Oasis shop changes in 1.4?

Anyone else notice Sandy only selling 3 Omni Geodes on Wednesdays now?
This seems like it's going to make everything Omni Geode related even more endgame than it already was, especially unlocking the sewer key.
Seems like too much of a nerf IMO, think it would have been balanced for the new desert trader considering how much gold it would take to get the things they sell.

 

I feel like the unlimited omnis really was a problem exploit, myself, so I'm not worried about it. If you want omnis, just go down into the mines with lots of bombs and blow up every single rock that you can. When I do that, I usually find 2-3 omnis across every 5 levels, starting at about level 20. Honestly, I haven't had much trouble getting the sewer key, either, usually by the end of my first year or partway through the second. Fishing up treasures tends to help a lot with that as well . . . I've had some really good items come up there (multiple omni geodes, magma geodes, random fire quartz during my first summer before I'd even gotten to the Frost Caverns, etc.).

 

I never bought a single omni geode nore did I blow a lot of stones up with bombs (just used the ones I found) and I always get the sewer key before year 2.
I am a reeeeeally relaxed player, so I don't think this is such a nerf.

 

I don't know if it was just for the desert trader, or also to balance the museum donations. Because it's pretty easy to acquire 400k and turn it all into omni geodes, which are then virtually guaranteed to give you a full set of minerals, in turn making the rusty key an absolute gimme

 

Yea, I noticed this as well. Makes getting certain minerals and the Prismatic Shard a bit more difficult, but nothing too game changing.

 

The prismatic shard seems to always be a bit of a dice roll. I had one drop off a wilderness golem on my wilderness farm in one game . . . I think that's the easiest prismatic shard I've gotten!

 

Just a thought, but maybe he wants people to play the game instead of breaking it

Also, due to the Desert trader needing omnis in the 100s, they probably didn't want people to simply buy it in bulk and run up to the trader.

I hadn't noticed this change, but then I almost never buy loads of omni geodes from Sandy. Prefer to get them naturally instead. But I did buy a truckload of deluxe speed grow (or whatever the exact name is), and am glad that is still possible at 80g a pop. Didn't know about this before, so it's been nice to buy it there instead of at Pierre's.

 

Except there's nothing worth buying at the Desert Trader. The Artifact Troves aren't worth the five omni-geodes, the Triple Shot Expresso is just three coffee and not worth a diamond, you can buy bombs in unlimited quantities far cheaper from the Dwarf, and everything else is cosmetic.

 

Really? Can't imagine why.

Yeah, I disagree with, uh, most of that actually. It's very clearly created for people who go to Skull Cavern a lot, but if you're playing like that several of the offerings are super useful. (In fact the first two you mentioned, the artifact troves and espresso, are valuable even if you aren't going to SC. Although I guess the value of the artifact troves depends on how much you care about the museum - but if you don't care about it, why are you saving omni geodes?)
I always reach a point at the end of the game where I'm missing a few last stubborn artifacts, but I've long since gotten all the minerals (even without buying omnis from Sandy). At which point there's basically no use in opening omnis (a bit of money, I guess, but by that point it's not worth the tedium of sitting through the animation), and if I go to Skull Cavern at all I get tons of them.
The warp totem is really good for getting to the desert early, before Pam gets to the bus, and a few extra hours can mean tens of thousands of dollars worth of extra iridium ore. (Not to mention that you'll get a whole lot more than 3 omni geodes back.)
Three coffee costs 900g from the saloon. A diamond sells for 750g. So if you're going to use coffee anyways, it's quite a good trade. (Unless you have Gemologist, I guess, in which case the diamond sells for 975g and it's no longer worth it.) Plus it's a lot less annoying not having to remember to drink another coffee every couple hours.
Spicy eels are IMO the best food item to take into SC, and yes, you could get them from serpents before, but this eliminates the annoying monster drop RNG. Plus there's the intriguing option of filling six or so crystalariums with rubies and using spicy eels constantly for the speed buff. Not sure if that's actually better than pepper poppers, but it's something to think about.
I will admit the bombs, seeds, and cosmetic items aren't particularly useful. But I really don't think the blanket statement of "nothing worth buying" is accurate.

 

I had not considered this until I saw your post, but now that you have mentioned it, I definitely like the idea.

 

I'd rather just crack the Omni-Geodes than spend five of them on a chance of an artifact. I'd get better odds I'd get something relevant from cracking five Omni Geodes than I would out of a single artifact trove.

Then just spend the ten Iridium to get the recipe and be done with it.

The problem here is that you assume I have arbitrary quantities of diamonds. Even if I spend 900g in coffee per espresso, more than a diamond is theoretically worth, I can buy 999 of them at a time to make 333 espresso, rather than getting them in dribs and drabs, and will never have to worry about running out of them.

Eh. I'd rather use something easier to obtain like Pepper Poppers and not have to rely on crystallariums that take a full week each.

 

Eventually you get all the minerals, then what do you do with omnis? No matter whether you're a min-maxer or a casual player, you probably get all the minerals long before getting all the artifacts, and end up running around looking for artifact spots to get those last few artifacts, which could take a very long time indeed

Again, whether you're regularly using desert totems, or only doing it occasionally, it's much cheaper to just swap omnis. Crafting them requires 4 Iridium ore, worth over 1,000g, and a coconut, which is sometimes going to have to be bought at 200g a pop from Sandy, because you probably won't forage enough of them if you're going almost daily. That's not including the hardwood, so anyway we're looking at >1,000g and potentially >1,200g already. On top of that, the effective 15,000g upfront cost of the recipe is not quickly amortised over however many totems you end up crafting. Omnis are cheap as chips in comparison, probably less than a quarter of the cost in the long run.

I tend to agree with this, especially as you're going to Gus anyway for salad. Plus, the duration of several regular coffee in a row usually works out quite nicely with the day length, and that's not the case for the Espresso. You either waste a good chunk of the last Espresso of the day, negating the monetary saving, or you have to carry a separate stack of regular coffee just to finish the day. Espresso changes nothing for me

Just realised the error in my previous post; the absolute best SC food now is Magic Rock Candy, which totally destroys everything else, and is an absolute bargain at 3 shards a pop, ie 6 shards per day. If you eat that before a skull dive, you'll get so deep it should be a doddle to recoup the cost

 

Right, yes, I forgot about that (wasn't a Thursday when I checked the stock to write the above post).
Numbers, because I like numbers: Shards sell for 2000g, so you need to recoup 12000g/day, or 12 iridium bars (16 if you buy the coal year 2 or later), or 60 ore (80 if you buy the coal). +5 luck instead of +1 should make that simple. (It's 104 ore if you sell shards with Gemologist, but still.)
To recoup the shards themselves, you need an average of 6/0.04 = 150 extra iridium nodes. A lot bigger, but my guess would be that it's still pretty reasonable.

Fair - I was envisioning a situation where you can craft arbitrary numbers of crystalariums. And I hadn't thought about how the timing works with day length.

(Side note, do you need 3 spicy eels to cover a full day in SC now? I guess it doesn't really matter past the first few trips, because rock candy.)

Wiki says that rubies take a bit over two days in the crystalarium? But anyways, I hadn't actually done the math to check if it's better money wise, it was more just "hey, there's an actual viable alternative to Pepper Poppers now."

 

Guys? Not everything has to be about powergaming min-maxing to the extreme.

There are people who play this game that don't care whether option A or B is 2g cheaper or whatever. All these omni and so forth deals is an end game alternative, and might be suitable for quite a few. Sure, some of it is a waste and just for completionists, but that is fine too. It's something to save up to for those who want it.

About treasure artifact troves, however, it doesn't look like all artifacts can pop out of them? At least if the wiki page is fully updated already: https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Artifact_Trove

I'm usually lacking some of the skeleton pieces and gold masks, and it can be a right pain to find them anywhere, whether I go to the areas they are supposed to be, fishing, or just random exploring. And it looks like those items can't be in the treasure troves, so for those purposes it may be a useless option for me. Or at least not as useful as it could have been (the gold mask can be there).

Perhaps the main benefit with it is a more secure way to get the ancient seed, if you don't get lucky earlier in the game. Could take quite a few omnis of course, but sooner or later you'll get it, and it sure is easier to get omnis from the mines/cavern than finding "worms" in the right areas (and the chance for the correct artifact is often miniscule).

I do agree that the desert trader isn't wildly useful, but I'm just glad for more content, and it will be useful for some people, so it's a good addition to the game.

Not in the least bit cheap, but there is a Desert Obelisk too now. Probably very useful for people who frequently go skull diving.

 

He left in the ability to buy "infinite" for the past 3 major versions of the game, but just decided to arbitrarily nerf it to only 3 per Wednesday because he made a shop that uses it as currency, and it was never stated in the patch notes either.
I initially played with the extra ore and coal skills in the mining tree because I wanted more bars early, so I think it would be fair that in turn if I want those geodes I could have payed up some money to compensate.
Now I have to spend even more money on bombs and waiting on lucky days for the mines/skull caverns, and I just tested those earlier today on a much more end-game character.
I got about 18 omni geodes from the mines going from floor 80-120, and about 86 in the skull caverns from about floor 80-135.
I spent about 80,000 gold on mega bombs for the mines, and about 800,000-900,000 gold on stone (for stairs) and mega bombs for the skull caverns, and used my magic rock candy to boot.
It just makes it even more grindy to complete the museum than it already did.
Banking on the quarry mine/the unique levels of it that sometimes show up in the mines and the pepper rex enemies that sometimes show up in the skull caverns, on top of spending several times more gold on bombs to get several times less omni geodes than you used to be able to buy is ridiculous.
I think 5,000 gold for a chance ("RNG") for a new artifact is fair, and 330,000 gold for each of those two hats is also fair too.

 

The point I made above about often missing the skeleton pieces seems to be a non-issue now. Got down to level 70-ish in Skull Cavern, and at some point while descending there was a dino special floor. Those bones were raining from the sky. Had never gotten any of those 3-4 types before, and now I had almost 10 of each, plus a couple dino eggs.

Doesn't look like I'll be able to finish the museum collection by the end of year two -- but that's okay. It's nice to have something important to play for, and it looks less difficult now than before (at least with how I play, without buying hundreds of omnis a week).

Do those hats actually do anything, or is it just for show? The price is extreme.

 

Yeah, that kinda derailed into super min-max-y stuff, sorry about that.

I didn't realize artifact troves couldn't have all artifacts. That does make them significantly less useful, although Elvish Jewelry has been among my last few artifacts to find on several files.
The dino floors sounds helpful for that, though.

I just checked and the hats do seem to be just cosmetic. I guess they're for the intersection of "players that like collecting everything" and "players that spend enough time in Skull Cavern to amass hundreds of geodes", which is probably not a huge number of players (although I'm in it, so yay? )
Also, not sure if you knew, but the treasure chests in Skull Caverns had a small chance of having a red or blue cowboy hat in them, so the Magic Cowboy Hat is pretty clearly a reference to that. So I guess the idea is that if you've spent enough time in SC to get the red and blue versions, you probably have enough omnis to get the magic version too?

EDIT: Should probably have checked the wiki before saying that, I didn't know about the magic turban, but I imagine it's also cosmetic.

You could try buying explosive ammo from the Adventurer's Guild and putting it in your slingshot? Same range as a cherry bomb and it explodes immediately instead of waiting a few seconds. The catch is that it explodes when it hits a wall, enemy, or ladder, so you can't put it down in the middle of the room and it takes some practice to use. But once you get used to it, you can get a lot further down with explosive ammo than with bombs because of skipping the waiting time.
That aside, if you're just looking for omni geodes, maybe skip the stairs and rock candy? Since all you want to do is blow up a bunch of rocks anyways. If you have 800k-900k that you can spend at once, you can probably go in with 50k or so of regular bombs several times without worrying too much about making the money back?

 

I don't really get this. My recent luck aside, prismatic shards don't exactly rain from the sky, and you need 3 for each rock candy. That sounds pretty wild to me. Well, unless you get down to level 1000 or something and you trip in them in every direction. For more normal players (I put myself in this category), that is definitely not going to be an option.

Of course, perhaps the error in my ways (cough) is to go in there, chug down a spicy eel and simply start hacking away at rocks and enemies, and throw the occasional bomb,while hoping for good rabbit holes -- instead of instantly crafting 200 stairs or whatever you experts do. Means it's rather less expensive to go in there, but also that I'd be lucky to get to level 100 (not close yet, but think I got there when I played in 1.1).

 

Yeah, that side note was definitely directed towards min-maxers. Actually, it was really directed at people who are better at Skull Caverns than I am, because I don't think I consistently get 3 shards a trip. Although I haven't tried with desert warp totems yet.

That being said, IMO the "expert strategy" is to buy 800ish explosive ammo and shoot that, while basically not using the pickaxe at all, and only using a few bombs. I died like 8 times in a row when first trying that but after a few months of practice I can fairly consistently get to level 175 or lower, which usually nets me about 2-3 shards and about 400-500 ore. I've seen people use that strategy and consistently get well below floor 200, 20+ shards and 1500+ ore. That's with <15 stairs, crafted from the rock you get from all the bombs. Buying stairs definitely does make things better, but you're right that it's also ridiculously expensive after year 1.

(Edit: those numbers are from 1.3, in case you were wondering)

 

Yikes. That sounds very difficult Which it must be if it took a couple of months to adapt properly. I got 60 ore from the trip to level 70 (checked with upload.farm, although that site kinda look abandoned now? no 1.4 update at least). 60 ore was a fantastic return I thought, and is probably more iridium ore than I know what to use it for (since I already have an iridium pickaxe from earlier trickles). It's a fun challenge to go in there -- at least as long as I don't get bumrushed by a horde of serpents and purple slimes. One time I died barely inside the door of floor 1 due to that.

Don't know if the Desert Trader sells infinite amounts of what is in store, but a jade for a stair is dirt cheap compared to stones from Robin. Would require crystalarium production to get enough for silly depths, but maybe something for you people with that much ore to spend

PS: Apparently this is what the bottom looks like...
(only 2.14 billion floors left )