Slowing the passage of time in-game?

[ceynomore]

Okay, just got this game a few weeks ago, finally started playing it for real.

So, to the developer(s), whom I am pretty sure are really, secretly, a team of squirrels chugging Surge all the time, are there any plans to slow down how fast the time goes by? I know Winter is Coming and we have to hurriedly prepare, but it takes enjoyment away from the game, to be honest. At least for me and other people I've spoken to.

I feel like a small adjustment, would find a happy medium between "fast enough to breeze through without getting bogged down" and "oh jesus god why I am running running running trying to get things done AW HELL I MISSED THE THING" or "I FORGOT A THING now I have to run back but oops it's too late"?

I think the current rate is every 10 seconds IRL, 10 minutes passes by in game? I play the game to reduce my anxiety, because it's a LOVELY game, but sometimes it actually affects my anxiety / makes it worse, as well, because of the lack of "ahhh, I can just take a breather and wander around for a minute with no worries". And then the game becomes frustrating.

I'd be more amiable to 20 or 30 seconds per ingame 10 minutes, I guess I'm used to how slow Harvest Moon was, but I really hate the "rushed" feeling of this game sometimes. Still, I've read how some people think 10 seconds = 10 minutes is "too slow", and I personally don't understand that unless someone is trying to do a serious speedrun / crunch / it's just a numbers game and less about enjoyment.

[dino_inc]

If you want, you could get a time mod to slow down the rate of the game.

[ceynomore]

Originally posted by dino_inc:

If you want, you could get a time mod to slow down the rate of the game.

That's a thing?! I assume it doesn't "break" the game any? I haven't installed any mods yet, or really gotten into modding on Steam in general (pretty new to the PC gaming), but I'm down.

[dino_inc]

Originally posted by cey:

Originally posted by dino_inc:

If you want, you could get a time mod to slow down the rate of the game.

That's a thing?! I assume it doesn't "break" the game any? I haven't installed any mods yet, or really gotten into modding on Steam in general (pretty new to the PC gaming), but I'm down.

It's possible to break things, but for the most part things should work fine. You also have to modify your game launch options to launch with SMAPI and still get achievements, but pretty much everything has a guide that you can easily find online.

Go here for mods: http://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/?

[I Kinda Fail]

The shops are open from 9-4, which is almost half of the entire day... You're given letters, a calendar, and the weather channel to remind you about holiday events... I just don't get what you're constantly missing that isn't your own fault.

Buy and replant seeds in the morning. Hand over your tools to Clint after your chores are done. Then spend the entire day doing fishing, mining, foraging, etc. I've never felt time constraints in this game, and I never understand what people are missing, when there's schedules and reminders all throughout the game.

But yes, as Dino said, there are mods that slow down time. I'm not sure if they break NPC pathing. For example, Pam goes to the bus station at 10am. Does she now get there at 8am, or does she just walk REEEEAAALLLYYY slow now?

[ceynomore]

Originally posted by I Kinda Fail:

The shops are open from 9-4, which is almost half of the entire day... You're given letters, a calendar, and the weather channel to remind you about holiday events... I just don't get what you're constantly missing that isn't your own fault.

Buy and replant seeds in the morning. Hand over your tools to Clint after your chores are done. Then spend the entire day doing fishing, mining, foraging, etc. I've never felt time constraints in this game, and I never understand what people are missing, when there's schedules and reminders all throughout the game.

But yes, as Dino said, there are mods that slow down time. I'm not sure if they break NPC pathing. For example, Pam goes to the bus station at 10am. Does she now get there at 8am, or does she just walk REEEEAAALLLYYY slow now?

Lmao. It's not about the fact that there's a "schedule" carefully incremented so that every second of your day is spent doing something, which I'm sure people enjoy.

I personally don't enjoy it, I like the freedom of being able to wander around without "having to be somewhere because this NPC is only there from x to x" or having every second of every day "pre-planned" for me so that I am nothing but a robot, playing to ensure I don't miss "the schedule".

There's just no time to double-back and do things if you forget to bring a gift to some NPC, etc. By the time you run back to your house and get whatever you need, it's six hours later in-game. (Exaggeration but you get my point.)

Some of us just like to ♥♥♥♥ around and enjoy ourselves, you know? I have enough "schedules" at my real life job.

[ceynomore]

I prefer a much more organic gameplay, versus "how could you miss anything when clearly you must go from here to here to here and this, this, this," etc. It's just incredibly anal to me?

I mean, at that point, why not just have a guidebook next to you when you play and do nothing but follow the guidebook to the letter every second of every day, with no chance of singular exploration? Again, too robotic for me. And I'm saying that as someone who keeps notebook notes of best gifts, birthdays, etc -- that's anal enough for me. But to have every second of every day scheduled out is just un-enjoyable to me.

[Hans]

Only way I can think of that you feel time restraints is if you are just starting out. As soon as you unlock the sprinkler system it feels like things are wayyyy too slow. Unless you are giving every single villager a gift...then ya that may be rough.

I get what people think of it as being too slow. Sometimes I have an event i need to do at 8-10pm. By 10am I usually have all my animals/crops taken care of so now I can either fish, which does nothing for me, or go to the mines, which also doesn't do too much for me. At that point i just go on my phone and waste time while i wait for the time to come.

Either way, just take things slow. You don't need to do everything in one day

[ceynomore]

I'm wondering about the NPC pathing, myself, though. @I Kinda Fail. I'll have to try it out with a new save file, if anything. I assume maybe... they walk slower? Lmao.

[Alizona]

The longer I play (3 weeks total now), the more and more times I screw up during the day and have to re-play it again. And the more times I have to ctrl-alt-del and use Task Manager, the less and less I want to keep playing. It's frustrating and aggravating, this will be the third time I've had to play Fall Day 14 Year 2. LOL

But it's okay, don't get my words wrong, Stardew Valley is a fun game and I am more than happy with my $10 purchase. But I totally understand where the OP is coming from, and I pretty much agree with it. The game makes you rush to the point where I often do something stupid, like using my sword hand to collect Hops that are ready to be picked, and instead of right clicking to harvest, I left click instead, and my sword swings and destroys the Hops plant and the trellis... that's a do-over moment, I'm not losing a Hops plant to my own stupidity. But it's because I'm rushing to get all my tasks done, that's why this stuff happens. Too many plants I guess, but geez.

[ceynomore]

Originally posted by Hans:

Only way I can think of that you feel time restraints is if you are just starting out. As soon as you unlock the sprinkler system it feels like things are wayyyy too slow. Unless you are giving every single villager a gift...then ya that may be rough.

I get what people think of it as being too slow. Sometimes I have an event i need to do at 8-10pm. By 10am I usually have all my animals/crops taken care of so now I can either fish, which does nothing for me, or go to the mines, which also doesn't do too much for me. At that point i just go on my phone and waste time while i wait for the time to come.

Either way, just take things slow. You don't need to do everything in one day

I could understand that. I *am* just starting out, still in my first Spring, so there is that. I think I *JUST* unlocked sprinklers last night with my farming skill, haven't tried using them yet.

So you don't enjoy going to mines or fishing, for profit? I'm a huge money-hound in-games like this, and in Harvest Moon: Magical Melody I started a horse-racing farm, because the horse races were really lucrative in that game. I had generations of racing horses and would keep track of the lineages, no lie. Up until my little brother accidentally deleted my savefile. :'D (Cry for me.) It was both a way to make money, and a purpose, a "story" to my game, if you will.

I haven't decided what I want to focus this particular farm on yet, there seems to be more emphasis on farming than on livestock in the game, so I'm still kind of feeling everything out. I just learned about the "professions" last night as well, thought I haven't gotten to where you pick any yet.

[ceynomore]

Originally posted by Alizona:

The longer I play (3 weeks total now), the more and more times I screw up during the day and have to re-play it again. And the more times I have to ctrl-alt-del and use Task Manager, the less and less I want to keep playing. It's frustrating and aggravating, this will be the third time I've had to play Fall Day 14 Year 2. LOL

But it's okay, don't get my words wrong, Stardew Valley is a fun game and I am more than happy with my $10 purchase. But I totally understand where the OP is coming from, and I pretty much agree with it. The game makes you rush to the point where I often do something stupid, like using my sword hand to collect Hops that are ready to be picked, and instead of right clicking to harvest, I left click instead, and my sword swings and destroys the Hops plant and the trellis... that's a do-over moment, I'm not losing a Hops plant to my own stupidity. But it's because I'm rushing to get all my tasks done, that's why this stuff happens. Too many plants I guess, but geez.

I feel you. My life is kinda hectic as-is, and yeah, I forget small details in-game all the time. I have a lot of "DOH!" moments myself and end up re-starting the day sometimes as well.

I ended up getting to Spring 13 in my first save file before all of my bumbling around really got to my perfectionist side, and I ended up making a new save file / starting over just the day before yesterday to try and become more efficient / start over with the new knowledge that I gained.

The only benefit I see to the time going by so fast, is that you CAN get through several days in a small span of time, and really progress the game. That, I understand. And I do like that part. I just need more of a happy medium between "making good progress in-game" and "enjoying myself".

[Alizona]

My only regret, or complaint, about the game is how the save function only operates once per day, via sleeping in the bed. I often get to the middle of a day and realize I've had enough and want to quit... but also realize I can't quit or else I lose my daily progress. So I have to keep going until night comes.

It's just a convenience thing, I totally understand why the game designer made the save function tied to sleeping each night. It makes logical sense. But it's not as convenient as it could be if we could just click a save button whenever we like.

[ceynomore]

Originally posted by Alizona:

My only regret, or complaint, about the game is how the save function only operates once per day, via sleeping in the bed. I often get to the middle of a day and realize I've had enough and want to quit... but also realize I can't quit or else I lose my daily progress. So I have to keep going until night comes.

It's just a convenience thing, I totally understand why the game designer made the save function tied to sleeping each night. It makes logical sense. But it's not as convenient as it could be if we could just click a save button whenever we like.

ME TOO. I really miss the function in Harvest Moon where you could just "talk to your diary" to save your progress in the middle of the day, if you needed to stop playing. I totally agree with you there.

But yeah, I'm not mad about it or anything / I get it.

[Panfilo]

I don't mind the speed of time passing, it encourages you to make decisions that wouldn't be necessary if you had tons of time.

Rainy days, late days into seasons where little needs to be plowed and winter free up time to do other things. Some other strategies:

-Most townspeople hang out in the bar in the evening, so you can talk to nearly everyone/give gifts/turn in fetch quests after stores close.

-Prioritize fishing, mining, and logging during rainy days and winter where you can devote more time and energy to the tasks.

-Spend your first winter building as many tier 2 sprinklers and place them 4 squares apart from each other to eliminate the need to water much.

[Snickerbobble]

I think it's currently every 7 IRL seconds is 10 in-game minutes. I'd love it to be 10 for 10 (or 1 second = 1 minute) as a lot of games tend to do with a day cycle. This would make days approximately 18 minutes long assuming you get to bed by midnight, 20 minutes if 2 am (but then you wake with half energy).

I enjoy this game but I feel like I'm always being rushed with what I want to do. There's also the passing out at 2 am that's really unnecessary- realism for the sake of realism only hurts a game. I like games like Animal Crossing, Terraria, and Feel the Snow where you can take your time, never having to worry about sleeping, and can continue as long as you want. It's much more relaxing to play.

With more time, the player can stop and enjoy the world some more. The hot tub place is a nice touch, but it costs way too much time to track there. With more time, and no time restrictions, you'd have more freedom to explore, and I think that's a good thing.