Making the Most of Animal Crossing without NSO

[Belle T]

Nintendo's decision to make online play--something which had previously been free on other platforms--a premium service has hit some users rather hard. And while initially one might have justified this with a price tag that was cheaper relative to its competitors, with the addon that was released concurrently with the Happy Home Paradise expansion, the price has increased dramatically, essentially negating that point. I know that I may be in the extreme minority on a forum specifically dedicated to Animal Crossing, but when calculating all other expenses and evaluating the actual quality of the Nintendo Switch Online service, I simply can't justify spending that kind of money. This unfortunately means that I will have to miss out on many of the community features, such as the custom designs portal, item trading, visiting other islands, and etc. It's difficult, for sure, especially coming from New Leaf, where many of these same features were implemented so that they could work without an internet connection at all.

This probably won't get a fair ton of responses, since I doubt many people here are in my unique position. But I am curious to know if anyone else is in a similar boat and what they do to supplement the experience of having an NSO membership. Do you find a way to get custom designs from other players that doesn't involve the designs portal? How do you get the best DIY's? How do you keep a sense of community despite being cut off from it by a paywall? I'd be interested in hearing all your responses.

 

[Croconaw]

I played New Horizons without WiFi. It sucks because you can’t do anything. You can’t even update your game. I only had the free trial which I used to obtain items I needed for my island. Your freedom is seriously hindered without NSO. I guess this is to get people to purchase it, but you can’t even enjoy it otherwise. I feel like I would’ve enjoyed it more with the updates or WiFi capabilities.

 

[VanitasFan26]

I know this may sound crazy and ridiculous but last year I bought a 2nd switch and 2nd copy of the game in order to make use of doing things offline. I found out that if you use local play you don't actually need NSO to play with yourself from a different island but you still need to be connected to the Internet in order for it to work.

I also find it ridiculous how this game has the most lackluster online making you spend that much money just to visit someone. I found out that you cannot send letters to your friends because that requires NSO do that which I find outlandish. I know I said this in the past but I'll say it again this game ACNH should've had mini games that people liked from New Leaf. I am not sure what Nintendo was thinking but this was the worst online experience they ever did on this game.

So yeah thats how I've been managing to play without NSO

 

[Khaelis]

Server costs are only going to go up and up as time goes on, so having to pay for online multiplayer services were inevitable. I'm just glad it is affordable for most, and it isn't like you have to pay for each game's multiplayer separately.

 

[moon_child]

Honestly the online features for AC isn’t that immersive to justify a continuous online subscription. You can’t really play mini games with other people anymore like we used to in Tortimer’s island and there’s a ton of island tour videos on YouTube so I don’t even use the Dream feature myself as much anymore. Because of this, online now is mainly used for trading and getting custom designs. Since this is the case now for ACNH, if you don’t play other online games on the switch very heavily, you can instead do monthly subscriptions as and when you need them. Just make a wishlist of stuff you need from trading and custom designs you need for decorating, subscribe for a month and get everything you need and you’re good to go.

 

[MiniPocketWorld]

Nintendo's decision to make online play--something which had previously been free on other platforms--a premium service has hit some users rather hard. And while initially one might have justified this with a price tag that was cheaper relative to its competitors, with the addon that was released concurrently with the Happy Home Paradise expansion, the price has increased dramatically, essentially negating that point. I know that I may be in the extreme minority on a forum specifically dedicated to Animal Crossing, but when calculating all other expenses and evaluating the actual quality of the Nintendo Switch Online service, I simply can't justify spending that kind of money. This unfortunately means that I will have to miss out on many of the community features, such as the custom designs portal, item trading, visiting other islands, and etc. It's difficult, for sure, especially coming from New Leaf, where many of these same features were implemented so that they could work without an internet connection at all.

This probably won't get a fair ton of responses, since I doubt many people here are in my unique position. But I am curious to know if anyone else is in a similar boat and what they do to supplement the experience of having an NSO membership. Do you find a way to get custom designs from other players that doesn't involve the designs portal? How do you get the best DIY's? How do you keep a sense of community despite being cut off from it by a paywall? I'd be interested in hearing all your responses.

I have been playing offline since sometime last year and I have an island I started last fall. I think the thing I miss the most was checking out dream addresses. I found that kind of thing really fun and interesting. However, I am not sure that there are too many new islands added or updated. Many people seemed to have move on from the game, unless they just really love animal crossing. But I guess I do have youtube to check out island tours. As for custom designs, I just make my own. I will look online for inspiration. Sometimes creators are nice enough to show you a picture of the graph of their pattern so you can copy it if you do not have access to the portal. Right now I am trying to make a rug that looks ok.
I feel like those are the only two things that "matter" when it comes to NOS. Unlike New Leaf, New Horizons doesn't have games you can play with other's online. The variations of nook mile items are remedied by Cyrus at Harvey's island thankfully. It also assists in getting variations of other items too. Unfortunately, as far as I know, you will be missing two of the six fruits that exist. I would hope that would be fixed by nintendo via Kapp'n Islands, as cooking recipes and crafting recipes sometimes require the missing fruit. If I am wrong here, please someone say something because I would be so happy if you can actually find them that way.
If you have amiibos, you can scan them into the campsite. Since they give out diys for the souvenir request, you may get one you don't have yet. That can help with diys. Playing on my own without any help from last fall, I feel like I am making pretty good progress in the game. It is much faster than it was when the game first launched.

 

[moon_child]

I have been playing offline since sometime last year and I have an island I started last fall. I think the thing I miss the most was checking out dream addresses. I found that kind of thing really fun and interesting. However, I am not sure that there are too many new islands added or updated. Many people seemed to have move on from the game, unless they just really love animal crossing. But I guess I do have youtube to check out island tours. As for custom designs, I just make my own. I will look online for inspiration. Sometimes creators are nice enough to show you a picture of the graph of their pattern so you can copy it if you do not have access to the portal. Right now I am trying to make a rug that looks ok.
I feel like those are the only two things that "matter" when it comes to NOS. Unlike New Leaf, New Horizons doesn't have games you can play with other's online. The variations of nook mile items are remedied by Cyrus at Harvey's island thankfully. It also assists in getting variations of other items too. Unfortunately, as far as I know, you will be missing two of the six fruits that exist. I would hope that would be fixed by nintendo via Kapp'n Islands, as cooking recipes and crafting recipes sometimes require the missing fruit. If I am wrong here, please someone say something because I would be so happy if you can actually find them that way.
If you have amiibos, you can scan them into the campsite. Since they give out diys for the souvenir request, you may get one you don't have yet. That can help with diys. Playing on my own without any help from last fall, I feel like I am making pretty good progress in the game. It is much faster than it was when the game first launched.

I also thought they’d do something about the fruits when 2.0 rolled around because I assumed they knew less and less players would be playing the game and actively trading over time (making the Reese and Cyrus customization service such a great addition to the game) but it seems like it’s still pretty much locked to trading to be able to complete. I’ve been playing actively until now and still hasn’t come across any other fruits (aside from my native and sister fruits) in both dodo and kappn islands. Villagers seem to always give my sister fruit as gifts as well. Fortunately, I have all the fruits in the game already since I traded for them early on when I restarted but it looks like Nintendo has not yet provided any alternatives to getting all the fruits on your own without online access up until now.

 

[Belle T]

Recently, one of my villagers gave me a non-native fruit (an apple) so part of me had assumed that they also had the ability to give you any other fruit, even if some were more rare. But I obviously have no idea.

 

[Bizhiins]

The part that disappointed me the most was that you needed NSO for custom designs access, and dreams. Those were an aspect I really loved in past games and they made it work without needing to buy a subscription. I’m pretty disappointed they needed to add it to the subscription now.
I went without it for awhile, but ending up getting it a couple months ago just to get access to some custom path patterns because I’m not really good at making my own designs.
I didn’t know that you can’t send letters to your friends without NSO?? I though maybe you only needed internet… that’s pretty bogus.

 

[-Mars-]

-

 

[VanitasFan26]

The part that disappointed me the most was that you needed NSO for custom designs access, and dreams. Those were an aspect I really loved in past games and they made it work without needing to buy a subscription. I’m pretty disappointed they needed to add it to the subscription now.
I went without it for awhile, but ending up getting it a couple months ago just to get access to some custom path patterns because I’m not really good at making my own designs.
I didn’t know that you can’t send letters to your friends without NSO?? I though maybe you only needed internet… that’s pretty bogus.

The Restrictions in this game just drive me crazy sometimes. I don't know what Nintendo was thinking.

 

[Shawna]

I feel ya guys. While $20/year may be inexpensive and affordable for the vast majority of us, it can still be frustrating and seem as a bit of a ripoff. .-. My subscription is already gonna expire again in a few week. Hopefully, I can get it renewed without issue. Even making it a one-time payment would make all the difference in the world.

The reason why I think it is a ripoff is because there isn't much to do on ACNH in terms of inviting/visiting others besides trading/buying/selling/adopting villagers. And we have ridiculous restrictions while the gate is opened that should not be there (not being able to decorate, donate to the museum, etc.) -- you have to pay this continuously just to have access to some of the bare basic features of the game.

And this isn't just an issue with ACNH, but with Nintendo games in general. Take Miitopia for example, you need NSO just to be able to receive miis and have other people receive miis for you. Or if I wanted to start a secondary file...I would need NSO for that second file as well just to have access to MY OWN MIIS.

 

[VanitasFan26]

I feel ya guys. While $20/year may be inexpensive and affordable for the vast majority of us, it can still be frustrating and seem as a bit of a ripoff. .-. My subscription is already gonna expire again in a few week. Hopefully, I can get it renewed without issue. Even making it a one-time payment would make all the difference in the world.

The reason why I think it is a ripoff is because there isn't much to do on ACNH in terms of inviting/visiting others besides trading/buying/selling/adopting villagers. And we have ridiculous restrictions while the gate is opened that should not be there (not being able to decorate, donate to the museum, etc.) -- you have to pay this continuously just to have access to some of the bare basic features of the game.

And this isn't just an issue with ACNH, but with Nintendo games in general. Take Miitopia for example, you need NSO just to be able to receive miis and have other people receive miis for you. Or if I wanted to start a secondary file...I would need NSO for that second file as well just to have access to MY OWN MIIS.

Like seriously. Nintendo needs to stop this trend of releasing games that has half of the content and then releasing it so many months later and they are just like done with it. Its something that I noticed happening recently and it needs to stop. I worry for the next AC Game if its like this.. 2 years of this game coming out and it just feels like there was going to be so much more to this game, but then when they released the 2.0 update last year they just basically said "Yeah you know what we are done with this game so no more major content or paid updates" It just rubs me the wrong way how they just suddenly gave up on the game yes I know they did bug fixes but thats just it.

 

[Shawna]

Like seriously. Nintendo needs to stop this trend of releasing games that has half of the content and then releasing it so many months later and they are just like done with it. Its something that I noticed happening recently and it needs to stop. I worry for the next AC Game if its like this.. 2 years of this game coming out and it just feels like there was going to be so much more to this game, but then when they released the 2.0 update last year they just basically said "Yeah you know what we are done with this game so no more major content or paid updates" It just rubs me the wrong way how they just suddenly gave up on the game yes I know they did bug fixes but thats just it.

I know we just got a big update in November, which I am grateful for, but we’ve been asking for quality of life updates for two years that we never got. .—-.

 

[moon_child]

Like seriously. Nintendo needs to stop this trend of releasing games that has half of the content and then releasing it so many months later and they are just like done with it. Its something that I noticed happening recently and it needs to stop. I worry for the next AC Game if its like this.. 2 years of this game coming out and it just feels like there was going to be so much more to this game, but then when they released the 2.0 update last year they just basically said "Yeah you know what we are done with this game so no more major content or paid updates" It just rubs me the wrong way how they just suddenly gave up on the game yes I know they did bug fixes but thats just it.

This sadly seems like a trend right now for major developers as I remember Marvelous had a similar incident releasing SoS with so many problems and so many stuff lacking and supplementing it with paid dlc and updates down the road but by the time they rolled it out most of the players already lost interest and gave up on the game altogether. I don’t understand the trend of releasing barebones incomplete games these days.

 

[VanitasFan26]

This sadly seems like a trend right now for major developers as I remember Marvelous had a similar incident releasing SoS with so many problems and so many stuff lacking and supplementing it with paid dlc and updates down the road but by the time they rolled it out most of the players already lost interest and gave up on the game altogether. I don’t understand the trend of releasing barebones incomplete games these days.

That explains why all the hype died away after ACNH was released back in 2020. I think it was by August 2020 when everyone finally stopped playing and even though that they released the 2.0 update back in November 2021 like you said people have already moved on or given up on the game so it was already too late. If they would've just released this content in 2020 maybe then game would've had more longevity in it to keep going just like New Leaf, but it was how the pacing of the way they did the updates was so slow. I know there is argument to be had that the pandemic had something to do with the development but still that doesn't excuse them for releasing a half baked game that costs like $60

 

[Croconaw]

That explains why all the hype died away after ACNH was released back in 2020. I think it was by August 2020 when everyone finally stopped playing and even though that they released the 2.0 update back in November 2021 like you said people have already moved on or given up on the game so it was already too late. If they would've just released this content in 2020 maybe then game would've had more longevity in it to keep going just like New Leaf, but it was how the pacing of the way they did the updates was so slow. I know there is argument to be had that the pandemic had something to do with the development but still that doesn't excuse them for releasing a half baked game that costs like $60

That’s just it, though. With everyone being on lockdown, they wanted to boost their sales by releasing it early. I know Animal Crossing got a lot of new fans because of this.

 

[VanitasFan26]

That’s just it, though. With everyone being on lockdown, they wanted to boost their sales by releasing it early. I know Animal Crossing got a lot of new fans because of this.

That is true while most of the people who played this game in 2020 are no longer playing it the game still is getting a lot more new players.

 

[Starboard]

I never had NSO and here are my 2 cents:

I'm kind of weird in that I refused to get online mostly because I was so grossed out by Nintendo's decisions, and not so much the $30 AUD per year. In saying that though, I had no job at the time and had already paid an ungodly amount of money (to me) for the second-hand Switch Lite and game. To pay even more after that for the whole game was just insulting to me.

Also I don't believe it was made explicitly clear that you'd be missing out on so many things. I spent months reading about the game before I bought it 3 months after release, and actually never found out that pattern-sharing was sub-only and furniture was colour-locked. Guess that was just bad luck?

I know Nintendo's a business and needs to make money, but I still had a feeling that we were being ripped off, and I really didn't think they had to lock away so much content behind that subscription.

Very fortunately I had an irl friend who had the game and traded me the rest of the fruit and some furniture variants I really needed. As for patterns, I remade The Path pixel by pixel by looking at pictures online of it. So much time wasted in comparison. But it still felt better than being part of this gross thing Nintendo did...

As of 2.0, they added Cyrus who is a life-saver. But without NSO we still can't have all the fruits on your own, make the corresponding DIYs, or dream or share patterns. They've added more features locked behind it (e.g. the app) but fortunately I'm not really interested. I can easily afford the sub now but I don't really care anymore as I've more-or-less completed my island. I'm glad I enjoyed the game even without it. But if they introduced mini games, I might just cave.

Edit: I know this is already long but I forgot to mention, I have quite a bit of social anxiety and even if I had gotten NSO I'd have been really nervous about the concept of conducting so many trades. So I was also upset about that being forced on us.

 

[Belle T]

And this isn't just an issue with ACNH, but with Nintendo games in general. Take Miitopia for example, you need NSO just to be able to receive miis and have other people receive miis for you. Or if I wanted to start a secondary file...I would need NSO for that second file as well just to have access to MY OWN MIIS.

I was really looking forward to Mario Maker 2, but I've decided against purchasing it because it's functionally useless without NSO.