Winter 21 is Groundhog Day, also known as RNG Day

[Lew Zealand]

Because it's a High Luck day and I want to get something. The problem with being unfocused (and an irl headache) is that I don't know what I want.

So I started with the default option for High Luck days: Skull Cavern. Dwarf Statue had an option for No Bomb damage so that's ideal. But I only brought 170 Stairs for some reason (?!?) and there were no Treasure Floors for over 70 Levels. Also not much interesting happened and the cherry on top was falling down one of the very rare Shafts on this run past Level 200. No Double Super Treasure Chest. OK done, restarting the day. The RNG (with Lucky Lunch, Ginger Ale, Lucky Ring):

And right now I remember I wanted to use Magic Rock Candy because I trade those Golden Boxes in for them, which is the biggest loss from restarting the day. Though I don't know if I have the Wicked Kris yet. This wasn't very good RNG day.

OK restart day but this time I remember I really want the 2 random drop Shirts I don't have (Neat Bow Shirt and Red Buttoned Vest). Top up to 99 Treasure Totems and head to the Beach. Artifact Spot coverage with 32 Totems:

What I got (same setup of Lucky Lunch, Ginger Ale, Lucky Ring) :

Meh, OK but nothing I want or need, and I have or can make those Shirts easily. Let's try the day again with 42 Totems:

"Hi Bobbi, whatcha doin'? Why does the beach look like there's sticks and worms everywhere today?"

"What are you up to?"

"Nothin'." Bobbi's default answer to everything when Emily asks that or gives her that always-deserved look. "Uh, looking for buried treasure... you know, typical stuff." Toothy grin, trying to look nonchalant and failing. Emily knows this Bobbi behavior all to well.

"OK, lemme know if you find anything fun! We're going to the beach!" She paused a split second.

"The other beach!" And Emily was off after the group.

Results maybe slightly better with houseplants goggles and a Prismatic Shirt but nothing truly elusive. Another try with 45 Totems (not intentionally using more, just going fro more coverage and being lazy):

"Hi again Bobbi, staying out of trouble?"

"The Beach looks even more chaotic than last time, has Elliott seen what his front walk looks like?"

"Hi Emily." Last time? "I'm just here looking for buried treasure, living the life of a buccaneer!" Bobbi made a face that didn't look much like a pirate, more like a cartoon sailor.

"You should have worn your Pirate Hat and Skull Shirt then! Yarrrrrgh! I thought of it last time but forgot to tell you."

"What do you mean last time?"

"You were just here doing the same thing, don't you remember? You hadn't made such a mess in front of Elliott's yet though."

It almost occurred to Bobbi that Emily was saying something at the edge of her perception but it slipped away, leaving Bobbi in her typical state of confusion with her mouth slightly ajar waiting for her brain to figure out how best to use it, if at all.

"C'mere you." Emily hugged a Bobbi struggling to remember something that might have happened. "Your treasure hunt will go great this time and if not, there's always a next time!"

"Yeah, there's always be another chance..." Bobbi said, slowly coming back to her senses, knowing she didn't quite miss something that Emily clearly remembers. She unhugged, stood up on tiptoes to put her face right up to Emily's, eyeballs close to each other as if looking into her brain. "You are a weird kind of magic, my wife Emily."

Emily stood up on her tiptoes, breaking the close eye examination and replied, "So are you, pipsqueak!"

"Love you and have fun, I gotta catch up to the group, we're going back to Ginger!"

More spots means more stuff especially Clothing this time, but still not really anything I need that I can't find or make easily. Probably going to try a few more times...

 

[Lew Zealand]

Following up. I tried to keep it short. I failed.

Did 6 more restarts with RNG seemingly getting progressively worse to the point I wanted just to get to the next day, but I was getting very few Shirts. Finally got a decent amount on the 10th try. I'll drop the other day's gatherings here:

Each morning Emily passed by on the way to Ginger she gave Bobbi a knowing look as Bobbi's feeling of déjà vu became more powerful. The final time Bobbi finally found a decent number of Shirts and mercifully felt relieved:

She then decided to visit Emily at Ginger to celebrate the 'free' wardrobe expansion. Look, that Mystic Syrup was just gonna go bad sitting on the shelf, had to be done!

"Bobbi please tell me you're not gonna tear up this pristine beach like you were doing back in town!"

"No nono," Bobbi reassured Emily. "I'm just here to rake the beach and make sure there aren't things washed up on shore anyone could stub their toes on."

"Mmmhmmm, you're up to something but I trust you to clean up after yourself." Emily's suspicious side-eye was a thing to behold. "And have you considered wearing something a bit lighter that that black outfit when out in the hot sun? I don't want you getting heatstroke!"

"Black is slimming," She turned sideways, running her hands down her sides. "...aaand I need sun protection!" Bobbi offered.

"You're skinny enough, Bobbi."

"See, it works! Hasta!" Bobbi bounded away with a quick wave as Lewis called everyone to head back to Willy's boat for the ride home.

Using Treasure Totems on Ginger was an amazingly good call. Did the beach once everyone left, as well as some open space in the North and in the Southwest:

41 Golden Coconuts. In one day! That is insane. I've been collecting them in various ways but no other strategy is even vaguely close to as easy and quick as this. Plus 5 more Shirts and 2 Hats!

Total Treasure Totems used: 65

I just added more Trees to the Railroad crossing but I still have space for more. The rest will be Tapped Mystic Trees.

 

[FilthyGorilla]

I do absolutely love the insanely cursed aesthetic (can it be called that?) of that beach screenshot, I can only image what the villagers were thinking walking past an absolutely insane looking farmer playing the metaphorical worm whistle and literally summoning earthworms from the ground in little dancing droves

 

[sameperson_differentfont]

Dude I've been grinding the red buttoned vest and neat bow shirt too
I've reset 8 times to no avail

 

[Mango Choo-choo]

Hmmm...They literally look like worms as they are still throbbing on the ground constantly.
I suppose most villagers will feel nauseous and escape away from the area immediately but fortunately Emily won't.
Emily loves Bobbi.

 

[Lew Zealand]

OK I did a follow up on the next High Luck day but after accidentally setting off a Treasure Totem on the Farm, the day became one just for testing Totems at Ginger. I didn't maximize space as I'm still testing the best locations to maximize wiggly spots and waste as few Totems as possible. I'll probably need to map the coverage out on a tillable tiles map and just put them in the same spots every time.

32 Treasure Totems at Ginger got me:

44 Golden Coconuts. Yeah and some other junk...

OK okok a coupla Shirts, a Hat and some decorations. Loadsa snek skellies. Sooo many snekks, poor things. The Mahogany Seeds are a real standout as they're what I'm most short of tooooo:
Grow into Mahogany Trees to drop many Mahogany Seeds to make Mystic Seeds to grow Mystic Trees to Tap for Mystic Syrup to craft into more

Treasure Totems!

So what's the goal? Very simple: A stack of 999 Golden Coconuts.

And then a Chest full of GoldoCoconoStacks! Yes I'm nuts.

Coco-nuts!

 

[pealee]

Dude I've been grinding the red buttoned vest and neat bow shirt too
I've reset 8 times to no avail

Did you or @Lew Zealand ever snag the neat bow or red buttoned vest? I’ve been grinding for years, hundreds of totems, thousands of shimmering spots panned…. No luck.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Did you or @Lew Zealand ever snag the neat bow or red buttoned vest? I’ve been grinding for years, hundreds of totems, thousands of shimmering spots panned…. No luck.

No I have not gotten either of the other 2 RNG drop-only shirts yet. I saw your post elsewhere saying you have 4 Tie Dyes now but none of the others so I suspect there's either a bug in the code or maybe the drop for the others needs to happen in a certain place? Just guessing. Have you looked for it on all the maps? I'm being totally lazy and just sticking to the Ginger Island Farm map for efficient coverage as I'm grinding for the resources for Treasure Totems.

 

[BeenASon]

Wow this day is basically everything I hate in one package! RNG, Skull Caverns, and the winter! I guess the winter is useful for stuff like this and animals. Otherwise I just sleep through it.

 

[pealee]

No I have not gotten either of the other 2 RNG drop-only shirts yet. I saw your post elsewhere saying you have 4 Tie Dyes now but none of the others so I suspect there's either a bug in the code or maybe the drop for the others needs to happen in a certain place? Just guessing. Have you looked for it on all the maps? I'm being totally lazy and just sticking to the Ginger Island Farm map for efficient coverage as I'm grinding for the resources for Treasure Totems.

I have been panning at the dig site and using treasure troves on GI west beach exclusively. Never occurred to me it could be a bug or location specific. I figured the wiki would mention if it were location specific. Wish there was a way to know if it’s a bug so I can stop wasting time, since that’s a possibility I might just throw in the towel now (save time and my sanity…!)

 

[Lew Zealand]

OK I'm getting back into grinding for the missing shirts as I've finally accumulated enough Treasure Totem materials (Moss is wayyy the limiting ingredient) to do a spam run of 43 and cover each area pretty well, see what I get, restart the day and try again. I did one regular run beforehand because it was a chore day with High Luck so I followed my 17 Totem pattern on the Ginger West Beach and of course got neither of the shirts but got a good amount of everything else including Golden Coconuts so now I'm over 500!

That day (17 Totems @Ginger West Beach):

The following day, first run (29 Totems @Pelican Town Beach):

These will be tossed and the day restarted and tried many times but rn it's late and I'm tired. I'm looking forward to testing out this and other locations any times tomorrow to hopefully get the alt Neat Bow Shirt and Red Buttoned Vest or at least see how RNG goes in those other places.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Followup. I repeated the same day as above 5 more times using 36-38 Treasure Totems with all the variable RNG you'd expect.

Run #2

Run #3

Run #4

Run #5

And then this happened in Run #6 (no, none of the Unobtainum shirts are there):

3 Shirts and 1 Hat are identical to run #3, 4 out of 6 and 7 items on those days. So this is not random if you replay the day as those chances should be about 1 in 350 for each to match. Sure, 1 or maybe even 2 matches could happen but 4 strongly suggests that this RNG is influenced by step count or time of day like some other game RNG is. Maybe even by map location? Who knows? My daily pattern was very repeatable by that time (talking to and hugging Emily each day) so my step court could have been identical for many of the Artifact Spots.

I'm not sure what to do next to get these Shirts. Replaying the same day to conserve scarce resources (Moss for the Totems) does not seem like a good strategy if RNG is constrained. I will repeat this on other maps but the 2 Beach Maps have the most available spaces which is why I'm trying them, meaning the other locations have reduced Artifact Spots, thus reduced chances for everything and will waste more Moss which is irksome.

Nevertheless, I will try the Dig Site/Ginger North and the Resort/Ginger South maps next. Probably just saturate the ground as I'll be replaying the day anyway and I have 43 Totems for this testing to maximize coverage.

Next up after that will be a different test. I'll make a copy of my game save folder which I squirrel away elsewhere and then try the totems on successive days to see if this changes. LOL I'll probably sleep to the next day and then test. Then restart and sleep 2 days and test, and so on... That'll keep the step count close.

This will be very boring. I do not deal with that well.
But I am curious.

We shall see which side of my very small brain will crowd out the other.

 

[Lew Zealand]

OK you've seen Pelican Town Beach, how about Ginger Island South Beach and Ginger Island North at the Dig Site and next to Professor Snail?

Try #1 with 41 Totems (top row also contains items dropped from Trees, Stones, Weeds I had to clear at Dig Site)

Try #2 with 39 Totems (top row same as above)

Try #3 with 41 Totems (top row cleared of some Dig Site stuff as I ran outta space)

Ooooops now what happened (LOL, again) here? That collection of Shirts and Hats looks pretty similar to Day #1. 6 of the 7 Shirts and Hats are identical from Run 3 to Run 1 and the remaining Shirt is the same as Run 2. Not a single new clothing item.

I'll do a set of runs at the Mountains around Robin's house and the Quarry next but I can't do the Train Crossing as I planted it fulla Trees. You know what I'm expecting of course. It's clear that the variability is constrained and we may need someone familiar with game code to tell us where the Neat Bow Shirt and Red Buttoned Vest are even allowed to spawn. I suspect it's only on one of the maps with fewer treasure spots available which is why we haven't found it. We're not looking there because it's a waste of Treasure Totems.

Speaking of that, I posted what I thought was a good map of available Treasure Item spots but in setting off Totems at Ginger Island South beach, the number of diggable spots is much higher than the possible Artifact Spot spawns. Those are quite sparse beside and below the Resort, even more so than you see in the map, so if you're looking on this map only set off totems above the Resort.

 

[MogBeoulve]

Wow. And yikes.

 

[pealee]

I decided to try totems at pelican town beach for the first time after reading your post. I haphazardly covered the beach using about 60 totems with a bunch of overlap, which Im assuming doesn’t matter because of course I’ll just be restarting the day. I restarted a few times, maybe 3 or 4. To my complete and utter disbelief and shock, the neat bow shirt dropped. I can’t explain it, but it happened.

Mind you, I have tried this exact method on Gi beach countless times. I started doing 5 totems a day and eventually upped to 20, a lot times I didn’t even restart the day. But I also have restarted some days upwards of 5 times. Wish I knew why pelican beach worked just like that, very few attempts. Luck?

Since the neat bow shirt drop, I have been using the same method on pelican beach about 5 times a day. On the most recent day, the tie dye shirt dropped, and a few restarts later, the neat bow shirt, then the tie dye shirt again! I’m restarting this day until I get the red buttoned vest. It’s going to happen. It has to. I am now basically covering the beach with close to 100 totems because I have them and won’t need them again if I can just get that last shirt.

Very interesting how many identical items you’re seeing drop. That hasn’t been the case for me to the extent that you’re seeing it. I’d say I’m getting 8-9 new items out of 10 on average…

Apologizes for the long post, just thought some part of this info may be useful in your search! Good luck!

 

[Lew Zealand]

I decided to try totems at pelican town beach for the first time after reading your post. I haphazardly covered the beach using about 60 totems with a bunch of overlap, which Im assuming doesn’t matter because of course I’ll just be restarting the day. I restarted a few times, maybe 3 or 4. To my complete and utter disbelief and shock, the neat bow shirt dropped. I can’t explain it, but it happened.

Mind you, I have tried this exact method on Gi beach countless times. I started doing 5 totems a day and eventually upped to 20, a lot times I didn’t even restart the day. But I also have restarted some days upwards of 5 times. Wish I knew why pelican beach worked just like that, very few attempts. Luck?

Since the neat bow shirt drop, I have been using the same method on pelican beach about 5 times a day. On the most recent day, the tie dye shirt dropped, and a few restarts later, the neat bow shirt, then the tie dye shirt again! I’m restarting this day until I get the red buttoned vest. It’s going to happen. It has to. I am now basically covering the beach with close to 100 totems because I have them and won’t need them again if I can just get that last shirt.

Very interesting how many identical items you’re seeing drop. That hasn’t been the case for me to the extent that you’re seeing it. I’d say I’m getting 8-9 new items out of 10 on average…

Apologizes for the long post, just thought some part of this info may be useful in your search! Good luck!

OK!
OK ok okokokok okok ok ok ok okok okok
OK! This is soooo gooood!

I will try Pelican Town Beach on successive days to see if that's the secret. I just finished that same day I've been retrying by doing other things and then set up everything to try out Calico Desert (and did 1 day, found nothing of particular interest). Instead I'll just do some successive days at Pelican Town Beach and try out what you've been doing.

 

[pealee]

OK!
OK ok okokokok okok ok ok ok okok okok
OK! This is soooo gooood!

I will try Pelican Town Beach on successive days to see if that's the secret. I just finished that same day I've been retrying by doing other things and then set up everything to try out Calico Desert (and did 1 day, found nothing of particular interest). Instead I'll just do some successive days at Pelican Town Beach and try out what you've been doing.

Update… I just got the red buttoned vest, wow! I reset the same day at least 20 times. This particular time I used 90 totems, the most I’ve used, of course it had to happen this time. Oh well, I’m glad that worked and it’s over. Best of luck to you and just know, it IS possible, eventually :-)

This was actually going to be my last try before clearing my entire GI crop field to spam totems. That worked out! Phew

 

[stardew_luv]

OK I did a follow up on the next High Luck day but after accidentally setting off a Treasure Totem on the Farm, the day became one just for testing Totems at Ginger. I didn't maximize space as I'm still testing the best locations to maximize wiggly spots and waste as few Totems as possible. I'll probably need to map the coverage out on a tillable tiles map and just put them in the same spots every time.

32 Treasure Totems at Ginger got me:

View attachment 29690

44 Golden Coconuts. Yeah and some other junk...

OK okok a coupla Shirts, a Hat and some decorations. Loadsa snek skellies. Sooo many snekks, poor things. The Mahogany Seeds are a real standout as they're what I'm most short of tooooo:
Grow into Mahogany Trees to drop many Mahogany Seeds to make Mystic Seeds to grow Mystic Trees to Tap for Mystic Syrup to craft into more

Treasure Totems!

So what's the goal? Very simple: A stack of 999 Golden Coconuts.

And then a Chest full of GoldoCoconoStacks! Yes I'm nuts.

Coco-nuts!

I LOOOOVE artifact spots that many is insanely cool! I looooove treasure totems!