1.6 Update Rain Totems

[24k Ancient Fruit]

So as many of you likely know, the 1.6+ patch removed the ability of the player to chain together so many lightning storm days in a row by using Rain Totems.

What if the following Totems existed in the game:

1) Sun Totem
Works like a Rain Totem except that it will ensure a bright sunny day tomorrow if the forecast had called for rain. No effect otherwise, though the Totem would still be consumed. Lance had floated the idea in Stardew Expanded as he eventually tells the player in a heart event that he is working on such a totem (IIRC he calls it the "Fire Totem"), though we never see it become a thing as of SVE v1.14.45.

2) Thunder Totem
Ensures a lightning storm the next day.

Would having such Totems available give the Farmer too much control over the weather and perhaps break the balance of the game?

 

[Bawby]

Meh, if you have the recipe and have the ingredients, fair game I say.
Still being on 1.5, so forgive my ignorance, but why the consecutive day restriction? Just out of curiosity- I've used rain totems once, maybe twice.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I get the impression the Rain Totem is supposed to serve the purpose of Fishing rainy day Fish and getting the Mermaid Pendant for times in the game when there's little rain (usually Summer for me) or never Rain (Winter) so you don't have to wait a whole season or even year just because of bad timing/luck. It's not really a buff unless you have a huge amount of unsprinkled crops which is a mistake I never make. Well, after the first time.

A Sun Totem would fit pretty well though I'm not sure if there's any purpose served? OK it's late and brain is Fridaygoo but what's the advantage of Sun? OK! Animals can graze outside and they're a bit happier eating that way. A pretty meh buff though. OK and some Villagers don't come out of their houses on those days so are inaccessible. That could be nice, too. I see some purpose to this, and it's not OP in any way I can figure yet which IMO means it's a good idea.

But the Thunder Totem seems like too big a Buff because of Lightning Rods. It's pretty much making Batteries at will and that may be too much.

 

[Bawby]

I get the impression the Rain Totem is supposed to serve the purpose of Fishing rainy day Fish and getting the Mermaid Pendant for times in the game when there's little rain (usually Summer for me) or never Rain (Winter) so you don't have to wait a whole season or even year just because of bad timing/luck. It's not really a buff unless you have a huge amount of unsprinkled crops which is a mistake I never make. Well, after the first time.

A Sun Totem would fit pretty well though I'm not sure if there's any purpose served? OK it's late and brain is Fridaygoo but what's the advantage of Sun? OK! Animals can graze outside and they're a bit happier eating that way. A pretty meh buff though. OK and some Villagers don't come out of their houses on those days so are inaccessible. That could be nice, too. I see some purpose to this, and it's not OP in any way I can figure yet which IMO means it's a good idea.

But the Thunder Totem seems like too big a Buff because of Lightning Rods. It's pretty much making Batteries at will and that may be too much.

Some fish only available in sun as well, that's all I can think of at the moment.
Good point about the batteries. Almost makes up for the aggravation of losing a crop and picking up a piece of path from who-knows-where.

 

[24k Ancient Fruit]

I get the impression the Rain Totem is supposed to serve the purpose of Fishing rainy day Fish and getting the Mermaid Pendant for times in the game when there's little rain (usually Summer for me) or never Rain (Winter) so you don't have to wait a whole season or even year just because of bad timing/luck. It's not really a buff unless you have a huge amount of unsprinkled crops which is a mistake I never make. Well, after the first time.

I may be using it in my game to finally get that Mermaid's Pendant to get married. Also, some people partial to the Beach Farm use it sometimes to have lots of crops on the farm on that Sprinkler-adverse soil. In other cases, I've heard of ppl using it to get certain heart events (i.e. Shane's 6-heart event).

A Sun Totem would fit pretty well though I'm not sure if there's any purpose served? OK it's late and brain is Fridaygoo but what's the advantage of Sun? OK! Animals can graze outside and they're a bit happier eating that way. A pretty meh buff though. OK and some Villagers don't come out of their houses on those days so are inaccessible. That could be nice, too. I see some purpose to this, and it's not OP in any way I can figure yet which IMO means it's a good idea.

It would be nice for pig farmers who rely on Truffles as their main source of income. Perhaps a farmer might want to cancel tomorrow's rain to catch fish that only exclusively show up during Sunny days, particularly if they are trying to get that Sunfish that Caroline wants for a quest, for instance.

But the Thunder Totem seems like too big a Buff because of Lightning Rods. It's pretty much making Batteries at will and that may be too much.

That is a good point. To balance this out, such Totems could be made very expensive (50 or more Hardwood among other things) and/or require very rare materials to craft (e.g. Fairy Dust, Prismatic Shards, etc.). In a similar sense, I do see how Sun Totems could be used to ensure so many consecutive Sunny Days for farmers who have set up lots and lots of Solar Panels. Given how long Solar Panels take to finally produce Batteries, that would not be as much of an exploit, but it is a way that they could be used.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Some fish only available in sun as well, that's all I can think of at the moment.

It would be nice for pig farmers who rely on Truffles as their main source of income. Perhaps a farmer might want to cancel tomorrow's rain to catch fish that only exclusively show up during Sunny days, particularly if they are trying to get that Sunfish that Caroline wants for a quest, for instance.

These are good points. I think I have a blind spot about sunny days as it seems I'm always short of rainy days so a Sun Totem is like making an Air Totem. Spending resources on something that's just going to be there anyway.

However in my most recent game the Summer was very rainy, which I had not experienced in any playthrough so far (about 20 Summers total), close to half the days. It happened not to matter because it was Year 4 so I was done with needing Fish, and I'd recently moved to a Lazier Farming strategy where I traded in my Pigs for Sheep. So I could have been hurt big time by the missing Truffles but for the first time ever due to my (typical) pure dumb luck it didn't matter.

But if I'd still had a Barn fulla Pigs, I would have been a sad puppy and for the first time in the game would have been cursing the rain, wishing for a Sun Totem.

 

[FilthyGorilla]

I get the impression the Rain Totem is supposed to serve the purpose of Fishing rainy day Fish and getting the Mermaid Pendant for times in the game when there's little rain (usually Summer for me) or never Rain (Winter) so you don't have to wait a whole season or even year just because of bad timing/luck. It's not really a buff unless you have a huge amount of unsprinkled crops which is a mistake I never make. Well, after the first time.

A Sun Totem would fit pretty well though I'm not sure if there's any purpose served? OK it's late and brain is Fridaygoo but what's the advantage of Sun? OK! Animals can graze outside and they're a bit happier eating that way. A pretty meh buff though. OK and some Villagers don't come out of their houses on those days so are inaccessible. That could be nice, too. I see some purpose to this, and it's not OP in any way I can figure yet which IMO means it's a good idea.

But the Thunder Totem seems like too big a Buff because of Lightning Rods. It's pretty much making Batteries at will and that may be too much.

If you have piggies a rainy day could mean a lot of profit, you might run into a rainy last day of the season when you need a sunny day for a fish the same as you described the rain totem. Besides watering crops, the rain totem isn't all too powerful either, and it's quite expensive.

The storm totem could also be appropriately balanced, remember, anything after ginger island would make it contend with solar panels that the player might get anyway, so you won't get that early game boost to batteries but you may hold off on crafting the expensive sun catchers.

Personally I would make it a volcano dwarf recipe and like it's cousin the rain totem, allow small amounts of them to be found in volcano chests. It could otherwise be balanced with an expensive crafting recipe or just gate lock it behind somewhere else, the casino is a contender, so is the walnut room (qi seems like someone who'd be able to manipulate weather)