Am I the only one stressed out by terraforming?

I haven't unlocked it yet, but it stresses me out. I am at the part where you are supposed to start "beautifying" and designing your town to try to get the three star rating...and it stresses me out knowing that I am doing all this work, but I am going to have to tear it all down when I start terraforming. I know exactly what I want to do with terraforming, but it stresses me out thinking about having to tear down all the work I've done so far, move all the buildings, and demolish some of the bridges.
 
Didn't get the tool yet, but this seems like really good advice. Trying to work with the structure your island comes with seems easier than starting from scratch. Also try to think of places that have been bothering you because they were in the way or in the wrong place, consider how picky inclines an bridges with their requirements are.

Totally, while I change the terrain it starts to fit, like for example I got a small space behind some houses and it was perfect for an incline, which I didn't considered when I started, little by little it will start to make sense and look good, I'm really happy with what I have accomplish so far, I'm not even near of finishing though.

Also, for inspiration I look at other games like Pokémon and FF for inspiration, some animes and movies also work, I got the idea to build food stalls after watching the movie Spirited Away.
 
I might not use terraforming at all. If I do I'll probably just look at a list of the starter maps and model mine off of the one I like best. I'm pretty ok with my map as it is though. Maybe I'll make a few hills in a certain area or add waterfalls and heart shaped ponds.
 
I definitely feel that way as well, but I think that makes it more exciting!!
 
I haven't unlocked it yet but it stresses me out to an extent. Other than trying to straighten some parts of my river where I want to have my bridges be straight, I'm not sure what I want to do. My only other idea was maybe making it so I only have one cliff instead of two and making it a shopping district, kind of like New Leaf.
 
i haven't unlocked it yet but i'm already stressed about it. like i don't wanna build bridges because i'll only tear them down anyway. i'm not sure if i like this feature yet but let's see. everything already looks so beautiful in other towns, maybe i'll be able to achieve that as well
 
No, I'm not. I haven't unlocked the feature yet, but I'm thinking that I'll just tweak things here and there initially to have bridges and inclines exactly where I want them.
 
It was extremely stressful yet at the same time exciting when I unlocked terraforming. Stressful because I have absolutely no idea from where to start and considering I have OCD, I need everything to be symmetrical otherwise I will not feel satisfied. Exciting because I love building, editing, trying new things.

Guess what, I spent over 500,000 bells for a villager's house (and I still don't know where to place him). Here's my suggestion from where to start: start with aligning your villagers, stores, museum and from then on it will be easier for you to plan on what you want around it. Here is how my map looks so far (the far left and right side are messed up, but the center of the island is pretty much "done").

Screenshot 2020-03-30 at 19.46.08.jpg
 
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Honestly for me, it’s annoying and overwhelming. I kinda hate that creating/destroying is used with the same button, cause sometimes when I wanna destroy a part of, say, a river, then it just pushes dirt instead and CREATES a ledge or something. I’m not sure how to explain that.

Also, it’s stressful cause I honestly can’t even picture how I want my island to look. I’m very visual when it comes to learning and I even tried drawing my map, but the proportions are off so I can’t properly place things. I, sadly, have been in an art block lately that has transferred into an “everything block” which includes designing apparently.

I can’t seem to picture where I want to place the shop, able sisters, museum etc. Can’t decide if I want to put all the residents on one side or the other. It’s just a lot I guess lol. Am I alone in how overwhelming it is?

Definitely agree with everything you said...
 
i haven't unlocked it yet but i'm already stressed about it. like i don't wanna build bridges because i'll only tear them down anyway. i'm not sure if i like this feature yet but let's see. everything already looks so beautiful in other towns, maybe i'll be able to achieve that as well

That's my thinking as well. I am in this weird in-between stage where I am questioning whether I should begin designing my town or if I should hold off until I get the feature. Because I don't want to place buildings and bridges I know that I am going to have to move anyways (due to me adding in rivers and cliffs that would be in their place)...but at the same time, the game is kinda requiring me to start placing things and do beautification work to get that rating. It's going to be so annoying having to tear down everything they are making me do. It doesn't help that it costs 50k bells to move each builidng, and I have 4 player houses, 2 shops, a campground, a museum, and 10 villager houses that all need moved to fit my plan. Because right now, my town is barren, but I really didn't want to do anything with it until I've unlocked terraforming. I find all the work I am forced to do to my town (that I am just going to have to undo anyways) in the meantime to be really stressing.
 
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Personally it didnt stress me out at all, just took a while.
Completely flattened my land and removed all rivers than re-made them without it looking unnatural.
If you play games like minecraft or something similar where you mold the earth around you it helps
Also, look at pixel art if you want certain shapes or want to see how pixel artists make things look less blocky.

Currently moving all of my villagers into the neighborhood off of the area just before the beach and it's not that annoying just expensive lol
 
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I haven't unlocked it yet but I'm already planning to not use it lol. I'm awful at desgning/visualizing things and I would certainly make a giant mess. I don't really care what my island landscape loos like anyway.
 
I spent hours moving my cliffs and rivers last night. I'm not going crazy with anything I just really wanted a different layout and a lot less cliff so I'm not really stressed about it. That said oh my god I wish create and destroy were two different buttons. I almost chucked my switch and more than one frustration scream happened.
 
More overwhelmed than stressed, I find that things I visualise in my head don't translate too well on paper which makes things like terraforming hard. I love seeing all of the different islands people have created though, it's given me a few ideas for my own island once I unlock it :)
 
I haven't unlocked it yet but yeah, I agree. I'm not the best at designing and I'm afraid I'm going to start messing with the landscape and completely screw my island up. That's why I don't plan on changing too much. I actually like my map for the most part. I just want to change my rivers a little bit and make my second level go straight across my map rather than zig zagging all over the place. Not sure what I'm going to do with the third level yet but that's a problem for future me!
 
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I am focusing on building my villagers home area then will work out everything i want after that. Sooo frustrating trying to make the natural shape instead of it moulding into the sharp square every time though lol!!!
 
Yes, I'm very stressed about it. I love the look of some of these terraformed islands I'm seeing, but I don't know whether I'll be using it regularly... Very much a "Minecraft" player tool, and not really in fitting with previous Animal Crossing games. I might use it to tweak a few rivers/cliff edges slightly, just for ease of travel around the island, but I definitely won't be doing anything drastic.
 
I haven't unlocked it yet, but I'm starting to feel a bit overwhelmed. I think it's mainly the self-asserted pressure of wanting to be on par with everyone else's gorgeous islands and not being able to do it, finding out my map isn't as good as I thought, etc. As someone who isn't very creative, I'm scared all the inspiration I draw from people will influence me too much and I end up with a hodge-podge of an island. But then again, that's a problem for future me :).
 
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