So I really needed a golden watering can because I'm neck Deep in Golden rose production. The furniture spam and lengths I had to go to getting 5 stars was ridiculous. I placed 92 hay beds, 50 country fences, 100 zen fences, 20 nook miles purchased items, approximately 30 nooks corner purchasable items, and various other things on top of numerous trees, all fruit trees, bushes, rare flowers including a  green mum, purple hyacinths, blue and purple windflowers, gold roses, etc.

Getting 5 stars is a ridiculous requirement that in all honesty has made my island the most crowded and ugly it's ever been. My island is honestly hideous looking right now but this is what ACNH considers "5 Stars".
Link so you get what I mean

guide I followed to get to requirement

I absolutely HATE the new requirements. I just wanna have trees and flowers and shrubs as reequirements. I want my island to be natural (think all the way back to AC:GC).

^same here. That's what I wanted for the most part too.

I was at 5 stars for a day or two and then gave up because I didn't like the way my island looked. I can see requiring some furniture outside to get a good rating but you need way too much.

I'm sure there's some way you could get to 5 stars with a decent looking island but I'm guessing most people will just throw down a ton of crafted furniture they don't want.

foamblaster i would definitely say mine is natural, it has "too many" trees, over 300 weeds etc... and i still have 5 stars! the system works by taking away points for too much of something or reducing that things multiplier, so its still very possible to hit 5*!!

I got five stars entirely by accident last week, without even trying, just by playing how I wanted and making my island look how I wanted it to over time (it's the first time that I've gotten the status in any Animal Crossing game). After I finished up an outdoor gaming-zone, a few days later I found a lily of the valley, and it's been a 5-star island ever since, even as I've continued to make minimal tweaks.

I didn't find it arduous or island-uglifying, myself. It just happened on its own, more easily than in any other installment.

I can share pictures of what I did, if anyone's interested.

^ yeah if both of you could post pictures that would be nice. If you're doing something drastically different with similar results please share.

https://twitter.com/LunaOrbit_/status/1261627425940582401
https://twitter.com/LunaOrbit_/status/1261627425940582401
https://twitter.com/LunaOrbit_/status/1261628106135138304
https://twitter.com/LunaOrbit_/status/1261627592274087936e

theres loads and loads of space to work on still for me, and ill definitly be adding way more trees. These are just the landmarks and theres LOTS more trees in other areas, its incredibly wooded (like the Image here. Its hard to walk through the area xD

Hmm, alright. So your using more log stakes as furniture in place of fencing to get the furniture requirement. You still have some densely packed areas like the cafe section.

uhhh well truth is i didnt even know there was a log fence... xD but yeah i have some furniture heavy areas, but i think itd be really hard to do 5* without furniture. your other option is to do what ive seen which is to make loads and loads of manhole covers and put them in blind spots (behind layers of raised ground and behind buildings) to artificially raise ur score

Is it possible to get 5 without furniture? All the info online that's been posted seems to indicate the game checks for a set number of furniture for development points. https://nintendosoup.com/guide-how-a-5-star-island-rating-is-exactly-calculated-in-animal-crossing-new-horizons/

So if you wanted a natural look like Old GC animal crossing where there is no furniture it makes it difficult. Also I didn't want to place more bridges and inclined. I'm sitting at 2 bridges and 2 inclines. I didn't want to place the rest just for racking up points.

id be very, very suprised tbh https://nookplaza.net/tools?tab=island_rating probably ideal to use this as its the datamined version which is much more reliable considering it looks into the code of the game!

I'm not sure, while I agree my town is a mess, I didn't do any of these things and I got 5 stars
I didnt even know until I had lily of the valley's everywhere!

"probably ideal to use this as its the datamined version which is much more reliable considering it looks into the code of the game!"

Yeah, but that's just a calculator. The Nintendo soup article is the datamined info  too. So what's the difference? Every time a user like PennyGwin posts datamined info they are using Nintendo soup articles. I'm failing to understand what I missed.

its just the ease of using a calculator, if you're tallying everything in your island you can easily see what youve missed whereas you're just getting a load of information thrown at you here which isnt actually helping you at all in terms of pinpointing why your exact island isnt working ya know? there has to be some stuff going wrong to end up in the state ur beach is in for example

The beach is crowded for the simple fact I want to get to the necessary furniture requirement without it crowding the interior of the island where I actually spend the majority of my time. Also it was free space to place enough items to reach the diy requirements and fence requirements.

I think if I had to distill the issue I have is the 5 star requirements are broken into a nature point value and a development points value. If you over exceed your nature requirements it's not like those points spill into the development requirement. If i removed every piece of furniture period and covered my island from shore to shore in flowers while that would be an immense nature requirement it wouldn't count as development thus it can never earn 5 stars. It's the fact you have to place furniture to meet it and the sheer volume of which you have to place.

Yeah you can set up reasonable areas like a cafe area, but I don't want that. I don't want a playground, I don't want a zen garden, I don't want a shop stall area, I don't want faux city streets.

I want flowers and trees, period. What I find appealing isn't what the game calculates as appealing.

then why do you need 5* seems like if your appeal and the games appeal are different, you dont rly need to play by that rule

Because it would be nice to get Jacob's Ladder ie Lily of the valley and I needed a golden watering can. I mentioned the reason I did this in the op is I needed the watering can.

Sphithix;

"^ yeah if both of you could post pictures that would be nice. If you're doing something drastically different with similar results please share."

Here, this little slideshow (37 frames) shows a rough tour of my island: https://i.imgur.com/dq7BgE9.gif. Pardon the turnips, please.

I've never cared about going for the 5-star ranking in any installment and didn't try to here, but having looked at the requirements I can see how it happened - I wanted my island to look along the lines of WW/CF/NL-ish towns but still have what I wanted to make with the new features (we no longer have Main Street or the city, so my random attractions - a weird area based on a fan-made Kirby comic, a small Kirby's Adventure tribute, and an outdoor gaming hangout - are a personalised stand-in for those, and otherwise my outdoor furniture just acts as a small extension of what's already there), and I just naturally ended up with a little bit of everything over time.

Do you have stuff like the cacao tree, moss ball, and so on?

Elscyia - What you showed of your island looks stunning - I love it! You've done way more with terraforming and paths than I have, and it looks really impressive.

"Do you have stuff like the cacao tree, moss ball, and so on?"

Yeah I've got a couple of those things. I'm sure if I spent enough time with the potted plants and trying to hide the pot via perspective I could achieve a certain level of naturality.

This was a 3 star to 5 star job in 3 days. The 2 extra days was waiting on nook mile items to come in the mail. The golden watering can I was gifted broke 3 days ago and I needed the can asap.

I feel like my island has a perfect balance of furniture items, flowers, and trees right now. It’s not crowded, but it also isn’t anywhere close to empty. I’m still at 4 stars, but I have no idea what else to add unless I can find decent DIYs or furniture items, though I keep getting the same things at Nooks Cranny

I have two islands one in my switch and one on my older switch lite. I got both to 5 stars and i like them... They gave little areas where I placed picnic sets and different furniture items and lots of flowers, some fencing and I had fun making fenced areas too. I don’t know how to post pics. I agree it seemed like a lot of stuff to put on the island, but I actually like the way mine turned out.

I got 5 stars last night and I was very surprised as I would say half of my island is undeveloped in terms of furniture/decoration.

I actually checked my rating because I thought I may had dropped down to 3 stars because I cleared out about 3/4s of my flowers (my island was pretty much overrun )

I did spend a fair bit of time putting up fences around 4 of my houses (ran out of materials to do the others) last night so maybe that tipped me over into 5 stars, as I checked the rating just after doing that.

My island is extremely free from clutter in about half of it....the empty spaces look strange. So maybe I have enough stuff in the developed part to have got my rating.

I got to 5 stars just by decorating my island the way I wanted it.  I didn't follow any online guides, just took Isabelle's advice and added things that I liked.  Got it after only a couple weeks of playing.  Just putting out rando stuff to get to 5 stars will, naturally, lead to an ugly town.

ETA - I also have some areas that have very little furniture and others where I have quite a bit, though it's all planned out - like a cafe, a swimming pool area, a recreational area.  Those are more developed sections.  Other areas have mostly trees, like my top cliff areas.  One is pretty sparse, with a rustic camping area and that's about it.

Basically, I just decorated the way I wanted and I got to 5 stars fairly quickly.  But, I do think that if you're going for a GC game feel, then you might not get five stars without any furniture.  Bridge and inclines give lots of points, and I see no reason not to add more.  Only 2 of each wouldn't work for me, since not all of the sections of my island would be connected if I only had two of each.  But, I guess it all depends on how much landscaping you did, which could easily connect sections that were previously separated.

As soon as I get 1 flower and the watering can all this crap is being sold! LOL