God I have SO many. 99% of them the same as the previous ones on here. It's like if the Devs actually took feedback and listened to us they could improve the game and a lot of them are explained away with "The game is meant to be slow and Zen".
So anyway, here are mine (there are quite a few!)
Disclaimer: I do actually enjoy this game a hell of a lot. It's like a model village/dolls house sim and it's adorable and the fun tends to outweigh the hundreds of issues with it. I just need to get this all off my chest which is I guess why this thread is here!
Terraforming & Designing
- You don't know which "square" you are facing as there is no guide on the floor, so you end up digging water/pilling a cliff/accidentally dusting floor away because you are one pixel off where you need to be. A simple red square indicating where your character will terraform would fix this.
- Having to terraform a whole river/cliff/path bit by bit. It takes SO long and the above makes it even longer when you accidentally knock the cliff down or fill in water you JUST laid because you can't see where you are facing properly
- The Devs noticing that almost every single player exploited the 4th level glitch to place objects and tree's up there because we ALL loved making the 4th level look nice and then DELIBERATELY PATCHING OVER IT SO WE COULDN'T HAVE A NICE THING. WHY?? Why get rid of something we actually liked when they could have just made it an actual part of the game because it basically already worked anyway?
- Not being able to have the edges stacked so you have maximum room on the second/third levels
- Can't move Rocks but can trees, even money trees. Why.
- Can't see what you are doing behind buildings/trees. Yes you can angle the camera down to ground level to see where you are or stuff is but then as soon as you do anything it goes back. You can't get a decent birds eye view either.
- No camera swivel so you can't see anything from different angles. Yet you can do this inside houses.
Properties & Buildings
- 24 hours to build anything. Half a day I could cope with but 24 hours waiting for a stupid incline or house to get built is excessive. There is nothing "Zen" to me about having to wait that long to then do anything else.
- 24 hours not being able to build a bridge because you are demolishing one or building an incline.
- Not being able to just move a bridge or incline you have placed incorrectly (like 1 square off) so you have to pay to demolish it then pay for a new one. Also, not being able to move it over slightly in the same place because "tHeReS sOmEtHiNg iN tHe WaY". So you have to demolish it, skip time, build it again, skip time again, just to move it one square.
- As above but for houses. You have to pay to move the house entirely elsewhere if it is slightly off (you can barely see the guidelines for placing it in some seasons and weathers).
Villagers
- Barging in on you in your home and/or inviting themselves over
- Getting right in the way when you are terraforming or making things then getting annoyed when you move them
- Having random villagers forced on you if you don't fill a vacant plot in 24 hours. Would love to be able to hold a vacant plot til I got a villager I actually wanted instead of having to time travel to get rid of villagers or buy amiibo/wait for a camp visitor (How about being able to invite villagers from islands to camp so you can swap them out with villagers you don't want? No. That would actually be easy and fun).
- Can't kick villagers out by talking to Isabelle or at the click of a button. Why.
- Not being able to choose to have 6/8/10 villagers. I don't want 10 houses, I want 8. I want the option to go up to 10 if I want or down to 6 or 4 if I want.
Storage, Items & Shopping
- Can't stack plants/flowers/trees which makes moving things around 100x longer. I have heard this was something that was in NL so why take it out of NH? It's not like they CAN'T put it in the game, they just don't want to. Again, what exactly is "Zen" about that?
- Can't put plants/flowers/trees in storage. Why.
- Can't gift flowers/plants/trees to anyone. Why.
- Can't mass plant or unplant. Why.
- Can't buy multiple items at the same time, can't buy things in bulk (No, 5 is not bulk if I want 20 holly bushes), can't buy multiples of the same item even (I want a row of lights so want more than one!!).
- 5 item catalogue limit.
- So I can customise some really random items but not others like beds and general furniture? Why.
Islands and other NPC's
- Getting the same Island 200 times in a row. I don't even bother anymore. The only reason I WOULD go now is to try and get a villager I actually want but (as above) my plots are full, you can't kick villagers to get new ones and it just ends up a complete waste of nook miles.
- Kapnn. Fun character but it's basically just mystery islands with no villagers and way less stuff on them. And again, it's 200 identical pointless islands so I don't even bother anymore as it's just a waste of miles.
- Harvs Island can be great except it only resets items on Monday. Once you have 5 hairstyles that's it so what's the point in Harvs' girlfriend after that?
- Brewster seems really pointless. The only thing I find fun is seeing NPCs in there before they "go to work". Other than that what's the point???
- Label. Gives you a fashion theme to do then if you dare use a different item to be creative you "lose". What's the point?
- Redd. Just annoying having to wait and spend bells to get items not even for you or the Island, but for the museum. At least all the other donations don't cost stupid amounts of bells!
- Literally Celeste and Daisy Mae are the only NPC worth waiting for, and I can't even use Daisy Mae as being forced to time travel to be able to actually DO anything in the game ruins that.
Tech Stuff
- Animations, and constant clicking, and not being able to skip things, and having to mash B to skip dialogue only to exit out and have to start all over again. Some lists being the "Yes" answer at the top so you mash A, only for the next list to have the "No" option at the top meaning you have to start again. It's a complete lack of continuity and just SO annoying and time consuming for no reason.
- Repetitive dialogue so you have to listen to the same thing over and over and over again with almost ALL NPC's (Cyrus is the absolute WORST for this). It's getting so boring having to sit through stuff, then mashing B to speed through it only to skip completely out and have to do it again. MAKE THINGS SKIPPABLE!
- The music. 4 songs all made up of 4 repetitive bars and you can't switch off just the music and keep the sounds. I play in silence more often than not which is actually really boring.
- Being able to use the screen touchpad to type on the keyboard but you can't draw on it, which would make custom designing so much more fun and easy
- Having to save custom designs one by one and it not just auto filling into an empty slot unless you specify otherwise
And the absolute, ultimate slap in the face
- One Island Only. I bought this game for my whole family like I do basically every other family game and only one of us can play it. It's literally not that hard to have multiple saves and the excuses from people about why they can't have multiple islands are pathetic. It's literally so you have to spend more money and buy multiple switches just for AC games because other games can manage multiple saves just fine (and people actually buy 2+ switches just for AC, so AC devs won't change it).
- Above might have been bearable, but Second/Third/Fourth players basically can't do anything. There is pretty much no point in second or more players at all.
- Couch coop being on one screen so second or more players can't do their own thing while all working together. Again, other games manage to have multiscreen with zero issue and again people make stupid excuses as to why AC can't? They literally can. They just don't want to.
The saddest thing about all of the above problems is that THEY CAN ALL BE FIXED BECAUSE 99% OF THEM ALREADY HAVE THAT FUNCTION FOR OTHER THINGS IN THE GAME (e.g. items CAN be stacked, level 4 COULD be decorated, things like plants COULD be stored or gifted like other items, dialogue COULD be skippable like they are for some things). The Devs just can't be bothered and don't listen to what the fans actually want, making excuses about "not being able to" and 2 years in they aren't going to either.
None of it has put me off the game or will make me stop playing, but all of this has been said over and over and over and over and agreed with by the majority of players spanning over the last TWO YEARS. Not just here but on other forums, facebook, reddit etc. It's stuff we ALL want. So why can't the devs just give it to us (Or, you know, don't take it away in the first place) instead of being lazy and sticking pointless stuff/characters in that just waste time? They could make this game perfect if they just DID these things.
If you made it this far, thank you! Not looking for a debate or to be told "wElL dOnT pLaY tHeN". Literally just wanted to get it all of my chest.