does playing HHP make you enjoy playing ACNH less?

[dino]

so, i got the DLC later than everyone (sorry if this has been a topic already) but playing it and seeing:

• all the cool buildings on the main island!
• rock formations on the beach especially, that you can walk under!
• the bush planters!
• the ways that villagers interact with things and have parties on the beach!
• the different biomes of the islands, how you can build on ice or on rocks, etc.

is actually generating such bitterness in me that we don't have those things in main game. i understand that this is a DLC and it adds content to the original that isn't there, that's the point. i play HHP and i enjoy it but at the end of the work day i go home to my island and feel like i got cheated out of a full experience for the game as a whole.

i could have been designing a totally rock island with terraforming, instead of just grass!! i could have made seasonal changes be a really big deal! i could have tons of cool buildings!!!! all around my island!!! things could be just that one step further that takes the game from okay to fabulous the way that ACNL felt fabulous and complete.

does anyone else feel this and if so, how do you combat it and still enjoy main land playing?

 

[Firesquids]

This reminds me of the thing about Pocket Camp's items being better than NH. I agree I feel like there should have been more to the base game, seeing your villagers 'swimming' and chilling on the beach really gave them so much more life. But with any luck this will be an indicator for the content of the next mainline game.

 

[Halloqueen]

Though it's something I've become gradually more interested in undertaking in the past year or so as a way to freshen up, beautify and better organize my island, terraforming has never been a feature of this game that I've been all that interested in. Those aspects you listed are cool indeed, but not really something I feel I'm missing out on just due to my own preferences. Instead, I'll come at this from a different angle: interior decoration.

Happy Home Paradise doesn't make me enjoy playing less. On the contrary, if Happy Home Paradise didn't exist then I would have quit playing entirely ages ago like my other friends did. Interior design is my favorite thing to do in Animal Crossing games and, at least in my subjective opinion, they neglected it in the main game in favor of terraforming and being able to place items around outside on the island itself. Compared against the previous games in the series, the fully expanded rooms in the player housing in New Horizon are, I feel, too small, awkwardly laid out and restrictive. The DLC gives me the ability to make big cool 10x10 rooms like I want to, hundreds of them in fact, though unfortunately it makes it glaringly obvious how disappointing the player homes are in comparison.

Does it leave me feeling disappointed that we couldn't get such nice features on the main island, especially considering they let you unlock things like room dividing walls when the maxed out rooms of our player housing are so awkwardly laid out that they're barely worth trying to use? God yeah.

I don't do anything to combat those feelings, to be honest. Unfortunately, the situation is what it is. I have other games I play more often as well. As such, I just take it at face value, enjoy what the game has to offer, and hope that the next installment will be better for me.

 

[VanitasFan26]

The Outside Decorate Tool makes Terraforming in ACNH look so dated. You become so used to it that it spoils you so much. Not to mention even if you unlock the features to expand Room Size it won't let you do it on your island with your home or when your customizing villager homes. I honestly don't know what Nintendo was thinking. HHP had so much quality of life features that made it so fun to use with the Decorating Tools, but when you try to go back to your island on ACNH it just feels so limited and restricted.

 

[illumie]

Actually I enjoy playing ACNH more because of it. HHP breaks up the gameplay a bit and give a chance to do something different, so when I get bored of the main game it’s nice to fly over for a break.
I also feel like Nintendo is using DLCs to experiment and try out new stuff for later games, to get an understanding of what works and not.

 

[VanitasFan26]

Actually I enjoy playing ACNH more because of it. HHP breaks up the gameplay a bit and give a chance to do something different, so when I get bored of the main game it’s nice to fly over for a break.
I also feel like Nintendo is using DLCs to experiment and try out new stuff for later games, to get an understanding of what works and not.

Well whatever they have planned for the future of AC games I just hope they took what people said about ACNH and make it better. It still bothers me how they just release only one DLC expansion and then just said "Yeah we are done with this game and this is the "Only" DLC we are releasing and this will be the "Last" update for the game" Its like they just straight up gave up on the game. I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt that if they have something planned for the future AC but much better than the last AC games.

 

[TN4U]

It never did for me. Although after I completed all the required houses to get the special "design villager houses back on your island" thing, I just sort of stopped playing HHP for a while since there was no desire or real need to revisit it. However, this was back when I still kept my passion for the game hidden from most of the people I know, so I may play it again as my interior decorating skills have improved dramatically since I played HHP on the regular. Heck, the second player house I made on Wahu (a hotel) looks miles better than when I first started.

Here's my main house before I completely overhauled all the rooms, and looking at it now, it's quite embarrassing to say the least...

And here's Hotel Wahu on the second player account:

I feel accomplished.

 

[Corrie]

I mean, it doesn't make me want to play ACNH less, it just makes designing the outside of my actual island painful. I really wish you could change the mechanics to the ones in HHP.

 

[oath2order]

Actually, no. It makes me want to do ACNH more. I know that I'm likely to never unlock all the items in HHP from just getting all the villagers house's done. But I do know that I can eventually use my catalog (and I can use my DIYs right now, at least those I've made already) on the island.

So, knowing that, I'm pushed to catalog and build all DIYs so I can have it all available on HHP.

Then I can come back and use all the things I really want to use.

 

[LambdaDelta]

no, but damn do I wish we had some of the decorating qol features for our main island

the terraforming overhaul alone is just a huge l on nintendo's part for not including a way to do that on our own island

 

[S.J.]

I don’t mind that HHP has some features we don’t have on our own islands. I really like the things we did unlock in HHP, like the walls to separate rooms, the additional furniture (which I feel was desperately needed), and customising the homes of the villagers on our island.

I also liked breaking up playing ACNH with doing some vacation homes, and meeting new villagers, seeing what themed house they wanted, etc. Being able to buy things from Wardell was also nice!

 

[nightglow]

I don't feel like HHP makes the main feel like it's lacking (though I would very much like the overhead placement of things outside) simply because HHP does allow on to unlock decorating your villager homes which is a huge plus impo. Plus other things were added like more furniture items and diys.
But I do think HHP is a hint to what we could see in the next ac game.

 

[corlee1289]

Not gonna lie, it felt like HHP was beginning to feel like a chore for me when I was doing it

 

[JemAC]

Recently if I’ve been on AC other then for tbt events it’s generally just been to play a bit of HHP, wouldn’t necessarily say it makes me enjoy the game in general less but just provides a bit more interest for me atm

 

[Snek]

Happy Home Paradise has given both a positive and negative experience. Let's start with the negatives so I can get them out of the way.

Negatives:
1. Too many houses so its more of a chore than a game.
2. Too many islands (I'm all island out)
3. This should have been part of the base vanila game (like too many DLCs these days

Now lets go with positives!

Positives:
1. More furniture and DIYs!
2. More designing improvments (I love the sounds for ambiance)
3. I nice distraction from NH. You don't have to do HHP but it adds more gameplay to a game that has burned me out many times.

 

[Seastar]

Somewhat, but not for the same reasons. I just get burned out having to design all these houses... I am still not done playing HHP as much as I intended to and the burnout is the main issue.
But with that said, I always get burnout from playing Animal Crossing. I've never finished any of my towns or my island because of this.

 

[dino]

Though it's something I've become gradually more interested in undertaking in the past year or so as a way to freshen up, beautify and better organize my island, terraforming has never been a feature of this game that I've been all that interested in. Those aspects you listed are cool indeed, but not really something I feel I'm missing out on just due to my own preferences. Instead, I'll come at this from a different angle: interior decoration.

Happy Home Paradise doesn't make me enjoy playing less. On the contrary, if Happy Home Paradise didn't exist then I would have quit playing entirely ages ago like my other friends did. Interior design is my favorite thing to do in Animal Crossing games and, at least in my subjective opinion, they neglected it in the main game in favor of terraforming and being able to place items around outside on the island itself. Compared against the previous games in the series, the fully expanded rooms in the player housing in New Horizon are, I feel, too small, awkwardly laid out and restrictive. The DLC gives me the ability to make big cool 10x10 rooms like I want to, hundreds of them in fact, though unfortunately it makes it glaringly obvious how disappointing the player homes are in comparison.

Does it leave me feeling disappointed that we couldn't get such nice features on the main island, especially considering they let you unlock things like room dividing walls when the maxed out rooms of our player housing are so awkwardly laid out that they're barely worth trying to use? God yeah.

I don't do anything to combat those feelings, to be honest. Unfortunately, the situation is what it is. I have other games I play more often as well. As such, I just take it at face value, enjoy what the game has to offer, and hope that the next installment will be better for me.

belated response but this is a very healthy way to approach this, haha.

good point about the player house layouts that i hadn't thought much about. mostly bc i feel unmotivated to do much with mine yet, but absolutely the lack of customization on them feels wildly strange, given the range of perimeters introduced in HHP. i definitely think having a space/part of the game dedicated specifically to interior design encourages focusing on it and has developed my skill in it too. i'm glad you get to focus on the aspect of the game you love the most!

 

[Xara]

i haven played either of them in months (unless me playing just to create tbt event entries counts lol), but not really. i think hhp was a great addition to the game— the partition wall, pillars, and counters have been fun to use and play around with while doing interior design, the addition of soundscapes, effects, and different lighting are awesome and also very fun to play around with, i love having the option to redesign my villagers’ interiors and exteriors the way i want, and being able to create a vacation home for each villager is a great way to meet and experience villagers without actually having them on your island— it’s like a bonus island where you can have all of your faves :’)

however, i don’t enjoy hhp as much as i enjoy playing new horizons itself. i love interior design and trying to figure out what colours, items, wallpapers/floorings/carpets etc look good together, but designing and decorating have never been my fave things to do in an animal crossing game, so i’ve mostly just used hhp to try and obtain the new 2.0 items and features for the most part. trying to design vacation homes that i’m proud of has been hard, especially since i’m struggling with how i want to decorate my own house and island, and it’s kinda contributed to my new horizons burnout a bit i prefer to focus on things like obtaining villager photos, working on completing all of my nm achievements etc, so i’ve kinda neglected hhp a bit. it’s been out for almost 3 years now, and i’ve only designed around 30 vacation homes

 

[lunecaster]

I recently got HHP after not playing ACNH for months, and I have to say it kind of got me back into playing the game again. I've mostly been playing NL since I prefer it to NH, but I love interior design and HHP is just really satisfying for that. The options for customization are great and really fun to play around with. I'm surprised at the depth it has, at least in this initial phase of playing.

My main source of conflicting feelings about whether it makes me want to play ACNH more or less is the fact that it just reminds me of all of the limitations of vanilla ACNH, in my opinion. Don't get me wrong - ACNH isn't a bad game, but I really do feel like it was rushed and could've included so much more. Also, designing houses in HHP is so much better than the player house, and don't get me started on how the mechanics feel much better ://

Either way, it got me back into playing ACNH but it also makes me aware of the things missing in the base game. It has made me actively want to try working on my house at the very least, and motivated me to unlock some of the stuff I've been missing since restarting my island - I barely played after 2.0 and restarted shortly afterwards. Taking a step back from ACNH might have also contributed to this feeling, and getting back into playing NL regularly lessened my disappointment with NH as I had a great Animal Crossing game to rediscover.

 

[dino]

The Outside Decorate Tool makes Terraforming in ACNH look so dated. You become so used to it that it spoils you so much. Not to mention even if you unlock the features to expand Room Size it won't let you do it on your island with your home or when your customizing villager homes. I honestly don't know what Nintendo was thinking. HHP had so much quality of life features that made it so fun to use with the Decorating Tools, but when you try to go back to your island on ACNH it just feels so limited and restricted.

yeahhhhhh i feel

this intensely. i actually enjoy terraforming in ACNH as a labor that i can chip away at like a daily chore for big projects, but the UI leaves so much to be desired, when we actually know how it can be! it's a strange choice to me, to make the DLC so seamless and the main game so mmm sluggish.

Actually I enjoy playing ACNH more because of it. HHP breaks up the gameplay a bit and give a chance to do something different, so when I get bored of the main game it’s nice to fly over for a break.
I also feel like Nintendo is using DLCs to experiment and try out new stuff for later games, to get an understanding of what works and not.

this is fair! i agree the difference in game play is a nice contrast. a good point abt nintendo using DLC to try something out, too.