Has the campsite system changed?

[Flodorf]

I beg to disagree on the point about people “abusing” the campsite. Even in the old games, people have always had a way to get their favorites through the campsite by using a second character and resetting until you get a desired camper. People have also done plot resetting to get a desired move in. It’s not the intended way to play, yes. But it’s not abuse in my opinion. It’s not abuse to not want undesirable villagers in your town. And it’s not abuse to spend time and effort trying to get a villager you like through resetting or save scumming if you don’t have money to spend for an amiibo card or a monthly online subscription to trade for villagers. What is abuse is taking that option away through an update to push people to spend more money for amiibos and online subscriptions when they already paid a hefty sum for an unfinished game just because you can.

I am not even sure what to make of this? You are complaining that because you feel the game is unfinished that Nintendo has no right to take things away from you (read: change aspects of the game that Nintendo feels are not being used as intended)? Because again, you feel like Nintendo does this to force you to spend money? If you don't agree with Nintendo's philosophy don't spend money on their games, simple.

I have spend more hours playing this game than many other games that are just as expensive or more expensive than AC. I have gotten more than enough bang for my buck, so to speak, to not having to worry about a return for my 'investment'. It is clear Nintendo put a lot of effort into this game and it is by no means an unfinished product. They have even added more content already, without you having to pay a dime for it. To say so sounds very petty to me.
60 euros is not much by any stretch for the amount of time you can spend playing a video game. Comparatively, spending 60 euros on the 5 minute bliss of a Starbucks Cappuccino on the go (where I live it costs 4 to 5 euro), I would be able to enjoy this bliss for around 2 to 3 hours. And sometimes they foam the milk to hot and you burn you mouth and are cranky the rest of the day!

And let me be clear, I don't think you are abusing anything. In my book it's totally fine to do it with the right intentions. Sadly, there's people who 'exploit' it and Nintendo has all the right in the world to try and prevent this. Sure, it sucks for you, but I don't feel sorry for you, sorry ;-). If Nintendo really felt like people should be free in getting whatever villager they want, they would have added a feature that allows this.
In a sense, they provide a way through Amiibo's.

 

[Loriii]

People jumping into conclusions, yeah. Before it was never a guarantee that you will always get a personality that you're missing. It increases the chances if you don't have a normal, for example, to get a normal. In my experience pre-patch, I had it at, maybe 60% (missing personality) against 40% (other types mixing in). There was an instance I had five straight non-smug villagers appearing in my campsite when I was looking for Raymond. I also think there is a lesser a chance in getting a repeat when you've just started resetting. I feel like the longer it takes for you to findthat "villager" to the point you probably almost exhausted all the villagers in that same personality type, the bigger the chance you will or might get a repeat. This, too might be a rare occurrence. In my case, I did the method 3 times separately and only had repeats when I was looking for Fuchsia, and that obviously took long and almost came down to the last remaining sisterly villagers before I finally saw her. Whereas the other times, I never had repeats. I was lucky, in this case, with Raymond because that went down to the wire as well lol

 

[crispmaples]

Reading stuff like this makes me really sad. Why do they feel the need to corral the experience THIS MUCH? They're gonna push away loyal, old players and potential new players. I can forsee them doing stuff like this enough that there will be a spike in people saying it's not worth it, and that they don't want the game anymore. It's really sad to see this beloved game going in this direction like everything else in the industry.

 

[Sheando]

This is so frustrating. I understand that Nintendo has a vision for how they want this game to be played, and it’s their prerogative to enforce that, I guess, but some of the changes just feel....petty. It feels like Nintendo would prefer to remove features from players who already ARE playing the game “as intended” (as others have pointed out, this change is far worse for those who are already waiting multiple real-life weeks between campers, removing hybrid islands has a greater effect on those who don’t TT or buy/sell online, and nerfing bug spawn rates is only relevant if you’re earning money slowly and naturally) than to allow players who time travel to utilize those features in a way they didn’t intend. Nintendo really loves to take their marbles and go home, so to speak. I loved that my campsite villagers were likely to be a personality I actually needed, but of course we aren’t allowed to keep useful and logical features if someone could “exploit” them in a way that hurts nobody.

I think what frustrates me is that a lot of these changes don’t just seem to be about preserving the simplicity and heart of the game. To me most of these are financial decisions. It was too easy for players to make money without Nintendo online, so they nerfed the bugs to push the stalk market. Too easy to get hybrids without trading—get rid of the island! And now they’re worried people might achieve arbitrary villager goals “too fast” because......why? Because they wanted players to be dependent on amiibo?

In my opinion, they’re not convinced they can keep players without forcing everything to take forever in-game. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve played since Wild World and I love the slow, peaceful pace of the game. I loved the patience required in NL and I think the instant gratification model of this installment has stripped it of much of what made the series meaningful for many. But Nintendo, while adding many flashy and convenient new features (which is fine; games should grow and change), didn’t really flesh out villager personalities or daily activities whatsoever, which leads to a game that already feels front-heavy. You terraform your island however you want, you unlock a bunch of stuff, you put your villagers anywhere you like, and then what? Just daily tasks, which have now been reduced to almost nothing. I’m not a time traveler and I still don’t feel the urge to invest in this game like I did in New Leaf, though I still enjoy it and don’t regret my purchase.

Anyway, I realize this is super long. It just feels like Nintendo released a product that didn’t quite have the staying power they needed, and now they keep cutting and changing and moving features to try to force people to follow their timeline instead of just developing game content that makes daily gameplay more rewarding (not just gimmicky events). In New Leaf I spent months on my second town just running on my dirt paths every day and was so proud when they were completed. Now Nintendo has given players the ability to make town design instantaneous, so without those logical and immersive reasons for waiting (“building things takes a while! Grass wear is slow and cumulative! Trees take time to grow and can’t just be uprooted whenever! Shops upgrade based on your investment in them! Villagers take a few days to prepare for moving!”) they’re having to artificially generate reasons, which can feel more frustrating than fun.

 

[michealsmells]

now that im thinking about it, I accidentally took advantage of the campsite method and got some villagers I really really liked. Those being Rocco and Beardo. Then I had a few I didn't want, most recently it was Groucho and Melba (I wanted her but already had 2 normals). So I must've been REALLY lucky when I got Judy

 

[Hobowire]

Huuh.... Well I guess it's back to the new neighbor board.

 

[Mick]

Reminder that the opening post never claimed the personality system is gone. It's just that originally, the claim was that once you had a villager in your campsite, you wouldn't get that same one again until all of the villagers of that personality type had been to your campsite, at which point the list would reset.

And that seems to be gone now, which makes it harder to hunt for a specific villager, not to obtain a missing personality.

I've heard the claim of villagers not returning once you've had them in the past, but have never been able to verify this as I've never used the method. I can only say that I haven't seen any repeats with the handful of villagers that visited me but that doesn't say much...


In addition, I think dismissing the claim because the user is new isn't fair. But yes, the ones in this thread are their first and only posts, and some sources would be nice.

 

[icecreamcheese]

The fact that so much people use the campsite method means that the way nintendo want us to play the game is just not good enough,
i see so much people struggling with replacing their villagers and finding those that they want.

My friend got tired of this game because the villagers thing annoyed her so much and she hated to time travel and doing things that are not meant to be. - so yeah the problem in my perceptive is at nintendo side and not at the players.

And its kinda sad people need to go through this campsite nightmare in the first place.
hearing that they ruined even this, just makes me more disappointed of nintendo.

Now people will be stuck with villagers they don't want (more then before) is really bad and can make a lot of their users to quit the game.

 

[moon_child]

I am not even sure what to make of this? You are complaining that because you feel the game is unfinished that Nintendo has no right to take things away from you (read: change aspects of the game that Nintendo feels are not being used as intended)? Because again, you feel like Nintendo does this to force you to spend money? If you don't agree with Nintendo's philosophy don't spend money on their games, simple.

I have spend more hours playing this game than many other games that are just as expensive or more expensive than AC. I have gotten more than enough bang for my buck, so to speak, to not having to worry about a return for my 'investment'. It is clear Nintendo put a lot of effort into this game and it is by no means an unfinished product. They have even added more content already, without you having to pay a dime for it. To say so sounds very petty to me.
60 euros is not much by any stretch for the amount of time you can spend playing a video game. Comparatively, spending 60 euros on the 5 minute bliss of a Starbucks Cappuccino on the go (where I live it costs 4 to 5 euro), I would be able to enjoy this bliss for around 2 to 3 hours. And sometimes they foam the milk to hot and you burn you mouth and are cranky the rest of the day!

And let me be clear, I don't think you are abusing anything. In my book it's totally fine to do it with the right intentions. Sadly, there's people who 'exploit' it and Nintendo has all the right in the world to try and prevent this. Sure, it sucks for you, but I don't feel sorry for you, sorry ;-). If Nintendo really felt like people should be free in getting whatever villager they want, they would have added a feature that allows this.
In a sense, they provide a way through Amiibo's.

It is unfinished when you compare it to its predecessors. The previous games were released with complete basic features and free updates too (the welcome amiibo update). The updates they’ve released so far for NH aren’t even additional features. They were old existing features that should’ve come with the base game from the get go. This aspect of the game has been discussed way too many times and way too many people already criticized them for the lack of content since NH released until now when they’re slowly adding it back disguised as “free updates” when in reality, they all should’ve been there from the beginning like all the previous games. Also, they have locked so many things already in this game behind a paywall. You can’t even scan in QR codes for designs without paying the monthly Nintendo online subscription service. In NL, everything in the game is accessible to the players without a paywall. We are diverging into a whole different topic now with this and don’t get me wrong I don’t hate the game. I’m just calling a spade a spade and saying that what Nintendo is doing now to the game isn’t very considerate to a lot of people. When you buy a console and a full-featured game, you should be able to enjoy that game at its fullest and not have some features behind a paywall like a mobile Freemium game. Just because we can afford both the game and console, some amiibos and a monthly subscription doesn’t mean EVERYONE in the community can. It is already absurd to lock features behind a paywall for a supposed FULL featured title. It is even more absurd to start taking away stuff from the game to force people to pay even more. Again, just because people notice what’s wrong with this game doesn’t necessarily mean they hate it.

 

[Your Local Wild Child]

Oof Nintendo really putting the hurt on their game. They're patching everything that's not really hurting the game, meanwhile they aren't battling the inflated trading economy or people selling stuff on ebay (when they say it's against ToS)

Reminds me when they dropped the spawn rate on that one high-selling butterfly. Who does that hurt except for people not hacking?

I would agree with you on the most part BUT at the same time they did just fix most everything wrong with travelers so they aren’t being all stick in the mud kill all the joy peeps have playing this game.

 

[DeltaLoraine]

Idk why Nintendo is policing these parts of the game, including Hybrid flower island. In past AC games, people found strategies to make more money and get things they want all the time. Why is NH suddenly the peak of the moral highground?

 

[moon_child]

Idk why Nintendo is policing these parts of the game, including Hybrid flower island. In past AC games, people found strategies to make more money and get things they want all the time. Why is NH suddenly the peak of the moral highground?

Because they can. They didn’t have access to the previous games because they didn’t have “free updates” for them. No one needed to “update” the previous games because they were complete upon release. Now, they can do all these adjustments under the guise of an “update” and players have no choice, really, because without the “updates”, what’s there to do?

 

[Sheep Villager]

Getting way too much conflicting information in just this thread alone.

This reminds me a lot of all the past misconceptions people had before people straight up datamined how things work. Villager move-outs, NPC rotations, Redd, Clapping at the Dodo.... the list goes on.

While I don't personally use the method I would definitely wait for hard proof on this before panicking.​

 

[WaileaNoRei]

What it seems like from the various stories on here, is that 1. Nothing is confirmed to have changed in the campsite mechanics. And 2. ThE possibility for repeating villagers at the campsite does not seem to be a new thing.
3. I wonder if the chance for repeats has always been not 0% but something like 10%, similar to the way the smug villager as the first camper is not quite guaranteed. Nintendo seems to like to make things not completely a sure thing, but rather an almost at most. This would account for most people seeming to have no repeats while some people have a couple and a few (unluckyily) get a lot.
Whatever the case, it seems premature to jump to the conclusion that Nintendo is ruining any villager hunting method at this point, purposefully or not.

 

[fluttershy300]

Nvm

 

[dahlialia]

I have a problem while doing the campsite method.. So today I play animal crossing normally, and then I decided to try this method (from a video). it was going well, untill..there was NO campers whatsoever. I was TTing 1+ day multiple times but still no camper. It's been 2 in game months. But that's not all. Isabelle is broken. Everyday like EVERYDAY Isabelle said the SAME news. What is it? Well, "I have no big news, but I want to talk about season stuff blah blah blah" like that. Every. Single. Day. And then I went to present time but guess what? Isabelle is giving the same news. Even though I already played like 4 hours today and Isabelle already given the news
The campers isn't repeating though..

I had this happen once, and it was because I had sold something overnight so my character was queued up for the morning phone call about that. The phone call needing to happen seemed to block anyone from coming in the campsite. I had to finish listening to Isabelle, come out of my house, answer the phone, save and quit, and then I went back to campsite TTing successfully.

 

[Florence + The Machine]

I’ve been doing the Campsite method to find Tipper for the past 2-3 days and this just isn’t true? I don’t have a snooty in my town and it’s working like it always has? imo this is just unconfirmed hearsay getting repeated to scare players. People make up **** like this for literally every update. I’ll believe it when there’s actual evidence of the game files being changed.

If they were intentionally preventing people from getting “rare” villagers, then why has Judy shown up 3 times while I’ve been resetting? I’ve taken her in each time and given her away for free.

 

[Your Local Wild Child]

I’ve been doing the Campsite method to find Tipper for the past 2-3 days and this just isn’t true? I don’t have a snooty in my town and it’s working like it always has? imo this is just unconfirmed hearsay getting repeated to scare players. People make up **** like this for literally every update. I’ll believe it when there’s actual evidence of the game files being changed.

I mean, I moved my only sisterly out a few days ago and the first camper after that was a sisterly. On the other hand, I only found smugs 30% of the time in my campsite when I was looking for one. I’d say that it’s weighted towards your missing personalities but you’re not guaranteed one.

 

[Florence + The Machine]

I mean, I moved my only sisterly out a few days ago and the first camper after that was a sisterly. On the other hand, I only found smugs 30% of the time in my campsite when I was looking for one. I’d say that it’s weighted towards your missing personalities but you’re not guaranteed one.

It has always worked that way. If you’re missing a personality, iirc a camper has a 60% chance of having that personality. It was never fully guaranteed that you’d only get uchi villagers for example.

 

[MayorofMapleton]

I find it easier and more enjoyable using the NMT to villager hunt anyways.