I recently recommended the game to my wife and since then she tells me every day what her progress is and what she hates about the game and how tedious it is and how bad and inconsistent the controls are. And then she’s off to play more.
having played maybe 500 hours with controller only, maybe I don’t know what I’m missing, but the controls don’t seem that bad. Only thing which comes to mind as terrible is the slingshot, i never even try to use that.
Now that you mention it, I remember that I would play it with mouse + controller for some reason (back at 1.0), not sure why I picked that as the best way to play but there was probably something bad about using the keyboard and also something bad about not using a mouse.
Recently? Or early on? The slingshot controls got an accuracy rework and also the option to be aim direction instead of pullback direction if the player prefers.
I think most of the control issues for new players unfamiliar with the genre is how precise you need to be to water crops and stuff. Those of us that have been playing farm sims(not farming simulations, totally different beast once you write both words in full like that, lol) for decades already probably don’t even remember a time when it was tough to manually align our tools to the grid. For a lot of people, stardew is their first one, and for a decent subset of them, it’s not just their first farming sim, but their first video game on a controller.
There have also been grid aligning innovations in other farming sims for onboarding new players. Some games have a modifier key you can hold down that basically turn the analog into digital movement while holding it. Your character will move exactly one grid space at a time and keep facing the same direction. That sort of thing can help, but honestly, probably better to just make the game fun enough that people are willing to keep playing while they are bad at it, to eventually get good at it. Not every farm sim can accomplish that.
The issue I had with slingshot was in whatever version released for the switch at release, maybe in 1.3? Tbh I have not tried with the slingshot in newer versions
The slow movement is what kept me from playing it forever. I know there’s mods that improve it, but I wish the base speed would be higher.
Back at 1.0 launch it also had a bug where walking diagonally was even slower, so that may have affected my judgment as well - it was fixed after a week or so.
There are plenty of both permanent and temporary speed increases, with the permanent ones you are almost as fast as the horse. And with temporary ones you can be faster than it. No need for mods, just base game. And these are things you easily earn part way through the first year.
I don’t recall there being permanent move speed increases at all, but it has been some time since I played. I think there second island was relatively new when I last plagued. Is that something that was added, or something I missed when I played before?
Not sure specifically when they were added, but they are there now. Play the game once every 3 years or so, hehe. Last playthrough we did a 6 player group game. Basically played it like it was dnd sessions. That playthrough had the move speed stuff. Comes from a book seller. So if you know when that book seller was added, it would be then probably.
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I recently recommended the game to my wife and since then she tells me every day what her progress is and what she hates about the game and how tedious it is and how bad and inconsistent the controls are. And then she’s off to play more.
The controls really are awful, not sure how console folks can enjoy the game
having played maybe 500 hours with controller only, maybe I don’t know what I’m missing, but the controls don’t seem that bad. Only thing which comes to mind as terrible is the slingshot, i never even try to use that.
Now that you mention it, I remember that I would play it with mouse + controller for some reason (back at 1.0), not sure why I picked that as the best way to play but there was probably something bad about using the keyboard and also something bad about not using a mouse.
Recently? Or early on? The slingshot controls got an accuracy rework and also the option to be aim direction instead of pullback direction if the player prefers.
I think most of the control issues for new players unfamiliar with the genre is how precise you need to be to water crops and stuff. Those of us that have been playing farm sims(not farming simulations, totally different beast once you write both words in full like that, lol) for decades already probably don’t even remember a time when it was tough to manually align our tools to the grid. For a lot of people, stardew is their first one, and for a decent subset of them, it’s not just their first farming sim, but their first video game on a controller.
There have also been grid aligning innovations in other farming sims for onboarding new players. Some games have a modifier key you can hold down that basically turn the analog into digital movement while holding it. Your character will move exactly one grid space at a time and keep facing the same direction. That sort of thing can help, but honestly, probably better to just make the game fun enough that people are willing to keep playing while they are bad at it, to eventually get good at it. Not every farm sim can accomplish that.
The issue I had with slingshot was in whatever version released for the switch at release, maybe in 1.3? Tbh I have not tried with the slingshot in newer versions
I originally played it on my desktop and now on my Steam Deck. The controls for controllers aren’t bad
Having originally cut my teeth on Harvest Moons on SNES, N64, PS, PS2, and DS, I found the controls for Stardew Valley mind-blowingly good.
But that might have been because it was my first time playing a game like that with mouse and keyboard.
The slow movement is what kept me from playing it forever. I know there’s mods that improve it, but I wish the base speed would be higher.
Back at 1.0 launch it also had a bug where walking diagonally was even slower, so that may have affected my judgment as well - it was fixed after a week or so.
In case you’re not aware, there are ways to increase your speed within the game which feel like earned progress.
Once you get coffee beans and a greenhouse, you’re basically set
There are plenty of both permanent and temporary speed increases, with the permanent ones you are almost as fast as the horse. And with temporary ones you can be faster than it. No need for mods, just base game. And these are things you easily earn part way through the first year.
I don’t recall there being permanent move speed increases at all, but it has been some time since I played. I think there second island was relatively new when I last plagued. Is that something that was added, or something I missed when I played before?
Not sure specifically when they were added, but they are there now. Play the game once every 3 years or so, hehe. Last playthrough we did a 6 player group game. Basically played it like it was dnd sessions. That playthrough had the move speed stuff. Comes from a book seller. So if you know when that book seller was added, it would be then probably.
I don’t think there was a book seller when I last played. Neat. Thanks!