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

[PaperBag]

While I still love this game, the fact that the personality types all are based on stereotypes, irks me. I hate stereotypes...

Well, I think implementing stereotypes into media is just something Japan does. At least anime makes it seem that way...
But yes, one thing I don't like about the games is the (what I view as) unnecessary distinction between genders in the game, which the stereotypical personalities further (not to mention the way they refer to you). I really wouldn't mind the fact that characters weirdly flirt with my character and act dumb if it just wasn't half of them. Like I said, there need to be more personality types, preferably with secondary types, it would add to the variation.

 

[ams]

I've posted about this before too. I don't have any dreamies, and like almost all the characters. Really, one of my favorite things about the game has been seeing the varying designs of the characters despite the "amazing" variation in their personality...
In all seriousness, the limited number of personalities is a huge flaw in the game, there needs to be at least 20, with secondary characteristics or something. It's depressing when they repeat themselves and each other, it's like they're just computers... *cough*...
Anyways...
Yeah, I like to see all the characters. It's fun to see all the designs. I love getting a character I haven't ever had before. Very few characters are totally negligible to me... But I'm not gonna lie, some are pretty irredeemably hideous, but then they can be your town antagonist

Yes - it would be amazing if they at least did something like sub-categorize the existing personalities so that you don't have the same conversations 5 times a day. The only personality I can handle doubles of is normal since their dialogue is so generic to begin with, but that really limits my villager choices. I just let go of one of my smugs today because I just couldn't handle another *shoom* we need more dancing convo.

 

[yoshiskye1]

yeah, but each villager adds something personal. for example I love friga but can't stand Francine despite them having the same personality type (snooty)
EDIT: dead bc I put smug haha

 

[feminist]

:^O

 

[cutie34]

I agree with mostly all of you, I don't mind people having dreamies but I do mind when they sum up the character by how ugly/cute the Villager looks and not the actual heart, You've all inspired me and I'm going to let the Villagers go when they want to since I have campsite it wont be hard getting new villagers! I'm going to give the villagers that want to go to my friends because i know they will take good care of them I really want to discover new villagers now without judging by their look/personality!

 

[RLinksoul]

This kind of thing is actually what killed Pokemon for me. It's no fun trying to trade Pokemon online when all anyone wants is something that's been carefully bred and calculated to have perfect stats, perfect nature, or special event pokemon you can't normally get. Not to mention the competitive battling scene makes it impossible to have fun because everyone has a Garchomp and even including Fairy Types can't do anything to stop those things from wrecking the scene.

I'm reminded of what Karen said in Gold and Silver.
"Strong Pok?mon. Weak Pok?mon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites."

If only games like Pokemon weren't designed with this in mind. Some pokemon, stat-wise are just made better than others and so everyone in the competitive battling scene is just gonna use those.

As for Animal Crossing, I do understand wanting to get certain villagers in your town, and not wanting others. As much as I like the majority of villagers, the cranky ones (like Vladamir and Limberg) tend to creep me out. But not being able to get the one you want because you don't have anything valuable enough to offer (or because someone only wants that villager in their original condition, with no alterations to their home/outfit/dialog) is pretty much the same as the Pokemon situation.

 

[creamyy]

I agree. For me, it's hard to let go of some villagers because I want them all. I love them all. I still have my dreamies, but I've never got to the point of obtaining them all because I end up loving a villager I intended of kicking out. I think that while people are so obsessed with certain villagers, it makes it less exciting seeing them in a dream or visiting another town with the exact same villagers as everybody else. I did not like Marshal at first because there is absolutely nothing special about him. There is nothing special about any of the villagers besides their design. All smug villagers are the same, all normal villagers and peppy villagers and lazy villagers and cranky villager - they're all the same. Why else would we have to have a variety of the personalities in our town? It's only because people are so done with the dialogue. The only thing that sets villagers them apart are their design. None of them are unique personality wise. All villagers can be loved. We can all grow to love the looks of certain villagers. I was creeped out by Tabby at first look but I love her. She's a cute villager even if others consider her ugly.

I still have a dreamies list, which is constantly changing because people need change. But most of my dreamies aren't even that popular besides Julian. I liked it when his popularity kind of died because it made it more special. I love the lower tier villagers. I love Derwin and I think he is the cutest thing ever. I actually love or have grown to love a lot of the tier 5 villagers, making them almost impossible to find since they're always, always, always being autovoided. I'm like no I love him. I'm actually surprised at the amount of villagers that I am in love with aren't more popular. I think Celia is a cute villager, as well as Joey, Drake and Bill. And I'm really surprised that Margie and Alfonso are not even that popular considering they were featured in the Animal Crossing movie.

 

[feminist]

This kind of thing is actually what killed Pokemon for me. It's no fun trying to trade Pokemon online when all anyone wants is something that's been carefully bred and calculated to have perfect stats, perfect nature, or special event pokemon you can't normally get. Not to mention the competitive battling scene makes it impossible to have fun because everyone has a Garchomp and even including Fairy Types can't do anything to stop those things from wrecking the scene.

I'm reminded of what Karen said in Gold and Silver.
"Strong Pok?mon. Weak Pok?mon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites."

If only games like Pokemon weren't designed with this in mind. Some pokemon, stat-wise are just made better than others and so everyone in the competitive battling scene is just gonna use those.

As for Animal Crossing, I do understand wanting to get certain villagers in your town, and not wanting others. As much as I like the majority of villagers, the cranky ones (like Vladamir and Limberg) tend to creep me out. But not being able to get the one you want because you don't have anything valuable enough to offer (or because someone only wants that villager in their original condition, with no alterations to their home/outfit/dialog) is pretty much the same as the Pokemon situation.

wow I agree with this so much! I have the same issues w/ pokemon. Because I love pokemon that aren't super great competitively and just play for fun. this is a great analogy

 

[Ghostly]

I really don't like the popularity though. I feel like there about half of the villagers that are cute (Kiki), some villagers that are insanely underrated (Greta, Curlos, Gaston, Patty), some villagers that have great details (Ankha, Lucky, Fuchsia), some villagers have amazing appearance (Muffy, Lopez) , and the rest of the villagers are really plain ugly (although some people may like them which is okay for him / her). But no, people pick the ones that are mostly cute and adorable. Every signatures that I find in TBT mostly have villagers that are cute or based on the popularity (then again I really don't know if it is that or that, probably guessing...).

To me, I pick villagers that I believe I will let them stay until I somehow don't grew up of liking him / her. It is quite sad how I let them leave early for petty (ew he/she is ugly and disgusting) choices or hard breaking (bad plot location, etc) decision.

 

[HHoney]

When Tier Five is listed in as "BOTTOM OF THE BARREL", as shown here:

https://i.imgur.com/A8WTzcW.png

The wording of Tier 5 makes them sound undesirable, unwanted, losers. Auto-void. Don't bother.

Bottom. Of a barrel. Not all of them are at the bottom - I have seen people desperate for these rare creatures.

And Tier 5 is too big. There are way too many that people on these boards consider Dreamies inside of Tier 5. There is a big difference between some of the Tier 5s. This is about wording. The language we use needs to change.

One more point: There are people who are not posting on the Looking For threads because their Dreamies are so totally Tier 4 or Tier 5 they don't think they even have a chance. They have seen their animals auto-voided. So they give up.

If you are reading this - tell us you are looking for your Dreamies! Speak up! I'd love to help someone, but I don't know who they are looking for. Maybe it might influence the popularity chart. And your Dreamie might someday rise above the bottom of the barrel.

 

[Serif]

I do agree the wording should change. It does sound quite sad. But that list is also kind of old and the person who originally posted it posted it ages ago. The culture of the forum has changed since then so while the wording sucks, I sorta can't blame the list maker.

But yeah hopefully maybe they'll change it when they update the list.

 

[Laila]

I restarted my town and so far have got some low villagers but I really like some. For example Shep, I really like him. I would enjoy some nice looking villagers... but I'll settle for normal ones. I got some I don't want so I'm going to try get ridnof them butbibdont have much of a dreamlist

 

[Mairen]

I agree that so many of the upper tier villagers are so disgustedly common that they aren't even interesting to me anymore. Everyone has them in their towns and they are dull and boring to me at this point. There's nothing special about them. They are everywhere.

I know a lot of people make their dreamie list strictly based off of the tiers on this forum, and that kind of makes me sad. When I was deciding who my dreamies were, I opened up the animal crossing wiki and chose from the entire list of villagers. My only requirements were that I have at least one of each personality types. Everything else was decided based on personal preferences. Popularity had zero influence on my decision. Unfortunately, that's the way humans work. They love following each other around without much thoughts of their own.

On the other end of this, however, a lot of villagers are popular because they look cute. There's some strange and weird and scary looking villagers. Within the personality types, each villager is essentially the same. Each personality type has the same lines of dialogue, just minor keywords are changed. When it comes down to it though, it's all the same. Just appearance that differentiates them. The lower tiers seem more special in this sense because they are rarer among people's villages.

 

[Kess]

I had Tia and she is soo precious. I gotta say I kinda agree with you! I remember while searching for Poncho I was so heartbroken because he wasn't "popular" I knew people would be voiding him and I felt like I would never be reunited with him... :[ Same with Jeremiah and Ruby. These are all characters that I've known since WW and Jeremiah since GC!! I feel like a lot more people go for aesthetics now instead of relationships (which I mean, if you want an all frog/bear/deer town or a color theme of villagers, GO FOR IT!) but this system is pretty messed up! There are some tumblrs that lean more towards "hey, your villager moving out? Instead of voiding him, let someone get him! He may be someone's dreamie!" and I really like that. I believe I got my golden trio all from the same tumblr that was like this. It wasn't popularity based with "tiers" and stuff. It was literally just "if your villager is moving, post it here".

 

[Yumei]

It's such a struggle to have only 10 that I've played with the idea of having 8 or so permanent ones so that I could always have someone new. (& to get the PWPs because personalities, yay. bleh.)
If there's one thing I learned from watching Say Yes to the Dress is that there are aaaalllll kinds of people out there. I like the villagers I like, regardless of whomever else. Tiers are helpful with pricing, but it's always your choice; to buy, to sell, to whatever.

But yes, please, people, give the lower tiers a chance; don't automatically void them! u.u

 

[LordBlumiere]

Great thread!

I agree with a lot of the points brought up here. Personally, I have a lot of villagers I'd love to have, and I'm always willing to give new friends a chance. Some villagers I prefer are on the bottom tier, some are at the top. For me, it's a combination of appearance, personality, and emotional/nostalgic attachment--that's why I love certain villagers but can't stand others. In fact, I wasn't even aware of villager tiers until a few days ago, when I was looking to get my favourite friend from ACPG back into my town.

Ultimately I think the tiers are only as worthwhile as people make them. If your favourite villager is on a low tier, you shouldn't sadly cast them aside because of it--all of the wonderful animals in this game were designed so that they could be loved, no matter their perceived popularity or worth. And if your favourite villager is on a high tier, that doesn't make them 'better'--they're still just as potentially lovable as the tier 5 villagers!

 

[mayorcarlie]

I have been surprised more than once to find a well loved villager of mine is tier 4 or 5, I think it's because I expect everyone will love them as much as I do. I simply like what I like, my sig shows all of my dreamies and a few are tier 1/2 but if anything I wish they weren't since finding Marina for an affordable price isn't the easiest because of the competition and top tier (although I guess you're right about lower tiers and autovoid)