If you could have only one tool in the game, which one would it be and why?

[Magically Clueless]

For the sake of the discussion, weapons aren't included! So I just mean between the pickaxe, hoe, axe, scythe, fishing pole, watering can, and the ever elusive copper pan.

All answers are acceptable and valid in their own respects. For me it would be the watering can, specifically so my cat doesn't have to rely on rain water (it has chemicals you know!) and because I feel it would be a particularly unpopular choice, but it sounds fun to figure out how to get some decent use out of it (and I can go in some end-game mines and run around some rocks to get collectables)

 

[Elenna101]

I remember seeing some discussion about no tool/no energy loss runs awhile back and if I'm remembering correctly (which I definitely might not be) the only thing preventing getting perfection was the fact that you need the watering can to get into the volcano the first time (the parrot doesn't show up till you enter once). So I might actually pick that too!

EDIT: wait nevermind you can't get perfection without a fishing rod. I think the challenge I was thinking of was no starting tools, so fishing rod was allowed (or for a 0 energy challenge you can use the efficient enchant).

 

[FilthyGorilla]

If you count the copper pan shouldn’t you also count the shears and milk pail?

 

[FilthyGorilla]

I remember seeing some discussion about no tool/no energy loss runs awhile back and if I'm remembering correctly (which I definitely might not be) the only thing preventing getting perfection was the fact that you need the watering can to get into the volcano the first time (the parrot doesn't show up till you enter once). So I might actually pick that too!

EDIT: wait nevermind you can't get perfection without a fishing rod. I think the challenge I was thinking of was no starting tools, so fishing rod was allowed (or for a 0 energy challenge you can use the efficient enchant).

What about the actual lava watering on a 0 energy challenge.
You have to use energy to enter the volcano the first time don’t you.

 

[One More Day]

Hoe - well, you can use bombs to till the ground, albeit somewhat haphazardly. So, no need to go hoeing all over town

Axe - those lovely bombs can also fell trees, although you won't be able to remove the large stamps and large logs from the farm. However, you can still get into the secret woods without an axe by using the chair cheat

Pickaxe - bombs away..... These bombs really are the answer to all our problems!

Watering Can - this is why Yoba invented sprinklers, and we can level up farming to unlock them by touching chickens without their permission, and then stealing their eggs. As for the fleabag, it can stay with Marnie, I'm not adopting it

Scythe - let's be honest, nobody actually eats Kale. As for hay, Marnie sells that for the animals, or if you're tight with money, they can just go outside and eat grass. If they can't be bothered to go outside for it on rainy days, that's their lookout. They can starve or get wet, I don't care which

Fishing Rod - You can't catch all fish without it, obvs, but you can still level up Fishing skill with crab pots from the bundle and crafting wild bait after chatting up Linus and disappearing into his tent one evening to make suspicious squelchy noises with him


If you want perfection without cheating, the cart would eventually sell the items you'd need to harvest with a scythe (Wheat, Amaranth and Kale), but there's no way around using both the Watering Can to enter the volcano, and the Fishing Rod to catch fish. You'd need to pick one of those two, and then at some point compromise on the rule for the other.


In practical terms, and ignoring perfection, I'd imagine the least annoying would be to use just the pickaxe, and make early progress down the mines to quickly get the experience needed for bombs, which can be used to replace most of the other tools, and then start making money after that

 

[PoppyForPenny]

On the facebook group Stardew Valley Hangout, I saw something really interesting that I'd never considered. A creative farmer plants all the wheat he can on Summer 1 and just wait for 4 days of rain to harvest! So following that idea, of letting the rain water crops, I'm going to say I keep my hoe.

 

[Lenora Rose]

It seems like for a lot of the things that can be replaced with bombs or sprinklers, you need to boost skill level to get the bomb and sprinkler recipes and you need the income to get the supplies to make, and you can't otherwise count on them being purchased. So... what do you do with your first few days when the mine is closed off? Walk around the village? Sleep?

 

[Magically Clueless]

If it's a tool, the rules are yours to decide-- if you think a fishing rod doesn't count as a singular tool or you want shears/milk pail and bombs aren't weapons, it's up to you in this
hypothetical scenario

i think a hoe is a very good pick since you can wait for rain, and when you eventually get the Big Bucks you could use sprinklers, but sprinklers are BORING, all hail the rain gods

 

[Elenna101]

What about the actual lava watering on a 0 energy challenge.
You have to use energy to enter the volcano the first time don’t you.

Yeah, that's why I was saying it's the only thing preventing perfection in a 0 energy challenge.

 

[FilthyGorilla]

Yeah that's what I thought.

 

[SurprisedPikachuBob3]

I don't think that you could get perfection with only 1 tool

 

[FilthyGorilla]

I don't think that you could get perfection with only 1 tool

You can but *only one starter tool* being the slight exception, you need a watering can and fishing rod.

 

[Magically Clueless]

Yeah that's what I thought.

you're doing a lot of replying but you haven't answered the question yourself :P so, what tool would you use and why?

 

[FilthyGorilla]

you're doing a lot of replying but you haven't answered the question yourself :P so, what tool would you use and why?

Most likely a watering can as my one “starter tool” for previously outlined reasons.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

I think this discussion is missing a key point: Without the pickaxe you can’t easily unlock bombs. You can’t get access to the shops that sell them without completing the dwarvish translation guide, and you can’t complete that without delving in the mines, and this puts you in a catch 22.

Now, I say easily because you can still do it of course. Farm quartz from garbage cans, trade them at the desert trader. 5 quartz for 1 bomb, but be sure to have a stockpile of say 10-20 (50-100 quartz) before going for the next elevator, to ensure you don’t run out early and waste your progress. But that sounds absolutely miserable, frankly. So I’d go pickaxe, as it provides the easiest path to unlocking the majority of gameplay.

As far as the volcano is concerned? It’s a fair point, and valid. But while a pickaxe only run will not be able to get perfection, imho it’ll beat a watering can only run to community center completion by years of in game time. And imho would be more fun :-)

 

[FilthyGorilla]

I think this discussion is missing a key point: Without the pickaxe you can’t easily unlock bombs. You can’t get access to the shops that sell them without completing the dwarvish translation guide, and you can’t complete that without delving in the mines, and this puts you in a catch 22.

Now, I say easily because you can still do it of course. Farm quartz from garbage cans, trade them at the desert trader. 5 quartz for 1 bomb, but be sure to have a stockpile of say 10-20 (50-100 quartz) before going for the next elevator, to ensure you don’t run out early and waste your progress. But that sounds absolutely miserable, frankly. So I’d go pickaxe, as it provides the easiest path to unlocking the majority of gameplay.

As far as the volcano is concerned? It’s a fair point, and valid. But while a pickaxe only run will not be able to get perfection, imho it’ll beat a watering can only run to community center completion by years of in game time. And imho would be more fun :-)

You can get bombs from crates on the beach farm as well as from killing rock crabs in the mines. The amount you get and how far you can go on a relatively lucky day (or resetting ofc) is surprising and not that impossible.
Also mining levels unlock bomb crafts but that is less useful.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

You can get bombs from crates on the beach farm as well as from killing rock crabs in the mines. The amount you get and how far you can go on a relatively lucky day (or resetting ofc) is surprising and not that impossible.
Also mining levels unlock bomb crafts but that is less useful.

Very true and fair! I'm not certain how difficult or annoying that would or wouldn't be since I've never tried it. Previous challenges I did on tool limitations were restrictions on XP gain rather than just the use of the tool itself, so bombs were a non-starter. It would be interesting to find out though! I'd like to propose a friendly contest. For the two of us, but certainly anyone else is welcome to join in. The guidelines are as follows:

1) You must start a new save, your choice of map, on a random seed (no seed manipulation)
2) You must delete all starting tools other than your preferred one as soon as possible. Deleting them from the save is acceptable, as is buying enough wood from Robin for a chest, and putting the tools in there on someone's path.
3) At no point can you use any starting tools other than your chosen one, and once destroyed / deleted, you must not recover them from lost and found.
4) We're looking for at minimum community center completion here. "Fastest" can mean a lot of things (fastest irl? Fewest game hours? Fewest in game days?) so it's not a race per se, just looking to see how we get along with our chosen route. The goal is to get at least to CC completion before Jan 1st 2023.
5) No RNG manipulation, no game exploits (such as item duping / spawning, even if done with entirely in game methods) and no mods.
6) No restrictions on using non-starting tools, such as the copper pan or milk pail or fishing rod*.
7) Just to keep things relatively comparable as far as experiences, you must go the Joja route. Obviously the CC route is also doable with this challenge but transparently I don't want to do it since it'd be way harder XD Both going the Joja route makes it easier to compare without it being totally apples vs oranges.
8) Once you have gotten the CC done, post some screenshots, showing what your in game time, in game days, etc looks like. If you can, share the save file too!
9) Provide regular updates on the forums of your progress! The whole point is to talk about how easy / hard it is, what strategies you use, where you encounter sticking points, and so forth. Let's keep it friendly, and have fun with it!
10) Though I'd be incredibly surprised if anyone got perfection within the timespan in question especially given the restrictions, it'd be incredibly impressive if someone did. So if they do get perfection with a new save using these restrictions before Jan 1st 2023, they automatically "win", whatever that means XD

*I personally think the fishing rod is a bit cheap in this context (you can get the CC pretty easily with *just* fishing after all), but in good faith I can't restrict it. After all part of the appeal of the watering can is the lure of perfection with just the one "starting tool", so it'd be lame to have a restriction which prevents it.

Anyway, let me know if you're interested! I think it'd be fun, and I'm definitely game, but only if at least one other person (who wants to pick something other than the pickaxe) is interested in doing it as well. If not no worries, it's a hectic time of year and there's plenty of reasons why someone wouldn't be interested in tackling such a challenge *right at this time*.

 

[FilthyGorilla]

Very true and fair! I'm not certain how difficult or annoying that would or wouldn't be since I've never tried it. Previous challenges I did on tool limitations were restrictions on XP gain rather than just the use of the tool itself, so bombs were a non-starter. It would be interesting to find out though! I'd like to propose a friendly contest. For the two of us, but certainly anyone else is welcome to join in. The guidelines are as follows:

1) You must start a new save, your choice of map, on a random seed (no seed manipulation)
2) You must delete all starting tools other than your preferred one as soon as possible. Deleting them from the save is acceptable, as is buying enough wood from Robin for a chest, and putting the tools in there on someone's path.
3) At no point can you use any starting tools other than your chosen one, and once destroyed / deleted, you must not recover them from lost and found.
4) We're looking for at minimum community center completion here. "Fastest" can mean a lot of things (fastest irl? Fewest game hours? Fewest in game days?) so it's not a race per se, just looking to see how we get along with our chosen route. The goal is to get at least to CC completion before Jan 1st 2023.
5) No RNG manipulation, no game exploits (such as item duping / spawning, even if done with entirely in game methods) and no mods.
6) No restrictions on using non-starting tools, such as the copper pan or milk pail or fishing rod*.
7) Just to keep things relatively comparable as far as experiences, you must go the Joja route. Obviously the CC route is also doable with this challenge but transparently I don't want to do it since it'd be way harder XD Both going the Joja route makes it easier to compare without it being totally apples vs oranges.
8) Once you have gotten the CC done, post some screenshots, showing what your in game time, in game days, etc looks like. If you can, share the save file too!
9) Provide regular updates on the forums of your progress! The whole point is to talk about how easy / hard it is, what strategies you use, where you encounter sticking points, and so forth. Let's keep it friendly, and have fun with it!
10) Though I'd be incredibly surprised if anyone got perfection within the timespan in question especially given the restrictions, it'd be incredibly impressive if someone did. So if they do get perfection with a new save using these restrictions before Jan 1st 2023, they automatically "win", whatever that means XD

*I personally think the fishing rod is a bit cheap in this context (you can get the CC pretty easily with *just* fishing after all), but in good faith I can't restrict it. After all part of the appeal of the watering can is the lure of perfection with just the one "starting tool", so it'd be lame to have a restriction which prevents it.

Anyway, let me know if you're interested! I think it'd be fun, and I'm definitely game, but only if at least one other person (who wants to pick something other than the pickaxe) is interested in doing it as well. If not no worries, it's a hectic time of year and there's plenty of reasons why someone wouldn't be interested in tackling such a challenge *right at this time*.

Perfection with this would be slightly one sided as you are forced into taking a watering can.

you could have some arbitrary point where you are allowed to use the watering can once but at a cost of you didn’t pick it as your initial tool to keep the watering can viable

 

[Giant Octopodes]

Perfection with this would be slightly one sided as you are forced into taking a watering can.

you could have some arbitrary point where you are allowed to use the watering can once but at a cost of you didn’t pick it as your initial tool to keep the watering can viable

Yeah that's one of many reasons why I think the CC is a better target, any starting tool can get to the CC, especially if going the Joja route.

 

[FilthyGorilla]

Yeah that's one of many reasons why I think the CC is a better target, any starting tool can get to the CC, especially if going the Joja route.

I think a fun thing would be getting to ginger island, just joja is mindless fishing though getting to ginger island incorporates a different play style where axes and pickaxes are more viable.