New to mods

[Casual Geek]

Hello,

I'm new to adding mods to my game and I have added different visuals mods to the characters and the wildlife and the story is vanilla.

I was just wondering if there are any mods worth getting to help in other way without altering the story because I want to play a vanilla play through first. Unless it's makes no difference to original when adding an extension on to the game.

If any suggestions please say with the name of the mod so it makes it easier to find and what it does. I use nexus mods to get all the mods previously so it would be useful if they are on that site.

I play on the steam deck not sure if that changes the type of mods I can use.

Thanks

 

[Gardening Spirit]

Welcome to the amazing world of modding.

A recolour mod is worth getting to tone down the colours and make them look more realistic. I like Vibrant Pastoral Redrawn.

Also quality of life mods that make little tweaks to the game to make it more enjoyable and easy like Lookup Anything, which tells you information about the item you are looking at (e.g. how long a crop has to go to harvest, what recipes can be made with a machine etc.).

Also NPC Map Locations so you can see where the NPC's are at any one time on the map.

I have 233 mods on my current game so happy to give you more ideas if you want!

 

[Casual Geek]

Welcome to the amazing world of modding.

A recolour mod is worth getting to tone down the colours and make them look more realistic. I like Vibrant Pastoral Redrawn.

Also quality of life mods that make little tweaks to the game to make it more enjoyable and easy like Lookup Anything, which tells you information about the item you are looking at (e.g. how long a crop has to go to harvest, what recipes can be made with a machine etc.).

Also NPC Map Locations so you can see where the NPC's are at any one time on the map.

I have 233 mods on my current game so happy to give you more ideas if you want!

At the moment I'm using the mods in images I have attached, I do have some for the characters/NPC as well but I can't remember the name.

 

[Lenora Rose]

Since you don't want to change the vanilla game, these are the useful things you might care for that I don't see.

Generic Mod Config Menu(GMCM): Lets you tweak mods from the title screen with a lot more checkboxes and drop-down menus instead of needing to open the config file.

To Dew: Lets you write a to-do list that can show up on screen. It's useful but I'm not sure it works on Steam Deck as it uses a keyboard key to open. GMCM might let you change the keybinding?

NPC Map locations: if you find yourself frustrated trying to find a person to complete a quest or give a gift. It just puts little images on the map you already have.

 

[Lenora Rose]

My literal suggestion for everyone is play the game through unmodded first - and if you mod anything, only mod some of the visuals, since it doesn't hurt gameplay. It looks like you're already doing that. So I'd say keep going as you are until you know what you like and what you hate in the game, and when you decide to do more modding, maybe do it with a new farmer instead. I know when I started with modding, it was with my SECOND farmer after my first farmer ran for 8 in game years, so I felt like I knew the vanilla game well enough to take the plunge.

My first ones were Automatic gates, NPC Map Locations, Multiple Spouses {the modern equivalents are Free Love and Polyamory Sweet} and Multiple Spouse Dialogs, Canon-friendly Dialogue Expansion, and Diverse Stardew Valley, which at the time was all visual and now has grown to also include a few dialogue tweaks etc. But these, even though pretty vanilla friendly, do expand the game in ways you might want to wait until after the first farmer to do.

 

[Casual Geek]

My literal suggestion for everyone is play the game through unmodded first - and if you mod anything, only mod some of the visuals, since it doesn't hurt gameplay. It looks like you're already doing that. So I'd say keep going as you are until you know what you like and what you hate in the game, and when you decide to do more modding, maybe do it with a new farmer instead. I know when I started with modding, it was with my SECOND farmer after my first farmer ran for 89 in game years, so I felt like I knew the vanilla game well enough to take the plunge.

My first ones were Automatic gates, NPC Map Locations, Multiple Spouses {the modern equivalents are Free Love and Polyamory Sweet} and Multiple Spouse Dialogs, Canon-friendly Dialogue Expansion, and Diverse Stardew Valley, which at the time was all visual and now has grown to also include a few dialogue tweaks etc. But these, even though pretty vanilla friendly, do expand the game in ways you might want to wait until after the first farmer to do.

Thanks for the suggestion and I probably gonna go through vanilla, apart from visuals and mini map showing where NPC are. Afterwords see what mods are out there and make a new farm with full mods with game changing mods, like you mentioned

 

[Lenora Rose]

Just noticed my amusing typo - 8 years, not 89 years...

 

[Casual Geek]

Just noticed my amusing typo - 8 years, not 89 years...

I just assumed you loved that farm you made haha or slept for 80year in game

 

[Lothengriol]

Calendar Anniversary - Shows your wedding anniversary on the calendar. Seems nice to remember, yeah?
Convenient Inventory - Adds a "dump items into chests with matching items" button (and a way to prevent items from going in) that is amazingly useful for saving on cleanup time.
Experience Bars - Shows how far you have to go in order to reach the next level
Daily Screenshot - Takes a screenshot of your farm every day when you first step outside. It's great for having a fun timelapse to look back on! Make sure your Experience Bars are toggled off when you do this though, I have some goofy-looking screenshots from not doing that.
Data Layers - A toggled overlay that shows bomb explosion radius, sprinkler coverage, scarecrow crop protection radius, etc. All the stuff you want to be sure of but isn't cheaty to see in-game.
Just Luck Mod - Shows the daily luck. That's it. Now you don't have to run back to the TV when you forget it.
Non-Destructive NPCs - NPCs don't destroy things in their way anymore.
Only When It Counts - Prevents you from losing energy when you accidentally swing your axe (or other tool) and it does nothing.
Seasonal Cute Characters - A fun little retexture that gives characters more outfit variety. The modder seems to really like earrings.
Simple Crop Label - Shows what you have planted and how long until it's done growing.
Sounds Patcher - Lets you turn off individual sound effects in the game. Very useful when you have a few noises you really don't like.

None of these change the story, and I recommend looking into them and seeing which you'd want for your first game. After that, we can get you running some REAL mods that give new farm maps, crops, farm animals, cooking recipes, fish, and more! But I agree with Lenora Rose to have your first playthrough be minimally modded, or entirely unmodded. It's not as though the vanilla game is a slog to get through or anything, I just get annoyed when I think a crop is covered by a scarecrow and it isn't, or a bomb doesn't blow up what I thought it would. Mods in Stardew Valley have done a great job of smoothing out gameplay.

 

[Casual Geek]

Calendar Anniversary - Shows your wedding anniversary on the calendar. Seems nice to remember, yeah?
Convenient Inventory - Adds a "dump items into chests with matching items" button (and a way to prevent items from going in) that is amazingly useful for saving on cleanup time.
Experience Bars - Shows how far you have to go in order to reach the next level
Daily Screenshot - Takes a screenshot of your farm every day when you first step outside. It's great for having a fun timelapse to look back on! Make sure your Experience Bars are toggled off when you do this though, I have some goofy-looking screenshots from not doing that.
Data Layers - A toggled overlay that shows bomb explosion radius, sprinkler coverage, scarecrow crop protection radius, etc. All the stuff you want to be sure of but isn't cheaty to see in-game.
Just Luck Mod - Shows the daily luck. That's it. Now you don't have to run back to the TV when you forget it.
Non-Destructive NPCs - NPCs don't destroy things in their way anymore.
Only When It Counts - Prevents you from losing energy when you accidentally swing your axe (or other tool) and it does nothing.
Seasonal Cute Characters - A fun little retexture that gives characters more outfit variety. The modder seems to really like earrings.
Simple Crop Label - Shows what you have planted and how long until it's done growing.
Sounds Patcher - Lets you turn off individual sound effects in the game. Very useful when you have a few noises you really don't like.

None of these change the story, and I recommend looking into them and seeing which you'd want for your first game. After that, we can get you running some REAL mods that give new farm maps, crops, farm animals, cooking recipes, fish, and more! But I agree with Lenora Rose to have your first playthrough be minimally modded, or entirely unmodded. It's not as though the vanilla game is a slog to get through or anything, I just get annoyed when I think a crop is covered by a scarecrow and it isn't, or a bomb doesn't blow up what I thought it would. Mods in Stardew Valley have done a great job of smoothing out gameplay.

Thanks for all the recommendation, I do have most of these mods already installed but I do like the sound of the only when it counts because I swing my tools all the time by accident. I didn't know NPC destroyed stuff in there way so may have to get that to prevent that, also probably add convenient inventory because I saw the mod that you access your chest at anytime but that felt too cheaty for me. I will come back to you if I want to expand the game more on a new farm and you can give me the mods that work well together but for now vanilla version with a few extra mods to help works for me at the moment.

 

[Lenora Rose]

Thanks for all the recommendation, I do have most of these mods already installed but I do like the sound of the only when it counts because I swing my tools all the time by accident. I didn't know NPC destroyed stuff in there way so may have to get that to prevent that, also probably add convenient inventory because I saw the mod that you access your chest at anytime but that felt too cheaty for me. I will come back to you if I want to expand the game more on a new farm and you can give me the mods that work well together but for now vanilla version with a few extra mods to help works for me at the moment.

If you placed a chest on a spot on the beach where any of the NPCs walk, they destroy it, and if you don't show up right away, you lose all the contents. For people who place items outside the farm regularly, there are whole maps showing the "safe" vanilla spots for leaving things. There are a few machines that are unbreakable, but not many.

(As I understand it, vanilla players who want to fill ALL the maps with machines etc do so by blocking the doors to bedrooms, aka spawn points, with one of the unbreakables, so all the NPCs are trapped forever. But this would only be relevant to a very specific and not terribly typical style of player.)

The mod means instead of walking through a thing and destroying it, they give it a dirty look then go around.

 

[OrdinaryBoy]

Hello,

I'm new to adding mods to my game and I have added different visuals mods to the characters and the wildlife and the story is vanilla.

I was just wondering if there are any mods worth getting to help in other way without altering the story because I want to play a vanilla play through first. Unless it's makes no difference to original when adding an extension on to the game.

If any suggestions please say with the name of the mod so it makes it easier to find and what it does. I use nexus mods to get all the mods previously so it would be useful if they are on that site.

I play on the steam deck not sure if that changes the type of mods I can use.

Thanks

Hello there, welcome to the world of modding!
As mentioned by others in the previous posts, if you're new to the game, I also recommend to play the vanilla game first, using just a few or just the recolor mod, or not using mod entirely. After you've done playing quite enough, you could try many awesome mods out there, especially the SVE or SVVE (I haven't tried it though, but it looks awesome).
The quality of life mods that could make your farming life easier is the ones that worth to try as well.
Happy stardew playing (and modding)!

 

[LRangerR]

If you placed a chest on a spot on the beach where any of the NPCs walk, they destroy it, and if you don't show up right away, you lose all the contents. For people who place items outside the farm regularly, there are whole maps showing the "safe" vanilla spots for leaving things. There are a few machines that are unbreakable, but not many.

(As I understand it, vanilla players who want to fill ALL the maps with machines etc do so by blocking the doors to bedrooms, aka spawn points, with one of the unbreakables, so all the NPCs are trapped forever. But this would only be relevant to a very specific and not terribly typical style of player.)

The mod means instead of walking through a thing and destroying it, they give it a dirty look then go around.

There are maps of the safe places to put things in the SDV wiki. If you have trouble finding them just @ me and I'll go digging. @Casual Geek

 

[Lenora Rose]

There are maps of the safe places to put things in the SDV wiki. If you have trouble finding them just @ me and I'll go digging. @Casual Geek

That would be why I said "For people who place items outside the farm regularly, there are whole maps showing the "safe" vanilla spots for leaving things."

Though it is good to know who specifically can help with tracking them down.