Finishing up year 2, what now?

[songsinger1120]

Hi guys,

So, I am really enjoying Stardew Valley thus far but I think I'm rather bad at it. I watch youtube videos for tips and tricks and none seem to be that useful for me. The one really useful thing I discovered was building a silo before getting a coop. That really helped.

Anyway, here's where I'm at:

Money- always pretty poor/broke. Consistently below 100 g. Not even joking. I watch these youtube videos and they say by year 2 that money should be no object anymore. So, not sure where I've gone wrong on that one.

House- only have the first upgrade.

Animals- currently own a silo and a large coop. I have two chickens and an egg in the incubator. No other animals or animal buildings on my farm.

Crops- I have my farm set up with a lot of quality sprinklers. So I have my sprinkler in the center and the 8 tiles around it growing things. I got really sick of water crops for most of my energy every day.

Artisan goods- I have 7 preservers, 3 kegs, and 2 mayonaise machines.

Fishing- I have level ten and chose pirate.

Mining- I think I have level 7. I chose geologist. I've reached only level 100 in the mines. I actually really suck at mining.

Community center- I have completed the vault, the boiler room, and the craft room. I've been really struggling to get a pufferfish in summer and a walleye in fall. Been trying to increase my artisan goods for some of the bundles but that hasn't happened due to a lack in funds.

Collections- I think I have about 3/4 of the collections for the museum done.

Friendships- I have no friends... I try to gift people and even look up on the wiki what they like but it never seems to improve my friendship levels. I also try to do as many of the quests in town as possible to help.

So I'm obviously no where near marriage. My lifetime earnings are just above 250,000.

What am I doing wrong?

[Ilucie]

Plant tons of the right crops every season. Plant a greenhouse full of ancient seeds (if you dont have them - cranberries) and you wont have any problems. But its your first time in this game, so its normal that youre not "THE BEST" like in those vids.

[Count Sporkula]

don't feel bad. i am in year 3 and usually only hover at about 2k gold and struggle when i want more. but in my defence i don't do it if it isn't fun so i am usually broke by choice more than anything.

[The Space Ferret]

Just play at your own pace. There's no 'right' or 'wrong' method. I'm in Winter year 1 now and I don't have any animals at all and never upgraded my house.

[dino_inc]

I think your primary problem is money - go for as many crops as you can and you'll be swimming in money. And, sell the chickens and demolish the coop, you can get more money just by planting crops there instead.

[Rambus]

Originally posted by dino_inc:

I think your primary problem is money - go for as many crops as you can and you'll be swimming in money. And, sell the chickens and demolish the coop, you can get more money just by planting crops there instead.

It's a bad idea to demolish the coop it's a good way to earn extra cash. Get some Sweet gem berry or ancient fruit and use them in the kegs insted of preservers

[songsinger1120]

Originally posted by Rambus:

Originally posted by dino_inc:

I think your primary problem is money - go for as many crops as you can and you'll be swimming in money. And, sell the chickens and demolish the coop, you can get more money just by planting crops there instead.

It's a bad idea to demolish the coop it's a good way to earn extra cash. Get some Sweet gem berry or ancient fruit and use them in the kegs insted of preservers

I don't have the seed machines yet so I only have the one ancient seed and don't want to use it up until I can get more ancient seeds. But I have never heard of the gem berries. I'll have to look into that.

[Greywolf]

Awww don't be so hard on yourself mate! Don't get caught up comparing the success of your farm to others, if you are enjoying the game then that is all that matters, Stardew Valley is supposed to be a game you can play at your own pace.

That said there is definitely room for improvement, I am on my first playthrough and have only just reached the start of fall of the first year and already have made 110,000 in lifetime earnings so one would think you should have made more than 250,000 over 2 years

Best advice I can give you is plan ahead, find out what the most profitable crop is for the season and focus on growing mainly that, use the wiki to reference prices and growing times.

http://stardewvalleywiki.com/Stardew_Valley_Wiki

From day one you probably want to plant as many crops as you can afford, even though the mayor gives you some seeds I would say go out and spend all the money you start the game with on seeds (handy tip: if you time your grow times so you are harvesting all your crops the day before the egg festival you can buy Strawberry seeds the next day)

Foraging and fishing are good ways to supplement your income early on, sell everything you can and use it to buy the first packpack upgrade and more seeds, once you have a good amount of crops growing and are comfortable with the income you will get from crops you are growing you can branch out into other stuff but for a start you probably want to put most of your money into seeds and always make sure you will have enough money to buy and replace the seeds on the day you harvest your crops ir at the start of each month.

[Greywolf]

Originally posted by dino_inc:

I think your primary problem is money - go for as many crops as you can and you'll be swimming in money. And, sell the chickens and demolish the coop, you can get more money just by planting crops there instead.

Eh while the coop doesn't seem to make much money it doesn't really cost that much to make and doesn't require much maintenance, at the very least it can be a good supply of mayo which is a fairly popular gift among the townsfolk and can supplement your income in winter.

Definitely say that the coop is not a priority though, best to focus on getting a good crop rotation first before you even think about a coop.

[ynot563]

These are the crops that usually get a lot of value for their cost

Spring - potatoes or cauliflower
Summer - blueberries or melons
Fall - Cranberries or pumpkins
Winter - Hoe the entire beach and robin's front yard and backyard to get 7-10kg worth of forage everyday.

Getting at least 100+ growing at the start of each season should net you 20k+ g per batch. The berries if planted the first day will give you 4 full batches the entire season and the non berries will give you 2 full batches to sell.

[Tim Timsen]

Originally posted by songsinger1120:

Finishing up year 2, what now?

Finish year 3?

[Ilucie]

Originally posted by songsinger1120:

Originally posted by Rambus:

It's a bad idea to demolish the coop it's a good way to earn extra cash. Get some Sweet gem berry or ancient fruit and use them in the kegs insted of preservers

I don't have the seed machines yet so I only have the one ancient seed and don't want to use it up until I can get more ancient seeds. But I have never heard of the gem berries. I'll have to look into that.

Plant it. Ancient Fruits regrow, you can collect ancient fruits until you have the seed maker. You cant waste it.

[SpringOfVienna]

Your problem with befriending people is quite strange too. Just give them one of their favourite gift (or a liked one) on their birthdays, speak to them everyday when you see them, see events, do requests... You should get to a lot of heart quite soon.

[tamorr]

wrong...? the only things I personally see as wrong is trying to measure up to what others do. Beyond that as others mention, play at your own pace.

The reason I say that is wrong is that not everyone enjoys doing certain things a specific way. It is good that this game is so open ended in that regard that you get many different playstyles within this.

I am probably pretty slow on the income, but that is due to my playstyle that I enjoy. I turtle my way through the game. My longest save is still in fall year 2, which is recent playing. My total earnings is not much more than yours... I think I have 300k roughly... around that anyway. CC is still a work in progess, since fishing is well... not my thing and only tend to do that on days I don't feel like mining or have spare time, like winter. I say spare time, but mainly I good off or chase butterflies mostly.

I get easily distracted...

However if you want to improve production and the like, just keep at it and expand. Crops will usually be the best to make money with. It is a daily time management type of game. You manage your time within each day to what you want to acheive. I play as I go usually, so quite often I have smaller crop areas than the average player. I mean I haven't even gone into the animal business yet, although have silos for when I do decide to.

Basically just keep eye on the high yield per sell crops, and even expand if you so desire. After all, you can keep up for as long as you can water them; sprinklers for those you don't wnat to water manually helps a lot with that.

As to relationships... That I had a habit to talking to everyone I stumbled across, and have not gifted anyone all that often. Gradually I gained friendship, and recently got married to the one I most see on a daily basis, as well the one I was most interested in. If you only gift the 2 a week and not talk to them, then it makes sense why there is hardly a change. Talking goes a long ways to help that. If you don't talk to them their heart thing will deteriote over time. Talk to them and it will not. A day missed talking is not much to worry about, but a lifetime of not talking is in the long run not very productive on that front for the aforementioned reason of degrade.

Bout' much of the tips I can suggest thinking on the fly. I am sure others might have more, and possibly better depending on your playstyle. :)

[Dunkelheim]

Originally posted by tamorr:

wrong...? the only things I personally see as wrong is trying to measure up to what others do. Beyond that as others mention, play at your own pace.

But what if that's the pace the TC wants to play the game at?

[Nomis]

Originally posted by songsinger1120:

Hi guys,

So, I am really enjoying Stardew Valley thus far but I think I'm rather bad at it. I watch youtube videos for tips and tricks and none seem to be that useful for me. The one really useful thing I discovered was building a silo before getting a coop. That really helped.

Anyway, here's where I'm at:

Money- always pretty poor/broke. Consistently below 100 g. Not even joking. I watch these youtube videos and they say by year 2 that money should be no object anymore. So, not sure where I've gone wrong on that one.

House- only have the first upgrade.

Animals- currently own a silo and a large coop. I have two chickens and an egg in the incubator. No other animals or animal buildings on my farm.

Crops- I have my farm set up with a lot of quality sprinklers. So I have my sprinkler in the center and the 8 tiles around it growing things. I got really sick of water crops for most of my energy every day.

Artisan goods- I have 7 preservers, 3 kegs, and 2 mayonaise machines.

Fishing- I have level ten and chose pirate.

Mining- I think I have level 7. I chose geologist. I've reached only level 100 in the mines. I actually really suck at mining.

Community center- I have completed the vault, the boiler room, and the craft room. I've been really struggling to get a pufferfish in summer and a walleye in fall. Been trying to increase my artisan goods for some of the bundles but that hasn't happened due to a lack in funds.

Collections- I think I have about 3/4 of the collections for the museum done.

Friendships- I have no friends... I try to gift people and even look up on the wiki what they like but it never seems to improve my friendship levels. I also try to do as many of the quests in town as possible to help.

So I'm obviously no where near marriage. My lifetime earnings are just above 250,000.

What am I doing wrong?

I wasnt doing better.
First time playing the first 2 years can be slow.

Tips:
Check the travling cart every fri and sunday.
When you get the greenhouse first fill it with cranberries and slowly replacing with ancient fruit + seedmaker.

Dont know if they are good but something