Do you buy items/bells/diys/etc. or do you progress your island organically?

[kayleee]

Exactly as the title says — How do you/did you progress your island? For example, did you earn all your own bells to pay off your loans or did you buy bells on the forum? Do you collect DIYs as they appear on your island or do you trade for them? Do you wait for Redd to visit to buy art or do you buy art from other players? Do you let random villagers move in or do you buy the ones you want/use amiibo cards?

I was thinking about this the other day because my home was paid off completely pretty early on in the game, and I was pretty active buying/trading for DIYs when the game first came out so I have almost all of them, and as a result have gotten very few organically from villagers crafting/finding them washed up on the beach. I also used amiibo cards to get the villagers I wanted, so now I’ve had the same villagers for almost the entire time since the game came out.

In a way I kind of regret playing like this because I feel like there is not much left to do on my island besides decorating, but I don‘t necessarily want to reset because I have put a lot of time into it. I’m not unhappy with my island, I just kinda wish I would have allowed my island to progress more naturally rather than try to get every item, DIY, tons of bells, etc. through trading so early on. I think this is a large reason why I don’t really play as much these days.

 

[Pyoopi]

It's more of a mixture for me. I didn't time travel a lot in the beginning and I like farming for fish/bugs plus I chose SH, so I had all the whale sharks to sell off. Like pretty much in the beginning it was organic. Then later on in the year I would trade here and there for DIYs/Items I wanted but not in the manner of completing something.

Two of my villagers were amiibo (card and a tbt prize) and the rest are pretty much whatever villager I'll move onto my island. I like trying new villagers and collecting photos.

 

[CrankyCupcake]

I treat AC as a singleplayer game, so the progress of my island has been mostly due to my own effort. Bells are earned through selling bugs and fish and fruit. All the collections in the museum except for the art section are completed because I caught everything on my island. The art collection, on the other hand, may never be completed because who knows when Redd will come again?

Most of my islanders are invited from mystery islands. There are a few exceptions. Raymond is what I exchanged 3 days of my life for, using the campsite method. Lolly and Marshal are amiibo move-ins. Dom was adopted from a forum member.

In the beginning, I traded a little, mostly giving away free duplicate DIYs. I did buy a few DIYs and items from other players here. But the bulk of DIYs are collected from stalking my islanders, opening bottles and participating in events. I've not collected every DIY. It doesn't bother me because I'm not a completionist. Having said that, I must say there is a single DIY I look forward to collecting eventually, but I probably will never get it despite always having two cranky guys on my island. The bonsai shelf DIY. After a year of playing every day, there's still no sign of it.

I'm going to let my Nintendo online subscription expire without renewal. I have no need of it as I've stopped trading for many months now and don't intend to resume.

After a year, it's reached the point where I can spend 15-20 minutes each day in the game and feel satisfied with that. I play AC for the animals and not for the decorating or social aspects of the game, so I forsee that I will be playing NH for a few years. It's fun for me to check in on my islanders and take screenshots. Where I live, it's a concrete jungle with tropical monsoons all year. AC is my little escape for a little while each day.

 

[mnk907]

Early on I would go visit other islands to get DIYs from crafters and would open up my airport for guests to do the same, and I've visited other islands for Celeste and Redd and shooting stars. I've also done my share of trading/buying different color variants of stuff. Oh and I also played the turnips game until I got the last stamp for it, so that involved finding people online. I've even used Nookazon a few times, but it always feels a little awkward and impersonal that way, so I don't like using it much.

Aside from Nookazon, though, I'd say most of that still feels like organic progression. It's how Nintendo designed the online structure to be, and I never rushed to get everything as soon as possible. I still don't have all the DIYs or artwork yet, and I'd say I've still barely scratched the surface for furniture color variants. I never really got in on the NMT market, which definitely feels like more of a commercial endeavor. Aside from one day when I was impatient for mail to arrive, I've also never time traveled either, or visited time traveling/southern hemisphere islands to catch bugs/fish ahead of schedule or anything like that.

 

[Xara]

i honestly wouldn’t have most of what i have now if it weren’t for other people - i bought the majority of my IGB, diys, nmt, art, etc. the only things that i don’t buy from others are event items and villagers as i prefer to get those myself.

 

[Rosch]

Turnips helped me pay off the last two house upgrades and helped me fill my ABD. Nowadays, I just trade my TBT for bells.

I obtained all the seasonal, Celeste & event DIYs myself (except some). As for other starndard DIYs, it's a mix of both; some are personal finds, some are from trades (especially the crowns and wreaths).

Majority of the artwork were bought and traded considering how rare Redd shows up.

Two of my villagers were adopted (Rolf & Punchy). The rest are either from the mystery islands or amiibo.

 

[JellyBeans]

at the beginning of the game especially I relied heavily on other people to get the majority of my furniture and specific DIYs so that I could decorate my house/island as I pleased in a shorter timeframe than if I found the DIYs myself, plus with the locked colour variations for furniture a lot of my island couldn't be the way that it is without other people. I remember very early on I think I sold some of my tbt for igb? and I almost felt bad about having so many bells so early on but now i have more than i know what to do with lmao, mostly earned through turnips (which again, largely relies on other people). I also moved in a lot of villagers from other people's islands because as much as i like island hunting, i lose patience quickly and then i still want to control who moves in.
however my NSO ran out a while back and i have yet to repurchase it so for now everything i do is totally off my own back! which is annoying when i'm just trying to finish my museum and redd only shows up once in a blue moon

 

[udinafrog]

I'm not much for trading online, so most of it was organic. Just traded at the begining, for different fruits and selling turnips a couple of times. Ah, and to get a painting because I got the Redd bug, so I could unlock him.

 

[JemAC]

I progressed my island mostly organically for the first few months; saving up bells from selling extra fish/bugs/fossils, buying items as they appeared at Nooks and collecting DIYs from villagers/bottles/balloons, the only trades I did in the beginning were a couple of fruit trades to get all the fruits on my island.

Since returning to the game around early December, after a few months break, I still try and progress my island organically but I've also begun buying items a lot more frequently which has been a great help as there are many items that I wouldn't be able to get or would have trouble finding without the help of kind people on here. I still don't buy bells as I already have a lot saved up in the game and in general I find them quite easy to earn, especially if I set aside a short time for fishing or diving and then sell everything I collect. I have however bought item variants that aren't sold on my island if it's an item that I want to use in island decorating as well as seasonal/event DIYs and items that I'd missed while not playing, such as mush DIYs and the wedding event items. In order to craft some of the DIYs I've also bought harder to obtain materials like gold nuggets, mushrooms and cherry blossom petals, while I collect the more common materials such as wood, sticks and rocks myself on the island. Also I've bulk bought NMTs a few times when I've been swapping a few villagers out and need a large amount of tickets in a short time for island hopping, though generally I'll work on completing some Nook Miles tasks each day to save up miles for redeeming NMTs.

 

[meggiewes]

I've only started buying NMTs for island hopping recently. I find it really fun looking for elusive villagers. I also have a small friend group I trade DIYs with.

Other than that, I'm progressing naturally.

 

[Sheando]

I’m a 98% natural progression play style; I enjoy the game a lot more when I’m putting the work in myself. I made a single exception at the end of fall, after playing daily for months and receiving two mush DIYs. I ended up purchasing the Toy Day DIYs from a user here because 1) I wanted to decorate my island for the holidays BEFORE those holidays, not after, and 2) event DIYs had reached the point where they did not feel at all obtainable through normal gameplay. I don’t regret the purchase as it saved me stress during winter, but I don’t think I would make a habit of it.

 

[piske]

Exactly as the title says — How do you/did you progress your island? For example, did you earn all your own bells to pay off your loans or did you buy bells on the forum? Do you collect DIYs as they appear on your island or do you trade for them? Do you wait for Redd to visit to buy art or do you buy art from other players? Do you let random villagers move in or do you buy the ones you want/use amiibo cards?

I was thinking about this the other day because my home was paid off completely pretty early on in the game, and I was pretty active buying/trading for DIYs when the game first came out so I have almost all of them, and as a result have gotten very few organically from villagers crafting/finding them washed up on the beach. I also used amiibo cards to get the villagers I wanted, so now I’ve had the same villagers for almost the entire time since the game came out.

In a way I kind of regret playing like this because I feel like there is not much left to do on my island besides decorating, but I don‘t necessarily want to reset because I have put a lot of time into it. I’m not unhappy with my island, I just kinda wish I would have allowed my island to progress more naturally rather than try to get every item, DIY, tons of bells, etc. through trading so early on. I think this is a large reason why I don’t really play as much these days.

I know what you mean. I’ve done this with past islands and it does feel like a bit of a rushed progression, but I’m usually also incredibly impatient with the island I have now I’ve resisted TTing and I’ve been earning bells on my own. I have gotten several DIYs, furniture pieces and lots of bush starts from the forum. Otherwise, I’ve been trying to get things on my own. It’s far slower for sure, but it’s also quite satisfying. However, if there is something I really want, I don’t mind buying it from someone else. I don’t believe there is a wrong way to play though, so as long as you like your island, that’s what counts!

 

[ThatRandomMayor]

For the most part, all DIYs i got organically except for some ironwood ones or celeste DIYs. I still have a lot to collect because i got burnt out for a few months. I made most of the bells myself, but I've found making money in NH so much easier than in other games? I really like the online play aspect and trading items in my wishlist though, so I've traded a lot for certain items. Although with villagers I got so lucky early on. The 3rd villager to move in was Sherb, Flora was my 4th, and Flurry was one of my original two. I think the island tours have made finding villagers so easy but now I have such hesitation to let anyone move out at all

 

[dizzy bone]

I paid 2-3 loans off by casual turnip trading, the rest was basically done by fishing/bugs/hot item selling over a long period of time. I also occasionally got donations from friends, bless them. I began buying bells off the forums was when I started big terraforming projects and needed funds to demolish and rebuild.

I prefer doing things organically and I don't mind going at a slow pace. But I am not against doing trades or relying on friends and their islands to get what I need. I actually really love doing wifi trades for little things like item cataloging, visiting a villager for a DIY, and bug/fish catching. For things like Redd I am in no rush to complete the museum, so I just wait for him to show up on my island. However, if I happen to be available to wifi and I spot an island open in the airport board with an artwork I need, I usually jump on it!

DIY hunting is kind of annoying but I did most of it myself other than the mermaid DIYs and a few seasonal ones that my friends helped me get.

 

[Marshmallows]

I traded a lot for diys in the beginning and catalogued a fair bit... I still trade at times for items in specific colors or to buy bells. I don't find fishing or bug catching too rewarding. In New Leaf, I enjoyed catching beetles, but in NH there's so many low paying bugs and I hate tarantulas and scorpions, so prefer just to buy bells. I used to sell items/diys, but I don't anymore.

The only thing I've never bought or traded for are seasonal diys and items. I prefer to get those on my own during the season.

 

[Corrie]

I began doing everything myself but the progress was too slow (Timmy and Tommy's shop, I'm looking at you) so I turned to this forum to buy everything and I couldn't have been happier.

 

[Manah]

I'll trade for color variants of furniture, rare materials, and those annoying 10-day balloon DIYs.

 

[Stella-Io]

I try to do as much organically as I can, but at some point it gets extremely hard. Mostly with getting recipes and colour variants, at which point I felt like I had to start buying/trading for them.

I would say I'm half/half. I did use some amiibos/adoption, some are random move ins. I got most of the recipes myself, some I bought. I do the events by myself and buy extra stuff later if need be. My home loans are almost 100% paid off by me. 90% of the time, I use NMTs I got by myself for villager hunting.

My other island thou, I used nearly all amiibo, and one adoption and one NMT island hop. Any recipes that char has were spares from me. Most materials were also from me, I just gave that island stuff I already had. It's still very under developed so there's plenty more stuff that needs to happen.

 

[Lullaboid]

For me it's been a mix of both. I accomplished a lot of stuff on my own, but after a certain point I started to buy diys and bells online more. I guess my logic was that if I was over 800 hours in and still hadn't found or done something, I should probably find a way to just speed it up. It took roughly 1,000 hours to completely finish my island, and after a certain point I didn't feel like sinking even more time into the game to just to get bells or find something.

 

[Seelie]

I've definitely bought bells, NMT, furniture variations (correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the only way to get certain colors if you didn't luck into it for your island to trade?). I've also bought some DIYs, art, and very occasionally villagers, although I have access to most amiibos so I don't need to buy any villagers who aren't brand new and generally prefer to get ahold of them myself. I've also stopped buying art since I learned how to TT to farm Redd, but I understand that's not something people may want to do, and generally I'd rather tip or pay people to craft items for me than buy DIYs unless I anticipate wanting an infinite amount of them, like garden benches and wooden stools.

Basically I'm willing to buy anything that I don't enjoy the grind for. Like, I'm happy to farm materials. I'm happy to wait for most DIYs to pop up on their own, too, save for very specific ones I intend to use a lot. But the enjoyment of the game for me is in building and decorating my island, and in interacting with my villagers and watching them wander around the island, so that's what I want to spend my time on.