Returning Player: Highlights of 1.4 and 1.5?

[Royeaux]

I haven't play Stardew Valley in awhile, I started a project to create a timelapse of my farm but I've left it unfinished in 2019. I would like to return to finish the 3 year time lapse but since I started 2 major patches have come by and it is a little overwhelming to read the giant list and I was wondering if I could get some highlights on what are the most important patch improvements that I should focus on? Any game changers? My farm is already quite large and I am trying to keep up it's appearance to look nice in the timelapse which doesn't give me much time to explore and experiment with the new stuff. Like how does irrigation work? Does it auto-water rice?

 

[Odin]

The official announcements for each update give a good overview of the big changes without spoiling too much:

Stardew Valley - The Stardew Valley 1.4 Content Update is Now Available on Steam & GOG

www.stardewvalley.net

Stardew Valley - Stardew Valley 1.5 Update out now on PC!

www.stardewvalley.net

 

[imnvs]

Yeah, I've been trying to figure out how to answer this one without spoiling anything.

I think the biggest non-spoiler are the new farm maps that came with each update. 1.4 brought us the 4-Corner Map, which is one of my favorites because it has a little bit of everything (except forage) that the other maps have and is easily organized and compartmentalized. 1.5 brought us the Beach Map which gets supply crate drops, can fish ocean fish from the farm, and it is literally the map with the most available space now, beating out the Standard Map... but a lot of that space isn't so great for farming, because sprinklers only work in 202 squares arranged roughly into a 20x10 rectangle.