Why I no longer want the perfect town

[teanigami]

A while after I started playing New Leaf, I started thinking about the PERFECT town for myself. This included having every house placed exactly how I want it, getting all the PWPs I want, unlocking every shop, etc.. including having my favorite villagers. I'm guessing this is how the game has gone for most people.

I played for more than 500 hours on this one town, Fiji, still trying to make it perfect, when I started to feel unmotivated and gradually just stopped playing for almost a year. I hadn't even come close to finishing my town and making it "presentable". I thought maybe if I just kept trying even though I didn't feel as motivated as before, I would think of something to do with my town and truly make it perfect. I had started my adventure with this town, and I thought I should keep going with it.

Then I STILL wasn't playing, and when my favorite villager (Bob) moved out, I felt like it was the end of Fiji. I think it is; I've made the decision to restart, especially with the knowledge that I have power over the map I get.

This is why, with my new town Solitude, there won't be any expectations: I won't have paths, I won't desire certain villagers, I won't have monetary goals (besides for the ABD), and I won't time travel. I'm going to let each season naturally transform my town and I'm going to decorate my house as I would in real life. In the back of my mind I always wanted to have a town that I didn't pressure myself with, and finally I'm doing myself a favor.

My question for you: If you've ever tried to get a perfect town, how did it affect your experience? Did you ever achieve your goal?

 

[nerdatheart9490]

Enjoying the game the way it was meant to be played I used to do that when I first started with the gamecube game. It's good to go back to the basics.

I only recently decided that I wanted a perfect town. I always had a theme, but this time I'm looking for relative perfection. Not 100%, but I am doing things like influencing who move in and where, and I'm making my own paths.

I hope you have fun!

 

[Sdj4148]

I played the game more naturally before I found this forum. I'm still addicted to ACNL but sometimes, I wish I could go back to that play style. But no matter how hard I try, I know I won't go back. So instead, I try to move foward

 

[LauraBunny]

I've had this same philosophy with my town. I don't have paths. My fruit trees are planted in rather hap hazard clusters. My villagers put their homes wherever they darn well please. My town is nothing close to what most mayors (that I've seen) would consider presentable or perfect. I like it this way. I've been to towns where everything is perfectly themed and flowery and paths connect all the houses. They make me uncomfortable to be honest. My town to me feels homey.

 

[daynapapaya]

Oddly enough, Noveon started out as my go-with-the-flow, no expectations town. I had no paths, I let villagers plot wherever they wanted (I didn't even know what plot resetting was until a few months ago), I put PWPs wherever I felt they looked good at a particular point in time...but you might not think that's what it started out as if you were to visit the dream address now that it's complete. Even with having no set theme or expectations, the end result was still a "perfect", completed town. So, I think that whether or not you start off wanting to build the "perfect" town, or you start off with no expectations at all, the end result (if you make it there) will be a "perfect" town regardless.

 

[Red Cat]

I am in the process of trying to make a "perfect town" (of course no town is perfect, it is just an opinion). I've already got my dreamies moved in, but the process of trying to landscape my town and design my house has been a never-ending process. I spend a lot of time planning every thing that I want to do before I actually do it because I don't want to constantly be building and demolishing PWPs or planting and digging up trees and bushes. It has been kind of paralyzing obsessing over every detail and I just recently started playing again after taking several months off like you because I got tired of agonizing over all of it. Now, I'm just going to decide on some concepts for my house and town and go for them without worrying whether they look perfect or not. My town might ultimately not look as great as I imagine it being, but at least it will be unique and show off my own design style. I don't think it is worth going for perfection because in a few years (or even sooner) the next Animal Crossing game will come and no one will care how great my town looks (including me) because the next game will have even more features available to make an even better town, so no one's town in ACNL will be perfect in comparrison to what can be done in the next game.

 

[Spooky.]

For me, I kind of like working hard to make my town seem perfect. I have issues with anxiety, and I feel more stressed if something feels out of place or in a weird spot or something. I tend to prefer order. I don't plot reset in my main town, though I do in my second. It's stressful in a way, but once I finish 'perfecting' a certain area of my town I feel really accomplished and proud that I did it. Almost nobody has seen my town except myself (I never get dream visitors or have regular visitors that ever go past the train station) but I still work a lot on it. I don't know if other people would like how my town looks since nobody goes to see it, but I'm happy with it.

 

[Red Cat]

I played the game more naturally before I found this forum. I'm still addicted to ACNL but sometimes, I wish I could go back to that play style. But no matter how hard I try, I know I won't go back. So instead, I try to move foward

People before joining TBT: I love all of my villagers and think they are all cute.

People after joining TBT: MUST HAVE BEAU AND MARSHALL AND STITCHES AND LOLLY!!!

 

[teanigami]

People before joining TBT: I love all of my villagers and think they are all cute.

People after joining TBT: MUST HAVE BEAU AND MARSHALL AND STITCHES AND LOLLY!!!

That's so true. I had two exceptions though, and they were Bob and Olivia.

 

[Spooky.]

People before joining TBT: I love all of my villagers and think they are all cute.

People after joining TBT: MUST HAVE BEAU AND MARSHALL AND STITCHES AND LOLLY!!!

I wanted Marshal before I joined TBT though. My friend has him in her town and I always talked to him when I visited her and found him so lovable that I wanted him, so when I joined TBT and found that it was possible to adopt villagers, I kept an eye out for him and adopted him when I could. I feel like people will judge me for having Marshal in my town because he's so popular, but I wanted him because I honestly like him. ;~;

 

[Dorian]

I experienced the exact same thing with Cocoplum. Once it was what I deemed 'perfect', I am sorry to say I lost interest and began a new town. I began doing the same thing, overworking it to death and just felt dissatisfied and depressed. So I deleted it and started a new town. It has nothing fancy, an eclectic mix of villagers and life there is slow and peaceful. Recently a friend of mine was looking for a home for big bear Teddy and I decided to mix things up and welcome him into my 'perfect' town. He burst in, destroyed my perfect peach and four leaf clover garden. It was a breath of fresh air! Cocoplum is now being totally revamped into a big bear village and I couldn't be happier! It's like a brand new town again! And I am still having a blast working on my new town, Corvidae! You can take things too seriously. I am glad you are enjoying things in Solitude

 

[smileorange]

I've always found the concept of dreamies a bit weird as I want to meet and have as many villagers as possible. I get it, but it seems a bit stressful at the same time.

 

[MoneyMadam]

For me, I honestly don't care if my town is "perfect" per say. It's just too stressful to play the game that way. I prefer playing Animal Crossing at a nice leisure pace so I can enjoy the game for a long time. c:

 

[edsett]

My previous Kamino, which I stopped playing for a year, had no theme, villagers wherever, and barely any paths. Interestingly, when I decided I wanted a "perfect" town, my interest in the game was reignited.
Like Namstar, making sure everything is just right is sorta therapeutic for me.
Plot resetting is the absolutely worst though.

People before joining TBT: I love all of my villagers and think they are all cute.

People after joining TBT: MUST HAVE BEAU AND MARSHALL AND STITCHES AND LOLLY!!!

Hold up, I played every AC game and loved Stitches when he moved into my WW town. Waited over two years for him to move in when I played CF. I have a huge amount of sentimental attachment to him, to most of my villagers actually. Pretty shocked when I first saw how popular he is online.

(What's funny though is that I originally got Marshal from the campsite in previous Kamino solely to sell him. Ended up getting super attached after realizing how cute he is.)

 

[Belle of Pripyat]

People before joining TBT: I love all of my villagers and think they are all cute.

People after joining TBT: MUST HAVE BEAU AND MARSHALL AND STITCHES AND LOLLY!!!

That's not true for me. I actually do have Lolly right now because she's in the new town I created. She will be leaving, though.

 

[gameboy]

I've been playing since the Gamecube version and I've never had anything close to a perfect town in the other games. I've never even had paths or custom wallpaper/flooring! All my trees were just planted haphazardly.
However with the introduction of PWPs I decided to try with this game. Sometimes I'm like you and I go through periods of not playing because I know I can't work on making everything "perfect" but the end goal has ultimately made me play more and more importantly made me WANT to play more. It's good to just enjoy the game however you want.

 

[Red Cat]

I was referring to people who see the villager tier lists on this site and all of the sudden start trying to get those villagers in their town. I know not everyone who wants those villagers wants them just because they are popular, but there are people who try to have an entire tier 1 town and are obviously influenced by this site.

- - - Post Merge - - -

I've been playing since the Gamecube version and I've never had anything close to a perfect town in the other games. I've never even had paths or custom wallpaper/flooring! All my trees were just planted haphazardly.
However with the introduction of PWPs I decided to try with this game. Sometimes I'm like you and I go through periods of not playing because I know I can't work on making everything "perfect" but the end goal has ultimately made me play more and more importantly made me WANT to play more. It's good to just enjoy the game however you want.

Yeah, I agree. In previous games, I didn't care that much what my town looked like because there were a lot of things which were beyond my control. I couldn't choose exactly where to put my house or have four map options to choose from, so I would take what the game gave me and try to do the best that I could with it. In ACNL, I have so much more control and that's why I put a lot more effort into what my town looks like. I think the major increase in the amount of control people have in ACNL compared to previous game is what gave rise to ACNL "perfectionists".

 

[Plupap]

My story is almost the same. My first town was nice, but I wanted to reset on my second game. I kept trying to get the perfect town, and I reset like 100 times (idk) to get good vilagers, but it became boring. Having all good villagers means that nobody will move and it's boring. My now final (and only) town is still patched, but my villagers are just who I find or invite in!

 

[fenris]

I haven't necessarily been trying to make Matcha "perfect," but I do want to make it aesthetically appealing. To me, that means dirt paths (which I plan to start on once I get Marshal moved in), lots of trees, pink and yellow roses and lilies, and just a few kinds of fruit trees (at the moment I am thinking about cherries and pears).

To me, playing this way is actually very therapeutic. It's something small and simple over which I have close to total control, and if I mess up, it won't actually hurt anything.

 

[Kaitrock]

I tried paths but I got so sidetracked after a while. I just don't have a vision for my town really. I applaud everybody who can place public work projects. I'm just horrible with designing things. I get too obsessive over perfection