Farm League
The Farm League is a long-running seasonal event that every player joins automatically and for free once their farm reaches a high enough level. It adds up my progress across three recurring events - the Cooperative Competition, the Village Fair and the various versions of No Pain, No Grain - and turns it into a division placement, titles and a spot in the seasonal leaderboard. It is also the main source of obsidian for Professor James's laboratory, so it is worth keeping an eye on even beyond the usual rewards.
The Farm League is worth it for everyone, because taking part costs nothing and the rewards practically fall into your lap just for playing the regular league events. I would only buy the season pass when I really do play regularly that season - otherwise I am paying for rewards I will never reach anyway.
The Farm League ties three smaller league events into one season
The Farm League is a long-running seasonal event that adds up my progress across three recurring events - the Cooperative Competition, the Village Fair and the various versions of No Pain, No Grain, including the cooperative and fishing variants. The points I collect in them all feed into one shared system.
A season brings together three connected parts:
- The division leaderboard, where I compete against a limited group of players at a similar level
- Titles, which set the value of the rewards during the season and at the end of it
- The seasonal leaderboard, which tracks the overall progress of the best players across the whole season
Taking part is automatic and free, all I need is a farm at a high enough level. A season runs for a fixed number of days on which a league event is actually running - days without an active event do not count towards that number.
In the division leaderboard I only compete against players at a similar level
Whenever a new league event starts - the Cooperative Competition, the Village Fair or No Pain, No Grain - the game puts me into a new division with a limited number of opponents of similar strength. Only one league event runs at a time, and the overview of that event has a button that takes me straight to the Farm League.
My position in the division is decided by the points I collect in the event that is currently running. Once a day I get a medal based on my current placement - the higher up the division I am, the more valuable the medal I get. There are wooden, stone, copper and glass medals for the regular placements and bronze, silver and gold ones for the top three spots in the division. The medals I collect then push my title up and count towards the seasonal leaderboard at the same time.
Once the event ends, the division and the leaderboards reset, and only players who actually scored in that event get a placement reward. The game then puts me into a new division for the next event, even if it is the same type of event as before.
Titles grow with the medals I collect and are never lost
There are 21 titles in the Farm League and every season I start again from the very first one. I move up to the next title by collecting enough medals in the division leaderboard - the more valuable the medal, the more it contributes to a promotion. Once I have earned a title I cannot lose it again, I can only improve it over time.
Every title comes with two kinds of rewards - a one-off reward for the promotion itself and a reward after each league event ends, whose value depends on the title I am holding at that moment. Some of these rewards are locked and only the season pass opens them up.
The titles run thematically from gardener through fruit grower and dairy farmer all the way to rancher and animal lover, which nicely mirrors how the range of farming activities grows:
| Title level | Name |
|---|---|
| 2 | Skilled gardener |
| 3 | Ambitious gardener |
| 4 | Experienced gardener |
| 6 | Talented fruit grower |
| 7 | Advanced fruit grower |
| 8 | Professional fruit grower |
| 10 | Determined dairy farmer |
| 11 | Experienced dairy farmer |
| 12 | Expert dairy farmer |
| 14 | Aspiring rancher |
| 15 | Renowned rancher |
| 16 | Outstanding rancher |
| 17 | Animal lover |
| 18 | Devoted animal lover |
| 19 | Passionate animal lover |
| 20 | Kind-hearted animal lover |
| 21 | Farming mastermind |
There is no promotion reward for the first title - I only start getting those from the second title upwards.
A single gold medal gets me into the seasonal leaderboard
The seasonal leaderboard tracks how the best players do across the whole season, and everyone who has won at least one gold medal in the division leaderboard qualifies for it - regardless of farm level or current title. The order in the leaderboard is decided first by title, and among players with the same title by the number of gold, then silver and finally bronze medals.
I get the reward at the end of the season based on my placement in the seasonal leaderboard, and only if I qualified for it in the first place. Without a single gold medal no seasonal reward arrives, no matter how many titles I have collected.
On top of that, at the end of the season:
- titles reset for the next season
- the seasonal leaderboard resets
- a purchased season pass is deactivated
According to the in-game help, a new season then starts soon after the previous one ends.
The season pass unlocks rewards I would otherwise leave behind
I can buy the season pass once per season, either all at once or as individual offers - for example just the bonus for the event that is currently running or for one particular title. The full pass unlocks the rewards for all title promotions, the rewards at the end of each league event according to my title, and on top of that it pays out the bonus rewards for titles and events I had already earned before buying it.
Once I buy the pass, it stays active until the end of the current season. The price depends on how many events I have already missed this season and how many individual offers I bought earlier - so the sooner I get it, the better.
The Farm League is the main source of obsidian for Professor James's laboratory
Obsidian is the resource Professor James needs in his laboratory for new inventions, and the Farm League is its main source in the game. If I meet the minimum level at the start of the season, obsidian is added both to the rewards for title promotions and to the rewards after each league event ends.
I first get to the laboratory itself through the farmhouse on the main farm once I have upgraded it to level 10 - the research options are then right there in its circular menu.
