is bribing people with gifts the only way to make friends?

[Salem Graves]

I keep wanting to play this game and then I remember the gift mechanic for relationships and it puts me off. Is there any other way to build relationships with people besides giving them gifts over and over?

[werwolfgaming]

Why does the mechanic put u off?

[Trait]

Talking.. but it is verry slow

[Frandez]

- Talking with them everyday
- Completed the "Wanted Quest" at Pierre
- Bring something good for Luau Festival
- Date someone at Flower Dance
- And quest in your mailbox

[SGT. D]

Don't forget giving them a gift on their birthday!

Unless you are against that as well?

I mean you can only give any one NPC two gifts in a given week, three if their birthday is Wed or later in the week. They don't all have to be expensive gifts, or any of them for that matter, just not something they dislike. I give everyone I come across fruit. Everyone likes fruit, and there is a pretty easy way to access fruit fairly early in the game.

[ihoujin.]

If you are not against using mods, there's a few that speed up the process and make talking to people more useful. I'd recommend you look at Part of the Community, it can help you get the relationships of everyone up quicker by just talking to people as you come by them every day. https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/923

[Shurenai]

Just talk to them every day. Every heart is 250 points, 8 heart max for romanceable characters until you give them a bouquet, 10 heart max post bouquet or for non-romancable npcs.

So 2500 points is the goal.

You get 20 points for talking to them, one time per day. This drops to 10 if they're in the middle of some kind of special animation, like Haley using her camera, or Shane at work.

Completing a delivery quest for a given person will give 150pts. Certain choices in a character's heart events give points.

And lastly, if unlocked, you can take them to the movie theater which gives 200 or 100 pts if they love or like it; and can buy them snacks on that trip for 50/25 if loved/liked.

Now, if you don't talk to a given npc on any given day, they lose 2 points if they're not at the heart cap (8 for romancables, 10 for the rest). So you have to talk to them regularly. (Girlfriends lose 8 a day you dont talk to them until they reach 10 hearts, spouses lose 20 a day no matter what)


So, with all that in mind, If you talk to an npc every single day without fail, it will take you 125~ days to max them to 10 hearts(100 days for 8 hearts on romancables); This gets shortened of course if you give them a birthday gift or do one or more daily quest for them. A year in game is 112 days (28 days a season, 4 seasons)

[Someone]

just like in real life

[ZEnderMan333]

Originally posted by Nose:

I keep wanting to play this game and then I remember the gift mechanic for relationships and it puts me off. Is there any other way to build relationships with people besides giving them gifts over and over?

you can talk to them each day. Each day they are not talked to they lose friendship with you, but gifting is the most efficient way. Also look out for their birthdays, if you give them a birthday gift that they like it can greatly boost your friendship with them. Sometimes you can raise a friendship by 2 hearts by giving a gift on their birthday (also winter festival raises points)
Also talking to people during events (egg festival, Stardew Valley Fair, etc.) I think will increase the friendship more than just normally talking to them

[tindelljk]

I don't know what's worse. The incredibly shallow buying friends or them blackmailing you by losing friendship if you stop. These are both terrible blemishes on almost every game of this type.

[Nakos]

It's a game.

Friendship is either going to be: Scripted, or have some sort of game mechanic involved.

Having some sort of gameplay involved is superior in my opinion. If you have a better way to present that process as a useful function of gameplay, then by all means, let us know what you think would work.

[Nakos]

Originally posted by tindelljk:

For one thing I'd make interacting with them at all be enough to raise it a little.

That IS the way it works.

Originally posted by Stardew Vally Wiki:

Friendship points can be increased with each villager by:

• talking to them once per day (normally +20; otherwise +10 if the villager is in the middle of a special animation, like exercising or using a camera)
  
• completing an item delivery quest (+150)
  
• giving a gift they love, like, or are neutral towards (see Gifts)
  
• giving the maximum two gifts in one week (+10, awarded on the next Sunday)
  
• inviting them to the Movie Theater (+200 if loved, +100 if liked)
  
• purchasing a snack for them at the Movie Theater (+50 if loved, +25 if liked) (see Movie Theater)
  
• making certain choices in heart events
  
• kissing your spouse (+10, only for the first kiss of the day); does not apply if Krobus is your roommate

Friendship points can be decreased by:

• not giving a daily greeting (see Decay)
  
• giving a gift they dislike or hate (see Gifts)
  
• hitting them with a slingshot (-30 per hit)
  
• making certain choices in heart events
  
• rummaging through a Garbage Can when they're within 7 tiles of the player (-25, except Linus who increases: +5). They will speak to indicate that they have seen them. If more than one villager is within 7 tiles of the player when they rummage, only one will speak and lose friendship.

https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Friendship

Originally posted by tindelljk:

Not the typical interact and slowly pick a specific option with every npc over and over again every day crap. Friendship atrophy would just be gone, unless triggered by a specific event. And before you say "Well do it yourself then." I'm thinking about it.

Again, it's a game, there need to be game-play elements. Once you get a Villager to maximum hearts, the decay goes away. The decay is really very trivial, just giving a villager a liked gift on their birthday is more than enough to offset any decline.

If it really bothers you, there are probably mods that can turn the decay off.

[Mysterious Sir Knight]

The friendship system is kinda the games' weakest point imo. It's really not terribly interesting and also rather un-immersive giving someone the same gift twice-a-week to make them like you and otherwise not interacting with them outside of cutscenes. I'd love it if there were perhaps social events the various NPCs attend at various times which you could also attend to maybe trade a short time skip in a day for friendship with the attendees.

Edit: Imagine popping into Leah's cottage every other morning to keep her company while she's carving instead of the gifts thing. That'd be so much more wholesome! <3 <3

TL:DR
Something else interesting to add to your schedule to raise friendship instead of gift-delivery-man would be cool.

[hallaloth]

Originally posted by Mysterious Sir K:

Edit: Imagine popping into Leah's cottage every other morning to keep her company while she's carving instead of the gifts thing. That'd be so much better in every conceivable way.

TL:DR
Something else interesting to add to your schedule to raise friendship instead of gift-delivery-man would be cool.

I mean, that's nice. . .but how do you trigger that mechanically? Length of time spent? Does just walking in her door and walking out count? Cause that's basically the same thing.

It's a game. dialogue is the only way we really have to interact with NPCs in ANY game.

While I agree after your first 100 hours the social aspect of the game falls a bit flat. . .what options are there? I don't think there's a way to make the system NOT tedious and repetitive in the long run. . .because at the end of the day you still have to follow triggers in game regardless of what form those actions take.

[Mysterious Sir Knight]

Originally posted by hallaloth:

I mean, that's nice. . .but how do you trigger that mechanically? Length of time spent? Does just walking in her door and walking out count? Cause that's basically the same thing.

It's a game. dialogue is the only way we really have to interact with NPCs in ANY game.

While I agree after your first 100 hours the social aspect of the game falls a bit flat. . .what options are there? I don't think there's a way to make the system NOT tedious and repetitive in the long run. . .because at the end of the day you still have to follow triggers in game regardless of what form those actions take.

Like I said in the part you cut off, you could trade a short time skip for friendship. In the example with Leah, you could enter her cottage at a certain time and be given a prompt to spend time with her and if you do, the day will skip forward say- an hour, trading time for Friendship. On top of that, we could even throw in dialogue trees for the player to optionally read through when they attend these friendship events.

For other characters, perhaps you could join Abby, Sebastion, and Sam for game-night, the towns women for yoga, reading with Penny, etc-etc. Trading time skips for friendship points and additional dialogue dumps you can read if you like.

[SunDormant]

I don't think there's a problem with the mechanics of friendship as they are right now. Sure, a few more options could be given to make the bonding with the villagers feel more interesting, but in the end, that could end up being just as stale or repetitive.

If anything, the thing that might make friendship feel unimportant to some people is the fact that there's no other system to work alongside it (or even against it).

Say, for instance, the possibility of not only making friends, but rivals or enemies, if you were to befriend or betray some characters. Aside from friendship loss when choosing bad options in certain heart events, there's really not that many consequences in friendships, only rewards. Even when you divorce or cheat, there's not that much aside from your ex not wanting to talk to you.

You could even have options for an "evil" playthrough where you're the village's punk or doom, should you choose to be. That alone would make friendships feel more meaningful.

Or maybe I just like more drama than it's needed...