What first game mistakes did you do?

nightmare

Greenhorn
Didn’t build up money, nor resources during spring, summer, and fall so when winter came around I was stuck. I went in without any idea or plan so I had to restart because in an instant I became a year behind.
 

izanagi

Cowpoke
the list of my stupidity never ends, here's a select few

- literally did not watch tv for the first year or two
- sold literally,,,everything???
- community center was ignored for a good two years or so
- did not go to ginger island for god knows how long after unlocking it
- i bought everything except what i needed—although i do admit those 800 farm warp totems were nice
- greenhouse who—planted a million crops but never harvested them

the only good thing i accomplished was finishing the standard mines within a decent amount of time (year one or two)
 
Never talked to *anyone* unless I needed to buy something from them -- too busy making money through farming and fishing (from my very first version 1.5 playthrough)

When I wanted a large influx of wood for my Deluxe Barn, I chopped down all the trees around the entire map, and left just the stumps there for several seasons on the misguided advice from a Stardew YouTuber that the stumps would quickly grow back into the tree

Hoarding (this is something I still have a nasty habit of doing)
- I think I can save up 5-10 of an item somewhere in case they are needed quest items; however, I find myself dumping various items (mostly gems) in chests I have scattered around Stardew Valley and Ginger Island and forgetting about them when I want to go fishing or do something else where I know that I'll be picking up some important items
- I keep thinking that I'll sell these items later "when I REALLY need the money", but I end up getting too distracted by other things such as finding new posted Quests on the Special Orders board or Qi's office or any new strategies I think up on the fly
 

astatine210

Rancher
me too lmao—i had hay but i didnt know how to feed my chickens it was awful
[name of chicken] is looking thin.... yup, been there, too. i was so confused with a full silo and chickens that were starving.

tbh when i first started playing SDV, i had no clue what the point of it was (I happened by it through in-car entertainment options) so for a long time i literally just walked around exploring with no real purpose. I also gifted a lot of random stuff that others didn't appreciate (driftwood is cool! Elliott will love it!)
 

Lew Zealand

Helper
- I keep thinking that I'll sell these items later "when I REALLY need the money"
I still do this and after maybe 3 seasons of stuff accumulating and never needing it even once, I'll finally sell the lot for a fat profit, buy an Obelisk, find myself broke, and repeat the whole set of shenanigans.

I also gifted a lot of random stuff that others didn't appreciate (driftwood is cool! Elliott will love it!)
Soooo close! Just hand that Driftwood a little to the left in the Saloon and Leah would have liked it!
 

Lew Zealand

Helper
lol hindsight is 20/20... plus i had no clue that the wiki for SV existed until wayyyy later.
IMO playing through without the spoilers from the Wiki is ideal as you really don't want to rush that first experience. That should last as long as you can make it, because you'll never get that quite the same again. Though I did break this 'rule' to find at least Liked gifts for some of the Townspeople. Once I found how that mechanic worked, I found it too frustrating not knowing what Leah or Sam, etc. liked. I tried to keep horse blinders on for the Loved gifts as that felt too cheaty and just find those out over the course of the game.

Ehh, mostly...
 

SiameezyRPGer

Sodbuster
I donated the prismatic shard instead of getting the at the time best weapon (pre-updates and stuff). I didn't know about it yet and always donated my first of any kind of gem. I haven't found one yet since 🤣 But I just saw a post here yesterday about the rainbow trout so I put them in a fish pond on my current path.
 
I donated the prismatic shard instead of getting the at the time best weapon (pre-updates and stuff). I didn't know about it yet and always donated my first of any kind of gem. I haven't found one yet since 🤣 But I just saw a post here yesterday about the rainbow trout so I put them in a fish pond on my current path.
I did this too! :gasp:
 
* Getting a whole nine cauliflower seeds from Gunther and then planting them... on the 20th of Spring
* "Nah, I don't need to go into the mines. I mean, I'm a farmer, not a builder, right?"
* Rows and rows of crops... nary a single sprinkler in sight
* "Oh hey, those look valuable, I'll plant some of those" (Spoiler: they weren't)
* "Wow, those vault bundles sure are expensive, I'll just put those off until later"
* Breaking a dozen planted Hops because I didn't understand how trellis crops worked
* "Okay, so kegs need what now? Oh, so *THAT'S* why I needed to go mining..."
* "I've got one tree of each type tapped, that should be more than sufficient for my needs" (forgets to double check the Keg recipe)
* Oh, hey, I turned in this ancient seed artifact to Gunther, and got something I can plant! I'd better go do that right now (in mid fall)

Yea, all those guides I wrote? I started out writing them for myself. Then I realized that I had already gone through the trouble of collecting the information and decided to share with the class.
 

Jayamos

Farmer
* "Nah, I don't need to go into the mines. I mean, I'm a farmer, not a builder, right?"
Same. And then I got beat up by slimes and had to scythe my way down to level 5, only to find I had to kill 10 more slimes to get my sword back! Just call me the Grim Reaper.

And those trellis crops…I couldn‘t understand why the game wouldn’t let me make a nice neat 3x3 square of beans, finally tricked it into doing so, and then had to pickaxe one.

But the best one? Not being able to figure out how to open my door at 2AM the first night.

Honestly, I needed the wiki.
 

Lenora Rose

Farmer
I made plenty of rookie mistakes but this was my fave.

Decided one summer day in year 2 I needed to go fish in the ocean first thing in the morning no matter what the weather or farm needs. Can't remember why now. Probably just a billboard request. Anyhow, I took one of my beach totems (a pile of which were my first Winter Star gift from Willy) and rolled out of bed at 6 AM and warped to the beach, where I learn it's pouring rain. Wandered about for forage (almost nothing's so urgent you can't check for forage), and noticed the ghost hanging out.

I think some of you know where this is going....

Talk to him, since the last time I did he said I wasn't ready. This time he says he's got this pendant, and if I give it to me best girl she'll know what I mean.

I'd been disappointed about how, outside of one event, the dialogue and time with my awesome artist *didn't* change after I handed her a bouquet, so innocent me thought, "oh, maybe if I give her this, folks in town will notice we're dating and say something, or she'll go on a date with me."

So... finish my fishing. It's late enough Leah and Willy will both already be at the tavern. So I stop in there first. get my money from Willy, then hand Leah her shiny pendant...

... aaaand now I'm getting married.

(Which, y'know, I wasn't ready for that step, but hey, she's been my only girl, I wasn't planning to date around, so, why not?)

... the kicker is when I finally get back to the farm to rush through my chores before it gets too dark, there's a letter in the mailbox from Lewis, saying "if you're getting serious about your relationship, here's how we propose marriage on Stardew Valley"...
 
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Lew Zealand

Helper
I made plenty of rookie mistakes but this was my fave.

Decided one summer day in year 2 I needed to go fish in the ocean first thing in the morning no matter what the weather or farm needs. Can't remember why now. Probably just a billboard request. Anyhow, I took one of my beach totems (a pile of which were my first Winter Star gift from Willy) and rolled out of bed at 6 AM and warped to the beach, where I learn it's pouring rain. Wandered about for forage (almost nothing's so urgent you can't check for forage), and noticed the ghost hanging out.

I think some of you know where this is going....

Talk to him, since the last time I did he said I wasn't ready. This time he says he's got this pendant, and if I give it to me best girl she'll know what I mean.

I'd been disappointed about now how little, outside of an event, dialogue and time with my awesome artist *didn't* change after I handed her a bouquet, so innocent me thought, "oh, maybe if I give her this, folks in town will notice we're dating and say something, or she'll go on a date with me."

So... finish my fishing. It's late enough Leah and Willy will both already be at the tavern. So I stop in there first. get my money from Willy, then hand Leah her shiny pendant...

... aaaand now I'm getting married.

(Which, y'know, I wasn't ready for that step, but hey, she's been my only girl, I wasn't planning to date around, so, why not?)

... the kicker is when I finally get back to the farm to rush through my chores before it gets too dark, there's a letter in the mailbox from Lewis, saying "if you're getting serious about your relationship, here's how we propose marriage on Stardew Valley"...
Ok that read like a sitcom episode except your story is actually good! I love it!
 

Magically Clueless

Administrator
Staff member
This isn't the worst thing in the world, but on my very first save, everything was outside. Eeeeeverything. Chests, oil makers, cheese presses, mayo machines, everything. I had like, a big path area with all these machines on them and it would require a lot of upkeep because of thunder storms, and sometimes even my machines disappeared!

I do keep stuff outside nowadays, but the machines go in the corresponding barns/coops and when I can afford a shed (in my defense, there was no shed in 2016) I will put most of my other junk in there, other than chests for gifting
 

ValleyGirl

Tiller
My biggest mistake was in the first year...I didn't realise each season was 28 days long or that seeds were seasonal. I bought and planted tons and tons of seeds on the last day of spring....the next day they were weeds. Lesson learnt.
 
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