Also annoying are the mystery islands. I've gotten the same island no less than 20 times with the same fruit as my island, & no new plants, bugs, or fish. I've got many items that require bamboo to build and I've never seen an island that has bamboo. Apparently this is a very common issue in the game because I see reddit threads on it as well.
I was actually lucky enough to get both Bamboo Island and Money Island once so far, which has been nice. The nice thing about Bamboo Island is that it's also the best place to turn into Tarantula Island because it has no inland water, which means you get no Giant Water Bugs, which are common spawns when you remove all trees, flowers, and rocks.
Anyway, I think Nintendo's idea is that Animal Crossing is meant to be more of a communal game where you can network with others or connect with friends to get resources; however, the problem is that online play isn't free and Nintendo... well, let's be honest, is pretty bad at online... anything.
We've seen how other people have to jump in to fill in the gaps such as the website
http://turnip.exchange, which allows users to post access to their island with a turnip price. However, even that can be saddled by Nintendo's poor online workings. For example, whenever someone arrives or leaves an island via the airport, the game pops up a dialog and you have to wait for that person to officially arrive/leave, which, of course, also has an animation.
Further I find the game to be very tedious. Having to go through a process of button mashing to craft items or buy and sell items. I like the game but really don't dedicate a lot of time to it, i play a little every day so I know I'll never see everything.
Yeah, it definitely would work a lot better with some minor quality of life changes to the excessive amount of menus or even just taking some cues from MMOs that handle menus better. For example, it can be quite annoying to craft fish bait. The Manila Clams take up a spot in your inventory for each one, and you have to craft the bait one at a time. Sometimes, I'll just walk away mashing the A button while going into the kitchen to grab a drink and hope it's done when I get back.
All in all, the game reminds me of World of WarCraft, and unfortunately, I don't mean the good things. It reminds me more of how WoW became a theme park where the game constantly tried to present you with little things to do. In WoW, it was things like daily quests, and in Animal Crossing, it's the Nook Mile+ objectives.
At this point, I mostly get into the game, do all my 2x or 5x Nook Mile+ objectives, get my money tree, and look at the revolving items for sale.
The game becomes more of a design center at a certain point. Build your house a certain way, design special rooms etc. To get the most out of the game it appears you have to do the online stuff and visit other islands too. The old games gave you enough chance to do everything on your own but this game seems to push you toward the online aspect because of the more limited resources on your island.
I've seen some people going as far as essentially hosting non-Animal Crossing events in the game itself. For example, someone hosted a talk show from within the game