Why are the Early Bird and Night Owl ordinances complete jokes in this game?

[Alolan_Apples]

Remember in ACNL when the Early Bird and Night Owl ordinances extended shop hours by three hours on average (five at most in case of T&T Mart)? Why did they only give us one extra hour instead of three (or at the very least, two) in this game? You can’t use the “some is better than none” argument here. It’s either you have it or you don’t have it. It doesn’t help that we only get one store upgrade, and the shop hours for both upgrades are the exact same.

 

[mundaneal]

Dang, I never grabbed those so I never noticed. That really is useless. Like, is closing at 23 really that substantial? For those that actually play at night, 3hrs just makes more sense, closing at 1 just makes more sense. I'm guessing that they just didn't think about what those ordinances are for, or they want to make people wait and do something else.

 

[Alolan_Apples]

Some suggest changing your Nintendo Switch’s time zone to give you extra hours, but that’s missing the point. The point is to be able to enter Nook’s Cranny very late at night or very early in the morning.

 

[mundaneal]

Some suggest changing your Nintendo Switch’s time zone to give you extra hours, but that’s missing the point. The point is to be able to enter Nook’s Cranny very late at night or very early in the morning.

Exactly. Changing the time zone is just weird time travelling.

 

[oath2order]

In my opinion, all of the ordinances are kind of crap in this game.

Beautiful Island stops weeds, trash, and cockroaches, none of which are major annoyances. The hybrid benefits are nice but whatever.

Early Bird and Night Owl are useless now that they're only one hour.

Bell Boom is great as a temporary thing.

 

[McRibbie]

tbh I think they're worse because they were actually kind of redundant when they were added into the game

In NL, you can't sell things when the shops are closed, the only way you can get furniture or clothing is if you shake it out of a tree or a villager gives it to you, and you can't access your catalogue 24/7, so adding a few extra hours either way helps you out as you're basically screwed without it, especially as no AC game before or since is as reliant on making money as NL is.

However, even in base NH, you can use the drop-off box to continue making money when the shop is shut! (it'll give you slightly less money, tho, because what's the point of having a shop otherwise?) You can craft a decent portion of the furniture in the game, and even certain items of clothing! You can also access your catalogue 24/7, either through the Nook Stop in Resident Services or through your Nookphone (although because you can craft a good portion of the items in the game and it's still trying to get you to play at a relaxed pace and not try building Rome in a day, it's much more limited than usual). In addition NH is less reliant on bells (there's much less in the way of a mortgage left to pay off!) and more reliant on either Nook Miles or natural resources, both of which you're basically able to get 24/7... so there's less of a need for a shop altogether.

 

[mundaneal]

tbh I think they're worse because they were actually kind of redundant when they were added into the game

In NL, you can't sell things when the shops are closed, the only way you can get furniture or clothing is if you shake it out of a tree or a villager gives it to you, and you can't access your catalogue 24/7, so adding a few extra hours either way helps you out as you're basically screwed without it, especially as no AC game before or since is as reliant on making money as NL is.

However, even in base NH, you can use the drop-off box to continue making money when the shop is shut! (it'll give you slightly less money, tho, because what's the point of having a shop otherwise?) You can craft a decent portion of the furniture in the game, and even certain items of clothing! You can also access your catalogue 24/7, either through the Nook Stop in Resident Services or through your Nookphone (although because you can craft a good portion of the items in the game and it's still trying to get you to play at a relaxed pace and not try building Rome in a day, it's much more limited than usual). In addition NH is less reliant on bells (there's much less in the way of a mortgage left to pay off!) and more reliant on either Nook Miles or natural resources, both of which you're basically able to get 24/7... so there's less of a need for a shop altogether.

I can see what you mean there. Actually, when I first started the game, I thought the drop off box was the only way to sell your items and thought the shop was just for buying things because I tend to just skim and not fully read the selection boxes.

 

[Alolan_Apples]

tbh I think they're worse because they were actually kind of redundant when they were added into the game

In NL, you can't sell things when the shops are closed, the only way you can get furniture or clothing is if you shake it out of a tree or a villager gives it to you, and you can't access your catalogue 24/7, so adding a few extra hours either way helps you out as you're basically screwed without it, especially as no AC game before or since is as reliant on making money as NL is.

However, even in base NH, you can use the drop-off box to continue making money when the shop is shut! (it'll give you slightly less money, tho, because what's the point of having a shop otherwise?) You can craft a decent portion of the furniture in the game, and even certain items of clothing! You can also access your catalogue 24/7, either through the Nook Stop in Resident Services or through your Nookphone (although because you can craft a good portion of the items in the game and it's still trying to get you to play at a relaxed pace and not try building Rome in a day, it's much more limited than usual). In addition NH is less reliant on bells (there's much less in the way of a mortgage left to pay off!) and more reliant on either Nook Miles or natural resources, both of which you're basically able to get 24/7... so there's less of a need for a shop altogether.

That is actually true. But what if the shop is selling something that’s not on your catalog yet? That, and the drop-off box only accepts 80% as much as the store selling price.

 

[VanitasFan26]

Oh yes It still bothers me how they messed up the ordinances in this game. I mean the Bell Bloom Ordinance works just fine, but all the others are just bad. Night Owl and Early Bird only change the wake up time by one hour and the Beautiful Island Ordinance doesn't make your weeds go away, instead all you get is a decrease spawn of weeds, and if you time travel no matter how many times you will not have roaches in your home and some of your flowers will start growing more constantly (which is fine if you're still trying to get hybrids), and of course that whole "villagers will pick up weeds" is a scam. Did Nintendo forget how Ordinances work back in New Leaf or did they just rushed through it because they didn't think people would notice?

 

[Drawdler]

Just going to second I think it’s because of redundancy. There‘s a lot less you can do when stores are closed in the old games (unless you’re really into tours or the new games), so they probably thought the extra stuff to do at night balanced it out. Realistically tho it‘s kind of nerfing a playstyle, pretty lame. I remember trying out the late night one and I was like “now I know not to use this in NL” and I didn’t realise it had been nerfed in NH.

 

[Alolan_Apples]

I hope Nintendo learns from our complaints about the ordinances. I wish we can contact them about this issue. But to be honest, they made several unreasonable decisions in game development over the last couple of years. This one is just one of them.

 

[LambdaDelta]

the probably thought the old ones were too "op" and had to nerf

bell boom is the only good one imo

 

[McRibbie]

I hope Nintendo learns from our complaints about the ordinances. I wish we can contact them about this issue. But to be honest, they made several unreasonable decisions in game development over the last couple of years. This one is just one of them.

Unreasonable, or just unexplained?

 

[Alolan_Apples]

Unreasonable, or just unexplained?

Both, actually, but I’m more siding with unreasonable because some of these decisions, such as removing tropical fruits, can’t be justified, no matter what reason you give. Now the decision to nerf money making (like what they did with the beetles) is justifiable, but it had the opposite effect of what they intended (people quit sooner instead of play longer). If you’re going to nerf or cut a popular feature that people can’t understand, you’ll need to give a good reason why you did so (which Nintendo has failed several times).

 

[KittenNoir]

I do not like the island ordinances for this game I much prefer New Leafs town ordinances.

Also I swear New Leaf had an extra ordinance?

 

[TN4U]

Yeah, the ordinances in this game are bleh compared to New Leaf (at least I could farm money with bell boom when the pile of cash DIY was the hot item at Nook’s; I made 54 million bells doing just that!), but like what others said, I think they nerfed the early bird and night owl ordinances because of the drop box. Yes, it sucks for those that only play the game early or late, and I agree, those players should be accounted for somehow.

If the drop box wasn’t a thing, and the ordinances were not the same as New Leaf’s, I’m pretty sure there would be lots of angry complaints from such players.

Beautiful Island, though, is completely useless. You can’t fish trash for DIY, and it’s only really good for breeding hybrid flowers and that’s it. Nintendo should’ve came up with something more than that honestly.

 

[McRibbie]

Both, actually, but I’m more siding with unreasonable because some of these decisions, such as removing tropical fruits, can’t be justified, no matter what reason you give. Now the decision to nerf money making (like what they did with the beetles) is justifiable, but it had the opposite effect of what they intended (people quit sooner instead of play longer). If you’re going to nerf or cut a popular feature that people can’t understand, you’ll need to give a good reason why you did so (which Nintendo has failed several times).

tbh the best reasons I've thought of for tropical fruit are "you can craft various items with fruit like furniture and wallpaper, adding the tropical fruit as well would mean having to design and model furniture for those as well alongside literally every other thing that needs to be designed and modelled", "NH is set on a deserted island, not a tropical one, so tropical fruit wouldn't naturally occur" and "they wanted to do crops instead as it better fits with the self-sufficiency vibe the game has"

They've not given you explicit reasons (admittedly this is because Nintendo is reportedly annoyingly secretive about gamedev outside of a few interviews for assorted publications and Iwata Asks/Ask The Developer), but you can take a look at what the game's doing and take a wild guess. It's better than just asking "WHY????!" all the time because it shows you're engaging with something (or at the very least, trying to engage with something)

 

[Alolan_Apples]

Yeah, the ordinances in this game are bleh compared to New Leaf (at least I could farm money with bell boom when the pile of cash DIY was the hot item at Nook’s; I made 54 million bells doing just that!), but like what others said, I think they nerfed the early bird and night owl ordinances because of the drop box. Yes, it sucks for those that only play the game early or late, and I agree, those players should be accounted for somehow.

If the drop box wasn’t a thing, and the ordinances were not the same as New Leaf’s, I’m pretty sure there would be lots of angry complaints from such players.

Beautiful Island, though, is completely useless. You can’t fish trash for DIY, and it’s only really good for breeding hybrid flowers and that’s it. Nintendo should’ve came up with something more than that honestly.

Maybe they should shift hours instead of extend the opening hours or waking hours. Like for the Night Owl Ordinance, if a store runs from 9:00 AM to 11:00 PM, it should change to 12:00 PM to 2:00 AM. They could also have lucky town ordinances, which you can exchange good luck for bad luck between fishing, bug hunting, money making, or item gathering.

And for the Beautiful Town, it’s funny how the best ordinance became the worst ordinance. In this game, flowers are more annoying than weeds. You’ll have to dig them to remove them (which matters since tools break), you don’t have to water them to keep them alive, and you could accidentally pick them when picking up other objects.

 

[VanitasFan26]

And for the Beautiful Town, it’s funny how the best ordinance became the worst ordinance. In this game, flowers are more annoying than weeds. You’ll have to dig them to remove them (which matters since tools break), you don’t have to water them to keep them alive, and you could accidentally pick them when picking up other objects.

Well at least it removes roaches in your home if you haven't played for a month or if you time travel a lot. I suppose thats a good thing, but nevertheless I wish the villagers actually picked up weeds and just put it in the Recycle Box at Resident Services so that way you know where to find them. Its funny because Leif has a Weeding Service which is so restrictive that you need to have at least 300 weeds grown on your island in order for his service to work which costs like 100,000 bells. After that you'll see all the weeds in the Recycle Bin at Residents Services. You will just use it once and never touch it again

 

[dino]

all these comments brought up a lot of points i had never considered bc i literally don't bother with the ordinances in this game lmfaooo. that alone is probably a vote towards their uselessness yeahh

i like the points here about lucky ordinances being cool. but again, does that make katrina superfulous? hmmm