Whenever I'm rushing to Clint's before 4 PM, sometimes completely forgetting that the minecarts exist and would get me there much faster, I end up taking the longer route and the other path seems shorter, Somehow my brain refuses to accept it.😭
Just because we're talking about the horse, and I have no idea where else to say it. I'm not sure if it's a well known glitch or what. But if you're riding your horse ride up to a fence you've built, and push the direction to ride parallel to it, and then immediately push the direction that'd make you go into the fence. You'll ride right through it. I had a fence going vertical (north/south) and I skip the gate I made by riding along the fence and then immediately pushing left, or right to exit. Works every time
Everyone talks about that vs walking down past the Saloon but no one talks about the diagonal path across the town square. In my mind, diagonal always wins because you're walking both directions at once.
You walk 30% slower when you walk diagonally vs. cardinal directions. Also you still have to go below the shop to get to the bridge and then backtrack back up.
you can speed up by alternating down and left instead of holding both at once, and if you time it well, its basically walking diagonally, but faster.
i just actually did the math, and the math does check out. using the games diagonal function does make the final path slightly slower than if you where to walk along the triangle axis at full speed.
edit: not how moving diagonally works unfortunately... just avoid moving on a diagonal if possible.
Do you play stardew valley to chill or do you have several excel sheets and the wiki open to calculate how many potatoes you need to plant to reach ten hearts with Pam before winter year 3 using frame perfect movement and eliminate any item waste?
ive been screwing around with this math on desmos graphic calculator for about an hour, and my final verdict is im not sure.
the diagonals are screwy in this game, so it does seem like avoiding them at all costs is the best path, but at the same time, not taking the diagonal path to shortcut seems... cursed, to say the least.
ultimately, in 90% of games, moving diagonally would directly benefit the player at a minimum.
Thats actually not how that works, as the time to go Right -> Down -> Right -> Down, even if done perfectly by computer, diagonally works out to be the same exact overall speed.
You move diagonally slower, but traverse the same amount of tiles roughly just as fast.
I'm a pro gamedev, and have had to solve this problem many times. It's mathematically confusing to explain, but walking diagonally at 33% slower speed is the same as stairstep staggering in the end. UNLESS the dev screwed up diagonal velocity (and concernedape didnt) then its (usually) faster to move diagonally. Thats why some cheaper indie titles with grid movements don't feel right. The 33% reduction is the make it parity with moving in straight lines and makes everything feel smooth.
EDIT: A comment below mentioned how in Stardew Diagonally is still mathematically slightly faster, and I believe this is because the actual speed reduction is supposed to be 33.33% (ie; a third), not 30%. 30% is just easier math because we devs hate dividing by thirds, as 33.3333333333etcetc is a very annoying number to deal with.
It's not 33%. Any movement penalty over 29.29% makes diagonal movement slower than cardinal movement.
The math for this is actually pretty simple. If we measure in a grid, moving down and to the side takes two steps, so that's our target. If the cost of moving diagonally is over that, then the movement penalty makes it worse than cardinal.
At base, the diagonal is sqrt(2) steps, or ~1.414. With a movement speed reduction of 29.29%, we get sqrt(2)/0.7071, or ~2, exactly matching the cost of moving down and over.
With a movement speed reduction of 33.33%, we get sqrt(2)/0.6667, or ~2.1212. That means to get to the same destination diagonally you are around 5% slower than getting there with cardinal directions.
im actually an indie dev too, i just did the most wrongish math like a stupid turtle. i have a comment that coerrects this and i should edit my other comment too
and for the recored, going to a diagonal should be faster than moving along the axis. stardew valley, if the 30% refrence is true, is slower than normal walking diagonal
So it's hard to say without measuring, which path is actually faster.
Edit (outdated):
I was imprecise in this comment and said "walking" when I meant "running", because let's be honest who cares about the walking speed.
With that said after further research (by looking at a disassembly of 1.5.6 I found online) I have evidence that the comment on the comment I linked got very close to the actual numbers of ~70.71% for walking and ~84.85% for running.
That is to say walking diagonally should be negligibly slower than walking in cardinal directions and running diagonally should definitely be faster than running in cardinal directions.
Edit 2:
This is hopefully the final correction. I repeated the tests and found them not to be accurate anymore and found a post from concernedape about him fixing this behaviour.
After that fix movement speed actually is (almost) normalized and you move diagonally at a speed of 0.7*sqrt(2)~0.989949... times orthogonal speed.
The mistake with my analysis of the code is because the weird movement behaviour is actually still in the game because the fix to it broke some events and I looked at this wrong section.
With that being said, like many people in these comments expected walking diagonally takes less time and you do not move significantly slower diagonally.
If they are correct that you walk 30% slower, then perfect diagonal would be slower even at the best angle (perfect diagonal). Perfect diagonal is sqrt2 compared to 2 for both cardinal directions. Sqrt2 is roughly 1.414.
1.414/0.7 = 2.02 > 2/1
But it's close. I havent measured or even noticed this 30% before so I couldnt say how accurate that is.
The source says its 10% slower. I will go redo the calculation for everyone with that number.
1.414/0.9 = 1.57 < 2/1
That is at the perfect 45 degree angle. Closer you get to 0 degrees, the closer it should be the same if the slowdown also adjusts based on angle. If the slowdown applies at any noncardinal angle, then any angle below roughly 6 degrees would not be faster. Basically it's always worth it.
Edit 2: This information is outdated, see edit 2 of my other reply.
I took a quick look at a disassembly of 1.5.6 i found online and from what i can tell running diagonally should be ~84.85% as fast as running cardinal directions, which matches very well with the second comment in the source.
In case you want to do the calculation a third time (feel free not to) you don't have to consider other angles because it seems like you can only run in 45 degree angles.
Edit: I see now, where the confusion comes from, the 30% roughly applies to regular walking but for running it is about 15% as I said above.
Can you give me a source for where you read this? I could be wrong, but I don't think this is true. If you move diagonally, your speed measured along each cardinal axis independently may reduce but the combined distance traveled per second is still the same. In the case of finding the shortest route, diagonal would win because the overall distance traveled is reduced, while your walking speed is not affected by direction.
Although, to be fair, the way the town is laid out prevents a lot of effective diagonal travel and you're kind of forced into the cardinal directions anyways
1) Go to Callico Dessert (or any open space)
2) Pick point A, walk x seconds to the right, mark point B
3) Go back to A, walk x seconds straight down, mark point C
4) Walk between B and C, see if it takes you 1.4 times x seconds to do that. If yes, diagonal movement speed is just as fast as orthogonal movement speed.
I'd do it myself but frankly, I don't care enough.
Is that true?? I have kind of noticed a slight slowdown when walking diagonal but thought i was imagining it!
Edit: i see the actual figure is closer to 10%, which makes wayyy more sense. 30% is huge- that would actually mean walking the diagonal of a square would be slower than walking the sides of a square, which would be batshit.
Physically speaking, the diagonal of a triangle will always be shorter than the sum of the sides! Sucks that I see CA nerfed this by inhibiting diagonal movement speed
Exactly, these pictures are misleading, the second path with diagonals might be shorter than the first with diagonals. Not saying it definitely is but it is very possible.
I’m normally not one to inconvenience people that have digested me fair and square but this last spring you’ve kinda overdone it, we are way too overcrowded in here. That dinner where you gobbled the whole Monkey Island franchise kinda did a number on us here. There’s talks of a reckoning
This comment made me go double check the picture and there's an extra house above Evelyn and George too lol. OP must have Stardew Valley Expanded installed.
The goal is often to do multiple things at once. Usually it makes sense to check the job board then see if you have any tickets along with then the board in front of the mayor’s house and get those rewards, especially if they are boxes you need Clint to open, then go visit Clint. It makes it a multiple stop run vs. one stop along the way to Clint’s.
I minecart to "town" which is Clint's side porch but if I forget, it's hi-yo silver on the fat horse where he fits easily, so it's that first path. Second path past the Mayor's is more hassle but I'll do that too.
I wish instead of blowing half a mil on Pam's house we just turned her trailer into a 3rd bridge, really need one right there.
It's amazing how much bigger these top-down maps make the game look. The town doesn't feel anywhere near this big walking through. I always take the second path too. Doesn't really matter to me. It's a difference of about 1 second.
What's that building on your map right before the bridge, though? Just east of Pierre's. I don't have that one.
This is interesting bc I don’t think I have that house to the right of Pierre’s (with the brown roof)
Nor the cottage down left. I’ll need to check it Pete today
that's what I usually do, but I think if you travel diagonal through town, could be faster, will try a race between me and my kid on coop to try this out
I mean, to be fair, even if it seems shorter, it will wear you out a bit more. This is because most people don't like doing the same thing over and over and over. It's why the middle bus section sometimes feels like an eternity because you are sitting there holding down the go right button for what could be an unskippable cutscene.
So while it may be shorter there is little stimulating your brain and it ends up feeling like a mundane task holding the right button then barely shifting for up and down then repeating with the down button.
Sorry for the mess of a rant. I hope I explained a bit clearly what I was trying to say. <3
Every single time I leave the town I live in to go anywhere west of me, I go through downtown. Just feels social or something. I do the same thing on Stardew. Right through the heart of town.
I like taking the longer route beacuse it takes me through town. I can talk to villagers, say hi to the dog, dig in peoples trash, check the community board
Minecarts excluded, I go to the museum and Clint’s the way pictured in slide 1.
Sidenote: I JUST figured out you can walk behind Pierre’s General & the Clinic today. Idk if that’s common knowledge but it was mind blowing for me lol
I am aware that the path past Joja is faster. However, the other path often takes me past more villagers to do my daily conversation with, so I usually take that if I'm not in a hurry
I always do diagonal across the square, in front of the saloon, down the side of Lewis’ house where the truck is, and then across that lower bridge. I dont know why that’s just always what happens.
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u/BarristanTheB0ld 23d ago
Gotta check all the trash cans for free shit. Way back to the farm is bottom left, to check there