The Animal Crossing Grass Controversy, Explained

[@hylianespeon3062]

I feel like if the grass "healed" faster, these paths would be way more accurate to how desire paths actually work

[@Sly-Moose]

Ah but remember? Nintendo loves moving at a snail's pace 😂

[@whitneyl.1856]

Agreed

[@NeoNovastar]

That's how it functioned in New Leaf. Much less intense, and grew back relatively quickly in spaces you didnt tend to use.

[@nicksicilia3626]

I never noticed the paths I was a flower boi

[@thethumper088]

Yeah. That's all.

[@frosty1297]

This could have worked if most tiles had the health value go up alot each day, based on how many step you've taken so avid and 'visiting' players can get an equal experience with how paths appear The Value going up prevents patches and the barrenness

[@sweetorangemonkey]

omg that's so smart!!!

[@Pomodorosan]

a lot*

[@TheFreyJedi]

That is super clever 😮😮😮

[@arisenspirit]

Honestly weird they forgot to let grass grow

[@only1bladetitan]

That’s a perfect solution! I miss animal tracks so much, it was so fun to see what my path naturally looked like

[@constanzelade]

Animal tracks as a feature was actually awesome. It was not optimized in City Folk. In New Leaf it was perfect and it didn't take that much to regrow the grass if you wanted to change your path.

[@chillfactory9000]

Right? and it looks so good, New Horizons feels weird without it.

[@ShadyHero]

i never knew you could regrow it😭 i just have big patches of dirt where i run around the most

[@constanzelade]

Yep! you just had to plant trees/flowers there and not walk on it for a while and it grows back after a couple weeks! ​The flowers with watering makes it grow faster i believe, i think if you just stop walking on it it grows still. @@ShadyHero

[@brisket_the_autistic_woofer]

Yep yep. On New Leaf, it grows back even when not playing the game! On City Folk, however, you had to play for it to grow back. Even though this is a thing, City Folk is still my favorite Animal Crossing by far.

[@Jul_ez]

I didnt even knew this was a thing in New Leaf😮 how die I never noticed it?!

[@wiktorszymczak4760]

Couldnt they just give it higher self regeneration? If you dont walk there long enough it would grow back

[@constanzelade]

planting flowers and watering them makes it faster

[@Tenebrio-Morio]

​@TheDevonleigh by like 5% it still takes months.

[@Sly-Moose]

Ah but remember? Nintendo loves moving at a snail's pace 😂

[@constanzelade]

it took like a week for it to start growing back for me ​@@Tenebrio-Morio

[@Nihonguy]

Patching games around that time was actually less common especially for the Nintendo wii, im not sure if the wii was even capable of updating games

[@Megara.x]

I actually really like the idea, it just needed better implementation

[@alface935]

It is like that old saying: "...There is no such thing as a bad idea, only a bad executions..." Or something like that I do not remember Who say it first or created that saying I only remember that I first heared in one of the "Upon Futher Rewiew" episodeos here on KZbin

[@froggedupp]

Agreed!!

[@ZT1ST]

I was hoping it would actually have stuck around for New Horizons, the game I started with.

[@Allustar]

@@alface935No, there are definitely bad ideas. This one necessarily isn’t though.

[@alface935]

@@Allustar Oh I see...

[@-camcam_]

I think it's so cute, you would often take the same path without realizing it and step by step it takes shape naturally. It would make the city more alive and showed your little habits

[@GimmeMyHandleBack]

Yeah in the next game it worked more like that, but in this game the land never “recovered” so to say. As seen in the video the whole town would turn to dirt if you weren’t careful

[@-camcam_]

@@GimmeMyHandleBack Ohh I see, I thought you could still fix it with the flowers and trees like said in the video. City Folks is the only one I haven't played (even though I would have liked to), but it's true that it must have been really annoying then lol

[@boblers]

@@-camcam_ You could repair the grass in City Folk, but it was suuper slow even if done correctly. You'd basically need to put down some flowers, then quarantine the patch of grass/dirt and not touch it for several days/weeks.

[@christiney.9340]

I picked up the series during the New Leaf era, and I remember hearing that proper etiquette for visiting another player’s town included staying on existing dirt paths (or artificial “pattern” paths) as much as possible, just so you wouldn’t contribute to the grass degradation. 😅

[@izayajones6160]

It's like that in real life, too!

[@negligible_reality]

​@@izayajones6160I don't give a shit, I'm walking all over your grass and plants in game and in real life, and there's nothing anyone can possibly do to stop me. 👁️👁️

[@kristyw89]

​​@@negligible_reality you're a fun guest im sure 🙄

[@vacafuega]

​@@negligible_reality you don't enjoy this as much as you think

[@theshapeshifter0]

​@@negligible_realityalrighty then edgelord.

[@Jim_xyz]

I actually kind of liked it, I like the natural path formations, I wish there was a good balance between making paths like in NH but with natural paths through animal paths. So you could end up with that “desire path” phenomenon

[@frog6712]

I actually loved how to make paths in New Leaf you had to use the same route each time, made the town planning aspect much more meaningful. I had no idea it was that bad in City Folk though 😭

[@pip4773]

EXACTLY

[@jonathansfavorites]

As someone who didn't have friends to play with, I didn't have people running in my grass, so I was able to create some good paths.

[@digiboygaming5299]

-Have a visual warning that the grass is getting thinner so you can avoid that area or continue to use that path if you want a path there. -Grass heals substantially more per day than single time foot traffic. -Grass within 2 tiles of trees and 1 tile of flowers never decays. -Running deals more path damage.

[@scottydog6713]

including the tiles around flowers means you couldnt line a pathway with flowers without preventing a pathway from forming. i think one tile around trees and the tile the flower is on would allow for more complex pathing and layouts

[@mfraye12]

If I remember correctly, in New Leaf they did implement the last point at least. Running made the grass fade away, walking didn't (or not nearly as fast anyway). It was considered polite when travelling to other people's towns to never run unless given permission because of the damage it can cause vs walking.

[@Yapity111]

These feels like a cool idea with terrible execution. Maybe they should have coded in some restrictions where it checks if there's already a dirt path nearby and locks the grass health to prevent too many dirt patches in one area. From your explanation it also seems like the grass' health didn't restore over time which is a huge oversight. Letting us just put down our own paths is definitely preferable

[@Kitsuku]

I played city folk and even though I played it quite a bit my town never turned into a mud pit like a lot of others did. I had nice paths and I tended to use them to get from the house to house into the stores. I always like this feature myself because it made the town feel more lived in and I liked how the pathing system felt more natural. Granted I always generally walked on the path and only left the path to shake trees, so I never experienced the full grass die off like apparently so many others had

[@smashtherocks301]

I have a theory that they were intending people to use the pointer controls for the game and expected them to walk the same straight lines nore often as people would click the aame places, thus creating small paths instead of barren wastes

[@Cha-he9ch]

Hahah didn't account for the fact that most players are little balls of chaos running around in circles around their favorite villagers :'D

[@duranls1]

The fun thing is that in ACNH WE LOVE DIRT PATHS

[@LilacpetaI_Art]

Well its cuz you get to control it i miss Animal Tracks i hope it comes back

[@pip4773]

@@LilacpetaI_ArtYeah that’s the main issue I have with ACNH, there are so many things that you manually control. It’s nice and all when you can choose where villager houses are and stuff, but there’s almost too much control? Like, the lack of things that happen naturally really took me out of it :( + There aren’t any real consequences for anything anymore, and it makes things a lot less meaningful imo

[@KyleRavenborn]

I think the most obvious fix to animal tracks is to have a tile limit, like only the bottom 200ish hp tiles are dirt

[@Bonnie_Mairead]

I hated that feature. It didn't help that my fam had the max number of players as well. We ended up designing a TON of tile designs and placing them all around as our paths.

[@pansy_picnics]

the funniest part is that after they removed it everyone suddenly wanted it back and made tons of custom paths resembling it😭😭😭

[@MERCHIODOS]

The worst part was when it was raining and you ran around your village while it was raining the dirt tracks would appear faster

[@zaner109]

WARIO STADIUM IM CRYING

[@beanos5240]

FR WARIO STADIUM SENT ME REELING 😭🙏

[@yourehereforthatarentyou]

WARIO STADIUM HAD ME IN ACTUAL TEARS I CANT 😭😭😭😭😭😭

[@noahjordan6761]

I think it was a good idea as long as they implemented a way for the grass to regrow

[@Homedepotorange]

The problem is that you dont actually stick to the same paths as you think you do. Natural paths are a real thing. Heavily walked grass areas eventually become dirt so I like it in theory but in practice it falls apart

[@kogababe]

This is what motivated people to use patterns to cover their ground and make their own paths

[@beeshrooms]

i like how they have special textures in city folk more than the blurry way they look on new leaf.

[@melonowl333]

Maybe we could've had some special boots to wear that make paths like that, while other shoes don't

[@blakehudson478]

I think this is actually a great feature, it just needed to have a means to “heal” the grass at a fast rate and also a means to keep it from healing. Like if you wanted to keep the path you could salt it to keep grass from growing, otherwise it will quickly heal back. And if you want to get grass growing there again after salting, or just make grass grow back much faster, a watering can would do the trick

[@e-boy9486]

Its such a cool idea, but it shoulda be either toggleable or give u an item so activate it/deactivate it

[@TopazFire15]

Like real grass, it should’ve regenerated naturally the less they were stepped on, so only the most commonly taken path would become a dirt path.

[@jellyfishneo]

I think it could be cool to bring this back but also add some kind of fertilizer to prevent or fix it, and maybe an upgrade to get all your grass treated to stop that altogether if you want to

[@Destiny_sm]

I hate how my first Animal Crossing game is the most hated one. I loved this one 😭

[@SoratheWonderful]

lol my mother’s town was covered in flowers to fight this issue enough it took her like 50 minutes to water all the flowers in her town. So glad this was removed in new horizons, and I didn’t notice it in new leaf so lol

[@Quick_Nerd]

I remember when i first found out about this feature, I kinda wanted a way to make paths in my City Folk town without having to place designs on the floor. so after a lot of running back and forth on the same spots I managed to have a street that goes everywhere in my city Kinda exited by this feature I turned on wild world and removed all of my "design paths" and tried to do the same there but I dont remember it ever working

[@wolfmiremcthorn9696]

I like the idea but they should have let people know it was there and make it easier to repair the ground.

[@FewixOfficial]

i feel like if the grass grew back, like, actual grass, it would be better

[@mjberlinawp141]

You can fix it by giving each grass patch a counter and all Grass patches that have 10 Times higher counter then the surrounding ones. That way the entire land can't turn into waste land and as soon as the counter falls because a way isn't used anymore it vanishes. You can even put in 2 designs were at 5 times it still has some gras patches and at 10 times it's more dirt path. That ways players can see where ways start to vanish / form.

[@scottpearson9846]

Never had this issue. I just planted a shitload of trees and flowers.

[@gaivsvalerivs5818]

Wait !! So that's why there wasn't any grass in my town. 😮😮

[@enderkatze6129]

All they'd've Had to was have it grow back

[@timmyb.3426]

It really surprises me how they actually brought it back in New Leaf even though literally everyone hated it before New Leaf was even released. I guess it at least grew back much quicker there.

[@Melonposting]

“It was never patched” Well yeah, it’s a Wii game

[@a-s-greig]

Yeah, but... Wi-Fi patching _was_ possible then...

[@chozolady]

there ARE patches for wii games. it had wifi y’know.

[@beesree39]

there's like 2

[@kevinwheeler4061]

@@chozolady I think there are only a few examples of that. Most disc-basedf games had no way to get patches.

[@goferinzero]

Metroid Other M is the only game that comes to mind that had a patch because of a bug that kept one of the doors locked, stopping your progress.

[@polocatfan]

if there was a way to repair the grass then it would be a fine feature.

[@krysanthemum6528]

It’s actually hilarious because now in new horizons lots of people were upset that it wasn’t a thing cause they liked the look of it

[@anotherwordly]

Honestly if the grass repaired itself with ingame ways to stop it from regrowing so you could customize your dirt paths, it would be a really good feature

[@lunawoo7956]

Man this could be an amazing feature if implemented properly

[@konstantinschreiner2122]

Me casually and manually recreating this in new horizons I'm not even joking! Because once I decide on a path, I stick to it never deviating from it.

[@PugandOwn]

I remember spending hours in my city folk town purposefully running up and down the paths I laid out to make them into dirt. my movement patterns simply did not make animal tracks appear naturally. likewise for new leaf, except for that I just outlined my desired paths with flowers and used the ordinance that stopped them from dying, and eventually some of the paths became somewhat less grassy but it still looked good in the interim so whatever.

[@enbees222]

I get the feeling that most of the people praising this feature and wanting it back never actually played with it- or at least never played multi-player with it lmao Being restricted from running in other people's towns was such a pain! I want to go FAST. It's a cute idea but when it comes to gameplay, it just gets annoying. I'm much happier manually controlling where my paths are and not having to worry about going off-path every so often!

[@TylerTheBest4740]

I feel like this is actually a really cool feature. I wish you could pay Leif bells for him to turn your entire island back to its green state instead of just removing the feature

[@SamJamHamFam]

It would have been fine if ot started with like 1000 health and lost 2 when you stepped on it but gained 1 every day you didn't. So it would only give you most used paths not just everywhere

[@MoffieGirl]

Damn that actually looks really cool. Wish they made it a bit easier to undo it but yeah

[@hellasweetjeffbro9825]

I was terrified of this when starting my New Horizons game so I only walked till a friend visited and ran, which I panicked and ended the session to which they explained it was removed😭

[@Lola1912]

Meanwhile a lot of players on new horizons :dirt paths 4 life

[@coolimpa23]

We earthbound fans could have warned you that petitions don't work on Nintendo.

[@nordicnostalgia8106]

I was about to say that Wii games couldn’t get patches. The system didn’t support it but then I remember they used to release patches if the issue was severe enough through a channel you could download

[@Shedgie]

Yea my town was a dirt patch and I had no idea how to make the grass grow again.

[@BiggumsMcHoney]

Well in New Horizons you can just place the dirt paths using the landscaping tool. I do prefer that version.

[@ViceCityExtra]

This reminds me of an analysis I did for lilo and stitch and thought of it as a psychoanalytic based story. So you have ego, superego and I’d. With Lilo, Nani, and Stitch respectively

[@im_br0ke]

In city folk, my household had 3 active players, this happened VERY quickly, so we made portions of the designated areas for no running and strategic "highways" for running. We utitlied tree / tree stump fence lines a lot and it helped a ton

[@guywhoateallthepizza1031]

Then people proceeded to call the New Horizons change "lazy" because all the grass looked the exact same and nothing with different.

[@jordanfourtwenty9694]

I enjoyed this feature. Made me feel like my town was more alive.❤

[@BigHailFan]

until it looked dead

[@kanesmith8271]

@@BigHailFanthat’s why you maintain it, like a real lawn? lol 😂

[@BigHailFan]

@@kanesmith8271 the only way to maintain it was to not walk in certain areas. which made exploration a pain. this isn't the same as planting flowers and trees. just WALKING there killed the grass so you had to avoid parts of your town to keep the grass alive.

[@TierfaktenYT]

I NEVER had those tracks and I played from launch till New leaf came out. I even TRIED doing those path but it didn't work

[@spooktspeek]

i always thought it was so silly in new leaf. lowkey miss it, among all the other little quirks lost in new horizons

[@KE-yq2eg]

I sold my copy once my town because a desert wasteland...

[@tecnicoyt]

There should be a limit of path blocks in a certain radius, healing old spots if new ones appear.

[@ViceCityExtra]

City folk was much less customizable so this was a way to still have some customization but annoying ah

[@vwoomy]

zamn i played new leaf and didn't notice that

[@emmy_platinum]

I was so scared starting new horizons because I didn't want to ruin my island with running lmao

[@acisverycool]

i kinda wish they had it in new horizons since i don’t like that the tiles sound different than the ground. I feel like maybe wearing specific shoes to form paths could be a good work around for players that wander a lot.

[@normnorm5749]

Imo it just should have been an option to turn off and on Cuz it just seems like a really cool thing, tho I see the annoying part of it too

[@BrickChick]

Thats a lot of people who dont understand grass......did they know walking on grass makes a path over time irl ?

[@sunshowers3838]

Well, grass tends to be able to regrow on its own in real life.

[@BrickChick]

@@sunshowers3838 not if the plants are dead . They aren't immortal

[@sunshowers3838]

@@BrickChick Golly. If all the grass in Animal Crossing Town were dead, then it'd incapable of growth or reproduction. For some reason I hadn't considered that possibility. Gee whiz.

[@BrickChick]

@sunshowers3838 my comment is being weird . You act sarcastic but the opening comment is talking about grass being walked on over time. ARE you aware walking on grass kills it over time ? You say it just regrows but YOU DO know how plants work right ? You know how paths in a grassy fields are DEAD grass right ? You know basic plant biology right ? No it doesn't just regrow .... when grass grows back it is usually when it is undisturbed and healing. Not when it's already fucking dead....

[@BrickChick]

@sunshowers3838 like specificly talking about a path that gets tampled on normally by foot traffic, you know that does kill the plat over time righr ? Hence dirt paths made naturally. You do understand basoc biology right ? not to mention an extra wtf , who tf mentioned all the grass in animal crossing, we are talking about a specific path ?

[@iangresswell6648]

In the USA 🇺🇸 it was called city fork and in Britain it was called let's go to the city

[@eyeflaps]

I don't believe they could patch wii games.

[@ImFangzBro]

Oh, they didn't remove it altogether. They made it entirely a player controlled thing and expanded on it. Dirt paths are now created via direct player input with the terraforming stuff.

[@hellohaveagoodday]

But they did

[@LDinoise]

Terraforming is a entirely different thing

[@constanzelade]

it's not the same 😢

[@chocov1233]

​@@constanzeladeHow so?

[@constanzelade]

just placing the dirt path isnt the same as it naturally developing over time. For one in NL they looked better more natural and two to me it was more satisfying to watch it develop 😊 ​@@chocov1233

[@Buster5ive]

Don’t know why. But New Horizons dirt paths which are placed by players looks lifeless compared to New Leaf and City Folk. I wish you could make dirt paths that aren’t straight.

[@LilacpetaI_Art]

Fr they look so man-made because they are I loved paths in new leaf

[@hazygloww]

you can with custom designs

[@glittersparklepinkcupcake]

they should let you enable animal tracks

[@EerieNone]

Interesting concept, bad execution

[@SoullessResident]

I actually kinda enjoyed this feature back in the day. The trick was to lay down tiles and only run on the roads ya make 😂

[@buggo9611]

it doesn’t even make sense that’s not how grass works

[@smileyp4535]

Just have the fucking grass GROW BACK!!!!

[@MarioMastar]

Yeah in New Leaf you could set up "Beautiful town" which would remove animal tracks because flowers would automatically spread and weeds would always be picked, making it far rarer, but I do recall how terrible it was. We called it "Desert town" Though interestingly, some people wanted thier town to be a desert cause it was kind of exotic, but that just meant running on every tile every day. New Horizons just letting us decorate as we wished really was the best medium.

[@aJ13_th]

It's present in New Leaf? Guess I don't play enough cause i am yet to notice this.

[@mjangelvortex]

In New Leaf the grass will regrow when you don't play. That does not happen in City Folk.

[@terrafletcher1930]

A faster geal and higher life quantity would probably help that, then it really would only form where you were walking the most. The place in small, you're going to step on a high percentage of the grass while searching for cracks and bugs and such

[@amandaslough125]

I honestly loved how the dirt path naturally generated along a certain path going across a cliff ramp of mine. I never had that bad of dirt since I abused ocean walking for a lot of the southern traversal.

[@CakeKid57]

Wario stadium is wild 😭

[@walnut_raisin2621]

I love that!! Its those desire paths or whatever

[@BareKnuckleBlaze]

I've been playing New Leaf for a while now. Never really noticed this. Always thought it was js the natural landscape

[@SaulGRCanalYT]

Finally, it's not in ACNH

[@SaulGRCanalYT]

SPAM COMMENT BOTS ARE NOT ALLOWED

[@HardiSomal]

Ngl I liked animal tracks but only in new leaf

[@SpinDash]

City Folk sure was a lot of… something

[@BourbonJawnt]

hmm, i feel that way about new horizons

[@Squirrelflight_Is_Baddie]

@@BourbonJawntsame its not even animal crossing anymore it’s a make everything perfect and aesthetic game and villagers are just decorative sentient cardboard with no interesting dialogue

[@dope_vivarium]

City Folk is probably my favorite animal crossing game. Close to the original on GameCube

[@Dremag_Gaming]

I knew about the wear on the grass but didn't know how they did it. (the values that is)

[@blackwolfalch]

I had city folk and never even had this problem I’m so confused

[@nspidel]

I think it just needed balance. Maybe a tile only loses health if it's stepped on twice in a day (there and back again, so it's a path). That would filter out a lot of tiles that aren't being used for regular traffic. Then more health overall and more healing each day for untraveled tiles.

[@trolling9493]

ITS IN NEW LEAF?? Ive been playing for almost a year now and I've never noticed

[@GoldenShrike]

With stuff like this its always the best to have the option to turn it on/off in settings

[@bradye21playsIndieHorror]

I didn't know this and I played them all what. It would be cool to know which ways I usually walk.

[@DansandoaTV]

I never knew this was a thing! Crazy i played well over a thousand+ hours on city folk back in the wii days

[@MarioMasterProductions]

Some clarification: Due to the hardware of the Wii, this couldn't be patched with updates. Similar situations happened with Mario Kart Wii & Super Smash Bros Brawl

[@CarissaBelair]

I never played before new horizons, this is so interesting! I think it would drive me nuts. Lol.

[@C.J.1999]

A combination of animal tracks + villagers repeating the same dialogue OVER and OVER whilst in their houses has unfortunately made City Folk my least played game in the series. Wild World had more charm. Still a great game though.

[@a-s-greig]

Wild World had weird holidays and less to do.

[@FelisBX7]

I think a good feature could’ve been fake grass. Looks exactly like normal grass, but won’t die. Then they could keep this feature (which I think could be really cool with more adjustments) and still have a way with to avoid it if you don’t like it.