# do your villagers follow custom paths?



## Fye (Oct 3, 2020)

So it was established pretty soon after New Horizons was released that the villagers tend to follow the default paths that you put down when terraforming. I definitely noticed it when I put a path that cuts through my forest and goes to the north area of my island cause before I put the path down my villagers would never go there. For example in the picture below my villagers will follow the kinda zig-zag path (its the brown path + some custom patterns on top of it) without walking through the trees and head to my rep's house at the top of the gray staircase.






And they never stop by my little farms on the right side of the wooden bridge even though its on the way. I added an alternating brown and dirt path there a few days ago but it hasn't attracted any of them so far so I'm thinking of just putting down a solid dirt path and seeing if that helps.






Has anyone else noticed that their villagers only follow the default paths? Or have your villagers been following your custom paths (on top of plain grass) too? I want to eventually replace the path in my forest with a custom design that looks a little more natural but I don't want to risk my villagers never going there again.


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## Pyoopi (Oct 3, 2020)

Both? Well, it's always a custom path on top of a default path (getting those two confused, lol)

I have a path behind my cliffs where it alternates between the stone and curved stone(?) paths. They always walk behind there and it's quite a way to reach it.


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## Fye (Oct 3, 2020)

Pyoopi said:


> Both? Well, it's always a custom path on top of a default path (getting those two confused, lol)


oh yeah I should have clarified - I was thinking of the custom paths that go directly on top of plain grass. Like stone paths or wooden planks (image not mine)






Pyoopi said:


> I have a path behind my cliffs where it alternates between the stone and curved stone(?) paths. They always walk behind there and it's quite a way to reach it.


ok perfect then its only a matter of time before my villagers discover my farm. I'm waiting to take cute pumpkin pictures with them


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## faerie (Oct 3, 2020)

Yes I've noticed this as well. They seem to follow the default paths, but ignore custom paths in my town.


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## ranch (Oct 3, 2020)

mine tend to follow my custom paths too (to a point, anyway). then again there used to be default paths in those places, and my paths mostly just sort of sprang up naturally based on the easiest ways to get around the island, so it's hard to say if the villagers are walking specifically on the custom paths, or if they're just taking that route because it's the most convenient...


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## Wookaru (Oct 3, 2020)

I've always been curious if villagers follow custom paths on grass or not. I haven't been able to come to a definitive conclusion but thinking no. There have been times they wander onto a custom path and then wander off of it, so its just their normal excursions off the default pathways. I definitely see them following my default paths though so thinking custom paths are iffy at best. Guess that makes sense though as it might be problematic if they programmed the villagers to treat custom designs as default paths. A lot of custom designs aren't meant to be paths at all.


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## Fye (Oct 3, 2020)

faerie said:


> They seem to follow the default paths, but ignore custom paths in my town.





ranch said:


> then again there used to be default paths in those places, and my paths mostly just sort of sprang up naturally based on the easiest ways to get around the island, so it's hard to say if the villagers are walking specifically on the custom paths, or if they're just taking that route because it's the most convenient...





Wookaru said:


> There have been times they wander onto a custom path and then wander off of it, so its just their normal excursions off the default pathways. I definitely see them following my default paths though so thinking custom paths are iffy at best.



seems like they really do stick to default paths. it makes complete sense but I wish there was a way to make a grass path that functions as a path but looks like the default grass in the game


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## CrankyCupcake (Oct 3, 2020)

For the most part, my residents tend to walk along default paths. 

But the game also allows them to be anywhere, it's always a possibility, that's why I find them in "impossible" places on occasion. For instance, I have an area (that has no path of any sort) that's inaccessible unless you use a ladder or vaulting pole. My residents somehow find their way there.  I believe it's just RNG luck where the game decides to put them every day, default path or otherwise.


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## eko (Oct 4, 2020)

there are decorations/trees/bushes/etc tightly wrapped around most of the custom paths in my island so they don't really have a choice to follow it haha. however they seem to spend the majority of their time on the beach (there was 3 villagers all in one spot the other day!) despite that there's no paths


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## KittenNoir (Oct 4, 2020)

My islanders follow my paths but I only think they do because I have bushes and flowers that line up along side the path


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## Pyoopi (Oct 4, 2020)

I think the only way you could fake it with just the custom path is to have two nearby default paths near each other. I unfortunately didn't take a screenshot of this area and then I got rid of the custom design but I will MSPaint it for you, lol.





The green is the custom path. They would use it but I think it was just because it was sandwiched between two default paths.


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## Agaphea23 (Oct 4, 2020)

That probably explains why my villagers never go to certain places on my island where there are only custom paths down like the park [unless they live there so they have no choice].  So If i got rid of the custom paths so there is only grass would they still go there or would I need to tempt them with default paths after all?


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## Wookaru (Oct 4, 2020)

DoeReMi said:


> seems like they really do stick to default paths. it makes complete sense but I wish there was a way to make a grass path that functions as a path but looks like the default grass in the game



I'm totally with you there. This is now on my 'quality of life features I wish we had but will likely never get list'.


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## Fye (Oct 4, 2020)

CrankyCupcake said:


> I believe it's just RNG luck where the game decides to put them every day, default path or otherwise.


That's true, I used to hear about this a lot back in March when a lot of people couldn't access their cliffs yet but their villagers somehow could. I hope at least one of my villagers gets randomly plopped in my farm area before fall ends




eko said:


> there are decorations/trees/bushes/etc tightly wrapped around most of the custom paths in my island so they don't really have a choice to follow it haha.





KittenNoir said:


> My islanders follow my paths but I only think they do because I have bushes and flowers that line up along side the path


I think they also tend to flock towards flowers in general because my campsite area is under construction so I haven't put down a park leading there yet, but I found Fauna watering the flowers there the other day




Pyoopi said:


> I think the only way you could fake it with just the custom path is to have two nearby default paths near each other.


I accidentally did this with my sidewalks when I first unlocked paths and it worked




Agaphea23 said:


> So If i got rid of the custom paths so there is only grass would they still go there or would I need to tempt them with default paths after all?


I believe plain grass has the same effect on their movement that custom paths does, so theres no need to remove the custom paths. But if you could put default paths under the custom ones that would help

	Post automatically merged: Oct 4, 2020



Wookaru said:


> This is now on my 'quality of life features I wish we had but will likely never get list'.


Same here. It would be a great feature but there's not really any need for them to bring it into the game


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