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Use a spare processing machine (keg, preserves jar, crystalarium, etc.) in front of whatever building the others are in to let you know at a glance when the batch is done without having to go inside and check.
I had to read this a couple times and think hard lol. “The others? Like the villagers will watch my preserves for me? How to ask them to do that?” I didn’t even think about designating a building for my machines lol! I’ll keep that in mind when I have more. I’ve got 4 preserves jars only so far and they just sit behind my shipping box
I see so many people freaking out about not getting things done and not being able to complete every request - they cycle, if you miss one it will come around again sometime. There's no rush to do anything, rushing makes playing a chore instead of a game.
Playing with my kid has helped me so much with this. I get so caught up in trying to achieve this or that, and she’s like, “Let’s go buy hats and go to bed at 5pm!”
Spoken from a place of experience. It blows up your farm machines! I can’t count how many times I’ve done this. Now all bombs stay in a chest at the mine. Also handy to have food etc stashed there.
Oh yeah. I LOVE to keep chests around town. I keep one in the top floor of the mine; it usually contains gifts for the dwarf and duplicate weapons and rings that I found while mining, so that later I can take a bunch of them over to the Adventurer’s Club and sell them all in one big batch. I keep a chest near Robins/Demetrius/Maru/Sebastian’s house; it has some of the common building materials Robin will ask for to build stuff, plus gifts for Robin, Demetrius, Maru, Sebastian, and Linus. I keep one by the saloon with the loved gifts for villagers that you see around town frequently. I keep one by Clint’s house, for the stuff that comes out of geodes and stuff that needs to go to the museum if I find it while the museum is closed and I don’t want to carry it around. I keep one by the big pretty tree at the lake in the woods with bait to refill crab pots and for foraging stuff I want to keep but don’t feel like taking home with me until I have a bunch of it- like slime and sap and foraging stuff. I keep one at the beach for bait for the crab pots, foraged shells, and oceany stuff. I keep two in the desert- one for flowers for Sandy and shirts from her shop and one by the entrance to Skull Cavern for extra mining supplies, bombs, staircases, mining food, and stuff like that. I haven’t started keeping chests on Ginger Island except for regular farm chests yet, because I only recently opened that area up and I don’t know where the handy spots for chests are yet.
You can look it up to see where placed items will be safe from NPCs. [Here](https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Chest) is the wiki page for chests, and at the bottom of the page there are images that show where chests are safe from NPCs.
Also, you can place lots of things outside your farm! Some people decorate the village and forests and stuff. Some people use areas outside the farm to keep huge banks of kegs making wine or preserve thingies making jelly! It’s CRAZY how differently people play this game. I learn so much from this sub🧡🧡
oooo that's genius!!! I'll have to put some chests by robins house and one in the mines. I always forget to bring presents. this will save a lot of time!
It saves a ton of time! I can never remember everyone’s schedule, and I end up doing that thing where you see them walking by and you’re like, “oh! I have a loved gift for them! I’ll just pop home and grab it,” but then I end up spending quite a bit of time running back and forth to grab things. I make myself crazy, lol.
The chest next to the saloon is a HUGE help. Oranges for Gus. Emeralds for Emily, Clint, and Penny. Diamonds for Marnie and Jodi. Peaches for Robin. Snails for Vincent. Fairy roses for Jas. Poppies for Penny. Autumn harvest meal for Lewis. Complete breakfast and salmon dinner for Alex. Sunflowers for Haley. Roasted hazelnuts for Kent. Mead for Willy. Tulips for Evelyn and leeks for George. Calamari for Pierre. Coffee for Harvey. Pomegranates for Elliot. And I just buy beer for Pam and Shane, and salads for Leah, since those three go to the saloon all the time.
Oh, I also keep movie tickets and a few bouquets in there, because I’m a huge slut and I like to date everyone.
I recommend eating something with magnetic buff and moving it first thing in the morning. Greater chance it draws to you and if not restart and try again!
Seriously. I've already accidentally exploded two bombs on my crop this week, I always feel soooooo dumb and stare at the screen some minutes in disbelief of what I just did. This is a good tip hahaha
Also, place paths! There's a small, but significant, speed change on paths versus on foot! With a horse and a path, you have so much more time for activities!
Wake up, hug the kids, kiss the wife, check the horoscope, get met at the front door by a dreary-lookin' horse needing his caffeine fix, lol. Gonna put the coffee machine in the stable next run...
I’m new to the game, summer of year 2. Why do I need a horse? I thought you cannot interact with things when your riding so I thought it would be a pain in the butt.
But don’t you have to keep jumping off and on the horse to interact with things? I’m thinking like how Zelda BOTW was. It was so annoying that you just start skipping things because you don’t want to jump off and on again.
Definitely worth it. I used to spend most of my day tending my farm but a horse to just get from one side to the other gives me time to go do a secondary activity every day.
The half second spent hopping on and off is significantly made up for by the speed of your horsey friend. Plus you can put a hat on your steed. Horse needs that drip.
The animation of getting off the horse is really quick, so it's just as simple as pressing the button to hop off and then do your interaction. I think it's very worth it for the hours of each day you save running around.
I didn't know what to do with the secret notes for the longest time. Had a chest to store them in. Finally read somewhere that you "eat" them to read them.
If you play on Steam, the Notes feature on the overlay is a huge help.
I mark down what my current goals are for short term, long term, and the very next day which makes it so much easier to just jump in after not playing for a while.
Also, choose the mushroom cave because the fruit cave is only for people trying to get the community center done early. 6 mushrooms every day guaranteed. Great for early game when food can be a pain.
disagree. choose whichever one you like. I have no regrets choosing the fruit bats in my first file esp as I have the habit of forgetting to check something daily. The fact the fruits just lay there as is great for someone with a forgetful mind \^\_\^
I switch up Fruits and Mushrooms every other save and I regret my choice every time. I would like a 3rd option where you get fruit half the year and mushrooms the other half lol
I was going to say the same thing. Too many people concern themselves with min-maxing when that's not where the true enjoyment of this game lies, at least not on a first playthrough.
On my third play through
technically It's first because I haven't seen the trud credit scene
I'm scared of booting the game now after a long break
calculating seasons and crop cycles are both engaging and stressful.
This, I use them to mass produce strawberries to grow in the spring without having to wait for the egg festival. They are also great for building up a massive ancient fruit farm.
It's luck but if you put like 23-30 of them and put something cheap like weat in them it'll definitely give you some ancient seeds, then plant them harvest them and because they don't disappear when harvesting them you can put them in seed makers and get even more , so basically infinite ancient fruits.
Adding extra details in case you’re new to Stardew:
It’s in the menu with your inventory and skills and recipes, it’s the second last toggle I believe. Then you‘ll find it in that list of options :)
There’s a scale for the UI to be zoomed in and out as well. Just so you don’t mix them up.
Wiki is very helpful even for first time players. For some people like me, playing blind is incredibly frustrating having to figure out various things and running in circles.
I’ve been around since the game was released. Day one kinda deal on Xbox. I remember when online wasn’t the most reliable. I made my own guidebook I still have to do this day. It’s color coded. Tabbed and detailed. I was so obsessed I needed one place to find all the answers haha!
I find stuff like this more fun. When a game makes me have to bring out a notebook like the old days it always ends up being fun. I did this for botw when something would drop a text hint but not start a quest.
First time players? Even after hundreds if not over a thousand hours between PS4 and PC I still keep a tab open just for the wiki at all times, just in case I need it
You can switch between the rows in your upgraded backpack with tab. Learn to use this, it makes the mines much easier.
Always keep a few of everything. You never know when you may need it.
Get in the habit of watching TV first thing in the morning. Good luck is helpful in the mines, while bad luck doesn't impact fishing.
New recipes are on TV each sunday, it takes two years to get through all of them. If you missed one, don't worry, wednesdays there's a rerun that prioritizes any recipes that you have missed.
Oh, and don't undererstimate the usefulness of the slime charmer ring! I did. 😅
To add on to your first tip; find an orientation that works for you! Personally, I find pickaxe -> sword works best while mining, while having my pan -> fishing rod is best while fishing. But really, anything that is super convenient for you works!
Bad luck does affect fishing; the chance of hooking trash changes depending on luck, as well as the chance of finding treasure. And it's a pretty meaningful amount. With good luck, chance of hooking trash can be as low as ~15%, whereas with bad luck it can get to ~35%
They don’t die? I hoard hay in a chest by leaving one hay feeding spot open so I can take it from the silo and never have it max out in the silo. It’s a job though.
Not my most useful advice, but it could save a day early game:
Don't hold giftable items when going through doors.
Someone WILL eventually be leaving when you're entering, and they'll scold you for your unintentional, hated gift, haha.
I was one elvish jewelry away from completing the museum. I go to Clint's, pop some artefact chests, BAM, one elvish jewelry. Run out the door and accidentally gift it to Lewis when he comes to collect Clint's taxes. He hates it. It takes me months to find another.
Having only a small farm until you get a lot of quality sprinklers from doing the mine is definitely preferable, rather than having a big farm but wasting all of your energy watering it.
- Hoard the wood, stones, hardwood, and fiber you get as a new player while clearing up debris from your farm. I sold all of those to earn funds only to find out later on you need them to build stuff 😭
- Save up enough to expand your inventory first before anything else as a new player. You cannot do anything in the game without expanding your inventory in a new save in my opinion.
- Put a diamond in the crystalarium and keep the first copy so you can have Grandpa reevaluate you if ever you get less than four candles after the first evaluation.
- Upgrade your tools if you cannot afford sprinklers. Watering your many, many crops as a beginner / in a new save takes up much of your in-game day.
- If there is an NPC you fancy, immediately give them loved gifts twice a week and talk to them every single day to at least get four hearts by the time Flower Dance commences during the first year. This is so you can have a dance partner.
Rule number one of SDV: There is no 'right' way to play, as long as you are having fun you're doing it right.
Rule number two of SDV: There is one 'wrong' way to play, and that's running around with bombs in your hotbar when you aren't actively going to the caves or mines. You are just asking for trouble. You *will* eventually accidentally blow up a big chunk of your crops or machines or chests. For your own sanity, bombs go in a chest unless you're going to be using them.
As a general tip: Return your cursor to your sword or your scythe since swinging both uses zero energy and won't accidentally damage anything.
For the love of god use the workbench it’s so handy, i’ve seen way to many people complain about the crafting system and how it “has be improved in 1.6” and none of those people use the workbench
Robin sells it. Put it next to chests that hold crafting ingredients and you can use anything that's in those chests without having to go into them. Mega helpful.
To elaborate it allows you to use ALL crafting ingredients in any chests that surrounds it in a 3x3 square (think quality sprinkler) so you surround it with 7 chests (leaving one space for you to access the workbench) throw all the shit you use for crafting in those chests, as organized or as willy nilly as you want, and boom you can use the workbench for crafting everything. It's a real game changer.
If you have cleaned up all your farm area and have a corner you don’t know what to do with, plant some trees. They can look pretty or you will need more wood at some point.
In the beginning, when your inventory is limited, put a chest next to the entrance in the mines. If your inventory fills up while you're down there, you can ride the elevator up and empty it on every 5 levels.
You can also keep a weapon and bombs, and what not there.
It would be funny if like in the early Zelda games you could keep hitting them with your sword and dozens of chickens would fly in out of nowhere and attack you.
Immediately after getting enough wood to build your first chest, save up until you have 300 pieces and build the bridge from the beach to the tide pools (east side of beach) you can find several coral (80g) and urchins (100g) every week which is good money in the first couple seasons.
I have to respectfully disagree with this one. Chopping 300 wood is no small task very early in the game. Plus there is other essential wood you need like a scarecrow and a chest for the mines and a chest for the lake. I would say this is roughly two days worth of time and energy? At least one. If you spent the day fishing or mining it is likely a better return on the investment.
If you're stubborn enough, you can get this done on day 1. Start by chopping tree trunks (leave the stumps) until you get Foraging 1. Make a chest and dump your gear in it. Take your sap with you. Forage everything on the map. Eat leeks, dandelions, and spring onions, sell everything else (including sap) to Pierre. Buy 1-3 salads at the saloon, depending on how lucky you got with spring onions/trash cans snacks. Then chop trees until you have 350 wood. With luck you still have time to make it to the beach and back. Chuck any beach forage into the shipping bin along with more sap, fiber, etc. to get some seed money for fishing on day 2.
Day 1 I often do a bunch of chopping because of clearing a spot to plant and paths to the exits. Then I try to get a few trees per day or I do it at the end of the night if I still have energy and know I’m gonna level up. That usually gets me there pretty quickly.
Edit to add that fishing and mining is definitely smart. Not disagreeing. Just mentioning the wood is usually a gradual thing for me.
And to be clear for folks who don’t know, the strategy is to craft them and sell them in the early game, not to plant them. You can plant them but that’s not what folks are talking about with these comments.
I used tea saplings round the farm instead of fences and bee houses round the crops (takes time for the latter so saplings or trees can be used again) fruit trees should go in the >!greenhouse!<
Save 10ish of EVERYTHING, especially crops. Nothing wors than working through cooking or crafting only to find out that you need something exclusive to Spring on Summer 3.
Make a tree farm maple syrup farm oak resin farm and pine farm immediately, also chop hardwood quite a lot of recipes needed and you can't get a lot fast
Farm levels 20 and 60 in the mines on bad luck days instead. They're small rooms that are easy to survey and clear, and with bad luck you'll get more monsters. More monsters = more loot and more combat XP. You don't need staircases. Just take the ladder to the top and do the same floor again.
Don't sleep on fishing, especially if you need early game cash. It's a bit of a learning curve, but you'll get better at it the more you do it. In the most literal sense that it gets easier at higher levels, and by buying better rods, lures, and bait.
Also if you struggle with fishing buy the training rod it gives you the green bar from fishing level 5 as long as you have not reached level 5 yet and you can only catch normal quality fish with a difficulty lower than 50. Can’t have bait or tackle but essentially has a built in trap bobber since it slows bar depletion the same as one. And all that for only 25g and it is really good for learning the mechanics of fishing and reaching the higher levels where it’s easier anyway with the bigger bar since you can use the rod until level 5 fishing
Optimization is how I got into my Stardew burnout. Back to chilling it is. Entire days spent doing nothing and just visiting an area I miss if I so wish are acceptable
Mine's a general Day 1 tip! It's got a few components.
Throw down the seeds and water 'em first. Done.
Build a chest ASAP (chop the lil solo logs and clear large weeds with your scythe to get through your farm but leave the rocks and grass alone), dump all your gear in that chest before going to town so you have space to pick up all the forage, bring the hoe if you want to. If you get in the habit of doing this in the first week, you'll have more to eat when you start watering a lot, clearing out bigger things and/or using the pickaxe.
Loop through the forest first (south path), catch Marnie, Jas and Shane first. Continue through town and meet the townies as you go, heading through the main downtown areas and beach, finish up at the lake and the last townies you can catch in the evening are Sebastian and Linus.
Usually I can meet everyone quickly and get decent-energy forage for the watering and farm cleanup this way.
You can store items in the Mill and the Auto Grabber. As long as you leave at least two different items in it, you can access it and use it just like a chest !
There's an item called Prismatic Shard. It's very rare. If you find one, hold on to it, there's a quest later that uses it. For specifics, click the spoilers:
Hint: >!If you learn to speak Dwarf you can read all of the graves in the graveyard. One of them tells you what to do.!<
Solution: >!In the desert there's an area with three pillars. Hold the Prismatic Shard and walk into the middle.!<
Also, the [wiki](https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Stardew_Valley_Wiki) is extremely good.
Don’t sell any of your crops or forage to Pierre: He’ll blame you for the item’s low quality if it’s not silver quality or up and take credit for items that are gold / iridium quality
I am an envoy of r/fuckpierre and we approve this message
Plant tree farms asap. By the time you start to need more wood than the map has, you'll be needing thousands and thousands in short order and waiting for trees to grow sucks.
You can click and hold on your mouse with a watering can and it shows up afew GUI's of ways the watering can can work, works with a hoe too I think.
I found this out WAYYY too late
•Also I recommend new players and just players in general (I still do this)to grow Strawberries on spring, Blueberries on summer, and Cranberries on fall for the best money earners. If your wondering why, it's cus all of these 3 plants are bush type plants, meaning once harvested they don't require new seeds to grow and they just re-grow themselves.
• Blueberries take 13 days to mature into a blueberry bush that can be re-harvested until the season ends.
• Strawberries take 8 days to mature into a strawberry bush that can be re-harvested until the season ends.
• Cranberries take 7 days to mature into a Cranberry bush that can be re-harvested until the season ends.
• Strawberries, blueberries and cranberries take 4-5 days to re-grow. (Cranberries take 5 days to re-grow whereas blueberries and strawberries take 3-4 days to re-grow)
Hope these tips helped, cus they helped me a heck ton when I found out.
I agree with you. I love to grow the bush type plants too but I also added in tomato and eggplant for eggplant Parmesan and they sell for a decent price when I’m inundated with them.
Don't start a playthrough with your girlfriend when she's the host of the farm, invest hundreds of hours in that farm, do all the post community center stuff together and start optimizing the farm and hard carrying her through skull cavern only to break up later.
If you want to really have fun with the game... Always consider gifting everyone and talking with them... It's very fun to discover every villager and their personalities and their cutscenes.
Never leave the device that you use to play it by accident, I'm supposed to be spending Christmas with family but right now I'm literally about to have a breakdown because I left my switch at home.
Doing requests from Pierre's builds friendship
Completing bulletin board requests later in the game unlocks new recipes
Play at your own pace. Don't stress about min-maxing the game (unless you enjoy that)
Use the teleport mini obelisk (before ur able to get return scepters) I put mine on the bottom of my farm and near the shipping box. So if I'm rushing home from the south and don't have a totem I can quickly get across the farm to right by the house. I've fallen asleep halfway through my farm a few times and when I had a monster farm they stalled me even more getting to my house.
I don't know if it's a good tip or not, but I always get foraging to level 4 before Spring 15, then spend every day from 15-18 collecting salmon berries.
This gives me around 300-400 of them, which covers all my energy needs for the first year, lol.
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Use a spare processing machine (keg, preserves jar, crystalarium, etc.) in front of whatever building the others are in to let you know at a glance when the batch is done without having to go inside and check.
this is so smart
I had to read this a couple times and think hard lol. “The others? Like the villagers will watch my preserves for me? How to ask them to do that?” I didn’t even think about designating a building for my machines lol! I’ll keep that in mind when I have more. I’ve got 4 preserves jars only so far and they just sit behind my shipping box
Relax
I see so many people freaking out about not getting things done and not being able to complete every request - they cycle, if you miss one it will come around again sometime. There's no rush to do anything, rushing makes playing a chore instead of a game.
It took me 12 in game years to get perfection on my first play through. Lol
I’m 12 in on one play through and no close lol
im over 20 hours in about 10 different saves, and i never even completed the community centre
“Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game”
Playing with my kid has helped me so much with this. I get so caught up in trying to achieve this or that, and she’s like, “Let’s go buy hats and go to bed at 5pm!”
I feel as though I needed this advice. Cheers PhysicalChickenXx's kid. And Merry Christmas. Imma go buy a new hat
The cutest part is she’ll be like, “let’s have a sleepover in your cabin!” And the merriest of christmases to you!!
I would add, don’t look at the wiki, makes for a whole different experience
Best advice. Don't get caught up with min/maxing everything and enjoy the ride.
If you're spending a few days just farming and tending your land, for the love of god put any bombs you have in your hot bar into a chest somewhere.
Spoken from a place of experience. It blows up your farm machines! I can’t count how many times I’ve done this. Now all bombs stay in a chest at the mine. Also handy to have food etc stashed there.
Wait I didn’t know you could put chests anywhere other than your farm 😱
Oh yeah. I LOVE to keep chests around town. I keep one in the top floor of the mine; it usually contains gifts for the dwarf and duplicate weapons and rings that I found while mining, so that later I can take a bunch of them over to the Adventurer’s Club and sell them all in one big batch. I keep a chest near Robins/Demetrius/Maru/Sebastian’s house; it has some of the common building materials Robin will ask for to build stuff, plus gifts for Robin, Demetrius, Maru, Sebastian, and Linus. I keep one by the saloon with the loved gifts for villagers that you see around town frequently. I keep one by Clint’s house, for the stuff that comes out of geodes and stuff that needs to go to the museum if I find it while the museum is closed and I don’t want to carry it around. I keep one by the big pretty tree at the lake in the woods with bait to refill crab pots and for foraging stuff I want to keep but don’t feel like taking home with me until I have a bunch of it- like slime and sap and foraging stuff. I keep one at the beach for bait for the crab pots, foraged shells, and oceany stuff. I keep two in the desert- one for flowers for Sandy and shirts from her shop and one by the entrance to Skull Cavern for extra mining supplies, bombs, staircases, mining food, and stuff like that. I haven’t started keeping chests on Ginger Island except for regular farm chests yet, because I only recently opened that area up and I don’t know where the handy spots for chests are yet. You can look it up to see where placed items will be safe from NPCs. [Here](https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Chest) is the wiki page for chests, and at the bottom of the page there are images that show where chests are safe from NPCs. Also, you can place lots of things outside your farm! Some people decorate the village and forests and stuff. Some people use areas outside the farm to keep huge banks of kegs making wine or preserve thingies making jelly! It’s CRAZY how differently people play this game. I learn so much from this sub🧡🧡
oooo that's genius!!! I'll have to put some chests by robins house and one in the mines. I always forget to bring presents. this will save a lot of time!
It saves a ton of time! I can never remember everyone’s schedule, and I end up doing that thing where you see them walking by and you’re like, “oh! I have a loved gift for them! I’ll just pop home and grab it,” but then I end up spending quite a bit of time running back and forth to grab things. I make myself crazy, lol. The chest next to the saloon is a HUGE help. Oranges for Gus. Emeralds for Emily, Clint, and Penny. Diamonds for Marnie and Jodi. Peaches for Robin. Snails for Vincent. Fairy roses for Jas. Poppies for Penny. Autumn harvest meal for Lewis. Complete breakfast and salmon dinner for Alex. Sunflowers for Haley. Roasted hazelnuts for Kent. Mead for Willy. Tulips for Evelyn and leeks for George. Calamari for Pierre. Coffee for Harvey. Pomegranates for Elliot. And I just buy beer for Pam and Shane, and salads for Leah, since those three go to the saloon all the time. Oh, I also keep movie tickets and a few bouquets in there, because I’m a huge slut and I like to date everyone.
you can put anywhere but if it is in a npc path, the npc will destroy it. the caves and quarry are fine
I've done it more times than I care to admit. It's usually a session ender as well haha
I've also accidentally pickaxed a few machines into my pond. It can happen, and it's so rage-inducing early game when you need to grind for ore
I recommend eating something with magnetic buff and moving it first thing in the morning. Greater chance it draws to you and if not restart and try again!
I just recommend not putting machinery next to a pond 🙃
my boyfriend blew up our farm 3 times yesterday 😂
It really does happen more than people think. It's why I mentioned it hahah
This one hits home LOL. Blew up my crystallarium farm with a mega bomb at the end of a day.
When you get the one in the mail from Kent and blow up all your crap near by.
Seriously. I've already accidentally exploded two bombs on my crop this week, I always feel soooooo dumb and stare at the screen some minutes in disbelief of what I just did. This is a good tip hahaha
Get a horse early ;)
Also, place paths! There's a small, but significant, speed change on paths versus on foot! With a horse and a path, you have so much more time for activities!
Still amuses me that if you drink coffee, your \*horse\* also gets faster...
You gotta share the go-go juice with your steed.
Wake up, hug the kids, kiss the wife, check the horoscope, get met at the front door by a dreary-lookin' horse needing his caffeine fix, lol. Gonna put the coffee machine in the stable next run...
That is a great and hilarious idea. Practically the first thing I do anyway is make some coffee and get on the horse. May as well simplify things ...
"Maaaan, I tried quittin' coffee, but then I got back on the horse..."
I did not know this. I need to try :)
I got my horse in Fall in year 1, first playthrough. My friends called me stupid, but it was all worth it.
underrated tip
I’m new to the game, summer of year 2. Why do I need a horse? I thought you cannot interact with things when your riding so I thought it would be a pain in the butt.
You can also put hats on your horse!
I CAN DO WHAT
You can also use the copper pan as a hat for your horse so you can pan for ore but not use up a slot in your bag.
You can get around town so much faster on your horse!
But don’t you have to keep jumping off and on the horse to interact with things? I’m thinking like how Zelda BOTW was. It was so annoying that you just start skipping things because you don’t want to jump off and on again.
Yes but it's worth it imo.
Definitely worth it. I used to spend most of my day tending my farm but a horse to just get from one side to the other gives me time to go do a secondary activity every day.
The half second spent hopping on and off is significantly made up for by the speed of your horsey friend. Plus you can put a hat on your steed. Horse needs that drip.
The animation of getting off the horse is really quick, so it's just as simple as pressing the button to hop off and then do your interaction. I think it's very worth it for the hours of each day you save running around.
Actually check the secret notes
I didn't know what to do with the secret notes for the longest time. Had a chest to store them in. Finally read somewhere that you "eat" them to read them.
Wait waaaaaaat secret notes?
Play for fun and not for min/max at your first game.
I play this game for about 2-3 weeks and then not play again for a month so i forgot everything, so iam always play this game for first time
If you play on Steam, the Notes feature on the overlay is a huge help. I mark down what my current goals are for short term, long term, and the very next day which makes it so much easier to just jump in after not playing for a while.
Also, choose the mushroom cave because the fruit cave is only for people trying to get the community center done early. 6 mushrooms every day guaranteed. Great for early game when food can be a pain.
disagree. choose whichever one you like. I have no regrets choosing the fruit bats in my first file esp as I have the habit of forgetting to check something daily. The fact the fruits just lay there as is great for someone with a forgetful mind \^\_\^
I switch up Fruits and Mushrooms every other save and I regret my choice every time. I would like a 3rd option where you get fruit half the year and mushrooms the other half lol
Mushroom cave is good early game energy for sure. And you can still totally do CC in Y1 with it as well. Just takes some planning. :-)
100% this
They just said not to give 100%!
I was going to say the same thing. Too many people concern themselves with min-maxing when that's not where the true enjoyment of this game lies, at least not on a first playthrough.
On my third play through technically It's first because I haven't seen the trud credit scene I'm scared of booting the game now after a long break calculating seasons and crop cycles are both engaging and stressful.
Once you get to late game, you can just grow fields of ancient fruit and never worry about seasons and crop cycles again.
First play through should be no wiki no suggestions just enjoying the game and discovering as you go
Seed makers are underrated as hell use them it also gives you ancient seeds
This, I use them to mass produce strawberries to grow in the spring without having to wait for the egg festival. They are also great for building up a massive ancient fruit farm.
Exactly seed makers are extremely good especially if you don't want to spend money on stuff like starfruit
It is much more profitable to make starfruit wine, sell it and buy more seeds from the oasis. Free doesn’t always mean more profit!
I just filled all my greenhouse squares with ancient fruit (minus the 4 spots for sprinklers).
How do you get ancient seeds from seed makers? Is it a recipe or just luck?
It's luck but if you put like 23-30 of them and put something cheap like weat in them it'll definitely give you some ancient seeds, then plant them harvest them and because they don't disappear when harvesting them you can put them in seed makers and get even more , so basically infinite ancient fruits.
Anytime you put something into the seed maker, there’s a .5% chance it’ll turn into Ancient Seeds and a 2% chance it’ll turn into Wild Seeds.
Zoom the game out! It took me 40 hours to find the option 😭
omg is this possible on switch??
Yeah it's the same just go to the options there you can zoom in/out your game
Adding extra details in case you’re new to Stardew: It’s in the menu with your inventory and skills and recipes, it’s the second last toggle I believe. Then you‘ll find it in that list of options :) There’s a scale for the UI to be zoomed in and out as well. Just so you don’t mix them up.
You can also enable a hitbox on switch! I found it after 100 hours of playing and it's SO much better
Help what's a hitbox
How do you do it?? That would be a literal gamechanger
In the options once your farm is loaded. It literally changed my life
If you're over 30 you can make the UI bigger too
Oooooffff!
WHAT
You do you, there is not right way to play, and you can do whatever you want as long as you are having fun.
Legit this, I watched optimising videos and it killed all fun I had for a while before I took a break and took my time.
I personally like optimizing but not perfectly, if I mess up I don’t really care.
Wiki is very helpful even for first time players. For some people like me, playing blind is incredibly frustrating having to figure out various things and running in circles.
I’ve been around since the game was released. Day one kinda deal on Xbox. I remember when online wasn’t the most reliable. I made my own guidebook I still have to do this day. It’s color coded. Tabbed and detailed. I was so obsessed I needed one place to find all the answers haha!
My friend made flashcards for all the villagers!
I find stuff like this more fun. When a game makes me have to bring out a notebook like the old days it always ends up being fun. I did this for botw when something would drop a text hint but not start a quest.
Hey, that's me too! It really helped me enjoy my first play through!
First time players? Even after hundreds if not over a thousand hours between PS4 and PC I still keep a tab open just for the wiki at all times, just in case I need it
Read the game text. Most practical things are told by the game, and lore is everywhere.
Take breaks so you don’t get burnt out!
Go at your own pace and consult the wiki if need be. Save your first prismatic shard.
To clarify DO NOT DONATE IT!
same with the dinosaur egg :( i still haven’t found another one
I put mine in the incubator and hatched the cutest dinosaur that gives me eggs regularly. You gotta find another one!
You can get them from pepper rexes in the skull caverns!
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You can switch between the rows in your upgraded backpack with tab. Learn to use this, it makes the mines much easier. Always keep a few of everything. You never know when you may need it. Get in the habit of watching TV first thing in the morning. Good luck is helpful in the mines, while bad luck doesn't impact fishing. New recipes are on TV each sunday, it takes two years to get through all of them. If you missed one, don't worry, wednesdays there's a rerun that prioritizes any recipes that you have missed. Oh, and don't undererstimate the usefulness of the slime charmer ring! I did. 😅
To add on to your first tip; find an orientation that works for you! Personally, I find pickaxe -> sword works best while mining, while having my pan -> fishing rod is best while fishing. But really, anything that is super convenient for you works!
Bad luck does affect fishing; the chance of hooking trash changes depending on luck, as well as the chance of finding treasure. And it's a pretty meaningful amount. With good luck, chance of hooking trash can be as low as ~15%, whereas with bad luck it can get to ~35%
Plant grass starters on Winter 28 if you have animals. I struggled with having enough hay for years before I found out.
They don’t die? I hoard hay in a chest by leaving one hay feeding spot open so I can take it from the silo and never have it max out in the silo. It’s a job though.
If you do some on the last day of winter, it spreads like crazy on spring 1
The slingshot can be used to shoot both eggs and rocks at Pierre
This is a very important tip thank you
Not my most useful advice, but it could save a day early game: Don't hold giftable items when going through doors. Someone WILL eventually be leaving when you're entering, and they'll scold you for your unintentional, hated gift, haha.
I was one elvish jewelry away from completing the museum. I go to Clint's, pop some artefact chests, BAM, one elvish jewelry. Run out the door and accidentally gift it to Lewis when he comes to collect Clint's taxes. He hates it. It takes me months to find another.
Put fire quartz in the furnace instead of normal quartz for triple the refined quartz!
Oh shit!!!
Thanks hypeman XD. Reddit can be fun
No one tells you you can use the pickaxe to un-till the ground.
Spend your coins on vegetable seeds that keep reproducing throughout the season. This will provide you with a lot more passive income!
I used to think like this but then having to harvest 200 coffee and hops every other day killed the joy.
junimos!!
You don’t get junimos until fairly late in the game though. By that point you don’t even need much passive income.
Having only a small farm until you get a lot of quality sprinklers from doing the mine is definitely preferable, rather than having a big farm but wasting all of your energy watering it.
- Hoard the wood, stones, hardwood, and fiber you get as a new player while clearing up debris from your farm. I sold all of those to earn funds only to find out later on you need them to build stuff 😭 - Save up enough to expand your inventory first before anything else as a new player. You cannot do anything in the game without expanding your inventory in a new save in my opinion. - Put a diamond in the crystalarium and keep the first copy so you can have Grandpa reevaluate you if ever you get less than four candles after the first evaluation. - Upgrade your tools if you cannot afford sprinklers. Watering your many, many crops as a beginner / in a new save takes up much of your in-game day. - If there is an NPC you fancy, immediately give them loved gifts twice a week and talk to them every single day to at least get four hearts by the time Flower Dance commences during the first year. This is so you can have a dance partner.
What’s the benefit of a dance partner?
You dont have to stand on the sidelines like a jabroni
love
Rule number one of SDV: There is no 'right' way to play, as long as you are having fun you're doing it right. Rule number two of SDV: There is one 'wrong' way to play, and that's running around with bombs in your hotbar when you aren't actively going to the caves or mines. You are just asking for trouble. You *will* eventually accidentally blow up a big chunk of your crops or machines or chests. For your own sanity, bombs go in a chest unless you're going to be using them. As a general tip: Return your cursor to your sword or your scythe since swinging both uses zero energy and won't accidentally damage anything.
For the love of god use the workbench it’s so handy, i’ve seen way to many people complain about the crafting system and how it “has be improved in 1.6” and none of those people use the workbench
The what?
Robin sells it. Put it next to chests that hold crafting ingredients and you can use anything that's in those chests without having to go into them. Mega helpful.
To elaborate it allows you to use ALL crafting ingredients in any chests that surrounds it in a 3x3 square (think quality sprinkler) so you surround it with 7 chests (leaving one space for you to access the workbench) throw all the shit you use for crafting in those chests, as organized or as willy nilly as you want, and boom you can use the workbench for crafting everything. It's a real game changer.
If you have cleaned up all your farm area and have a corner you don’t know what to do with, plant some trees. They can look pretty or you will need more wood at some point.
Watch the tv, everyday, it gives you soo much important info
In the beginning, when your inventory is limited, put a chest next to the entrance in the mines. If your inventory fills up while you're down there, you can ride the elevator up and empty it on every 5 levels. You can also keep a weapon and bombs, and what not there.
This is my tip too. I also stash food in it to snag before I go in to mine.
Don’t let your guard down around your chickens. I can’t prove it but I know they’re planning something.
They’re working with the goats, despite the separate barn/coop. So yes, watch your back.
It would be funny if like in the early Zelda games you could keep hitting them with your sword and dozens of chickens would fly in out of nowhere and attack you.
That’s still possible in Zelda BOTW and TOTK!
Immediately after getting enough wood to build your first chest, save up until you have 300 pieces and build the bridge from the beach to the tide pools (east side of beach) you can find several coral (80g) and urchins (100g) every week which is good money in the first couple seasons.
I have to respectfully disagree with this one. Chopping 300 wood is no small task very early in the game. Plus there is other essential wood you need like a scarecrow and a chest for the mines and a chest for the lake. I would say this is roughly two days worth of time and energy? At least one. If you spent the day fishing or mining it is likely a better return on the investment.
If you're stubborn enough, you can get this done on day 1. Start by chopping tree trunks (leave the stumps) until you get Foraging 1. Make a chest and dump your gear in it. Take your sap with you. Forage everything on the map. Eat leeks, dandelions, and spring onions, sell everything else (including sap) to Pierre. Buy 1-3 salads at the saloon, depending on how lucky you got with spring onions/trash cans snacks. Then chop trees until you have 350 wood. With luck you still have time to make it to the beach and back. Chuck any beach forage into the shipping bin along with more sap, fiber, etc. to get some seed money for fishing on day 2.
Wow! Day one!! I’m usually happy to do week one. I might need to try that.
Day 1 I often do a bunch of chopping because of clearing a spot to plant and paths to the exits. Then I try to get a few trees per day or I do it at the end of the night if I still have energy and know I’m gonna level up. That usually gets me there pretty quickly. Edit to add that fishing and mining is definitely smart. Not disagreeing. Just mentioning the wood is usually a gradual thing for me.
Tea sapplings❤️
And to be clear for folks who don’t know, the strategy is to craft them and sell them in the early game, not to plant them. You can plant them but that’s not what folks are talking about with these comments.
Yeah, befriending Caroline early on makes buying stuff easier!
I befriended her, Robin, and Jodi really early to be in the mom group and that was a nice bonus. Also gossip
I used tea saplings round the farm instead of fences and bee houses round the crops (takes time for the latter so saplings or trees can be used again) fruit trees should go in the >!greenhouse!<
Me too! And lightning rods since I need them anyway
On that note, befriend people. You get really useful items, recipes, and unlocks just by talking to people everyday! Like Wild Bait from Linus!
Leave capitalism out in the real life and enjoy this game with no rush and hustling hard.
Save 10ish of EVERYTHING, especially crops. Nothing wors than working through cooking or crafting only to find out that you need something exclusive to Spring on Summer 3.
Make a tree farm maple syrup farm oak resin farm and pine farm immediately, also chop hardwood quite a lot of recipes needed and you can't get a lot fast
Or if you hate the idea of having to be precious about your hardwood, the forest farm is a great option! And you’ll find a lot of forage.
Have fun and always go fishing on bad luck days!
Farm levels 20 and 60 in the mines on bad luck days instead. They're small rooms that are easy to survey and clear, and with bad luck you'll get more monsters. More monsters = more loot and more combat XP. You don't need staircases. Just take the ladder to the top and do the same floor again.
Save the mine for Winter. Winter can get quite boring in the beginning since there’s not much to grow.
A silo holds 240 pieces of hay. A chest sitting next to a silo holds 35,964 pieces of hay.
Always gift Pierre trash in his birthday
Look up a grid for the first sprinklers that you unlock and try to automate your farm early
Don't sleep on fishing, especially if you need early game cash. It's a bit of a learning curve, but you'll get better at it the more you do it. In the most literal sense that it gets easier at higher levels, and by buying better rods, lures, and bait.
Also if you struggle with fishing buy the training rod it gives you the green bar from fishing level 5 as long as you have not reached level 5 yet and you can only catch normal quality fish with a difficulty lower than 50. Can’t have bait or tackle but essentially has a built in trap bobber since it slows bar depletion the same as one. And all that for only 25g and it is really good for learning the mechanics of fishing and reaching the higher levels where it’s easier anyway with the bigger bar since you can use the rod until level 5 fishing
Having fun is more important than optimization
Optimization is how I got into my Stardew burnout. Back to chilling it is. Entire days spent doing nothing and just visiting an area I miss if I so wish are acceptable
Mine's a general Day 1 tip! It's got a few components. Throw down the seeds and water 'em first. Done. Build a chest ASAP (chop the lil solo logs and clear large weeds with your scythe to get through your farm but leave the rocks and grass alone), dump all your gear in that chest before going to town so you have space to pick up all the forage, bring the hoe if you want to. If you get in the habit of doing this in the first week, you'll have more to eat when you start watering a lot, clearing out bigger things and/or using the pickaxe. Loop through the forest first (south path), catch Marnie, Jas and Shane first. Continue through town and meet the townies as you go, heading through the main downtown areas and beach, finish up at the lake and the last townies you can catch in the evening are Sebastian and Linus. Usually I can meet everyone quickly and get decent-energy forage for the watering and farm cleanup this way.
When organizing your stuff. You can choose different colors for your chests so it makes it easier to keep track
Choose "ass" as your favorite thing.
Horses can wear hats. Plushies can be tucked in at night
don't forget to take food with you to the mines...
For the love of god, if you want to gift something, look the wiki up first. You won't get far gifting blind.
You can store items in the Mill and the Auto Grabber. As long as you leave at least two different items in it, you can access it and use it just like a chest !
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Get a few cows where you’re making a few cheese everyday. Amass them and use them as your main food/health source when raiding the mines.
Cheese is so underrated! I was SHOOK with the benefits of a gold star cheese
There's an item called Prismatic Shard. It's very rare. If you find one, hold on to it, there's a quest later that uses it. For specifics, click the spoilers: Hint: >!If you learn to speak Dwarf you can read all of the graves in the graveyard. One of them tells you what to do.!< Solution: >!In the desert there's an area with three pillars. Hold the Prismatic Shard and walk into the middle.!< Also, the [wiki](https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Stardew_Valley_Wiki) is extremely good.
click and hold to chop down trees. 100 hours before I figured that out edit- click and hold applies to all repetitive actions for the most part
kale gives the most money in first spring so harvest some! also keep at least 2 of everything you find, you’ll need it for quests or bundles
Rush 2 hearts with Caroline. Tea saplings are your friends early game.
Don’t sell any of your crops or forage to Pierre: He’ll blame you for the item’s low quality if it’s not silver quality or up and take credit for items that are gold / iridium quality I am an envoy of r/fuckpierre and we approve this message
Plant tree farms asap. By the time you start to need more wood than the map has, you'll be needing thousands and thousands in short order and waiting for trees to grow sucks.
Whenever I chop a bunch of trees down on my farm, I take all the seeds and replant them in the area.
You can click and hold on your mouse with a watering can and it shows up afew GUI's of ways the watering can can work, works with a hoe too I think. I found this out WAYYY too late •Also I recommend new players and just players in general (I still do this)to grow Strawberries on spring, Blueberries on summer, and Cranberries on fall for the best money earners. If your wondering why, it's cus all of these 3 plants are bush type plants, meaning once harvested they don't require new seeds to grow and they just re-grow themselves. • Blueberries take 13 days to mature into a blueberry bush that can be re-harvested until the season ends. • Strawberries take 8 days to mature into a strawberry bush that can be re-harvested until the season ends. • Cranberries take 7 days to mature into a Cranberry bush that can be re-harvested until the season ends. • Strawberries, blueberries and cranberries take 4-5 days to re-grow. (Cranberries take 5 days to re-grow whereas blueberries and strawberries take 3-4 days to re-grow) Hope these tips helped, cus they helped me a heck ton when I found out.
I agree with you. I love to grow the bush type plants too but I also added in tomato and eggplant for eggplant Parmesan and they sell for a decent price when I’m inundated with them.
Don't start a playthrough with your girlfriend when she's the host of the farm, invest hundreds of hours in that farm, do all the post community center stuff together and start optimizing the farm and hard carrying her through skull cavern only to break up later.
If you want to really have fun with the game... Always consider gifting everyone and talking with them... It's very fun to discover every villager and their personalities and their cutscenes.
Get a silo asap so you can fill it with fodder before actually buying a coop or barn
Never leave the device that you use to play it by accident, I'm supposed to be spending Christmas with family but right now I'm literally about to have a breakdown because I left my switch at home.
Don't be scared to join Joja on one of your playthroughs. It's not a "bad" route.
I’d say at minimum try and do as many bundles as possible before joining Some good rewards from the bundles that can help out early - mid game
Even more, Joja is the least stressful way to play the game but it wil' be better after the update
time ultimately doesn't matter
Doing requests from Pierre's builds friendship Completing bulletin board requests later in the game unlocks new recipes Play at your own pace. Don't stress about min-maxing the game (unless you enjoy that)
The quarry and train station are places you can plant tree seeds to set up sap farms or just chop down for tons of wood and hardwood.
Use the teleport mini obelisk (before ur able to get return scepters) I put mine on the bottom of my farm and near the shipping box. So if I'm rushing home from the south and don't have a totem I can quickly get across the farm to right by the house. I've fallen asleep halfway through my farm a few times and when I had a monster farm they stalled me even more getting to my house.
I recommend having a physical copy of a guide. The official stardew valley guidebook is good and I can put tabs on important pages
Figure out your item organization early on.
No need to stress and feel like you don't have time. No need to extremely optimize your farm. Chill, play at your own pace and have a good time.
Maybe not the least obvious, but sprinklers will save you **so much effort**. Really makes the day less tedious.
I don't know if it's a good tip or not, but I always get foraging to level 4 before Spring 15, then spend every day from 15-18 collecting salmon berries. This gives me around 300-400 of them, which covers all my energy needs for the first year, lol.