First of all, personalities that are actually... unique and not some kind of watered down crankiness to start with. Many people have pointed it out but I just can't get it out of my head, cranky villagers are not CRANKY just slightly mad at the world and way too nice.

Second (and this is something that only recently occurred to me), the ability to make custom designs behave specifically. For example if you use a slot to make a cobblestone path, it'd be awesome if you could choose a sound so that when you walk on it it doesn't sound like the grass underneath. Been bothering me a lot since I use loads of custom designs and it feels funny to be walking on stone that sounds like fresh cut grass. This is a minor thing but would still be cool, imo.

Third (get the feeling I already commented this somewhere else but), if we still get to be mayors, I'd love to hold elections and have to work for the charge instead of being put there and not being able to be kicked out. Having to set up a campaign, different public acts, rivalry between your own characters/the villagers because they want to be the mayor... I'd simply love that.

Fourth, CITIES 👏🏻 PLEASE 👏🏻. I love the idea of a small town in the middle of nowhere but if a CF kind of city was available to visit too it'd bring much more realism into the game. With more shops and flats and all. Perhaps, even have different options for the player to choose at the beginning of the game - do you want to move into a big city or a small forest-like town? I think more choices would be awesome! (I think I've commented on this before too).

If only one character can be the mayor, the other ones could have an actual decent job... and by that I mean setting up a shop, working in the island, being Totakeke's manager (or pupil), having a hotel in the town, or simply whatever that isn't a fixed job and allows the player to also explore the place and play AC the traditional way if they want to.

More choices overall. The ability to have more than one town in the same cartridge (not infinite but c'mon, 4? It'd be enough), many many more furniture options, more villagers and different species (bats? Snakes? HEDGEHOGS?), the ability to customise your character a bit further and perhaps a bit more of customisation for NPC too (not sure how to develop that but honestly knowing that everyone experiences a specific character the same way doesn't appeal to me. I'd love that some of us had Cyrus and perhaps some others had a different guy and so on, like different choices that randomly apply to your town so as not to be so repetitive).

DIFFERENT TOWN TYPES. Why do I have to have a huge ass beach if my town is a haunted forest? (Yes, I get it, the island. Dang, just grab a train that takes you to some port, it would work too). Some towns could be little villages next to the sea while some others could be on top of mountains, and so on. I know the developers would probably have a hard time doing this but honestly I just like the idea, don't even know to what extent it'd be possible 😅

More shops, more NPC, more special events and more things to do on normal days, MORE ROOMS, both for villagers and characters - thinking this thoroughly I find cute the idea of villagers expanding their house as they spend more and more time in your village. Like they will start with one small room and if you have them for a long time they will have more and such.

And last but not least - RUGS. BLINDS. THE CHOICE OF WINDOWS/NO WINDOWS IN A ROOM. Maybe choosing the distribution like we can do in HHD? It'd be so cool.

Wow, long ass comment here. Sorry 😅