ACNH Anti-Features, A Speculative Experience.

[Crowsie]

So today I was thinking about New Horizons, and all the features it added (or neglected to add).

It got me thinking about anti-features. Things that, if added to the game, would make your experience just a little bit more annoying. It got me curious about what you guys could come up with, so I figured I'd ask. Try not to throw out obvious things that would negatively affect gameplay (ZOMG Nook charges you personal property taxes now!!), but plausible features you could kinda-sorta see that would add an element of realism to the game where is obviously not wanted lol. Not quite non-QoL, but things that make you go "Okay, this is cool and all, ...but why?"

I'll start:

Shopkeepers taking days off. Pre-2.0 traveling vendors weren't around every day, so why should the island shopkeepers be? Timmy and Tommy take Saturday and Sunday off, and the Ables are closed Monday and Tuesday. OFC, the drop-off box would be available 24 hours. For added BS-ery, the two days could be unique to each island (with internal rules like the Ables never closing on Saturday, etc) or determined by the same variables that decide your airport color or something silly like that. I dunno, that just -feels- Animal Crossing-y to me. Also, closing or having modified hours on Holidays.

ABT fees. Nothing too steep. 300 bells per withdrawal.

HHA evals are a service you have to opt-in to and pay a monthly fee for. They'd probably temper this by introducing frequent and exclusive rewards for high scores on consecutive weeks.

Anything involving villager homes being moved or remodeled takes multiple days, with the animal in question crashing at your place the whole time. If it's your own home being expanded/moved, you're given a tent to live in or the option to stay with a villager you're close friends with. This wouldn't change anything other than where your day starts, visiting the dream suite, etc.

Drinking over 3 cups of coffee a day makes you jittery. The animals notice it and it affects your control input slightly, a lot like a built-in joycon drift. You run slightly faster, but are prone to tripping and can't dream. Catching bugs or fish also becomes much more difficult. It tapers off in about 3 hours and is gone completely in 6.

Cooking has a chance of generating dirty dishes. It's just re-skinned garbage. You can wash them in the sink (the animation is like crafting but with bubbles and a sponge) or use them to craft Sloppy furniture.

 

[princess.looking.for.frog]

i love the character this would add, only thing is the shopkeepers having days off, I don’t like dropping things off for lower prices. Otherwise, everything would be cool to see!

I would like to see, some villagers just not leaving their houses all day, or sleeping in really late some days. Very realistic honestly, especially for lazies!

edit: also villagers that are inside their house, but you can't come in! because, that is very much realistic but also can be annoying

 

[Livia]

HHA evals are a service you have to opt-in to and pay a monthly fee for. They'd probably temper this by introducing frequent and exclusive rewards for high scores on consecutive weeks.

I would actually like this feature because it means we could opt out of hha letters. Unless the rewards were something I really wanted, I would be happier if I could stop the hha from always judging my house.

 

[Crowsie]

I would actually like this feature because it means we could opt out of hha letters. Unless the rewards were something I really wanted, I would be happier if I could stop the hha from always judging my house.

You're right. Darn. I guess that would be a pretty neat thing to have, huh?

 

[Raz]

This one wouldn't affect me personally, but I'm sure it would change a lot of people's gameplay: time traveling isn't possible by any shape or form. Boom.

(And yeah, I know time traveling ISN'T a feature of the game, despite what some people think).

Other things that would change the game:

- Lightning storms and heavy rain could destroy flowers, trees and bushes. Also, while fishing during a lightning storm, you could get struck by lightning (nature doesn't care about you and your hobby), which would send you back home the same way as when you get stung by a scorpion;

- Stores are only open up to 4 PM on Saturdays, and closed on Sundays;

- Shoes would degrade over time, as some would in New Leaf;

- Traveling merchants like Sahara and Labelle wouldn't show up on your island if it's raining (exception would be when you get some light rain, but they wouldn't show up at all if the weather forecast predicted rain all day);

- You need to eat a meal at least once a day. Failing to do so would make you feel tired, so you wouldn't be able to remove flowers or stumps with your shovel, chopping wood, fishing anything larger than a Horse Mackerel, hitting rocks and crafting (cooking would still be possible for obvious reasons). This would also encourage you to cook more often and would give you a reason to cook other than using food to decorate;

- Villagers wouldn't be as lenient as they are when you promise them something/agree to complete a task and then you just forget about it or decided not to do it anymore. Also, opening presents they asked you to deliver would deal a huge hit to your friendship with that villager;

- Becoming friends with villagers would be a lot harder and it would take some time. They wouldn't visit (or invite you to visit their homes) you, ask you to deliver presents or give you random gifts before you were able to earn their trust;

 

[Rosch]

Imagine not being able to fly to other islands because Wilbur is out. Or simply because it rains. Or either Isabelle or Tom are not on their desks and you have to wait for them to get back.

Also flooding due to rain or high tide which could leave trash/treasure on the shore the following day. Or generally bad weather that prevents you from terraforming or decorating. Low tide could dry up the higher-level rivers and prevent diving.

Having blackouts would be interesting. Lights and all electronics will stay off around the island. No background music would be interesting too (and others will prefer that).

Thieves. Imagine one of your random furniture gone. Either inside or outside. Vandalism could be interesting too (by vandalism, I figure the furniture will be customized into a different variation randomly). Would also really put Booker & Copper to good use.

Villagers could pick fruits/crops randomly.

 

[Crowsie]

- Shoes would degrade over time, as some would in New Leaf;

I must be mad tripping because I do NOT remember that from NL. Would be pretty neat though. Also, tripping due to bad luck giving you a chance of snapping a heel if you're wearing heeled shoes, or the chance to lose a shoe if you're wearing normal ones while swimming in the ocean (the remaining shoe would become yet another piece of trash you can recycle or throw out).

Having blackouts would be interesting. Lights and all electronics will stay off around the island. No background music would be interesting too (and others will prefer that).

This would be pretty interesting. Most of the apps on your phone would be down, and all villagers (provided they're awake) would just go outside and wander around. Maybe they'd ask to play games like hide and seek or treasure hunts to pass the time. Candles and lanterns could still work as well.

 

[Raz]

I must be mad tripping because I do NOT remember that from NL. Would be pretty neat though. Also, tripping due to bad luck giving you a chance of snapping a heel if you're wearing heeled shoes, or the chance to lose a shoe if you're wearing normal ones while swimming in the ocean (the remaining shoe would become yet another piece of trash you can recycle or throw out).


This would be pretty interesting. Most of the apps on your phone would be down, and all villagers (provided they're awake) would just go outside and wander around. Maybe they'd ask to play games like hide and seek or treasure hunts to pass the time. Candles and lanterns could still work as well.

I know that the boat shoes in NL would get busted after some time (I never knew what would trigger it) but it's not something that I saw with other kinds of shoes.

 

[Deleted member 157716]

The dirty dishes idea is actually pretty good, new furniture is always appreciated!

 

[Deleted member 157716]

This one wouldn't affect me personally, but I'm sure it would change a lot of people's gameplay: time traveling isn't possible by any shape or form. Boom.

I don't know how this could be implemented, the game records the last time when you log in, if the last time you logged in is in the future than the current date, your turnips will rot. The game doesn't know if you changed your system time, just when you log in. Nintendo would need to modify the Switch's OS.

How this could work: When the date is changed, the Switch check online if the time matches the local Switch time, if it doesn't, the switch writes to a file, when you log in and you have time traveled, the game will lock you out. To play the game again, you need to change the date back, the OS would check online again, and if it matches, the file is cleared and you can play the game again.

 

[abeliagg]

I keep having this discussion of anti-features off-line! I miss having rotten villagers and having everyone pester each other on occasion. I shove someone out of my way here or there when I'm terraforming, but I've yet to actually cheese someone off. Not to mention, every gift ever seems to get a positive response no matter what. Give me more rude folks! Bring back sketchy Nook! Well, maybe. He seems to have chilled out a LOT. "Character development?"

I know it's a quote from Izzzyzzz, but it's hilariously true! "If the villagers don't spit in my face, rob me, and call me ugly is it really an Animal Crossing game?"

There's like, no risk of social consequences for anything. And that's a huge downer for me, but I still love the massive amount of customization and town-building features. Honestly, if it weren't for that I'd still be in WW right now.

Anyways, that's my two cents. Thanks for the thoughtfood!

 

[Marshmallows]

Cleaning. Like in the Sims, where the toilet gets all dirty and clogged.

Items breaking when you interact with them. Like the tv or a ball.

Romance. Between our character and/or villagers.

Villagers being able to steal things you drop on the ground or place outside. When the game first came out, I was worried about this.
(Actually might be hilarious to walk into a villager's house and find the missing plaza fountain.)

Things they already added that I could live without:
HHA and their annoying letters
Breakable tools

 

[Millysaurusrexjr]

Ah I love all your ideas, especially the villager crashing at our place when their house is being moved! That would be amazing! I think anti-features would be interesting, but I wouldn't enjoy seeing people complain about them every time I log on to these forums or twitter

 

[Regalli]

Here’s a simple one they did in the past: Blathers can’t assess fossils anymore after his tragic misassessment of Spinosaurus (this is a joke, it’s not Animal Crossing’s fault that shortly after New Leaf’s release someone found and published a paper on the first Spinosaurus Aegypticus since the previous specimen was destroyed in WWII and then like, two months after New Horizons the same researcher released ANOTHER paper with a bombshell find of its tail, and I don’t blame them with only so much time for all their plans NOT spending that time updating the fossils in either Welcome Amiibo or New Horizons patches.) You have to send them via the mail to the Farway Museum. You’ll get your fossils for donating or selling the next day. What with the cost of stationery, even in previous games, it now costs you money to get fossils assessed.

 

[Jinglefruit]

Redo the entire storage situation. Clothes can only be stored in wardrobes/chests of drawers, food items can only be stored in a fridge, tools need to be stored in a shed. You have spare furniture? You need to have a garage built or visit a storage unit place which holds your furniture for a fee.

One thing I actually wanted and predicted for NH prior to release was unique holiday schedules per island - which would massively encourage visiting each other! So every island has 4 fishing tourney/bug off events a year, but on different days, so it actually feels like CJ/Flick are travelling around. Maybe even have then refer to previous record wins from your friends towns. Similarly with the seasonal events, have the cherry blossom event be a random week in April, or the Summer shells are either June, July or August depending on your island.
It'd be a horrible feature for generating FOMO, and making people wait while they see everyone online decorating with new items, but it'd be more realistic.

Now that we have "work" in the form of HHP, imagine if we had to book holidays if we didn't want to work on certain days, or got told off for not turning up one day. Or if we had a quota, 5 houses per week, if you don't hit that, you get paid less poki.

Also something people wanted in past games was the weather system to reflect the weather in your area - which would be terrible for people living where it never snows who want the frozen furniture etc.
Now take that a step further and if your game can detect your areas weather, it could also detect your countrys covid lockdown rules. Hope you enjoy interior decorating, cause you're not going out much! Enjoy only shopping via the nook shop phone app! Maybe you can go out for one less than an hour walk a day?

 

[RollingAntony]

They implement a full-fledged energy system: you can only perform a certain amount of activities during each day. You start with a random amount of energy daily and every single thing diminishes it, with very few activities replenishing it. Moreover, the system is extremely complex, full of variables within the same activity- talking to a resident takes away points depending on your friendship level, big or rare creatures take more energy points than common creatures, wearing outfits not appropiate to the current season impact you, running on a rock path barefoot is worse for your health than walking on grass with sneakers, spending lots of bells on a single day takes a toll on your energy, etc.

A system like that would be a bit nightmarish, it would drastically reduce the freedom and creativity and restrict gameplay. Everyone will need to find guides online to see what are the best things to do each day. In theory, it could have some benefits, as it would be very realistic/life-sim; the attention to detail is appreciated and mechanics like food would get a boost on their usefulness, but most people would ask if all that is really necessary. You thought a net breaking after catching 30 bugs is frustrating? Now you must analyze which bugs you can catch and if you still have the energy to do that. That Banded Dragonfly you need for the museum? You better have enough energy because running around with a net is gonna be tiring.

 

[Crowsie]

They implement a full-fledged energy system: you can only perform a certain amount of activities during each day. You start with a random amount of energy daily and every single thing diminishes it, with very few activities replenishing it. Moreover, the system is extremely complex, full of variables within the same activity- talking to a resident takes away points depending on your friendship level, big or rare creatures take more energy points than common creatures, wearing outfits not appropriate to the current season impact you, running on a rock path barefoot is worse for your health than walking on grass with sneakers, spending lots of bells on a single day takes a toll on your energy, etc.

A system like that would be a bit nightmarish, it would drastically reduce the freedom and creativity and restrict gameplay. Everyone will need to find guides online to see what are the best things to do each day. In theory, it could have some benefits, as it would be very realistic/life-sim; the attention to detail is appreciated and mechanics like food would get a boost on their usefulness, but most people would ask if all that is really necessary. You thought a net breaking after catching 30 bugs is frustrating? Now you must analyze which bugs you can catch and if you still have the energy to do that. That Banded Dragonfly you need for the museum? You better have enough energy because running around with a net is gonna be tiring.

Ooh, evil. I love it. Annoying as hell, but robust enough to be a feature.

I got another one, inspired by previous posts - friendship levels scaling with villager personalities. It would look a little like this:

[Basically your friend already] -> [Pretty friendly] -> [frenemy] -> [unfriendly] -> [cold as ice]
Lazy___________Nice_________Jock______Peppy__________Sisterly_______Smug____Cranky______Snooty

The farther along on the spectrum, the higher maintenance their friendship is. Declining favors or failing to do them in a timely manner incurs heavy hits to your relationship that take ages to recover from. You'd have to put in daily work to stay in their good graces, and vanishing for more than a few days actively degrades progress (a good way to discourage time travel). If you don't befriend at least one villager by your birthday, Isabelle sends you a pity cupcake and you celebrate alone at home with your cockroaches. There could also be a gossip system baked into the dialog. Sharing gossip boosts friendship levels with the ones dishing it out, but spreading it runs the risk of damaging the subject's friendship, especially if it's untrue.

Would super suck for people like me who have an affinity for snooty and cranky villagers. Lol have fun never being enough for them.

 

[Crowsie]

Oh, another thread inspired a new idea: All fruits and crops are now seasonal.

Apples grow in the late summer and autumn.
Pumpkins are autumn only.
Peaches grow in the spring and summer.
Tomatoes and cherries are now summer only.
Wheat can be planted in the summer, but won't be harvestable until autumn and winter.
Pears are autumn and winter only.
Oranges grow in both summer and winter.
Potatoes won't grow outside of winter.
Sugarcane is the only crop that grows year-round.
Coconuts grow in the summer.

 

[inazuma]

Cleaning. Like in the Sims, where the toilet gets all dirty and clogged.

Items breaking when you interact with them. Like the tv or a ball.

Romance. Between our character and/or villagers.

Villagers being able to steal things you drop on the ground or place outside. When the game first came out, I was worried about this.
(Actually might be hilarious to walk into a villager's house and find the missing plaza fountain.)

Things they already added that I could live without:
HHA and their annoying letters
Breakable tools

aww. romance. i just want it too. but i will get a huge heartbreak if one of my villager doesnt like me lollll instead the other female villagers lmao. (also i only have 2 females on my island, so if i get rid of them will my villagers be gay? XDDD )

So today I was thinking about New Horizons, and all the features it added (or neglected to add).

It got me thinking about anti-features. Things that, if added to the game, would make your experience just a little bit more annoying. It got me curious about what you guys could come up with, so I figured I'd ask. Try not to throw out obvious things that would negatively affect gameplay (ZOMG Nook charges you personal property taxes now!!), but plausible features you could kinda-sorta see that would add an element of realism to the game where is obviously not wanted lol. Not quite non-QoL, but things that make you go "Okay, this is cool and all, ...but why?"

I'll start:

Shopkeepers taking days off. Pre-2.0 traveling vendors weren't around every day, so why should the island shopkeepers be? Timmy and Tommy take Saturday and Sunday off, and the Ables are closed Monday and Tuesday. OFC, the drop-off box would be available 24 hours. For added BS-ery, the two days could be unique to each island (with internal rules like the Ables never closing on Saturday, etc) or determined by the same variables that decide your airport color or something silly like that. I dunno, that just -feels- Animal Crossing-y to me. Also, closing or having modified hours on Holidays.

ABT fees. Nothing too steep. 300 bells per withdrawal.

HHA evals are a service you have to opt-in to and pay a monthly fee for. They'd probably temper this by introducing frequent and exclusive rewards for high scores on consecutive weeks.

Anything involving villager homes being moved or remodeled takes multiple days, with the animal in question crashing at your place the whole time. If it's your own home being expanded/moved, you're given a tent to live in or the option to stay with a villager you're close friends with. This wouldn't change anything other than where your day starts, visiting the dream suite, etc.

Drinking over 3 cups of coffee a day makes you jittery. The animals notice it and it affects your control input slightly, a lot like a built-in joycon drift. You run slightly faster, but are prone to tripping and can't dream. Catching bugs or fish also becomes much more difficult. It tapers off in about 3 hours and is gone completely in 6.

Cooking has a chance of generating dirty dishes. It's just re-skinned garbage. You can wash them in the sink (the animation is like crafting but with bubbles and a sponge) or use them to craft Sloppy furniture.

the dishes and living with villagers! i always want to be roomates with lolly!

 

[zissou]

I love this thread. Cool idea, OP. I feel like AC would feel so much more * alive * if we added some of the inevitable inconveniences of village life (or just real life, really). Who doesn't love random nuisance to upgrade their gameplay?

- Some villagers can be straight-up mean. As in everything from insulting you, pickpocketing you during conversations, vandalizing the outside of your home, or pushing you into pitfalls. Some of these features have been implemented to various degrees in previous games, but there's something so funny to me about the idea of being like "Oh shoot, there's Bangle! Run! RUN!"

- Medicine can't restore your face immediately. It takes a few days to recover, and getting stung again resets your healing progress. Villagers who like you may offer additional treatments to assist.

- Villager conversations affect villager relationships/moods over longer periods of time. Flora upsetting Erik won't leave him angry for seconds, but hours/days, and this will be reflected in his dialogue. Honestly, just creating a more complex villager friendship system would be amazing. I live for the impossible day that my villagers are capable of having friends and enemies of their own. Perhaps in this system, befriending someone's enemy makes you lose points with that person, and triggers gossipy dialogue. Ooh, the possibilities.

- Villagers being able to have a say in town decorating/layout. Including refusing to have their homes moved, and setting up hideous, tacky yard ornaments that clash terribly with your carefully-curated cottagecore aesthetic.