Peregrine
Greenhorn
The Glittering Boulder is one of the more difficult challenges in the community center, and it's also by far the most underwhelming. I'd like to offer a suggestion for an alternative.
When one of my kids cleared the glittering boulder, she was excited to see what was behind it. The pattern thus far had been fairly game-changing mechanics unlocked with each iteration of the Community Center's bundles. It was a bit of a letdown when she discovered that the reward for all that effort is that you now have the opportunity 1 or 2 times per day to maybe get one ore node's worth of treasure, and that's only if you happened to bring along your pan (which, while you can wear it as a hat, is not all that aesthetically pleasing).
Now, there's a part of the story that seems to exist through bits and pieces and suggestions, but has never been explored. I think the glittering boulder, with its water-based requirements, should tie more strongly to a new water-related questline:
Mermaids.
They're at the night market; they're talked about on Ginger Island; you interact with a lot of sea life already through the beach, fishing, the moonlight jellies event, and several other presences (paintings, conversations, etc.) Why not have a sect of long-lost mermaids trapped in an underground lake behind the glittering boulder, with a quest to free them from the underground lake so they can once more sing with their ocean merthren?
* Initial reward is still just the pan, but also lets you into a room behind the boulder where the new questline starts
* Build up underwater equipment to even enter their realm
* Learn mermaid songs
* Water-based cooking recipes
* Mermaid scales to enchant yourself (run faster, swim without oxygen tanks, eventually become a mermaid)
* Introduce thrown tridents as a new enchantable, upgradable ranged weapon
* New clothing options
* A boathouse for your farm, where a mermaid will pull your boat to distant lands like Ginger Island
* Mermaid magic to fight the growing darkness as Krobus's family awakens and begins feuding with the dwarves again
* Explore more backstory with both Krobus and the dwarves, from the outsider's perspective that the mermaids supply
* Farmable ocean beds growing kelp, seaweed, mermaid foods(?), etc
* Find out where the elves went?? (from the artifacts you find)
And doing this would revamp one of the progression points that makes the least amount of sense, the current glittering boulder implementation. It would instead turn it into a huge new fantastic part of Stardew Valley lore, possibly with minimal impact to the current state of the game since mermaids, dwarves, and shadows all love their secrecy. :)
Just a thought!
ConcernedApe, you're awesome! Keep making amazing games!
When one of my kids cleared the glittering boulder, she was excited to see what was behind it. The pattern thus far had been fairly game-changing mechanics unlocked with each iteration of the Community Center's bundles. It was a bit of a letdown when she discovered that the reward for all that effort is that you now have the opportunity 1 or 2 times per day to maybe get one ore node's worth of treasure, and that's only if you happened to bring along your pan (which, while you can wear it as a hat, is not all that aesthetically pleasing).
Now, there's a part of the story that seems to exist through bits and pieces and suggestions, but has never been explored. I think the glittering boulder, with its water-based requirements, should tie more strongly to a new water-related questline:
Mermaids.
They're at the night market; they're talked about on Ginger Island; you interact with a lot of sea life already through the beach, fishing, the moonlight jellies event, and several other presences (paintings, conversations, etc.) Why not have a sect of long-lost mermaids trapped in an underground lake behind the glittering boulder, with a quest to free them from the underground lake so they can once more sing with their ocean merthren?
* Initial reward is still just the pan, but also lets you into a room behind the boulder where the new questline starts
* Build up underwater equipment to even enter their realm
* Learn mermaid songs
* Water-based cooking recipes
* Mermaid scales to enchant yourself (run faster, swim without oxygen tanks, eventually become a mermaid)
* Introduce thrown tridents as a new enchantable, upgradable ranged weapon
* New clothing options
* A boathouse for your farm, where a mermaid will pull your boat to distant lands like Ginger Island
* Mermaid magic to fight the growing darkness as Krobus's family awakens and begins feuding with the dwarves again
* Explore more backstory with both Krobus and the dwarves, from the outsider's perspective that the mermaids supply
* Farmable ocean beds growing kelp, seaweed, mermaid foods(?), etc
* Find out where the elves went?? (from the artifacts you find)
And doing this would revamp one of the progression points that makes the least amount of sense, the current glittering boulder implementation. It would instead turn it into a huge new fantastic part of Stardew Valley lore, possibly with minimal impact to the current state of the game since mermaids, dwarves, and shadows all love their secrecy. :)
Just a thought!
ConcernedApe, you're awesome! Keep making amazing games!
