Do you feel like the Rating System is flawed?

[VanitasFan26]

When I say this I am talking about the star rating when you talk to Isabelle. From what I understand there things about this rating system that bothers me. Mostly the part where Isabelle complains about having too many trees and of course not enough flowers.

I feel sorry for those who wanted to make a forest looking island with a lot of trees, but apparently Isabelle doesn't like it when you have that many trees and she literally tells you to cut down on them so that way the island is not so cluttered. This is also annoying when you're trying to build a big orchard and Isabelle whines about not having much "variety" meaning that you don't have enough saplings or fruit trees. So its like you really gotta make sure the trees are balanced.

Now the flowers sheesh. I can see why so many people including myself had an issue with this. I remember when I had so many flowers on my island it made Isabelle happy and she was okay with that, but it didn't make it okay that there was so many flowers all over the island. I had to literally dig them out because it was so "cluttered" which really bothers me why would Isabelle complain about too many trees yet she never complains about too many flowers? It just rubs me the wrong way. I have a 2nd island that doesn't have much flowers and I somehow got a 5 star rating.

What do you think about Isabelle's Island Rating System? Do you think its flawed or do you think its fine the way it is?

 

[-Mars-]

No it's ridiculous, wait why do we even HAVE a rating system? why can't we just decorate our islands however we want and stop listing to Isabelle's obnoxious opinions? What happened to C-R-E-A-T-I-V-I-T-Y?

 

[VanitasFan26]

No it's ridiculous, wait why do we even HAVE a rating system? why can't we just decorate our islands however we want and stop listing to Isabelle's obnoxious opinions? What happened to C-R-E-A-T-I-V-I-T-Y?

The original idea was to make your island 3 star rating just to invite K.K Slider but the most annoying part was that you had to have a lot flowers planted just to bump up to 3 stars. Not to mention you also need to have a 5 star rating if you want to get the Golden Watering Can DIY and of course the Lily of the Valley Flower that shows up on the cliffs.

 

[-Mars-]

The original idea was to make your island 3 star rating just to invite K.K Slider but the most annoying part was that you had to have a lot flowers planted just to bump up to 3 stars. Not to mention you also need to have a 5 star rating if you want to get the Golden Watering Can DIY and of course the Lily of the Valley Flower that shows up on the cliffs.

It should have been a 3-Star rating system, once you get 3 stars and get K.K you kind of beat the main storyline. They should have thought of a different way to get a golden watering can just like how Gulliver somehow has the recipe for the golden shovel, as for lily of the valley's maybe some kind of extreme gardening? Think about how the physics ACTUALLY work, wow! your island has five-stars these lily of the valley's LOVE you! They started to grow on your island! That literally makes no sense.

 

[VanitasFan26]

It should have been a 3-Star rating system, once you get 3 stars and get K.K you kind of beat the main storyline. They should have thought of a different way to get a golden watering can just like how Gulliver somehow has the recipe for the golden shovel, as for lily of the valley's maybe some kind of extreme gardening? Think about how the physics ACTUALLY work, wow! your island has five-stars these lily of the valley's LOVE you! They started to grow on your island! That literally makes no sense.

It almost feels like you have to force yourself to get a 5 star island just because you feel so incomplete after K.K. Silder showed up to your island, but thats a topic for another thread. At the end of the day I just learned to just make the island the way I want and not Isabelle bother me, but of course both my islands are 5 stars because I did some interesting designs.

 

[pottercrossing]

No it's ridiculous, wait why do we even HAVE a rating system? why can't we just decorate our islands however we want and stop listing to Isabelle's obnoxious opinions? What happened to C-R-E-A-T-I-V-I-T-Y?

Exactly. I mean, people have treasure islands, for crying out loud, and what's Isabelle doing? Practically screaming at them for having too many things dropped on the ground, and what are the owners of the island trying to do? They're trying to help people with builds and villager hunts and completing their catalogues! Why can't Isabelle see it?

 

[Croconaw]

I don’t even get the point of a ratings system. Hot take: Why are people so concerned with having a five star island? I’d rather have an island I’m happy with than an island I’m only content with but Isabelle says it’s five stars. I don’t care what Isabelle says about my island. I don’t concern myself with her opinions. People will design their whole island to get five stars and stress out over nothing… I don’t check my rating at all nor do I care what she says. I only cared to get the three stars for terraforming. After that, I couldn’t care less.

 

[VanitasFan26]

I don’t even get the point of a ratings system. Hot take: Why are people so concerned with having a five star island? I’d rather have an island I’m happy with than an island I’m only content with but Isabelle says it’s five stars. I don’t care what Isabelle says about my island. I don’t concern myself with her opinions. People will design their whole island to get five stars and stress out over nothing… I don’t check my rating at all nor do I care what she says. I only cared to get the three stars for terraforming. After that, I couldn’t care less.

The only reason why I would check the rating was so I can get the Golden Watering Can DIY, I did that for my 2nd island and guess what its still look a bit bare bones but I didn't care at least I still got a 5 star rating and I too don't care how my island looks as long as I am comfortable with the navigation.

 

[Mr_Keroppi]

I think the rating system is more about the "perfect" town as in the most wanted kind of typical town. I feel bad for people like you said who want to make forest towns! Or people who want to make galaxy towns and have a TON of star fragments. I felt like the rating system should have stayed back in new leaf honestly. I think it made alot more since in New Leaf. In New Horizons its all about creativity so it doesnt really fit the brief for almost all of peoples towns.

 

[moo_nieu]

i think its fine, but it would be nice if she didnt dock points for me having so many trees. how can my villagers possibly get lost when theyre permanent residents, they know how to get around. plus theres a map so idk what shes talking about -_-

overall, i already grew all of the lily of the valleys that i ever want so the rating system doesnt bother/affect me at all

 

[Sheydra]

Yes majorly flawed. I feel I takes away the ability to do the island your way.

 

[maria110]

The rating system is kind of silly because you can literally just plunk down a bunch of crap and get a high rating. I also really hate having to have a ton of flowers to get a 5 star rating. I hate digging them up when I want to change theme or color scheme. Yuck. And I'd love to have a forest with tons of trees. I understand that a zillion trees makes it hard to catch bugs (and the creepy crawly scorpion and tarantula can more easily bite you) but if you are not seeking to complete the museum, you might not care about being able to see and capture bugs.

 

[VanitasFan26]

The rating system is kind of silly because you can literally just plunk down a bunch of crap and get a high rating. I also really hate having to have a ton of flowers to get a 5 star rating. I hate digging them up when I want to change theme or color scheme. Yuck. And I'd love to have a forest with tons of trees. I understand that a zillion trees makes it hard to catch bugs (and the creepy crawly scorpion and tarantula can more easily bite you) but if you are not seeking to complete the museum, you might not care about being able to see and capture bugs.

Well there are some ways to get a better rating from all the times I restarted and tested so here it is:

You can just have only 8 villagers living on your island;
This one surprised me because I always though you needed to have 10 villagers living on your island to boost your rating well that is technically true its not really. You see if you try to have only 6 or 7 villagers and you go talk to Isabelle she will call you out and telling you to invite more villagers. Like my island was at a "1 star rating" despite the fact that I decorated my island with a lot of flowers, fencing, and furniture items she is upset because I haven't invited any villagers (pretty strict if you ask me). So yeah having 8 villagers is enough to boost your rating at least to a 3 star to invite KK or when you fully decorated the island you should get a 5 star.

Have variety of trees planted (Saplings, Cedar Saplings, and Fruit Trees) and plant A LOT of flowers:
Now this one can be tricky, but basically if you don't have enough trees planted on your island Isabelle will call you out saying that the " Landscape has potential" it means that you need to have variety of trees planted (Saplings, Cedar Saplings, Fruit Trees) and a lot and I mean A LOT of flowers planted on the island. This one is hardest one because you really need to plant so many flowers just so that Isabelle is more satisficed and the rating should go up. I always find this one odd because she does call you out on having "Too many trees" yet when you have so many flowers she doesn't really care at all.

Decorate your entire island with Furniture items:
I see people struggle with this one so I will do my best to explain this one. So if you talk to Isabelle she will mention that the island is "Lacking appealing scenery" it means that you don't have enough furniture decorated your island and you don't have enough fencing. Do this make sure you put a lot of furniture all over the island and have more fencing usually I just use fences to make big gardens. I also recommend the furniture to use more often are Floor Lights, Streetlamps, and Garden Lanterns just to name a few that can be helpful for your island.

So yeah thats the tips I can say to get a 5 star rating on the first try after restarting your island. It is confusing sometimes and just thought I would clear this up for when Isabelle is a bit harsh on your rating.

 

[-Mars-]

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[-Blue-]

I voted yes because you can kind of fudge the rating by dumping a ton of furniture with no rhythm and get 5 stars and also work really hard on an island that looks creative and only get 3-4.

Like I heard people at the start were able to just keep dumping the campfire furniture all around their island and got 5 stars.

 

[Introspective Onlooker]

No (to the poll, not the title of the thread). Conceptually, it makes sense that your island would be evaluated, so it could potentially attract new visitors, but, similar to many other things about NH, it's haphazardly executed. It's bad enough that the game throws a long tutorial at the player, but the rating system is also one of the first things introduced into the game once the tutorial is finished. I thought Animal Crossing was supposed to be a simple pick-up-and-play game. Devs are asking a lot out of the player by having them micro-manage their island the way this game wants them to do. The game wants you to build the island you want, but this rating system won't let you do that effectively, because you have to play by its rules and work around the limitations. It's no wonder why not many people find this fun.

 

[-Blue-]

No (to the poll, not the title of the thread). Conceptually, it makes sense that your island would be evaluated, so it could potentially attract new visitors, but, similar to many other things about NH, it's haphazardly executed. It's bad enough that the game throws a long tutorial at the player, but the rating system is also one of the first things introduced into the game once the tutorial is finished. I thought Animal Crossing was supposed to be a simple pick-up-and-play game. Devs are asking a lot out of the player by having them micro-manage their island the way this game wants them to do. The game wants you to build the island you want, but this rating system won't let you do that effectively, because you have to play by its rules and work around the limitations. It's no wonder why not many people find this fun.

Yeah I've mentioned that a few times here. They spin the game as 'play and create the way you want' but then have Isabelle nitpick everything.

When this game first launched, I was really disgusted at how this turned into a shallow social media/insta-gram game. So many people were so worked up about the perfect town and stressing themselves out about it and to me that loss the charm and reason that I liked AC in the first place. It's supposed to be a chill and relaxing game.

I never worried about it myself, but being barraged by it everywhere I went online started to wear thin on me as well.

 

[Kitsuragi]

i don't mind the rating system, and i prefer the one in NH to the one in NL. to me, it's much easier to reach 5 stars in new horizons than new leaf. and i know star ratings literally mean nothing at the end of the day, but i felt really happy finally having 5 stars on an animal crossing game. i never had a perfect town in new leaf because my villagers just never recommended PWPs that fit my town theme

 

[Mr_Keroppi]

i don't mind the rating system, and i prefer the one in NH to the one in NL. to me, it's much easier to reach 5 stars in new horizons than new leaf. and i know star ratings literally mean nothing at the end of the day, but i felt really happy finally having 5 stars on an animal crossing game. i never had a perfect town in new leaf because my villagers just never recommended PWPs that fit my town theme

PWP hunting was A STRUGGLE

 

[Tiffany]

I have played ac since the gamecube version and I have never like the whole perfect town thing. It was actually worse before cause they not only told you what you need more of but also where you had to put it(which specific acre). It's also very confusing cause Isabelle keeps going back and forth from you need more flowers/trees to you need more decorative items and back again. How about keep saying I need flowers til I don't need more flowers and then move to the next thing? Also I really dont get why they want to force us to use fences. Dumb. I don't want my island cluttered with stuff but the game forces you to(my island is very much an island not a city). I ended up just dumping stuff everywhere until I hit 5 stars and once I got the gold watering can I cleaned it all up and ignored the ratings thereafter. Weird thing is I noticed in the past month or so I was suddenly getting a ton of lily of the valley plants which you only get from having 5 stars. I finally talked to Isabelle again and I do have 5 stars. Why did I need all the crap everywhere to get 5 stars if I have it now without it? Makes no sense at all.