how do you feel about terraforming?

[lovefern]

how much do you do it, if at all? do you love the feature? do you avoid it altogether? i was watching a very interesting video recently about how the ability to terraform in new horizons, among other things, seems to give the player too much reign over the villagers in a game where they are supposed to be more or less equal residents. it got me thinking about how what i loved about past games was that it felt like you were improving upon an already established community, an idea essentially reversed in new horizons.

i personally find terraforming my island to be an overwhelming process and sometimes wish i'd just left the terrain untouched, but i'm curious to know what others think. ₍ᐢ. ̫.ᐢ₎

 

[dizzy bone]

I think terraforming suits this game, mainly because the graphic quality is so good that I would feel cheated if ACNH came out and all I could do is place stuff on the ground and/or place a few ground level projects. In that vein my only complaint is that they didn’t make it even more customizable lol. Their focus seems to not be on villager interaction but building and customizing so I feel like they could have expanded more on that, even with concepts that are not new to the series: Eg. Public building themes (zen, fairy, modern, etc) is something I miss from new leaf and feels like should have been added since we can redesign villager exteriors/interiors in 2.0.

 

[olliebugge]

honestly, i am not into terraforming. at all.

i mean, i think it's a great customization feature! it lessens the need to repeatedly reset the game for a layout you like, cause you can change it on a whim. but it's just not for me.

i remember on my very first island, i decided i was going to redo my whole layout! so i flattened out the island and got rid of all the rivers... and then i ran out of steam, and just made a whole new island. maybe i'd enjoy the feature more if it was similar to the decorating mode. i find making paths tedious enough, let alone making cliffs and stuff.

 

[lovefern]

honestly, i am not into terraforming. at all.

i mean, i think it's a great customization feature! it lessens the need to repeatedly reset the game for a layout you like, cause you can change it on a whim. but it's just not for me.

i remember on my very first island, i decided i was going to redo my whole layout! so i flattened out the island and got rid of all the rivers... and then i ran out of steam, and just made a whole new island. maybe i'd enjoy the feature more if it was similar to the decorating mode. i find making paths tedious enough, let alone making cliffs and stuff.

it is really nice that we don't have to rely so much on resetting for a nice layout nowadays! though i agree, terraforming is not my strong suit and it can get very tedious.

 

[VanitasFan26]

You know what I'll just come out and say it.

I really don't like it. After 4 years of constant restarting the island, terraforming is the most tiresome, tedious, and sluggish feature I've ever used. It takes forever to make cliffs, paths, and waterfalls. Thats why I decided to cut down on doing it. Sure I may fix the rivers and cliffs to make them more open but other than that It just gets to the point where after spending constant hours its a chore. The Happy Home Paradise DLC makes Terraforming look like a joke with its outdoor decoration tool. Its spoiled me so much.

 

[lovefern]

You know what I'll just come out and say it.

I really don't like it. After 4 years of constant restarting the island, terraforming is the most tiresome, tedious, and sluggish feature I've ever used. It takes forever to make cliffs, paths, and waterfalls. Thats why I decided to cut down on doing it. Sure I may fix the rivers and cliffs to make them more open but other than that It just gets to the point where after spending constant hours its a chore. The Happy Home Paradise DLC makes Terraforming look like a joke with its outdoor decoration tool. Its spoiled me so much.

bahaha speak your truth! it's so nice to take a break from the real work on your island and go play the dlc where decorating is much easier. i can't count how many times i've "spent the night" at work and just didn't return to my island for a few days. (￣▽￣)

 

[danmokun]

I feel like there's too much you could do with terraforming, that I don't know where to begin. And because there's so many things you can do, you'll always see someone else's island and think "why didn't I think of that!" and I feel like my island isn't as cool as I thought it was. I like the expression "less is more".

Another thing, I like the natural, jagged and organic look of the previous environments. Terraforming comes out a little blocky and man-made. Cliffs are perfectly tall and straight. Slopes are perfect 45 degree angles. Gamecube Animal Crossing is my favorite terrain.

 

[Pyoopi]

I really like terraforming as much as there are quite a few frustrating aspects about it. It just added a new gameplay style and it's not even required for island ratings. It's a fun extra design element. I think it's cool to carve specific shapes or just create a more organic flow to the island.

It's not perfected but I think the developers did a pretty good damn job on it. That from scratch, seems like a programmer's nightmare, I can't even imagine the code for that (so glad I'm not a programmer). In a future game, I think it needs like set presets than placing one block at a time. There needs to be options because it's such a tedious process.

Imagine one preset could be a premade rounded cliff:

(ACNL prize from desert island escape)
This would probably help make terraforming less intimidating and a lot more fluid when creating basic forms.

 

[Sbwoijwot]

Terraforming is great. I was hoping for multiple layers in New Horizons, but never in a million years would I expect we'd get to make our own cliffs.
I've seen people say it takes away from the immersion seen in previous games, which makes sense, but personally speaking as someone who believes New Horizons is one of the weaker Animal Crossings, New Leaf with New Horizons customization sounds like a dream Animal Crossing game. The game makes it something you have to enable on your nookphone that forces you to wear a helmet to differentiate it from the rest of the game anyways.

 

[Croconaw]

I like it. It gives me more control over my island. I’m never sure where to begin, but that’s nothing to do with terraforming itself rather my lack of creativity.

 

[wrenbow]

It's definitely clunky but I'm really glad we have it. I wouldn't say that it gives the player too much freedom since it has its limitations, and it's entirely optional so if you prefer to take what you're given by the game then you can still do that. For the people that like decorating and designing, it's great that you don't have to scrap your plans just because a bit of cliff or river is in the way, and there's the option to get really creative with it if you want to. Customisation is a big part of Animal Crossing so imo terraforming was a pretty useful addition.

 

[eeveelovee]

imo, I don't like the pixelated scale they use, I want to be able to have rounded corners, not octagonal ones. Sure you can still make round shapes, but it isn't as smooth as a river is supposed to look, you know? I just have avoided terraforming at all costs... I have created a few waterfalls here and there, but because of the square, pixelated structure, it has deterred me away from ever using it. I just basically embraced what my island already came with lol!

 

[CylieDanny]

I love terrifoarming! I have alot of recreations of scenes or buildings in series that I love. Using the terrifoarming as the frame and creating large scale areas is so satisfying for me.

Like I recreated South Park on the far upper right of my island and only wanted the way in to be by ramp. Though I had a few sneaky jumps to make it easier for me. I basically made two large areas and ramps that connected down into my small mountain town. Which only has three of my villagers. I also made the highline longer to get too with mountain standing. It's a long road to South Park xD

My large castle or buildings that were recreated were also from terrifoarming. Those took a long time and alot of patience but fun to make. But really cool to look at. My whole house is a one story castle. I also made a few other large recreated buildings from series.

(I like to think my Island is a Fandom mess, because of all the references)

But I honestly like my favorite thing to terrifoarm is rivers and ponds with alot of patience and alot of trial and error I managed to make the South Park studios logo (minus the words) into a small garden. That leads to South Park.

So yeah I love to terrifoarm, I don't think I'd like this game half as much if it didn't have it. I like the endless creativity and things you can create from a simple shovel tool.

 

[azurill]

I wasn’t sure about it at first. I didn’t use it much at all in the first year . After I got my second island I started using it more. Now that I have gotten used to it and have found ways to make it easier I really am loving it. I know now to plan my builds before just terraforming. I love being able to create waterfalls.

 

[-Blue-]

I think terraforming is a nice feature, but it honestly needs an overhaul. The simplest of features aren't even added like a cursor to tell you where you're about to dig or whatever. And if you don't like what you did you have to undo it because autosave probably already overwrote your progress. It's very time consuming doing one tile after another and watching the animation go on and on. And whoops the game overshot where you wanted...time to undo that. Whoops you just destroyed a tile that you actually intended...

It's an interesting feature and fun to use, but it needs an overhaul desperately. We are all adults here, for the most part. So we will deal with the sluggishness of the feature, but this game was geared towards kids. It's a little too complicated and grindy for your average kid. I've heard so many stories of kids getting this game and abandoning it because it was too hard and stressful for them. And I feel like that's what terraforming is in a way. Having to find a lot of compromises/workarounds. A game like AC shouldn't be stressful. That's the opposite of what the game is supposed to be, but I've heard all kinds of horror stories of kids having meltdowns (especially because everyone had the share the island instead of having separate islands because Nintendo is greedy)

I like it. I am glad they added more to the game. But they can do better and make it where terraforming isn't such a slog.

 

[Xara]

I rarely terraform. I think it’s a great feature that gives us more creative freedom that I desperately wanted in New Leaf, but it’s so overwhelming to me that I don’t do it much. There is just so much potential for things that I could do or create with it, and so many things that I would love to do with it, that I can’t bring myself to do any of it. It’s the exact same reason why I haven’t tried to decorate my island in so long; there are so many items, so many customization options for said items, custom designs etc, and it’s so overwhelming to me. I’m pretty much a creative disaster, so swamped by all of my creative potential all of the time that I can’t remember it all or even get started on anything.

The most terraforming I’ve done is creating a heart-shaped pond, flattening my island, recreating the river on the bottom half of my island, and making a little area for my campsite. The “flattening my island” part of terraforming sucked (and was honestly a bad idea LOL), but everything else was fun! I haven’t terraformed enough to really be able to speak on the mechanics of it, but overall I think it’s a really cool feature! I just hope I’m able to bring myself to do more of it eventually, haha

 

[ellienoise]

I absolutely love it. I remember the days when you would have to hack your 3ds to get more control over your map, and Im glad that the developers saw what we were doing and said “you know what? Let’s just give it to them” and new horizons came in with these customization options. And they are all completely optional. I see a lot of towns that are just left untouched, and their rivers and hills are just the same as when they started and I love that, and I also love visiting towns that were torn up and built back up and made things happen that we didn’t even thought were possible.

I love that we all get the choice to do whatever we want. It’s amazing! Shout out to that guy that made the map editor for acnl that was awesome.

 

[Darkesque_]

I have a love/hate relationship with terraforming. I think it's a great feature, and it adds to the whole "build your deserted island" feel, but I feel like it's way too tedious. I tend to avoid terraforming at all costs because it's time-consuming. I do hope that in the next AC game, they improve the terraforming feature, like adding different-sized shovels (meaning instead of placing one cliff or water tile, you can choose to add 2, 3, or even 4. Similar to the brush strokes with the custom designs.)

 

[KittenNoir]

I love terraforming I love how you can make the island a bit more realistic with rocks and water displays.

I’ve done a lot of terraforming around my island but I would love to do even more.

I also love seeing how creative people are in making and designing things with terraforming

 

[Blue-cat]

It's a nice feature, but it's too tedious. I should've left my island alone so the cliffs and rivers looked natural.