Hi DandiiFil and Welcome to the Forums!
I have 4 long term Farms and only 1 came anywhere close to Perfection because I play the parts of the game that are fun to me (OK that's pretty much all of it!) but didn't find that being completionist was part of that fun. That got me to 30-40% on the Perfection scale on those playthroughs and I was missing enough stuff that it didn't seem worth the alteration to my style of play.
OK but I got Perfection in the other one, so what gives? First off, I continued to play the game as I like and spent maybe 2-3 days a week doing the following. Finished on Spring 1 Year 5 so no excessive grinding for speed, IMO that's doing it wrong. I had a few things done already and I was left with:
1.
Recipes. Buy them all, look at everyone's stocks. If someone sells something, they probably also sell Recipes. Get them all once you have the g available, it can be done in a day. The rest are from Villagers (get at least 7
with them to get all recipes) and the Queen of Sauce (which can be shortcut with a new v1.6
book if you miss any and don't want to wait
2 more whole years)
2.
Cook. (dependent on 1). Pop a Chest or 2 next to your fridge and gather ingredients and go through each recipe. The game tracks this for you which is a huge help.
3.
Craft (dependent on 1). Pop a chest or 3 (or use a Workbench - I never have, LOL!) near your storage and craft each recipe, putting the result in a few new chests. The game does NOT track this for you and is NO help! Putting 1 of each thing you make in chests will make it much easier to track.
4.
Monster Eradication. This is grinding the levels those monsters are at. It may be the most repetitive part of the grind other than the last entry here.
5.
Golden Walnuts. I expected this to be the worst and very surprisingly it wasn't, however I freely admit I use the Wiki for this when I get frustrated. However because I've searched most of them at least twice now, I remember where most are and it went well. My last one was a simple dig location I knew about and just forgot to do, which was a big surprise. Leo's Parrot is helpful but only in combination with the Wiki for me.
6.
Fish. I like to Fish so this was only mildly annoying and by the end I needed to wait a season or two except I didn't because you can catch some Fish "out of season" at Ginger, which I did.
7.
Produce Shipped. This was the one I thought could be easy as I keep some of everything I grow except of course when I don't. Was missing a few things but the Night Market and Pierre's Missing Stocklist help get this done, it ends up just being the wait for those last few things to grow at Ginger. Always keep open space at Ginger for emergency growing.
8. Vitamins and
Minerals. Veggies. No....
Artifacts! Dig Artifact Spots for those (v1.6: there's a
Totem to make this quicker) and hit the Mines for Geodes to get all the Minerals. Different Minerals come from different Geodes and high Luck and Luck Buffs will help find more. Omni Geodes are less help when you're looking for those last few ones as individual chances are low, so stick to the levels for Magma or Frozen Geodes, depending on what Minerals you need (check the Wiki). However 5 Omni Geodes can be traded to the Desert Trader for Artifact Troves which guarantee an Artifact when you open them so save all Omni Geodes for this.
9. I needed the
Golden Clock at the end, that's 10M g and you just need a preferred money strategy that works for you. NOT a grinding for g strategy, instead one that makes you money while you continue to do the things you like. For me it was: 190 plot Farm with 3 crops/season each of Rhubarb (Sp), Starfruit (Su), Pumpkin (Fa) filling 1.5 Sheds of Jars and Kegs. Supplemented with the Greenhouse mostly full of Ancient Fruit and the Ginger Farm maybe 1/3 full of Pineapples and Blueberries.
You'll notice I mentioned checking the Wiki a few times. IMO if you're going for Perfection, then you're playing the game in an artificial way as you're conforming to a preset suite of arbitrarily chosen guidelines. This is why I never made it past about 40% before even though I'd done all the in-game things I wanted to. If I am to follow guidelines then I'll use the guide to help that, which is the Wiki. It's no more of a cheat than already knowing where most of the Golden Walnuts are or whether Ocean Stone comes from a Magma or Frozen Geode.
