im sure Elliott is nice, but its genuinely impossible for me to romance anyone but Sam, i keep getting dragged back to him lol

also feeding animals, fixing fences and complimenting you and the life you live is something they all do im pretty sure.

I have a funny story with Elliott. My first game, I used to pick up corals or crab pots and whenever I see Elliott around, I'll interact and end up gifting coral or trash. To repair my mistake, I will find his favourite gifts.

He says that too even when you're childless. I marry him as early as possible, so usually by the Winter Star feast we're together in poverty. He's just happy with you!!

AGREED. He also gives the best gifts and makes fab meals. I’m obsessed with him

Maybe unpopular opinion? But I CAN NOT bring myself to marry any of the younger npcs. I know theyre adults but it feels weird to me. 😭 maybe because i'm in my 30s? I always go for Leah or Elliot.

Elliot looks too puffed up and goofy to me in his character portrait. All I can think of is human Beast from Beauty and the Beast and I'm not about that.

Don't all the spouses do that stuff like feed animals and fix fences?

Not sure if you're looking for quality of life mods or content mods, so I'll go through both.

Quality of Life

Better Junimos improves the Junimo Hut. You can configure it to be similar to vanilla with a few improvements or go in for some new features as well. For example, you can change when they work, how long they work, pay them for their work, etc.). Similar mods include Island Gatherers and \ Greenhouse Gatherers.

Bigger Backpack is great just because, but it's especially useful if you're playing with mods that add more crops and goods, because you'll find yourself running out of space in your bag much quicker than in vanilla.

Casks Everywhere allows you to use aging casks anywhere on your farm. I first downloaded it when I was playing the IF2R, because there was a cave space that was just perfect for aging cheese!

Daily Screenshot isn't necessarily a quality of life mod in terms of gameplay, but many of us like to see our farm progress over time, and remembering to take a screenshot everyday is hard.

Harvest with Scythe is great is you like to plant flower fields for flavoured honey - it allows you to set flowers as scythe-harvest only, so you don't have to worry about plucking the flowers when you collect your honey. That said, the method of harvest for all crops is configurable - not just flowers.

If you're an avid wiki user Lookup Anything is great - it gives you access to most of the info you'd find on the wiki from an in-game menu.

Not willing to sell your soul and tired of grinding through Skull Cavern for the chance to receive an >!autopetter?!< Special Order for >!Autopetter!< will let you purchase the item through Marnie after completing a special order for her.

NPC Map Locations - no more searching the entire valley to complete a quest!

To-Dew creates an in-game to-do list so you can better keep track of your chores and goals!

Content

With Spouses React to Player Death, you're near-death experiences all over the valley will no longer be ignored by the love of your life.

Stardew Valley Dialogue Expansion adds a huge variety of dialogue for all the vanilla characters, almost indistinguishable from vanilla style and lore. Great if you've been playing for a long time, as it makes talking to the players regularly more worthwhile.

Take a look at the PPJA Content Pack - a collection of mods that add new items to the game, including crops, artisan goods, machines, and more! I personally use Artisan Valley, More Recipes and Even More Recipes, More Trees, Fruits and Veggies, Mizu's Flowers, Champagne Wishes and Starbrew Valley.

If you decide to add some PPJA mods, you should check out Khadija's Recipe Shop - it adds an in-game vendor to distribute goods from these mods in a more gradual, balanced, and lore-friendly way. Plus! It adds a cute little snake!

The Geology Mod is also a lot of fun, as it adds a ton of new rocks and minerals to mine, as well as the ability to process some of the new additions. It's a fairly new mod, so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing it grow in time.

Finally, I very recently installed Ridgeside Village, East Scarp, and Walk to Desert. Seems a little weird to leave such big mods to the end, but since I just started with them, I can't fully describe them and how much I enjoy them. I can say that they all a ton of new content to the game, I haven't had any issues in terms of compatibility with SVE, and at this point I'm greatly enjoying what I've seen from all of them! Definitely check them out!

The Tractor mod is a fuckin banger. A little rough around the edges but it makes mass harvesting much more accessible

event lookup creates a menu where you can see all available heart events on that day

Automate, Chests Anywhere, and Deluxe Autograbber Redux are my trip

I run about 160 mods at the moment, here a few without which I would not play:

Casks anywhere, Keg Quality, Preserve Jar Quality, AutoGrabber Redux, Quarry Redux, Skull Cavern Elevator, Every crop, tree and flower mod (except the weed and dope crops) available, Donkeys and Peacocks, Starfruit Regrow, Useful Sweet Gem Berries, Sweet Gem Berries Regrow, Plant Anytime, Ancient Fruit Do Not Die and CBJ Cheats because I hate walking and like to warp, and Pet the Animals Daily BUT the biggest one on my list is Skip Fishing Mini Game. I loath fishing.

I also run a ton of appearance mods like Hudson Valley Buildings and Seasonal Outfits for SVE.

https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/1401

Enjoy friend

Dozens.

Tractor Mod with a broom recolor

All of Daisyniko's replacement maps and their recolor.

Bathhouse Spa conversion, because the grotty gym is gross.

Automate

Diverse Stardew Valley with seasonal outfits

Hudson Valley, Japanese, and Medieval buildings. There used to be a Hobbit-hole, it was my favorite house recolor.

Fast Animations (at least for geodes)

SVE

Craftable Mushroom Boxes to add to cave

Several greenhouse revamps

Trash bear to Totoro

I've said it numerous times and I can't stop recommending it, it's "UI info suite", can't live without it.

Cries in Nintendo Switch

Seasonal Outfits or whatever the most up to date mod that makes your children more like actual characters is.

Actually if you're on Android, you can use mods

Tractor mod. As much as I love having sprinklers for everything, it just doesn't vibe for me in the long run. The tractor mod helps with watering, harvesting, tilling and planting while not being immersion breaking. Besides, a farm needs a tractor.

Wow I have so many!

For big expansions I have SVE, ES and Sunberry they work great together and I have no issues.

For smaller I have Ranger Taro, Nora, Eli and Dylan, Alecto the witch, Jort and Jeans, Creative differences, hat mouse Lacey, Jakk's Quinn, Part of the saloon breakfast, Morris redeemed, Lurking in the dark, Distant lands

For gameplay I have Bees plus, Ornithologist guild, Love of cooking, Socializing skill, More books, Simple tea expansion

Design there are Terracotta garden pots, visible fish, dynamic reflections, simple foliage, seasonal vintage bee houses, mini greenhouse in the farmhouse, Fluffy hair Emily, seasonal special orders board, seasonal barrel obelisks, golden hour, filled-in opal paths

Others VC's raven pet, Wear more rings, ToDew, Look up anything, NPC's map locations, Lasting conversation topics, Immersive saloon + Immersive dialogue expansions, Stop time, Event lookup, Happy birthday, Faster path speed, Family approval, Date night redux, Demetrius visits farm cave, Community Wednesdays, Buy-able autopetter, Bigger fridge, Shardust's animated hairstyles for Fashion sense

So far I have no issues with them not working together, either I can easily choose different options in the config files or I downloaded patches that fix the issue.

You defo have to read the descriptions and download requiered mods and look into the comments on Nexus people post links there to the patches or to better versions of the mods sometimes.

I run the game with 69 mods (lol) but I have 193 mod files in total because of the supporting files (some are redundant or I no longer use, just so you get the picture because that really confused me when I first started modding).

I have pretty mid computer that is 4 years old and was mid when I put it together back then and the game runs fine. I have to wait a bit longer when I start the save for the mods to load, but once it's running I have no lagging issues etc.

As someone who loves romance or dialogue mods in general, here are some of my favorites! (I only romanced men so if it's not to your liking... then sorry haha).

1. Romanceable Rasmodius Redux Revamped(SVE required) : If you plan on playing Stardew Valley Expanded(one of the biggest expansion mods so I highly recommend you try it), please try this mod! SVE itself makes the wizard romanceable but RRRR expands his story waaay more! I think it's the biggest romance mod I have ever seen. It has so many events and almost different daily dialogues. I played it multiple times(spent a few hundred hours with it lol) and I still found something new. If you want to marry a dorky+romantic+caring wizard then definitely try it out. There's also mods that changes the wizard into a witch so you can pick your preference :)

2. Magg's immersive romance mods : There are currently three bachelor romance mods made by MaggPlays(Alex, Sebastian and Sam). I haven't tried Sam's yet but I enjoyed Alex and Sebastian's a lot! Their romance mods also includes other vanilla villagers in events(ex. Alex mod has events related with Evelyn&George, Seb mod has Sam&Abigail related events) so you can really feel the development between the farmer and the villagers. As the mod title says, it really feels immersive :) If you're still new to modding then maybe mods related to vanilla villagers might interest you!

3. Bear Family, Eli&Dylan (East Scarp add-on npcs) : East Scarp has a lot of custom npcs you can add in to their village. I loved all of them but if I had to pick favorites, these two custom npcs would be my pick. Again, TONS of events. No character feels rushed. Even if I bombard them with gifts, the events has its own pacing so you don't need to rush with their relationships. They all have their own individual storylines and each of them feels very unique.

4. Baubles : I know you said you like dialogues and events but I just randomly wanted to recommend one of my favorite crafting mods. You can make cute little plushies and get special order quests with it. The baubles are so cute and you can actually use wools and cloths to make them. It gives me reasons to have sheep on my farm and I love it.

I really wish I could experience Stardew mods for the first time again ;) It was such an eye-opening experience. I hope you try out a lot more mods because there are lots of amazing ones out there <3

I love Ferngill Simple Economy.

It adds a supply and demand system without being too difficult (no taxes), but makes the gameplay soo much more fun! One needs to diversify crops and won't be able to spam the only 3 usual top earners.

For NPC mods I love Jorts and Jean (talking cats), Lacey the mouse (hat mouse as a villager!)

Then the usual SVE/passerby cemetery/adventurer's guild/east scarp (I especially like sword&sorcery expansion)/mount vapius.

Cornucopia and Wildflours Atelier(with the alchemist&rose NPCs addon) add a lot of crops/artisan machines.

My favorites are my mods because i made them to fill niches i wanted to see filled :)

I have 114 mods installed atm.

God I have so many...

If you're down for aesthetic mods, JennasJuffles on NexusMods has some collections for that

My personal favorite mods are Diverse Stardew Valley and Junimate. The former is a sprite/portrait/dialogue overhaul, and the latter is a lore-friendly Automate

Not each of them snuggling up to each other in pairs

It’s amazing. Nothing is wrong with the technical side of the multiplayer experience, it’s stable and balanced. What matters is the people you play with. Make sure they have the same type of experience in mind, and that your schedules match up.

Small dedicated group is the way to go. It’s vastly different from a massive open server.

It can be super super rewarding with the right people, ir a huge letdown with the wrong ones. People who optimize the fun out of their experience or play a massive amount while you're away damages the fun, and people who dont take the experience seriously are a real buzzkill

Food spoilage settings can be customized

On my server time only passes when people are online.

But if there’s always 1 person online your food will spoil timer will count down.

In my experience, definitely has to be more coordinated than the other block game. But far, far more rewarding for it.

Just to clarify the food spoilage... By default food stored in the world does not spoil while no one is online as time is paused; but food stored on your character does spoil while others are logged in.

If you keep a stack of berries for example on you and you log out, then someone else logs in and progresses time, when you get back your berries will "remember" what spoilage they should be based on the date.

So one thing I like to do is only take out the food I'm going to use immediately, unless I'm journeying, and put any leftovers back in preserved storage (cellar) when I log out. This is kind of generally a good thing to do in the game anyway, but it's extra important on multi-player.

Otherwise, multi-player is great! I play LAN and love it. I can boot up my server whenever someone wants to play and even if I forget and leave it running it stays paused so long as no one is logged in.

Stardew Valley Expanded.

If you want more fun, you can get the date Jodi or Robin mod as well.

I definitely recommend Zoro custom NPC mod if you like One Piece! Added an extra 30 hours of playtime. Its compatible with Stardew Valley Expanded as well, if I remember correctly. (At least, I havent met any bugs or problems)

And Zuzu town mod looks promising, however, I havent tried that one yet.

For some reason my favourite mod is the Chocolatier Mod If you and your girlfriend like chocolate I highly recommend to give her a chocolate covered strawberry on Valentine’s Day ;) The PPJA Mega Pack mod is also good

lookup anything is a must have IMO https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/541 With how big of a mod SVE is, being able to get more information on pretty much any resource and item is very useful

Seasonal Outfits and Portraits! If the vanilla style portraits don't quite appeal to you, there's a completed version of ALL vanilla and SVE characters adapted into Talkohlooey's style. 

Walk of Life! Lastly, it MIGHT be a little overwhelming, but I promise you that this mod paired with SVE has given me extra 500 hours of gameplay, enriching the smallest aspects of the game while making sure that late game SVE continues to be full of surprises. The mod overhauls the vanilla professions and sharpens them to a T. The author also states that the mod will forever be made to be compatible with SVE, which is why late game expanded merges so beautifully with whatever progress you've made with Walk of Life. Especially when you get to the Badlands. 

None of these mods add any story to SVE or Vanilla, but they enrich your gameplay in quite a way that other mods don't. 

One last thing I'd recommend is the Vanilla Tweaks series and the other patches made by other modders to cover the items in SVE. This is a purely aesthetic series retexturing all items in the game. 

UI Info Suite 2 is also a godsend but I understand some people might think it's overpowered. 

Look out for the Nexus collection "Stardew Valley VERY Expanded", Ridgeside and East Scarp integrate seamingly.

Ridge side village and one of the SVE farms if you don't have it already.

Depends a lot on what you want. I think QoL Mods improve the game a lot playing through it again.

I would most likely never play without the the auto watering can mod again. Don't having to spend time to aim the watering can makes the early game that much better. You still have to do the Animation and refill the can. It's mostly QoL.

NPC Map Location, Info Suite, Visible Fish and visible Gift Reactions are other QoL Mods I will never turn of.

better crafting, automate, chests anywhere, convenient inventory, npc map locations -> quality of life

happy home designer/precise furniture -> if you like decorating

stardew aquarium -> adds an aquarium that you can donate fish to

Skull carvern elevator.

Ladder locator (I use that after beating both the normal mines and level 100 on skull cavern without staircases)

SVE

Intergrated minecarts

advert calaender

TV shopping channel

Bigger fridges

Visit Mount Vapius

Walk to Desert Redux

I’m personally not a huge fan of expansions with lots of NPCs and events— I just want to explore and fight monsters! These two are great additions for that. Also VMV has lots of bundles if you are obsessed with them like me🙃.

Automate

• Odd Quality of Life
• Ridgeside Village
• Forager's Nooks and Crannies
• UI Info Suite 2
• Defense Division
• Visible Fish
• Dynamic Reflections (remove the hotkey for this because it WILL bug out if you accidentally press it. Other than that, it works great)