no path towns (if you're considering)

[beffa]

warning long story (tl;dr is like 7th paragraph down sorry i ramble a bit)

if you're considering de-pathing your town, no matter how much of your town is covered, i would seriously recommend it. it's honestly worth however much effort you have to put in. i'm not saying if you have paths and you like them in your town you should remove them, because i still think towns with paths are gorgeous (hence the reason why i placed them in the first place) but for me personally, going natural has made me feel so much happier with my town.

it took me about 4 hours to de-path my town (with no breaks, i honestly sat at my ds for 4 hours) which was 98% covered (basically just minus the beach and a tiny area of my town that would have been around 6 path/block spaces anyway). within these 4 hours i removed every single path and moved all my flowers to a particular area in my town, and then i moved them around town in a separate amount of time. i also deleted my two second characters, which automatically deleted about 5-8% of my paths, which i understand isn't much but it removed some of the task.

honestly, it was worth every single minute. i despised my town, i haven't played for many months because i hated the look of my town and how the paths were. the paths, of which i used green grass and water borders, emphasised the awful structure of my town and the abundance of ponds. though i must admit they helped with the placement of PWP's (now over 50% of my pwp's are being taken down gradually and i will be re-building them elsewhere, which i will admit is a hindrance currently), they destroyed the rest of my town's structure and made me realise all of my town's flaws daily. this made me not want to play and forced me to take two almost year long hiatuses from the game.

seasons were a nightmare; winter was the worst. nothing matched, everything looked terrible and i couldn't change my paths to anything wintery because my PWP's were firstly accustomed to my green paths, and also i had water which was difficult to change. honestly, i despise water paths now. anyway, seasons passed and it made me hate my town more. i took an almost year long break recently, and returned in the summer; the paths looked wonderful in the green season but were still bothering me somehow. everything looked too... similar, too structured, too formal, almost fake. now it's just free to be whatever it changes to.

if you're looking for less formality and less of the 'fake' look (no offence to people with paths, i think it just looks too unrealistic with all the fancy paths, or even with grass - and of course especially water) but still aiming for structure, you can always use flowers to create some kind of walkway to certain areas. i will probably be doing this soon while implementing PWP's again, and already have flowers circulating the rivers and some PWP's.

though i have not implemented, and will not forcibly be implementing dirt paths, i adore how natural and fresh my town looks. it allows me to start over, without starting over. my town looks so much less cramped, structured (which for me, is good, as structure allows me to pick out imperfections) and just overall fresh. of course, i think dirt paths are wonderful as well but i simply don't have enough time/patience or even care for them in my town.

bit of a lengthy read but tl;dr if you hate your path-ridden town and you need some salvation, i'd consider spending the time to remove your paths and see how much better it makes you feel!! it's a lengthy process if you have as many paths as i did but it's honestly worth it in the end!! i would strongly recommend it if you're struggling to love your path-burdened town. besides, you can always just put them back by turning it off if you start to regret it half way through, or even the full way if you don't save in between (i did personally, but whatever works for you. i did half of my town first, then knew it was right to carry on).

this was my town before, and my town now. though i must admit, it didn't help i had god-awful paths in the first place, but nothing else really appealed to me for my town in particular. besides, once i'd done water borders i pretty much restricted me to single-tile paths and border paths because i was too lazy to kick in the borders and re-place new ones (how ironic).

these were my first ever paths i believe, how tragic honestly (this has nothing to do with the thread bc i haven't had these since i first started using paths like 2 years ago or whatever however long ago it was) just felt like posting it because who am i ??



anyway, before i removed all my paths -






after (yeah apparently i haven't taken many screenshots lately, awkward)




i mean no one will actually read all this but anyway i felt like sharing how much happier i am at least with my town because now i can play more and be satisfied ok bye loves

- - - Post Merge - - -

wow wtf looking at those summer screenshots make me sad it looked so good and now it's autumn they looked so bad honestly
oh well ?_?

 

[Classygirl]

You know what, I have visited some towns with paths and thought wow, beautiful I could never do that..I am not a great designer..but I have never had paths and it doesn't stop my main town of Camelot from being gorgeous and natural. Don't feel bad about it, I think the game should make it a choice or have it's own already built in paths but I prefer natural, and as to your edit, you will get used to it again I promise . And do t worry about the long post if I had a game experience I want to share I do, so just know I did read it, and support your decision to change anyway you want .

 

[HHoney]

I think you have just shared the secret that other people with path-heavy towns do not share with others:

it doesn't always look nice.

I read your entire post and I know the hard work you went though - I also de-pathed one of my towns; it was brutal.
But I do love the look of pathed towns.
My new main town of Rumble is my first attempt at no paths - dirt only. I am loving it! I have so much work to do, but I really want to have solid dirt paths all around town.

I'm so glad you were honest and shared your experience with paths - perhaps it can inspire others.
Our towns do not look tumblr perfect 365 days out of the year with paths.

 

[teanigami]

This was an interesting read. I'm about to restart my town (well, as soon as my friend can help me transfer stuff..) and I'm going to be doing everything differently since this was my first NL town. I had paths that looked like logs and they were nice, but I hated how nothing seemed to match, and I especially grew to hate my town layout. I didn't know about restarting in the beginning to get better maps, so I ended up with a very cramped map with everything far away from each other. I think this time I'm going to try the flower paths idea, since I love making hybrids and just having loads of flowers and trees in my town. Maybe I'll do flower/tree combination paths.

 

[Chris01]

I've never ever bothered with paths at all in NL since getting it this year in January, I used to obsess with paths in WW and then got sick of it, when NL came out I swore if I got it I would never attempt to use paths again, natural look all the way for me,

 

[Belle of Pripyat]

Sometimes a simple path looks nice. Overdone towns always look like eyesores to me. I personally keep my town very natural: dirt, trees and flowers everywhere. I admire the hard work that goes into putting paths down all over the place, but I've never seen one that I liked very much.

 

[Spooky.]

I personally prefer having paths in my towns, but I don't really have an abundance of them. I mainly have them leading to different areas instead of covering every inch of stuff. I do have some water spots, but it's just for a bit of decoration and not a big river or anything. I have a water path right around my town tree, I have one around a windmill, and one around a tree. It sounds like much but they're in totally different areas nowhere near each other. They're also really plain.

If there wasn't so much grass wear and so many dirt spots in the ground (and my town has a TON of brown, grassless areas), I might consider going pathless. But for now I prefer having paths to having to see dirt everywhere.

 

[Red Cat]

I have paths for running on in my town. It is nice to be able to get from place to place quickly without constantly bumping into trees or worrying about running over flowers. I am not one of those people who covers every inch of ground with paths. It might look nice to a visitor, but you can't really do anything in your own town. You have nowhere to drop items when you need to, you can't shake trees because the fruit will disappear right away, you can't hit the money rock, and you can't find buried items. Granted, someone might just not care about doing these things, but your town just becomes a decoration where nothing changes because every space is occupied.

 

[mayortash]

I have never path'd my towns. I have always used flowers to border certain areas. You've gone against the grain here and for that I admire you for it. You should never feel like you have to do something. You apologised a lot in your post - you don't have to. It's your game! Play it how you want

 

[Demeter_Deme]

I use a few decorative paths for when I want to highlight an area -- stepping stones, or a little pavement on a playground covered in chalk drawings, or a spare picnic blanket so I don't have to dig into my PWP budget... That sort of thing. While I've gotten inspiration or guides from places, I've made all my paths, so I do try to make them match and change with the seasons.

But most of the actual walking paths in my town are just dirt, where I've run it down. This is crucial, since the rest of my town is straight up flower fields far as the eye can see. I was tempted by walking paths for a while, but in the end, I found I was happier with just my own footsteps as paths.

 

[cats_toy]

Because my town of Eden is based on an urban/modern theme I have a lot of paths. However, I do have areas that have a park like setting, trees, flowers, orchards etc...Personally, I love paths, I don't mind the extra work it takes to lay them and when all is said and done I like the that I'm not ruining my grass or my flowers and I have a way to get from point A to point B without destroying what took so long to create.

 

[ChuChuRei]

Let me tell you, it took me FOREVER to put paths down in my town, then I realized I hated them. I ended out taking them out as well. I've been doing a lot more work with flowers and trees and keeping it natural. I love other people's towns with beautiful paths, and I appreciate them that much more because I know how hard it is. I made a second character to add in more path styles and "water" and such in my town. It took soooooooo long. It was a tough decision to take up all of that work but, like you, I don't regret it. Maybe I'll lay them again some day, but until then, I'll keep my town au naturale. Besides, I have two towns now. ;P

 

[beffa]

I think you have just shared the secret that other people with path-heavy towns do not share with others:

it doesn't always look nice.

I read your entire post and I know the hard work you went though - I also de-pathed one of my towns; it was brutal.
But I do love the look of pathed towns.
My new main town of Rumble is my first attempt at no paths - dirt only. I am loving it! I have so much work to do, but I really want to have solid dirt paths all around town.

I'm so glad you were honest and shared your experience with paths - perhaps it can inspire others.
Our towns do not look tumblr perfect 365 days out of the year with paths.

100%, i think it's difficult to keep any town looking pretty throughout the entire year but i'll find it so much easier without paths imo but as long as the person using them is happy, that's fine. i still do love path full towns.

i think what i didn't realise is that my town is not like all the ones i've seen on tumblr - houses are different, the layout is different, and how i choose to play is different as well so ultimately it's just personal preference and how comfortable you feel with paths etc, just wanted to share my experience bc hopefully someone who was considering doing it may be inspired to now, or maybe to change their mind

I have never path'd my towns. I have always used flowers to border certain areas. You've gone against the grain here and for that I admire you for it. You should never feel like you have to do something. You apologised a lot in your post - you don't have to. It's your game! Play it how you want

hahah true idk why i apologise so much just a tendency woops (trying not to say sorry rn)
i think flower borders look so damn pretty, i'm getting round to it bc most of my flowers are clumped up in small areas rn and i'm hoping to spread them around soon!!

 

[emolga]

I can understand your dislike for your paths. My path is path with some grass in it, so it blends in with the spring and summer grass but looks bad in winter and fall. It's sad not being able to enjoy the game to its fullest in order to fulfill my town's aesthetic.

 

[CrossAnimal]

After visiting so many towns with paths I decided to try it in my town. I kept them for about two months then took them out. I was much happier without them. I thought not having paths gave my town a more relaxed/casual feel.

 

[Dorian]

I really felt your sense of freedom in your words and for that, I am very happy for you. I am going through something similar in Cocoplum, a Renaissance, if you will. I am tearing down all my pwp's (including Ankha's ancient Egypt) and redesigning the whole village. I haven't been this excited to play for ages Thanks for sharing your story with us and have fun recreating your town alfresco!

 

[artisansystem]

I use paths in my town because I like the more modern and somewhat less "natural" look- and also largely because I like to be able to run places. There are areas that are pathless, though, and meant to be like that. I definitely see where you're coming from with not having paths, though, and I'm glad you're enjoying your town again! Sometimes it's just necessary to start over a little.

 

[Becca617]

I've tried multiple paths in my town and they honestly all look horrible, I get bored of them, so I decided to just do flower paths and outline the town with them leading them with flowers. If you need a reference, my dream address is in my signature and I'm glad I went with it. <3 Paths aren't my thing.

 

[MrGameAndScotch]

I'm glad I went with paths since I think my town looks much better with them, but I do have an odd nostalgia for when it was pathless. I spent way too much time putting paths down in the first place to go back though, haha.

 

[Svive]

I get really tired of my paths and the fact that in some cases you landscape the entire town around it, so if you want to change it you're in for some major major work...