LogFAQs > #932991899

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Traveling Merchant

It honestly pains me to not rank this character any higher than she is right now. I consider her to be one of the most useful NPCs in the entire game... if not the most useful, hands down. It depends partially on your play style. If you're the type who played Stardew Valley one time until you got bored of it, you probably thought she was pretty useful. Although it's possible you missed out on her without thinking about it too much.

If you are the type who obsessively continued playing into year 6, 7, and beyond on the same file, doing everything possible to maximize the efficiency of your farm or customize your layout until you were satisfied with how everything looked... I'll admit, the Traveling Merchant will gradually become less useful over time. Though she is still a godsend at the start. And if you're like me? Well... I consider Year 1 into the beginning of Year 2 to be the most fun part of the game, and I've played multiple files just for the experience of starting up a new farm again and seeing how well I could do. With this type of gameplay I don't think anything even comes close to the Traveling Merchant.



You can get bundle items from her with 1/100 the amount of effort it would take to get those items for yourself. She sells rare seeds that can make a huge difference if you're able to obtain them early on. You can get items for quests. Things that are generally time locked or will take you much longer to set up on your own -- like a battery. Making lightning rods in Summer Year 1 is a bit of a time crunch, and sometimes you'll be stuck waiting for storms in year 2 before you can get batteries. Or you can just buy them from her whenever she is selling them! She even sells Ancient Seeds and Caviar, two items that are needed for the new postgame bundle and can take a lot of work to obtain on your own.

Her biggest weakness of course is the fact that, well... she has no lines, no dialogue at all. No scenes. No real interaction with the player outside of being a vendor. No quests. Nothing. It's pretty sad since she does have a cool design, a really flavorful traveling cart, and is so insanely useful that I would absolutely become friends with her if I could. I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking it was a bit strange for me to place her this high, and she is the character who I figured no one would possibly predict for the top 10. But if you think of it from my point of view, I think it at least makes sense: she really is so immensely useful and unique from a gameplay perspective that I don't consider any of the other 'non-characterized' NPCs to be anywhere near her level.



So yeah, go visit the traveling merchant as often as you can. You really want to take every possible opportunity to see what she has in stock and try to benefit from it. I also love how she shows up at the new Night Market, giving you a few extra chances to buy random items from her per year. And it's later in the year too, when my spending habits are a bit more flexible even on Year 1. Very cool.


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now I only see your dull imposter
https://imgur.com/BYYr6fn