Any way or mod to stop the game's "decay" mechanics?

[sekai]

In this game, a lot of things decay. If you don't constantly talk to people and send gifts their way they will alienate you and eventually you become complete strangers no matter how close you were, if you don't pet your animals multiple times a day they will grow unsatisfied towards you, and if you don't do kisses and lovely-dovely with your spouses constantly then prepare to face their complaints.

Sure that makes sense conceptually, but it is imo very poorly balanced in this game due to the rate everything is going which is just too fast and too frequent for this kind of constant management, considering how short each day and years are in the world of Stardew Valley (each day only lasts several minutes, and there are only 112 days in the entire year), then on top of how "high maintenance" everything is in this game; which makes for some very stressful situation.

It feels like busy-work, in fact it really is just busy-work. I could get behind that this is a video game and there has to be some "game-y" elements to it, but honestly even in video game context, speeding around like Sonic everyday to repeat the same thing over and over just to not have your hard-earned progress rolled back doesn't seem very rewarding either.

I know that hearts (villagers') stop decaying once you've maxed them, but that's like saying you don't have to redo the levels you've already done and bosses stay dead, which is really not saying much.

Idk, I guess it comes down to the system not matching what I'm looking for in this game. I wanted a relaxing farming sim where I do things my way and at my own pace, I don't want this game as a management tycoon game which it is kinda in the direction of.

So blah blah blah, is there any way to turn off the decaying mechanisms in this game, or do I have to use mods. And if so, which one would you recommend?

[Noxterium]

I'm still not that far into game that i need to worry about that, but it would be nice if the golden clock could stop the decay of that aswell.

Or some new building.

[sekai]

Originally posted by NoXterium:

I'm still not that far into game that i need to worry about that, but it would be nice of the golden clock could stop the decay of that aswell.

Yeah speaking of Golden Clock, the fences in this game are like they're made out of cardboards as well. Wooden fences wouldn't need to be completely replaced every season, they could go on for years irl assuming no drastic climate hazards like tornadoes. Stone fences are even more laughable, where they last just about a year in this game while irl they could easily last for decades or even centuries.

Sticking true to the topic, everything is really just too high-maintenance imho, which it both makes for a bad experience (for me) and doesn't seem to make sense to why everything decays this fast either. I just wanna slow it down SIGNIFICANTLY or outright disable it if entirely possible.

[Alizona]

For a "relaxing" type of game, there is certainly a lot of self-imposed pressure involved with it.

For example... let's say you need 5 gold-star Melons to complete the last Community Center bundle, but you only have 4 such Melons and it's the last day of summer.

If you have a relaxed mindset, it's no problem at all - just play thru 3x28=84 game days, plant your Melons, and you're all set!

But if you're playing with a typical gamer's mindset of "winning" the game, this scenario is a total disaster. You need 5 and could only make 4? So now we have to wait 84 more game days before we can complete the Community Center and advance towards "winning"? ARGH.

See my point? The game is only relaxing if you don't care, if you have a relaxed mindset.

Another example... the 2am rule where you have to constantly drop what you're doing, race home to sleep, then awake and repeat. This really comes into play when mining, it feels more like a race against time (against the "Must Sleep NOW!" clock) than it feels like a relaxing type of game.

Just my opinions. I am also of the opinion that my $10 was very well spent on this game, even tho I get just as aggravated at this game as any other game. It's just my mindset. LOL

[Violeta]

At max hearts friendships don't decay, except for who you married.

If you miss that 1 star melon. Stock up a lot of your mates favorite items, sell the animals and wake up, gift them, go to sleep. Repeat until next years summer.

Or buy the green house via joja

[sekai]

Originally posted by Alizona:

For a "relaxing" type of game, there is certainly a lot of self-imposed pressure involved with it.

.....

See my point? The game is only relaxing if you don't care, if you have a relaxed mindset

Yeah I could certainly see your point.

[survivalistic]

Well the whole point of the game is to upgrade your stuff to the point where you are well established , ive come to the point that i have hardwood fences which in my experience never ever breaks. and at some point in the game you get so much presents for people that it's easy just to weekly throw presents around you only need to give 2 presents for an entire week for one person. it really isnt that hard , id suggest you'd start befriending small amount of people and work your way up from that. i for example cook my egg's from my chicken coop these cooked egg's are the perfect gifts that everyone in the town likes. ive been able to play the game for an entire season without anything breaking , the only thing that could happen is a path that could be destroyed by weeds , to solve this just make sure your farm doesnt have weeds and overgrowth which wil in return make sure nothing gets broken. also there is no rush the rush is an illusion take your time have fun. and grow and build. it also seems like people think that you need to give everyone gifts daily thats wrong 2 gifts for one person per week wil increase hearts with that person just remember to maintain that. it really isnt that impossible and stressfull as people seem to describe it to be.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by Take Me Home, Crunchyroll:

Sure that makes sense conceptually, but it is imo very poorly balanced in this game due to the rate everything is going which is just too fast and too frequent for this kind of constant management

Er, what? Did CA change the mechanics? From what I remember, Heart Decay drops by 2 every day you don't interact with your animals or fellow villagers.

Talking/petting them raises their opinion of you by 10 (or was it twenty?) points. Giving vilagers presents raises their hearts by 40-200 points.

You'd literally have to go weeks or months without talking to a person for their Heart Decay to have a noticeable affect, and you could reverse the decay in 2-3 days.

[Nakos]

Learning to manage your time pretty much is the basic "challenge" of the game.

I'm certainly not going to tell you that you have to LIKE it, but no, it's not poorly balanced. In fact, it's quite well balanced.

Entropy is part of life. Stardew Valley is a game about the rhythm of the seasons, and yes, entropy is part of that (although highly abstracted and easily mitigated in Stardew Valley).

Yes, the game can seem very overwhelming at first, since there's so much you CAN do, but you don't have to do all of it.

You don't have to make friends with everyone. Start with one person. I suggest Lewis. Yes, he may have more than one dialog on any given day, but you only have to interact with him once. You can only give him two gifts per week. Even if those are only "liked" gifts, those two gifts per week will still offset any "friendship decay" from not talking to him the rest of the week. His birthday is early in Spring, giving him a gift he likes on that day will get you a huge bonus.

Some people only give "Loved" gifts to villagers on their birthdays and ignore them the rest of the year and STILL become best friends (eventually).

Yes, animals are (one of the most) time intensive (things in the game). But no, you don't have to pat them multiple times per day.

If you find the game stressful, then you're trying to do too much. Slow down, plan one or two things per day.

If you find it boring and repetitive, well... maybe this isn't your sort of game then.

It's farming, farming has a lot of repetition to it.

[survivalistic]

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

Originally posted by Take Me Home, Crunchyroll:

Sure that makes sense conceptually, but it is imo very poorly balanced in this game due to the rate everything is going which is just too fast and too frequent for this kind of constant management

Er, what? Did CA change the mechanics? From what I remember, Heart Decay drops by 2 every day you don't interact with your animals or fellow villagers.

Talking/petting them raises their opinion of you by 10 (or was it twenty?) points. Giving vilagers presents raises their hearts by 40-200 points.

You'd literally have to go weeks or months without talking to a person for their Heart Decay to have a noticeable affect, and you could reverse the decay in 2-3 days.

i agree lol the game really isnt that hard , i never understood why people want everything to be easy in this game where is the challenge really when you are doing things the easy way.µ
also same thing on fishing , just level your fishing up and the problem wil fix itself.
im not a fan of mods that lowers the difficulty of a game its almost cheating.

[Save Our Sandvich]

I spent the first year building friendship with the villagers. Friendship will never decay once you have reached 10 hearts with a regular villager or 8 hearts with a marriage candidate.
http://stardewvalleywiki.com/Friendship

But to answer your question, here are a few mods you could experiment with:

http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/no-friendship-decay.108278/ - No Friendship Decay

http://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/237/? - No Soil Decay

http://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/252/? - Slower Fence Decay

Haven't tried them myself, but they seem interesting.

[sekai]

Originally posted by survivalistic:

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

Er, what? Did CA change the mechanics? From what I remember, Heart Decay drops by 2 every day you don't interact with your animals or fellow villagers.

Talking/petting them raises their opinion of you by 10 (or was it twenty?) points. Giving vilagers presents raises their hearts by 40-200 points.

You'd literally have to go weeks or months without talking to a person for their Heart Decay to have a noticeable affect, and you could reverse the decay in 2-3 days.

i agree lol the game really isnt that hard , i never understood why people want everything to be easy in this game where is the challenge really when you are doing things the easy way.µ
also same thing on fishing , just level your fishing up and the problem wil fix itself.
im not a fan of mods that lowers the difficulty of a game its almost cheating.

Nobody cares who cheats or not in a singleplayer game, because you're not racing against anything so they are allowed to do whatever they please as long as they have fun.

Mind you, I finished Dark Souls 1 with minimal summoning-cheese, with sub-30 frames per second and playing on keyboard&mouse (KB+M controls is pretty botched in DkS1). It's not like I can't handle difficulties, the problem is that I didn't get into this game expecting to get challenged, or rather, I expect to have it completely easy, with no tension and no consequences (the incentive behind my purchase), which is not exactly what I got as it's essentially a game about routinely keeping every high-maintenance people/things happy while utilising your VERY limited amount of in-game time.

Difficulty isn't the problem, the problem is that I don't want difficulty in this particular title hence why I'm making this thread since it's not like my game's difficulty affects anyone elses to begin with.

[Violeta]

How is it not relaxing that you can ignore people for a year and then in a couple days make them happier than before you ignored them?

"you become complete strangers no matter how close you were" obviously not true

"if you don't do kisses and lovely-dovely with your spouses constantly then prepare to face their complaints"

You don't have to talk to them or even get married. You can have the two kids and then divorce him/her. Or just divorce when you get bored of them and turn the children into birds.

" if you don't pet your animals multiple times a day they will grow unsatisfied towards you"

Then don't raise any. Crops are way more profitable.

[sekai]

Originally posted by Save Our Sandvich:

I spent the first year building friendship with the villagers. Friendship will never decay once you have reached 10 hearts with a regular villager or 8 hearts with a marriage candidate.
http://stardewvalleywiki.com/Friendship

But to answer your question, here are a few mods you could experiment with:

http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/no-friendship-decay.108278/ - No Friendship Decay

http://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/237/? - No Soil Decay

http://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/252/? - Slower Fence Decay

Haven't tried them myself, but they seem interesting.

Thanks legend, I will come around and have a look.

[sekai]

Originally posted by Sashie:

How is it not relaxing that you can ignore people for a year and then in a couple days make them happier than before you ignored them?

Why not just set the no-decay benchmark lower to like 5 hearts or something then? Real people don't become complete stranger with you after a year of inactivity just because you aren't absolute buddy-buddy with them anyway, having the hearts to only not decrease after being maxed is just counter-intuitively working against real world logic just because it wants a few more reasons to keep the players busy.

Welp, I didn't buy into this game about country life farming-sim expecting to be busy and running routine errands everyday like my toon was still working in mega-cooperations like Joja. I don't think asking to pass on that is unreasonable.

Originally posted by Sashie:

"you become complete strangers no matter how close you were" obviously not true

"if you don't do kisses and lovely-dovely with your spouses constantly then prepare to face their complaints"

You don't have to talk to them or even get married. You can have the two kids and then divorce him/her. Or just divorce when you get bored of them and turn the children into birds.

" if you don't pet your animals multiple times a day they will grow unsatisfied towards you"

Then don't raise any. Crops are way more profitable.

The first requires maxed out hearts, which as I've mentioned before, saying it's good that bosses don't respawn or that levels don't have to be repeated isn't saying anything.

The last 2 is you saying "no like it, don't do it". Yeah except I bought the game which promised easy country-life, and I'm supposed to be in the wrong for using the game's feature where my toon is supposed to be having a good time working hard but at the same time relaxed and feeling satisfied about their work while in reality they merely has switched from kissing managers' butts to kissing the villagers' and the chickens'? Idk, the dissonance is pretty glaring if you ask me.

...............

Then again, it's a singleplayer game, one should be able to enjoy it the way the wish to.

[Violeta]

You got your ultra easy mode mods on an easy game thats impossible to lose. I don't see why you want to continue this discussion. I'm not.