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?

[sekai]

Originally posted by Sashie:

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.

Because my time is more important than the MC's of this game.

Time is very limited and valued in Stardew Valley, and mine is even more so, hence I want to enjoy it in the best way possible for myself (as in, heeding to the premise I bought myself in).

Then again, who cares if I want ultra easy mode that's so pathetically easy even babies have no issues playing. It's not like I have never played and enjoyed hard games, it's just that I don't like unnecessary and/or tacked-on difficulties/obstacles being in this title personally.

[CeliriaRose]

Really? The decay mechanics are so minor as to be borderline non-existant anyway. They are there solely to make it so you can't completely ignore it but the balance is so light that as long as you put in basic amounts of effort you won't have any problem.

As far as villagers go you lose 2 points a day if you don't talk to them. That's it, 2. If you talk to them once they gain 20 meaning that if you talk to them once you have to completely ignore them for a week and a half for points to actually regress. This on top of neutral gifts giving 20 points, liked gifts giving 45, and loved gifts giving 80. To go backwards in points with that much blatantly easy ability to keep up then you would have to be ignoring them to the extreme in which case yes they aren't going to care that much about you. And no they won't suddenly go to being strangers. They just won't have any real opinion on you, that is all which makes no real difference to the actual game other than they won't send you gifts and you won't hear special higher relationship level dialouge from them. Hardly being alienated like you are claiming.

Spouses work the same way so again as long as you aren't completely ignoring them you should never run into an issue.

As to animals they lose 5 points if you don't talk to them but gain 15 just for being petted (they also gain 5 if you milk/shear them and 8 from grazing outside) Meaning that at minimum it would take 4 days of completely ignoring them outside of feeding and basic care to go in reverse. If you really can't keep up with that then maybe you shouldn't have animals on your farm. Also petting only gives points once a day so petting them multiple times accomplishes absolutely nothing and as such isn't required.

[sekai]

@CeliriaRose,

Seems minor by themselves, but when you factoring the fact the in-game day is about 10-15 minutes in total, and that everything takes time to do from getting point A to B then back, as well as things like just watering your plants assuming one hasn't completely automated the process with sprinklers, or trying to fit your timetable around a NPC's schedule since they never compromise, well the result is that most of the time you're fighting against time and there is very little one can do per day (to put it into perspective even just watering my small farm manually takes about 5 in-game hours to do, and even just walking to the mine and back takes about 2 in-game hours) unless you wiki-game your way through which imo is just pointless.

And within that crowded space of gameplay, I don't wanna waste my time doing and taking care of things not only are tedious, but they are also unnecessary or even working against the game's own narrative to begin with.

I mean, if those things are so trivial and nonexistent even by your own admission, then why have them in the game as something the player should watch out for to begin with? Hence my point, they serve no particular purpose other than serving as something for the players to do, which in my case where I just wanna relax and do whatever, I don't need that to keep me occupied hence I wanna opt out.

And I should be allowed to because a) I'm not working against the game, b) this is a singleplayer game (and I'm not planning to take my SP playthrough to MP once the latter comes out).

[Panfilo]

The whole game is balanced around the time limitations though. Changing it would crater the replay value. A big part of the fun is managing your day to make the most out of the time. Modding it out effectively mods out a ton of significance of game play.

[PetalLeshy]

Pretty much all the Harvest Moon and Rune Factory games have similar systems. If you've played any of them, you know what the basics of a farm sim entail. "Country Life" isn't actually laid back, MC just sees it as better than "sitting on your ass in a cubicle all day".
If you want everything to be automated from the very start, then isn't "corporate mega-farm" what you're looking for? Or, perhaps even better, one could watch a farm documentary rather than playing a game.
I sometimes doubt that "relaxing games" even exist for people who go into every game with the express goal to "win as soon as possible" even games that you can't actually 'win'. There's nothing wrong with that mindset, neccessarily, but there's nothing relaxing about it.
The game gives you 2 years before it evaluates your progress at all, and there are more "points" available than you need for all 4 candles. The reward for all 4 candles is very useful, but far from the only way to get the resource it grants anyway.

[sekai]

Originally posted by Apparition_knight:

Pretty much all the Harvest Moon and Rune Factory games have similar systems. If you've played any of them, you know what the basics of a farm sim entail. "Country Life" isn't actually laid back, MC just sees it as better than "sitting on your ass in a cubicle all day".
If you want everything to be automated from the very start, then isn't "corporate mega-farm" what you're looking for? Or, perhaps even better, one could watch a farm documentary rather than playing a game.
I sometimes doubt that "relaxing games" even exist for people who go into every game with the express goal to "win as soon as possible" even games that you can't actually 'win'. There's nothing wrong with that mindset, neccessarily, but there's nothing relaxing about it.
The game gives you 2 years before it evaluates your progress at all, and there are more "points" available than you need for all 4 candles. The reward for all 4 candles is very useful, but far from the only way to get the resource it grants anyway.

You've mistaken, I wasn't asking about winning as soon as I step into the game. All I'm asking for is the game won't have a million ways of trying to roll back my progress after I've earned them. Sure decaying is minor in effect, and that's precisely why they aren't needed and I should be free to opt out of it, considering they're minor anyway.

Would you like an RPG where you character loses 0.1HP per second even when you aren't doing anything at all? Yeah it's not doing much but it's still annoying as all hell.

Same reason why I am not fan of and frankly see no point having heart and other random decaying mechanisms as a whole. And even they wanna do it they should've at least kept it closer to realistic or other more intuitive scale; no fences degrade to ashes in the matter of days and no one who you have some meaningful personal relationships (as soon as you are above 2 hearts, NPCs consider you as a close friend who you can enter their room anytime) with would completely alienate you just because they haven't talked to you in a few months.

[PetalLeshy]

Originally posted by Take Me Home, Crunchyroll:

You've mistaken, I wasn't asking about winning as soon as I step into the game. All I'm asking for is the game won't have a million ways of trying to roll back my progress after I've earned them. Sure decaying is minor in effect, and that's precisely why they aren't needed and I should be free to opt out of it, considering they're minor anyway.

You want things like raising animals from babies to adulthood, bringing a huge field of crops to harvest, and forming lasting interpersonal relationships to not take up time, effort, or energy. That's acomplished via automation, which you also want to take no time, effort, or energy.

Originally posted by Take Me Home, Crunchyroll:

Same reason why I am nor fan of and frankly see no point having heart and other random decaying mechanisms as a whole, and even they wanna do it at least keep it close to realistic scale, no fences degrade to ashes in the matter of days and no one who you have some meaningful personal relationships with completely alienate you just because they haven't talked to you in a few months.

A whole year is only 4 months in-game. Pretty sure if I didn't talk to my spouse or friends for half a year, there'd be a problem. No argument about the fences, though. I imagine that's just to encourage you not to stay with the basic fences forever. Just don't use fences? I didn't use fences at all until my 3rd year.

[CeliriaRose]

Originally posted by Take Me Home, Crunchyroll:

Originally posted by Apparition_knight:

Pretty much all the Harvest Moon and Rune Factory games have similar systems. If you've played any of them, you know what the basics of a farm sim entail. "Country Life" isn't actually laid back, MC just sees it as better than "sitting on your ass in a cubicle all day".
If you want everything to be automated from the very start, then isn't "corporate mega-farm" what you're looking for? Or, perhaps even better, one could watch a farm documentary rather than playing a game.
I sometimes doubt that "relaxing games" even exist for people who go into every game with the express goal to "win as soon as possible" even games that you can't actually 'win'. There's nothing wrong with that mindset, neccessarily, but there's nothing relaxing about it.
The game gives you 2 years before it evaluates your progress at all, and there are more "points" available than you need for all 4 candles. The reward for all 4 candles is very useful, but far from the only way to get the resource it grants anyway.

You've mistaken, I wasn't asking about winning as soon as I step into the game. All I'm asking for is the game won't have a million ways of trying to roll back my progress after I've earned them. Sure decaying is minor in effect, and that's precisely why they aren't needed and I should be free to opt out of it, considering they're minor anyway.

Would you like an RPG where you character loses 0.1HP per second even when you are doing anything at all?

Same reason why I am nor fan of and frankly see no point having heart and other random decaying mechanisms as a whole, and even they wanna do it at least keep it close to realistic scale, no fences degrade to ashes in the matter of days and no one who you have some meaningful personal relationships with completely alienate you just because they haven't talked to you in a few months.

THEY DON'T ALIENATE YOU. Is that clear enough because it's been mentioned before and you keep ignoring it. The towns folk will never forget you, they will never alienate you, and outside of divorce they will never even really dislike you. That simply does not exist in the game PERIOD. All that happens if hearts hit 0 is they won't randomly send you gifts (which they don't do until you hit a certain amount of hearts to begin with) and they won't say special dialouge options. You keep acting like the game is punishing you when it doesn't. EVER.

Don't water your crops, doesn't matter they won't die from it they just don't progress.

Crops die at the end of the season, still doesn't matter as the game has no requirement to earn money, eat, or anything else so if your crop dies at the end of the season it makes no real difference other than needing to start over in the next season.

Don't talk to the towns folk. Doesn't matter they will never get mad and won't care in the slightest about it. They will remain their usual selves towards you regardless of your actions (the exception being divorce for obvious reasons).

Don't take care of your animals. Doesn't really affect you that much at all. They will still give you items, mood and friendship only give you increased odds at higher quality items as a reward for taking care of them.

Slack off on the community center. Doesn't matter there is no time limit.

The game doesn't punish you. Even the things that decay aren't actually punishing you. Because their is no actual consequence to them. For all intents and purposes keeping up with stuff gives you buffs, if you don't keep up you don't get the buffs but the game never debuffs you for not keeping up with them.

[Silky Rough]

Originally posted by Take Me Home, Crunchyroll:

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 stop playing it like a managment tycoon game and try playing it like it is a "relaxing farming sim" and watch what happens. There are simply no time penalties/constraints that are not able to be ignored or reversed so any issues are self-imposed.

tbh, I'm seeing a few threads with people complaining about the mechanics or something and invariably it's because they're forcing a pace that puts them at odds with the game. Lack of resources one day, decay today, etc...

The games "balance" cannot be blamed for this. When SDV is played like it's expected to be played, it balances out beautifully. If people insist on sabotaging their own game and then claim it fails them...

[Pandie]

I never heard of this decaying thing. So far I've been a year in the game, almost completing the community center. Married to Emily and everything. I hardly ever bother with my cat and my cat still loves me.

I honestly do not see the problem.

[dino_inc]

You don't have to pet animals multiple times a day, not sure why you think that. The heart decay, on the other hand, was the sole reason I got SMAPI. As Save Our Sandvich suggested, use this mod:

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

I used it and it does exactly what it says. I can't speak for any of the other non-decay mods, though.