Ability to Sit in Chairs
This sounds like a silly addition, but it’s one that would make Stardew Valley feel that much more immersive and relaxing. One of my favorite things to do in the game is visiting the Saloon every evening to see who’s out and about. You’ll often see fellow town citizens milling about the place, playing a game of pool, or just sitting at the bar for a nice drink and a meal. As for your character, all you can do is walk about and talk to the NPCs you see, and buy a few food items if you wish.
The game should allow your player character to sit in chairs while interacting with other NPCs. Heck, it’d be nice if Gus or Emily could serve you a meal each time you sit at the bar too. Right now, the Saloon simply feels like a random place that you run in and out of every night to talk to characters. There usually isn’t much to do in the evening (unless you like night fishing), so being able to take a breather in the Saloon or any other resting place would be a nice change of pace.
Joja Mart Should Be Less Pointless
In Stardew Valley, you can either help rebuild the community center, or become a sellout and purchase a Joja membership. Of course, the game is designed to make you perceive Joja Corporation as the evil, soulless force, and unless you really want to break the hearts of Pierre and your fellow town-loving citizens, players are usually more inclined to save the town by gathering resources instead. That said, the choice between rebuilding the center and purchasing a Joja membership feels really pointless, as there’s no real incentive to actually buy the membership.
Prices do get lower, but not by much, and they certainly don’t beat Pierre’s own prices. If the game really wants to make players think about the ‘moral’ decision presented here, incentives for buying the Joja membership should be more meaningful, and really impact the player’s progress on the farm in some way.
Give Pets Something Else to Do
Pets are cute, but it’s a little unfortunate that they don’t really have any purpose other than just looking sweet. Near the beginning of the game, the player will be given a cat or a dog, and you’ll be able to pet them and feed them with water every day. However, outside of that, pets will usually just laze around the farm, doing nothing. If it happens to be raining or snowing heavily on that day, the pet will just stay indoors instead of heading out. Pets are aesthetically nice to look at, but it would also be great if there were more interactions with them.
For example, maybe pets could help out on the farm by digging up soil for you and occasionally rewarding you with new items. It’d also be great if your pet could interact and play with the other animals on your farm, like the chickens, cows, and ducks. But rest assured, I won’t be letting them anywhere near my monster coop. I’m not that evil.
Make Spas Useful
Spas in Stardew Valley will help to rejuvenate you, and give you more energy on that particular day. However, you can also regain energy by eating food. In addition to that, the spas are so out of the way in the town, and walking around in spas slows you down to walking speed. This means that you’ll be wasting valuable time by heading up to a spa, and walking around in the humid air. It’s definitely a lot faster to just buy and eat some food if you need some quick energy.
That said, the spa is a pretty cool location in Stardew Valley, and it’s worth visiting every once in a while. Perhaps allowing players to retain their running speed while moving around in the spa will make it much more viable as a source of energy gain. Having more events occur at that location would be great too.
Give Marriage Partners More Depth
My biggest complaint about Stardew Valley is that the characters you marry seem to lose all life and soul once they move in together with you. Yes, they can be helpful by doing work around the farm, and making you food each day. However, outside of having a baby together (an event which, in itself, is also pretty underwhelming), these characters don’t get any more development outside of the cutscenes you’ve already seen while courting them. This makes the whole marriage thing feel really empty, and it’s something that should be expanded upon in a future update.
It’d be nice to see characters mature over the course of the marriage, and perhaps we could even get new scenes to really see how the marriage has affected them personally. Also, it’d be really swell if Harvey could stop charging you medical fees after you marry him. Jeez.
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