Moving In & Moving Out Villagers
One of the more integral aspects of the game pertains to the invitation and eviction of villagers from your island, be it for your quest to obtain all Dreamies, or cycling through villagers for the photos of every possible Villager, or even just to make sure you have a well balanced island with all possible personalities for the DIYs and Reactions. Whatever your reason, this section will try to detail the intricacies of this system.
How do I invite a villager from another player’s island?
The villager has to be moving out and ‘in boxes’, if you talk to them they will mention that they are moving out and you’ll be shown an option to invite them to live on your island. If you have an open plot, they will mention that they spoke to Tom Nook and are going to move in to your island and show up on your island the next day.
How do I make a villager move out?
Please refer to Yue’s move-out guide here: https://yuexr.github.io/acnh/moveout.html.
How is the chance of X villager asking to move out calculated?
While we don’t know the specifics, we do know that there is an ask chance multiplier that is calculated using this formula:
floor((300 - a) / 10) - r = ask chance multiplier
a = average friendship points they have with all island residents
r = amount of residents with >200 friendship
Let’s use an example to illustrate the outcome of this formula. Let’s say that Stitches has 58 friendship points with Player A, and 201 friendship points with Player B. That means that in our equation, a = (58 + 201)/2 = 129.5, and b = 1, because there is only one player with >200 friendship points with Stitches. Plugging a and r into our above equation gives:
floor((300 - 129.5)/10) - 1
floor(17.05) - 1 = 16
That means that Stitches has 16 times the base chance of asking to move out. You’ll notice that as you plug in higher numbers for a and r (meaning higher friendship-point values), the multiplier goes down. This means that villagers with higher friendship are less likely to ask to move out, and villagers with low friendship are more likely to ask.
Does talking to a villager until they get the purple squiggly/reporting the villager to Isabelle make them more likely to ask to move out?
No. Anyone claiming that these methods increase the likelihood of villagers asking to move out have been misinformed.
Will my villagers move out without telling me?
No. They always need to ask you for your permission before they move out. You need to have at least six villagers, for villagers to start asking about moving out.
Can my most recently moved-in villager ask to move out?
No. It is 100% impossible for them to request to move out.
Is there any other way to move out my most recently moved-in villager?
Yes, campsite visitors (both naturally spawning and Amiibo scanned campers) can kick out your newest.
Does hitting a villager/pushing a villager until they’re angry make them more likely to ask to move out?
This is a bit more complex, as it relates to friendship. Making a villager angry by hitting or pushing them can lower friendship points, but not friendship levels. This can make them slightly more likely to ask to move out (provided the target villager isn’t at the level threshold already), but it doesn’t always have a significant effect on ask chance. That said, claiming that hitting/pushing has no effect on villagers (or has the opposite effect of making them want to stay) is false.
I agreed to let one of my villagers move out today, when can I go looking for a new villager?
For a timeline of the move-out sequence, visit https://yuexr.github.io/img/mo/2.png. You MUST have an unsold, empty plot available to invite a villager from another player’s island, or to find villagers on mystery islands (and you can only invite one villager from a mystery island per day).
If someone visited and claimed your villager who was in boxes their house will immediately say ‘I moved out’, but you will still need to wait until the next day for an empty plot.
What is the void?/Where do villagers that automatically fill my empty plots come from?
Every player has two “voids”: a Move In Queue (MIQ) and a Move Out Queue (MOQ).
- The MIQ holds 4 villagers that came from other players’ MOQ that were transferred when you played online with them. When your empty plot autofills, this is where game pulls those villagers from! They can stay in there indefinitely.
- The MOQ is what is commonly referred to as “the void”. It is an invisible space where villagers who move out, but are not adopted, go to live (also indefinitely) until they can be passed into another player’s MIQ. The MOQ holds up to 10 villagers.
Trading Villagers
How do I trade a villager to another player?
Receiving player: Must have an empty, unsold plot. (Note: This cannot be plot 3-6 if the player is in the beginning stages of the game.)
Giving player: Must have the villager of interest in boxes moving out. (“In boxes” refers to the day after the villager asks to move out of the island, when their belongings are packed up in cardboard boxes in their home.)
The receiving player visits the giving player’s island and speaks to the villager of interest twice, which will prompt the “You should move in” dialogue option. After the villager has spoken to the receiving player’s Resident Services, the receiving player’s empty plot should say SOLD with the villager’s name on it.
Note that villager-for-villager trades happen in the same way, but require both players have an extra empty plot to purchase or require time travel.
I traded one of my first five villagers with a ‘basic’ house layout, will they have a proper/default layout on the new island?
Yes. Additionally, any furniture, fish/bug you gifted them and is on their floor will be reset when they move to a new island.
Campsite
How often does someone visit my campsite?
Campsite visitors are determined on a percent chance roll, where the chance is based on when your last campsite visitor was.
| Days Since Last Campsite Visitor | Chance of Campsite Visitor |
|---|---|
| 1-2 | 0% |
| 3 | 5% |
| 4 | 10% |
| 5 | 15% |
| 6+ | 20% |
Meaning for every day starting the 6th day after your last campsite visitor, there is a 20% chance another campsite visitor will appear. Note that campsite visitors are not date-based, so time traveling to a date that you previously had a camper will not work to spawn another one. Also you can’t get a camper from someone else’s campsite. For more information on campsite see here.
Can I choose who the camper replace?
For “normal” campers, no, but you can reset who they chose. Visit https://yuexr.github.io/img/mo/4.png for more detail. Amiibo campers allow you to choose who they replace.
