The first of Nintendo's promised summer updates for Animal Crossing: New Horizons has now arrived, bringing the ability to swim, dive, catch sea creatures and more along for the ride. The arrival of the update has gone down well with its most dedicated fans, who've been itching for new things to do for a while now, but not everyone's happy with it.
You see, now that players can dive off of the pier at the airport when arriving at someone else's island, all sorts of progress-destroying shenanigans can take place. The situation has sparked a bit of a heated debate over on Resetera, where one player has detailed the "severe consequences" of the update for those who like to trade with others online.
Essentially, as you may know if you regularly visit others' islands, plenty of players have opted to fence off their most precious island hotspots to ensure that visitors can't steal or damage anything of any value. A visitor could, for example, trample all of your flowers or shake down any Bells from your money trees, and anyone you trust with a 'Best Friends' status can do much more.
Thanks to the new update, visitors can now simply jump in the sea and circumnavigate all of the fencing a player might have built over the past few months, reaching areas that the host never wanted them to see.
"Since the update, some people have found a loop hole," says Resetera user, Arthands. "They can just change to the swimwear, jump off the pier, and swim up the shore to get around the fences. After stealing or causing whatever mischief, the stranger can press the - button to 'leave quietly' from the island." They go on to suggest that Nintendo such issue a patch to prevent players from jumping off of the airport pier.
Some Resetera users have replied to say that this might be a bit of an overreaction, accusing the original poster of 'taking things too seriously' and noting that any damage can always be restored. Others agree, however, arguing that players put in a lot of time and care putting their islands together and that it's understandable they wouldn't want that to be destroyed.
Have you noticed any shady behaviour from visitors since the update? Does it bother you that a visitor can swim around your island, or are you not fussed either way? Let us know in the comments.
[source resetera.com, via vg247.com]
Comments 50
How disappointing. Now I don’t want to post my island on the Turnip Exchange.
I’m extremely excited for the new feature, even if it seems people can damage your island. That’s one thing that always bugged me about the game was the beautiful water atmosphere and not being able to ride in it. And now I can! Can’t wait to explore!
I'll admit the swimming quickly felt stale to me. You just go out there, dive for some creatures, occasionally run into Pascal, and that's it. It's great that it's added but it's a little bit of whatever to me.
..also damn, guess people gotta put fences all over their beaches now to circumvent this stuff.
I've never bothered fencing off my island at all despite playing a lot of multiplayer. Everyone I've played with have been friendly and respectful and there's really not much damage anyone who isn't on your best friend list can do anyway. This update is just fine.
If enough players complain, I wonder if swimming will become restricted to best friends.
Otherwise, if you want to dictate what parts of your islands are accessible you'll need to fence up the entire perimeter, or make all your cliffs insurmountable depending.
We're gonna build a wall and make us pay for it!
Just don’t have anyone on your island you don’t know or trust.
Just don't have any friends - easy.
...or you know, don't have friends that rob you? Raise your standards people
"People can go around my fence" = You didn't build a good enough fence!!!
I'd like the game save corruption glitch fixed first. Having months of progress wiped is a lot worse than purposefully letting strangers trample all over your island.
Protip: only let players you would voice chat with in real life onto your island!
Swimming is too slow.
i guess its time for Nintendo to make updates to the airport. those dodos need to do their job. they should give us users the ability to block our visitors from swimming if we would like. the Dodos need to start doing their jobs (optional) and start checking visitors for items so that that we do not want them using. and if we do want people to have access to swimming and or make certain changes to the island they should have to purchase those items at the airport and/or be on our best friends list.
personally, i do not mind people swimming, fishing, bug hunting, picking fruit in my town as well as a few other things but that's only because the people that i let visit have the decency to ask permission to perform certain actions before doing them.
the last time i went to visit someone's island i sent them a few thank you gifts for letting me pick fruit and purchase items from the shops on their island.
of course then, i may be one of the lucky ones that has never had any issues with visitors on the island. hopefully over the next few updates they will fix certain "security" issues that we may have with our visitors.
Wasn't there an issue where people would drop the promised 'fee' for visiting the island and then get booted by the host? So then surely can't one just publish a 'swimmers will be evicted' sign and therefore anyone who circumnavigates the fenced area would get 'da boot'?
Just do what Trump wants, build a great wall around the beach.
What? I've hosted countless DIYs and Celeste sessions on TE and I've never needed to fence off anything (except my star tree admittedly, which is more to protect it from me at 1am than anything else). I've had a few people grab fruit or trample a few plants but that's about it.
Being able to jump of the piers is good fun and it'd be a shame to lose this because of someone playing thought police over what someone else could 'maaaaaybe' do when there's easily solutions around it that don't involve taking away something fun for everyone else.
Hosting an huge turnip price or selling a high value villager? Just build a blockade around the shop/house. Otherwise, meh, who cares? If someone decided to trample all my plant breeding patches I'd just time travel a few days to get them all back.
Big /shrug from me.
@Octane Perfect for a slow, relaxing game.
Meh. I never really put much effort into creating the perfect island so I could care less what people do to it
As long as the damage is temporary such as trampled flowers and taken fruit that grows back naturally in a couple of days. Of course money trees can be thieved, but then the owner can of course plant a new one too. I don’t see this as a big deal.
@Octane Well, swimming is surely not as fast as running. I like that you can choose your speed in 3 different ways. I also don‘t run all the time on my island...
Not having friends that visit your Island has its advantages, LOL.
I mean it's not a problem if you just don't leave stuff on the ground on your island lmao
The game never intended players to invite people they don't trust!
I love the new update I live swimming around and I only let people I know on my island and they respect it. I like we can swim together jump
Off piers it’s fun
All y’all did by making this article is give more scammers the idea to use the water to ruin people’s islands.
@stevenw45 Really don’t need to make all those precautions for something that is easily avoidable. As soon as you see someone change into a wet suit, end the session. If you hear someone jump into the water, end the session. Or don’t invite people you don’t trust to your island. It’s not hard.
@Yosher Well that’s what diving was in the previous game too. I hope they add more things to do in the water than New Leaf did though.
Easy solution: don't invite random people to your island.
¯\__(ツ)__/¯
This is a silly complaint. I get it but really people in general have been extremely respectful when visiting my island. You can still fence your stuff off. Keep an eye out and if somebody jumps off, disconnect the game. You cant afk without the switch going to sleep anyways. My son loves jumping off the bridge at the airport lol. Just keep an eye out and you'll be fine.
The flowers grow back if trampled. It’s a temporary annoyance at best.
@KarmaGoona
I was thinking those security options for those who actually need them or who don't know any better when it comes to traveling from island to island.
not everyone will want to terminate a session as soon as they see someone doing something that they do not want them to do. besides all of the villagers on the island are completely independent from each other.
in older versions of animal crossing if you had someone visit, they would have to be in the same area as you. in new horizons, your visitors can go anywhere on the island, assuming you do not have any blockades set up and running, even if your character is not around. and as it is, when i invite a friend over to my island i just let them roam around my island without any supervision.
either way, i do not think Nintendo will let the dodos add security to our island airports. however, it would be nice for Nintendo to update the game so that we won't be forced to go to the airport every-time one of our best friends come to visit and then again when they leave.
@KarmaGoona Yeah I know. I was hoping they could make the water at least look prettier to swim through, like there would be some kind of coral reef beneath you or something like that. Even if just in one spot, that would be nice, but it's all fairly bland looking unfortunately.
It's still great that they added it in of course. Getting to collect more for the museum is always nice.
i dont think itd be fair to say people are being paranoid. someone is going to eventually take advantage of this, and its gonna suck once they do, mostly with turnip selling invites.
not to mention the extra time you'll waste ending the session once you do catch someone changing into swimsuits and jumping off piers, especially if others bystanders were following the rules and had to suddenly leave the connection too
Completely silly article. But it’s nice for Ryan to bring this up for discussion. I heard a rumor there may be a hack to swim back to your island instead of returning to the airport!
Having the game social in the regard of inviting other players, even strangers for business purposes, they should introduce a system like WoW where you can report a player via ticket from phone app to include code of no-fly list, or make it so you can only leave an off island via the airport of that given island (ie. no ninja log by pressing minus at your leisure).
Just destroy your own island before anyone arrives. Simples
LOL Resetera babies
@boxoctosis oof. NL staff trying protect em pedos
Anything from resetera should be ignored anyway or at least taken with a grain of salt...the size of a boulder.
@RadioHedgeFund yeah, my save got defective ... sold that game - i was not willing to spend another 85 hours to build up my island again grrrrr. that was also a reason, why i never played on my 2nd switch (light) - one island is stressful enough - i did not want to manage 2 different islands ....
Who are you letting onto your island that they'd be such jerks? Jumping off the pier is fun!
Jumping off the pier is fun and the AC community is becoming so duuuuumb.
Swimming got really boring really fast. The swimming feature is a very limited update for a game with unlimited potential.
Nintendo needs to add something similar to Minecraft where the map shows where everyone on your island is or an app to find/track people.
Just put fences on the beaches.
@Yosher
Agreed...feels like an MMO daily..swim and collect till ya get a scallop to trigger Pascal (he only shows up once) then stop. Because it can take over a 100 dives to get that scallop you'd have to TT to get more museum donations as they are quickly collected for a season in a day or two.
@KarmaGoona You don't trade I take it? 😅 Also, with some entrances you can't see the pier unless you're standing on it when someone enters.
@Yosher
I can't picture the problem.
How many people have their stuff fenced in along the water line?
Use your inner land mass where there isnt water.
Use fencing on all sides. I don't get it.
I also stopped playing and never used the online visit feature.
Boop boopy doop
Sure, this can be an issue, but wouldn't you notice if someone jumps off the pier instead of coming to you for trading?
Just enter the standby mode and you're good.
I hosted my island for turnip sales yesterday for about 6 hours and had TONS of ppl coming and going and not one person tried this. I did put in my listing on AC Fan that I’d disconnect if anyone tried swimming or showed up in a wet suit though. I’m not too concerned about hosting again since I made mad bank haha
@mesome713 good to see you were finally banned from the site.
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