I kind of get where the article is coming from, but it does sound to a large degree an issue reliant on social media prevalence and gamer expectations.
I do agree that to some extent the DIY system and terraforming feels daunting. The only AC entry I played before was WW and it definitely felt more chill than NH. I do agree that when I visited other islands or saw what people were doing with their island it felt bizarrely annoying. Especially when I started terraforming my island and not all ideas panned out.
But honestly, why should you stress about it. It's been two months and I'm only getting my island to the state in which I wanted it to be, a few steps at a time. Not everything I had in mind worked, but finally getting something right feels rewarding. And I'm getting there, slowly, but there's no rush. A part of island every few days and I'm gonna be there. And it's fine. I missed some bugs and fishes but they will come back around one day, that's ok. Maybe I don't have perfect villagers and none of my villagers are from the top of that asinine tier list, but that's fine.
I think to an extent it's both an issue of social media prevalence and the way people consume games. AC is designed to be played over a lengthy period of time, but people want to get there asap, which makes the whole thing immediately stressful. It kind of reminds of when I played WoW and whenever Blizzard released new content a part of the fanbase would gobble up dozens of hours of content that took developers months to make within days and then complain about content drought (admittedly there were many times when it was mismanaged, but more often than not that would start early in content cycle).
Expectations have to be adjusted around the type of game you're playing. There are people who minmaxed their islands within week of game's release, but there isn't anything inherently rewarding in doing so that that quickly rather than over span of few months. There is a rotation of content but you're not really going to fall behind, it's not that kind of game. So while I agree some aspects of the game's design can be criticized, the blame does not fall sorely on developers in the way the game was designed.
