Task 0 : Build a Chest?

[TheCollector]

When new players start a first game of SV they might experience the following :

The game starts with a quest to plant, water and harvest 15 parsnips. The 12 inventory places are already half filled with axe, hoe, watering can, pickaxe, scythe and the seeds.
After clearing some ground and within minutes the rest of the inventory is probably filled with wood, sap, stone, coal, fiber, wild seeds, etc. At that point the players may experience a deadlock. With full inventory they can no longer pick up any new type items they find. They may go to the town and explore the world but will probably have to ignore most of the foraging items they find on the way. Pierre will only buy some types of items. Later they may dump all the surplus stuff into the sell box near the house to clear the inventory. (Not the best use for wood, stone, etc.)
The 24-slot-bag at Pierre's shop costs 2.000 Gold, so it seems a long way to go ...
It may take some time for new players to find the construction menu and realize that they can build chests and use them to expand the small inventory.

(Actually the game even allows to build a chest while the inventory is full. The player can pick up wood or place the constructed chest in the full inventory by dragging other items from inventory to the ground. (No need to put items into the trash bin or sell box to temporarely make room.) The items can be picked up again later.)

Since chests are so important in the game from the very first minute, I think the game should either start with a quest to build a chest or provide a starting chest to ensure that new players have a good start in SV and do not run into an early full inventory deadlock. Chests are more important for the early game than planting 15 parsnips since chests are usefull and necessary for all skills (mining, fishing, foraging, farming).

[I Kinda Fail]

Publicado originalmente por Nomadic:

Publicado originalmente por Nulien:

You really should watch that video. It explains why everything you're saying wouldn't even occur to some people.

It's an excuse video that I have better things to do than watch.

"everyone's wrong but me"

[mirandoch]

I'm new to this game (if it shows as 12 hours played, I notched up 10 hours without doing anything), my inventory is full and it is not *remotely obvious* you need to build a chest. What actually happened just now was this: I went to Pierre's general store, tried to buy the backpack, saw it cost far more than I could afford, picked up some beans by accident, didn't want them, tried to put them back, couldn't, bought more beans which used the rest of my money, raged, tried to exit the menu but the screen was frozen, raged, brought up Windows Explorer, shut the game down, raged again, and here I am.

I've played video games for over 20 years, although admittedly I'm a console gamer and not a PC one. The keyboard controls ain't doing it for me either - it grinds my gears that I can't just click on an area of the screen and have my character walk over there and perform an action. But going back to the full inventory, my thoughts were this:

- Buy backpack (this seemed the most obvious thing - I've played numerous games, especially RPGs, where you grind for money to buy equipment)
- Dispose of items (in most games you can do this with unwanted items)
- Use up items

I've already tried to do the first two without any luck. To be honest, it is bad game design to have an inventory fill up so quickly without any quick or obvious method of getting rid of the items. I don't like the energy system either - there's a zillion plants and rocks blocking your path and it runs out too quickly. Apparently I'm not allowed to stay up after midnight either; I passed out shortly after midnight, even though I was just about to enter my house.

I will carry on (and perhaps buy a gamepad for it), but it's been a bit stressful so far. I wanted something completely relaxing!

[Turtleswatter]

Publicado originalmente por mirandoch:

I'm new to this game (if it shows as 12 hours played, I notched up 10 hours without doing anything), my inventory is full and it is not *remotely obvious* you need to build a chest. What actually happened just now was this: I went to Pierre's general store, tried to buy the backpack, saw it cost far more than I could afford, picked up some beans by accident, didn't want them, tried to put them back, couldn't, bought more beans which used the rest of my money, raged, tried to exit the menu but the screen was frozen, raged, brought up Windows Explorer, shut the game down, raged again, and here I am.

I've played video games for over 20 years, although admittedly I'm a console gamer and not a PC one. The keyboard controls ain't doing it for me either - it grinds my gears that I can't just click on an area of the screen and have my character walk over there and perform an action. But going back to the full inventory, my thoughts were this:

- Buy backpack (this seemed the most obvious thing - I've played numerous games, especially RPGs, where you grind for money to buy equipment)
- Dispose of items (in most games you can do this with unwanted items)
- Use up items

I've already tried to do the first two without any luck. To be honest, it is bad game design to have an inventory fill up so quickly without any quick or obvious method of getting rid of the items. I don't like the energy system either - there's a zillion plants and rocks blocking your path and it runs out too quickly. Apparently I'm not allowed to stay up after midnight either; I passed out shortly after midnight, even though I was just about to enter my house.

I will carry on (and perhaps buy a gamepad for it), but it's been a bit stressful so far. I wanted something completely relaxing!

Honestly, it will become relaxing. Forage for food and eat it to replenish your energy. If you're not in bed by 2am you will pass out. There is an energy penalty the next day if you go to bed after 1am. If you want to get rid of anything put it in the box by the house and Lewis will take it away overnight. Beans aren't the worst thing to buy and they give good energy. Just don't forget to water them every day. Seriously, there's nothing you can do to break the game or make you "lose".
Last bit of advice. If you're a console gamer you may find fishing easier with a controller.
And don't forget the Stardew Valley bible - The wiki.

[Nulien]

I just had a thought... early on in the game, you get a letter in the mail from Pierre, advertising the 24-slot backpack. Perhaps a bit of text could be added to that mentioning that you can create chests as well?

[mirandoch]

Publicado originalmente por Turtleswatter:

Honestly, it will become relaxing. Forage for food and eat it to replenish your energy. If you're not in bed by 2am you will pass out. There is an energy penalty the next day if you go to bed after 1am. If you want to get rid of anything put it in the box by the house and Lewis will take it away overnight. Beans aren't the worst thing to buy and they give good energy. Just don't forget to water them every day. Seriously, there's nothing you can do to break the game or make you "lose".
Last bit of advice. If you're a console gamer you may find fishing easier with a controller.
And don't forget the Stardew Valley bible - The wiki.

Hey, thanks for your tips. I went back and had another go and enjoyed it a lot more this time. I'm starting to get used to the mouse and keyboard controls and even though I still don't really like the energy bar concept, I'm getting more used to that too. I was wondering how to fish, but I finally got my first fishing rod!

I stayed up too late playing this and now I need to go to bed; if this was the game I'd have passed out by now... >_>

@Nulien - That was how I found out about the backpack. The chances of anyone having that much money this early on in this game must be almost nil. I'm trying to save up for the backpack at the moment and tomorrow I'll try to build a chest.

[I Kinda Fail]

Publicado originalmente por mirandoch:

- Dispose of items (in most games you can do this with unwanted items)

Your inventory actually has a trash can in it. You can click to pick up an item, then hover over your trash can, then click again to destroy the item. Later, if you want, you can have the blacksmith upgrade your trash can with 5 metal bars and some money to have the trash can give you some money back. (So a copper trash can would give 15% of the item's value, for example, so if you don't have space for that Wood Club you found in the mines, you could trash it for 15g.)

[Nulien]

Publicado originalmente por I Kinda Fail:

Publicado originalmente por mirandoch:

- Dispose of items (in most games you can do this with unwanted items)

Your inventory actually has a trash can in it. You can click to pick up an item, then hover over your trash can, then click again to destroy the item. Later, if you want, you can have the blacksmith upgrade your trash can with 5 metal bars and some money to have the trash can give you some money back. (So a copper trash can would give 15% of the item's value, for example, so if you don't have space for that Wood Club you found in the mines, you could trash it for 15g.)

You can usually drop stuff on the ground too, by clicking outside the inventory area. I usually have to do that a lot on my early runs through the mines before I have a backpack... if I'm out of inventory space and low on energy, and I have some food, I'll drop an item, eat the food to get more energy and clear an inventory spot, then pick up the item again.

[beprotiz]

for new game players need step by step game tutorial

[Chry Ceph]

Publicado originalmente por carl8000:

This straw man 'new player' doesn't exist. Literally everyone who played this filled their inventory and then looked into (and found) storage options within 60 seconds, note the lack of 'How do I store things?' topics over the past 4 years

Man I wish. It took me like half an hour to even realise there's a crafting menu lmao. I assumed that to fix my inventory problem I'd need to save up for the backpack from the shop. It's only when I took some time to properly explore the all the tabs

(bcuz I neglected to do that for the opening days, I just explored town and clicked on NPCS. Also I didn't realise straight away that looking in your inventory pauses time, so I thought I would miss out on day time or something like that if I was just afking in menus for many in-game hours. Obviously looking back that was silly, but I didn't know the game right? I assumed hours were more valuable than they actually are).

Anyway, this new player "strawman" is not actually a strawman, and I think I would know because I am a new player, and I was in this situation just a few weeks ago. Needless to say not every first timer will be as oblivious as I was, but a chest objective definitely would've made my opening experience smoother, first of all informing me beyond all doubt that such a thing exists, and then actively encouraging me to seek one out. When I learnt how ez it was to make a chest, I literally facepalmed and felt like an idiot (which I guess I was). I basically crippled myself with walking around with a totally full inventory too afraid to trash anything because what if I needed that stuff?

Sorry for the colossal rant, but yeah, this is hardly an imaginary problem. And I didn't make a forum post about it, either. Because after 30-40 minutes I did indeed get a chest. But it made the game up until that point needlessly frustrating.

[carl8000]

^This is still an imaginary problem, sort of. You had trouble with something super obvious that everyone got right away, but this happens to all of us sometimes with something. Let's say there are 50 minor/obvious things like that (topics asking 'how to put things into your inventory trash can' and 'how to use bait' come to mind). Should there be mini-tutorials for those as well? I imagine that 'how to use bait' guy was frustrated also and would have liked it if there was, but he would have been irritated by the mini-tutorial for making a chest that he thought was too obvious to go over.

In the end, you have to find the line between being helpful and insulting everyone's intelligence, and I think it's just right with this game

[mirandoch]

Firstly, you have to see the chest in the crafting menu (chances are it's greyed out, so it doesn't exactly jump out at you). And secondly, you have to know that it works differently to the highly obvious chest right next to your farm, which looks as though it's a place to store items but isn't. There's nothing "super obvious" about it. Also, you don't need a tutorial on how to build a chest - just a quest requiring you to build one is sufficient. Personally it would have helped me.

I'm thinking of restarting the game anyway. The most frustrating thing to me now is how quickly the days go by - I feel like the day has barely begun and I'm already having to hurry home in the dark. I find it stressful and I'm thinking of installing a mod which slows down time. Would that count as cheating? I don't want to cheat, but I also would like more time to potter around and explore.

[Turtleswatter]

I hear the time factor often and if you want to use mods because that would make you enjoy the game more then you do you.

But have you thought that there is no time factor in this game and any time constraints are self imposed? If you don't get to explore what you want today there is always tomorrow.
The mistake most new people make is to plant too much stuff early on that takes forever to water and depletes their energy. Maybe you've fallen into that trap?
If that is the case the plants won't die if you don't water them - they'll just take longer to grow. So maybe only water what you've time for, or even (shocked face) dig some up.

This is supposed to be a relaxing game and, in the end, you need to do whatever makes you chill.

[Nibbie]

Publicado originalmente por Turtleswatter:

I hear the time factor often and if you want to use mods because that would make you enjoy the game more then you do you.

But have you thought that there is no time factor in this game and any time constraints are self imposed? If you don't get to explore what you want today there is always tomorrow.
The mistake most new people make is to plant too much stuff early on that takes forever to water and depletes their energy. Maybe you've fallen into that trap?
If that is the case the plants won't die if you don't water them - they'll just take longer to grow. So maybe only water what you've time for, or even (shocked face) dig some up.

This is supposed to be a relaxing game and, in the end, you need to do whatever makes you chill.

I use a time mod, because there is plenty of time factors in the game. People's hearts decay if you don't talk to them, and even finding them is difficult without any indicator of where they are. If you don't make it a full five floors in the mine, you made no progress towards the bottom. Similar for the skull mines, you are actively rushed in there since the lower you get the better stuff you get. Many fish can only be caught in a limited time window. The travelling cart is only there some days, and closes if you don't get there early enough. Even if you have sprinklers, if you have a lot of crops, harvesting and replanting them all can take the entire day and literally nothing else gets done. Skipping watering/replanting/etc. for a day may mean your harvest gets destroyed by the arbitrary hard change of the season, or you're not allowed to plant another set of crops because they wouldn't mature in time due to the delay. You can plant more next year, but that means waiting dozens of hours to do what you could have done now. The days being so short makes the game more stressful, not less. Technically these things are "self imposed", but is simply wasting the player's time better?

[Stardustfire]

its part of the game that you handle the time at hand, without stressing yourself. and in the course of evolving your farmer and your farm you learn many things that help manage time better. remember you got a worn down piece of land with antique tools, not a flourishing farm with up to date equipment.
upgrading your tools and skills with them let you work faster and with less energy costs (better axes need less hits to fell trees, upgraded howe and watercan can service bigger areas at once) , minecart system let you travel faster when unlocked, teleport totems bring you instant back to you farm, special food you make yourself let you run faster (Espresso ftw) or raise some of your skills temporary, aso....
the way is the goal, if you give yourself shortcuts to reach something in supershort time its your decission, but ask yourself why you play this game than when you want all at once.

i decided to give 3 lines of my greenhouse to coffee bushes, so i get constant enove beans for Coffee (since 1.4 espresso, nice qol recipe) this gives my Farmer a constant speedup (lucky me this game dont knows coffein flash hangovers) but i "worked" hard to acomplish this. first i get one bean and cultivated plant after plant with beans i gathered. it was a process over 2-3 seasons, but in the end i earned it myself over time and not instantly, so to say that gave my one temporar goal.

[carl8000]

Publicado originalmente por mirandoch:

Firstly, you have to see the chest in the crafting menu (chances are it's greyed out, so it doesn't exactly jump out at you). And secondly, you have to know that it works differently to the highly obvious chest right next to your farm, which looks as though it's a place to store items but isn't. There's nothing "super obvious" about it. Also, you don't need a tutorial on how to build a chest - just a quest requiring you to build one is sufficient. Personally it would have helped me.

I wasn't trying to be a ♥♥♥♥ with the 'super obvious' part, I was just trying to say that everyone winds up missing something that's 'super obvious' to others. I didn't realize that you could interact with the TV until mid-summer in my first game--it would have been helpful to me if there was a cutscene on day 4 where Pam talks about watching TV, or a quest where you click on everything in your house, but you have to draw the line somewhere.