Active Time in SP and MP? Potential Multiplayer Issue Remedies

In many games (if not all) of the Harvest Moon series, time would cease inside building and structures. This would allow you proper timing to plan for rather otherwise hastened day.

Now, the major issue with this and Stardew Valley is the introduction to multiplayer. To have multiple players owning farms, to have time freeze whenever one player is inside a building would be extremely beneficial to anyone outside, nearly game-breakingly cheap to abuse the system like that.

The best solution, from what I see, is to have a slower day that remains constantly moving even while indoors. Though some of the players, as I can imagine, want to spend a lot of time just organizing things and the such, considerably more than other players who are used to a chaotic mess when looking for items (Like myself!), ultimately, that means the player has to balance the issue of organization with time, which is if intended, perfectly fine, but if not, then that's a small issue, and it could make the 'quicker' players antsy with impatience to wait for friends.

Another solution is to have time stop only if both players are in the same building, or multiple buildings indoors. This of course would be providing a slight negative experience for those who are opted to wait for their friends just so they can prepare appropriately, and wouldn't be nearly as good of a solution.

I'd theorize a combination of the two, if not difficult to implement, might be the best course of action.

A slightly slower day than a typical HM game day, along with time stopping with both players indoors would ensure that both players would have far more time in the day to prepare themselves for the start of their days, without actually subtracting majorly from the challenge of the game or the enjoyment of the game. No power-gaming, yet no negative player interaction amongst each other, everyone's happy as the game keeps a medium-styled pace, yet halted pace when needed.

Of course, I'm only going off of how Harvest Moon plays; without playing this game, I can only give suggestions through experiences of games similar to this game as of potential issues that would subtract from the multiplayer experience.

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As of right now, I have no real response/suggestion to how game time should work when one player is not active but has a farm in the same town. That seems to be a troubling issue in itself, and I have no real concept of remedy that doesn't have an issue against it. Well, I sort of have one, but I'll post that later, as it's kind of a complicated solution.

 

Overall I think it would be better for time NOT to stop when you are indoors but to have a slower day than Harvest Moon to compensate as you suggest. I imagine it will probably take a lot of testing to find the right balance for the length of the day.

I think the organization issue could be solved by having an auto-sort or other ui improvements to make organization easier. Also, perhaps there could just be a pause feature and in multiplayer if someone pauses it pauses the whole world for everyone.

 

One issue with time stopping when everyone is inside is cooking. It doesn't make sense to me to be able to cook x amount of dishes in 0 seconds when it is such an integral part of the game play. It takes away some of the challenges to cooking in my opinion. Cooking without concept of time management feels weird to me. I guess a way to alleviate this would be to make the kitchen area an entirely different room where time flows.

Another concern I have with the concept of time stopping while everyone is indoors is creating a situation where all the players on the server will be pigeonholed into doing the same things all the time. Players who want to cook/sort would beg other players, who don't need to cook/sort to come inside with them. This can create problems or become annoying.

 

It think a constant time flow works better the HM games that froze time indores were nice but it did kinda feel wrong for animals to be almost free profit compared to crops.

 

Could be fixed by making a "batch" of a certain meal, within reasonable volumes.

 

Yeah but I wonder if that would mess up skill progression

 

In the more recent games (Grand Bazaar comes to mind), time actually DID pass when you were indoors.. but it passed so slowly... I literally finished everything I needed to do at 9am, and was bored for the rest of the day. Had to wait all day for the second watering. >_>

Although, in a multiplayer environment (note: I did play Grand Bazaar multiplayer, too) time would need to be a fair bit slower.. still not deathly slow like Grand Bazaar. >_< Maybe a speed similar to Minecraft's, or something.

 

I hadn't given cooking much thought, but at the same time I'm not exactly sure how cooking is being handled in this game. If it's a 'gather ingredients, make item' type of cooking, then perhaps time can automatically be passed. That is to say, if you were to make something, it'll expend a minute of in-game time making it. This problem would conflict against multiplayer, though, as time would have to pass with both players, regardless if the other player had planned to do so. Now if it's like a pseudo-mini-game, perhaps time can trigger as if my theorized time-combination suggestion, which is time will move, but very slowly, as if your multiplayer partner was outside and you were not.

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Oh, also, an idea coming to mind about an active server for you and your friends. In order to remedy the issue of one player playing and the other player offline (assuming post-game 2 year evalutation) you could have the inactive farm/farmer automatically water crops, harvest crops into the storage chest, and all the farms daily needs, so that if the farm is inactive, something is still being 'done'.

Or perhaps put a flash freeze on the farm, making crops not expire or grow, making animals unable to generate happiness, etc. As if the farm is 'stuck in time'. The player may lose a few days farming compared to his friend, but at the same time will ultimately not be in any different situation as where he left off.

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These issue remedies don't really bother me, the only real life friend I'll be playing with will only play with me when we're both active, so server time wouldn't be an issue. I can understand how it'll hinder others, though.

 

i think time should not stop inside and i want the day to be way longer then an HM day i doubt want to feel rushed to get everything done each day and if the days are to short how would to tend to your farm when it starts to get huge in size

 

The problem with days being much longer than a HM day: Some events only happen later in the day or at night. You could be just sitting around waiting for those to happen.

I like time pausing indoors because it means you can explore houses and talk to villagers at your leisure.

 

yes that may be true but then why not go do something else when you waiting for the event to start or he could make events last all day and you can pick when to go to it i just feel if the days are not long then ill feel rushed i feel a game should wait on me a lil bit you know. I doubt want to run around like a mad man hoping i can get everything done that day and this is a game your relaxed when you play it and a short day would make me feel rushed and not relaxed at all

i do get what you mean about time stopping in doors on second thought that sounds good it would make me relaxed and days seem longer but idk how it would affect multiplier i guess thats all up to our amazing DEV CA

but in the end what i want is a nice long day so i can do everything i want to do in a day and not be pissed that i could not water all my plants or harvest them i plane on having a big farm so that would suck i do hope the days are long i feel that a short day would ruin such a good game that i feel will be amazing and fun and take up hours of my day

 

the thing about the harvest moon games (i've only played the SNES version and N64 version so if it is different in later games i apologize) is there is a time limit of x amount of years that you have to build a profitable farm, get married, etc. having time pause when inside buildings makes some sense there. that shouldn't apply in Stardew Valley since it will be open ended so missing an event or not getting crops planted/harvested shouldn't hurt too badly.

 

to me that's not the point ya it would not hurt me that much if i missed a few plants i would not care if it was because of weather and animals but just because i run out of time would suck to me at least i want to have a full and completed day every day when i play the game i want to play kinda slow and relaxed not rushing so i can get everything done lol and i played the snes one as well and to me the days where to short but thats just how i feel i want complete freedom or very close to it

 

Perhaps you could Sync the game time to your time zone (Via Internet, so you can't abuse your PC clock and alter game time), and people would be in their own little phase but still be able to explore and interact?

 

Changing the passing of time rate in menu could be the best option.

ex. If passing of time is to fast for you, change it's rate to 0.5x, if too slow then change it to 1.5x.

Also I've got idea for sleeping in co-op. When player is sleeping and others are still active then sleeping player could dreaming(some kind of minigames, some cutscenes/comics or watch what other players are doing with some visual features) for that long as other players are still active.

What do You think about it?

 

That's a great idea. The passage of time for end of day does not happen until everyone goes to sleep, with something to do inbetween.

 

I think it could also be possible to just have time continue into the next day if one or more people choose not to go to sleep at all. They could then get some kind of debuff for not sleeping for a certain amount of time, like a sleep deprivation debuff.

 

Or just collapse and sleep to afternoon(no debuff) or they can chose to wake up in the morning and get temporary debuff with 50% of hp and sp. This option could be available when u have alarm clock

BTW: I'm glad that u like my idea. Thx

 

My only issues I have concerning these ideas is that this means 2 things. 1. That players are able to brute force their friends into playing to their accelerated playstyle, which can be detrimental if someone plans everything out to encompass the entirety of the day whilst the other player only sets out to conquer a few major goals per day..

And 2. If there is a sleeping minigame, there would have to be a just reward for participating. If a player does not enjoy the minigame, or if the minigame is not rewarding them for their efforts, then it would feel as if the player is 'wasting time' as opposed to making progress in their game, while the other player is awake and active and doing something that contributes to his farm.

 

1. Have you ever play harvest moon series? You can't work all night then go to bed and wake up at 6.am. You would probably collapse. So there isn't brute force. Of course You read my previous post? I don't see there any "brute force"...

2. These "sleeping features" could be interrupt when all players go sleep. The dreams could be about flying above clouds, big party with your friends on your farm, walking on the moon, doing pranks to towns people and other gamers or some dreams with some references to movies, comics, books or bands and much more. I think it's much better than just black screen or watching your game character lying in bed.

You just seek a gap where the hedge is whole.