Stardew goals!

[Confused]

I love Stardew Valley, there's so much to the game I love, but recently I just haven't been playing much, even if I want to. So I was thinking it would be nice to see how other people go about a new game.

What is your 'checklist' in Stardew Valley? Or what would you put on one if you had one? What would you want to accomplish throughout your playthrough? Besides just, full completion lol.

 

[PoppyForPenny]

I usually do the community center the first year and work on friendships the second year, with the goal of getting all grandpa's candles.

 

[hexnessie]

I generally play each save for about 3 years (in game years, not real years!).

I like the first year best: scrounging up the money to buy tool upgrades, building that coop and buying a single solitary chicken for it, clearing the overgrown farm. I try to complete the Greenhouse in fall year 1 to have it ready for winter. I mostly focus on mine carts, greenhouse and bus in the first year, plus quarry bridge in early winter.

Year 2 is just building up, expanding, getting friendships up, completing the Center, building sheds and filling them with kegs or jars, etc.

Year 3 is wrapping up the 1.5 content and getting all remaining quests done.

 

[Cuusardo]

My first 2 years are devoted to Grandpa. After his evaluation, I start working towards making money to buy the big, expensive things and getting achievements.

 

[Lew Zealand]

My goals start out like Cuusardo's, with playing the game in the traditional way towards getting the top Grandpa Evaluation. I usually start with the Gifts as far as they go with Forage and Strawberries and similar. Quickly adding Fishing and then Mining and trying to balance the 3. As I'm not very organized and don't write goals down, I tend to forget the specific thing I was focusing on so tend to let one two all of these languish, but eventually remember that Mining gets you Community Center, Archeology Library, and Combat rewards all at once.

Once finally opening up the other rooms in the CC, I tend to remember I need Fish and Animal goods to complete CC Rooms and then go back to g and resource grinding for those items. Recently, Tea Saplings (Wickedy FTW!) have significantly alleviated the g burden.

I'm currently on an older Farm that didn't make it to v1.5 until I recently came back to it and it seems that later game with that content, I'm alternating my time in v1.5 locations with doing Farm designs (other than brutally utilitarian), which I've only started doing this year.

 

[SuperChouette]

By far I am most proud of vowing to never miss a help wanted quest. The only one that slipped by me this time is Willie requesting I catch 3 out of season fish. The last time I tried this someone asked for a gold bar in the spring of my first year. O.o

I have other goals but I focus on making as much money as possible without spending very much.
-dance with Leah at year 1 flower dance but don’t buy her any salads
-greenhouse by the first winter
-community center before winter year 2

I’d love to know if other people get the greenhouse done before year 2 starts do it without purchasing the items (edit: from the traveling cart). I usually get too distracted to remember to buy rabbits, pomegranate trees, truffle pigs, etc in time to produce items. I use the forest farm to get the mushrooms I need.

Failed goals:
-get Vincent’s spring onion secret by spring year 2 (birthdays are impossible for me lol)
-get all the queen of sauce recipes without needing reruns

 

[SuperChouette]

I’m also particularly proud of never missing the traveling cart so I can buy every single rare seed ever available!

 

[Lew Zealand]

I’m also particularly proud of never missing the traveling cart so I can buy every single rare seed ever available!

OK now you're crazy! I miss about of half of them on a typical save and even on a special save where I was trying to get the Coffee Bean from Ms. Cart, I still missed maybe 1 in 5. Thus cementing my maximum effort level for anything at around 80%.

Just like school.

 

[FilthyGorilla]

My current goal on my farm is 10 billion g, I really don't know how anything will work at all past the integer limit but we'll see, the most challenging part is deciding what to spend the money on before it overloads, I think the best option is honestly auto petters as they cost enough to actually drain the money and are not too time consuming.
Don't tell me to invest in SoEF please, it's not worth it, it takes close to 9 seconds to buy a single one, way too much time when I'll need to buy a minimum of about 7800 of them.
Kind of sad as it would be a pretty good flex but way too much effort lol.

 

[Hill Myna]

I'm on my fourth real playthroughs (I have a couple of test farms), and all my saves are at different points in the game. But aside from my first farm (Lynel Farm Farm, not a typo) where I was learning, they've each gone down a fairly similar route.

Spoiler: Spring

Early Spring is pretty much just fishing! After that, I have enough cash to purchase the Big Backpack, upgrade my Pick, and I can afford the more expensive crops.

I plant just enough crops to unlock Quality Sprinklers at Farming Level 6.

Reaching gold levels in the Mines is easy but required, as is doing lots of mining for Iron & Gold (needed for said Sprinklers) and Copper for Tappers and Kegs. I also upgrade to a Steel Axe & Pickaxe. This allows Summer to be productive, with little work involved on the infrastructure side.

All this mining lets me unlock the Minecarts, super helpful!

Planting & chopping as many trees as possible is essential for a good Summer. Foraging XP helps to get Lightning Rods before the first storm and bonus Salmonberries; the wood helps for future Kegs. All the Acorns I find get put in my "tapper forest".

Spoiler: Summer

With 90-120 Hops and 50-90 Blueberries planted, fertilised and sprinkled, I'm golden on the cash side of things...

...if I can craft enough Kegs. That's why all the preparations in Spring were necessary, because as soon as I reach Farming Level 8 I'll be able to craft a swath of Kegs, with more coming every 1-2 weeks.

All these Kegs require loads of Iron & Copper. I'm generally heading to the iron levels, partly because Copper Nodes can sometimes spawn there as well, but mainly because I'm gonna need the tonnes of coal that the Dust Sprites provide.

This has the side effect of handing me the Burglar's Ring fairly early on (mid-late Summer), a boon for Skull Cavern, which I can normally unlock late in Summer!

The Deluxe Backpack, a Gold Pickaxe, plenty of Gold-star Hops for food and the Burglar's Ring mean I'm fairly kitted out for some early Skull Cavern runs, which can net me ore for Kegs, XP in Mining & Combat (crucial for unlocking Crystalariums and Explosive Ammo), and sometimes Iridium, used for my Pick upgrade, and after that Crystalariums.

With any excess cash, I'll be buying & upgrading a Barn for Pigs before Winter, planting a Pomegranate Tree, upgrading my Axe, and buying explosives!

Spoiler: Fall

Once Fall rolls around, I'm ready to start finishing CC rooms! The Fish Tank is completed once I've had a rainy day (because Walleye), and the Greenhouse is normally done once I get my first Truffle.

If I'm disorganised, I'll have to wait for my other animals, but I should still have it done by Winter.

From Fall onwards, the frantic rush hushes down to a more casual gait. Crops are almost an afterthought (because I now have the Greenhouse), Fishing is a peaceful pastime, and Foraging in the Secret Woods becomes a near-daily activity (trying to reach Level 10 before Blackberry Season).

This means I have more time to interact with NPCs, and I can spend loads of time in Skull Cavern, my favourite place!

The end goal for Fall is to have both a Coop and a Barn fully-upgraded with the appropriate animals, plenty of Crystalariums and Kegs, Big Sheds to store them in, and all but a couple of Bundles in the Bulletin Board complete.

Spoiler: Winter

I find Winter is a great time to fill the Greenhouse with Ancient Fruit and Hops, upgrade all my tools to Iridium, and finish any missing Bundles (with the exception of the Dye Bundle if I haven't go lucky with the randomising).

I like to save most of my cash to purchase Wood from Robin, before the prices rise. I'll be buying and upgrading Sheds, clearing up the farm, placing paths, planting trees, adding more Fish Ponds, and polishing all my systems to make sure I'm a well oiled machine for Year 2.

Of course, I'll be in Skull Cavern lots too!

Spoiler: Year 2

The year of the Ginger Island revolution! Now that my primary farm is nice and tidy, why not manage a second one? Also, Walnut-hunting, Enchanting, Qi-questing, and decorating!

Maxing friendship, learning all the cooking recipes, unlocking all the crafting recipes, constructing the Wizard buildings, catching/planting anything I missed in Year 1, and coming up with a plan for this save.

But my favourite part of Year 2? Hoarding. Now that I don't need to sell everything, I can save it!

Spoiler: Year 3+

Only one of my farms has made it this far. But generally, I think it's time to truly decorate the farm, finish all the things, get Perfection, and then fulfil the goal for this save!

Haha, look how long this turned out! Funny how that happens.

Anyways, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!

 

[argusquick]

I prefer to go about starting the game with the goal of getting Completion done (which I’ve never fully done before). I usually abandon a save a couple years in since the most fun and challenge is at the start, but I think I’m going to do it this time. The general subgoals are

1. finishing community center bundle (or Joja) winter year one
2. unlocking ginger island winter year one
3. 4x junimo hut setup end of winter year one (you can easily do 8 without much waste but I prefer 4)
4. quarry keg operation and casks mid year 2
5. all fish caught and in a shed aquarium by winter year 2
6. All donations done year 2
7. Full 800+ ancient fruit farm spring year 3

And then once I’m there I’m usually focused on giving gifts to max out friendship and decorating and such until I get enough money for the clock and finish the other stuff

 

[SuperChouette]

OK now you're crazy! I ymiss about of half of them on a typical save and even on a special save where I was trying to get the Coffee Bean from Ms. Cart, I still missed maybe 1 in 5. Thus cementing my maximum effort level for anything at around 80%.

Just like school.

Thank you! I was pretty sure I was crazy. It certainly feels crazy to check the traveling cart so many times during seasons where the rare seed doesn’t even show up 99% of the time… but I did it.

I just realised that if I manage to meet all my goals in one game then I’ve probably gone insane lol.

 

[Lenora Rose]

I'm impressed and amused at how focused some of these lists are. My goals are often shorter term, and more scattershot. I decided to officially aim for "Perfection" with the current farmer and at a week shy of Year 8 I'm only about 90% there.

Of course, I also pick crops because I like them IRL even knowing they're nothing like the most productive/moneymaking.

My goals for farmers are usually personality oriented; my first farmer was aboit Making Friends With Everyone (and marrying Leah) so would be more likely to wander through town handing out cool things even after friendship 10 than mine and mine. The current one skipped out on people she didn't like (until required for perfection) but also dated a whole lot more folks, and got picky about animals so she only kept select weird ones once the Community Centre was out of the way. And quite likes mining and poking aboit in weird nooks. The next one is ace and a bit solitary and wants a vast garden, so the focus will be making a PRETTY farm, with only a few key animals, and probably fishing until the farm gets profitable enough.

 

[sameperson_differentfont]

Saw this thread and was amazed by how dedicated some of you are. I just do whatever I want.

 

[Isa730]

I've actually only ever played on the farm I'm currently on, but being that I'm on year 8 I understand how you can get burned out pretty easily.

For me early-game goals are mostly about getting max friendship with everyone (I haven't done this because I refuse to break Shane's heart but you could go the "date every bachelor and bachelorette route), getting all the tool upgrades, complete the mines and get to level 100 in Skull Cavern, and help Master Cannoli (which I did late because I didn't realize what I needed to do until late). On that note, getting all Stardrops in a year might be a fun challenge!

Late-game usually consists of Volcano Mines (which are kinda easy to speedrun but I'm still working on getting my Cinderclown Shoes), Birdie quest, golden walnuts, mermaid stuff--basically everything on Ginger Island until completion!

Something not specific to any point in the game though, and something often neglected, could be making your farm/houses pretty. :) That one definitely needs some work from me.

 

[SuperChouette]

Saw this thread and was amazed by how dedicated some of you are. I just do whatever I want.

I wish my brain could work that way. Without goals I literally have no idea what I want to do when my farmer gets out of bed each morning.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I wish my brain could work that way. Without goals I literally have no idea what I want to do when my farmer gets out of bed each morning.

Preach! My brother/sister/all types/fluffy owl!

 

[FairyRing]

View attachment 9910
Saw this thread and was amazed by how dedicated some of you are. I just do whatever I want.

I concur.
oh wait recently I actually set a goal to get someone to dance with me the fist year flower dance. so you know gifting and the one birthday gift I did give was to Shane and guess who I danced with? My first time on the ladies side of the dance and it's with Champ's Chicken. I have the screen shot somewhere.

I think I have just sat down and refused to go on with the dance in this pic.

 

[imnvs]

Saw this thread and was amazed by how dedicated some of you are. I just do whatever I want.

Well, see, goals don't have to be big, grandiose things. "Completing the Community Center" can be a goal, and honestly that isn't a huge thing. It may seem like a huge thing to someone new to the game, but it isn't really. (I mean, in a way... isn't the the CC just a really long, really low-key tutorial when everything comes down to it?)

 

[Lenora Rose]

Well, see, goals don't have to be big, grandiose things. "Completing the Community Center" can be a goal, and honestly that isn't a huge thing. It may seem like a huge thing to someone new to the game, but it isn't really.

Good point. And I have had to do lists for my next days or weeks that are as simple as "Get duck, Give Haley a Sunflower, catch 3 flounder." But I don't think of those as goals so much as steps towards the actual goals. (I needed duck mayo for one of the more hidden quests, I was trying to max friendship and Haley was on this farmer's "I don't like her" list, and ... I don't remember why i needed the flounder.) Right now, for instance, my big goal is 100% crafting, so the last things I needed were radioactive ore and truffle oil. And, it seems, one more %&$&*# recipe from Robin...