„Game Feel Is Way More Important Than Precise Visual Accuracy.” Stardew Valley Dev Reveals Another Change From Patch 1.6

Source: Erice Barone.

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Eric Barone clearly plans to keep his word and shared another upcoming change from update 1.6. The creator of Stardew Valley will finally fix an error that has been bothering him since the game's release, but he has intentionally kept it for 8 years.

It's about the downward slashing attack action, which some fans also complained about. The problem resulted from the placement of the player's character's hitbox (hurtbox) on the foot (which may be caused by the use of a top-down view).

The effect was that while in theory the range of the cut relative to the sprite was exactly the same regardless of the direction of attack, in practice, the distance between the limit of the weapon's hitbox and the character's hurtbox when swiping down was noticeably shorter.

The developer has always been annoyed by this, but it wasn't a mistake, but a completely concious decision. Although in practice the range of the "sword" is smaller, the hitbox coincides with the attack animation. That's why the dev has so far believed that changing this element wouldn't make sense.

However, Barone ultimately stated that the game's "feel" was more important than visual accuracy. So update 1.6 will slightly extend the weapon's range when cutting downwards (via X).

Just like the previous, seemingly minor changes, this one also pleased or surprised the players. Some people jokingly treated this information as a reason for their inability to handle combat in Stardew Valley.

It might seem that such a slow reveal of changes instead of showing the full list is teasing the fans. However, most players see it differently: until the release of update 1.6, each day will give Stardew Valley fans another pleasant surprise, like - as one Reddit user put it - a kind of Advent calendar.

Patch 1.6 is coming to Stardew Valley on March 19.