How much has your plan of which residents you want to keep permanently changed since starting ACNH? Which villagers do/did you want?

[sleepydreepy]

Well I knew I wanted to keep Tom, Ankha, Diva, Huck, Sly, and Chester for sure and that hasn't changed. I've gone back and forth on everyone else, but I am thinking I'll probably end up keeping Monty and Snake. Judy I kind of want to swap for Pango but idk if I can let her go! The last slot I am for sure saving for Annabelle currently since I need a peppy.

 

[WaileaNoRei]

Well I knew I wanted to keep Tom, Ankha, Diva, Huck, Sly, and Chester for sure and that hasn't changed. I've gone back and forth on everyone else, but I am thinking I'll probably end up keeping Monty and Snake. Judy I kind of want to swap for Pango but idk if I can let her go! The last slot I am for sure saving for Annabelle currently since I need a peppy.

I like pango a lot too, but she’s a peppy as well, so with Annabelle you would have 2 peppy anteaters. She looks like she should be a snooty though!

 

[sleepydreepy]

I like pango a lot too, but she’s a peppy as well, so with Annabelle you would have 2 peppy anteaters. She looks like she should be a snooty though!

Oh no way, totally thought she was snooty for some reason! thanks for letting me know, maybe I will keep Judy after all then

 

[maria110]

At first I didn’t even want 10 villagers and didn’t appreciate them much. I just wanted to decorate. Then I had a theme and a set of dreamies. Nowadays I have less strict themes and I move a lot of villagers in and out.

Colton, Reneigh, and Raymond are my permanent ones on one island. My other island is gothic now and I have some semi permanent villagers who go with the theme and whose houses look nice: Muffy, Wolfgang, Nan, Lucky, Piper, and Chops.

Muffy, Wolfgang, and Sterling are villagers that I’ve had on islands numerous times. Wolfgang goes with a lot of themes and Muffy and Sterling have great designs and houses.

 

[dizzy bone]

My villager plan was to let everyone go as they please and not keep the same 10 forever. A year later, I still have the same 10 (minus 2, my first peppy and my first smug). I am sort of attached to them but I'm mostly lazy to move them out. I think if I ever changed my villagers it would have to be through amiibo cards and when I have an actual cohesive theme change plan with villager exteriors in mind.

 

[LuchaSloth]

I never had a plan, and I will probably continue to let people go and seek out new ones. Although, I am really happy with who I currently have, and I'm not really sure who I would actually let go if they asked. It's just a natural flow for me. If someone asks to leave, it will depend on my mindset that day. The only one I will definitely be keeping forever is Drago. Because, I mean...c'mon...he's a dragon.

 

[Stella-Io]

In the beginning I wanted all the new villagers except Megan. As of right now I have Judy, Audie, Dom, Cyd and Reneigh. So no Sherb or Raymond.

Over time I wanted Sherb less and less, thou I never felt a NEED to have him. I don't really want him anymore as he's been played up.
I still want Raymond for the same reason I wanted him in the beginning: heterochromania eyes, cool new design. I kinda want him on both my islands.
Dom is staying forever he's still super cute.
Cyd I got on my second island and he fits PERFECTLY so he's staying forever. Plus I got him on a Nook Mile tour so I went throu a big effort to get him.
I think Judy will stay, esp since it was such a hassle to get her in the first place

Now that I've had them both for a while, I'm on the fence about Reneigh and I already found Audie a new home. Audie is going to an online friend so I know she will go to a good home. Reneigh thou, while I admit she is really cool, she just doesn't fit what I got goin on rn on Natsukashi. She doesn't exactly fit Willowisp either, not to mention I already have all my dreamies planned out for there. I want to move out Reneigh but ONLY if she will go to a good home where someone will want her and not resell her for profit or somethin messed up like that.

 

[TheSillyPuppy]

I started the game not knowing about any villagers nor their move-in mechanics. I was super lucky to get Goldie and Bones as two of my starting villagers.

After I had my first ten villagers all moved in, I knew I would want to be flexible with cycling in new ones simply because there are so many well thought-out designed villagers.

My first eventual permanent resident list looked like this. I care about having villager personality diversity, so I had at least one of each personality type:

• Smug - Julian / Marshal / Zell / Leopold / Lopez
• Lazy - Stitches / Lucky / Sherb / Beau / Punchy / Bones
• Jock - Rudy
• Cranky - Butch / Apollo / Chief / Hopper
• Sisterly - Cherry / Agnes / Reneigh
• Normal - Goldie / Daisy / Fauna / Poppy / Marina / Maple / Molly / Lolly / June
• Snooty - Diana / Blanche / Julia / Judy
• Peppy - Flora / Cheri

Clearly, this was many more than 10 villagers, so I'm still doing my best to say (temporary) goodbyes to as many villagers as possible. Being able to part with more villagers at a time is also a huge time-save whenever I want to invite someone new from the campsite, between winning the card game and getting the visitor to kick out a specific villager.

Now, I've experienced some more villagers from the list above, which I made going off of looking at screenshots online, and I think I can better isolate who I would like to consider as part of my eventual permanent resident roster:

• Smug - undecided (Raymond is my S/O's dream villager, so I will let him have him!)
• Lazy - Bones
• Jock - Rudy
• Cranky - Chief (leaning towards but still relatively undecided)
• Sisterly - Agnes
• Normal - Goldie
• Snooty - Judy
• Peppy - Cookie / Bunnie

At the very least, this would leave me with two spots for continuing to cycle in new residents. I have since let Bones, Goldie, and Agnes go. My S/O has another instance of Goldie, so ideally, I will be able to move her in from his island. Since Judy has no Amiibo, she will be living on my isand indefinitely. XD

 

[Sarah3]

I never really had a plan going into the game, other than just visit as many islands as I can and pick whoever my favorites are when the time comes. Just happy I was able to find Roald and Antonio!

 

[RollingAntony]

My plan was to rotate my islanders once I've gotten their photo. Then I added the condition of letting 'em go after we celebrated their birthday together. Then I thought that they should celebrate events like the Fireworks Show on the island too. Then I stopped lying to myself and accepted that I've grown way too attached to them and they are never leaving.

 

[Millysaurusrexjr]

Sherb was one of my OG 5 and I never thought I'd let him go but it only took a few months before I was willing. I thought I'd keep Merengue and Dobie, especially Dobie, but I decided to go with a species couple theme (2 frogs, 2 cats, 2 horses, etc.) Now I think I am satisfied with the villagers I have.

 

[Verecund]

While I have about 10-20 villagers I would consider as 'permanent', I didn't want to get them all right away, and I had/have no set goal for my final villager roster (if I ever get there). I like having a constant cycle of villagers moving in and out, since when I used amiibo to get all my favourites in NL I quickly grew bored of having the same villagers for months on end. The only one I really tried for by buying lots of tickets was Filbert (who I eventually got), but I kind of regret it now because I passed over several villagers in the process that I really wish I'd invited for new experiences (Peggy, Carmen, Tasha, and Cleo twice!), so in the future I'll just take whoever looks interesting. I'm also hoping to meet more of the new NH villagers; I've encountered 133 unique villagers so far and the only one of the new ones in there is Judy, who was a random move-in - I'd definitely invite five (maybe six) of the other seven if I met them on a mystery island or in the campsite.

The only thing I knew for sure when I started was that I wanted to keep my two starters. I still have both a year later (I almost reset because I didn't like Cobb at first, but decided against it in hopes that he would grow on me, plus they made his green a lot nicer than before, and sure enough I like him even better now than my other starter who I had already liked to begin with (Diva)), although I'm not sure if I'll keep them forever now. I don't want to let them go yet, though. Apple was my first encounter on a mystery tour and first move-in, and I quickly grew close with her, so she's the only one besides my starters who remains from my original ten. I came across Filbert and Mint on mystery tours as well and they're on my permanent list, making five villagers that I really can't get rid of yet.

The problem is that I also really like my other five villagers; right now, the only one I can bring myself to let go of now is Skye, but once she leaves, in order to continue my flow of villagers, Keaton and Vic would have to be in the hot seat next, but it'll be hard to let them move! One of my favourite parts of AC is getting to meet and like villagers that I never paid attention to before, and so part of me actually doesn't want to meet many more of my favourites in NH because that means fewer villagers who I can't let leave (especially because three of my top five are snooties and I don't want three snooties on my island). :P

 

[Cristaaaaal]

I went into this game with a very open mind and not many expectations of who to have on my island. The only "goal" I had later on was to get Bob, but I wasn't going to hunt for him or spend a bunch of tbt. I got very lucky and found him randomly. Marina is permanent and I didn't even know she existed until this game. I recently got Tangy and I believe she will be permanent. I love my villagers very much, I just think part of the fun of this iteration of the game is the ability to choose, change it up, and experience different villagers. (But my absolute faves will stay for a long time.)

 

[0ni]

I'm really terrible for getting antsy and wanting to go island hopping again. I'll get a lineup of villagers I adore and then I start getting the itch again and someone has to go. The villagers I have right now have been with me the longest, but that's partly because I stopped playing for a while - now that I'm back I'm starting to give some of them the look...

 

[Hsn97]

I’ve always been happy to let go all of my villagers excluding too, Willow because she’s my favourite and I traded for her and Raymond because whilst he’s not my favourite I can’t believe how lucky I was to find him.

I enjoy seeing new villagers so I routinely move out old villager from my town once I’ve gotten their picture.

 

[Manah]

I only had three villagers I knew for sure I wanted on my island before I started (Alice, Eugene and Fuchsia), then I looked up lists, realized I didn't want to replace four of the ones I already had, and picked my dreamies for the remaining personalities.

The only big change was that I wasn't really happy with the jock options until someone mentioned Sterling not getting enough attention. He'll make a fantastic town guard.

 

[LeenaM]

I never really had a plan, but I had a long list of villagers I'm interested in. The problem is I feel I have to try to meet all of them at least once before I settle on my favorites, since my favorites are never actually the ones I expect. For example I didn't think I'd love Kabuki so much, but now I'm planning on keeping him (close to) forever!

 

[Pintuition]

Honestly my plans have shifted many times. When I got the game I had a good idea of who I wanted and I started going after them with things like amiibos, going on villager hunts, trading for them online, etc. Then slots started to fill up and I was faced with some tough choices. I had run into a fair few that weren't on my lists during hunts that became permanent villagers and then I didn't know what to do when I was faced with having to replace them with villagers I had initially wanted. This has been especially difficult for villagers without amiibos like Raymond, Sherb, Judy, etc. I didn't know I was going to stumble across Raymond and Sherb on NMT islands, they weren't on my list. I took them on and suddenly they were permanent and I never wanted them to go. I had to reevaluate my villager choices and think hard about who I wanted to keep.

Just before the end of last year I thought my year of cycling through villagers was about to end, I only had one spot I cycled through, and soon I'd replace them with the last villager on my list- everything was going smoothly on that end. Then the Sanrio villagers came out and threw everything for a loop again. I then decided to get rid of some of the villagers that had previously been my favorites to bring them on. It was a hard and heartbreaking choice but it's softened by the idea that I have their amiibos and I can bring them back in the future. Deciding who to keep and who to boot is the worst!!!

 

[Kate86]

Other: I’m still undecided. At first I thought I wanted all dog residents. Then I let my best boi Bones move away and now I feel empty inside so I turned my focus to collecting pictures and then letting them go.

 

[a potato]

I'd describe my play style as being pretty fluid. I didn't really have any specific villagers I wanted before the game came out. About a month in, though, I came up with a list based on who I had already and who I wanted. From there, I just played as normal and if I found a new villager I liked, I'd switch someone out. That's pretty much where I am today. I have my favorites, like Sherb and Poppy, but outside of that, nothing is really set in stone. Maybe some dried mud at best.