Animal Crossing: New Leaf Game Tweaks. Grass Erosion.
There are some gameplay aspects of AC:NL that I don’t like very much, but I don’t see any reason for Nintendo to remove them altogether. Instead, I’d like to see some tweaks to a few of the mechanics in the game. Most of the tweaks I’ve come up with involve trade-offs, i.e. if Nintendo introduced X to fix problem Y, I would be fine with having Z possibly happen as a result. The reason I’m interested in trade-offs is because I don’t want the game to become an auto-play experience. For example, one often-made suggestion is to allow players to “lock in” certain favorite villagers who would then never be selected to move out of a player’s town. The problem I see with this kind of thinking is that it eliminates the need for players to log in regularly and talk with their villagers and find out if anybody is thinking of moving. In short, it eliminates the necessity to actually play the game. The player really ought to take the minimal amount of responsibility for maintaining their town the way they want it.
Problem: grass erosion. This is annoying because in the course of traipsing around the town to do things (things like, you know, playing the game) the grass gets worn down to dirt and the town then becomes ugly and unappetizing. My understanding is that this has been improved over the years; I’ve read that this problem was very much worse in previous games. However, that’s cold comfort because it’s still bad enough to be disheartening in AC:NL.
But I don’t see why Nintendo should remove the feature. I like the idea that use of the town causes deterioration of the resources, because that’s what would tend to happen anyway. It’s a good lesson for people to remember. Besides, some folks enjoy having the natural look of dirt paths around their towns and they have to work diligently to accomplish this. I say, more power to them that wants to do that!
What’s baffling to me is why Nintendo would implement such a feature without simultaneously including a method to counteract it, for those who would like to do so. It’s unbalanced.
In AC:NL, the only ways to restore grassy ground cover are to 1) stop playing for at least a month, or 2) time-travel a month into the future. How do these options make any sense? Why would a company implement a gameplay mechanic that requires either not playing the game or playing in a way clearly antithetical to the animating spirit of Animal Crossing, in order to rectify a problem caused by that mechanic?
Solution: A Public Works Project (PWP) sprinkler system. Trade-Off: Make it so it only works once on a particular spot (say, 6x6), but it then can be re-installed in another spot. Of course, in the meantime, other PWPs would be on hold, so the player has to choose whether grass restoration or that new yellow bench is more important.
Solution: Make grass seed an item obtainable from the Garden Shop. Scatter and water, then new grass will be grown the next day. Trade-Off:Â Make only one grass seed bag available per day, so restoring the grass is more of a long-term endeavor.
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