The game is an obvious grind early on

[ralgur]

Example: Digging for relics. The first week is cheap at 80 gols, but I thought it was expensive. Then I found out it's 200 for the next week. Running around trying to find stuff to make stuff to sell stuff JUST to be able to go into the level 1 basic abandoned ruin is already getting boring. Someone said get the massage chair. Almost 7000 gols. LOL.... Yeah... Grindfest.

[Masha]

You've not played much of these games before, have you? One of the main appeal of these games is the repetition and slow pace, the grind itself that leads to the "one more day" thought.
The fact that you have trouble getting 200 gol by second week shows your inexperience though, especially since there are several chests with a few hundred gol scattered in the world. Try fishing, especially at the spot near the waterfall. If you are patient you can catch Goliaths even with the weak rod. It's a great source of money early on. If you want to rest, play on the slow time setting and sit on any chair... while not as good as the massage chair it can supplement your early stamina.

[Iyasenu]

What exactly are you doing to get money?
I really hope you're not going into the ruins looking for artifact pieces, putting the artifacts together, and then selling those.
Because don't do that.

Work on upgrading your workshop's machines and tools using the minerals you dig up.
Also get the stamina cost reduction skills for the pickaxe/axe ASAP.
Early on, using up your stamina on chopping/mining is a good source of EXP, both of those skills let you get up to twice as much done before running out of stamina.

In the ruins you can also dig up Data Discs.
Always be sure to give Petra the discs so she can do research.
Petra should always be busy doing research. Keep giving her 5 Data Discs until she's out of 5-disc researches, then move on to the 10 disc researches, and so on. I wouldn't really recommend giving her bonus discs to speed up research, as that can just make you end up with too few discs to continue researching without having to head back to the ruins to find more discs.

And yeah, fishing is actually pretty good money.
No matter the fish you catch, it's always more than the cost of buying Worms from Sophie's farm shop.
Sometimes way more (like Gladiator Fish, Goliath, or Wise Fish).

[Tamika]

A couple of comissions more than covers the cost for week in the ruins. No need to run around and it is not hard to get 200 gol if you are doing your daily comission and working on uprading your machines.

[Rydis]

its not as bad as it looks at first. Honestly..its a VERY VERY easy game to do anything. You should be able to be Rank 1 by month 3, and have end game items and all upgrades before the end of the first year. You can make 40-50k at any day in the game basically. Even on the first week of the game, market price depending.

[David Davidson]

@lyasenu
Pretty much this.

If you're having trouble with 200 gols you might be doingitwrong OP.

You want to set up two basic furnaces and a grinder asap. Then one cutter, followed by a second.
Put your skills into the middle skill tree early on, social and combat can wait.

Getting the chests around town is a good source of items and gols early on. After that do commissions Monday to Friday and inspections (you get some good items for doing inspections, mainly tempering fluid, which you're gonna need lots of in autumn.

I would recommend going to YouTube, searching "portia beginner's guide" and watching 2-3 guides. Especially if you're new to this sort of genre.

You'll have 10,000 gols long before the end of your first month if you play it right.




However, saying that you're struggling to pay ruin diving fees on your second time (which could be week 3) is worrying. You may have problems later on.
If you're further than your 2nd week in I would seriously consider watching a few beginners guides, then possibly starting over. Especially if you're new to this genre as once you get to autumn, that's when you get hit with a number of commissions in quick succession that will have you operating 5+ furnaces daily as well as getting wood (either from trading in stone at A&G construction at a 1:1 ratio) or destroying the ecosystem (don't worry, trees grow back after a while).

I would call the game the opposite to a grind fest. The only thing limiting you is resources and how much land you own, there's no level requirements, though level helps when exploring hazardous ruins.

[xoxxxoooxo]

when you get the hazardous ruins area, there's a fishing spot down below. no fall damage, just dont fall into water. fish that spot, you can get 5000 gol fish around 3 times per day if you spend most/all day just fishing there.

wait for the market value to get up to around 124%, sell as much as you can then to the shops that will take fish. i havent played much in about a week and a half but im over 100k gols and im only just hitting winter for the first time.

[coldcoffee]

One word really , fishing, if you catch a King fish it's worth anything from 4500-7000 per fish depending on the market prices at the time, you can sell at a few places and even the basic fish will net you a profit after buying the bait.

Once you get the hang of fishing it really is easy money but catching a Goliath King with the classic rod is a lesson in frustration so don't go for those, the Bubblefish or Catfish ones are about the easiest to catch early on but it's random, you could get a King after 1 cast or 50, my record is 3 King fish in the first 3 casts and about 75 with no King fish.

[Gnome d'War]

Originally posted by The Weeknd:

when you get the hazardous ruins area, there's a fishing spot down below. no fall damage, just dont fall into water. fish that spot, you can get 5000 gol fish around 3 times per day if you spend most/all day just fishing there.

Hate to break it to you, but that's true of any fishing spot.

I haven't noticed any difference in the difficulty of catching the different king fish - they all seem to be equally hard.

[Juju✰]

i have never played a game like this and when my husband got me portia i fell in love with how it, i love how much we have to work in this game, how hard we grind every single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ day, i love being frustrated that i don't enough of this and that and try my best to get to keep going and improving

its okay if its not your type of gameplay i totally understand but yes it a grindy game, and it will keep being grindy and frustrating but imo that's the fun part of it

[KainSvendir]

Like some others said before, this game is super easy and relaxing - if you want it to be and know hos to play it. You can play at a relatively slow pace, and only grind if you want. There many ways to get lots of money, and/or ways to save some/get discounts for some things etc.
Paying for the entries to the ruins have nerver been an issue to me, and I have a hard time seeing how it could be to anyone. Again, this game is really easy, and the few times it has something a bit difficult in it (some of the bosses, the festivals the first year...) it's more like a welcome challenge than anything else imho.

Just like they said above, do the commissions (simply choose only those that are easy to make at first for instance), sell some stone stools and fish when the market is up, make friend with the characters who have nice discounts as perks... and take your time to have fun :)

[ralgur]

Am I going to "lose the game" if I move too slow? I'm super poor still.... Like 2800 gols, and I just got the furnace built. One of the replies implied that I would be in trouble if I hadn't accomplished certain things. I was hoping this was a sandbox type game with some commissions and quests to move things along.

[David Davidson]

Originally posted by ralgur:

Am I going to "lose the game" if I move too slow? I'm super poor still.... Like 2800 gols, and I just got the furnace built. One of the replies implied that I would be in trouble if I hadn't accomplished certain things. I was hoping this was a sandbox type game with some commissions and quests to move things along.

There is a certain quest that affects some people with a bug that prevents them from exploring the full map desert bridge I wasn't affected, even though I missed out on a few commissions.

You want to try and scale your workshop up (by building more furnaces, cutters, grinders and new inventions as you unlock them from Petra by giving her data discs to do research) as you gain more materials so you can fill put more comissions. The game has a certain rhythm to it, you could avoid doing commissions but then you're going to fall behind other builders (and there's rewards for first, second and third place) if you don't do required commissions in time (if they are timed; if they're on the board; they're timed and you can check the time left in your mission journal) completing commissions is kind of the "winning" state of the game as each commission earns you social points with portia residents and most residents apply bonuses that increase the more they like you. You can increase social by talking or gifting, though you'll get lots of social points through simply doing commissions.

I would seriously recommend spending 30 minutes and watching a few beginners guides on YouTube. You seem relatively new to this genre and seem to be (at my best guess) treating it almost like Minecraft. Whereas it's much more like Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley; though there is more of a focus on construction compared to farming.

To finish the story you are going to want to have a well functioning workshop. I guess you could say the "win" state is being the #1 builder in town (which won't happen for a few months even if you do fill out daily commissions) however commissions should be finished around 1pm or earlier when you have a store of raw and processed materials (in chests) and that leaves more than 12h (and you can slow time to 50% which allows for more time spent exploring; though your equipment won't do builds any faster.

I usually find that I have time to do one commission, talk to a few people, give gifts to friends, explore a ruin or hazardous ruin all in one day, easily.

It gets easier the more you play, especially if you have experience in this genre. If you don't, expect a bit of a learning curve, though beginner vids on YouTube will help a lot.

Edit:
To slow game speed, check the options menu.

There is also a very extensive wiki for the game, which will list everything from character likes/dislikes to item requirements for building and where you can buy items that you might need.

I also recommend gathering herbs early on. Once you have an axe and pick don't bother gathering wood or stone, you can better use stamina by mining or chopping.

[ralgur]

Fishing... Just catching bubble fish I made a ton of money. Looking forward to the better fishing pole. That beginner pole ... I can't catch the super awesome fish... Just the basic ones, and the ones one notch above basic.

[David Davidson]

Originally posted by ralgur:

Fishing... Just catching bubble fish I made a ton of money. Looking forward to the better fishing pole. That beginner pole ... I can't catch the super awesome fish... Just the basic ones, and the ones one notch above basic.

Switching to a mouse makes fishing a whole lot easier, if you're using a controller.
If not, clocking rather than holding the L mouse button down gets things done much easier.

Fishing is a great way to make money early on. Just make sure to hand discs in to Petra and keep expanding your workshop too.