I'm quitting ACNH (longest post ever)

You just summed up all my problems with the game in one post haha.
I totally agree with all of it, and have been complaining about them all.
I just hope we'll get some proper updates soon, super happy about bushes, but come on, we need something to do, this game feels like a single player game where New Leaf felt like an MMO, you could actually play with your friends, this time around my friends don't even want to play together cause there's nothing to do together, time is better spent alone, I mean you can't even pick up or place furniture when people are visiting, it's a joke.
 
I'm really sorry you feel that way, hopefully you can pick this up again in a few months when things have been added instead of quitting completely!

I totally agree with a lot of your points (it isnt a nintendo game without bad design choices am I right sigh), but I think honestly a big reason for your burnout is that youve put over 360 hours into this game in a little over a month. Its been out around 45 days I think? Thats around 8 hrs of gameplay a day.. which is basically like having a fulltime job where you have to even work weekends!

I played acnl for 4-5 years (with like a year long break before the WA update was released), and I had around 1500hrs when I finally quit, and this was with having 4 characters! Its boggling my mind that online I'm seeing people reach 1/3 of this number within a month of acnh being released!

Hopefully after theyve added more features you'll want to pick it up again, but my suggestion would be to take it easy, because this definitely isnt a series where you're meant to be playing for hours each day every day, and its always been like this even back in the gamecube days.
 
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As an adult I found really funny ACGC dialogues, but I agree that they were too much for a kid. But NL was really a big change for dialogues and snooty villagers were able to be really nasty even without hurt kids feeling, so I don't understand why they felt to change them completely and make them only sweet.

I agree. It's not a nostalgia thing. I used to think that I couldn't enjoy some games cause of nostalgia, but then I tried other chapters and I found out I loved them more than the one I used to play (it happened with Mario Sunshine and AC Gamecube, just for instance).

Multiplayer is what surprised me the most, because it was really well advertised, but now I feel like I just want to play alone, because the multiplayer isn't worth.
I was gonna stop looking at this thread, but since you directly replied to me and we're almost completely in agreement here, I wanna give my input on the dialogue: when I play ACGC, I feel like stuff like being told my furniture or clothes are ugly or I talk too much is fine, but I get kinda sad when I get called fat or a mental freak case or something even as an adult, and I was bullied as a kid and got told that same stuff at school so that's why I don't like it. Actually, that's why I like Wild World's dialogue, because I feel like they got rid of most of the stuff that was crossing a line imo while still keeping the crankies and snooties actually fitting their names. But I do like NH's dialogue! It's not perfect and yeah the crankies and snooties should be a bit meaner, and I also hate hate hate the lazies constantly talking about bugs (which is sad because A. apparently they don't do it in Japanese so it's just a really strange localization choice and B. they're my fave personality in literally every other game I've played), but I feel like I'm still seeing new dialogue every day and I'm a huge TTer with, uhh, lemme check... 490 hours, oops! So I don't agree entirely on NH's dialogue being bad but can understand it to a certain extent.

And you're 100% right on the multiplayer, not only is local co-op completely awful (I got excited to try it out with my dad but it's beyond terrible and not worth it and I don't understand why it isn't split screen, I'm sorry) but the multiplayer is just... in NL my friends and I used to go to the island and play all the fun minigames--which I honestly had zero doubt would be in NH at launch because I thought not having Tortimer and Kapp'n and not being able to play cute little island minigames in the game that's set on an island to begin with wouldn't make any sense, but here we are--and go dance at the DJ KK concerts, but now we just run around each other's islands spamming emotes and hitting each other with nets. And it takes forever to get started doing that because of the loading screens.
 
I’m actually kind of relieved to see a more critical response to New Horizons. I feel like a lot of the pre- (and even post-) launch reviews were very favourable of a game they had maybe only three weeks to experience. This is bizarre for a game that runs in real time - it’s very difficult to review the completeness of a game intended to be played over at least a year. I guess what I’m saying is, I’m disappointed there were not more critical reviews out there. You’d think they’d have noticed how quickly they were ‘running out’ of content in this game.

I could write a thesis on why I think New Horizons has this weird new feeling to it, and I'm sure a lot of it has to do with nostalgia…I may make a post about it, but for now I’ll just say that for the most part, I agree with what you’ve said. I don’t know if I’d necessarily quit the game, maybe I’d take a short break from it and come back later. Right now, all I’m doing is using the spare Switch I have here to cycle some villagers for a few people. My island is very much just sitting there, waiting for something else to do.

In June, we're going to get a month long wedding event that essentially turns Reese and Cyrus into props for photographs. Maybe they’ll have a bigger role, but based one what we’ve seen of them…for me, it speaks more about the state of the game than I think most people would think. Here’s these two characters that had their own roles and personalities in the last mainline game. Now they’re props for photos.

Like a lot of people here, I really love New Horizons, but I think it’s only fair to be critical of the lesser aspects of the game…that’s how people can contribute to improving the game indirectly. No sense in being a mindless fan, nothing is flawless.


Sorry to pin-point you - I just happened to stumble upon this comment when I was replying. I just wanted to give a nod in your direction; you're not wrong, but I do take a slight issue with this statement. It's true we're comparing a game that's been out for less than a month to a 7 year old game, but your wording makes it sound like New Leaf has had 7 years to mature and refine itself. It hasn't. For the most part, it's remained as-is since release. The core of the game was as complete on day one as it is in the seventh year of its release. That's completely disregarding the Welcome Amiibo update which, let's be honest, was only released to sell more Amiibo cards since no one cared enough about Amiibo Festival. That wasn't the last big update, it was the only big update. I don't think it's unfair to compare New Horizons to New Leaf in that regard - one month of New Horizons is less complete than one month of New Leaf, and that is weird.

This bothered me a lot.
they played for 2 weeks so It's obvious that you like the game, but I would be curious to see if ratings would have been so high if reviewers had the opportunity to play the game for 1-2 months.

The June event was exactly what made me write this post. I felt really stressed today playing the game and I went to check again the trailer to see that the only things advertised from now to the end of June are an event where you need to collect stamps walking in the rooms of the museum and another event where you just need to make photos to 2 of the main characters from NL? I really love the fact that they are getting married, it seems like a little evolution for the characters, but the event looks really terrible.

I agree again. I sometimes feel like people talks good about a thing only because they are fan of it, but if we don't talk about bad things too, we will never see improvements.I love NH too, but since we waited 7 years for this game, I think it's too incomplete to be enjoyed for now.


I read the entire original post here and skimmed through the replies, but I honestly don't think this is an "incomplete" game and I don't understand why people think that. It was planned ahead of time that they were going to release content in updates, in order to give people things to look forward to. It wasn't a case of "oh we're just not going to put all of these things in the game and release it anyways, oops."

But I do agree that if you have been playing this game for 8+ hours a day, it may be time to take a breather and either give yourself a break, or move on to other games. Animal Crossing, as wonderful as it is, is not the only thing we have in the whole world. People are starting to get bored of this game, but that's entirely understandable. And it's okay to get bored of this.

Do you guys deem every game bad when you start to get bored of it? It has no obligation to entertain you with every specification you dream up. I have my own personal list of pros and cons I feel towards this game, but I'm not going to sit here and feel like nintendo purposely put those cons into the game just to spite me. I still like this game for what it is and all of the happiness it's brought me.

Most of my thought are obviously based on what previously chapters had to offer. As I already said, I don't want to throw trash on NH, because I still love it, but as another user said, if you compare a month on New Leaf with a month of New Horizons, Nh looks nothing compared to it.
I don't say that slow updates are bad, don't get me wrong. I like them, but not if you take away basic features from previous game just to add them slowly. I would have prefer the game released with basic NL stuff and then seeing smaller updates (similar to what they are already doing, since they still haven't announced the release of old features).
 
For everyone here, I think AC is a perfect game for coming back once in a while, although its made to play day to day. What I mean by this is getting back when you like to; when you miss your villagers, when you want to see the sunset, the flowers and hopefully in the future, get a good cup of coffie when you need it (in-game).
 
I know many people already mentioned it, but I wanna add a bit more to that. In my opinion it is kind of unfair to compare New Leaf and New Horizons, yet. One of the many reasons is because it has been released under completely different circumstances. Animal Crossing is a game designed to play for 30-60 minutes per day, maybe not even every day. Many people logged 8-10 hours onto the game since 1,5 months.
If we would have played it the was it was intended (intended since the developers most likely didn't see the corona virus coming) and you would have played every single day since release, we would have 22.5-90 hours logged into the game, not 300-400. (30-120 minutes for 45 days). That is not any of your fault, but it is a fact that you have to take into account. Most probably the game doesn't lack content, we just played WAAAY to much. We would never be anywhere near this point if it wouldn't be for corona..
 
I have to agree I feel the game is lacking despite being a brand new game there has been quite a few bugs aswell for a £60 game but I’m not disappointed cos I love animal crossing since the GameCube I never played amiibo festival and got bored of pocket camp cos I don’t like mobile games cos of the in game currency system even tho there is amazing furniture on there and yea we put a lot of hours into it cos of the corona virus, I agree the bunny event was disappointing but the May Day is very fun wish it was for longer and I hope Nintendo continues to update animal crossing new horizons so it be more enjoyable.
 
Tbh, and as others have mentioned, you should take a break from the game. You may as well, naturally, find yourself come back to it. You've already logged in 300+ hours. Give yourself a break and return if you want to. While I get your love for the series (which I share as well), don't feel the need to go back to a game just because of that. You can play other games or do other things and not play AC for a while.

I will say, though, I don't agree entirely with the things you've stated. I don't share the sentiment on NL. I liked NL but I never connected as much as I did with previous AC games. And, tbh, I don't really get why people claim they did more in NL than they can do in NH. I mean, you had more builds in NL but most of the things you did in NL you can do in NH, except some of them are not bound by a specific NPC or building. Like, how much more time did - say - Brewster add to your logged hours compared to NH? I'm just a bit confused, because it seems that there is way more to do in NH than in NL in spite of some features missing. And as other have mentioned, more updates will be coming with more content (Brewster being hinted by villagers, already). I see how this method is not liked by everyone - me included - but I can see more of those previous features being introduced again.

I'm not sure how I feel about the online criticisms I've read by users, but NL was definitely an exception when it came to online play in the AC series. I do want more multiplayer features, sure, but it's surprising to me how much hate NH online gets, considering most online AC games have been like this?

As for the take on an incomplete game, that's also something I'm not sure how I feel about. I think NH has provided - and surely, redefined - the series in many ways. To say it's an incomplete game because it lacks some of the previous features, is, imo, a bit of a stretch. I'm certainly happy with the game and its state (even previously, before the first major update). It looks, plays and feels like an Animal Crossing game. I don't mean to say we can't criticize a lack of certain elements in the game, but I certainly wouldn't say it's incomplete. Even more so, with how much they've added into it.
 
People have articulated far better than I can some points, and without wanting to rehash what has already been said, I want to share my thoughts.

The way I relate to this is completely different to a lot of people in this thread (and on this forum wider it feels) as I personally like that they have not front-loaded the game. It doesn't feel 'incomplete' to me, as Animal Crossing never felt like a game to be completed. They are committing to continuing to add content to the game as it evolves, and that feels refreshing to me. Regardless of it is content found in previous games, that has little impact on me. The point is that this game is a new game, not New Leaf.

I think nostalgia and enough time removed from the initial experience of playing older entries in the series clouds peoples views of them. When I got New Leaf, I played for the first few months relentlessly. I would be on every hour of the day if I could. And as time went on, I grew bored. I started to play for half an hour each day (and only to water plants and do chores). People think that having the "absence of content" is the issue with the game, and I'm inclined to disagree. I don't believe that Animal Crossing is designed to be a game that you sink hours and hours into each day for the rest of the year. It is slow paced. There is objectively little to do (regardless of game entry). I believe COVID-19 and the quarantine/lockdown to be a huge issue for AC because (despite what all the articles and reviews would have you believe) I don't think that AC is the 'perfect' game for lockdown.

I have more thoughts, but I notice that as I write these initial thoughts I'm getting increasingly frustrated because I genuinely don't agree with a lot of the sentiments shared across forums about this game. My objective isn't to change people's minds, but I suppose to caution people that nostalgia, unusual circumstances and (perhaps) too high expectations are all partly to blame for peoples disappointment with this entry into the franchise. I will end it there as I don't know if I'm in the best headspace to continue.

While I accept you opinion, I don't fully agree, because new leaf didn't grow up after it's released. It was updated to Welcome amiibo after 4 years, but it stayed the exact same game as it was for 4 years and I never felt this way while playing it, because it was offering a lot more to do compared to this chapter.
What you said about New Leaf is what happened to me after more than one year of constant gameplay. But after some time I took the game again and started playing lots of hours again.

Nostalgia isn't the case, at least for me. The fact that after 4-5 years of playing and loving New Leaf I tried AC Gamecube and I started to think it was better the NL, proves that nostalgia is not keeping me away to enjoy this game.
Regarding COVID-19 as I already explained, now I live in my own house and I have lot of stuff to do (so less time). When NL came out, I used to play more hours than now because I didn't go to school or work. That's why I think that to me the problem is New Horizons.

You should not get frustrated because your opinion is different from the others. We are all different so we "live" the game in a different way and we have different feelings while playing it. You can read about people loving CF and hating NL, while other loving NL and totally hating CF... If you have different thought don't fear to talk about them.


I've never played NL so I'm not even going to try and tackle the comparison between the 2 games. I do have question as I see a theme when people are comparing the 2 games, there seems to be a lot more features/things in NL. Those features, were they introduced when the game was released? I don't know if they were updated in or if out of the box, all of those features were all available.

New Leaf was released as it was and only got a "big" update after 4 years, so yes, it had everything from the beginning.
Nintendo decided to go with "slow updates" because people who used to time travel was able to spoil the entire game in 2-3 days so I can agree that it is good to put things slowly with updates, but you need to release the game with at least the basic things introduced in New Leaf in my opinion.


(Dont feel a need to reply just wanted to touch on this more as well!!!)
This this this!
Everyone is complaining there isnt enough content or that the events arent what THEY thought of.
Personally I think there is plenty of content. Visiting merchants are MUCH more common than in other games, you have the stores, you can terraform, theres unlimited decorating possibilities.
With 7 years to contemplate the next game people have definitley come up with ideas they want and hope to see in the game. Then they get mad when... it isnt implemented the way they expected.
That's not on nintendo at all; that's on the player for coming up with grand ideas that... likely wouldn't of been added in the first place or werent guaranteed to be added in.
Thinking up ideas is fun to do but if you start developing an ENTIRE plan of what something *will* be and then it doesnt turn out that way because you arent a dev for the game then it brings about a wave of disappointment all at the fault of the person coming up with and depending on these features to be added despite never being promised it.
Cant be upset over a feature in the game because you had a better idea for it despite having 0 input in the games development ykno.

Can be upset if the event isnt fun or interesting in general, but to compare it to your own ideal scenario that does not exist and was never said to exist is... eh.

I think you read my post in the wrong way, because you misunderstood lots of my sentences.
- I wasn't expecting the game to be completely different from the other. The problem is that they took away basic game features and we will not know when they'll add them. I'm not referring to new mechanics I dream of or that didn't even existed in the past.
- Regarding the easter event I even specified that even if I was excited about the idea, I was totally not expecting something like that because it is a lot of work... But what we got is really bad if we think that they gave us 2 weeks to make almost the same things we could make in one day in the previous game.

So just to be more clear, I don't even care about events if at least I get the basic stuff I could be able to access in NL. This have nothing to do with the dreams I had for the game. I had tons of expectations for HHD too, but I enjoyed the game anyway.
Same thing for Welcome Amiibo update. I had tons of ideas in my mind and with my friend I was dreaming tons of things and we got a little update introducing 2-3 things compared to what I dreamt of, but I still liked the update so much that I took my city again and started working on it a lot and played the game for more than another year, so what you are saying it's not right in my case.


I think everyone here has discussed how lockdown has caused everyone to play relentlessly (causing burnout) and I have to say I agree!

My university has switched to online so I've attempted to maintain a 10-5 study day each weekday. As such, I only spent 2 hours a day max on ACNH which makes me feel like I'm not as burnt out with the game as everyone else seems to be reporting?? It's pretty clear when I compare my town (which has only like... 1/10th completed) to everyone else whose town is already mostly done, had all their dreamies achieved and basically everything that can be done so far

I think if you take a break from the game and come back it might give you a fresh perspective. If waiting for updates aren't your thing maybe take a longer break for updates to accumulate? The NL amiibo update did take 3 years afterall, and that's kinda what re-sparked my gameplay on NL after going hard for months and then stopping for a few years.

NL was a complete game that received a little update with most of things copy/pasted from HHD.
NH is an incomplete game with little updates that we don't know will be released. That's what it's keeping me from enjoying the game. I used to play a lot NL even without the update.
 
I forgot to say that even though NL has more buildings and whatnot, it’s not like they add hours of content to gameplay anyway? I mean, after I got all the items from Brewster, I never really go to the cafe to do anything. I’ll get coffee sometimes but it’s not like it gives me an additional 30 mins worth of something to do? Same with the Katrina thing. I never go to her and if I do, she’s done in less than five mins anyway. Checking the police station will add additional two mins or so but I don’t even check most of the time. The Dream Suite adds around 15 mins I guess if you visit another town. After getting all emotes from Shrunk, I never went back to Club LOL unless I wanted a song from KK which I can also do now in NH every weekend. So my NL routine usually was 30 mins everyday for checking stores, talking to villagers, getting fossils, hitting rocks and finding tree furniture. I spent an extra hour or two at night farming beetles at the beginning of the game but when I switched to the stalk market, I barely went to the island anymore.

Now with NH my daily routine takes about two hours or so because of the miles plus thing. I no longer streamline my dailies and now do them as per the miles rewards requirement so I can rack up miles so I’ll have enough come the time I need to recruit new villagers. I check in three times daily morning, afternoon and evening for the DIYs and for the nightly NPCs. I also check in on villagers often because I just wanna see what they’re up to. As for terraforming...huh. I’ve been spending way too much time there, admittedly. Just planning up my island and each area already took me an embarrassingly long time. Putting it into the actual map, it’s taking me several weeks and I’m still not done. Obviously, I’m not bored.

I’m not trying to debate or argue here but I’m just also saying that more buildings doesn’t necessarily mean more things to do. I think it really depends on your play style whether or not you’ll find the game boring. Maybe while taking a break try to itemize what mainly kept you busy in NL and how much time you allotted to each activity and compare it to the activities you do in NH. That way, you’ll find out which ones took most of your time and if it’s not available in NH, allocate it to an alternative activity that is available in NH. For example, if you spent 2 hours diving in NL, wouldn’t you try spending that much hours in NH doing terraforming instead? Maybe this will solve the “boredom”.
 
sorry but I disagree completely. NL had 7 years to refine itself and im not sure how you can completely disregard the Welcome Amiibo update and RV campsite and pretend it didnt change the game.
...
The Welcome Amiibo updated was needed because NL was getting stale after 3 years
Maybe we're just misunderstanding each other? I don't mean to say that the Welcome Amiibo update didn't change anything - I'm just saying it's wrong to imply New Leaf had 7 years of refinement and development to make it what it is now. That just simply is not true. New Leaf received one big update - Welcome Amiibo - three years into its life. What else changed? What other content was added to the game that wasn't in the game on release? That's a total 180 from New Horizons which released with much less core Animal Crossing content and is gradually adding content to the game. That's the thing I'm trying to acknowledge - it's unusual to imply that it's strange to compare New Horizons at one month old to New Leaf "which has been out for 7 years" as if New Leaf had a lot more added to it over those 7 years. It didn't, and I think it's more apt to say people are comparing New Horizons at one month old to New Leaf at one month old - not at 7 years old. Like you said, WA was needed because NL was getting stale after three years. I think the point of this thread is that NH is getting stale after one month.

All that said - I actually agree with you overall. I think it is reasonable to expect updates in a game like New Horizons, especially in 2020 - this is basically the new norm for games now and it's good to keep breathing new life into the game - I'm definitely not against this.
 
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I forgot to say that even though NL has more buildings and whatnot, it’s not like they add hours of content to gameplay anyway? I mean, after I got all the items from Brewster, I never really go to the cafe to do anything. I’ll get coffee sometimes but it’s not like it gives me an additional 30 mins worth of something to do? Same with the Katrina thing. I never go to her and if I do, she’s done in less than five mins anyway. Checking the police station will add additional two mins or so but I don’t even check most of the time. The Dream Suite adds around 15 mins I guess if you visit another town. After getting all emotes from Shrunk, I never went back to Club LOL unless I wanted a song from KK which I can also do now in NH every weekend. So my NL routine usually was 30 mins everyday for checking stores, talking to villagers, getting fossils, hitting rocks and finding tree furniture. I spent an extra hour or two at night farming beetles at the beginning of the game but when I switched to the stalk market, I barely went to the island anymore.

Now with NH my daily routine takes about two hours or so because of the miles plus thing. I no longer streamline my dailies and now do them as per the miles rewards requirement so I can rack up miles so I’ll have enough come the time I need to recruit new villagers. I check in three times daily morning, afternoon and evening for the DIYs and for the nightly NPCs. I also check in on villagers often because I just wanna see what they’re up to. As for terraforming...huh. I’ve been spending way too much time there, admittedly. Just planning up my island and each area already took me an embarrassingly long time. Putting it into the actual map, it’s taking me several weeks and I’m still not done. Obviously, I’m not bored.

I’m not trying to debate or argue here but I’m just also saying that more buildings doesn’t necessarily mean more things to do. I think it really depends on your play style whether or not you’ll find the game boring. Maybe while taking a break try to itemize what mainly kept you busy in NL and how much time you allotted to each activity and compare it to the activities you do in NH. That way, you’ll find out which ones took most of your time and if it’s not available in NH, allocate it to an alternative activity that is available in NH. For example, if you spent 2 hours diving in NL, wouldn’t you try spending that much hours in NH doing terraforming instead? Maybe this will solve the “boredom”.

While some buildings themselves don't add more hours of gameplay, they give the player the opportunity to work on new things. As I mentioned, I'm almost done with my isle (if I don't count the random items I need to wait to show at T&T store) but I have lots of free space that I don't know how to decorate because I don't know if they'll add buildings or not.
I can't think about starting to "struggle" to decorate every empty space remained when maybe next week they will add some new buildings and I will need to remove everything and start again.

New buildings (in my case) would give me the opportunity to fill the empty space and start to work on them, adding all the decorations outside that fits that buildings.

You are not mentioning Tortimer's island. It was one of the biggest things keeping me playing hours and hours with the minigames. And what about online multiplayer?

To be honest I don't do daily Nook Miles quests anymore, because they are always the same... PlusI'm at 28'000 now so I don't feel the need to make more of them. I check villagers too for diy recipes, but as I already said I'm getting only doubles, so it is a bit frustrating...

Regarding terraforming, most of the hours spent playing were spent terraforming my isle and now that I've reached that ramps limit and my isle is almost full, I don't see the need of terraforming anymore.

Don't worry, I didn't took your post as you wanted to debate or argue :) We are all different so it's normal that we can't all have the same feeling about the game :)
 
While some buildings themselves don't add more hours of gameplay, they give the player the opportunity to work on new things. As I mentioned, I'm almost done with my isle (if I don't count the random items I need to wait to show at T&T store) but I have lots of free space that I don't know how to decorate because I don't know if they'll add buildings or not.
I can't think about starting to "struggle" to decorate every empty space remained when maybe next week they will add some new buildings and I will need to remove everything and start again.

New buildings (in my case) would give me the opportunity to fill the empty space and start to work on them, adding all the decorations outside that fits that buildings.

You are not mentioning Tortimer's island. It was one of the biggest things keeping me playing hours and hours with the minigames. And what about online multiplayer?

To be honest I don't do daily Nook Miles quests anymore, because they are always the same... PlusI'm at 28'000 now so I don't feel the need to make more of them. I check villagers too for diy recipes, but as I already said I'm getting only doubles, so it is a bit frustrating...

Regarding terraforming, most of the hours spent playing were spent terraforming my isle and now that I've reached that ramps limit and my isle is almost full, I don't see the need of terraforming anymore.

Don't worry, I didn't took your post as you wanted to debate or argue :) We are all different so it's normal that we can't all have the same feeling about the game :)

Oh I didn’t like the cabana and mermaid sets so I didn’t play much of Tortimer’s games. Lol.
 
Okay so actually I read your entire post and I don’t disagree with you. I have a lot of the same thoughts/frustrations that you do. However, I don’t think you should write it off completely yet because it is quite new still - it has the potential to improve. :)

I also have to add that while a lot of people look back on New Leaf and remember it as being better than New Horizons seems to be right now - we were also all seven years younger then. To expect New Horizons to replicate a feeling we all felt as children/teenagers/young adults (I’m not sure how old you are, I was 18 when New Leaf came out) isn’t really realistic unfortunately. I think it’s actually a good thing that New Horizons is providing a completely different experience.

But again, I hope you continue to play New Horizons, even if you need to take a break for a while!
 
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I was introduced to AC games through New Leaf, so I can only compare New Horizons to that game and none of the previous ones. Between the two, I'm liking NH more because it fixed so many of the things I found irritating in NL, like plots ruining your paths, flowers, etc. and grass turning into a complete mess no matter how hard you tried to keep it fresh. NH is slowing down a little now because I've completed a lot of the beginning stuff, but it doesn't really bother me. Now I play part of the day and do other things the rest of my time instead of playing the game ALL DAY. I know they'll be releasing new content over time, so it gives me something to anticipate for the future and keep my interest going.

One of the things I miss in NH so far is the ability to go to the island where you could meet other people. In NL, you could go to your own island and play alone or you could go to other islands where you met people from all over the world. Even though there were hackers who sometimes ruined your experience on those islands, there were also plenty of times when I met people who were really fun to hang out and play with. I'd like to see them keep the current mystery islands to use when we just want to hunt for new villagers or go and gather resources without being bothered by other people but also add back the islands where you come in contact with other players and hang out and play mini-games together. It was a great way to socialize and have fun with others without having to deal with adding friend codes and taking the risk of people coming to your island or going to theirs and causing trouble.

The only other things I would really like to see added to NH are the ability to control the sound level of the music or turn it off entirely without muting the natural sounds and the ability to save and continue playing. I'm also hoping they will give us a way to back up our games and keep them safe, preferably as soon as possible. I don't like the idea of investing so much time and energy in creating this island I love only to have it suddenly be gone with no way to get it back. That is something they should have had in place right from the get go.

If they added some or all of these things, I'd be perfectly happy with the game even though I know others wouldn't be. I don't think it's possible for them to please everyone because for every person who wants something added back, there are just as many people who are glad it's gone.

I don't really see the game as incomplete. I think it was more of a deliberate decision to release the game content gradually and keep the game fresh for a longer period of time and to control the amount of stuff that time travelers can do. It may not be a decision we like, but it is what it is. I just choose to enjoy what is for now and look forward to what will come later. If I get bored or burned out, I just take a break and do something else.
 
I only read the original post, so sorry if I missed something you already answered or something that was discussed already.

From what I read, it sounds like you need to take a step back from the Animal Crossing community. Maybe you feel anxiety from not having the same experience or outcome as other people?

Aya Kyogoku said that this game was made to be played at least for one year and I was like "gosh, if she said this, is because New Leaf wasn't expected to last this long, but I played it for more than 4 years, so how much will last New Horizons for me?".

I think this more means that you can expect new content throughout all 365 days, but not new stuff everytime's there's cherry blossoms f.e.

Are you a time traveler? Because if you're not the content wasn't available more quickly in previous games, and if you are it's easy to burn out due to doing too much at once.

Before easter day, you received a letter from Zipper T. Bunny and attached to the letter, there's a ticket. You bring that ticket to Porter (who will wait for you with an hot air balloon in the plaza) and he will bring you to the Easter Island. This is a special island you can only visit on easter day and it's full of themed houses and decorations.

No Animal Crossing would ever be this complex though, especially not for a day. Events were always grinds for seasonal items. Of course Nintendo can do a lot more with the island mechanic, but you need to realize that they have plans they want to pace. We got a May island.

You could go to Tortimer island and play lots of funny minigames or collect fish,bugs or dive together to collect fish creatures. Now all of this stuff is disappeared and the only thing you can do is run around the isle collecting fruit, fishes or bugs.

Tortimer's Island missing is a shame, but I think the japanese commercials made it seem like with 8 players on the island you're supposed to create your own fun with it and roleplay a little bit. Also, we don't know what's still to come. We're evidently going to get more than expected.

while you are playing with somebody, you need to pray for connection to don't stop,

Pretty sure New Leaf didn't do it differently, but you need to realize the changes that needed to be made for 8 player online multiplayer. Imagine if all 8 players wanted to save at once, especially with how long the loading times already are with the new engine and all that.

I'll not mention the fact that this game was designed to force you to play with other players (for example, you can't get different fruits from your native and sister one, if you don't get them from other players).

You couldn't get more than 3 flowers until Nintendo decided to give you your missing flowers through Leif. What are you in a rush for anyway? We don't know what festivities we're going to get through the seasons, we might as well have a "new" NPC selling fruit in the summer.

New Leaf had 14 different buildings

Yes and most of them were unlocked a month after the last one opened. Nintendo has limitations (no town street) and opportunities (islands). We don't know what's going to happen in the game, we just don't. Even if we can only shop furniture and clothing, NPC can still come and offer their services in a different way. Don't stress yourself out over possibilities.

turns out that they are just a bunch of pre-existing island and after you have all plots full in your island, you will not see new villagers on mystery isles.

Not sure how you were expecting Nintendo to handle random islands? They can't design hundreds of islands, and leaving it up to a random generator would just be annoying most of the time. I agree though that there could be more to do, we need more diverse mystery islands.
Also, would you like to see random villagers if you didn't have the ability to invite them onto your island? I don't think so.

Villagers always repeats the same things and if you get 2 villagers of the same personality it even gets worst

A lot of the dialogue was added for a bunch of furniture item and clothes, so maybe they're lacking some for regular dialogue but at the same time they also locked them with friendship levels. For the personalities, they can't exactly add original dialogue for hundreds of villagers, but we could definitely do with some sub-personalities so that the dialogue can be divided to both of them.

As for the mean thing, try doing mean things to the villagers. I opened a present and the villagers really weren't too kind about it. 😅


Designs and Pro-Designs are two different categories with their own storage. And you need Nintendo Online to access other people's designs, something that is available through a free trial that was just resetted for people who already used it. But you don't even need them.
Some players were also kind enough to share their designs not as a code but as they were drawing them, so you can just copy their colors.

And let's not talk about creating repeated items.

You can just button smash though, the cursor will always go back to the last item you crafted. When I crafted 30 bait it wasn't too bad.
Crafting is an experimental part of the game, but you're not forced to create tens or hundreds of items at once. Take your time with it.

After one month, my island is almost complete.

Luckily this game isn't called Island Designer, huh?

I'm at 360+ hours of gameplay

That's at least 8 hours a day, this is definitely a burnout.

(you can do this in half an hour)

You don't need to play the game for more than half an hour a day if you don't want to.

I think that the biggest problem for me is that the game is incomplete for now, compared to New Leaf.

Are you sure you felt satisfied after 6 weeks of playing New Leaf? Or are you just fond of your time playing back then?

Not sure why I felt the need to reply to statements, but the bottom line is that your perspective is very delusional at the moment, as you like to put it. You're making things worse in your own mind, and there's nothing wrong with that. You need a break, so take it. You should have fun playing Animal Crossing, maybe taking a step back will help you with your frustrations. We'll be here for you if you're looking for fun.

The game definitely has a lot of problems and nobody is having complete faith in Nintendo to do everything right, but you just gotta take the good with the bad. New Horizons looks amazing, we have so many new options and we still have 9 months of new seasonal events to go!
 
I know many people already mentioned it, but I wanna add a bit more to that. In my opinion it is kind of unfair to compare New Leaf and New Horizons, yet. One of the many reasons is because it has been released under completely different circumstances. Animal Crossing is a game designed to play for 30-60 minutes per day, maybe not even every day. Many people logged 8-10 hours onto the game since 1,5 months.
If we would have played it the was it was intended (intended since the developers most likely didn't see the corona virus coming) and you would have played every single day since release, we would have 22.5-90 hours logged into the game, not 300-400. (30-120 minutes for 45 days). That is not any of your fault, but it is a fact that you have to take into account. Most probably the game doesn't lack content, we just played WAAAY to much. We would never be anywhere near this point if it wouldn't be for corona..
Yes actually, you make really good points. Some games cost $60 and you're doing after ten hours. Personally, I have only played two games (Minecraft and ACNL) for over 300 hours. In my opinion, even getting over 100 hours in a game is a sign that the game is full of content. 100 hours is over 4 straight days and 300 hours is almost two full weeks. Now, it can be argued that this game in the franchise had more content than this one and so on, but complaining that a game doesn't have enough content after squeezing hundreds of hours of it is generally confusing to me.
 
I've gotten past the mortgage stage in fairly record time (getting the last expansion on my house a couple of weeks ago and paying off the last loan with turnip money in a couple of stages, the last one I did a few days ago) so now I'm in the "huh, what do I do with this game now?" stage like you are... and it's hell, so I understand what you're going through at the moment (however, this is probably a good thing, because it means I'm not having to spend AGES playing the game), however I'm finding the game, like every other Animal Crossing game, to be a mix of good and bad:
  • As I've made clear, many many times, I find the entire "WUHH REMEMBER MEAN VILLAGERS" circlejerk to be really, really annoying... but I feel the dialogue in NH is a step up from NL, if a little one-linery at times and still in need of being updated... it's the doing errands part that's lacking in this game, as they seem to happen much more rarely than before (although the lost item system's now a lot better, and it gives you hints about who it belongs. I'd support bringing the "give me a job" option back from the GameCube games if a lot of the time, it didn't just give you some jerkass remark about not having one... or better, bringing back the contest mechanic from Wild World.
  • The villagers doing stuff outside thing has steadily gotten better since LGTTC, and in this game it's GREAT... apart from when villagers are inside together, then they just kind of mill around together. Can't they be doing stuff together, like eating or playing board games or something?
  • I'm slightly annoyed by the lack of features and holidays being in the game from the start, and have been since the direct, and I'm honestly kind of worried that stuff isn't going to be added into the game, there doesn't appear to be anything region-specific and I'm getting bored waiting for stuff to be added... but at the same time, the fact that stuff is going to be added into the fame over time makes it feel much more alive and like a deserted island is steadily being more and more populated and developed over time, and the events that've been added in with this update are in-depth in a way they haven't been since the GameCube game (THERE'S SOMETHING TO DO WITH CHERRY BLOSSOM SEASON AGAIN!), and I hope they add many more. At the same time, AARGH, THE WORSE HOLIDAYS ARE BEING DRAGGED OUT EVEN MORE, TAKE A LESSON FROM NL'S STREAMLINED HOLIDAYS AND HELP ME OUT, NINTENDO
  • Crafting was the thing that put me off the game initially, and while it's better than I've expected, WHY DO I GET SO MANY DUPLICATES, JUST GIVE ME SOMETHING NEW (although it's good for the communication aspect of the game), AND WHY DO ALL THE TOOLS BREAK, EVEN THE ONES YOU CAN'T CRAFT FROM BIGGER NOOK'S CRANNY?
  • I'm just going to mention the online economy and say, wow, this is honestly kind of deranged, why are you doing this, you greedy so and so's... then move on.
  • I like the fact the museum has to be brought to the island with donations as a tent, then built and upgraded... you don't start with an empty museum and have to fill it up.
  • I'm also liking the fact that, after the fact Leif and the Alpacas seem to have been introduced for no reason whatsoever to fulfil roles that the Nooks fulfilled just fine in previous games, they've actually got actual roles in NH, selling bushes and the flowers you can't get, and (currently) having a bit of character development, by having their anniversary celebrated. (I hope in future they're running an online auction/customisation of stuff you can't do with customisation kits, and taking that function away from Redd in lieu of Actual Exclusive Furniture)
  • Why are cliffs so short? They make the LGTTC ones look tall.
  • While an actual pathing mechanic was on my wishlist for the game, they're too neat atm and I wish you could have some messier ones.
  • I wasn't a big fan of the shops from HHD. If they were in NH, it'd make the game feel a bit too suburban and I'm generally trying to keep the rural vibe of earlier AC games, just a bit more developed.
TL;DR I'm enjoying the game, but I can also completely understand where you're coming from in terms of being frustrated, as for every good choice there's at least 5 really annoying ones.

At the moment, all we can do is wait.

Take some time off, play something else, wait for the next event and see if that's any better.
 
Reading through this thread and what I get out of it is that different people are going to have different experiences and opinions on the same thing.

My first AC game was NL. I enjoyed it and got quite a bit of play time out of it, but I don't feel like it clicked with me personally the same way NH has. I think that boils down to how customizable NH is. I personally love it, but not everyone is going to have the same opinion or experience as me. I see how this game may not be for everyone and how it could seem "incomplete" to some, even though I actually think having downloadable updates is a genius way of keeping players like me invested. Some content has been more miss than hit (Bunny Day) but for the most part, I've fully enjoyed it. But that's just me personally. I could see how it could be seen as a complete departure from AC games past and how that wouldn't go over well with long term fans. I don't think there's a right or wrong opinion.

In response to the OP, I reiterate what has already been said: Take a break. Don't get rid of your game, but step back and do something else. My feelings are, there will probably completely new content in the next few months which should hopefully make the game seem fresh again. Sorry you feel that way about it now though.
 
I was introduced to AC games through New Leaf, so I can only compare New Horizons to that game and none of the previous ones. Between the two, I'm liking NH more because it fixed so many of the things I found irritating in NL, like plots ruining your paths, flowers, etc. and grass turning into a complete mess no matter how hard you tried to keep it fresh. NH is slowing down a little now because I've completed a lot of the beginning stuff, but it doesn't really bother me. Now I play part of the day and do other things the rest of my time instead of playing the game ALL DAY. I know they'll be releasing new content over time, so it gives me something to anticipate for the future and keep my interest going.

One of the things I miss in NH so far is the ability to go to the island where you could meet other people. In NL, you could go to your own island and play alone or you could go to other islands where you met people from all over the world. Even though there were hackers who sometimes ruined your experience on those islands, there were also plenty of times when I met people who were really fun to hang out and play with. I'd like to see them keep the current mystery islands to use when we just want to hunt for new villagers or go and gather resources without being bothered by other people but also add back the islands where you come in contact with other players and hang out and play mini-games together. It was a great way to socialize and have fun with others without having to deal with adding friend codes and taking the risk of people coming to your island or going to theirs and causing trouble.

The only other things I would really like to see added to NH are the ability to control the sound level of the music or turn it off entirely without muting the natural sounds and the ability to save and continue playing. I'm also hoping they will give us a way to back up our games and keep them safe, preferably as soon as possible. I don't like the idea of investing so much time and energy in creating this island I love only to have it suddenly be gone with no way to get it back. That is something they should have had in place right from the get go.

If they added some or all of these things, I'd be perfectly happy with the game even though I know others wouldn't be. I don't think it's possible for them to please everyone because for every person who wants something added back, there are just as many people who are glad it's gone.

I don't really see the game as incomplete. I think it was more of a deliberate decision to release the game content gradually and keep the game fresh for a longer period of time and to control the amount of stuff that time travelers can do. It may not be a decision we like, but it is what it is. I just choose to enjoy what is for now and look forward to what will come later. If I get bored or burned out, I just take a break and do something else.

Tortimer's island is the biggest thing missing in this game to me. I'm sure that if they added it at the beginning, the wait for the other features to be added would have been less bad.

I think we can forget about setting music levels in the game. If I'm not wrong, I never saw this kind of setting in major Nintendo games.

The fact is not to please everyone, it's obvious that it is impossible cause we all have different dreams regarding the game, but I'm only referring to things we used to have in NL.

The fact is that for how I used to play every other AC game, it feels really bad to stop playing it and take a break because the game is becoming "boring". It is the first time that I feel this way since I started playing AC games (even If I played the same amount of hours in one month in New Leaf).
 
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