Board 8 > Starting Stardew Valley, any tips/advice?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Long time Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons fan, but I havent properly played Stardew yet (I played very briefly like 5 years ago).

Am I able to play at my own pace or is there anything specific that should be focused on sooner rather than later?

For your first play, I recommend just doing whatever feels good. Worry about min-maxing later.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

For your first play, I recommend just doing whatever feels good. Worry about min-maxing later.

This exactly. This was my first time with one of these types of games and I started to worry too much about min-maxing and kind of ruined the experience for myself. Just take it easy and enjoy.

Is there anything I can miss out on? Something like if you dont do this in the first year then you cant unlock this other thing?

Yeah, take it easy and learn at your own pace.

There's no metrics on how to play the game "right." Play to relax first and worry about being teh very best liek no1 eva wuz later.

I've played like 600 hours of Stardew and most of that was just to unwind btw

There kinda is stuff to miss, but it's really not stuff you should worry about your first run of the game. Trying to make "the perfect run" is just a way to make your run tedious and unfun as you focus on reading wikis to learn about schedules than just playing the game. It'll just result in you quitting the game anyway.

If you genuinely love the game, you'll likely do more runs in the future - which is when keeping the wiki open and trying to line everything up will be more fun.

Great_Paul posted...

Is there anything I can miss out on? Something like if you dont do this in the first year then you cant unlock this other thing?

Not really, unless something was added in a later update (I haven't played too much in the past year or so).

If you, say, miss growing something on time one year, there's always the next year. Take it slow. There's a LOT to learn.

As for crops... if you plant corn in the summer, it does carry over through to fall. There aren't many multi-season crops like that but that's just a tip.

Oh, and once you do livestock, they eat grass only. The little patches that are the same ones you'd cut for hay. Make sure you put your coops and barns near them! I didn't know that my first farm. (Also, I'd advise building a silo and filling it up before the coop. Just do that on your own schedule.)

...that's probably too much advice so I'm gonna shut up.

IIRC, the only thing you can permanently miss due to time is one of the early heart events with one of the villagers if you don't get it in the first year (Sam). But it has no consequences beyond one single missed scene. Really, you're free to do anything you want in whatever order you want, go at your own pace!

Only tip Id say is dont cut too much of the tall grass on your farm unless youre actively using the space; once you build a silo you can cut it for hay or let animals graze with it. If you cut a lot of it then it takes a while for it to start growing back

Cool, thanks for the input everyone.

Are you on PC? If so there's a couple quality of life mods I would recommend.

Ill be playing it on PSN

The game is a lot deeper than it looks, but yeah I would just have fun with at first rather than trying to do everything perfectly. If you really like it you can try stuff like finishing the community center year one, etc, later on.

Some random things:

The first thing you should always do is get 50 wood to make a chest. Inventory space is very limited early on. This way you can store tools you aren't using and useful items for crafting or gifting.

Check the TV every day before leaving the house. Knowing weather and luck can help you plan and other programs will give you useful tips and recipes.

Fishing is a good way to make money early on.

When the first salmonberry season comes (tv will let you know when), don't sell them, keep them on hand as a free and abundant supply of energy so you can do more farming, fishing, etc each day than you otherwise could. They don't make you much money anyway.

If you mouse over an item that you still need to add to a bundle, the community center button will pulse.

Buy crab pots. Great return investment.

Start tapping trees. You'll want the resins to build kegs that will increase the value of crops.

Save up to build a coop ASAP for eggs that can then be turned into mayo.

Hope you enjoy it, it's my most played game by a lot!

I haven't played in a while so new updates might have changed this, but one thing that isn't immediately obvious is that you can't really get the most out of a lot of holidays/ festivals on your first year. You won't have the requisite items or relationships yet. Don't stress it.

Early game fishing is one of the best moneymakers, you can buy a training rod from Willy to make fishing easier until you get to level 5.

Do whatever you want.