Proposal: Add a broken silo to start of game

tomaO2

Planter
I checked the search for threads about silos but there doesn't seem to be one, so let me make the suggestion.

I played this a few years ago, and I decided to play it again this month. I forgot quite a bit of how the game went at the time, so I probably repeated original mistakes. One bit that annoyed me was that after I had gotten the chicken coop, I realized I needed a silo. Later on, I started watching other playthroughs and guides, and they all say the same thing. Build the silo FIRST. Therefore, it seems to make a lot of sense to have the quest be to build a silo initially, then have the coop quest pop up afterwards.

Now, a silo actually requires a surprising amount of of rare-ish resources, including copper bars and clay, rather than the more common stone and wood like a coop does. I would say it's actually a bit more difficult to get it first. Plus that copper is needed for tool upgrades. Therefore, it might not be super intuitive to get that right away (although I definitely think it should be first, regardless).

As an alternative idea, why not have a broken down silo somewhere on the farm. This isn't a quest, you just happen to find a broken down silo while looking around the farm and text says that it requires X amount of wood/rocks to repair, much like the broken beach bridge. Once the player spends the resources to fix the silo (or buys a new one. Not like you have to repair it), the coop quest is triggered.

I think this would be a minor change that helps guides newbies in an unobtrusive way early on and prevents a very common mistake. Plus, it allows a good chance for the silo to be repaired when there is the largest amount of grass on the farm. Location doesn't matter too much, as it can be easily moved later on. I would think it would be more interesting to have it a ways from the farm, so it becomes a surprise for players that are clearing out the location.

Speaking of grass, why is there no proper grass that can regrow? Kinda annoying to have to do all this replanting. You could have wild grass and grass as two seperate things. The second grass doesn't grow as high, so you can see the small animals easier, and doesn't disappear when eaten. It's a basic harvest moon thing, I don't understand why it doesn't seem to be implemented here. I assume the developer specifically did not want it, but I cannot imagine why.

Anyway, even if the broken silo doesn't work, I feel like "build a silo" should be listed as a quest before "build a coop". That is such a universal tip that it really needs to be codified into the game.

Other ideas:
(May get its own thread later)
-Only have re-run be written if you have watched it. I didn't watch every episode so I'm missing recepies, but I don't remember which ones I didn't watch, so I have to watch them all.
-A toggle to switch from the top NPC being either the one with the most or least hearts. There is a lot of scrolling when checking on the final few people you are trying befriend.
-colour fridges like chests.
 
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imnvs

Local Legend
I like it. That the game basically requests you build the coop while we all know to build the silo first is not intuitive. Almost everyone has to figure that one out on their own. Something, anything, coded into the game that suggests you get the silo first would be good.

As for grass, a way to prevent it all getting mowed down by your animals? Plant grass, then put a statue or fencepost down on top of grass. It'll prevent the animals from eating all the grass at that tile so that the grass can continue to spread out from there. That's why my barn/coop yard always has all of my statues spread across it with grass underneath.
 

Magically Clueless

Administrator
Staff member
while i think the silo is pretty inexpensive to build (i honestly think the hardest thing to get at first is clay) i think it would be cool to have a broken down silo you can fix up in the beginning and start to harvest hay to build up to the much more expensive coop, that would definitely make sense for earlygame and i think it would be nice!
 
This time playing, I decided to go ahead and build the coop first. I bought just a few hay in case of rainy days, and I'll get my silo in plenty of time to collect hay for winter. Also planting some summer wheat for a few extra hay. I never tried it this way before but you don't have to get the silo first!
 

MeeShell

Greenhorn
Great Idea. You could have a silo and/or a farm building broken down too. Maybe as an option when creating the game you could choose to have some broken down buildings.
 

rippytrippy

Planter
good idea, it would've saved me a lot of money and despair had there been one in the start
can't tell you how many days my 1st 2 chickens went without food and i had no idea how to feed them LOL
 

tomaO2

Planter
Great Idea. You could have a silo and/or a farm building broken down too. Maybe as an option when creating the game you could choose to have some broken down buildings.
Certainly, you could have even more broken buildings. If there was, say, a broken down coop, however, I would say that it should count as being too difficult to repair yourself. When you click on it. You'd get a message saying it needs a professional carpenter to repair. Which is a way of directing you back to Robin. If you do that, then you don't even need to make building a coop into a quest, since clicking on the coop will be enough of a direction on its own.
 
It would probably be better if Marnie or Robin told you something about silos instead. I'm personally not a fan of having a broken silo at gamestart.
I see where you are coming from here. Also, CA would have to add a predetermined location on each farm type (4 corners, forest, river, etc.) which would have to be figured out.

Even easier than a dialog option, you could have a quest to build/rebuild the silo that starts prior to the coop. If it comes in the mail from Marnie or Robin that would make the most sense.

Personally, I am still for the idea of a broken silo. The litteral first thing I did on my first save file was chop down all the grass. I was so so mad when I realized later that it could have been hay instead of poofing out-of existence.
 
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