Wood...

[David]

This game is really good and relaxing but needs balancing. I had 4 beers asking for woods, two of them for big amounts. Now I own 5 hard wood and I need 30 and need 50 softwood and have 12. Harvesting wood goes way too slow, I find wood from foraging but it's too little.

[LotusBlade]

You get wood from farming flower bushes, fruit bushes and trees, forage is bad source. Flowers in pots will not give wood.

[David]

I know, and I do that but it's still slow, especially the hard wood.

[Urfarah]

It's slow in the beginning, but once you have enough berry bushes and trees you'll have way more wood than you'll know what to do with.

I've been buying every single berry bush I could since I began (and most of the trees), I'm on Day 28 now and even though I go through wood somewhat fast because I craft things to sell, I still consistently have 200 branches, 200 softwood and 100 hardwood to spare in my storage at all times without any trouble.

[Danc]

Originally posted by David:

This game is really good and relaxing but needs balancing. I had 4 beers asking for woods, two of them for big amounts. Now I own 5 hard wood and I need 30 and need 50 softwood and have 12. Harvesting wood goes way too slow, I find wood from foraging but it's too little.

The best way to accomplish these quest is to keep planting trees and flower bushes. Make sure they are happy so you maximize your harvest. It will still take multiple days.

Another path that isn't super efficient, but can be useful to top off your collection is to craft sticks into softwood and softwood into hardwood. I usually have an excess of sticks so that gains me a couple wood if I'm short.

We've noticed that folks who time travel tend to get the most frustrated with these quests. But it seems to work out if you play a little bit each day, focus on other tasks and eventually one day you'll find you've collected enough wood.

[Kiwidragonlady]

Originally posted by Danc:

Originally posted by David:

This game is really good and relaxing but needs balancing. I had 4 beers asking for woods, two of them for big amounts. Now I own 5 hard wood and I need 30 and need 50 softwood and have 12. Harvesting wood goes way too slow, I find wood from foraging but it's too little.

The best way to accomplish these quest is to keep planting trees and flower bushes. Make sure they are happy so you maximize your harvest. It will still take multiple days.

Another path that isn't super efficient, but can be useful to top off your collection is to craft sticks into softwood and softwood into hardwood. I usually have an excess of sticks so that gains me a couple wood if I'm short.

We've noticed that folks who time travel tend to get the most frustrated with these quests. But it seems to work out if you play a little bit each day, focus on other tasks and eventually one day you'll find you've collected enough wood.

I have this same problem. Each time I get a quest for some amount of wood it is astronomical. To truly do as you suggest and plant a ton of trees and get them all to three leaves of happiness takes a lot of money, placing, and planning. Even then, hardwood is a luxury item and to see it drop, personally, is few and far between. To just get the upgraded machete took me two weeks of in game play time with gathering from my trees and scrounging from piles on the ground. I have not used the time travel hack and have played consistently for 30 + days. I don't much appreciate the insinuation that people are trying to cheat the system, when the system seems flawed. I am constantly frustrated with this game's reward system but have tried my best to each day do the quests provided and a little extra such as fishing or gathering around the island. My suggestion would be to reduce the amount of hardwood it takes for these quests from 50 to 25-30. Or reduce the amount it takes to craft from sticks or soft wood.

[Nefrarya]

Fruit trees enjoy each other's company, so that helps at least with the placing & planning to get them to 3 leaves. I've turned the beach ancient lantern area into an orchard.

[löyly]

I've never had a problem with the wood quests, but I have put a lot of time into the game and come back several times a day to get all the leaf piles, make money to buy more trees and bushes etc. (though most of my playtime is looking at decorations..).

My impression is that people who really do just play this game in the intended daily 30-60 minute sessions will work on wood quests for a long time, and a lot of them seem frustrated by it. Someone on Discord suggested an easy vs. difficult mode to solve this, and I think that's an excellent idea if it can be done.

[Urfarah]

It's weird because I get quests that ask for 3-5 softwood (and any combination of other materials in small quantitities) ALL the time. Like, at least once a day. But the only quests that asked for a big bundle of materials that I can remember were the ones to upgrade the tools and, by then, I already had everything stocked up. So, fortunately, at least I think these quests are not common.

Now, as for planning, I'll tell you all my personal experience. My island was a complete mess for, like, the longest time, 20 days or so (I'm near Day 30 right now). It worked fine but it was a complete mess, horrible to look at and a nightmare to navigate. I had all my trees (and I bought ALL the trees) packed up in a jungle near the post office, some bushes near the bakery, flowers who knows where and berry bushes packed together with the pets near Flamey.

After I got my third area, I decided to finally start using them and expend a couple of hours organizing my island. The big area, the second one you get (on what is now my left upper corner) became a proper orchard. I organized my gazillion trees there. Fruit trees on one side, sorted by size, and nut trees on the other, peppering the area with natural decoration and lights.

Then I organized all my flowers (and recently the flowery bushes) behind Mr. Kit's wagon. I still have some trouble with the bushes because some of them dislike common and that ends up being a major pain to deal with (can't put them near each other, gotta have way too many uncommon+ lights and decorations and other headaches. I just can't find a way to make that mess look good). I separated the flowers by type and made a special mixed section for repeated ones (which I may sell someday if I ever need the space).

Near Flamey now I only have my goth/witchy decorations (still waiting on good goth/witchy recipes to properly craft and better customize my main camp. It's been a pain to get those recipes), natural springs and my prized 20+ berry bushes (best investiment in the game). My beach area is pretty much empty right now, I only have some animals hanging around there and some decorations. I've sprinkled all the animals across all these areas, according to likes/dislikes, and, currently, I have around 20 of them (got three from quests since yesterday so things became a bit cramped a bit fast, might end up selling them). By doing this I'm able to keep everyone at 3 hearts/leaves, I enjoy an unending supply of wood (currently sitting at 250+ branches, 250+ softwood, 150+ hardwood) and every few days I get a huge batch of fruits (yesterday I made 168.000 coins from the berry bushes alone). And this is the easy, automatic money that I resolve in 60 minutes or less of questing/collecting. If I feel like spending more time running around crafting and decorating during a day, I can easily make more money (fishing gives me something around 2k+ coins per minute of fishing. I completely despise it but I do it when I need the funds).

[löyly]

Originally posted by Urfarah:

...
(and I bought ALL the trees)
...
(fishing gives me something around 2k+ coins per minute of fishing.
...

Yeah, but that sounds like you were one of the lucky ones who got an early fishbone recipe, or you had to do a lot of grinding to buy all those trees early in the game.

[Urfarah]

Tbh, I don't remember when I got a fishbone recipe. I realized I had one and that it could turn a profit (because I crafted one of everything I could and checked their prices at Kit's store) around Day 24. So my fishing money influx was pretty recent (but if I wanted to grind that it could potentially generate more money than the trees. I abhor fishing mechanics though, so I prefer to do anything else).

For the trees, not really? I mean, in the beginning it was a pain, sure, but if I had to choose between an upgrade and a tree (and I had to make that choice a few times) I always chose the tree. I sold everything I could at the beginning, nothing was sacred. If it gave me money for trees and I didn't need it I sold it. I held off adding things to the collection for a while in order to sell them and have more money for trees. After a couple of days the trees began to pay for themselves. Important observation, I always say "trees" but the real stars and the must haves are the berry bushes. I try to get all the fruit trees I can (I still buy them daily) but I'm not so keen on nut trees, I only buy them when I can spare the extra 15k.

Sure, it helped that this was my second try. I had another save where I had abysmal luck and was annoyed with my aesthetic choices, so I had given up around Day 10 (I still miss a couple of cool bamboo recipes that save had though). On the new save things flowed much better, I was a bit luckier and the only roadblocks I hit were the ones where the bears were asking for specific quest items and I had to wait for other bears to give them to me.

PS.: Which is why I tend to mention the fruit trees and the berry bushes and not specific recipes. Recipes require luck, you may find them or not, so, that's not reliable advice. Everyone can stock up trees to produce fruit though and they're one of the best sources of income, which makes them a must because they're a fundamental resource available to literally everyone.

And even if someone was specially unlucky and had no money whatsoever, I would still say "buy all the trees you can, they will pay for themselves in a couple of days". They are THAT universally good.

[Nefrarya]

I'd like to bring to mind again that the console versions are a couple weeks behind on updates. Switch players like me had to deal with the original economy a lot longer than PC players, which sets you back quite a bit financially. Just mentioning this to remind folks that the Cozy Grove experience varies VASTLY based on luck and platform. It's totally cool if something works for you and you want to give advice, just keep in mind that the same path might not be accessible to everyone else.

[Urfarah]

True, true. Also, the PC varies between the normal and the [beta] branch too. And a few of the improvements really change the game for much better (but I think/hope at least the first upgrades already rolled on Switch and they were the most crucial. Playing the game without the stacking upgrade was torture. It forced me to rush to acquire several storage upgrades and that was a real setback in my first save. If you also had to deal with that, I feel your pain).

Still, trees, I cannot emphasize them enough. No matter the patch you're in, as I see it, they're the basis of the economy. I'm gonna go through this one last time because I feel I may not have been clear enough before. The priority in acquisition should be (1) berry bushes (must haves, sacrifice anything you have to sacrifice to acquire them. They're THAT important); (2) fruit trees (always buy them whenever you can, they pay for themselves in a couple of days and will give you an influx of fruit, branches, softwood and hardwood); (3) nut trees (veeeeeery distant three. You don't really need that many of them, buy them whenever you can afford that extra 15k. If you still can't, don't bother. I only started buying them around Day 15, after my other trees were already sustaining me financially).

[Crazy]

Originally posted by Urfarah:

I mean, in the beginning it was a pain, sure, but if I had to choose between an upgrade and a tree (and I had to make that choice a few times) I always chose the tree. I sold everything I could at the beginning, nothing was sacred. If it gave me money for trees and I didn't need it I sold it. I held off adding things to the collection for a while in order to sell them and have more money for trees.

Sorry for the unhelpful comment, but when I read this, I think of Clyde the Wolf Bear ^^

[Nefrarya]

Originally posted by Crazy:

Originally posted by Urfarah:

I mean, in the beginning it was a pain, sure, but if I had to choose between an upgrade and a tree (and I had to make that choice a few times) I always chose the tree. I sold everything I could at the beginning, nothing was sacred. If it gave me money for trees and I didn't need it I sold it. I held off adding things to the collection for a while in order to sell them and have more money for trees.

Sorry for the unhelpful comment, but when I read this, I think of Clyde the Wolf Bear ^^

Secret Francesca agent, clearly. MOAR TREES, SERVE THE TREES.

[Urfarah]

Plot twist, forbidden love child of Clyde and Francesca