How do you like to play SDV?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Mahlorie, May 17, 2018.

  1. squigglyruth

    squigglyruth Pangalactic Porcupine

    I played a couple of 'go-with-the-flow' games, then started to set myself challenges for new games.

    Several of my challenges have been community-centre-based, e.g. finishing it whilst only buying two of any type of seed, and when I saw a post here suggesting it was possible to finish it before Winter year 1 I was excited enough to start a new game right away. I like experimenting with the first couple of months to see what difference it makes buying different seeds or developing skills in a different order.

    I've never brought myself to play the JojaMart route, and I always aim to max out Grandpa points as well as the main challenge I've set. I guess I can't bring myself to ignore the game's actual scoring system :) I also tend to plant a variety of crops each season - monoculture for profit doesn't appeal to me.

    I like the fact that the game offers so much freedom to try different things. There is certainly not one 'right' way to play. But it is fun to read and think about different things that others have tried, and I have learnt a lot from reading number-crunching posts. That makes it possible to play quite efficiently whilst still finding it relaxing.
     
    • Dakmordian

      Dakmordian Phantasmal Quasar

      I've been playing Harvest Moon type games since the original SNES game, so I was really excited for this since it seemed like it was taking the concept and giving it a damn good polish. And for the most part, I think it really came through in that regard. I've had more fun with this than all the other ones entirely, although they still hold places in my heart. That said.. I approached the game originally from the viewpoint of a standard Harvest Moon player.. I tried to do everything at once with mixed success.

      I was barely standing still between playing enough crops to get Polyculture and Ship Everything, the latter of which took until Year 2 cause I was too late getting the Axe upgrade for the Secret woods. At the same time I was trying to befriend and woo absolutely everyone. This, plus the Community Center, saw me eat into my profits a lot, and I didn't start making really big money until Year 3 but by then I'd started to burn out. I'd caught all the fish, everyone at 10 hearts, saw all the scenes and events, fixed the community center, found most of the museum pieces, and cooked most of the stuff. I was so extremely burnt out on the game that I basically walked away from it like Summer of Year 3 until 1.1 came out later. I was actually super excited for it, and I'd also started to mod the game and was having lots of fun, but something tore me away from it and I just never quite went back.

      Then came 1.2 and a lot of the mods I liked broke and some never got fixed, like Siv's Marriage Mod, and I had to fix a number of dialogue files to get those back in. I had fun with that, too, but the loss of some mods saw me walk away from it again. I think what was basically happening is that I kept trying to RUSH too much. I just didn't take things slowly enough, and I would either burn out, get distracted or otherwise lose interest.

      So when 1.3 came out, I decided to do some things differently, and with the help of mods that's also been breathing life back into the game. Automate, Safe Lightning, and a few others really helped take that pressure off and allowed me to just go at a smoother pace. And I think that's been kinda nice? Aside from the multiplayer save my ex and I are doing, which is going at a weird pace cause we're picking up each other's slack and it's making for a simultaneous slow and quick pace, it's been nice. But yeah, I decided I was gonna do the Joja playthrough and have just been focusing on my farm save for a couple of people - Abigail for marriage, Marnie for the shorts, Linus for the Wild Bait. But I haven't been doggedly chasing them (except maybe Abigail). I also did far more mining this playthrough than I usually do. Previously I was often fishing when not busy with other stuff, but this time I hit the caves hard and reached the bottom before the end of Spring 1. It was frantic, but I enjoyed it for some reason.

      I guess what I'm saying is that I play a little different each time I play the game.
       
      • MissJay

        MissJay Seal Broken

        Recently I've been playing some challenges. One of my favorites is to see what the maximum amount of money I can make in 1 week is. I've tried about 4 different strategies, and my top so far is 18K. I like this challenge because it's so quick.

        The other challenge I've been thinking about doing is limiting myself to 1 purchase per season. This would include buildings, animals, backpack & tool upgrades. Not included would be opening geodes, those would be limited to 1 per day, and taking the bus to the desert, which would be limited to once per week. I have a few more ideas for how to make this difficult, for example, if I'm ever not in bed before midnight, I lose the next purchase.

        I'm intrigued by this challenge because it would drastically alter my play style. Usually I spend it as fast as I earn it. Since I would hardly ever buy anything, there is no race to earn money.

        Thoughts?
         
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        • Git Gud Fox

          Git Gud Fox Star Wrangler

          It has kind of an "Iron Man" difficulty feel to it, like playing World of Warcraft and getting to max level without anything but the lowest quality gear pickups and deleting your character if he dies even once.

          I think what the challenge needs though is some kind of bench mark after a period of time. This challenge will result in the same ending, but slower, than a normal playthrough. What I would be curious to know is how much money, or how much of the community center could be completed by X or Y year using this method.

          That'd be interesting because it would push your management skills to the limit to determine the most optimal purchases each season / week / day with the forced limitations.
           
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          • musical74

            musical74 Space Kumquat

            I've said it elsewhere, but one thing that I think would be good are more mid-and-end game quests. There's all these things you need to do or quests in the first year...then they taper off in the second year and the third year is "quests? what quests?". That's true of most games, there's all these things you need to get or you are blocked until a certain thing happens early on, but by about the halfway mark these dry up. We need more later-game quests...

            One thing I like about Stardew Valley is there is no "right way". I like exploration and getting friends more than profits. Others it's all about how much they can sell. Others are focused on the mining. And each way is right!
             
            • MissJay

              MissJay Seal Broken

              I appreciate your thoughts, and I have wondered as well, if by years 4-5 the grind will be too much and I'll be tempted to sleep through the days to advance the seasons quicker. I doubt this challenge would actually interest anyone but me. :)

              A rough (and probably incomplete) list of things I'd need to buy to complete the community center are:
              green bean seed, tomato seed, blueberry seed, barn + 2 upgrades, cow, goat, pig, milk pail, coop + 1 upgrade, chicken, duck, silo, sunflower, poppy, red cabbage, 2 axe upgrades (for the woodskip & fern in the secret forest), rice for the maki roll, & kitchen.

              That's 22 purchases, or 5 1/2 years. If I count the vault in the community center as purchases, that adds another year. If I add 1 backpack upgrade, and the stable for sanity we are up to 7 years. I'll also need a bouquet, a necklace, and bedrooms for my house so I can get married. I think a basement is optional, but I would need a mill, and more vinegar and rice to complete the cooking collection. And I'd need to upgrade my pickaxe for the desert mine. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but that is going on 10 years to complete those things.

              I'm honestly not sure how much the management skills come into play because I'm not sure it matters terribly what order you do things in.

              In other news my top profit in 7 days is up to $24,000 and I have a new strategy to try that I'm hoping will get me up over 30K.
               
              • Git Gud Fox

                Git Gud Fox Star Wrangler

                I think upping the amount of decisions per season you can make a bit but creating either a 1 or 2 year deadline to accomplish something is the key to a high pressure decision making environment. I haven't put serious thought into a concept like this, but it could be an interesting player custom game mode.
                 
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                • Sventex

                  Sventex Pangalactic Porcupine

                  It seems like a needless hinderance. I can't imagine a scenario where you might run a business where you can only make a single purchase or what this challenge is trying to simulate. A more interesting one might be that you don't buy seeds at all and instead just live all the natural bounty that nature gives you and slowly gain the ability of agriculture from natural wild seeds and the seed maker machine. Humans had to learn how to farm from scratch long ago and so you can make a stab at seeing how profitable you can be as a forager, slowing turning into a farmer.
                   
                    Last edited: May 25, 2018
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                  • everfreefire

                    everfreefire Big Damn Hero

                    I like this idea, but it'd make finishing the CC impossible. The mixed seeds don't give every seed required for the CC.
                     
                    • Sventex

                      Sventex Pangalactic Porcupine

                      I think the traveling cart can cover you for your CC bundle needs.
                       
                      • everfreefire

                        everfreefire Big Damn Hero

                        Yes and no, but part of it would really be luck dependent, getting the gold star Parsnips/Corn/Pumpkins via Mixed seeds sounds... 'fun'.
                         
                        • MissJay

                          MissJay Seal Broken

                          Nearly all challenges are needless hinderances in my opinion. You give yourself arbitrary restrictions for no reason other than personal fulfillment and/or challenge.
                           
                          • MissJay

                            MissJay Seal Broken

                            I've always played this game at a sprint. I personally like the idea of forcing myself to play at a slower pace due to the restrictions.
                             
                            • @ndy

                              @ndy Subatomic Cosmonaut

                              Lets see...

                              1.) Play the game, reach automati watering for whole farm, wich is usualy before end of Fall (sooner if other farm type), Drop the game
                              2.) return few moths later ,delete old save, play the game, reach automatic watering, drop the game...
                              3.) Repeat n2.) infinitely
                               
                              • Git Gud Fox

                                Git Gud Fox Star Wrangler

                                So what you want is something more like a marathon mode? Maybe the 1.3 update has your solution. You could tune the gold yields down to a very low number. That would let you make decisions without restriction and the game would be slowed down by the nature of gold simply coming in at a slower pace.

                                That's actually one of the things I'm planning on doing when 1.3 goes live. I want to experiment with the gold profit reductions to see if that lengthens the game in an interesting way.

                                In Civilization, they have a similar set of rules called Marathon. It basically doubles or triples the requirements for time based things like the amount of time it takes to research how to shoot a bow and arrow which causes you to spend more time in each time epoch, like the Stone Age, the Classic Era, Medieval Era etc. I always enjoyed that pacing of Civilization because it meant you got to spend more quality time in each time phase and get to play around with the mechanics more.
                                 
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                                • MissJay

                                  MissJay Seal Broken

                                  Turning down the gold yield is a good idea, I'll think on it. Perhaps a combination of dropping the gold, and limiting purchases to 1 per week.
                                   
                                  • @ndy

                                    @ndy Subatomic Cosmonaut

                                    this i agree with you considerably, in strategy games if you dont put up at least research to at least minimum possible speed,
                                    then its basicly build one thing, have 20 researhes, (you cant raelly enjoy any of it), quikly researching higher lvl tech , ending with absolute researh race
                                    and were talking here builing here forget about getting in war with primitive units when by the time there by enemy city you got 2-3 upgraes for them
                                     
                                    • PorcelainCompletionist

                                      PorcelainCompletionist Lucky Number 13

                                      I play action-packed and fast paced, but enough to be relaxing. I tend to get most things done from Year 1 - Year 5. The first time I played SDV It took me 12 in-game Years to complete the community center.
                                       
                                      • Erick648

                                        Erick648 Pangalactic Porcupine

                                        I try to optimize a bit, but don't stress over it too much. My main goal is to have the greenhouse done by the first winter (or as early in the winter as possible), and to remember everyone's birthdays (and talk whenever it's convenient).
                                         
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                                        • Roskii Heiral

                                          Roskii Heiral Heliosphere

                                          I even use the time mod to slow it down even more. I like having to eat 3 times a day to keep my energy up and just goof around without any rushing
                                           

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