[Stardew Valley] A summary of gift mechanics and how many gifts it takes to max out friendship

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I’m putting together a guide on how gifting works in Stardew Valley and how many gifts it takes to max out friendship.

Friendship – Stardew Valley Wiki

I used resources like the one above for reference.

Friendship Mechanics Overview

• You can give one gift per day, up to a total of two per week.
• The weekly count for gifts resets on Sunday.
• During a birthday week, you can give a birthday gift even if you’ve already given two gifts that week.
• Out of the 2,500 points needed for max friendship, a Neutral gift gives 20 points, a Like gives 45 points, and a Love gives 80 points.
• Liked or Loved gifts receive a bonus based on quality, but Neutral gifts receive no quality bonus.
• Birthday gifts increase friendship points by 8x.

Friendship Multipliers by Quality

• Silver: 1.1x
• Gold: 1.25x
• Iridium: 1.5x

How much do points increase based on Preference × Quality × Birthday bonus?

Friendship points gained on a normal day

	Neutral	Like	Love
Normal Quality	20	45	80
Silver	22	49.5	88
Gold	25	56.25	100
Iridium	30	67.5	120

Friendship points gained on a birthday

	Neutral	Like	Love
Normal Quality	160	360	640
Silver	176	396	704
Gold	200	450	800
Iridium	240	540	960

Giving a high-quality Loved gift on a birthday provides a massive boost.

Even a normal-quality Neutral gift on a birthday will increase friendship 1.3333 times more than an Iridium-quality Loved gift on a normal day (equivalent to 8 days of conversation), so it’s always worth giving something as long as they don’t hate it..

Number of gifts needed to max out friendship (normal days only)

• Neutral → 125 gifts
• Like → 55.555 gifts
• Love → 31.25 gifts

Time required to max out friendship using only normal-quality gifts

• Talking & two Neutral gifts per week → 3.47222 months
• Talking & two Liked gifts per week → 2.717 months
• Talking & two Loved gifts per week → 2.0833333 months

*Reference* Talking once per day only → 125 days (about 1.1 years). This takes quite a while.

Time required to max out friendship when giving an Iridium-quality Loved gift on a birthday and normal-quality gifts in other weeks

• Talking, two Neutral gifts per week, & an Iridium Loved gift on birthday → 2.1388 months
• Talking, two Liked gifts per week, & an Iridium Loved gift on birthday → 1.6739 months
• Talking, two Loved gifts per week, & an Iridium Loved gift on birthday → 1.283333 months

The strategy of “sending Neutral gifts constantly and saving the best gift for their birthday” increases friendship about 1.5 times faster than ignoring birthdays.

If you consistently give the most ideal gifts, you can max out friendship in less than a month and a half, though that might be difficult to pull off.