Dreamies, Tiers, and the Flawed concepts that have arisen in AC:NL

It's true that the tier list is based on popularity and demand, and I find it sad that a lot of low tier villagers are autovoids in the trading system. But with that said, why not take a different perspective on the whole tier list and think about it this way: the low tier villagers are so much harder to come by and are rarer to see, that sometimes being able to find them is really rewarding c: In fact, it's because that there are so little out there that I really have a hard time understanding the economy behind the trade: here we have so many sellers autovoiding tier 4 and tier 5 villagers in search of tier 1s and 2s, yet with such a huge supply of them (I literally see at least like 5 of the same tier 1 villagers in a day), they still cost a fortune, whereas that one time your tier 5 dreamie shows up they're absolutely free. I would honestly pay more for a lower tier just because they are so much harder to find! But then that's just my take on the whole tier list thing. I just don't like cycle towns that don't even bother to list their low tier villagers, because honestly I would be willing to pay the same price that a tier 1 villager would generate, but I don't even have the option to because they're not listed :/
 
before i joined TBT, i had tons of villagers that i loved in a wide range of AC games. i didn't know what tiers were, i just liked a villager if they were cute and made the game more fun. i do have dreamies though, but most of them are villagers i have had and LOVED. sure some of them are higher tiers, but they all have a spot in my heart. just like you said, i don't get the hype about most popular villagers. i hated stitches, and the octopus creep me out. marshal annoys me too because his face makes him look so high-strung.
 
It's true that the tier list is based on popularity and demand, and I find it sad that a lot of low tier villagers are autovoids in the trading system. But with that said, why not take a different perspective on the whole tier list and think about it this way: the low tier villagers are so much harder to come by and are rarer to see, that sometimes being able to find them is really rewarding c: In fact, it's because that there are so little out there that I really have a hard time understanding the economy behind the trade: here we have so many sellers autovoiding tier 4 and tier 5 villagers in search of tier 1s and 2s, yet with such a huge supply of them (I literally see at least like 5 of the same tier 1 villagers in a day), they still cost a fortune, whereas that one time your tier 5 dreamie shows up they're absolutely free. I would honestly pay more for a lower tier just because they are so much harder to find! But then that's just my take on the whole tier list thing. I just don't like cycle towns that don't even bother to list their low tier villagers, because honestly I would be willing to pay the same price that a tier 1 villager would generate, but I don't even have the option to because they're not listed :/

I feel similarly, which is why I overpaid for Puck~
I've noticed more cyclers not auto-voiding tier 4s and 5s. It's a trend I hope continues~
 
I agree with this 100%. In my old town, I had Tiffany, Dotty, Sydney, and Nate as my four favorite villagers. When I decided to reset my town (It was an ugly map layout and I wasn't a fan of where my favs' houses were placed), I made an entirely new list of dreamies and only kept pictures of Dotty, Nate, and Tiffany. My new dreamies are all T1's and such, because my plan for the town is to make it fairy tale, perfect, and dreamy. After a couple months of working to make it perfect, I realized what I was doing. Why was I so caught up in making it beautiful and perfect? Why did I feel like I needed to have all tier 1 and 2 dreamies to make the town perfect? I don't even like some of the people I had, I just chose them because they looked fairy tale ish and were popular. when i realized it i instantly went out and got another cartridge, and i play it in my free time to get to know the less popular villagers and hopefully fall in love again like i did with my original town c:
 
Just a couple thoughts after I came back and (to my surprise) found a lot of responses! I think that this is a great discussion and I want to add a couple points!
1. OF COURSE everyone has "dreamies" per say! One of mine was Merry and so was Ankha! I'm just saying that basing your whole experience on dreamies is surprisingly non rewarding. (which I discovered in my NL town)
2. Yeah I do have a couple of popular villagers in my town, but the only one i deliberately acquired was Ankha. The others were actually random move-ins.
3. If you got a popular villager by chance, there isn't anything wrong with that and I never objected that.
4. There is nothing wrong with liking popular villagers! There is, of course, a reason that they are popular and it's because they're likable. That is to say, appearance wise... Which is why I encourage people to give "ugly" lower tier villagers a chance.
5. I understand the pricing reason for tiers, but they also effect opinions on villagers no? I feel like the discourse between popular/unpopular villagers is similar to the difference between high-end designer clothes and thrifting. In many ways, both are trendy and it's easy to appreciate both, but they also exist in different subcultures of different people. Maybe that's why people who don't use forums like this would have far less biased opinions on villagers and may be surprised to see that anyone even likes Diana (~~"oh how gaudy she is!"~~). Maybe cycling threads should be less pricing, and there can be auctions for every villager that are not based on popularity. Many people are surprised when no one will bet on their Beau auction.
6. thank you all for responding! this is an interesting subject!
 
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This is a great thread. Very interesting indeed! I wonder if there'd be a way to study whether there's an effect (or what the effect is) of the tier system on the "wantedness" of villagers.

As I obtain more villagers in my 3 towns that I'd like to keep, I lament the loss of the "free" space that I allot to letting villagers move through. As my towns fill with more "keepers", I cherish the free spaces that much more, even though it's a conscious decision to retain the "keepers". There have been times I've decided to let villagers go that have left me with regret, but even though I might miss having them, there's delight to be found in new encounters.

Some of the initial villagers I had in my main town included Beau (by chance), who I thought was lovely. When he decided to move, I was sad about it, but it was the same level of sadness as when Scoot moved and I never had a chance to stop him. But would I go to the effort of cycling through villagers to get either of them again? Probably not. Would I bid crazy amounts for Beau to get him back? Definitely not. I've had Tom for 2 years and can't imagine my town without him. I'd be gutted if he moved out, but again, would I cycle to get him back? I don't know. Probably not. (This is starting to feel like Highlander: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!)

For the first 2 years of playing AC, my only contact with other players was through a group of about 100 online friends/ acquaintances who'd all previously played another game together. Villagers didn't come up on offer that often (compared to the forums here) and there was no larger influence on who I/we thought was cute. I never formed a true "dreamie" list for myself; only a loose one of nice-to-haves that I was hoping would maybe move through my town one day.

Here, in the forums, I still didn't assemble a dreamie list because some of the characters I thought were interesting (and some of that interest dated back to AC:WW) were higher-tier and seemed unobtainable because of the demand. That whole "dreamie" thing in our profiles felt weird and difficult to fill out, other than Marcel.

Marcel is one of my hands-down faves and I paid TBT for him, even though he was offered for free, because I was so excited to have a chance at getting him.

Autovoid is sadness. I do understand it, though: I've had the experience of offering up a lower-tier villager as a giveaway (most recently Baabara and her beloved pet sea bass) and there are no takers. I generally won't TT to autovoid as many do (especially if I've had and loved the villager for a couple of years!). But if you're trying to clear space for a dream villager or are running a cycling town, it's understandable that you'd want to keep things moving--especially if you have a reasonable expectation that no one wants that villager. Still, it'd be nice if people would post a villager for at least an hour or two before voiding, just in case.

Maybe an underground buddy network of notifiers or a general registry of seekers is the answer. Something more organised than the straight-up looking-for thread. This would be hard to organise, though. Total pie-in-the-sky and wishful thinking, but I'm imagining a general spreadsheet of villager names. You want that villager, list your name under theirs. If that villager is moving out of someone's town, they could check the list and auto-notify anyone that wants the villager. First to respond gets 'em. Just imaginings. That's all.
 
Some of the initial villagers I had in my main town included Beau (by chance), who I thought was lovely. When he decided to move, I was sad about it, but it was the same level of sadness as when Scoot moved and I never had a chance to stop him. But would I go to the effort of cycling through villagers to get either of them again? Probably not. Would I bid crazy amounts for Beau to get him back? Definitely not. I've had Tom for 2 years and can't imagine my town without him. I'd be gutted if he moved out, but again, would I cycle to get him back? I don't know. Probably not. (This is starting to feel like Highlander: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!)

This is definitely my thoughts, too. I honestly get frightened by the idea of having my town so locked in, and though one of my absolute favorites (rip in peace, Lobo) moved out unexpectedly, my town's moved on, and I'm not going to purposely cycle until he can return.

I love having new villagers; it's so wonderful getting to know them, no matter what tier they hail from. I have a dreamie list moreso to figure out who I'd like to experience next, rather than to curate a permanent town. I have a few villagers that I would be heartbroken if they left (ILU IGGLY), but idk, it seems against the spirit of the game to put your town into permanent stasis.

I also definitely get your criticisms about the tiers system. It creates this super strange supply and demand, where the high-in-supply tier one and two villagers are constantly on the front pages being sold for millions, while the scarce lower tiers, though hard to find, often go for free. I do think some people go for the popular villagers because they get lured in by the hype. I know I bought Beau and Skye on a whim, and just couldn't connect with either of them. Neither just clicked, and I let them go while convincing lower tiered villagers to stay.

That being said, the vast majority of the time, loving a villager isn't something that you can really plan (nostalgia villagers aside). Sometimes you love the villager that you spend 7mil bells on, and sometimes when they arrive, you only feel apathetic towards them. Other times, you fall in love with the impulse free tier 4/5 you snagged from a cycle thread. I dunno, how you feel about a villager is so relative and can change so quickly.
 
This is definitely my thoughts, too. I honestly get frightened by the idea of having my town so locked in, and though one of my absolute favorites (rip in peace, Lobo) moved out unexpectedly, my town's moved on, and I'm not going to purposely cycle until he can return.

I love having new villagers; it's so wonderful getting to know them, no matter what tier they hail from. I have a dreamie list moreso to figure out who I'd like to experience next, rather than to curate a permanent town. I have a few villagers that I would be heartbroken if they left (ILU IGGLY), but idk, it seems against the spirit of the game to put your town into permanent stasis.

I also definitely get your criticisms about the tiers system. It creates this super strange supply and demand, where the high-in-supply tier one and two villagers are constantly on the front pages being sold for millions, while the scarce lower tiers, though hard to find, often go for free. I do think some people go for the popular villagers because they get lured in by the hype. I know I bought Beau and Skye on a whim, and just couldn't connect with either of them. Neither just clicked, and I let them go while convincing lower tiered villagers to stay.

That being said, the vast majority of the time, loving a villager isn't something that you can really plan (nostalgia villagers aside). Sometimes you love the villager that you spend 7mil bells on, and sometimes when they arrive, you only feel apathetic towards them. Other times, you fall in love with the impulse free tier 4/5 you snagged from a cycle thread. I dunno, how you feel about a villager is so relative and can change so quickly.

i just wanted to say that this is great commentary and the points you made are really good!
 
Here are my thoughts on some of these concepts:

Dreamies: This is the first AC game where I've selected the villagers which I want to live in my town. The biggest reason for this is that in this game compared to the previous AC games, you have so much more control over your town, so my thought was "Why should I design my town with paths, PWPs, etc., but just have random villagers moving in random places?" I don't have a problem with people who want to take what the game gives them, but I don't want to be really OCD with parts of my town and let the RNG decide other parts.

Tiers: This is like the chicken and the egg argument. Are villagers higher tier because they are more popular or are they more popular because they are a higher tier? This could be argued endlessly, so I won't say anything more about it.

Autovoiding: It's just economics. People start bidding wars over Tier 1 villagers while it is difficult to find the one person who really wants your Tier 5 villager. If you are looking for a Tier 5 villager, don't say "I'm looking for (villager)." Say "I'm offering X million bells for (villager)." That gives a cycler an incentive to hang on to your desired villager instead of just autovoiding it.
 
I hadn't even heard of the concept of dreamies before getting more involved with the online AC community, and beforehand I had just taken my villagers as they are. Even though I have dreamies now, a lot of the commentary here is extremely accurate.

The tier system in particular is one thing that I hadn't noticed myself, but is a bit of an issue. You very often see auction/selling threads for T1/2 villagers whilst looking for that pesky T4 or 5 one is near impossible, and if you do happen to find someone who's giving them away, it's likely that a person already beat you to the punch and since most giveaways are first come, first serve, you're SOL. That's another thing - the tier list on the Villager Trading Plaza also states how Tier 5's are "rarely auctioned, giveaways are best" or something along those lines, and I'm sure many users take that very literally and choose to often giveaway or just void tier 5 villagers since they think they can't make a profit off of them at all.

I've made it my own personal goal to not have a town completely full of JUST dreamies. I have 8 at the moment, and I'm kind of iffy on two of them right now (Marshal and Ruby in particular), but I just feel like it'd be very boring to just have and forever keep the exact same villagers. Honestly, just the thought of that bores me. Even now I'm starting to get a bit tired of some of the same old faces in my town, so I can't even imagine having a set list of 10 dreamies and then just keeping them without ever changing anything ever.

When it comes to loving a villager, I think it mostly comes down to appearance, hence why all the tier 1's are aesthetically pleasing to the general crowd. I won't deny that I'm the same way - after all, the first thing I do when I get a random move-in is look up the villager online (though I try not to do that anymore so I don't spoil the surprise) and will immediately decide if they're ugly or not. When Hans first moved in, his appearance put me off so much that I was ready to say "See ya!" the moment he decided to move. But now? I can't imagine him getting up and leaving my town. He's a lowly tier 5 yeti-like gorilla, but I can't help but want him to stay. I think there's quite a lot more to loving and connecting with your villagers in your town than just their appearance and tier-rank. I can say from seeing so many Beau's in dream towns that I would not connect with him at all, and seeing so many Marshal's in dream towns as well is starting to wear my love for him down.

Basically, there is flaws in the tier system, though sadly I don't think it's something that can be fixed. As people, we're normally attracted to things that are pleasing to the eyes, and pretty much all of the tier 1's are extremely pleasing or unique enough to have such a status which is usually why they're up there. I do think that more people should give other villagers outside of 10 set dreamies and Tiers 1/2 a chance, and that more people should take risks with auctioning out/selling lower tier villagers rather than just holding a quick giveaway or autovoiding them.

Hey, maybe the supply/demand market will reverse itself and this time next year we'll have Jambette in a tier 1!
 
I remember when I started the game I never knew about the tiers but when I started I played in my brothers town and befriended Marshal and had searched and searched then I had found out he was a tier 1 I sometimes wish he wasn't because everyone wants him but oh well still love my lopez haha
 
I have 2 towns, one has my favorites, scoot, graham, willow.... not at all tier 1's. I have had tier 1's and just didn't click with them. My other town is more of an easy going cycling town. No one is ever asked to stay but everyone who wants to leave is put up to be rehomed. I have them all one day. Yes, I put up the lower tiers ( 3 and under) up for free, but I still give everyone the chance to adopt them. So far I have been very lucky to get them all adopted. :)
 
I don't really have any issues with people having dreamies as long as it's your true opinions and favorites. It annoys me how tiers change people's views on certain villagers though. Like one week someone will want "insert popular villager" then the next week they won't due to it dropping down the tier list.

I have Tier ones on my list but also some lower tiers and some that weren't originally dreamies because of looks but when they came to my town I fell in love with them anyways. It's crazy how many people freak out when the tier list hasn't been updated in a while like they can't form their own opinions without the help of someone else..... Just sell or give away the villagers by what seems logical for the time being, it's really not that hard.

I also pretty much always give my villagers a chance to be adopted, I dont autovoid a villager just because a list says its Tier 5. Everyone atleast needs a chance. =(
 
I agree with the first bit 100%, one thing that annoys me a lot is how some of the members and the staff on here treat those who hack, to me hacking is no different than TT, etc. As far as the dreamies go, I have made a list and wanted to get them all since in all the previous games I never had anyone I liked that much, but I dislike the ranking and tier system on here (and this would apply to any other site as well). The way I see it its not even an accurate list. I'm sure Beau and Rosie are someone's favorite character, but half the time the "popular" villagers are only so high in demand because some person on here put them with a their 1, and people just want a town that's "good enough". I think every villager should he treated the same, I don't think there's such thing as one being more popular than another ><
 
I'm only just starting to know the game, so I can't say I have any "favourites" but those I "favour" in a sense. Right now I'm just letting the villagers come and go and try and meet as many as I can before I determined who're my dreamies. I mean, you can't put them in your dreamie list if you've never had them with you before, right? Get to know your classmates before you pick your friends, as I always say :3
 
Liking tier one villagers shouldn't be a crime or something to be looked down upon, you should like who you like. And I think the tier list on here came from who was most requested and that's what made up the tiers?
The people that bother me are the ones who base their towns solely on them being tier 1. In the village popularity thread, it was upsetting how certain users were wanting to know what tier there villagers would be on once the list is updated, because they want to know their sellback value.
There was a user on this thread who bid 1bil for Beau earlier in the week '_'
I had the hardest time finding Big Top because cyclers would auto-void him or not list him since he was tier 5 ;u;
During my first town I had Merengue and Chief as starting villagers and this was before I knew about TBTforums or tiers, I fell in love with them (that town has since been deleted because I let my nephew play my ds and he made a mistake o; )
Liking tier ones because you genuinely like them isn't a crime though, you like them and they happen to be top tier, is what I am trying to get at ; v ;
 
Well for me personally- my "dreamie" list was always the same, before I even came to the bell tree or began seeing villagers tiered by their "popularity". You would absolutely hate my main town x] because I have ankha, zucker, julian, fauna, chief, molly, pheobe, and kidcat. My last two dreamies are Lolly and Rosie x] I really like cats, I think all of these villagers are cute and they each meet a requirement, that I have one of each personality type in my town ^-^

I don't think that anyone really wants to autovoid or why there is such a huge T5 list >__< but as soon as I finish my main town I am going to work on a second town for my new second batch of dreamies :] I don't think it's that people don't "love" them, but some people have extra copies just to cycle through villagers, I have honestly liked a few T3-T5 villagers, but in order to get a Villager that I wanted, I need to have them leave. I have 4 copies of the game, which I use 2 to cycle through and my Mom does whatever she wants in her town, allowing me to sell villagers she doesn't find appealing all while helping me search for my last 2 dreamies.

It really depends on how you look at the whole situation, yeah to you it may not be fun having to shell out millions of IGB or TBT. For some people this is just a way to get who THEY want in their town x] I choose all my dreamies by looks, if I like them and we click, I want them. In my second town, I am trying to get Merry because I had her in my main town and she ended up moving because I wanted Rosie instead >___< and I didn't have my extra 2 copies then...

Everyone has a different reason why they like whatever villager they do, I mostly think it is appearance based on people preferance. Since you know everyone has different tastes. Meh.
 
there's nothing wrong with liking tier 1 villagers. and there's nothing wrong with liking tier 5 villagers.
I don't really see a problem with having a set list of villagers to want in your town, why does it matter, really? they don't differ, aside from appearance. if I wanna keep the same 2 lazy villagers in my town, what's wrong with that? :v it's not like any others are going to be different. I like Clay and Egbert just fine and would rather keep 'em around.
I think the tiers are dumb, but let's be real about it for a sec. buying/selling/trading villagers is a big thing. the tier system serves as a pricing guide more than anything. it's all fake worth, but whatever. it's due to popularity. it's not like someone just made it up and all the villagers in tier 1 got popular overnight. I do not like when people have the mentality that higher tier=better, that's annoying. but what can you really do? thankfully, most people are not that narrow-minded.
I have a huge soft spot for villagers that aren't as liked. most villagers in my town aren't popular at all, and that's okay. but if people have popular villagers in their towns, that's okay too.
don't assume that someone's got a tier 1 villager in their town solely because they're tier 1.
 
I hate it when people don't give lower tier villagers a chance! most of my dreamies are tier 3, 4 or 5....

I love Egbert, he was my best friend back in wild world and I love him to this day <3 and the same with bill and bunnie, they are so cute and loveable yet no one wants them....

and even if they do show up people either auto void them or people swoop in and take them ;-;

Bunnie is only popular because she has her own plushie.... yet she is tier 2 and impossible to find... Rosie is only popular because she has her own plushie and was in the movie....


It is really sad to see people sell villagers to make millions of bells.... it takes the fun out of the game! I am currently changing some of my dreamies because I have learnt to love over ones <3 why can't people give low tier villagers a shot?! you never know you might like them xx
 
-I have dreamies, because I like having some new faces, and there's a lot of villagers I'd like to have in my town. Nothing wrong with that.

-I don't really have an issue with tiers, we don't really need them but I don't have an issue with them. Autovoiding is annoying but I can understand why cyclers do so since it's more convienient. It's just business really so I don't blame them, but at the same time they should always check the LF thread.
 
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