Discussion: Was the removal of preset houseplots a good idea?

[Le Ham]

Think about it: In every AC game predating New Leaf, every possible spot for your villagers to move in was already determined from the start of your town. The little signs around your town represented a houseplot. Though you couldn't change their locations, you always knew where your villagers could move in, and you could plan your town accordingly without having to worry about a surprise move-in on your hybrids or paths.

Now, in New Leaf, your villagers can plop their bums pretty much anywhere they want to. You have more freedom in town planning, but at the cost of spending hours of your gameplay plot resetting and making extra characters just to keep your move-ins straight. Is the customization of house placement worth the agony of resetting, in your opinion?

 

[Chipped-Teacup]

I think it was a good idea because it adds to the fun of the game (like personally, I find it fun walking around trying to find the new plot), however the preset house plots probably would have made landscaping a lot easier

 

[Tuc]

They were going the right way with house plots in New Leaf, but they didn't quite get there yet.

 

[Dom]

Trouble is, even if there are no predetermined house plots in NL, unless you build PWP's over them, the villagers will always (well 90% of the time) set their plot right on the last one. Happened to me a lot with my game.

 

[patriceflanders]

prefer New Leaf WITH the plot resetting option by far

 

[TheGreatBrain]

I liked that they had predetermined house plots. Plot resetting can be very stressful. Not to mention how easy it is to mess up and start up with your mayor. Having villagers plop their houses in bad places can make me not want to play anymore.Some people have 4 characters in their towns, so plot resetting is not an option. I think theres a lot less stress when you don't have to worry about a new villager moving in, and destroying your hard work.

 

[marierock13]

I honestly preferred preset house plot signposts. I could plan everything around those designated locations, and never have to worry about where I'd put things.

New Leaf got halfway there, as not having signposts offers more customization freedom but makes the villager moving process far more difficult.

I hope that in a future iteration, in order to retain the NL level of town customization, they make a PWP of a "plot signpost", which we can construct where we want our villagers to place their houses - thereby eliminating plot resetting.

 

[-Lumi-]

I am a bit torn on this.

I love the fact that in Wild World the villagers will never move into a horrendous spot that'll block my bridge, or the path down to a beach, or crush my hybrids or perfect fruit orchard, etc. But I also dislike that since the plots are concrete I have to work around them. I just wish that the game would be like, "Hey! New villager is moving in tomorrow! Pick where you want their house to go!" and then I could choose a spot, like how I choose where I want my house to go in the beginning. I know I can plot reset, but that is a hassle, in my opinion. :/

 

[Holla]

I prefer the new way. Sure the random placement can destroy things, but there are ways to avoid that (plot resetting). Plus I found the predetermined locations in the older games boring and the signs were annoying. Not to mention if a house/sign was in a bad place there was nothing you could do about it (I had one of those in City Folk I can't tell you how many times I ran into the darn sign or house -.-). At least in New Leaf you can get so and so villager to move out, clearing out the area.

One thing that would make the system better however would be like a reverse Isabelle type thing where the villager meets with you instead and they request where they'd like their house and you can give the yea or nay. Giving you some control over where the villager plots their house and eliminating the need to plot reset.

I know many people would like to just pick exactly where everybody should live but I don't agree. I think the villager has the right to choose the spot but you as the Mayor have the right to say no sorry I don't want anyone moving here, or sure that's fine with me! ^.^

- - - Post Merge - - -

They were going the right way with house plots in New Leaf, but they didn't quite get there yet.

My thoughts exactly. Some tweaking of the New Leaf system would make a Wii U version perfect or at least near-perfect.

 

[Le Ham]

I hope that in a future iteration, in order to retain the NL level of town customization, they make a PWP of a "plot signpost", which we can construct where we want our villagers to place their houses - thereby eliminating plot resetting.

I just wish that the game would be like, "Hey! New villager is moving in tomorrow! Pick where you want their house to go!" and then I could choose a spot, like how I choose where I want my house to go in the beginning.

One thing that would make the system better however would be like a reverse Isabelle type thing where the villager meets with you instead and they request where they'd like their house and you can give the yea or nay. Giving you some control over where the villager plots their house and eliminating the need to plot reset.

I know many people would like to just pick exactly where everybody should live but I don't agree. I think the villager has the right to choose the spot but you as the Mayor have the right to say no sorry I don't want anyone moving here, or sure that's fine with me! ^.^

- - - Post Merge - - -

Some tweaking of the New Leaf system would make a Wii U version perfect or at least near-perfect.

This is also an interesting topic. If they change the way the houseplots are set in newer AC titles, how do you think it should be done, and what could be changed about the New Leaf system to make it better, if not ideal? I like the ideas going around so far.

 

[Shiny Spritzee]

Both have good and bad points.

Although I have to say I didn't mind the NL way of creating a new character and walking round until I found the new plot. Eventually space gets taken up by the 10 villager houses and PWP's take the rest of the space. I found new villagers were always forced to move into one of the old empty plots, so it was sort of a way of placing house markers. The only problem was when you run out of room to put a new character house, you have to keep those villagers. Just in case a new one ended up somewhere you didn't want.

I really, really hope the next game lets you either choose where the new villagers live via house plot markers or pick the spot yourself. With the amount of town customization the game offers now, its just not worth towns being ruined by houses appearing where they aren't wanted.

 

[infinikitten]

I've been fairly lucky with plot resetting so I don't mind the New Leaf method at all. I've never tried to line everyone's houses up in a perfect row or anything (I imagine that's fairly rage inducing) but then again, that option wasn't even possible with the pre-set plots, so yeah. NL has the right idea, I just wish there was a way to manually pick where the villagers go, or toggle random plots on/off so you have more control over your town.