Is everyone having an issue with overcrowding?

[eat my sass]

I just started playing this again, after dropping it for a while, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. There are so many new characters for me! All these characters, and their houses leaves little space for designing/spacing the Valley it feels like.

Is this just a general issue everyone is having with where/how to place everyone's space without it overcrowding/looking like crap?

I feel like they should've thought the maps out better. The bigger houses vs placement spaces and such. Maybe it gets better further in game??

If not I hope they make some map updates soon. :( I wanna make cute biomes/neighborhoods with the appropriate characters, etc.

I've just been placing homes where I have space, and it looks so cluttered. Short of removing everything that's not a house and redesigning based off that, you can't even move certain things like ponds and stuff which means youre further limited in space and have to work with that. It's really frustrating


EDIT:
Thanks for the responses! Definitely need to play around more with this stuff, I haven't really delved into placing too much into other biomes besides Sunlit, Meadow and Beach, cus I'm overwhelmed by the amount of content, and possibilities, but def gonna find time to hunker down and decide who i want where

[Spicer]

Unfortunately this seems to be part of the "money grubbing, should have been free play" stuff that has been happening. If you buy the "rift-in-time" DLC, there is a whole new location to place homes.

But yes, overall you are correct. It fells weirdly hard to make a good looking island with what you have.

[wesnef]

I don't really have issues with overcrowding, but that's mostly because I made my Plaza into an "urban" area with lots of buildings.

Old pic, from a previous time this thread came up:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3045237633

Still plenty of space for more buildings there. And after that, before the DLC, I had:
1 in the Forgotten biome (Woody),
2 in the savannah (Scar, Simba/Nala),
2 in the field (Merlin, Vanellope)
2 in the swamp (Gothel, Ursula)
3 in the forest (Elsa, Buzz, Belle/Beast)
edit: oh, right - Wall-E is in the forest, too.
1 in the snow (Anna/Olaf/Kristoff)
6 on the beach (Maui, Moana, Eric, Ariel, Donald, Stitch)

So, lots of space in all those zones for decoration, doesn't feel crowded at all. Heck, I've even added optional buildings (the snowy castle house in the snow, and the Tower of Terror in the Plaza.)

With the DLC, I've so far moved Ursula and Nala/Simba there. And I added Jack's house to the Forgotten biome.

[LVL99ButtMagic]

I truly haven't had much of an issue with that personally, and I have almost everyone to friendship level 10, and all quests done so far for not only Dapper Wall-E but Human Ursula DLCs, AND Rift in Time. So, pretty much everyone unlockable at the moment aside from Gaston and Rapunzel.

Closest I've gotten to cramped is my Dazzle Beach, which houses Ariel, Ursula, Eric, Maui, Moana, and Donald. The trick though, at least at the beach, is to not be afraid to place homes further out into the water. So long as you can still get in the doors before you run out of walkable room in the shallow water, you're gucci. I can post a layout if you'd like some ideas to have it still look aesthetic.

Everywhere else, the only advice I have for you is to like, clear out all the trees and shrubbery, the nature clutter, then you'll have much more room, or can place those things in more places around those buildings later. I hope this helps a little. :>

[Tilarta]

I used to have a problem with overcrowding, then I relocated most of the houses to Eternity Isle and now I do not have a problem.

[ThanatosX]

There is a massive amount of space in the snow and the forgotten land if you rip out all the gnarly looking dead trees.
The beach and the meadow have most of my houses, with the rest scattered around different biomes.

[POMPOKO]

I never had an issue, I got plaza and meadow fully decorated and most houses are on the plaza for me. The rest is in other biomes, so I would say each biome has 2 houses and I still could place the ones from the DLC on the main island.
I wish tho we could move the lakes around