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Why Play Vinesweeper? Fun, XP and Item Rewards Vinesweeper Requirements, Recommendations and Minigame Safety

Vinesweeper initially was rather difficult to play and offered poor rewards; as a result, it was almost completely ignored and had basically no impact on how players trained Farming. Now that it has been revamped, it is a much more viable option in the tool chest of those looking to level the skill. In fact, some have gone so far as to claim that Vinesweeper replaces regular farming methods, or “ruins the skill”, but is that really true?

I’d like to take a look at a few of these issues, discuss how Vinesweeper compares to conventional farming, and explore it fits into the Farming skill on the whole.

In short, “no”.

Sure, I did say in my introduction that Vinesweeper was a good alternative to those who hate regular Farming, and that would seem to suggest that it is a replacement for planting crops. Yet if you think about it, people who hated conventional farming weren’t working the skill anyway—thus, Vinesweeper is not replacing anything, it is just adding a new way to train the skill.

What about those who have been training the Farming skill all along? Well, these players already know the key secret of the skill: you can invest a few minutes’ time to plant seeds, and then effectively earn XP passively while doing something else. The minigame complements regular farming, because planting involves short bursts of activity with long waiting periods, where Vinesweeper only earns you XP while you actively participate in it. Thus, you can easily do Vinesweeper while waiting for your regular crops to mature, earning XP in both ways.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that Vinesweeper makes conventional Farming obsolete. For example, I’ve seen people try to argue that they could make 30k XP from Vinesweeper in an hour, where planting herbs and other seeds would only yield 20k XP in 75 minutes. These people are falling into the same trap as those who constantly say Farming is “too slow”—counting the full 75 minute time for herbs and allotments as being part of the skill’s activity. The truth is that you get regular Farming XP in typically only a few minutes, while you can do something else while the crops mature. Because of this, you will still get more XP per hour by doing your regular farming runs; Vinesweeper is just something extra.

Another problem associated with the minigame is exaggeration and misunderstanding regarding how many points you can get. These tall tales of huge XP rewards seem to be getting more and more ridiculous as time goes on, becoming classic examples of “MMO urban legends”. First I heard people saying “anyone could get 30k points an hour”, and then it was 40k, and now people are saying 50k! Well, that’s a crock, for many reasons.

First of all, the number of points you can get is a function of your Farming level. So even if someone could get 30k an hour, that person would need to have over level 90 Farming, and at those levels, 30k of XP is not a big deal. At low levels, you can only earn a fraction of that total number of points. And even at higher levels, to get very high totals you need to work in a coordinated fashion in a team, which has its own overheads and costs.

Second, below level 40 you not only get fewer points per hour, you also get fewer experience points per Vinesweeper point (Figure 284).

Third, remember that getting many points in Vinesweeper takes actual skill. This stands in start contrast to conventional Farming, mind you, which is nothing more than repetitive grunt work.

Fourth, there is a lot of luck involved in the game, and you have to do a test over a long period of time to get an accurate reading. I constantly run into people who play the game for three minutes, get 1,500 points, and then tell everyone “they can get 30k XP an hour”. Well, no, they probably can’t—they just got lucky for three minutes.

I conducted two timed tests to see just how many points I could get in a full hour of playing. In the first, I got 11,979 XP; it was a frustrating hour, as I couldn’t find a good open area to work in, and inconsiderate players kept interfering with me. The second hour was better: 15,337 XP.

Now, bear in mind that I have a pretty high Farming level (78) and I know a fair bit about how to play efficiently. And even getting that 15k XP an hour is no walk in the park—it requires that I work fast, pay attention, make few mistakes, get a bit lucky, and not allow myself to get distracted by other things going on around me. This is not “easy XP” by any means.

My general recommendation regarding Vinesweeper is to remember that it is in fact a minigame, and so it should be at least as much about having fun as about getting tangible rewards. If you don’t really enjoy this style of game, and are trying to exploit Vinesweeper to powerlevel Farming, you are going to be disappointed. You’d really be better off using the time to earn gold and buy high-level tree seeds than you would trying to earn XP through this minigame.

Jagex provided a good hint about how they see Vinesweeper being used when it made access to Winkin’s Farm be via teleports from tool leprechauns. In short, they see it as a nice way for players who are spending time on Farming to pass the time in a fun and rewarding way while they wait for their herbs and other crops to grow. You don’t have to use Vinesweeper this way, but I’ve found it to be a nice synergy.

I think the converse of “playing Vinesweeper while waiting for crops” is also true: if you are someone who normally hates Farming, why not try planting crops while playing Vinesweeper? Sure, going to every allotment and herb and bush and tree patch makes Farming a chore, so why not begin with the single Farming patch whose leprechaun you use to go to the Winkin farm? Try planting some herbs at least in the Catherby patch, and then checking them, harvesting and rotating after playing Vinesweeper for a while. Who knows, you might just find yourself liking the conventional Farming skill after all! J

Why Play Vinesweeper? Fun, XP and Item Rewards Vinesweeper Requirements, Recommendations and Minigame Safety