Did you tell yourself you’d never time travel, but still end up doing it?

[moon_child]

Honestly, I don’t have anything against time traveling. I also don’t have anything against not time traveling. I believe that anyone can play the game any way they want to because it’s their game and Animal Crossing isn’t a competitive game so I really don’t believe there is such a thing as “cheating” (this is what anti TTers always swear by) in this genre of a game. People have different play-styles and there are a lot of reasons for people to TT and I think they are valid. Some TT to future events to collect stuff faster because they get bored waiting for things. Some TT to past events because they missed playing them because they were busy celebrating those events in real life. Most people start off saying they won’t TT but fail to keep that promise because come on, we have actual real lives outside Animal Crossing and you can’t just expect everyone to prioritize logging in on a game for thirty minutes every single day to play it on real time like it’s a weird obligation. Not everyone has the time everyday for that. For me personally, gaming is a hobby and it’s something you enjoy doing when you have the time for it. Your free time to enjoy hobbies could be ten minutes to none on a workday or a whole 6 hours on weekends. This is why I personally don’t believe in strictly sticking to playing AC in short bursts everyday “like Nintendo intended” because not everyone has the luxury to do that and I think dictating a time when or how long to play a game for takes away the fun of it and makes the game feel like a free to play game for mobile and not a full title release purchased on a console.

 

[Clock]

Unfortunately yeah, I started tt-ing to get all Celeste diys and to make up the days and holidays I missed out on, but its still worth it for me imo.

 

[Anj2k6]

I've personally only ever done it to kick people out so I didn't miss out on a dreamie giveaway. I want new Horizons to last a long time for me.
(I never got too far in New Leaf and now I'm scared to back heh ;w; )

 

[Corrie]

I try not to because I don't like having my time not syncing with real life, but I do it to progress things faster such as renos or inviting villagers from the campsite. Ain't nobody got the patience to wait for that lol. At least I don't.

 

[azurill]

I didn’t tell myself that because I knew at some point I would time travel. It wasn’t very far just a day or two. To either move villagers in or out. To replay events if I missed them. Since the update I have stayed on the same date once just so I could island hop when I had the time. I feel no need to time travel now. There is so much to do in a day now.

 

[Regalli]

I didn’t this game, but that’s only because crafting let me feel like I was progressing before the store opened and outdoor decorating cleared up pocket space in that agonizing wait for the museum to be built - if I hadn’t had a way to acquire some basic furniture and store all those fish and bugs, I would have, because oh is that thought process familiar. (Not that I judge anyone who does time travel, but generally if I want to play AC, the realtime clock’s part of the draw or else I’d hop over to a different sim, so I generally only do it for unlocking things when, say, the store being closed for the day means you cannot sell items, period.)

 

[Speeny]

I haven’t TT’d in NH. Don’t ever plan to. Learnt my lesson with New Leaf. Completely destroyed the point of the game for me.

 

[Mick]

I got the game at launch, and set myself a goal to not TT until I had at least completed the "Days played" achievement. If I recall correctly, the highest badge level on that is for 300 days, so I ended up not TT'ing until last January. I think I would have burnt out on the game much faster if I hadn't done that.

That said, I had no problems setting the clock backwards several times just to be able to visit the shops... And with the update now, I do TT for say, ordering items, but not to unlock new stuff. Like before, I just don't want to rush through the content.

Ultimately it's obviously up to everyone individually to decide how they want to play. Different things work for different people!

 

[Xara]

lmao yeah. i time travelled obsessively in new leaf, so i made a promise to myself that i wouldn’t do that this time. ...fast forward to me time travelling after only having the game for a few weeks so that i could unlock the nook’s cranny upgrade LOL.

nowadays, i only time travel to catch up to present time after taking a hiatus from the game or when i want to move a villager out, so i technically did keep my promise to not time travel obsessively, but y’know.

 

[dragonair]

I did that in New Leaf so I was just honest with myself regarding New Horizons lol. Trying to get people to move out in New Leaf broke my will.

 

[Fey]

Never considered it, never tempted, never gave in. It just doesn’t appeal to me at all.

Amassing items quicker is pointless for me, and unlocking features sooner just means less to look forward to. All in all, I see it as cutting my experience short, when longevity is one of the main appeals of AC to me personally.

 

[~Kilza~]

I came into this game not wanting to TT at all, and to date I still haven't. I think playing daily has really helped in that regard, since it does mean I don't have much of a reason to TT, as otherwise I'd probably do all the remaining tasks I need to do in a couple of real life days and thus have no reason to play daily, lol, and instead I can just take things on a day-by-day basis.

 

[deerteeth]

Honestly, don't even worry about it! It's up to the player whether or not they would like to time travel, so you should be able to play however you want without others telling you it's bad.

I think the only time time travelling is "bad" was at the very beginning when people were treating it like some kind of race and were shaming people who were taking the game day-by-day because they didn't have all of the things they had, like a developed house, perfectly terraformed village, specific items, etc. And even in that case, it wasn't necessarily the time travelling that was bad, it was the attitude of that type of person!

But to actually answer the question, I planned not to time travel for a year and then told myself I could do whatever I wanted after that. At the end of last year, I ended up time travelling to experience Halloween (and to collect some things I think?) because I had gotten frustrated with my village and stopped playing, so I missed it! Around the same time, I time travelled on my partner's game a lot (with permission), but I can't remember why. I might time travel soon to start collecting new furniture I need to decorate my house. It's still empty over a year later, so I'd like to start soon!

 

[Mokuren]

I TT since the GC version and it's totally fine and "not bad". Everyone should play as they want. You want to TT? Go ahead.

When AcNH came out I played day by day until I unlocked everything. Now I am TTing sometimes and it's for me the most fun this way

 

[Pig-Pen]

I TT all the time, essentially because I hate waiting a day for every villager house I move or bridges to be built or demolished....basically for that kind of stuff.....

 

[Underneath The Stars]

yes. especially when i missed events as i haven't played for MONTHS. ⚰

 

[Tindre]

Yeah. I was not going to time travel but started because a friend got me a villager I had wanted. The whole villager gacha system is the only reason I started doing it and it kinda ruined the game for me. I wanted the natural process over time of getting better villagers but nope. Was given several by my friend and found 2 or 3 on islands and all the while time travelling to move people out and to stay on the same day on hunts. I dont want to play animal crossing like this as it removes a lot of the fun.

 

[Crowsie]

When I start a new AC game, I always give myself a grace period before I start time traveling. For New Leaf, it was 1 year. I lasted about 3 months before I started TTing, but even then it was only a day or two forward and then back (to get PWPs done faster). I held off on TT for about a month and some change for NH. OFC, it was just forward then back, so I was never going too far into the future. Even now, I only TT with purpose (like going back a month to catch fish or bugs I missed). I can't bring myself to time travel too far off of the actual date. I know it doesn't make much of a difference, but it makes me feel kinda weird. Like I'm subjecting my animals to some temporal time sickness.

 

[Moritz]

For those who say that time travelling is not cheating, here some food for thought though.
(I'm not actively taking a stance either way).

Animal crossing is a social game that encourages trading.
Items and materials can take a lot of work and or irl time to get.

When someone time travels, they get huge advantages in this field.

Such as being able to time travel back and forth to easily get all the gulliver items multiple times a day.

That could easily take a non time travelling player over a year to do.

So this pushes people who don't time travel out of the online economy.

I've seen this many times myself where people have gone to sell something they have worked really hard on, just to find that it is so common place that it's basically worthless.

As I said, I'm not taking a stance either way on if it should or should not be done, and you can certainly say that the community is not a part of the game so it doesn't count, but I personally can't say time travelling is a completely harmless thing to do that affects no one else

 

[Therhodian]

For those who say that time travelling is not cheating, here some food for thought though.
(I'm not actively taking a stance either way).

Animal crossing is a social game that encourages trading.
Items and materials can take a lot of work and or irl time to get.

When someone time travels, they get huge advantages in this field.

Such as being able to time travel back and forth to easily get all the gulliver items multiple times a day.

That could easily take a non time travelling player over a year to do.

So this pushes people who don't time travel out of the online economy.

I've seen this many times myself where people have gone to sell something they have worked really hard on, just to find that it is so common place that it's basically worthless.

As I said, I'm not taking a stance either way on if it should or should not be done, and you can certainly say that the community is not a part of the game so it doesn't count, but I personally can't say time travelling is a completely harmless thing to do that affects no one else

You are right, but still it's a pain to meet gulliver all the time and do the time skipping.
I mean I time travel after I restart a island, because there's nothing to do otherwise.
However its really boring to time travel. It's just a pain your in loading screen all the time.

Also there's a lot of people giving stuff away for free, and helping one another.
Some people are just greedy and I think that, that is the problem.
In a sense we are pushed out of a lot of things. I could never join the olympics because I was born handicapped.
I could go to the paralympics in theory, but still.... It's those great people that organize paralympics and decided there needs to be such a thing that helps us going forward.

In that sense I hope people will not go full greedy in this game and help each other. It's a social game, we should have fun together.