Villagers asking for permission to move?

[Mattician]

Villagers asking to move out is the single best addition to the game for me. It needs to be a permanent feature.

I still play daily for at least 20-30 minutes. But I no longer have to worry about any of my favorite villagers randomly moving out if I take a break from the game.
If I ever get burnt out completely, at least I know when I return everyone will still be on my island. Even years from now I might want to check in on things.

 

[maria110]

I have only played ACNH and I like that they do ask before moving. I don't want Reneigh or Raymond or Megan just taking off. :-(

 

[McRibbie]

I'm ultimately kind of conflicted about this.

On one hand, I like having Specific Villagers. If I ultimately decide to drop NH for a period of time in future, I don't have to worry about them randomly moving out. I'm dreading revisiting my copy of NL, because I'm going to have to time travel back to when I last played it in order to make sure one of them hasn't moved out. If I give in to time travelling, ditto. Not gone, don't have to worry. I'm relaxed, everything is good.

On the other hand, this has some disturbing implications. Your role in NH is Resident Representative, which on paper just sounds like the role of mayor from NL, but in practice is more like an architect who has free control over who the population of the village is, and where they live. Nobody does anything without your approval. You are their god now. This sounds weirdly dictatorial, because in all honesty? It is! When people go "villagers have NO PERSONALITY ANYMORE", this is ultimately why (alongside a couple of other things), not "WAAAH PEOPLE ARE OFFENDED BY ANYTHING". It's because you're ultimately in charge of them, and they're going to be subservient to you as a result.

It's probably one of the worst instincts in the AC playerbase that the devs have pandered to (the other being "THIS GAME IS INCONVENIENT FOR ME, MAKE IT EASIER, I DON'T CARE IF IT AFFECTS ANYTHING"), because on paper it sounds good. In practice, in some ways, it IS good. It's good for the way I personally play Animal Crossing. But in other ways it reduces villagers into things, commodities to be traded and shown off, instead of friends, neighbours and enemies. It backs Animal Crossing into a corner, one that splits the player base and makes them make video essays with ultimately valid points, but also a lot of blatant and incorrect guesses as to why things have happened, all in the name of convenience, alongside a load of other decisions with NH... and that's ultimately kind of a bummer.

 

[KittenNoir]

Whenever I see them have the thought bubble I try to leave it as I have once been to stressed that I would press leave when they asked that I accidently did So now when I see the bubble if im not in the middle of anything and I am focused I will say no haha

 

[Sharksheep]

Whenever I see them have the thought bubble I try to leave it as I have once been to stressed that I would press leave when they asked that I accidently did So now when I see the bubble if im not in the middle of anything and I am focused I will say no haha

If you have a second player character you can use the second player to tell the villager to stay if you accidentally tell them to move.

 

[KittenNoir]

If you have a second player character you can use the second player to tell the villager to stay if you accidentally tell them to move.

Oh my god thank you I didn't know I could do this

 

[The Loyal Rat]

I really love the fact that I don’t have to stress anymore about one of my buds leaving if I take a week off. Animal Crossing is meant to be relaxing after all, and having to deal with the threat of losing your best friend who you spent months/years with was kinda lame.

New Horizons system should have been the system for the past few games imo.

 

[Vintage Viola]

I much prefer them asking permission. It takes away the pressure of having to power on the game every single day, just to check if everyone is still there.

Granted, when I use to play Population Growing I was fine with the randomness because I didn’t have favorites. Plus, I enjoyed seeing new animals every now and then. I liked the angle they used for Wild World too though, if villagers were already in boxes you could make them change their mind by talking to them multiple times. I used to do that to keep Nan from leaving lol.

 

[Bethboj]

I prefer being able to stop villagers moving. I hated getting attached to someone in WW to find out they’d moved away one day.