpose; ghosts you don't need everywhere you go and ones you do need take hours to track down. I rarely bother with DQ's that ask for ghosts anymore unless I'm already collecting ghosts for a new achievement or a CC task; then I'll collect DQ ghosts while I'm searching. They really need a new plan now that there are so many different ghosts -- maybe assigning specific ghosts or types of ghosts to specific areas of the map or specific rooms? Could be tricky to figure out so it doesn't create a hardship for players at a lower level, but they should really try to make this more reasonable somehow. It's become ridiculous.