Anyone tired of the seemingly endless grinds?

[Mimilette]

There's a lot I like in this game but the endless grind is starting to kill the interest. I particularly despise relationship decay and the way to access to the new mine. Everything feels gated behind busy work that loses its charm quickly. Doing one or two short quests for NPCs at the start of the game is fine, albeit not super exciting, but once you get a decent amount of NPCs in your town it becomes a real chore to level up their relationship, but even once leveled you feel obligated to keep doing these repetitive quests just for a chance at a blueprint, or to keep talking to them to not lose relationship.

I'm genuinely curious, are there people who enjoy having to click on NPCs every day to get the same conversation just to keep the relationships topped?

As for the new mine, being forced to farm the first level just for a *chance* at getting rubies is seriously killing me. I think Stardew Valley was way better on that front, being able to "save" progression every 5 levels is so much more motivating and makes you feel like you're actually progressing, whereas here it's just being forced to do the same basic stuff over and over for not even a guarantee at getting to a lower level.

I dunno, maybe I'm mistaken but it really feels like the developer is gatekeeping everything behind grinds to make the game artificially longer.

[100% Recycled Awesome]

You just need to chat with them to keep up 5 hearts. Not great, but not terrible. That said, I don't think relationship decay adds anything to the game and it's just annoying players unnecessarily. Especially for people trying to create awesome structures. I end up doing most of the mega structure construction late at night and going through huge amounts of corn and quandongs.

The prior content release had doing quests for NPCs as the fastest way to get blueprints. I got all of the new stuff within three in game days. This new content release, not so much. It does seem like the dev is artificially slowing things down, which is annoying but I do understand it. He works months on content and we unlock everything in an hour and a half. Hahhahha.

I'm fine with the rubies to get into the new mine level. Rubies seem to be more common now. I got 6 rubies last time and I broke them all to get 18 shards. The new mine level seems like it takes much longer, most likely as you have to stand and fight rather than just stun and run. The new ore though, that seems ridiculously rare and outside of the furnace and band saw, requires absurd amounts of it for new equipment.

Plus, the rubies to get to the new mine level train people to fight which they will need. Someone going down into the undergrowth with a copper spear and pickaxe who can't dodge is going to end badly. The old mine serves as a combat training ground for the real fight. The old mine taught me to dodge, stun and then circle back to kill enemies. That's been extremely useful in the new mine level.

IMO if James dumped relationship decay, or made it so that the most you can lose is half a heart a season, that would go a long way towards making people happier.

[Mimilette]

Thanks for your reply.
The thing with the mine is, I'm fine with having to go to the deep mine a few times first before reaching the undergrowth (I think that's the name?), my problem is that it's mandatory *forever*. I'd rather have to pay a bigger amount of ruby shards once and then be done with it.

[Synavix]

I was really enjoying the game before the update, but I took a break while waiting and seeing some of the new features doesn't really make me want to jump back in right away. I have the exact same concerns as you.

The new plants, buildings, etc all sound great and I can't wait to try them out.

But it felt like there was already 100+ hours worth of content in trying to get the best weapons from Ted, grinding chests in the deep mines (I still never found any of the good rare drops), grinding money for the expensive vehicles, grinding hearts on everyone, etc.

And don't get me wrong, I was loving it so far. I just have no desire to grind hundreds of new rare ore for tool upgrades or having to extend my morning tasks to include even more NPCs to prevent decay. I also don't want to turn my cooking/farming into a huge industrial factory like I see players doing on Youtube just to make some brews or food. I like keeping everything small scale.

I guess that ultimately I'm just hoping that not *every* update extends the game into an even grindier endgame. I get that players on Youtube/Twitch that have thousands of hours feel like they need more and more to do, but not everyone wants the same. I'm mostly just looking forward to more seasonal stuff and a few new buildings or events or whatever.

[JU1173]

I don't care for the relationship decay. That irks me quite a bit. Can't spend all day doing (insert whatever you want here) when you have to spend half the day talking to everyone. Is it just me or is anyone else having a hard time finding people when they are closed for the day, or just closed for the night? I spend so much time just trying to figure out where some of them are wandering off too, even then there has been more then a few times I couldn't find them at all. They just *poofed* off somewhere.

I don't mind having to get rubies for the undergrowth. That doesn't bother me. At least the old mine didn't become useless after all the work he put into it. Bigger rewards require more work I guess.

[SimuLord]

The gameplay loop does wear thin after awhile—I'm somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 hours as I type this comment—but I think that's just a flaw in these kinds of games. You see everything there is to see (if you're not some kind of super-completionist, anyway), get bored, and play something else. And if the game's in Early Access, as this is, you come back to it when something new comes out.

It's kind of intrinsic to the genre.

[LyaranTirel]

Originally posted by JU1173:

I don't care for the relationship decay. That irks me quite a bit. Can't spend all day doing (insert whatever you want here) when you have to spend half the day talking to everyone. Is it just me or is anyone else having a hard time finding people when they are closed for the day, or just closed for the night? I spend so much time just trying to figure out where some of them are wandering off too, even then there has been more then a few times I couldn't find them at all. They just *poofed* off somewhere.

I don't mind having to get rubies for the undergrowth. That doesn't bother me. At least the old mine didn't become useless after all the work he put into it. Bigger rewards require more work I guess.

Right? I think the devs were really smart in making the ruby a requirement for the undergrove so you actually have to go deep mine before going deep. VERY good Idea from their part