Copper Watering Can: How is THIS an improvement???

Charging even for only three squares is handy if you don't like clicking often. I find it much more comfortable holding the button for a while than clicking repeatedly
And it can be very helpful when you grow crops which can't be walked over/through.

 

Would like a way to cancel once it has started to spread into a larger area, particularly for the hoe. More than one thing has been accidentally destroyed because I couldn't cancel.

 

I didn't understand why it showed a highlighted area for charging it up, I mean it shows you where the water's going but it shouldn't take more than one or two goes to realize that, I was really annoyed it didn't just instantly water them if you charged it. I realized later it was part of how the later watering can tiers work...
As for the highlighted area I still think its a little pointless once you fully charge it, because you can't move around while its at the maximum since your character will just stare at the overlay forever. It would be nice if it was possible to select the watering area ahead of time instead of having to go through all the options one at a time, the reason it takes so long is probably to give extra time to select the right option, a silver can water 5 in a row while gold is 3x3 which each have unique advantages, and only the iridium can's upgraded range will pass all the previous upgrade's range.

 

...or possibly because that's the way Harvest Moon did it and SDV felt that was part of the essence of the HM experience that he was trying to replicate.

 

Oh, I never knew that, but that's definitely an interesting point...

 

Yeah but HM's was more 'organized' too. You tend to go from a 3 square horizontal row to 2 of those to 'all 3' of those. ((Barring Island of Happiness/Sunshine Isle which the way your tool gets upgraded is up to you more.))

 

You can get around this as well, though...to some extent...once you're starting to make some surplus money.

For the crops that aren't "perennial" (i.e. they don't keep producing until the end of the season and have to be replanted)...if you put the "cheapest" crop in the empty places before the end of the season, when the season switches over...it seems like the ground stays watered. On top of that, there's no "crap" showing up in the fields that you have to pick up first, as well...and you don't have to re-hoe the spots. I don't know if this works during the winter, though (i.e. if you could just leave the "dead" crops there all winter and have it still water the spots)...but I definitely use it during the transition from spring to summer and from summer to fall.

Especially since in the summer/fall seasons you can get the super cheap Wheat seeds to put in those spots. ^^


That said, I always go for the watering can as my first upgrade, if I can get the rainy days to show up properly, because it's definitely worth it. It can be kind of frustrating targeting the 1x3 range on it, but the increased efficiency is WELL worth it even with that being the case...because you can water more spots before you have to refill it.

Having said that...I still think I'd prefer the can to work differently than it currently does.

Instead of the upgrades being 1x3, 1x4, 3x3, 1x5...I'd much rather see the upgrades work "around you" instead (or for there to at least be a toggle between the two types). The "around you" setting could be the following (X's being the watered spots, O being the player):

Copper Iron Gold Iridium

X XXX XXXXX
XOX XOX XOX XXOXX
X XXX XXXXX

Obviously it would water the "O" spot, as well...but I'd just like to be able to use the watering can like this...even if doing so makes the can use up a little more water than it would with the previous method. I'd like to have both, tbh, heh...but then again, I'm greedy like that. =p

 

Tbh, though, Stardew Valley reminds me a lot of HMDS, which was one of the HM games in which you had to charge your watering can.

I would say the watering can is generally pretty useless once you have sprinklers, anyway, except for filling the pet's water bowl and the slime hutch trough, if you have one. No reason to upgrade it for either of those.

 

Upgrading once is useful, mostly for mid to late spring to give you enough energy to also do mining. Also it has doubled the water capacity, so less running back to the pond.

 

I stuck with the Copper Watering can and quickly upgraded it to Gold

 

Copper Watering Can is useful in late Spring and early Summer of the first year. It significantly reduces endurance consumption when you have 160+ plots to water, and how I arrange my farm plot makes the copper near ideal for the situation, because it is set up in discreet little 3 x 3 plots for Improved Sprinklers later on. So before you get your sprinklers, it is useful.

Iron, I find, has no use whatsoever, other than a resource sink to get to gold.

Gold I find to be the optimal setting, but typically by the time I can afford the gold watering can, I'm well beyond watering anything as I already have all my sprinklers already set up.

 

I used to have problems with charging a tool only for it to be the wrong direction, but if you realize HOW the game determines how a tool is used and what direction, you can never worry about those things again.

If you're facing right and you click your cursor off in the corner of the screen, you'll water to the right. However, clicking the tiles in the 8-tile circle IMMEDIATELY around you will set it to there. So just remember, if you're looking at what you want to water and your cursor is not on the 8 squares around you, it's fine. As soon as your cursor enters that radius, your tools will follow it like a hawk.

 

The Gold can I feel will be the last one I need really. Iridium is too dear to me yet to spend it on the watering can, and i don't need to water anything more than a 3x3 anyway.

Maybe if Iridium did a 5x5 area for watering instead of a 6x3 area i would do the upgrade.

 

I find 6 x 3 to be more useful than 5 x 5 because I tend to plant in 3 x 3's so that's two plots watered. But really, by that time, I've already got sprinklers everywhere, so my watering can goes largely unused.