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Tips for a new player?

Just got the game on PS5 this week.

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Tap a couple oak trees as soon as you can and hold onto the oak resin. You’ll need a lot in the not so distant future.

Hoe the little wiggly worms you can sometimes find in the ground.

Watch tv every day, you get good tips and often learn cooking recipes. Though you can’t use the recipes until you upgrade your house later in the game.

Fishing can give a lot of money!

Use your sickle to cut the little bushes for a chance to get seeds to plant (free money)!

Enjoy the game! I have too many hours in this game. Playing it for the first time again would be such a joy!

ETA: Also go to the south and collect the spring onions to eat for energy before salmon berry season hits. Then go salmon berry hunting each possible day for a basically endless energy supply.

Dave

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I think it's worth adding that while some decisions affect the future, you don't miss out on stuff just from not doing things in time. E.g. you forgot to grow pumpkins in the right season so can't get them for the community center, that doesn't matter, it will still be there next year so don't stress.

drawerair

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Your comment is 5 months old, but I just wanna leave a little comment.

I agree on not stressing. Stardew is a cozy game. Some ate food to maximize their days in year 1. But I thought that time isn't a limited resource. Whichever I couldn't do this day due to lack of energy, I could do the next day. So there were days when I had little energy at about 6 pm and I 💤. Idk if it was efficient but I'm :) with my progress. I'm not going for an efficient run.

deafboy

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Stardew is a cozy game

I must be doing something wrong then. It's one of the most stressful games I've ever played. The constant grind on the field, the need to explore and find resources to upgrade your tools, while the villagers passively-aggressively force you to interact with them and give them gifts. Then, there's a lore to uncover, but after a long day of work and responsibilities, you don't have any time or power to discover anything.

But wait, you now have the resources to largely automate the plant watering, so you might have some time to experiment with livestock. It eats grass, which there is plenty of. It'll be easy. However, just when as think you have things figured out, the winter hits, and you slowly start to realize your hay reserves will not last til spring. Shit! What would Marnie say about how I treat my animals? This is just too much...

drawerair

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I can see how some may see the farming as grinding. Different folks have different preferences in gaming.

It's not grinding for me. I have the beach farm so I can't put so many sprinklers. I need to water some of my crops manually. It's OK.

I don't plant so many crops so I have time to explore at the end of my day.

I lack iridium ores to upgrade my tools to iridium level but it's OK. I hope I'll get many iridium ores in the future.

I don't feel any passive-aggression from my fellow villagers.

Buy hay if you run out of it in winter?

Are you enjoying? If no, I suggest altering your playstyle or making a new save for a cozy playstyle. :)

Dave

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There are lots of challenges people do because they enjoy it. Things like trying to complete the community centre in year 1, which requires using each day to its fullest. But it's all self imposed.

There are probably only two things that could kind of be considered, which I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum for any readers but it's still a little spoilery. One is what happens at the end of year 2, but if you don't stack up then you can retrigger this on demand. And the other is the randomised quests that come late game with time limits, but this is a short term time limit (do X in X days) and you don't have to do them they are just random challenges.

drawerair

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I'm in year 5. Idk what was in the end of year 2 so I googled. You're talking re >!Grandpa's evaluation!< right? I went to stardewvalleywiki.com. >!I counted how many points I am now. About 11. 1 more and I can have those sweet, sweet daily iridium ores.!<

I haven't completed the community center yet.

Dave

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Yes that's what I'm talking about. It's automatically triggered at the end of year 2 but you can trigger the assessment at any time after that point at the shrine with a diamond.

HollowNaught

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There is no time limit to the game. Relax and have fun in your own way

That, and everybody seems to have summed things up well lol

Bangs42

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There's no "wrong" way to play.

Look up help and tips. Or don't.

Focus on farming. Or don't.

Make friends in the community. Or don't.

It's one of the few games I've played where I haven't felt pressure to win, just to have fun. I've definitely done some things in ignorance that have delayed progress, but I've enjoyed the playtime so I don't consider it a waste. Do the things you like, find ways around the rest, and have fun.

owenfromcanada

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The exception to this, IMO, is to be sure to interact with the community at least some. A large part of the game's charm comes from the community, and I think you'd miss out if you didn't interact with anyone.

Also, if you side with Joja, you're dead to me.

Bangs42

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I totally agree but interacting with the community. But if you just want to chill on your farm, you do you.

olafurp

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But it'll increase GDP

prinzessin_r

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Random list of things new players are sometimes confused about:

Restoring the community center and buying the Joja membership is mutually exclusive. If you want to experience both, you need two save files. You can start with the community center bundles and later decide to go with Joja, but not the other way around.
After you unlock the community center, there will be a little tree icon added to the inventory view. You can click (or tap? whatever controller users call that) it for looking at the bundles without having to walk to the community center building in town. The icon pulsates when you hover over an item in your inventory or a chest that is needed for the bundles.
Speaking of chests, craft chests to store things. You can store extra crops, fish etc. in case you need them later, and you don't have to carry all your tools around all day. You can put chests anywhere on the map, but be vary of villagers' walking paths and the resetting mine floors (top floor of the mine is fine, though).
You can buy backpack upgrades from Pierre. After you do, you get an additional row of inventory space. You can switch your toolbar to the next row with (*looks up control scheme*) L1/R1 on a PS4 controller or the tab key on a keyboard.
Crops die at the end of the season. If you plant something on Spring 20th that takes 8 days to grow, fine, you get your last harvest on Spring 28th. If you plant the same crop later, you will only find a dead crop on Summer 1st. There are multi-season crops that last for the two or three seasons that they can be planted in, but even those die in winter.
Farm animals usually feed on the grass on your farm. But they don't go outside in winter or on rainy days. So you need to feed them. Robin can build a silo that stores the grass that you cut with a scythe as hay for your animals. Then, you have to manually get the hay out of the dispenser in the coop/barn and place it in the feeder (except after you upgraded your coop/barn twice, then it's automated). Alternatively, you can buy hay at Marnie's.

Daxter101

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There's practically* nothing in this game that is missable. No matter what it is, if you're late, you can just get it later, one way or another.

*Singular, micro-lore exception, is the 3-friendship heart event of Sam. If you live in fear-of-missing-out like I do, get 3 hearts with him before winter of year 1 (plenty of time, no rush), and then go to the beach on a sunny day, for a little view of family time. Absolutely nothing lost if you don't.

But if you do that, you can feel absolute comfort that there is nothing you can miss any more in this game 😄

olafurp

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I personally recommend going with the flow and enjoy first of all. Once you start on the community building do a bunch until you want to stop playing and then look at guides.

Lovely game.

Yrt

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A lot has been said and it's absolutely true. Just take your time. Even if the games starts to feel like you should rush you don't have to, there is no time limit.

Just 2 things I want to add:

if the fishing mini game feels to hard, go to Willy (the fishing shop where you get your first fishing rod) and buy the training rod, it costs 25G and makes the first steps so much easier. Just remember to throw it away after the first 3 or so fishing levels, cause you can only catch the basic fish with it no matter your skill level.
Use the wiki: even though the last updates made it easier to figure stuff like loved presents for each NPC, it's still a pain in the a**. And after so many updates (or more free add ons), there is a lot of stuff you can do and sometimes have to know otherwise it can be frustrating.

fckreddit

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Don’t hesitate to consult the wiki, if you are feeling frustrated.

Also, take time to soak in the atmosphere of the game, which is literally the best thing about this game.

Also build a silo as soon as possible.

orvorn

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The fishing minigame will probably feel really hard at first but it's fun and easy once you get a feel for it.

Drusas

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...but it's fun and easy ~~once you get a feel for it~~ once you get bait and a good rod.

onlooker

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Just do whatever. You might stumble a bit for the first few days, but you'll have an idea what you want to do soon enough.

athos77

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I agree with most of what's been said. I'll add that v1.6 is being released on March 19; I'm not sure if that includes PS5, but it's worth checking for.

Fishing can be hard. I'm not sure how much of this transfers from the PC to the PS5, but: fishing closer to shore generally gets you easier fish. You can buy fish stew from Willy, which increases your fishing level for a couple hours, which can be useful if you're struggling. Similarly, the daily special from the bar sometimes has fishing buffs. [When you have money to spend on extravagances, you can buy a phone from Robin, which is part of my wakeup routine: check all the tv channels, and call Gus to find the daily specials.] If you zoom in, the fishing bar becomes bigger and you need less fine detail in maneveuring the bar. Stuff you pull in from crab pots (available from level 2 fishing) counts toward increasing your fishing level. Probably other fishing stuff, that's what occurs offhand.

You can stash chests around the valley to store things in, but try to put them in out of the way places like in bushes, etc; if the NPCs walk through them, your chest is destroyed. But its really nice to have a spare chest at the beach or at the top of the dungeon elevators; some people stash them near people's houses and dump presents for the occupants in them, so they don't have to carry them around.

Oh, and bring a prismatic shard to the desert.