more challenging animal husbandry

[cyberpiink]

I feel that raising animals in Stardew Valley is really cool but it could be even more fun if the animals were more difficult to care for. for example, animals can be sold but they do not get sick so you end up not losing any animals, and the possibility of incubating or breeding ends up making the option to buy with Marnie quite rare. I would love to dedicate more time to the barns, stables and chicken coops and I think that this would make the time in the game better used, making the player not complete the whole game in the first years. (Sorry for bad English)

 

[catcrazy37]

Even just more tinkering would be fun. Food and grass varieties affecting production (along with friendship), incubator settings (could get really intense), breeding for production and colours. Frickin’ cleaning, for their happiness. Animals are 80% cleaning. You could even get fertilizer out of it!

 

[Jack Of Shades]

True. They are a little low maintenance, for animals. I mean, you have

Spoiler: Spoiler

dinosaur

and that's easy to take care of as well! I would expect varying difficulties based on the animal you have.

 

[cyberpiink]

almost one year and I still bored of taking care animals

 

[imnvs]

If you made it more complicated, it would take up more of the day, and then you'd have less time to get things done... and I never have enough time already.

 

[Cthulhu]

If you made it more complicated, it would take up more of the day, and then you'd have less time to get things done... and I never have enough time already.

I hear that! And yet... maybe it's okay if there were a little more specialization. Maybe livestock could take up more time, and you just wouldn't be able to farm as much. Or vice-versa. I don't see why the player should have to check all the boxes and do all the things to have a "complete" farm. I know I'm still a little miffed that I had to get a pig; I never really wanted pigs or rabbits, but the Community Center commandeth me, and I must obey. :/

Anyway. Just like you get to customize your experience levels to reflect how you want to play, it would be nice if the Community Center gave you different routes to completion. Then you could be free to dive into the different parts of the game as intensively as you wanted to. Personally, I'd love to have to spend a little more time with each one of fewer animals; I like to focus on farming, and it would make the animal-husbandry aspect more rewarding for me. As it is now, I open the barn doors for three seasons, absentmindedly pat whichever animals happen to be in my way while I'm en route to the fields or the sheds or wherever, and call it a day. I'm more interactive with the auto-grabber and mayonnaise makers than the animals themselves, some days!

 

[CryogenCrystals]

I have to agree that the animals taking more time for me would be quite problematic, which is why there are auto-collectors for some things (am waiting for the mobile update for the

Spoiler

auto-petter

), so for me, this could certainly be a mod rather than a game change. That way people can opt in to the extra difficulty and time-drain rather than be obligated to it. Once having less other stuff to do then it would be a nice mod to activate. Maybe if the specialities came paired with added tasks that would be fine, because then people could opt in or opt out of the extra animal care tasks.

I like the idea of different routes to completion on the community center though. That would be fun.

 

[MissDandy]

this could certainly be a mod rather than a game change.

I would have to say that too. For people who want to dedicate more time to the animals, it would let them do it without other people who struggle with in-game time management (like myself) having to also worry about it. I know that right now, if the animals took more time to care for than they already did, I would consider getting rid of a few because the money wouldn't be worth the time spent making it.

 

[goboking]

this could certainly be a mod rather than a game change.

That's great for us PC players, but I don't think those playing on consoles can use mods.

 

[ISSsloth]

These are cool ideas, but for me what got boring about animals was the exact opposite, that petting and feeding them took too long, so what made me more enthusiastic about my animals was actually getting an auto-collector.

 

[Zen_the_Ogre]

For those of you who never got a chance to play harvest moon (which this game was inspired by) the animal husbandry has always been simple. The animals can be raised in the barn and coop. The barn animals required to be brushed and then milked and talked to. You manually filled a stall for each barn animal. The chickens fed from a trough. The cows can be moved outside with the help of a bell. Animals in general took care of themselves outdoors as long as all fenses were intact. If they were not the cows would not allow themselves to be milked or a chicken would die and only feathers remain. Neglectful treatment led to animals getting sick and if not treated they died. Likewise a high rated cow could give birth to higher rated babies.

Now many people look at that as better than the current stardew valley but the games are different. In harvest moon you had from 6am to 5pm to complete all commercial transactions be it buying in the village or selling. Past this time any items dropped in the shipping box are not valid. The other is that time quits passing around 9-11pm which means that by using the springs you could get all possible work done each and every non festival, non storm day. So this meant people have more time for the animals as in the morning you just rode you horse up to the cow for a drive by milking and tossed it into the saddle bag.

Stardew you have more limits on time and energy. While you can ship until 1:50 am the animals shut down around 6-7pm as they go to sleep early. Which means no more collections. Like wise you now have less time to gather resources as you could feel up your wood storage the first night you got the golden axe in harvest moon you have to burn a full day chopping(and the nodes don't respawn daily,,) to get the wood for a full stack.


For stardew to facilitate the move to ranching a few changes need to be applied to the game. Grass beds should be permanent until pickaxed. That being said they don't spread but grow back after 2-3 ,days after being consumed. Separate farming and ranching so that way a person can get new skills based on the wanting to go coop or barn. Inclusion of the bell to bring the animals to you. Introduce a vet. Introduce sickness. Increase heart counts. Increase sell price of animal. Give animals life spans. Include an animal welfare game tab allowing you to see the needs of all your animals and heart rates.


Suggested ideas from other pages include composter for processing waste, separate barn and coop feeds as hay is alright for cows but the chickens should be eating found corn/amaranth/wheat, include food grades for animals, add new machines such as yoghurt maker and butter churn, rework dinosaurs as a barn item that lets them mature to pepper rex,

 

[CryogenCrystals]

That's great for us PC players, but I don't think those playing on consoles can use mods.

I'm a mobile player (iOS), when I want to mod I'll move to PC or Linux (I assume since I can find save file in Linux on my R-pi that I can edit/move save files the same as for PC but I'll find out when I get there). I too wish we could mod, but there's a way around this for me... I looked at transferability before starting. I'm using mobile for convenience for now, later moving to another platform if iOS takes a long time to update. I have already edited my save files for iOS, on iOS.

Honestly, after one week of animal tasks, it got old for me... now it feels obligatory and some days I neglect the petting even (fully upgraded buildings auto-feeds at least, and I have auto-collectors). But that's just me, I don't find it fun, so I am admittedly biased. Given that consoles have a limited life span, it wasn't my first choice platform. That's too bad not being able to move off console.

In the end I'll have Stardew on multiple platforms, because its a great game. I can understand players not wanting to part with their first games though after all the time and effort put in. I guess I just assumed consoles have a limited time span and modifications aren't possible.

I also understand the desire for added aspects after initial game too, so I appreciate the ideas here, they seem great. If I ran out of other things to play in the game I'd probably try to get over my boredom with animal tasks and check it out. I wouldn't expect that to take place on mobile, I knew after first forum and wiki visit that if I wanted to do fancier stuff I'd have to transfer. Cyberpiink has a good point about not completing the game in the first years, stretching things out longer might be fun, to me this is possible by moving on to secondary tasks, like completing collections, monster goals, all notes, friendships, artifacts etc as I need fresh things all the time.

I wonder if folks think animal tasks would ever get old for them?

 

[Ellajoy]

I know I'm still a little miffed that I had to get a pig; I never really wanted pigs or rabbits, but the Community Center commandeth me, and I must obey. :/

You can find truffles at a few other places.
So you do not need pigs. Same with rabbits. It is hard but I've done it. Just do not try for CC in one year.