I've been playing Stardew Valley for the better part of three years now. Since then, I have had two farms: one with perfection, and the other one with Stardew Expanded. My first farm, Carrier Farm, was as vanilla as possible for about two weeks before I learned how to use mods. I used a fair amount of them. My current farm, Azalea Farm, which honestly makes me feel more like an adventurer than a farmer. And now, I am looking to start my third farm, which I want to just fill with mods.
Azalea, the SDVE Farm, was one of the most grinding farms. It felt like hell to complete. Everytime I though I was done , there was more stuff to start with. I was going to marry Alex (my favourite spouse) but then i got to Ginger Island and I met Lance and then I had to go through the whole process of marrying Alex and divorcing him and erasing his memory, cause that would hurt less then breaking up with him and having him hate me for a bit. And then I got really exhausted cause it felt like everywhere I went either the Wizard, or Mr. Qi, or the Guild or SOMEONE needed me to go beat something else up.
(A little cheaty, but it's a single-player game, and I'm having fun)
Skip Fishing Mini Game — I can't fish. I've tried, I really have. I just can't do it.
UI Info Suite 2 — General UI that makes life a bit easier. It makes the TV a bit redundant, as you can see your daily luck and weather right on your screen.
Chests Anywhere and Convenient Inventory — These two work together to make chests and inventory less cluttered. A lifesaver while in the mines.
Automate — I would genuinely forget to check on my machines if it wasn't for this mod.
To-Dew — A simple to-do list mod.
Stardrop — I always recommend Stardrop as a mod manager, no matter how many mods you're using.
Polyamory Sweet — Probably my favorite of the poly mods.
Walk to the Desert — Super helpful early game. Kinda useless once you get the desert obelisk, but connects to other mods.
Crafting Collections — Great for tracking perfection goals.
Ladder Locator — Helped me through the mines and Skull Cavern.
Lookup Anything — Saves a ton of time instead of looking through the wiki.
Part of the Community — Earn friendship passively on your way to perfection.
Fiasa — Adds a seasonal boat, new NPCs and an item exchange system.
Ferngill Forest — Adds a new area and a new NPC.
Norm's Country Kitchen — Adds a food truck every tuesday and a new NPC.
Dunleigh Farm — Adds a new farm type.
Diverse Stardew Valley — Makes all the NPCs woke.
JojaBite TV Dinners and JojaSweets Candy — Adds a few more products to JojaMart.