The romance of "Stardew Valley" will eventually become dull

A loyal player of Stardew Valley recently pointed out a slightly regrettable reality in the game: Once you unlock all the "heart events related to NPCs, these characters seem to become like robots with a good program, and the conversation begins to repeat.

　　Authentic, Stardew Valley is extremely rich, and players can enjoy various activities such as farming, mining, fishing, etc. Establishing relationships with the residents of Pelican Town is also one of the core ways to play. However, unlike farms that can be optimized for development, social relationships in the game always seem to touch a "ceiling".

　　Although "Story of Stardew Valley" is often regarded as a farm simulation game, the social system is an indispensable part of it. Players can make friends and even get married to specific characters. Each villager has a "heart-shaped scale" that represents friendship, which can increase favorability through daily conversations, gifts of their favorites, and completing specific tasks. These relationships not only enrich the game story, but also directly affect the game experience: friends will mail gifts, provide shopping discounts, and even unlock new production recipes. Therefore, socialization is no less important in the game than farming or exploration.

　　However, it takes a lot of time to build these relationships. Because of this, when the conversation content of an NPC ends up drying up and only repeating those few sentences, it is inevitable that it will feel a little disappointed. When you trigger the last event of the heart, they will become NPCs who will only repeat the same sentence. In "Star Dew Valley", whether it is romantic or ordinary friendship, although it will not end in a "breakup", there is indeed a design limit for NPC dialogues and events. After spending a lot of time to witness the gradual development of the relationship, it is indeed disappointing to encounter this repetitive cycle of conversations.

As the friendship deepens, players can unlock a special "heart event" - a unique cutscene that reveals the story and personality behind the character. After reaching 10 hearts, players can even marry some NPCs, which will bring new dialogues, events and even raise children exclusively to the spouse. The upper limit of the favorability of villagers who cannot get married is 10 hearts, and the spouse can reach 14 hearts after marriage. But no matter what, once the player triggers the final event of a certain NPC, the relationship status of both parties will basically reach. At the peak, their daily conversations will inevitably fall into a repetitive cycle.

Many players expressed the same regret in the game's comment section. Some people suggested installing game modules to expand dialogue options; some people half-jokingly suggested that "divorce" and "remarry" may trigger some new conversations. Given that "Star Dew Valley" is still evolving and updating, it is worth the players' expectations whether the future developer ConcernedApe will expand these conversation content.