A small annoyance I have with the game is that the seasons are short - at one month each, it's like you barely have time to get your longer-growing crops doing anything, and it makes strawberries in the first season almost useless, because by the time you can buy them, spring is almost done. It also limits the amount of eventing that can be done in the game (because we can't fit in more events) and makes for less time exploring and more time running from task to task especially if you're planting and before you get iridium sprinklers, etc. My proposal is to extend the seasons by one month each. Two months spring, two months summer, two months fall, two winter. This would allow the game to have more events, more time to experience events and explore the world (especially as we create and open up new areas of it and more things) and try out different ways to farm, among other things. It would remove the "time scramble/hurriedness" that is often part of the game (especially early game and midgame going on late game) and give a more natural pace. Speaking of more natural pace, that brings me to my next idea - mixed weather days. It really doesn't make sense for maybe one day of the weather going from spring to summer or fall to winter, so a two month model would allow for a week of "transitional" weather in the seasons. This would be most pronounced with fall to winter, where it would take around a week to go from "windy, rainy fall" to "snowbound" instead of a day, and winter to spring, where the snowmelt would take a week with a possible snow flurry day at the beginning and could flood your farm (allowing floodplain farming, as mentioned in another thread here, or providing a week of wet field), though with the next idea, we could make spring-summer a little more pronounced. NEW WEATHER. Idea being that summer would get the Heat Wave/Hot Day where simply being out in the hot day slowly drains your stamina and/or health. Ice cream and beverages would be especially good to have on a heat wave/hot day. If we choose to include disasters as I suggested in another thread, the hurricane would be a summer possibility, as would the tornado in the spring-summer week. In winter, the Blizzard - if it was not a disaster, it would just impede your movement to slow, if it was a disaster, it would confine you to your house. Open to other ideas here too.
I'm all for this, but it definitely needs extra content. Some times I find the seasons can drag on a bit and I really want those crops for next season, whether for a bundle or just because. The longer seasons would need to be offset by other things to keep you occupied. In winter for example you could have access to the islands outlined in this thread http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/stardew-valley-late-game-new-area-idea.128153/ and you might eventually be able to buy a vacation home with a smaller farm there and specific crops that only grow in that region, but could be transplanted to the greenhouse. Maybe some activities at the beach, a hotel with time limited characters who are only around for one week a year which could be befriended/dated. Way more foraging options which could only be found for a few days a year, like Salmonberries...but you know, not worthless.
The thing about disasters is that they have to be balanced, and they have to be balanced well. I, personally, wouldn't like the RNG to completely mess up my game. That takes away player agency, and one of the many reasons I like Stardew Valley so much is that it's entirely played the way I want it in the pace I want. Sure, being confined to your house one day in winter isn't gamebreaking, but what if it happens several days in row?
hmm would probably be worth a mod, however I don't think the average player would enjoy to play twice as long to be able to reach certain goals. In addition to that you would need to balance quite a lot around it, like the community center would be a joke if you got twice as much time. Prices for different purchases would need to be entirely rewritten. This would be a really heavy change and really a lot of content would be nessessary to keep the game interesting, at least I feel. About disasters, just pure destruction would not be that interesting. You need to be able to prevent it and work for it to get some joy out of it. Since we allready got lightning storms it might be worth a try to make them a little more evil and more easily/effectively protected by lightning rods, which could just protect a small area instead of just sucking random lightings in.
That's what I'm saying for all of this - it would actually be a good idea to expand the game. It would require changes, but I don't think we need to make it "twice as long to reach certain goals," but simply add more time in which to accomplish those goals AND include more events and areas and more ways to customize. With the one-month timeframe, it makes it harder to include more events and do more on the character-building and exploration and foraging etc sides. I think that a two-month season frame would be workable for both people who want to play in a more "farm-based" way (e.g. players more interested in farm building etc), and more interesting for those of us who like to do more in the town and exploring etc as well too. One thing I like very much about both Stardew Valley and the HM and RF games is that you do have those choices, those options on how you want to play. Also re disasters, I don't want "pure destruction" either - I want something like the HM games where the hurricane could destroy stuff and shut you in for a day, but then the day after you could find some unique items on the beach for example, or where the tornado could actually clean up part of a year 1 farm, things like that...?
Perhaps you can skip the "shut in for a day" part and have it as a night event with a cutscene instead. Like a quick timelapse of snow being piled up, and then either a Joja employee or whoever-the-town-equivalent-would-be will come out and start digging paths through the snow.
That would actually be good for both blizzard and hurricane/typhoon! I was just going with how both were in HM/RF but yeah For blizzard it would be the townspeople/Joja people digging out, and for the hurricane it would be the cleanup on the beach... including that shipwreck that washed ashore...
I like the idea of longer seasons for sure, for sake of realism with the weather like you mentioned (I do like the suggestion of having a week or so of transitional weather to lead from one season into the next), and also to fit in more holidays and have the year run a bit more like our own calendar year. However, I would push it even further and go with three months and have the full length of an actual season. There would most definitely have to be more content (because omg winter is so boring) to give us things to do with all that extra time...maybe more crops, longer grow-times for some of them, the weather events like you mentioned, more holidays/festival days etc. If we get occasional natural disasters, maybe they work a bit like the lightning where we are given the means to somewhat protect ourselves/our farm from damage...how that would be handled would depend on the type of disaster. I've made suggestions about having more merchants before, maybe they would show up during specific months only (hello candy merchant selling goodies for Valentine's Day!). I do understand this wouldn't be something everyone would love, but as one who likes to play the game slow and really immerse myself into it, without worrying about rushing or maximizing profits etc. a longer season would be really nice, as long as it brings more content.
No everybody would love that but the amount of additional content to fill the extra time would be like a full expansion. Just to increase the amount of days would in my oppinion not fit the spirit of stardew valley. Per season you would need 5-6 additional people to celebrate birthdays, which would require a full town expansion. As previously mentioned filling that time by locking the player inside his hut would not nessessary the most interesting idea. About disasters either let players be able to circumvent it, which is difficult, how to stop a blizzard ^^, or insert it in a cutszene. I can imagine a blizzard which would prevent you from getting to the winterstar feast, while the player is locked in its house all sad and not able to do anything the towns people work to bury out the house and then they finally arrives and the feast gets moved inside the community center. Could be joja if you decide to go the joja route and the feast takes place in the warehouse. Obviously something similar could be made to finally get rid of the shipwreckage on the beach.
I'm not sure how expanding each season would work as I'm used to the 28 day/1 month cycle from this game and HM games. I've always wanted seasons to be a bit longer, but worried it would slow the game down because sometimes I get anxious for the next season or get bored of the same crops. Maybe it could be an optional gameplay style like when you're selecting your farm type you can also choose how long you want each season: Normal (1-month), 2-month, or 3-month. Of course, this would pose the issue of birthdays and events, how would they be incorporated or stretched out? Would expanding to a longer seasonal cycle add more events? Increase the length of current events to several days instead of just 1? How would this be fair to somebody who prefers the shorter cycles to the longer ones? I don't know if adding a permanent increase to seasonal length would be a good idea, but I'm not sure making it optional would work either? But two months wouldn't be too big of an increase, I'd love to have more events and have the birthdays spread out more. I definitely support transitional weather, regardless of season length. It would seem more realistic and interesting. Maybe during the last week of the season the ground and trees start transitioning to the next season's colors. e.g. going from Summer to Fall, during week 4 (or whichever is the last week) the colors begin fading from the bright green to a dull green to nearly brown.
seasons are bit too long already IMO. What i'd like instead is the last week, or even couple days, to change into a mix season. As one ends, and a new one starts. Let us plant some of the next season a little early, or let us see the changes coming. Like Winter to spring, lets see the snow melting!. Or summer to fall and see the leaves change and such. But I don't want to add 2 more months to the year cycle, it already takes like 30-40 hours for me to do an entire year.
