Hot Take: villager conversations in this game are actually Not That Bad

[Lord Citron]

hey y'all!

while I was playing today I couldn't stop thinking about the numerous complaints I've heard about the dialogue in this game, about the villager dialogue specifically. and when I first started playing I was definitely on that train. but about 6 months ago I reset my island and took a very different approach to playing the game. I took the time to talk to my villagers more, even though I was getting a lot of the same dialogue. then I started giving them regular presents, and doing favors. essentially, I actually put time and effort into raising my friendship with my villagers.

and what do you know, the dialogue started to get more interesting, varied, and even sometimes had the flavor of previous games, that sass that people have mentioned so much when talking about dialogue in previous games. I would like to mention I have played nearly every iteration of this game excluding city folk so I remember dialogue in previous games, and it eventually got repetitive there too, because there's only so much unique dialogue that can be written, and if you play for long enough, you will run out of new dialogue.

of course I still think a lot of the complaints about the dialogue are valid, I have noticed how much the personalities have changed over the years. even after a certain amount of friendship has been achieved, the dialogue will still get repetitive if you've been playing for long enough. there's also always the factor of RNG which affects how often you get a phrase or conversation. I wish there was more dialogue uniqueness and variety within personality types, so that different villagers of the same personality type felt more like individuals.

I have included some examples of dialogue I enjoyed in the spoilers below to make my point. I'm really interested to hear different opinions on this. What do y'all think about this topic? Do you have any funny/interesting dialogue screenshots to share?

Spoiler

sheldon roasts me for getting stung

charlise has been around the block, seen some things

tangy is trying to absorb me and Timbra to make clones of herself

drago details his cyborg transformation

 

[Raz]

I agree. And I always felt like the dialog in NL was bland and uninteresting. NH has some legitimately funny and clever dialog, and some of it are even on par with ACGC.

 

[Serabee]

I mean, I think there could be more of it, but I really don't mind the dialogue we do have.

Also, what really shines is the dialogue between villagers IMO. The other day Judy and Raymond were discussing a play Raymond was gonna do, and Judy would be the princess and he'd be the prince. But the catch was- SHE was gonna rescue HIM with a kiss. Judy... did not like this idea.

IDK how to post videos from tweets, but I caught some of the convo-

https://twitter.com/x/status/1353515235722727425

And here's Raymond talking about bugs in the museum-

https://twitter.com/x/status/1355000692130213888

 

[RoxasFan25]

I seen this already with my villagers. I think there is something you should know. Its the problem with the personalities. Like say if you have 4 Lazy villagers on your island they are all going to talk the same way. Also the villagers talking to each other it does happen on rare occasions but when I see it, I just seem arguing about the same stuff. Like for example. 2 of my Cranky's Apollo and Fang were talking about who is more crankier and I just told them I like them both. Then the next day they talked to each other and they were again talking about who was cranky. So there's that.

The Point I'm trying to say is that even though you seen this dialogue in different ways its the problem having too many of the same personality villagers on your island that makes it repetitive. Hence the reason why I don't bother inviting too many villagers with the same personality because I already know what they are going to say. Its sad to say this because its so predictable.

 

[VexTheHex]

Disagree. I currently have 3 Smugs and it's not uncommon to get the exact same dialogue from them especially for the first talk of the day. Ken is new to my island while the other 2 have been here since my forced Smug camper and August 8th for the other. Friendship only sparks a few different conversations. And then you just hear that one 100x over.

Hot Take - Pascal should of just got a repeated line set up and the effort intro giving him hundreds of sayings could of been used to actually give life into the characters people actually care about and interact with multiple times a day.

 

[Serabee]

And here are some screenshots I found on my imgur-

And my all-time favorite dialogue that will never not be funny-

 

[Starfish10]

I remember getting NL for the first time, being so excited, and then talking to the first villager I saw and getting some dialogue. Then I talked to the villager again and he kept repeating the same line every time I talked to him until I walked away! And then I donated something to the museum only to find out that Blathers didn’t Blather anymore! The dialogue in that game just made me sad. I think City Folk was similar. So I’ve been thrilled with the dialogue from NH! It’s much richer than the last couple games and reminds me more of the dialogue from GameCube and WW.

 

[Lord Citron]

I seen this already with my villagers. I think there is something you should know. Its the problem with the personalities. Like say if you have 4 Lazy villagers on your island they are all going to talk the same way. Also the villagers talking to each other it does happen on rare occasions but when I see it, I just seem arguing about the same stuff. Like for example. 2 of my Cranky's Apollo and Fang were talking about who is more crankier and I just told them I like them both. Then the next day they talked to each other and they were again talking about who was cranky. So there's that.

The Point I'm trying to say is that even though you seen this dialogue in different ways its the problem having too many of the same personality villagers on your island that makes it repetitive. Hence the reason why I don't bother inviting too many villagers with the same personality because I already know what they are going to say. Its sad to say this because its so predictable.

yes I think I mentioned this briefly in my post, that I wish the personalities had more dialogue options so they don't all say the same stuff. I definitely agree with you on that, it really is weird to hear two villagers say the exact same stuff all the time. also I'm sure there will be overlap in the dialogue we all encounter, because some of us have been playing since launch and there's not enough dialogue to keep things from getting repetitive. but since the update and actually befriending my villagers, I have noticed more varied dialogue.

Post automatically merged: Feb 6, 2021

Disagree. I currently have 3 Smugs and it's not uncommon to get the exact same dialogue from them especially for the first talk of the day. Ken is new to my island while the other 2 have been here since my forced Smug camper and August 8th for the other. Friendship only sparks a few different conversations. And then you just hear that one 100x over.

Hot Take - Pascal should of just got a repeated line set up and the effort intro giving him hundreds of sayings could of been used to actually give life into the characters people actually care about and interact with multiple times a day.

I'm not really trying to argue that the dialogue is perfect or not repetitive. the dialogue could have been so so much better, and I think there are many improvements that could be made. I just don't think it's as bad as everyone makes it out to be. it's obvious to me they tried, just didn't put in the kind of effort into the dialogue system as I was hoping for. we also have to keep in mind that the dialogue we get is RNG, so it might get extra repetitive sometimes because you just so happen to get the same phrases in the random generation. it doesn't help that you have so many villagers of the same personality. which is why I really wish they would have given separate sub categories or something for each personality type that would give them unique dialogue options even though they are the same personality type.

 

[Silkfawn]

I can't speak of the previous games since NH is my first AC game.

But I have to disagree!
The conversations are bland and boring I feel like I force myself to talk to my villagers sometimes.

They constantly talk about the other characters on my island (they're all my accounts), talk about the random people that visit me for trade, talk about the outfit I'm wearing if it's custom design, etc...

I don't want mean villagers, I just want interesting dialogue and not having the villagers of the same personality type say the exact same thing everytime.

 

[Lord Citron]

I can't speak of the previous games since NH is my first AC game.

But I have to disagree!
The conversations are bland and boring I feel like I force myself to talk to my villagers sometimes.

They constantly talk about the other characters on my island (they're all my accounts), talk about the random people that visit me for trade, talk about the outfit I'm wearing if it's custom design, etc...

I don't want mean villagers, I just want interesting dialogue and not having the villagers of the same personality type say the exact same thing everytime.

I think in general these complaints are valid, but personally I'm more willing to slog through dialogue I've already heard to get the stuff I don't hear as much.

That's part of this whole debate, everyone plays differently and has different expectations and for me I understand that this is what we have for now so I want to try to see the good in it.

I heard they added new dialogue for the updates, and I think that's a good start! unfortunately most of it is seasonal and doesn't last. I wish there were more updates and I wish the updates were more integral to villager interactions. Hard agree with you about the villagers of the same type needing more varied and unique dialogue.

 

[RoxasFan25]

I think in general these complaints are valid, but personally I'm more willing to slog through dialogue I've already heard to get the stuff I don't hear as much.

That's part of this whole debate, everyone plays differently and has different expectations and for me I understand that this is what we have for now so I want to try to see the good in it.

I heard they added new dialogue for the updates, and I think that's a good start! unfortunately most of it is seasonal and doesn't last. I wish there were more updates and I wish the updates were more integral to villager interactions. Hard agree with you about the villagers of the same type needing more varied and unique dialogue.

And thats another problem. While its true that villagers can talk about the event coming up thats all you get and then once the event is over they just go back into talking about the same topics you heard over and over again. There needs to be more than just "Seasonal" or "Event" dialogue.

 

[daringred_]

also gonna have to disagree. i still play every day, have all my villagers' pictures (sans tangy, who i currently gift daily instead), and talk to them all until they don't want to talk anymore. it's certainly not because i enjoy the dialogue, and i'm convinced i've long since seen nearly every line that my villagers have to offer. i get vastly more repeats than i ever did in NL, especially within personality groups -- i have 4 lazies in NH and 6 total across two NL towns but one lazy in NH will repeat themselves more often than all 6 in NL ever do outside their standard greeting. is that to say the NL dialogue was perfect? no, of course not, but it's certainly never come across as bland or repetitive to me as NH's. also probably doesn't help that favors are so rare in NH, with several of them (i.e. get fruit, choose furniture, find x villager, bury time capsule) being removed altogether for whatever reason.

 

[Chungus]

Haha, those are some amazing quotes you guys posted!! Unfortunately, though, my stance hasn't changed. RIP

My main issue isn't with the dialogue on its own (other than the snooty dialogue), but what happens when you reach max friendship. When you're at max, the villager will do nothing but repeat the same things about how they're just so glad to have met you and been your bestest fwend!! uwu

They talk to you almost like it's GG—you beat the game, nothing else to see here! Might as well cycle out all your villagers now!

When you become better friends with a villager, you don't unlock additional dialogue like you'd expect. Instead, the dialogue gets very nearly replaced with "exclusive" BFF dialogue. That's the real problem! I think as long as the standard dialogue isn't replaced with the even more mundane "i love u island-representative-senpai," it would feel a lot less repetitive.

 

[RollingAntony]

I like the dialogue, I think it's neat. I'm still discovering new lines from time to time and a perfect example of that is that I've not seen 3 of the 4 dialogue windows posted on the OP on my own game. There is a ton of dialogue out there, but some people don't see it. I don't think there has been new non-event dialogue added to the game, but everytime an update drops many people think there is.

I need to upload some of my screenshots, but I've three with me atm that I like:

Chadder moisturizing his eyeballs after telling how awesome Toy Day was thanks to completing both quests of the event. (He litterally says the line about the eyeballs)

Zucker referencing Long Long Man will always be amazing.

Angus angry at me because I decided to trick him with Jack's outfit.

Is it groundbreaking, novel-like dialogue? Probably not. But it's still charming and great. They're also constantly asking for favors, so although those in itself are repetitive, I like how they keep interacting with me.


The only big "problem" is that you need to breeze past through contextual dialogue before getting to other lines and although I can do that and takes me like two minutes to do it, other people may not like it. It takes so little time and that's why I don't think it's a fatal flaw but oh well.

A thing they can indeed improve is giving each animal like 5 lines of truly unique dialogue. I don't know if that has ever been a thing, maybe the first game? Since there was less of everything.


On a related note, I think it's a bit sad how many people think that villagers/islanders having a "soul" = they must be mean and insult the player.

 

[LoyalDragonfly]

I've kind of talked about this before, but I just can't stand what they've done with the lazy personality in this game. It's not necessarily that they're repetitive; it's just that they're weird. In NL, lazies tended to act a little childlike, with their simple fondness for food. For some reason, they took the childish qualities of the personality and, like, ramped it up to eleven in NH, to the point where they just seem bizarre. Something about the way they talk, and their fixation on weird/random things like 'the bugs in the floor' and night clowns and whatnot... They used to be little sweethearts, but now they seem more like a 'quirky' cartoon character, like GIR from Invader Zim or Ed from Ed, Edd 'n Eddy. It's just a weird direction to take the personality, IMO, and I don't like it.

 

[Etown20]

I do like the dialogue that is in the game but share the sentiment others have with it being too repetitive/not enough lines.

 

[Ganucci]

I'm not going to say anything others haven't already, but I personally really enjoy the dialogue. However, the order in which things are said should be changed. Usually (but not always), the first two times I speak with a villager they say nothing new, it's the standard "you were burying money?!" "you were hitting rocks?!" "you were doing tequila shots with Cherry?!" and it gets tiresome. After that though they usually have something new and interesting to say. For me personally, even when I had three Normal villagers, they never repeated these more unique dialogue lines. Also, even if the dialogue is repetitive at times, I think it's at least clever and fun. I hope they continue to add dialogue with each update!

 

[Gashlycrumb]

My personal theory for the reason certain pieces of dialogue show up way more over others (who visited the island, the player digging up fossils/burying bells) is that it was intended to work with the social aspects of the game - i.e. you visit your friend's town and talk to their animals and they tell you what your friend was up to/who they had visiting, etc.- but it's weird when talking to your own animals. But it also feels to me like they don't really expect you to speak to your own animals more than once per play session unless they ping you or something (mine always seem straight up annoyed if I try to have more than one conversation with them in a row...)

All of which isn't so bad if you actually play this way/play with friends mainly, but if you play most days on your own it's very off-putting and I can understand why people might not want to bother going through those repetitive lines to get to the more interesting stuff. I think it's less that the dialogue is bad, moreso that it's set up to accomodate a very specific playstyle. And if you don't play that way, interacting with your animals can be kind of disappointing.

Also, having only 8 personality types and 10 villager slots is kind of a bummer - if you have a full town you're guaranteed to have repeating dialogue between animals and that to me is what breaks the immersion the most.

 

[Fridaynightcatlady]

I’ve said this before, but I love NH dialogue. Imo, it’s better than CF and NL, and often on par with GCN and WW (WW was peak dialogue imo).

I have a ton of screenshots (which I’ll share later!) but it amazes me how, even 430 hours in, I still get new dialogue! I love talking to my villagers and I do it every day and pretty often. I know a lot of people dislike it because it seems repetitive, but all AC games were as repetitive with their dialogue. I play the older games often as well, and the dialogue is just or even more repetitive than NH.

GCN had great (and pretty dark/mean) dialogue but also a lot of it was tutorial-ish (which popped up even when you progressed through the game) or a lot of the time it had to do with villagers asking to buy/sell/trade/take something from you. WW was less like that but also super repetitive. CF dialogue was pretty meh and NL dialogue was a mess: the entire interaction with your villagers was basically running errands for them (get me this/catch this/fish that/ etc). It was so boring.

I’ve actually laughed out loud with NH and it’s reminded me a lot of GCN dialogue for some reason.

 

[WaileaNoRei]

Thanks for this thread, op! I personally find more to like about the villager dialogue than dislike. Maybe just because I am a somewhat anti social/ socially awkward person who finds a lot of day to day conversation intensely repetitive, but in general I don’t have much of a problem with the dialogue. Yes, there are times when I get the same repetitive dialogue twice in a row when talking to two villagers of the same type - specifically the otherwise charming ‘abs’ line from my jocks seems to be occurring a lot lately. I find the repeated normal dialogue some of the least bothersome, since they say pretty standard small talk type stuff, and I like the weird creepy lazy lines. I like the creepy/ weird much more than rude.

is there room for improvement, of course. I would love for them to keep improving and increasing the villager dialogue and interactions because they are my favorite part of the game.

But I also...sometimes like being able to tune my villagers out and just watch them talk without having to worry about paying close attention (I mentioned this in the positivity thread but I love how expressive their faces are). Or sometimes it is just relaxing for them to tell me it is going to be a beautiful day. Or sometimes I just want to rush through talking to them because I get caught up in the social obligation aspect of it.

anyway, just my personal experience. I’ve played around 2000+ hours and the villagers remain my favorite part of the game. I know it is not everyone’s experience, just throwing my own out there.