.....mind out of the gutter everyone. I'm talking about the difficulty level of Stardew Valley. I bought one of the HM games for the DS the other because it is on of the inspirations of Stardew Valley, and man alive is it hard! Now, I know they aren't the same game (obviously) but it did get me thinking about SV. I ended up making it to Summer 6 in HM, and people still weren't accepting my gifts. I was clearly doing something wrong, so I ended up reading the first few sections of a walkthrough, and I basically feel like a dirty rotten cheater (even though I didn't read that much). Perhaps it's because I'm so new to the game, but I feel like there is far too much to do in any given day to play the game well, and that leaves me feeling very frustrated. I know ape talked a bit about SV working differently, and that stamina running out wont cause you to pass out. I think this is a wonderful idea, but I wonder if a longer day than HM would also improve the gameplay? Maybe closer to a Minecraft day? I just like taking things at a leisurely pace, and I feel like I'm more stressed out trying to fit everything in an HM day. I also think a longer day will help with the gameplay beyond the goal oriented years. I guess I don't see myself playing HM beyond the goals....I don't even know if it's possible,but I would like to play Stardew well after the two year goal, and I'd like to have more time to tend to my farm. Any thoughts.
If I had to make a guess, I would say the difficulty is completely based on how you want to live your life. The more you work the more you'll end up getting, and based on what you do and how much strategy you play out will affect what you can/cannot get. I remember reading/hearing that if you wanted to be basically be a fisher man, and forget about farming, you can do that. You will have means of getting the other materials even if you put your focus towards one skill. Say I wanted to go on my own pace, sure then, and what I would get is based upon how much I do. But what if I wanted to do as much as I could and wanted to do everything, then it would become more difficult. Also, one of the things I learned about HM is that the different games have different sets of difficulties. I am currently playing HM: A New Beginning, and I learned that if you don't be a loot whore, and farm at least a little bit of everything, you will have to literally wait another year before you can progress anymore. I missed a few things, fell behind, and couldn't grow any yams (required) and thus I was prevented from actually progressing until the next year. So I could imagine that this game will allow you to decide what you want to do. From the recent interview, I remember hearing that he mentioned an idea/ the idea/ story of the game is that a high industrialized business wants to bulldoze over the small town of Stardew Valley and create it's own business city place there, basically ruining the atmosphere........ and you can allow that to happen. So my conclusion? It's only as difficult as you want it to be. But sometimes it takes hard work to make a change. I myself can have chosen to be a laid back person IRL, but I didn't want to, and decided to take on more challenges, which will naturally require me to work harder compared to being laid back, but thats what I wanted.
Wait you can actually allow the big bad event to happen? That's kind of awesome. Do you get to continue to play after it happens?
I don't mind hard work so much, it's the pace I find frustrating. With games like AC and. MC I wake up and figure out what I want to do, but with HM the day is so short, and the stamina is so low that I end up feeling like I have to do ABC before I pass out. I just hope I can play at my leisurely pace without feeling like I'm missing anything.
I remember reading or hearing somewhere that time will stand still while inside of buildings (at least with single player). Does that sound a bit better?
Well I also remember reading/hearing him mention that after some time in HM it just ends up feeling like a grind and he doesn't like that. I just think you can end up doing whatever you want, but if you want something different, you may have to work in a different manner, which may be more difficult or easier.
I always found Harvest Moon too easy. I mean at the beginning it was kind of hard and you have to limit yourself to just the essential tasks each day, but by the second year I would usually want to go to bed at 2pm because I had already done everything for that day. Time management is what makes the game fun for me at least. Anyway, Concerned Ape has mentioned that you will be able to choose your difficulty-- changing the rate time passes in the game will probably be the easiest way to do that.
