Stardew Valley: A Spiritual 'Successor' to Harvest Moon

Just another day in Pelican Town.

Why am I so terrible at fishing? I felt like I didn't get a clear enough understanding of the mechanic from the first time the game had me fish, and now when I get a fish on the line I'm not sure what to do. I spent a good couple of game-days last night working on it, and managed to catch only 2 of probably 15-20 fish that I initially hooked. I stuck to the larger pound south/southwest of my farm, knowing that the ocean has especially difficult fishing. My understanding is I need to keep the green bar on the left more or less level with the fish, and that I'll lose the fish if my bar goes too much above or below the fish. Is that right? Do you all use repeated clicking to maintain the bar, or just hold the mouse button and release when needed? Or is it easier with keyboard? Or are all my troubles just due to me using the starter pole and having only just recently gotten +1 to my fishing skill?

I haven't tried controller for fishing, but there is no way it can be more accurate than a mouse.

I use repeated clicking of the mouse to keep it steady. I very rarely hold it down.

Upgrade your pole, too. It's not a big difference, but it's something. Once you get the iridium rod (7500 gold, which is super cheap in the scheme of things), you can use tackle to make things easier.

mrlogical wrote:

Why am I so terrible at fishing? I felt like I didn't get a clear enough understanding of the mechanic from the first time the game had me fish, and now when I get a fish on the line I'm not sure what to do. I spent a good couple of game-days last night working on it, and managed to catch only 2 of probably 15-20 fish that I initially hooked. I stuck to the larger pound south/southwest of my farm, knowing that the ocean has especially difficult fishing. My understanding is I need to keep the green bar on the left more or less level with the fish, and that I'll lose the fish if my bar goes too much above or below the fish. Is that right? Do you all use repeated clicking to maintain the bar, or just hold the mouse button and release when needed? Or is it easier with keyboard? Or are all my troubles just due to me using the starter pole and having only just recently gotten +1 to my fishing skill?

Use the Easy Fishing mod. It makes the fish not jump around *quite* so much when all you have is the crappy bamboo rod, so it is not 100% that you will catch every fish but it will make it so you catch more than you lose. Once you get the next rod (fiberglass?) at I think level 3 fishing, you could go back to normal fishing if you want to.

Made fishing much less frustrating for me.

mrlogical wrote:

Why am I so terrible at fishing? I felt like I didn't get a clear enough understanding of the mechanic from the first time the game had me fish, and now when I get a fish on the line I'm not sure what to do. I spent a good couple of game-days last night working on it, and managed to catch only 2 of probably 15-20 fish that I initially hooked. I stuck to the larger pound south/southwest of my farm, knowing that the ocean has especially difficult fishing. My understanding is I need to keep the green bar on the left more or less level with the fish, and that I'll lose the fish if my bar goes too much above or below the fish. Is that right? Do you all use repeated clicking to maintain the bar, or just hold the mouse button and release when needed? Or is it easier with keyboard? Or are all my troubles just due to me using the starter pole and having only just recently gotten +1 to my fishing skill?

It wasn't until my fishing was at level 4 or 5 along with at least the first pole upgrade that I started catching more fish than I lost. When I first started, I might catch one fish per every 10 or so, give or take. I believe it is the game's intent that you are going to be quite bad at it to begin with, and not feel like you've started to get good until you've gained a decent skill level. There is no need to use a mod unless you do not like this type of skill progression and want it to be easy from the start. You will still gain skill even when you fail, so as long as you keep practicing, you will get better and ultimately, you will be fantastic at it, catching everything with ease except for perhaps the most legendary of fish. What you are going through is normal.

Yeah, fishing is tough at first. I will say as a suggestion to just go with repeated clicking at first. Eventually, though, you'll learn to mix repeated clicks and held clicks.

Thanks all--glad to know I'm not missing some obvious other step or just abnormally bad at clicking. I'm definitely going to look into that easy fishing mod, but not sure whether I'll use it.

mrlogical wrote:

My understanding is I need to keep the green bar on the left more or less level with the fish, and that I'll lose the fish if my bar goes too much above or below the fish. Is that right?

Your difficulty may be impacted by the fact that this is slightly wrong, at least to my understanding. The speed at which your catch progress degrades doesn't seem to be affected by how far away your "bucket" is from the fish. Whether you are one pixel off or really far away the progress seems to drop at the same rate.

If you are trying to hard to avoid getting super far away, thinking that it's better to stay almost on it for longer rather than risking getting real far away for an instant, that may be part of your problem.

I don't think we're supposed to be able to catch all the fish from the very beginning of the game. Some of the tougher fish, like pike or octopus, need an upgraded rod, higher fishing skill, and maybe lures to keep up with their rapid runs. There's food that will boost your fishing skill too, although I don't know if it stacks on top of your fishing skill once you've hit the 10 cap.

It would be nice if there was some flavor text in-game to let us know that, though. I felt like I was doing something wrong for a while when I'd hook a higher-skill fish. Just keep fishing - there are plenty of easy fish to level up on and the big ones will still be there when you're higher level.

Some fish, like 2%, are literally impossible to catch. CA has even admitted it.

_Free_ wrote:

Some fish, like 2%, are literally impossible to catch. CA has even admitted it.

Yeah I've met a few of those assholes. They bounce up and down so fast that the inertia of the bobber can't keep up and you just can't catch em.

Middle of winter in year 2 the game got stale for me. So, I powered through, got my evaluation, as it is, and am happy to have spent 80 hours on my character. I really enjoyed a lot.

trueheart78 wrote:

Middle of winter in year 2 the game got stale for me. So, I powered through, got my evaluation, as it is, and am happy to have spent 80 hours on my character. I really enjoyed a lot.

Yeah, my game kinda petered out when, on Fall 1 of year 2, I realized that the only thing I needed to complete the community center was a Fiddlehead Fern... which can only be found (naturally) during Summer. I need to get back in there and push through at least to evaluation, but the drive to do so is so low right now. Regardless, I'm thoroughly thrilled with my 73 hours played; a super high Fun*Hours:Dollars ratio.

It would be cool if, like a Madden game or something, there were an option to sim ahead in the calendar: let me choose to let the computer give me semi-randomized profits and losses roughly correlated to how I've played the game so far. I guess that might kind of ruin the point of things, but I'm in the last week of my first Fall and am ready for the next season now. I guess I could just sleep the days away? When I first heard that winter didn't let you grow crops (absent a greenhouse), I was disappointed, but 3/4 of my way through the first year I'm really looking forward to ignoring the farming side for a while. Maybe I'll look into building a bunch of sprinklers.

I haven't played this as much as I'd like with so many other games that I'm playing at the same time, but when I do, my son loves to watch me play. I decided to record some gameplay with him watching.

trueheart78 wrote:

Middle of winter in year 2 the game got stale for me. So, I powered through, got my evaluation, as it is, and am happy to have spent 80 hours on my character. I really enjoyed a lot.

Same here. Stopped somewhere in year 2. Have almost everything finished. Only missing greenhouse. Was spending the time befriending the town. Not sure what I'd do in year three.

Yeah, I'm in kind of the same boat, burned out around 80 hours. (I just went and looked: my savegame has 81.5 hours.) Totally worth it, had a ton of fun, think I'm done now.

Malor wrote:

Yeah, I'm in kind of the same boat, burned out around 80 hours. (I just went and looked: my savegame has 81.5 hours.) Totally worth it, had a ton of fun, think I'm done now.

Seems like alot of us burn out before year 3. I love, love, love this game but I'm coming up on winter year 2 with most things accomplished and I'm about ready to be done. Some time in year 3 I'll probably call it done and do a new run-through in six months or so. The developer seems to be really good at adding new content.

I'm in the midst of year four and haven't even touched some things, such as the romance/marriage parts. And I still haven't caught all the fish, filled the museum, and it will likely be 10 more years before I can ever win that stupid egg hunt. (Maybe Abigail will finally get sick one year!) I also still have a couple of skills that are not quite level 10.

Only reason I haven't been playing much lately is because I finally decided to try Terraria and naturally became immersed in it!

You *can* plant crops in the winter though, though they are more limited. You can plant winter seeds. I've had some sort of crop growing in my game all year round even before I got the greenhouse (in year 3).

Oh and a friend sent me the link to this amazing video!

bekkilyn wrote:

Oh and a friend sent me the link to this amazing video!

Good gods that is amazing. I feel so... uninspired by comparison. Oh, well. At least I can bake like a mofo.

I'm about ready to be done

What finally tipped me over the edge was getting a max rating from Grandpa. Once I had the statue that spits out Iridium, everything after that is just a matter of waiting. Well, that and developing enough skill to catch the hardest fish.

And I just realized... I don't want to go through another year to finish all my collections.

Just started this game a little bit ago. Wish this on a portable device. I'm having a grand time so far. Watched grandpa die. Left a dead in job for the country life. Got a dog. Planted some crops. Almost died in a cave. Lost my sword. Hunted monsters with farm tools for a time. Joined a guild of adventures. Talked to some girls. Talked to some boys. This is the good life.

Well there are some bad points. Hmmmm well minor stuff. You can't use furniture for the most part. You can't sit on a chair. NPCs can sit of chairs though.

The controls aren't bad but sometimes I will get stuck swinging my tool in one direction no matter where my mouse is. So sometimes I will hoe the wrong spot or swing my sword where the monster isn't.

I can't save anywhere. However, it is easy enough to get to bed to save.

Fishing is kind of hard. I understand this will change after the fishing pole is upgraded.

I can't murder people. No matter how many times I wack a person with a axe they don't die. I consider this a major bug. I once worked in this hotel where I hit multiple people with axes and they always died after a few hits. I really like that job but hated that damn maze. I even finished my book while I worked there.

No multiplayer support. Would have been nice to have a mail system or mode that let you visit other people's town. Might be to hard for one guy.

Anyway this is a fun game.

Supposedly MP is being added. Also more content.

According to the news page on Steam the guy is working on more content + multiplayer and Chucklefish is helping him out. I think they may be handling the portover to mac and linux? I didn't read too deeply. It's pretty amazing what the guy accomplished on his own, but at the same time it's also why the game development took so long. More Stardew can only be a good thing.

I'm really curious how the multiplayer is going to work. I hope it's one of the first features added.

I would guess a trading system since that would be easiest thing to do. It would be nice to have something like Animal crossing but that might not make sense because the town is the same for everybody with the same people.

Oh and fishing is easy now that I got the second pole and have some fishing levels under my belt. Also the fish guy sells a stew that increases your fishing level.

Some of the regions could be shared, like the mine (especially instancing with friends), maybe the town, or the beach. Lets you mingle and fish with people, see people running around doing errands.

The issue with the town is that all interactions with people will be time of day and day of week based, but it may not be a big deal to see other players standing on the sidewalk chatting to townspeople that you can't see because that's not where they are in your game.

DaScorpion wrote:

I haven't played this as much as I'd like with so many other games that I'm playing at the same time, but when I do, my son loves to watch me play. I decided to record some gameplay with him watching.

Very cute video! My little guy isn't quite 2 so unfortunately can't do this type of stuff yet.

Found this video last night on how to make a mega crop. Looks like it took quite a bit of work, but in the end he clears over a million gold:

Wow, I'm impressed! Planting and harvesting that many pumpkins would definitely drive me out of my gourd!