Tips and guides

This is the page for posting tips and hints for the game. Feel free to add your own tips and strategies here, provided you are not duplicating information. Please note that some of the information here is outdated and no longer applicable due to updates.

Quest Completion guide

In order to finish the main story quest completely, even taking the changing store prices into consideration you will need approximately Template:Gem to buy unskippable items and to skip buying more expensive items, so don't bother buying any Template:Gem if you want to try and complete the story. These unskippable items include:

• Rarity (Template:Gem)

Crystal Empire Quests Tips

• Don't clear all of your land (it will leave some of the black crystals to clear later on).
• Don't raise all of your crystal ponies to five stars! Leave one to complete some quests at the end!
• Magic shards (15) required to complete "Hoist the Colors" can only come from two places: the shops and Princess Luna's special shard dance. The pink Potions shop produces them at a slow rate. The corn cob stand might produce them. Not sure about the other shops.
• When you need to send 3 gifts to your friends, two of them can be gifted to Princesses Celestia and Cadance. Add your game id to the Friends page so that maybe someone will send you an invite and you can gift them, instead of waiting until your other gifting timer runs out (every 24 hours). Dropping treasure chests at Friends' towns does not count as a gift.
• Be very careful when finally unlocking the Crystal ponies from their large Crystals with element shards. If your game hesitates, you may accidentally spend gems skipping the waiting period.

General Tips

• It's not necessary to tap all the , etc. that fall out of buildings. If you leave them there they will be collected automatically. It is safer to leave them in place.
• Zoom into a scene if you are unable to click on something else because bits, etc. are in the surrounding area.
• Obstacles can be removed from the playing field for [and shards in Crystal Empire]. Prices can vary between 100 (certain trees) to 16000 (huge rocks). The removal process also varies, the higher the price the longer it takes.
  • If you are just starting out, don't remove any obstacles just yet. There are multiple quests that require you to remove a given amount of obstacles, and ones you removed before being given the quest don't count.
• If you tap on any sort of decorations (bought/not bought), there's a chance of one falling out. NEVER TAP RANDOMLY AT DECORATIONS NEAR UNEXPANDED AREAS! Doing so may cause Template:Gem to be spent unnecessarily on expansion.
  • On that note, if you like to tap decorations, do your best to keep them away from shops and homes of ponies who aren't at five stars. This way, you're less likely to accidentally skip a timer with a misplaced tap. And keep your shops away from activated Harmony Stones for the same reason.
• Ponies who live in a house that has already been built arrive instantly when purchased. For example, if you already have Sugarcube Corner built (from getting Mrs. Cake) then Pinkie Pie and Mr. Cake will arrive as soon as you unlock them with . Other ponies that live together are Lovestruck, Crescent Pony, and Apple Cobbler; Braeburn and Golden Delicious; Aloe, Lotus Blossom, and Masseuse Pony; Octavia, Frederick Horseshoepin, Parish Nandermane, and Beauty Brass; Spitfire, Soarin, and Fleetfoot; Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Babs Seed, and Peppermint Twist.
  • NOTE: When scrolling through the store menu to see what is available in a town, don't preview ponies from the town you are located in. It is too easy to accidentally purchase a pony whose roommate and house already exist!
• When you get Princess Celestia, King Sombra, Princess Luna, Mane-iac, Discord, Princess Cadance or Metamorphosed Thorax, you'll notice once in a while that they'll spout out one of each type of shard after a special animation plays. This happens more or less randomly as long as the game is running.
• Shards of Harmony can be spent at activated Harmony Stones for (and, more rarely, Template:Gem). You get random amounts of for every shard spent.
  • Zoom in and experiment with the location you are tapping on the stone, as some areas return more per tap. The rate of Template:Gem received per tap depends on the value of the element shard.
  • Refer to the Harmony Stones Data table for more information on drop rates.
• One can fill his or her "unlocked space" with decorations (ideally wells or dirt paths) to fully mitigate the costs of removing rocks/debris that randomly spawn there during "catastrophes".
• Similarly, filling at least one square in all 2x2 areas will prevent parasprites from spawning in your town. You can select a "pile of hay" from the store to find open 2x2 that need to be filled.
• One can repeatedly buy and sell wells or fancy bushes for cheap Template:XP. This can also be exploited to fill "collect " quest tasks. In some towns, the cheap path tiles drop Template:XP when placed.
  • If you want to level up more quickly, buy and place lots of cheap decor, enter edit mode, click on the decors and sell ($) them back to the Store. You will get most of your back and gain more Template:XP.
• Prior to spending Template:Gem in the Store, it may be best to wait for a sale or to check if the pony is obtainable through the Equestria Girls mini-game.
• Quests to collect a certain number of , Template:Heart, Template:Gem or element shards only count those collected while you are in the same region as the quest. This is especially important to remember when playing Balloon Pop, the mine cart game, or when you are about to reach a new level (and receive with Celestia's reward).
• If you want to make a pony move to a certain place, tap the pony, then double tap the place you would like it to move to. Take care that the place has to be on your screen otherwise it won't work.
• When you start the game be sure to play with the ponies that require quests first.
• In Ponyville, initially expand areas only towards the Harmony Stones. Don't expand areas unnecessarily because the price for expanding each new area will become more expensive.
  • For those who are interested in playing more quickly, when you receive the first quest to clear four Expansion Areas in Ponyville (The Path to Ponyville), it may be worth skipping for two gems. Soon enough you will have to clear SIX expansion areas, which would cost you from 5,000 bits for zone five up to 17,500 bits for zone 11! These first four are the only ones you will need to skip, simply because in the beginning, it is hard to come up with 67,500 bits at that point. Derpy (aka The Pony in the Box) will help you replenish your spent gems.
• In Canterlot,the stone path from the map itself can be sold,use this to minimize your outcome from expanding area.
• When you begin the game, before collecting shop rewards or hunting for Derpy, review your Events and Quests menus to activate or participate in anything that may require , Template:Gem or element shards to complete.
• Stay updated! Follow the My Little Pony Game Facebook page or Instagram account to stay informed regarding upcoming changes to the game. They alert their followers with news about contests, gift codes, and new game updates.

Shop strategies

• Usually buildings offer the same per hour for the two items it offers, so it may be profitable to spread your ponies out and just build the faster item if you don't mind checking back often.
• Place all of the job buildings as close together as possible, so you don't have to scroll across the map to finish their jobs.
• It is best to always have access to a shop that will be continuously working for the duration of any of your absences from the game. (prioritizing the short production cycle shops of course)
• Judging from the shops graph, Shops can be divided into 5 categories: (numbers in parenthesis represent minutes)
  1. The attentive (1-4), which demands your continuous oversight.
  2. The "proper" (15-90) which should be tended too as one does low priority tasks.
  3. The strange (240-360) which probably have the worst production timers.
  4. The sleepers (360-480) which can be used while sleeping.
  5. The non-playing (720-1200), which should be used by those who really can't play the game.

• Outdated tips (as of Update 31):
  • If your shop employs three ponies it is more profitable (in per hour) to build the first item instead of the second item (Example: Lemon Stand gives 158 bits for Lemons in 3 minutes with three ponies, and 203 bits for Lemonade in 4 minutes 30 seconds with three ponies. That's 52.667 /min for Lemons vs. 45.111 /min for Lemonade).
    • However, the second item appears to have better odds at producing element shards.
  • One can move ponies to a shop that is about to complete its production cycle to get the third pony bonus, and thus better use available assets when attending to the game.
  • One good way of economically utilizing your ponies is to ask the question, "considering my habits, how long are the average intervals between my checkups on the game?" Consider your sleep cycles in this analysis. It may be worth it to change production based on your intervals.
  • If the second item in one of your shop's production cycles is about to finish (30 min), and you fear that you will lose productivity in your absence (240 mins), it may sometimes be a good idea to switch the production cycle to the first item (180 mins) which may will keep your ponies busy continuously during your absence, and thus gain you more . You can then switch to the second item (30 min) when you are at a time where you can tend to the game more often, like when making edits to a wiki (every 10 min).
    • Process in the production cycle is not lost if you switch to the other item or even stop production in the shop entirely. Progress is only lost if you sell the shop or move it to the Inventory.

• Rotate your workers! Each shop generally has one position that doesn't require a worker with any stars (the Windmill has two). When you get a new pony, find a shop whose workers all have two or more stars and replace one of them with the new pony. Then put the experienced pony in a different shop with an open position.

Avoiding parasprites and changelings

Before you follow any of the below tips, you should ask yourself whether you actually want to avoid changelings or parasprites. Element shards are much easier to come by since the Everfree Forest update thanks to Zecora's Hut and its totems which should eventually grant you more shards than you'll need. Most importantly, defeating them will occasionally yield hard-to-earn at a better rate than feeding the Harmony Stones.

1. To avoid changelings, always travel back to Ponyville before exiting the app. It doesn't guarantee "no changelings", but it does minimize the chance of getting them.
2. Changelings don't really need to be avoided. Unless you accidentally tap on them, they will just walk peacefully around Canterlot not blocking your building space.
3. Another way to avoid parasprites is to fill up your land with decorations and dirt road.
4. Don't let your game go unplayed for 24 hours or more. This is one of the biggest ways to get parasprites.
5. Don't change your phone's time in order to cheat. When you switch back to normal time, your land will be filled with parasprites.

Keeping gems

1. To avoid accidentally spending Template:Gem on items, don't tap around randomly, especially if your game is lagging, freezing, or displaying images improperly. The game will remember the taps and you might find yourself accidentally purchasing/skipping something when the game processes return to normal.
2. Don't scroll through the center of the screen; Use only the edges to pan around. This minimizes the chance of spending Template:Gem on ponies and shops if the system interprets a swipe as a tap, as the "Skip" button is always towards the center of the screen.
3. Tap outside of shop and small pop-ups ("Skip" and otherwise) to close them, especially if you get an error for trying to swap a pony worker for one that doesn't have enough stars.
4. When you browse the shop, avoid swiping over ponies that already have their homes built (by purchasing other pony that lives there earlier). If your game interprets swipe as tap, the pony will be purchased immediately without any kind of confirmation, whereas with ponies whose homes you don't own you could always cancel during placing the house on the map. It should be also safe to swipe over ponies you have insufficient funds for (real-money shop will open) or browse a shop for a different town than the one you are already in (a pop-up message will tell you to move there first).
5. If you play the Equestria Girls Dancing Mini-Game, you can win a pony at the end of every week. Some ponies cannot be won, such as Princess Celestia, but this will allow you to win a lot of ponies that require gems (check the mini-game's page for a list of winnable ponies). Playing all of the songs, and getting the "You Rock" announcement after it, will give you the necessary points within 2-4 days as long as you select the maximum number of bits (3500) for the costume, have the Mane 6 at 5 stars, and have two friends to dance with.
6. If you already spent gems on something expensive you didn't want, you may attempt to kill your app immediately. If done quick enough, the game won't have a chance to save the progress and after restarting you would be back just before your purchase. Keep in mind that this will not always work and may potentially cause major progress rollback.

Technical Stuff / Troubleshooting

• Android Users: If your game only pauses (so none of the timers update) and takes up battery life when you're not playing, consider closing it with a task manager-type app (or a built in task manager).
  • For the Nexus 7: press the windows list button, long press on the MLP game and choose "remove from list".
• Android Users: If your game is crashing on startup, try turning on Airplane mode. To do this, hold your power button and a menu will pop up. In this menu should be an option for "Airplane mode". Click this and it will turn off all wireless connectivity and the game should start.
  • WARNING: When you turn on airplane mode on a phone, you will not be able to receive phone calls, SMS messages or anything else that requires a cellphone or wireless signal.
  • In game events will not be available.
• Android and iOS Users: If you quickly turn off your device while you are still in the game, the game may not save the last few moments/minutes. This is a useful glitch to exploit if you did something you didn't want to (like accidentally spending gems). This does not work 100% of the time, but this is arguably the only viable option other than restoring from a backed-up save.

Exploits that (Probably No Longer) Work

Offline Store Price Glitch

When your game initially loads, and it is connected to the internet through WiFi or cellular service, updates are made to prices in the Store from the game servers. If the game is not connected to the internet, occasionally the Store prices show instead of the actual Template:Gem cost. By playing the app in both online and offline modes, it *may* be possible to get certain items for the more affordable . Usually, however, it is impossible to purchase items during this glitch.

Timer-Skip Exploit

On any iDevice you can manually set your clock ahead to skip wait times.

• Disconnect from WiFi and cell phone service by entering Airplane mode.
• Go to Settings, General, Date & Time, turn off Set Automatically.
• Play the game briefly. Travel from one town to another. Shut down the game completely.
• Return to settings and change the time by several hours, or one day.
• Open up the game and collect tokens or whatever else becomes available. Make sure every pony is back to work or active again. Travel to another town, then shut game down completely again. Repeat steps as needed.

Some aspects of the game will proceed as if real time has passed and allow for collecting rewards. This exploit no longer works, however, on shop production, obstacle clearing, building timers, ingredient or totem timers, and ponies' minigame timers. Return to settings and set time back to automatic, and turn off Airplane mode. If you are super lucky, all game timers will reset then.

Plunderseed Vines glitch

This is the only glitch that allows the vines to respawn, thus giving you insane amount of gems.

• Step 1: Unlock the access to the Tree of Harmony but don’t rescue it.
• Step 2: Uncover expansion zones at other locations while the Tree of Harmony event remains. There is a 50% chance that the plunderseed vines spawns.
• Step 3: Wait, just wait. If you waited until the likes of parasprites, changelings, vampire fruit bars and Sombra's Corruptions spawned, there is a 50% chance that several plunderseed vines will spawn alongside the infestations. Since their size vary, make sure you have enough shards to whack them for some chances of earning gems even more than usual. (From StardriveTrumpeter: I pseudo-cheated by exploiting this to farm more gems like playing COC.)

Links to Other Guides and Tips

• User WiggysPond's Game Strategies Blog
• User Rainbowdash 324's Tips Blog
• User AppleBloom121's Event Tips Blog
• Wiki Page Gem Earning Tips
• Just for Fun: A Guide from the Original Version of the Game!!