My personal ideas thus far.

[lita1988]

So far I have reached the first winter of the game and feel I have almost maxed out what I can do in its current state (without 100%ing everything)

I wish animal breeding did more than just add variants of color.
It would be nice if they gave "higher" priced items, extra items or different items like Harvest moon has done in the past. (Pink cows give strawberry milk, chocolate cow gives chocolate milk etc...) and gave you a reason to achieve each animal individually other than "just for show" purposes.

The beginning of the game with Hayden's first heart event says that there is an animal festival and he wins every year (But there is no festival in the actual game yet??)
I am sure new festivals will be put into the game with time, but there is really nothing to look forward to after the festival in the spring time... The game just feels like the same never ending grind.

Granted I have been playing farming sims since the OG Harvest moon games on the SNES and GB, so most things I didn't even have to look far for as far as "where to find what fish" for quests etc, because basic knowledge of where you would naturally fish up those things was integrated well in the game, I didn't feel like I ever needed to use a guide to find what I needed to proceed.

**I wish romancing characters felt a little "harder"???
I feel like talking to them every single day is different for each character?
I talk to everyone when I walk by them and I feel that March has progressed WAY FASTER than any other character has, and he is supposed to be the grumpy stand-offish character, where as Eiland is supposed to be welcoming and forth coming and I have talked to him twice a day for an entire year, given gifts, birthday presents and never seen a heart event from him? Yet March I saw his entire "romance" play-out by summer of the first year by giving him 2 iron bars and some copper ore...

I wish barns and trees Phased when you walk behind them. Not being able to see behind buildings and objects is very annoying especially when trying to build or plan layouts.
**I wish GRASS SPREAD.
I made some grass starters to put in my barn areas and they just sit there... They don't spread or gain new clumps of grass. they just exist for the animal to eat and then... are a waste of time.
I wish the Mill had time reduction like everything else did, trying to make rice and flour took an ENTIRE day from me, whereas cooking the dish it required took 10 minutes. Or have it be something that processes Overnight?

**I wish the Town upgrades required more items/different items.
So far all I have to do is endlessly farm wood and stone to upgrade everything... Maybe the occasional ore. I've been farming Hard Wood since the I upgraded my axe but none of the town upgrades need it? I wish there was more difficulty to the upgrades than just 200 wood vs 500 wood.

**I do feel like the passage of time in the game is a little fast, especially considering it requires "time" to upgrade/make things (if you haven't upgraded your dragon skills).
There are all these flowers and ingredients around town, I think it would be an amazing upgrade to the game to have a Perfume station or something to do with those ingredients to make gifts for people. So far I've been hoarding flowers for nothing? Unless you want to make cosmetic items, sure.... But it would be nice for things to have multiuse.

***I noticed that half the time my animals "Dont eat" even if food is available to them, untl you manually touch them. If you "overslept" and go to work on your animals, they haven't eaten yet, but if you're playing a normal day, they have eaten an hour into gameplay (7 am) ???
Also, I wish the "give treat" button was the same as the "gifting" button. I love that there is a separate Gifting button for NPCS.
I have accidentally fed my chickens their own eggs numerous times because I picked it up and it happened to go into the open slot when I wasn't paying attention. Sometimes it even consumes BOTH EGGS for one chicken? Seems like a glitch to me.

I like the weapon upgrading. I hope it becomes more in depth in the future. Maybe having more different types of upgrades, or ways to "guarantee" upgrades maybe by infusing tools/weapons/armor with items like they do in Stardew would be amazing. It could be a later game procedure maybe?

Anyways. I played the game for about 30 hours, was able to complete most things in that time frame in the first year. I am really looking forward to the future of this game but hope it becomes a little more substantial.
Until further updates I doubt I will put more time or effort into it because I prefer to experience a full game and not spoil my appetite by min/maxing a game in early access... I did that with Kynseed and now I have no desire to play it at it's full release.

[SimuLord]

Originally posted by lita1988:

So far I have reached the first winter of the game and feel I have almost maxed out what I can do in its current state (without 100%ing everything)

I'm at pretty much the same point, so I'll react from a similar level of experience.

I wish animal breeding did more than just add variants of color.
It would be nice if they gave "higher" priced items, extra items or different items like Harvest moon has done in the past. (Pink cows give strawberry milk, chocolate cow gives chocolate milk etc...) and gave you a reason to achieve each animal individually other than "just for show" purposes.

At the same time, make it so that you can make strawberry or chocolate milk using regular milk plus actual strawberries or actual chocolate, so that essential game ingredients/potential loved gifts for NPCs aren't gated behind only one specific way to get them. Playstyle choice is essential in games like these.

The beginning of the game with Hayden's first heart event says that there is an animal festival and he wins every year (But there is no festival in the actual game yet??)
I am sure new festivals will be put into the game with time, but there is really nothing to look forward to after the festival in the spring time... The game just feels like the same never ending grind.

Almost no doubt in my mind that these are coming in a later update. Devs wouldn't tease us like that...would they?

Granted I have been playing farming sims since the OG Harvest moon games on the SNES and GB, so most things I didn't even have to look far for as far as "where to find what fish" for quests etc, because basic knowledge of where you would naturally fish up those things was integrated well in the game, I didn't feel like I ever needed to use a guide to find what I needed to proceed.

If you look in every area and fish in every place that has fish and buy seeds from every vendor, you should be able to eventually end up with everything. I think Stardew Valley was the one that started off the "there's a wiki, you should bookmark it and have it on your second screen in your l33t gamer setup if you want to fully enjoy this game" annoying bad habit this genre has.

**I wish romancing characters felt a little "harder"???

Gotta disagree on this one. I'm not a big fan of "gift spam" as a game mechanic...although I wish that worked in real life and I wish someone would tell me what the cute librarian who works at the library near my apartment IRL loves so that through the magic of buying two of them (yes, that's a Technology Connections reference), I could make her fall in love with me over the course of a few weeks...but I digress.

Point is, I like the idea that talking to people regularly is enough to run up their affections in a game that's already the most frantic game in this genre in terms of time management since Stardew. I like that I can go into the inn and get some face time and the people of the village appreciate that I showed up. I don't want to also have to bribe people on top of all that.

I wish barns and trees Phased when you walk behind them. Not being able to see behind buildings and objects is very annoying especially when trying to build or plan layouts.
**I wish GRASS SPREAD.
I made some grass starters to put in my barn areas and they just sit there... They don't spread or gain new clumps of grass. they just exist for the animal to eat and then... are a waste of time.

PLUS, LIKE, A KAJILLION. YES.

I wish the Mill had time reduction like everything else did, trying to make rice and flour took an ENTIRE day from me, whereas cooking the dish it required took 10 minutes. Or have it be something that processes Overnight?

It should be a crafting perk with the dragon. I like how you have to generally do a little work to earn most improvements in the game.

**I wish the Town upgrades required more items/different items.
So far all I have to do is endlessly farm wood and stone to upgrade everything... Maybe the occasional ore. I've been farming Hard Wood since the I upgraded my axe but none of the town upgrades need it? I wish there was more difficulty to the upgrades than just 200 wood vs 500 wood.

I get a sneaking suspicion this is a "later on as the game gets more development" thing waiting to happen. By the end of the game we'll be needing 200 Unobtainium, 50 monster butts from the bottom level of the mine, three flowers, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.

**I do feel like the passage of time in the game is a little fast, especially considering it requires "time" to upgrade/make things (if you haven't upgraded your dragon skills).

I both love and hate how frantic this game is. On the one hand, it's the opposite of a relaxing game, but then again, that's also something I love about Stardew, the "this game isn't afraid to force you to manage your time and maximize every minute" approach.

Needs a slider or a menu setting.

There are all these flowers and ingredients around town, I think it would be an amazing upgrade to the game to have a Perfume station or something to do with those ingredients to make gifts for people. So far I've been hoarding flowers for nothing? Unless you want to make cosmetic items, sure.... But it would be nice for things to have multiuse.

If the devs don't, modders surely will.

I have accidentally fed my chickens their own eggs numerous times

That's how you give them a taste for their own kind so that they can become hitman chickens. Cluck 47, your assignment is to track down Henrietta and kill her. Good luck.

I like the weapon upgrading. I hope it becomes more in depth in the future. Maybe having more different types of upgrades, or ways to "guarantee" upgrades maybe by infusing tools/weapons/armor with items like they do in Stardew would be amazing. It could be a later game procedure maybe?

Thoroughly agree. Less random chance, more deliberate player design.

Anyways. I played the game for about 30 hours, was able to complete most things in that time frame in the first year. I am really looking forward to the future of this game but hope it becomes a little more substantial.

Same thought. 26 hours on my initial playthrough to get to the "now I'm just grinding to 100% for future updates" level I'm at now. Which ain't bad for something I only paid 13 bucks for.

Until further updates I doubt I will put more time or effort into it because I prefer to experience a full game and not spoil my appetite by min/maxing a game in early access... I did that with Kynseed and now I have no desire to play it at it's full release.

Sometimes I buy a game in Early Access and fall completely in love with it to the point where I put a ton of hours into it and relish every new update. Other times, I play it through and then forget it exists.

I'm hoping this game keeps me engaged the way, say, My Time At Sandrock did, which I bought on Day 1 of Early Access and now have more hours in it than all but two games in my whole Steam library (including five full playthroughs since its 1.0 release last November.)