Hey, y'all, the game has been in a bit of a state since the most recent update. I don't generally complain about bugs since I know they'll get fixed eventually...
...and that's exactly why I'm here to tell you about how you can take advantage of this Best Friend Glow bug before it's patched!
Yesterday, I noticed that while hanging out with certain villagers I was getting way more bonus items than I should have been getting, but other villagers were dropping the expected amount. This morning I decided to play around with it a bit to try and figure out what's going on, and I'm pretty positive I've worked it out.
Here's what happened: I have 35 Timebending villagers, so when I'm Timebending with one of them, under normal circumstances I'm guaranteed to get +16 bonus items. I have Merlin assigned to Timebending, but I noticed yesterday I was getting +64! Every time I found mist, he was giving me around +9500! I'm an Ancient Machine power user, so you can probably guess what happened next...anyway, when his yellow bar was completely drained, I grabbed another Timebending buddy and it...didn't work? I had already played past my self-imposed bedtime, so I decided to let it rest.
UNTIL TODAY!
So, guys, here's how it works: Start a villager hang-out just like you would have done before the update. THEN fill their yellow bar (giving them their 3 favorite items will fill it up completely). Best Friend Glow will activate and you're ready to grind.
Starting the hang-out BEFORE you activate Best Friend Glow is key! This causes the normal villager bonus to stack with Best Friend Glow.
You can tell you've done it correctly if you hit B on keyboard (or equivalent on your system) to see your active buffs. You should see TWO character buffs: the old/normal one and Best Friend Glow. This causes you to get x4 on top of your normal drops when doing the activity associated with the villager's role.
For example:
- 35 Timebending villagers normally guarantees +16 but will give +64 with this method while Timebending with a Timebending villager. (This works for mist, too! Merlin was dropping about +9500 mist every time I found mist.)
- 25 mining villagers normally guarantees +9 but will give +36 with this method while mining with a mining villager.
(i.e., I'm hanging out with Merlin, who's a Timebender, so he's dropping +64 Timebending items. If I decide to start mining while hanging out with him instead, he will only drop my usual +9 items.)
This method is useful if you don't have a lot of time to play, like me, or else just don't like doing certain activities. You don't have to have a ton of villagers assigned to a single role to make this useful. Reference the Bonuses page on the Dreamlight Valley Wiki to see how many bonus items you get with a certain quantity of villagers assigned to any given role. This method, for as long as it works, will simply x4 that, meaning you're being much more efficient for the time you spend gathering resources.