What is going on with Harriet?

[Paperboy012305]

Oh my, I never got around to this to know, but now I do.

If there was a way for Harriet to actually get more activity is by a minor update (If there are somehow going to be more) with new hairstyles only unlocked by her. Or maybe Mii Masks even, why haven't they returned?

 

[EmmaFrost]

I was sad to discover she only had a few hairstyles to teach :/ I was hoping she’d be able to give us the hair bow wig style from new leaf!

 

[Tiffany]

3000 bells is very easy to get in NL tho, pocket change even (*Points to money rock*), and your cuts from her were never even random, they just required a guide that you had to use to get the hair you wanted that frankly, for some you kinda learn the ranges for by memory eventually.
Yeah it was once a day, but after a while of getting your hair changed from her you unlock more hairstyles from her in the form of being able to have the opposing gender. Plus idk, I always liked going to her everyday until I unlocked the opposing hairs, and then lessening to once a week once I do. The routine gave me an incentive to go back to her shop.

i know how easy it is to get bells thats not the point. its having to spend money for a style you might hate(there wasnt a guide at first and some people wouldnt have known about it when there was) and being unable to change it back right away. I did use the guide to make sure i got the hair i wanted, i had and have no desire for opposite gender hairstyles

 

[bestfriendsally]

Yeah, once she taught you her 7, she doesn't do haircuts anymore.

i noticed that too, once i got the last one that i got from her...

 

[cool sword]

shes just vibin

 

[Airysuit]

Oh that makes me sad i kinda thought she would be able to give you a random haircut and color once a day after she finished teaching you... that would've been cute

 

[CinnamonCrab]

Yeah, it's too bad!! I was kind of sad when she wasn't at the chair anymore, but it's nice to see her relaxing around the island too. It'd be nice if she could still give us a haircut from time to time, though. At the same time, I'm soooo glad I don't have to google for my hair style every time I want to get it.

 

[VanitasFan26]

I hate to sound like that guy but adding Harriet back was pretty pointless, because we already have a feature in the game where we can choose our hairstyles from a Mirror/Vanity. Also you can get a lot of hairstyles from the Nook Mile shop.

 

[RiceBunny]

I’m almost tempted to not learn the new hairstyles just so I can keep her at the campsite. I wondered what her purpose was considering we can just change how we look with a mirror, so it makes sense she wouldn’t be very useful after learning the new hairstyles. I still think they should’ve given her more purpose, like there could be hairstyles only she could do(because you know, she’s a professional and all)

 

[Moritz]

I’m almost tempted to not learn the new hairstyles just so I can keep her at the campsite. I wondered what her purpose was considering we can just change how we look with a mirror, so it makes sense she wouldn’t be very useful after learning the new hairstyles. I still think they should’ve given her more purpose, like there could be hairstyles only she could do(because you know, she’s a professional and all)

She doesn't leave.
She just wonders around it instead doing different activities in the day.

 

[fairysyndrome]

I’m almost tempted to not learn the new hairstyles just so I can keep her at the campsite.

she always stays at the campsite even when she's done teaching you hairstyles! she just spends her time hanging out and vibing once she's done.

honestly re: the general topic, i think it's fine if harriet doesn't have much "purpose." she's here to support harv with his co-op, not continue her career since she retired from it. the seven hairstyles are there to represent the seven shops because she was inspired to do some hobby hairstyling one last time like we already knew she was made obsolete by the mirror's existence and people complained about her not being included in the game due to it then, i think it's nice they found something to do with her even if it's finite. past that, there's really nothing more she CAN do here except what she does. which is vibe with harv. it's nice to see her in general the same way it's nice to see any npc they brought back in some way.

 

[Faux]

I hate to sound like that guy but adding Harriet back was pretty pointless, because we already have a feature in the game where we can choose our hairstyles from a Mirror/Vanity. Also you can get a lot of hairstyles from the Nook Mile shop.

It wasn't pointless. People wanted her back. She's back.
She exists to do more than cut hair now, even if we don't find " value " in her sitting down and eating soup, or just saying hello to you and then moving on with her day.
Doesn't make her pointless, though. I love seeing her there. Not every NPC has to do something for me to add joy to my day.

 

[JKDOS]

I'm actually glad she closes her shop. I was saying before the update came out how terrible it would be to learn 7 haircuts from her and then have her be a broken NPC. Having her wander around the island and hanging out with Harv is so wholesome and cute.

 

[amemome]

I'm honestly happy just to see her having a good time on vacation away from the monotony of work. I'm still trying to pay for all the shops right now and it's really sweet seeing her bust out the good ol' scissors once in a while to celebrate the big co-op milestones. No pressure to perform, just organic inspiration!

 

[VanitasFan26]

It wasn't pointless. People wanted her back. She's back.
She exists to do more than cut hair now, even if we don't find " value " in her sitting down and eating soup, or just saying hello to you and then moving on with her day.
Doesn't make her pointless, though. I love seeing her there. Not every NPC has to do something for me to add joy to my day.

Well I guess there is charm to her, but still.

 

[ForbiddenSecrets]

While I think it would be cute to get a random style of the day from her I’m not mad at her purpose. She’s flavor to the camp and I really like that. Honestly I wish we had more of that vibe. Like if an NPC could be caught wandering your island with no ‘job’ every now and again with just some taking a walk dialogue or something.

 

[daringred_]

this is undoubtedly going to be an unpopular opinion, but i honestly wasn't too thrilled to see her "hippie-fied" for this game. not entirely sure why she couldn't have just stayed a successful career woman making money out of a past-time she loves and be harv's "love interest". could've been that she's only at the co-op on certain days and disappears for others because she's managing her business in the city or that she's progressed to having a whole branch of hair salons now and the one at the co-op is her latest venture so she can offer hairstyles inspired by the other shops/nature. (or, as was my original hope, have a rotating stock of exclusive hair accessories and wigs.) i didn't care for her selection of hairstyles at all, so she was pretty useless for me anyway, but it's nice to see her wandering around even if i don't care for her updated design too much. definitely think slightly more could've been done with her in way of a shop of her own though.

 

[Hypno KK]

I don't mind this at all. I think they mostly just brought her in because people missed her and as a fun bonus but (other than fleshing out Harvey's island a bit more) she doesn't have much of a point. I like Harriet but honestly prefer the mirror system, it's MUCH less of a hassle to have to visit her and check a guide to make your hair look the way you want it to. I think a better option would be to have her set up a shop to sell wigs and hair accessories or something.

There are other NPCs where you're pretty limited because you're likely to get all the items or features they offer sooner or later and after that there isn't much of a point in talking to them. If you finish the museum there isn't much reason to talk to Blathers or visit Redd's boat, if you've gotten all items from Gulliver there's no reason to talk to him, etc.. That's ok by me. I'd rather have those features even if they end at some point than not have them at all. Extending them indefinitely wouldn't be feasible. I agree they could have more things to say but people would still complain about them becoming "useless" after a while. I don't think they're useless, they add to the world and make it feel more alive even if you're not interacting with them.

I've said this before in another thread but I'm only annoyed by the way the game handles NPCs when we're missing unique features -- Celeste's constellations, working for Brewster, etc.

 

[Regalli]

Honestly, because the mirror is so much better for customization options in general than paying to get a hairstyle and only getting the ones you want via guide, I think Harriet’s just an unfortunate casualty on that front. I definitely wouldn’t mind if she teaches hairstyles outside your handful of presets (provided those presets aren’t all for straight hair and curly hairstyles are only via Harriet, which would be bad), or becomes the way to offer non-natural hair colors in a future game, but the mirror made her role redundant and choosing your look directly rather than answering a quiz you don’t realize will decide your look for the rest of the game (and you had to use an elaborate workaround via tanning to get a darker skintone AT ALL) is just… so much better as a design choice. And it’s convenient to be able to decide which of a couple hairstyles I feel like using at any given time by just previewing them and seeing how I feel. It’s a bit like how villagers giving you reactions makes Dr. Shrunk a beloved but structurally unnecessary NPC. (Though I certainly wouldn’t mind going back to Club Lol or something as the reaction method in a future game where it would fit in, whereas the mirror is just so much better.) Or how autosave renders Resetti unnecessary entirely.

I think the issue is that, especially as they wanted to do the desert island theming this game (meaning a train wouldn’t make sense as transit, meaning they wanted to limit NPCs in the early game so the Nooklings handle selling items and a postcard stand in the airport rather than a full post office,) a lot of NPCs just didn’t have clear roles anymore, and a lot of other features needed reworking. (For instance, constellations are much harder to work in with a game that doesn’t use Wild World’s dual screens and log-world approach, or Club Tortimer where it’s hard to moderate meeting with strangers in a game whose primary demographics are actual kids and then a sizable contingent of young adults.) Plus a couple characters filling new roles seemed like logical takeovers for existing ones (CJ and Flick with selling bugs and fish and making models, and by that point why not make them MCs of the reworked tourneys,) one existing character’s development across a couple games made her a good candidate for the fashion check role (Label, and even if her clothes selection is limited I’m proud of her,) and I think they just wanted to let Joan retire finally. But it still ends up unfortunate if a character you really loved no longer has a clear role - I’m sad the pelicans are unnecessary. Even if I’m proud of Label, I do think Gracie would have killed it with an island makeover herself. And it’d be nice if next game they figured out how to reincorporate some of the NPCs some more, or came up with a spinoff that utilizes some of the other characters. But finding them roles as the series develops is a legitimate challenge.

 

[dragonair]

She got a new man and now she's acting different.