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Comment by DC1350 | Hacker News Reader

I didn’t like Stardew Valley because I thought it was one of the most stressful games I’ve ever played. It gets a reputation for being relaxing, but I felt like the timer plus the variety put a lot of pressure on me to play efficiently and maximize each day. Was I just playing the game wrong?

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The game doesn't do a good job of explaining this, but, there is almost no benefit to min-maxing it. Absolutely nothing is gated off by taking your time to do it. If it takes you seven in-game years to finish the community center, there's no downside. It's a common misconception that you need to complete everything as quickly as possible. I think this stems from the fact that after your second year you get a kind of "grade". But this doesn't matter since you can choose to get graded again whenever you want!

Some people find the min-maxing to be part of the fun, but it sounds like it stressed you out, so you just shouldn't play it that way. Take as long as you want, the game will not punish you for doing that.

I just wish time went a _bit_ more slowly, or there was some mechanic to slow it down.. the first day of the season, even with coffee, I'm always rushing to get a 300+ crop farm re-tilled / fertilized / planted in time. I know that min-maxing isn't really necessary, but there's a part of me that can't stand not getting everything done on the first day (which can mean the difference between 2 and 3 harvests in a season).

The first year was pretty hectic for me trying to get everything done - basically had no time for relationships until year 2. I would not call that experience relaxing, even though it was pretty fun. But once you hit year 3+, it becomes pretty chill when you have iridium sprinkles + junimo huts taking care of pretty much everything while tons of money rolls in, so you can just focus on getting your farm perfectly set up.

Of course, after I had my farm set up perfectly, that's when I lost interest

There are mods that gives you as much time as you want.

This mod, together with save anywhere and lookup anything makes the game much more relaxing

It sounds like you're playing this as you would code at work. Optimize, maximize, automate. Stardew valley is not factorio :p

> But this doesn't matter since you can choose to get graded again whenever you want!

I don't think this was true in the original release of the game, which may be why early players felt pressured.

The re-grading capability was added within two weeks of the game's release in early 2016. Only the VERY earliest players would have been affected.

Ah, OK; I didn't realize that change happened so early.

I think that the central gameplay loop can affect people differently. Some people can turn their conscious thought off and just go through a checklist of chores and it is relaxing. Others, like yourself, may find themselves stuck on the concept of "Am I doing the most I can with each possible day". If you don't mind sharing, do you bring a similar mindset to your professional or private life?

Unrelated note to your comment: "fmining" was a great skill track.

Are you talking about the day/night cycle or the 2-year "timer" before you get evaluated?

Once you get evaluated at the end of two years you can get re-evaluated whenever you want and you can still get the reward for the highest evaluation tier. You don't lose anything from not getting the perfect evaluation the first time.

The day/night cycle. I don’t think I played until the end of year 2. It felt like every day was just managing my crops as fast as I could, then running straight to the mine and getting as far as possible before the day ended. Days where it rained were a relief. Maybe I just planted too much

I quit Stardew the first time for the reason you just said. The day/night cycle was unforgiving.

I started it again a few weeks ago when 1.5 came out. This time I'm using mods. I usually avoid mods because it feels like cheating, it doesn't feel like an accomplishment to succeed at an arbitrarily modified version of a game.

But since this game isn't competitive, and mods make the difference between having a game to enjoy and skipping it altogether, I have no problem with mods. There's one that lets you pause/unpause the day so it can be as long as you want.

The timer prevents the player from performing the same task endlessly. Even trying to do the same task every day of every season is likely impossible. I like the timer, because I felt like it forced me to pick new things and explore every morning.

I am the exact same way. It always gives me intense anxiety.

Yeah. Don't try to max everything. Take your time. I have never used a wiki while playing and really enjoyed spending a few hundred hours just discovering things.

I think so. It's true that there's a time limit per day but you have as many years as you want to accomplish any task.

I agree with your sentiment. I saw an RPG for sale and one of the reviewers said the quests had timers. ugh.

I do understand that some experiences are heightened by conflict or urgency - but if you've been gamed all day at work with those experiences - maybe just taking the time to be aware and explore is what you're looking for.

IIRC that's just for daily quests, which usually only give money as reward.

I felt the same, but my gf became so obsessed with it we eventually broke up

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