[Polygon] Animal Crossing players are starting over after dozens (or hundreds) of hours

[Asbsand]

https://www.polygon.com/2020/5/16/21258908/animal-crossing-island-reset-second-run-twitter

Read this article ^ it's one of Polygon's best in years, where they describe everything that I felt back at E3 that could go wrong with this game, and have ranted about many times, and currently my own status with the game is that I feel as if I've been putting it off more and more because I feel it's simply not relaxing as the series should be. I find a game like The Sims fun, but the problem with sims is always that they don't feel carefree or relaxing to me, because they're ultimately about management and making sure everything is in balance. The more AC trended towards a feature-ridden sim, the more I started falling out of love with it, culminating with New Horizons.

A few excerpts from the article

She [Christina Lau ] time-traveled for maximum efficiency, crafted hundreds of fish bait so she could catch rare fish like the elusive Stringfish, and paid off all of her loans with millions of Bells to spare.

But she still wasn't happy. One night, she was struggling to get a cliff to round off just right. After 10 minutes, she told Polygon, she started to "uncontrollably bawl." So she decided to reset her game and start all over again.

Click to shrink...

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a light social simulator. The player takes the role of a visitor arriving on a new island to build a home. In the process of building up their home, the player character can make friends with adorable animal neighbors, change their island to make it prettier (or uglier, if that's what you're into), and buy cute clothes. It's one of the most low-pressure tend-and-befriend games available; it has the social elements and structure of an MMO, but none of the typical pressures. There are no gear stats or DPS caps, and the most demanding reflex-based challenge is nailing the timing to catch a fish.

But for some players, the pressure of inhabiting such a customizable world still gets to them.

Click to shrink...

"My ideas that I tried never felt cute, especially compared to images I'd see on Twitter, and it made the game very stressful to play, and see people talking about constantly online," she told Polygon. "I ended up feeling like wanting to go back and play New Leaf, as that game was just, always chill, due in part to not being able to tear everything up and decorate whatever."

New Horizons player Emily Rand also felt social media hang over her efforts to spruce up her island. She admits that she often takes an initial swing at a game before returning to finish it on a second try. Playing at launch was a mixed bag for her.

Click to shrink...

"I truly believe that the hours I put into New Horizons is the only thing that kept me going through self-isolation and fear," said Lau. "But restarting was also self-care. It was important that I had a space in which I had total control. Now that I'm back to just a one-room house and a few neighbors, I feel much more at peace."

Click to shrink...

So what was once a series about passion and relaxation has become another series that feasts on the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). How do you feel about this?

 

[808s & Villainy]

She [Christina Lau ] time-traveled for maximum efficiency, crafted hundreds of fish bait so she could catch rare fish like the elusive Stringfish, and paid off all of her loans with millions of Bells to spare.

But she still wasn't happy. One night, she was struggling to get a cliff to round off just right. After 10 minutes, she told Polygon, she started to "uncontrollably bawl." So she decided to reset her game and start all over again.

Click to shrink...

I think these people need to relax

 

[Aaronrules380]

I mean people have played other animal crossing games like this before

 

[show me your skeleton]

one more thing that social media has to answer for

 

[Wrexis]

Is it possible that living through a global pandemic might be a cause of some of that stress?

 

[Radishhead]

It's still the super relaxing game it ever was to me. This game needs to last me possibly up to 6 years, based on how long it takes a new one to release, so I'm not time travelling or using any weird bugs.

I didn't catch a stringfish: I'll get one next year.

 

[Aostia82]

I think these people need to relax

Click to shrink...

This.

 

[Skies]

My take from the article is that the majority of the problems seem to stem from the users' obsession with social media, and not the software itself.

 

[Procheno]

I think these people need to relax

Click to shrink...

Some people just need a mouth full of Zanax these days to get by

 

[Raysoul]

If this is New Leaf HD, they would still feel the same thing if they saw other beautiful towns on social media.

Maybe the problem is themselves.

 

[Deleted member 59109]

I don't think you have to play it that way. I just play a little every day and talk to villagers, see if any new villagers are in the campsite, and buy clothes. I think it's only stressful if you make it that way.

 

[atomsk eater]

I think its prevalence on social media and a lot of people time traveling or straight up altering their saves has lead to a lot of "instagram islands" being seen within the first weeks of release and kind of giving other people the feeling that they should be at a certain point already. Which is a shame, because the game is meant to be played for months if not years. On every forum I've been to for the game I see someone post a picture of a nice room or area on their island and someone always comments something to the effect of it makes them feel like shit or like they aren't playing the same game because they can't or haven't done something as impressive. Really shouldn't have that kind of reaction but I can understand feeling bad because someone else made something really nice with the same tools you have.

 

[Asbsand]

I mean people have played other animal crossing games like this before

Click to shrink...

But the customizability and feature-unlock of New Horizons is overstimulating to a degree the older games just don't allow. In its simplest iteration, which would be Wild World, it's just like a more advanced Tamogochi game. You can't actually build stuff, you just get what the game generates and see what you get, and then you get to enjoy the dynamics it has with moving neighbors, random events and everything you do is by going out and observing what is coming at ya. The game is not incentivising your or demanding much of you. It just asks you to soak it in and basically go around and do nothing as you slowly amount more and more bells to pay a loan or buy things to decorate your house. I think that formula was key. But New Horizons is an aggressive experimentation to unlock the underlying systems of the randomly generated townscape and other "reactive" elements whose tools of construction is now handed to the player: "Go generate your own town with hundreds of variations, it's up to you".

I don't find that enjoyable either, and Animal Crossing does not need to be Minecraft.

Disappointment of the gen for me so far.

 

[mopinks]

don't turn Animal Crossing into a prison of your own making you maniacs

 

[the magical kitsune]

There's a metaphor about life in there somewhere

 

[Aeriscloud]

This is a social media problem, not an animal crossing problem.

I started the game more than a month after release, I don't feel compelled to time travel for bugs/fish or the blossom event, I am fine with waiting until next year.

 

[No_Style]

Sounds like these people needed to get off social media if they can't control their own FOMO.

 

[panama chief]

'But she still wasn't happy'

please turn the game off. Please.

 

[ShyMel]

She [Christina Lau ] time-traveled for maximum efficiency, crafted hundreds of fish bait so she could catch rare fish like the elusive Stringfish, and paid off all of her loans with millions of Bells to spare.

Click to shrink...

This and a good portion of the rest of article read very much as to why time traveling is not for everyone and like something Nintendo would say to validate removing the feature in the future.

 

[OG YOLOwen]

Wild World was never like this

 

[TheGreatMightyPoo]

I laughed.

This was the next logical step in evolution for the series.

Not one time has the game really stressed me out.

It's still Animal Crossing no matter who tries to spin it.

 

[Pollen]

People have played the series like this since its inception. I parsed through the article; and most of the "overstimulation" can be explained by general anxiety from the pandemic, excessive comparison on social media, and a lack of giving oneself proper break-times in between sessions.

There's nothing that New Horizons does that magnifies or breaks the series mold, it is still wholly a relaxing and charming game that encourages players to play at their own pace. Some, like Christina Lau, just choose to play it at a breakneck one.

 

[DNAbro]

That doesn't sound like the fault of Animal Crossing

 

[Asbsand]

don't turn Animal Crossing into a prison of your own making you maniacs

Click to shrink...

They didn't. Nintendo let them do it. and they should have imprisoned them in a relaxing game where you can't always do much, which is seriously what makes the franchise good. Not the crafting; not the construction, not terraforming, and certainly not the charmless Dodo's.

 

[Zealuu]

I think these people need to relax

Click to shrink...

Pretty much. You don't HAVE to let this game consume you. You can play the game and still choose to NOT spend hours perfecting a cliff shape, or time travel for flower breeding, or whatever it is people do to turn this game into their personal, anxiety-ridden quagmire of micro-management hell.

If Animal Crossing does this to them I'd hate to see what happens if they discover Stardew Valley.

 

[Foov]

If the stress is coming because of comparisons one is making to others, that's not really an issue of the game.

 

[Aaronrules380]

They didn't. Nintendo let them do it. and they should have imprisoned them in a relaxing game where you can't always do much, which is seriously what makes the franchise good. Not the crafting; not the construction, not terraforming, and certainly not the charmless Dodo's.

Click to shrink...

Different people enjoy things different ways. The only thing stopping anyone playing this game in a relaxing manner is themselves, plenty of people are doing just that even now. Why do you think it makes sense to deny other's enjoyment of those features?

 

[ThisOne]

It's kind of my problem with New Horizons too. The focus on terraforming and decorating your entire island with junk isn't especially fun to me. Or, at least it's not why I would want to play an Animal Crossing game. I think NH is fun but I prefer the "lazier" feeling of the previous games.

And reading posts in the OT is interesting, too. Some people are just absolutely obsessed with min/maxing the game. That, to me, is the entire antithesis of Animal Crossing in the first place.

 

[808s & Villainy]

and they should have imprisoned them in a relaxing game where you can't always do much

Click to shrink...

But that is the game unless you timeskip. The only thing you can do as much as you want a day is terraform, fish and catch bugs. Everything else is time locked, or resource (material, money) limited

 

[Omnistalgic]

It this game good to play with the family? Like pass around the controller.

I have a 9 year old and newborn.

 

[Bossking]

Uninstall Twitter.

 

[xendless]

*social media fills us with anxiety and overstimulation
uninstall twitter and your problem is solved

 

[TheGreatMightyPoo]

They didn't. Nintendo let them do it. and they should have imprisoned them in a relaxing game where you can't always do much, which is seriously what makes the franchise good. Not the crafting; not the construction, not terraforming, and certainly not the charmless Dodo's.

Click to shrink...

Your last point erases any you will make from now on.

 

[seroun]

If you want to min-max, and you don't really enjoy min-maxing, then you'll get stressed, yes.
Don't min-max, and you won't get stressed.

I've just gotten the game with a Switch, and I am an incredibly anxious and easy-to-stress person. I've been discovering the controls at my pace, and I just built the museum and the store. If you get influenced by Instagram-like islands or things like that, then you should disengage from those parts of social media. I can't deal with IG posts of traveling, so I don't look at them because I know they'll make me anxious. Go at your own pace. The game is made for that, and while it lets you go faster, it doesn't mean you have to. Don't have any rush.

And remember CBT tips :)

 

[mopinks]

They didn't. Nintendo let them do it. and they should have imprisoned them in a relaxing game where you can't always do much, which is seriously what makes the franchise good. Not the crafting; not the construction, not terraforming, and certainly not the charmless Dodo's.

Click to shrink...

you don't have to do anything you don't want to do

I have zero interest in competitive Pokémon but I'm still capable of enjoying a Pokemon game

 

[atomsk eater]

This and a good portion of the rest of article read very much as to why time traveling is not for everyone and like something Nintendo would say to validate removing the feature in the future.

Click to shrink...

I just gave time traveling a try to get more Redd stuff the other night and yeah, it killed some of the magic. I probably won't be doing it again, I certainly appreciate the aspect of taking your time and checking in for a few minutes a day to see what's new. If you miss the store being open, you miss it. While I don't like things like how rare Redd appearances are, I'll put up with it and leave TTing to my wife if she wants to (as she tends to take more of a completionist track with games).

It this game good to play with the family? Like pass around the controller.

I have a 9 year old and newborn.

Click to shrink...

Passing around the controller might be interesting but it does have a co-op mode built in where each player can use a different joycon. I don't use it too much but it's a neat addition.

 

[Raccoon]

there's something very lonely about New Horizons, to me

the neighbors feel more empty than ever, and you're given so much authority without a well defined role or anything

from a narrative perspective, which I recognize is a little silly, it's an isolating and desperate experience

I recently took a three day break from the game, and I'm glad I did. I'm hoping to come back into it feeling a bit less irritated by it

 

[Aaronrules380]

*social media fills us with anxiety and overstimulation
uninstall twitter and your problem is solved

Click to shrink...

Yeah, this feels like a problem that comes from comparing yourself to others. Same thing could easily happen in new leaf or even the older games

 

[ClickyCal']

They didn't. Nintendo let them do it. and they should have imprisoned them in a relaxing game where you can't always do much, which is seriously what makes the franchise good. Not the crafting; not the construction, not terraforming, and certainly not the charmless Dodo's.

Click to shrink...

Wtf? The other things aside, what's wrong with the dodo's?

 

[Asbsand]

Different people enjoy things different ways. The only thing stopping anyone playing this game in a relaxing manner is themselves, plenty of people are doing just that even now.

Click to shrink...

To exaggerate in order to make it understandable, you could also say Call of Duty is a relaxing game and the only thing stopping people from not finding it relaxing is their own state of mind.

 

[Squid Bunny]

Playing Animal Crossing as a goal-oriented, efficiency driven experience with nothing less than the perfect villagers/village being accepted, getting absolutely everything as soon as possible says waaay more about the players than the game.

The biggest reason I don't time-travel and I find it a bad idea is that it promotes this checklist approach to the game that drains all the fun IMO.

They didn't. Nintendo let them do it. and they should have imprisoned them in a relaxing game where you can't always do much, which is seriously what makes the franchise good. Not the crafting; not the construction, not terraforming, and certainly not the charmless Dodo's.

Click to shrink...

I don't get it how any of those things lead to stress (especially the poor Dodos).

 

[Yuntu]

But the customizability and feature-unlock of New Horizons is overstimulating to a degree the older games just don't allow. In its simplest iteration, which would be Wild World, it's just like a more advanced Tamogochi game. You can't actually build stuff, you just get what the game generates and see what you get, and then you get to enjoy the dynamics it has with moving neighbors, random events and everything you do is by going out and observing what is coming at ya. The game is not incentivising your or demanding much of you. It just asks you to soak it in and basically go around and do nothing as you slowly amount more and more bells to pay a loan or buy things to decorate your house. I think that formula was key. But New Horizons is an aggressive experimentation to unlock the underlying systems of the randomly generated townscape and other "reactive" elements whose tools of construction is now handed to the player: "Go generate your own town with hundreds of variations, it's up to you".

I don't find that enjoyable either, and Animal Crossing does not need to be Minecraft.

Disappointment of the gen for me so far.

Click to shrink...

But where is New Horizons demanding much of people? It really doesn't push you anywhere and just gives you tools you can do stuff with if you want to. I feel like the real problem is social media and the pressure it in combination with the game can create for certain people.

 

[Kaeden]

They didn't. Nintendo let them do it. and they should have imprisoned them in a relaxing game where you can't always do much, which is seriously what makes the franchise good. Not the crafting; not the construction, not terraforming, and certainly not the charmless Dodo's.

Click to shrink...

Maybe I'm reading this wrong and apologies if I am, but are you blaming Nintendo for allowing people to do this? As in it's their fault, not the people themselves who didn't have the control to not do it?

 

[HeroR]

Given the history of the OP with New Horizons, this thread wasn't made in good faith.

 

[Deleted member 16657]

The grind is always better than the goal. Once you're done there's nowhere left to go.

 

[Lump]

Bawling and restarting everything due to cliff edge rounding difficulties is a personal problem, not a game problem. That human needs professionally administrated stress management or therapy more than a different kind of Animal Crossing. Assigning blame to Animal Crossing itself seems a bit irresponsible.

 

[Waxy]

certainly not the charmless Dodo's.

Click to shrink...

Hey now, no need to diss the dodos!

 

[Opposable]

These people are probably the same people who get into credit card debt as they see people on their social media going on summer vacations etc

 

[NotLiquid]

 

[JuniperAndSage]

I think it's really hard to isolate the feelings this Animal Crossing might be giving us, from the stress and anxiety caused by the virus and lockdowns. This Animal Crossing would feel entirely different if you were there was no lockdown, and people were playing it 15, 20 minutes a day as you typically did in the past.