It’s fairly easy to get attached to the villagers in Animal Crossing New Horizons, considering how friendly and cute they are, which is why it’s often a bummer to see a villager leave, especially if that villager was a favorite by the player.
While some players are forcing certain villagers to leave, there are players that want to keep their community as close-knit as possible. Thanks to a recent Animal Crossing New Horizons datamine, we now know why some villagers just pack their bags and leave a player’s island.
The complicated formula
Prominent community dataminer Ninji discovered the codes at the most recent update to the game. The good thing is that the formula is most likely to stay the same even after the recent update.
According to Ninji, players should understand that there are several hidden values that players need to take note of.
on a given day, the % chance of somebody asking to move is given by (v * 5) + c, where v is the amount of villagers you have, and c is the 'MoveOutTalkCount', the amount of days since you last told a villager to leave or stay (maxing at 30)
there's a couple of conditions on that
— Ninji (has moved) (@_Ninji) May 26, 2020
Villagers will only leave an island if there are at least six other villagers living on it. Once the target has been reached, the percentage chance of them leaving is calculated by “(v * 5) + c“. The “v” stands for the villager count with “c” standing for “MoveOutTalkCount.”
MoveOutTalkCount refers to the number of days since the player asked a villager to leave or stay behind. This value maxes out after 30 days. Once a villager asks to move out, players won’t have to worry about anyone else leaving, until five days have passed. Lastly, Animal Crossing New Horizons villagers won’t move out until 15-days after another villager has left.
What does this mean?
This basically means that players don’t have to bully their villagers in any way if they want them to leave as the case is seemingly left to chance. However, players can also consider another unseen value called friendship level, which Ninji has uncovered as well.
The formula for this is “floor((300 – a) / 10) – r,“ in which “a” stands for average friendship will all of the villagers on the island and “r” is the number of residents with less than 200 friendship rating.
The good thing is that these villagers won’t leave the island unless players tell them to do so. What this means is that players can eventually get the villagers they want out by being patient.
It seems as though there are a lot of hidden values and secrets in Animal Crossing New Horizons. For players, this means that there’s a lot the game isn’t telling them currently, but it’s good that these secrets are being uncovered.
Image used courtesy of Nintendo