[deleted]

[VanitasFan26]

[deleted]

 

[Fridaynightcatlady]

So now we have reached 1 year in New Horizons and the game certainly had a lot of update. Most of them were holiday events while others were returning features that was from New Leaf like Swimming/Diving, Dream Suite, and recently the Sanrio Crossover. There were a few Quality of Life changes to the game like being able to expand our storage in our home, the Dream Suit was improved when they added "Surprise Me" and Revisiting dream islands that you've been to recently. Also they added more Custom Design Slots and made it so you can access the Kiosk while you were on your phone instead of using Able Sisters. While all these updates and changes were cool I feel like there are certain things in the game that still needs to be improved. Let me clear New Horizons is a good game, but I still feel like there are changes that need to be acknowledged that will make the game better than what it is currently. So here are 5 things that still needs to be improved in New Horizons:

1. The Online:
When the game first came out a lot of us were really interested in checking out the online to see what it had to offer. However what we got was a slow painful process of trying to visit islands. Not to mentioned there are modes that are missing. Dodo airlines is so slow to use. You have to talk to Orville, tell him you wanted to fly, tell him to you wanted to visit online, then go through many other menus. Then finally you are able to enter to Dodo Code. Whats annoying is that if you mess up you have to restart the whole process. Even then we you get the dodo code. It still takes a while to go to the island. Not to mention the people who are on the island have to stop what they are doing just to see you coming into their island. This idea really is not good. It ruins the whole exploring with your friends when you have to worry about those load screen when inviting people over to your island. So I hope they actually improve on this later on.

2. Villager Dialogue:
This is going to be controversial but hear me out. For the longest time the villagers since the original and world world were always your best friends. They were always there for you when you needed to talk to them. Sure most of them were mean but that is what made them unique and special. Since City Folk the villager dialogue has started to suffer. Villagers would only say a few things and will repeat the same topics. New Leaf somehow made it worse when the villagers would always ask you to do favors for them and they would still rag on the same topics again. New Horizons its even way more bad. Villagers seem to only talk about themselves depending on their personality and they would prattle on the same topics about what you are wearing, who visited your island, reminding the player what they did yesterday, and of course always asking you same questions about being inside villagers homes or just asking about other player's hobbies. This can be cute at first, but it gets tiring to hear them say it everyday. Now sure the argument can be made that villagers do same more unique things when they are inside the shops, museum, and when they are in events. While that is all cool it still doesn't make them interesting. New Leaf villagers used to come to your home when they ask you to and sometimes they would ask you to pay hide and seek. That is no longer a thing in New Horizons. Villagers need to have more life to them than just repeat the same topics over and over again.

3. Crafting and DIYS:
If there is one thing most people can agree on the crafting in this game is very slow and it takes forever to craft certain items. When crafting came out people were really impressed. However, Crafting in this game is by far the most disappointing thing. I mean why does it take so long to craft a lot of stuff like fish bait? There is no way to bulk craft multiple items. If you look at games like Minecraft and Stardew Valley their crafting system was really simple and fast. It didn't take so long to craft items. However in New Horizons they somehow messed this up. You have to remember what materials you need to craft the item. There is no way to keep track of what items you need for the item since you have to constantly check your nookphone and go to the DIY app just to see what materials you need. It would be better if there was a indication on the screen that told you if you had the materials you need. Same thing when crafting at home. You have to always take the materials out of storage and then craft. Why can't it just let you craft with the materials you have in storage instead of just taking them out? As for the DIYS at the beginning it was fun to collect them and it felt really good talking to villagers when you want to know what they are crafting. However by November 2020 is when things went downhill. All the seasonal diys were restricted to Balloon Gifts only which is why they were so hard and annoying to even get. You can't get them from villager crafting or DIY bottles. You can only wait and hope that you get the DIY you want otherwise its a duplicate. Honestly the amount of duplicate DIYS I gotten is just ridiculous. I find myself having to store them at home but there is no way to put them in storage so I had to drop them on the floor in the home. I gave most of them away to my friends but then by January 2021 most of my friends had most of the diys learned by now. So I just throw the pointless ones away. Overall Crafting and DIY are good additions to the game but the way it was executed and how it was handled after 1 year later it really doesn't hold up too well. The constant grind for looking for DIYS is RNG and the crafting takes a long time just to get items you really want. If Nintendo would've took inspiration from Minecraft and Stardew Valley maybe the Crafting would've been better.

4. Building Development:
I am just going to say this New Horizons compared to past AC games in terms of upgrades has the least amount of shop upgrades. You can upgrade the shop 5 times to reach to the full potential. Even in New leaf when you got the final shop upgrade you had Leif joined in and then Gracie Grace was up in the top floor. It was by the best thing we've ever seen. Why is that the Nook Shop in New Horizons has only one upgrade? You would think by now we would get another one soon but it hasn't been the case. It really is strange how the upgrades in this game don't seem to be exciting and its like you would want the shops to keep being refreshed with something new but again it just feels stale and boring. I barely use the Nook shop anymore. Since I've been doing a lot of trading to get certain colors of furniture I want for my island I have no use for it. The problem is that the items are still the same and its like you don't even need a reason to go there anymore once you have every single item in your catalog. There should be a new upgrade where it adds new items that we never seen before. I get that in past updates the nook shop would always display items that are limited time which is a good idea but the problem is that the variant you have is a different color and the only to get that said variant that has a different color is to trade with someone else. In past AC games the nook shop was always your go to whenever you wanted new furniture and it always was refreshing whenever new stuff was added even in the full upgraded shop there is so much stuff to get and you can see what they have. This one in New Horizions just doesn't do much. There needs to be more variety and a reason to keep shopping at the Nook shop. There is two ways Nintendo could fix this. They could add new upgrades to existing buildings with new features and items or they can add new buildings and bring back special NPCs that have a reason for having them. Either way it is going to happen in the future but the problem is we really don't know when. We at 1 year anniversary of New Horizons' release and there is still no word of what we have to look forward to for the rest of the year. If Nintendo was smart they would release a trailer showing whats in store for 2021 so that way we don't have to keep guessing of whats to come in the future. All of the Holiday events were released last year so we need to see new stuff being added to keep the game refreshing and give people a reason to come back.

5. Nook Miles Shop:
The thing is the Nook Mile shop is probably the most underdeveloped thing in this game. One year has passed and the nook miles shop has barely seen any sort of upgrades to it. Yeah sure in the updates you can use Nook Miles to get new Reactions but thats just it. The items remain the same ever since you first started playing. There is no way to customize the items you just got from the Nook Mile shop. You have to ask someone else if they have say a Green Streetlamp for example.. but you only have the black version on your island. What bothers me is that when you catalog these items, you cannot buy them at the Nook Mile shop. Its available on the Nook Shopping Catalog but its "not for sale" so whats the point? You might as well just trade these items in for different colors which can be tedious to do. The point is the Nook Miles could've been better if the game actually added new items to the Nook Mile shop that encourages you to earn them more all the time when doing tasks everyday when you play the game. I would've loved it if there was like new features added that you have to get nook miles to unlock it. Remember in the beginning you had to spend a lot of Nook Miles for your Tool Ring, Hairstyles, and Pocket Size? To me that felt rewarding and you felt accomplished for unlocking them. After one year of playing there is barely anything new added to the Nook Mile shop.


So thats all the 5 things that still need to improved in New Horizons. Please understand I do not hate the game, and I know will be a lot of debates on this but remember this, people shouldn’t be so defensive when it comes to other people’s opinions. Some will only have good things to say and others will have words of improvements but to confront someone because their viewpoint is completely different from theirs is ridiculous that they feel the need to call them out for it. While its true and valid that everyone has different viewpoints and opinions, everyone needs to remember it’s all opinion based with anything in life there will always be those like love and those that don’t but like I mentioned earlier it’s important to acknowledge what could be improved on too.

Are there any improvements that I miss that you would want to see in improved in New Horizons?

I definitely agree with your point with regards to the online. It’s definitely a hassle, even more so when you’re playing with lots of people (and one of them gets connection errors).

Crafting I don’t mind so much, but I’d hope we could craft in stacks of items.

Dialogue, I absolutely disagree. NL and CF dialogue were embarrassing. NL was filled with requests, no real content there. NH dialogue is top notch: funny, interesting and there’s lots of it (I’m near 500 hours in and still get new dialogue; I document all of it with screenshots!). I do hope we get villager visits, but that has nothing to do with dialogue.

 

[VanitasFan26]

I definitely agree with your point with regards to the online. It’s definitely a hassle, even more so when you’re playing with lots of people (and one of them gets connection errors).

Crafting I don’t mind so much, but I’d hope we could craft in stacks of items.

Dialogue, I absolutely disagree. NL and CF dialogue were embarrassing. NL was filled with requests, no real content there. NH dialogue is top notch: funny, interesting and there’s lots of it (I’m near 500 hours in and still get new dialogue; I document all of it with screenshots!). I do hope we get villager visits, but that has nothing to do with dialogue.

Well I beg to differ on the dialogue but to each their own and yeah I wish some of the items can stack like Manila Claims for example.

 

[LambdaDelta]

1. I guess, but ehh. I feel certain things such as being able to withdraw from the abd while on another island are far more valuable than making it faster to connect, which is really only a mild inconvenience. also, is actually hilarious, imo. since this would require the game to essentially remove any personality via having you just choose from a quick set of menu options without the dialogue, thus removing the personality and much of orville's role... something people complain about with things like the mirror, postcard rack, custom design kiosk, etc. everyone having to stop what they're doing when someone enters or leaves sucks though, but I very much doubt they could fix that now, sadly

2. ehh, it's fine. villager dialogue has been pretty weak imo since wild world, but this one has some shining moments. nothing to the level of how it used to be, but overall decent. I miss being able to ask about requests from the cube crossing days though

3. honestly, I just wish they'd not force diy cards on us, if we talk to a crating villager. also, I think it'd be kinda neat if they added some crafting items that require vague materials. say something like a small flower vase, where it requires something like 3x of any flowers and 2x clay. so instead of a predetermined look, the crafted result is based on the specific flowers used (you manually choose the materials, if you don't have the exact amount on hand, and the game still shows you a preview of what it'd look like before you confirm)

4. definitely. also, something I definitely see being added in a future update. hell, the shop and museum I'm fully convinced based on how they look currently with the space they take are both gonna get further upgrades, and I could absolutely see being able to change the resident services look, like we could with new leaf's town hall. the airport, I could both see it getting some sort of upgrade (especially if they add a separate island with its own shops and etc, much like city folk's city section) and/or getting its own customization options. again, like new leaf had for its own equivalent (the town gate). I'm fully convinced there will be no new buildings though, so I expect any future permanent special npc additions to be built off of the museum, nook's cranny, or the airport

5. meh, meh, and thrice, meeeeeh. I just honestly wish nmts as items didn't exist, and the whole system was just you bought the ticket and the airport would just then give you the option to go to a nook island tour. like how it is for your first free one. hell, this alone would probably give a bit more value to the nook shopping feature, since people couldn't just buy/trade for tickets off of others. at least for if they were island hopping to try to find a specific villager, which is personally something I never felt the need to do, but to each their own

 

[Xara]

i agree wholeheartedly! while you’ve touched on almost everything that i’d like to see be improved, there’s one thing that i don’t see get talked about super often and that’s the postal system + the limit on how many items you can order per day. truthfully, i don’t mail letters very often, especially now that i know that it doesn’t raise your friendship with your villagers at all so it’s kind of pointless imo but regardless of that and even regardless of the fact that pelly, pete and phyllis are missing, i’m still not a huge fan of the postal system in nh and the fact that sending one letter costs 200 bells where in the previous games, sending letters was a free service and a 4-pack of stationery only costed about 50-60 bells .. i also really miss collecting and cataloging the different stationeries, too.

as for the ordering limit, i’m not too sure why this was implemented but i definitely hope this gets improved and by that i mean “get removed completely” lol. i imagine it must get exhausting for those who run shops that offer orderable items such as @NefariousKing and @Firesquids to only be able to order 5 things at a time, especially when it comes to fulfilling large orders. ;v;

 

[VanitasFan26]

i agree wholeheartedly! while you’ve touched on almost everything that i’d like to see be improved, there’s one thing that i don’t see get talked about super often and that’s the postal system + the limit on how many items you can order per day. truthfully, i don’t mail letters very often, especially now that i know that it doesn’t raise your friendship with your villagers at all so it’s kind of pointless imo but regardless of that and even regardless of the fact that pelly, pete and phyllis are missing, i’m still not a huge fan of the postal system in nh and the fact that sending one letter costs 200 bells where in the previous games, sending letters was a free service and a 4-pack of stationery only costed about 50-60 bells .. i also really miss collecting and cataloging the different stationeries, too.

as for the ordering limit, i’m not too sure why this was implemented but i definitely hope this gets improved and by that i mean “get removed completely” lol. i imagine it must get exhausting for those who run shops that offer orderable items such as @NefariousKing and @Firesquids to only be able to order 5 things at a time, especially when it comes to fulfilling large orders. ;v;

Oh yeah that order 5 items per day limit is pretty annoying. Honestly since they added new items recently its so annoying have to wait through days just to get the items. I wish it was mailed directly to your mailbox and not have to wait a day. I know time travel can help but even that takes like 5 minutes to even do. It was getting annoying especially right after the Mario day stuff was released and then those who prefer not to time travel had to wait days just to get the items. This mechanic is so outdated that it should be removed.

As for the Post office. I mean I wasn't too much into but I can see why the letters haven't been too good either. Its so odd to me how they would replace the Post office with a Card Stand in the Dodo Airlines. I will agree that sending letters should increase villager friendship even though I don't use it as much I can understand why it would be good.

 

[Moritz]

i agree wholeheartedly! while you’ve touched on almost everything that i’d like to see be improved, there’s one thing that i don’t see get talked about super often and that’s the postal system + the limit on how many items you can order per day. truthfully, i don’t mail letters very often, especially now that i know that it doesn’t raise your friendship with your villagers at all so it’s kind of pointless imo but regardless of that and even regardless of the fact that pelly, pete and phyllis are missing, i’m still not a huge fan of the postal system in nh and the fact that sending one letter costs 200 bells where in the previous games, sending letters was a free service and a 4-pack of stationery only costed about 50-60 bells .. i also really miss collecting and cataloging the different stationeries, too.

as for the ordering limit, i’m not too sure why this was implemented but i definitely hope this gets improved and by that i mean “get removed completely” lol. i imagine it must get exhausting for those who run shops that offer orderable items such as @NefariousKing and @Firesquids to only be able to order 5 things at a time, especially when it comes to fulfilling large orders. ;v;

I actually really like the way the post works now. I really hated having to buy and carry stationery and carry the letters with me to the post office. Found it all such a hassle.
As for the price I have so many bells its never been an issue for me.

I do agree with the ordering limit though.
Not been too annoyed by it until the sanrio update when they added over 70 new items and to get them all it would take 16 days.

I wanted to give away the items on here for free to anyone who asked for them but I'm not doing 16 days of time travelling for a stranger. Haven't even done that for myself.

I wonder if the caps there for a reason we don't know about. But if they could make it like 10 items, that would go a long way

 

[Firesquids]

i agree wholeheartedly! while you’ve touched on almost everything that i’d like to see be improved, there’s one thing that i don’t see get talked about super often and that’s the postal system + the limit on how many items you can order per day. truthfully, i don’t mail letters very often, especially now that i know that it doesn’t raise your friendship with your villagers at all so it’s kind of pointless imo but regardless of that and even regardless of the fact that pelly, pete and phyllis are missing, i’m still not a huge fan of the postal system in nh and the fact that sending one letter costs 200 bells where in the previous games, sending letters was a free service and a 4-pack of stationery only costed about 50-60 bells .. i also really miss collecting and cataloging the different stationeries, too.

as for the ordering limit, i’m not too sure why this was implemented but i definitely hope this gets improved and by that i mean “get removed completely” lol. i imagine it must get exhausting for those who run shops that offer orderable items such as @NefariousKing and @Firesquids to only be able to order 5 things at a time, especially when it comes to fulfilling large orders. ;v;

It's ridiculously tedious.

I really wish there was a built in trading system, and this game desperately needs mini games to play with friends.

 

[AssassinVicz]

My opinions.

1, online features with it being tedious to set up and the whole ‘stopping for a load screen to show up’, I just disagree with. I would personally like to see who’s arriving on my island and their looks, rather then them just appearing and running off. I mean this happened in NL too where you had to stop aswell so. Idk, I think it’s for safety and considering the grand total times I’ve used online. It just doesn’t bother me.

2, The villager dialogue just feels nit picky. I’ve never expected my villagers to give me jaw dropping conversations but I feel the dialogue is just fine as it is. Could it have slight more variety, sure. But I don’t think it’s something that bad.

3, Bulk crafting should be a thing and I hope they implement it into the next update. The balloon RNG for Diys can be annoying but it’s nothing that bad. The rest I think is just personal opinions about the crafting feature in general. I don’t see it needing improvements aside from bulk crafting and allowing the balloon diys to be collected from villagers aswell.

4, I honestly like the way the nook store now and I genuinely don’t want it to change... The whole big giant nook store with this regal style and flashing lights just look out of place for me. Especially in wild world and city folk. New leaf blended better due to it being in a city street. I would prefer they maybe gave us customisation options for the exterior of the store or add another area like in new leaf. Somewhere you’d access by the dodo airlines, just like the City area in new leaf.

5, The nook point system isn’t something I use and honestly none of the items are really that interesting for me to buy. I just kinda collect my points for tickets or to see if anything new gets added. I do kinda agree that there could be more done with them but, I don’t exactly find it as something that requires improvement.

 

[VanitasFan26]

It's ridiculously tedious.

I really wish there was a built in trading system, and this game desperately needs mini games to play with friends.

Yes very much this. They should add a Trading app on our nookphone so that way we will be able to trade stuff faster with our friends instead of having to go to their island every single time.

 

[maria110]

I agree with these and also think that it takes too long to get recipes from present balloons and when swimming around to find a scallop for Pascal. It's a big waste of time. People shouldn't have to have jail bars down their beaches and wait for hours and hours to get these items.

 

[-Blue-]

The Nook Mile rewards definitely needs to be improved and or added to. They should've thrown a few things in there over the year for people to spend their miles on. I mean, yeah they did, but it was so few and far between that it still wasn't useful. Other then those who island hop all the time. But I stopped that early on.

They should had focused on that instead of making some real phone app with more rewards. Those could had went straight to the NM rewards menu. They're really not prioritizing things as they should be. Has anyone checked out this app yet? What is actually available on it? And is it worth the bother to get them?

I agree with most of what everyone has said here. I never found collecting the DIY from balloons all that fun. It was time consuming and made it look like you had accumulated a lot of hours well spent, but it was more of a slog with a lot of the hours then anything else. I eventually gave up and went to trading for the DIY and would always come here to see everyone airing their frustrations how horrible DIY farming was.

This is coming from me, someone who likes to get stuff done in games by myself, and I couldn't just bother to spend the hours doing so because it was just not fun and frustrating. I also didn't like how the Christmas DIY came mid December so you were essentially forced to trade, time travel, or just accept that you wouldn't be decorating for this Christmas. That is such a bad business tactic because most normal AC fans will play for a year or less.

I wonder if this was done consciously by them hoping it would secure their game for an additional year. Like 'They weren't able to decorate or experience this game's Christmas fully year 1 so year 2 they will stick around to see it 100%.'

 

[daringred_]

1. definitely agree that the dialogue trees for travelling are ridiculously long, and having to restart from the very beginning if you enter the dodo code wrong or select the wrong option is very unintuitive. i don't mind the loading screens too much, but i imagine it's a pain if you're trying to invite multiple people over at once or in a row, and they should definitely be shorter. i don't remember them being this long in NL, but maybe that's just me.

2. only thing i disagree with here is saying the villagers in NL asking you to do things was 'worse'. frankly, i wish they still asked me to do things for them that often. it's frustrating having to talk to 10 villagers around five times only for maybe one or two of them to actually ask me to do anything. doesn't help that the requests in NH are lacking in variety compared to NL -- it's either deliver this package or catch x bug/fish, and that's it now. the dialogue isn't perfect in NL either, but it is better than NH's imo. i paid more attention when playing NL recently and while i noticed that the villagers do repeat sometimes, it's nowhere near as much as in NH. that and i personally just prefer what they have to say in NL vs. NH.

3. i've never been keen on the crafting/DIY aspect. i remember when they showed it off in the first trailer and was very apprehensive. it reminded me a lot of minecraft, which i didn't really want in my AC game, but i was willing to give it a go. of course, it turned out to be nowhere near as intuitive or convenient as minecraft's crafting because you can't craft in bulk which is ridiculous, especially for items like fish bait, medicine, wreaths, tools, etc. being able to pull materials from storage isn't as big an issue for me, since i have a designated crafting area on one side of my island, but it should definitely be a thing -- either that or crafting benches double as storage for materials specifically. DIYs are meh. they were fun to collect at the beginning, but now it's mildly annoying that your villagers always give you a recipe card even if you already know the DIY. there should be an option to turn down the card, and i don't know why there isn't. having to balloon farm for recipes was abysmal, especially given how low the spawn rate was for them and how you're only guaranteed, like, 1 balloon every 10 minutes or something. not everyone has hours to whittle away waiting for balloons to fly overhead. i hated doing it.

4. hard agree. for an island you're supposed to be developing/building from the ground up, said development stops pretty early on. (i don't count exterior decorating since that's entirely optional and falls exclusively on you, the player.) NL had an entire main street area that you gradually had to unlock and watching it grow/come alive always made me feel like i was actually contributing to/growing my town. in NH, my nook's cranny has been the same for a year. it's a cute building, but i'm sick of seeing it, and it looks very empty inside to me, personally. where's the greenhouse-styled side/backroom featuring leif with an upgraded inventory to sell? or a second floor with lottie (i'll say her since she's rumored) selling ceiling furniture and a wider selection of non-craftable doorplates? or just gracie in general. obviously the shops are inevitably going to become largely obsolete in any AC game, but imo it happened much faster in NH. after a year, an upgrade to the shop is long overdue.

5. can't really say anything other than that i agree. i never need to "redeem nook miles" outside of the occasional reactions and/or phone app. i've already long since catalogued my island's default items and bought all the fencing recipes etc. and i don't go island hopping anymore because i want more random move-ins before getting all my villagers. as it stands now, the selection of items there is nothing new, and they've settled on an entirely new (out-of-game) currency instead. at least the MEOW coupons (despite a lot of them being hidden behind amiibos) from NL could be spent on a plethora of items over at the campground. one easy way to give NMs some use would be having 1-3 random color variants of either nook mile items or regular furniture rotate in daily at a marked up price. that would definitely have me checking it again since i don't have the patience to trade for color variants.

 

[McRibbie]

OK, few thoughts here:

• The online stuff’s largely a result of the fact it’s peer to peer connection like the other AC games. It basically needs to load a load of stuff, which is why the loading screen exists. It’s kind of a pain, but eh, I can manage with it. What I would like to be able to do is to resume from where I was if I screwed up, because THAT’S the thing that slows me down a lot of the time (and it doesn’t involve making DAL an app, which is... a recurring theme with a lot of NH criticism? A lot of it is just WHY IS THIS GAME THAT INVOLVES MOVING AWAY FROM THE RUSH OF THE CITY AND INTO A SLOW COUNTRY ISLAND MAKING ME DO STUFF SLOWLY?)
• “WHY CAN’T WE CRAFT FROM STORAGE?” is missing the point of AC SO BADLY I’m amazed it’s a widespread opinion in the fandom... if you’re going to build something or make something IRL, you need to have the materials you need to hand. Why wouldn’t that apply in AC, a game that’s a life simulator? I’d much rather just be able to access my storage through wardrobe items, because I’ve got a ton of those outside. Bulk crafting would be pretty handy for certain things, too.
• I’ve never really had too much hassle with balloon gaming for recipes, but that’s because I basically camped out on my beach in order to get most of the “really limited time only” ones, which was a mild hassle at best. My main hassle is the many duplicate DIYs I’m getting in the quest to get the DIYs I have left to get (which is mainly wreaths, flower crowns and Celeste stuff, but does contain the odd personality-exclusive thing, including the wooden low table for some stupid reason) but eh, I’m just going to try and sell them on or give them away. Might do a thread here at some point! They are cluttering up my left beach tho, which is Very Annoying. It’s stuff designed for the social, IRL stuff that’s a core aspect of AC, it just kinda sucks when you’re drowning in it.
• Villager dialogue is good when it’s good (and I think it’s the best-written AC game in a while... although not The Best) because there’s lots of good stuff about their interests and their lives before the island and such, and I generally don’t get repeats of the same thing multiple times in a day like I did in NL... unless I’m talking to the two duplicate personalities I’ve got on my island, in which case I get the same stuff again a lot of the time... and I get a lot of this stuff daily compared to the deeper, more interesting stuff. Other things I dislike include the stuff that’s just one sentence (why?), HHA stuff not mentioning the villager’s scores, the dialogue system largely telling you stuff about yourself at the start of the day instead of mixing it up with other stuff, and my biggest complaint, villagers not giving you tasks to do often enough and there being the least amount of them ever. I would however, love to see more dialogue and stuff to do, because it fixes this complaint!
• Yeah, I’m basically sick of Bigger Nook’s Cranny at this point... but I know the shop upgrades are tied to stock availability more than the amount of stock available at one time in NH, so a new upgrade would have to come in an update that added a TON of new furniture (hopefully one that adds a load more 2x1 tables, because that’s a cornerstone of my AC houses). What I DON’T want them to do is to merge other NPCs into the shop. If more shops are added, let it be in a big shopping area outside your island, not just “hey, let’s take away a visiting NPC with a limited item selection and thoughtlessly put them inside something else!”
• For the record, I also want the post office and the police station back as well, because both perform QOL changes (sending more letters, being able to see who’s in town) without oversimplifying things or robbing charm from the game
• I’ve said this before in the update thread but I find it weird they’ve added Nook Points into the game, because Nook Miles basically occupy the same purpose and have the same kind of rewards (ie. Nook Inc. merch) However, I’d LOVE to have more outdoor-themed items to decorate with that are redeemable with them, mainly on account of the fact that I HAVE SO MANY OF THE THINGS, IT’S RIDICULOUS.
• I’d love some kind of online trading thing as long as it involved a shop with Reece and Cyrus, given how it’s kinda their thing?

 

[-Lumi-]

1.) I agree. I really hope that they can cut down on the excess dialogue when I'm trying to travel or invite people over. It is frustrating and some of the options just seem redundant. Yes Orville, I know I'm opening my island up to strangers!! That's why I'm using the dodo code option instead of just opening my gates up to friends only oh my goodness. I think having the dodo code option is great - it definitely beats having to add people to your friends list anytime you want to visit them or vice versa but gosh it's clunky. It is also such a headache when I press the wrong button and have to restart from scratch.

I think there should be a better way to handle people coming to and exiting islands as well. I'm not sure why we have to pause every time to wave hello or goodbye when somebody leaves and it would be really nice if we could skip that. This is part of the reason I generally only have, at most, three people on my island at a time. Otherwise the constant loading screen of saying hello and goodbye makes me want to scream.

2.) Honestly, I agree. I've been playing New Leaf a little bit and there is a dialogue difference even though both games have the more "watered down" versions of the villagers. New Leaf might not be the most groundbreaking and it definitely gets repetitive as well but I find there is at least a little more variety? Villagers come up to me more either to ask to visit or invite me to their house, ask if they can buy one of my items or sell me something, ask me to play a game, or sometimes for cute little quizzes! Molly (I think it was Molly anyways) asked me the other day what my favourite flower is and then told me what it meant. That is such a cute addition to add in. In New Horizons the villagers only run up to me to buy or sell something and maybe teach me a new reaction. I'm not asking for the villagers to have an RPG story written into their dialogue but I really wish there was something more to them. The game is literally just about decorating your island and talking with your animal villagers - so why is their dialogue so lacking?

3.) I hate crafting. I like the idea of it and I like certain aspects of it but for the most part I don't enjoy it. I think the way they implemented crafting was clunky and frustrating. Why can't I craft multiple things at a time? If I'm in my house why do I need to manually pull out every item needed? Why do certain furniture pieces need so many more customization kits than others? Customization kits aren't even universal, either. Certain sets can only be customized using specific items (coloured pumpkins, feathers, I think the little Christmas ornaments too?) Why do my tools need to break? The ladder and vaulting pole don't break so I should at least be able to buy or craft an unbreakable version of the other tools as well.

The DIYs are another huge cause of frustration for me. I don't understand why I can't store the darn things. If they're going to knowingly give me DIYs I already have (because I can't say no when I villager offers me a DIY I already know) then I should be able to store them. Between getting DIYs from villagers, having them wash up on the beach, or fall from balloons I have so many repeats. It's frustrating.

Not to mention the method for learning DIYs seems to change holiday to holiday. The Spooky DIYs were handled the best, in my opinion. They could be found and they could be taught by villagers!! They also started being distributed October 1st. It was so much less stressful and it made sense. Of course the villagers will be crafting Spooky items during October. But why wasn't that method carried over? Festive DIYs could only be found via balloon and they didn't start being dropped until the 15th of December. I also would like it if you had the option to just buy the seasonal DIYs as a bundle from Nooks. They let us buy the Turkey Day ones, albeit after Turkey Day. Not everybody has time to play the game all day long or every day but they still want to be able to craft seasonal items too. So it would be nice if you could choose whether to hunt them down or simply buy them.

4.) I would love to have buildings be upgraded. It is so silly, in my opinion, that we still have the same Nooks & Ables as we did on day 1. Nooks sells a laughably small selection of items. I miss having more selection and it would be nice to give Leif his own part of the shop. The pop up NPCs drive me crazy. I don't need Leif tons but I replace my shrubs seasonally so when he doesn't show up until weeks after my shrubs have gone out of season it's a bummer. Also please let me buy things in bulk. Please. I always need at least 100 shrubs and buying them in bundles of 5 is soul crushing.

With the Able Sister's I would love to see Label back in the store mainly because I don't care for her as an NPC in the plaza. It feels like a waste of time especially once I realized it was leading to anything. Initially I thought her role was similar to Gracie's - pass a few fashion checks and she'll open up shop. But no. Girlfriend just comes by, evaluates my outfits, gives me a tacky piece of clothing and some tailors tickets. I don't even bother anymore. it would be nice to see Kicks either have his own shop again or share a shop with The Able Sisters.

I would also love to see Brewster's come back! I just think his cafe is really cozy and I have a littler diner area I wouldn't mind clearing to make space for him.

I get that some people are worried that if we have too many shops or if they upgrade the shops they'll lose part of the charm. I get that we're an island getaway so I don't need a T&T Emporium style Nooks - but only having three (sometimes four depending on the season) big furniture items a day after playing for a year is disappointing.


5.) Yeah, the Nook Miles is definitely lacklustre now. When I was first playing it was a really cool system - sort of like the Meow Tickets from New Leaf, but better. I thought the rewards we could get were pretty cool up until I got all the things I wanted. I don't understand why we can't have access to all the Nook Mile Item variants, that is really silly imo. I also really hope that they continue to add hairstyles & reactions to it as well as some new fences or something. I only really visit the kiosk if I want to go to an island for whatever reason. Maybe they could make the seasonal DIY bundles be something we buy with Nook Miles instead of just bells. It would be nice if we could maybe use our Nook Miles to move buildings, too. I keep collecting them but I don't have anything to spend them on.

Some improvements that I would personally like to see in the game are:

1.) Let me order more than 5 items a day, please. That's such a ridiculous limit especially when Nooks barely sells furniture.

2.) No. More. Weeds. or fallen branches, random stones, and letting flowers grow from the rain. Please. I hate the way the weeds look, I have more than enough if I ever need them for crafting and if I don't I can just go to a mystery island. The branches and stones don't need to be on the ground, if I want them I'll shake the tree or hit the stone. Letting flowers grow simply from rainfall and snowfall ends in having tons of flowers everywhere unless I've made flower beds where they're boxed in.

3.) I want to be able to go into the dressing room at the Able Sisters when in a magic wand outfit. Also can we please have the wetsuit be a magic wand outfit? Thanks.

4.) Speaking of outfits, it'd be nice to have mannequins back. I see islands that have shops, cafes, diners, etc. set up and people have said they'd love to have mannequins stationed there to look like employees. I'd love to have some on my beaches. If I can't make my wetsuit into a magic wand outfit it would be nice to have the full outfit displayed on a mannequin. Right now I'll have the wet suit, snorkel, & shoes on display on two of my rocks but it would be nicer if all three items could just be together on a mannequin and I could quickly swap outfits with it.

 

[Fridaynightcatlady]

OK, few thoughts here:

• The online stuff’s largely a result of the fact it’s peer to peer connection like the other AC games. It basically needs to load a load of stuff, which is why the loading screen exists. It’s kind of a pain, but eh, I can manage with it. What I would like to be able to do is to resume from where I was if I screwed up, because THAT’S the thing that slows me down a lot of the time (and it doesn’t involve making DAL an app, which is... a recurring theme with a lot of NH criticism? A lot of it is just WHY IS THIS GAME THAT INVOLVES MOVING AWAY FROM THE RUSH OF THE CITY AND INTO A SLOW COUNTRY ISLAND MAKING ME DO STUFF SLOWLY?)
• “WHY CAN’T WE CRAFT FROM STORAGE?” is missing the point of AC SO BADLY I’m amazed it’s a widespread opinion in the fandom... if you’re going to build something or make something IRL, you need to have the materials you need to hand. Why wouldn’t that apply in AC, a game that’s a life simulator? I’d much rather just be able to access my storage through wardrobe items, because I’ve got a ton of those outside. Bulk crafting would be pretty handy for certain things, too.
• I’ve never really had too much hassle with balloon gaming for recipes, but that’s because I basically camped out on my beach in order to get most of the “really limited time only” ones, which was a mild hassle at best. My main hassle is the many duplicate DIYs I’m getting in the quest to get the DIYs I have left to get (which is mainly wreaths, flower crowns and Celeste stuff, but does contain the odd personality-exclusive thing, including the wooden low table for some stupid reason) but eh, I’m just going to try and sell them on or give them away. Might do a thread here at some point! They are cluttering up my left beach tho, which is Very Annoying. It’s stuff designed for the social, IRL stuff that’s a core aspect of AC, it just kinda sucks when you’re drowning in it.
• Villager dialogue is good when it’s good (and I think it’s the best-written AC game in a while... although not The Best) because there’s lots of good stuff about their interests and their lives before the island and such, and I generally don’t get repeats of the same thing multiple times in a day like I did in NL... unless I’m talking to the two duplicate personalities I’ve got on my island, in which case I get the same stuff again a lot of the time... and I get a lot of this stuff daily compared to the deeper, more interesting stuff. Other things I dislike include the stuff that’s just one sentence (why?), HHA stuff not mentioning the villager’s scores, the dialogue system largely telling you stuff about yourself at the start of the day instead of mixing it up with other stuff, and my biggest complaint, villagers not giving you tasks to do often enough and there being the least amount of them ever. I would however, love to see more dialogue and stuff to do, because it fixes this complaint!
• Yeah, I’m basically sick of Bigger Nook’s Cranny at this point... but I know the shop upgrades are tied to stock availability more than the amount of stock available at one time in NH, so a new upgrade would have to come in an update that added a TON of new furniture (hopefully one that adds a load more 2x1 tables, because that’s a cornerstone of my AC houses). What I DON’T want them to do is to merge other NPCs into the shop. If more shops are added, let it be in a big shopping area outside your island, not just “hey, let’s take away a visiting NPC with a limited item selection and thoughtlessly put them inside something else!”
• For the record, I also want the post office and the police station back as well, because both perform QOL changes (sending more letters, being able to see who’s in town) without oversimplifying things or robbing charm from the game
• I’ve said this before in the update thread but I find it weird they’ve added Nook Points into the game, because Nook Miles basically occupy the same purpose and have the same kind of rewards (ie. Nook Inc. merch) However, I’d LOVE to have more outdoor-themed items to decorate with that are redeemable with them, mainly on account of the fact that I HAVE SO MANY OF THE THINGS, IT’S RIDICULOUS.
• I’d love some kind of online trading thing as long as it involved a shop with Reece and Cyrus, given how it’s kinda their thing?

I feel Nook Points was just another way of luring players into the app (which I’ll probably use only for the items and then toss), lol. I totally agree with you, though

 

[VanitasFan26]

I feel Nook Points was just another way of luring players into the app (which I’ll probably use only for the items and then toss), lol. I totally agree with you, though

I mean I don't use the app all that much. The only time I use it is to talk to people online by typing on the phone when doing trades, but other than that I don't use it much for anything else. Maybe I'll give it a shot when the Nook Points come out whenever that is suppose to be.