Four Weeks in the Valley

Week four was a bit of everything. A new villager moved into the village, every guild got a proper place to talk, crafting picked up some quality controls, and your items got clearer about what they're for, all on top of the usual round of tuning and bug fixing. Five updates went out between Monday July 13 and Sunday July 19, plus a round of fixes ahead of the Geode Gala.

Birch has arrived

There's a new face in the village, and he brings more than just a hello.

• Birch comes with his own questline of 10 quests.
• He introduces new mechanics along the way, including step races.
• His quests use more advanced scenes, where NPCs interact with each other instead of only talking to you.

Go find him in the village and see the rest for yourself.

Every guild gets a Discord channel

Guilds have been growing into real little communities, so they needed somewhere to actually talk.

• Connect your Discord account from the Guild Home tab or in Settings, and you'll get a button leading straight to your guild's private channel.
• The channel stays in sync on its own: join the guild and you're added, leave and you're removed.
• Changing your guild color in settings also updates your guild members' nickname colors in the channel.
• Leaders who'd rather communicate somewhere else can turn it off in guild settings.

This is an early version of the integration, so please tell me if anything doesn't behave the way it should.

Knowing what your stuff is for

Last week was about giving your items more uses. This week is about telling you what those uses actually are.

• Item details in the inventory now have a "Uses" section, pulling together crafting recipes, NPC gift preferences, and tool upgrades. No more wondering whether something is safe to sell.
• The inventory list view shows the right price now. It was displaying base item value without accounting for player orders or decay, so you only saw the real number after tapping into the item.

Pick your quality

A few of you wanted more control over what goes into your crafts, so processing and crafting both got some knobs to turn.

• You can now choose the quality of ore and coal when smelting.
• You can now select the quality of ingredients when crafting. It's completely optional, and it's there for anyone targeting higher quality consumables, which give stronger perks.
• You can crush multiple crystal nodes at once.
• Craig remembers your payment method preference now, whether you pay him in steps or gold.

Villager requests, up to three

Long requests were blocking you from taking anything else on, which felt bad. Now you can hold up to three at a time, as long as they come from different days. You still can't grab all three from a single day's batch, but if one is taking you a while, you can pick up another the next day while the first is still in progress.

Friendlier guild bounties

Bounty boards were going quiet too often, so the weekly gold pouch got a rework.

• Upgraded boards now come with a bigger weekly pouch.
• Hall upgrades no longer eat into it.
• When the pouch runs low, the board posts smaller bounties instead of shutting down entirely.
• Added a countdown timer for the last 48 hours of a bounty, and improved how bounties are ordered.
• Fixed bulk crafting under-rewarding guild materials.

Village life

The village got a bit more alive this week. NPC dialogue is less repetitive now, and their lines come in with a typewriter effect, so the folks around town feel a little more like themselves.

Farm visits, and where they're heading

Visiting a neighbor's farm feels smoother too: the movement animations for other farmers look much more natural now.

Farm visits are underused at the moment, since there isn't much to do there beyond walking around, but that's changing soon. I'm looking at things like watering your neighbors' plants or throwing mini events on your farm. That work carries over nicely to bigger multiplayer plans too, like a live guild map or festivals with free roam.

Ahead of the Geode Gala

The Gala ran over the weekend, and a few things went out to get it ready.

• Fixes and improvements to the festival ahead of launch.
• A results screen for anyone opted into the leaderboard, which stays up for 24 hours after the festival ends.

Performance and stability

• Improved framerate during farming and foraging.
• Fixed the lower framerate that hit after visiting the village and then heading to your farm.
• Fixed the main remaining source of crashes on iOS. That one comes through TestFlight, though it may have updated for you already.
• More step syncing edge case fixes and improvements.

More small touches

• Added more stats to your profile, for those of you who like watching the numbers go up.
• Animal produce notifications can now be switched on and off in settings.
• Premium Compost and Surveyor's Geode Oil now call for Crystal Nodes instead of Geode Chunks.
• Recolored the neighbor count in the sidebar so it stops looking like a notification, and the quest count now shows completed, claimable quests.
• Added a link to the wiki on the Help & Tips page.

Bug fixes

• Animals and buildings: powered silos were leaving animals looking hungry for a few hours after the day rolled over, so fresh hay is now served right as the new day starts. Also fixed the upgraded coop and barn interior look, and interiors not updating after an upgrade until a restart.
• Crops: fixed the final growth stage display for beans, coffee, and corn.
• Fixed the Gift Basket so it's universally loved by every NPC.
• Fixed rock flashing when entering the mine.

Four weeks in

That's four weeks of StepHarvest. This one spread across a lot of ground, from Birch and the guild channels to crafting quality, clearer item info, and a long tail of smaller fixes. No single headline, just steady progress on a bunch of fronts. Thank you, as always, for the reports and the ideas. On to week five.