One of the most common complaints about Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town (a divisive game, but one that I personally enjoyed a whole lot, despite its frustrations) is around the inefficiency of makers. These machines let you turn raw materials into all sorts of other things, but at the moment, they’re more than a little tedious to use, with the need to constantly keep loading them up with new materials to process.
But things will start to look better with the next update. In sharing the patch notes for the most recent update (version 1.04), XSEED also shared a bit of what players can expect from 1.05, which will go beyond the technical fixes seen so far to also include gameplay adjustments and quality-of-life improvements.

The next update will go beyond optimization and bug fixes. It will include adjustments and additions to game systems and text. The two main purposes will be to adjust the functionality of makers and update dialogue text, two things that we have received a lot of feedback from players about.
Makers
In an effort to improve the functionality of makers, they will be changed so that each maker is able to create multiple items.
Dialogue
Our team is now working on writing new dialogue so that players can enjoy getting to know the residents of Olive Town even more than before.
Please see below for a full list of planned improvements, including the aforementioned features. We appreciate your patience as we work to prepare and implement these improvements in a future update.
—-【Upcoming Version 1.0.5 Information】—-
XSEED Games
・Adjusts some of the residents’ existing dialogue and adds new dialogue
・Changes the functionality of all makers
・Improves visuals during eating scenes
・Adds the ability to lock movement in a straight line
・Adjusts cooking times
・Removes the need to press the A Button when moving from indoors to outdoors

As for the most recent patch, it improves load times and fixes a few game-breaking bugs:
—-【Version 1.0.4 Notes】————
・Shortens loading times in general
・Fixes an animation when making a “Special Prayer” at the shrine
・Fixes an issue where save data could become corrupted after animals are born
・Fixes an issue where the game could freeze after the child adoption event
・Fixes an issue that created infinite items under certain conditions
・Adds a language settings menu under “Options” in the game’s title screen
・Other minor bug fixes
It’s nice to see Marvelous and XSEED taking feedback on board and working to smooth out some of the kinks in Pioneers of Olive Town. It’s a great game with plenty to offer despite some minor annoyances, and these sorts of improvements will no doubt help its best qualities shine through.
I’m sure as hell not going to miss spending a couple of hours each (in-game) day loading and unloading the 100-odd makers I have all over my farm, though.