• The closing ceremony for TBT's Farewell to New Leaf event has been posted! View the winning entries and other closing announcements here. Thanks for joining in on the fun and nostalgia. We'll see you this Friday night for the start of our annual Easter Egg Hunt!

PSA: balloon gifts no longer spawning after 300 balloons popped achievement

stellery

Junior Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2020
Posts
10
Bells
38
MEOW Coupons
0
StreetPass Silver
0
Switch
3752-7511-4520
Hi all!

Since I couldn't find anyone reporting this issue at the time I completed the issue, I decided to do some more research to get to the bottom of this. Apologies for the wall of text but I love balloon gift hunting and have dedicated a huge portion of my game play to it since New Horizons launched. TLDR at the bottom!

On 3/26, I received the 300 balloons popped achievement for "It's Raining Treasure". After I received this achievement, I started to notice balloon gifts have completely stopped spawning for my character. At first, I chalked this up to bad RNG and stopped playing for the night. On 3/27, I ran around my island continuously but did not see/hear any balloons so this caused me to start to think this might not just be bad luck on my part.

I've chatted with friends and other players on discord to confirm they are still encountering balloon spawns but none of them have completed the "It's Raining Treasures" for 300 balloons.

I did some additional testing based on my theory that it's a bug/glitch linked to the 300 balloons shot achievement per character. I created a second profile on my Switch to enable local co-op and a new resident. I logged in with the new secondary resident and walked around the beaches to wait for the balloons and can confirm the balloon gifts started to show up once again.

I used the "Call Resident" feature on my NookPhone to get my main character into the game. What I discovered was the balloons will continue to spawn ONLY IF I am controlling my secondary character who does not have the achievement completed.

My current work around to hunt for balloon gifts is to control my secondary character while my main character tags along behind them. As you can see, this work around is incredibly clunky and I much prefer staying on my main character while I play the game.

I'd love to hear from anyone who also has the achievement about your experiences and whether or not you've also stopped having balloons spawn on your islands.

TLDR;

  • Got achievement for popping 300 balloons.
  • No balloons spawning after receiving achievement.
  • Created second profile on the Switch to add another resident.
  • Balloon gifts **will** spawn if controlling secondary character without achievement.
  • Balloon gifts **will not** spawn if controlling main character with achievement.
  • Current work around to hunt for balloon gifts is play second character.

Related Issues
  • No golden slingshot DIY recipe.
  • With the cherry blossom event coming up in April, players with achievement won't be able to pop balloons for the seasonal recipes.
  • Players with achievement won't be able to complete Nook Miles+ goals relating to popping balloons; especially the 2x and 5x multipliers.

I also shared my findings on various other channels to boost signal and raise awarness. Other players confirmed this has happened to them after completing the achievement. Link to my posts to other channels below!

Twitter Link: https://twitter.com/IslaMousse/status/1244732198718263296
Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ac_newhori...balloon_gifts_not_spawning_after_its_raining/
Nintendo Support Forums: https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/social/questions/detail/kw/*/qid/93055
GameFAQs: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/248082-animal-crossing-new-horizons/78523182

UPDATE 3/28: I called Nintendo Support to let them know about the error. The representative acknowledged this is not in their current database of known bugs/errors so they will make a note to pass this along to the appropriate parties.

I highly recommend anyone who is currently experiencing this bug or is concerned this will affect them in the future to call Nintendo's customer service number @ 1 (800) 255-3700 (press 1 at the automated menu for Nintendo Switch and then press 0 to get connected to a live agent).

The very helpful live agent told me that if more people report the issue, the bug/glitch will be put higher up in the priority for the development team to review. The call took less than 10 minutes out of my day and if it leads to a faster patch turnaround time, it's definitely worth the effort!
 
Last edited:
Interesting! Hopefully this is sorted by the time I pop 300 balloons! Thank you for raising awareness.
 
Thanks for reporting this. I hope Nintendo takes care of the problem quickly.
 
i really hope this is sorted by the time i get to 300 balloons - popping balloons is one of my favourite things to do ;u;
 
Seeing this sounds painful. I want them to patch this asap.
 
That's annoying. Thanks for posting your findings!

I haven't gotten to 300 balloons popped yet myself, but will keep an eye out for when I do.
 
I'm almost to 100 balloons so hopefully by the time I reach 300 this will be patched, but this is so tedious and so close to the cherry blossom event too!! I hope they work out a fix for the next patch.
 
Wow this is very serious. Thank you for posting this or I wouldn't have known.

I won't pop any more yellow balloons as I don't need money, I just need items. I'm sitting at 103/300 right now!
 
You popped 300 balloons already? That's about 30 balloons a day! Is there some way to make them appear very frequently?
 
:( That's unfortunate. Seems to be a lot of bugs. Hopefully they resolve them quickly.

Tonight I had a villager house that was illuminated like they were home and I was able to enter like they were. But when I went inside no one was in there lol. When I went back out it finally showed the house dark and said xyz villager is roaming around lol.
 
I'm still a ways off from 300, but if this is happening it definitely needs to be addressed.
 
Glad to hear you talked to Nintendo Support about this, hopefully they resolve this soon.
 
You popped 300 balloons already? That's about 30 balloons a day! Is there some way to make them appear very frequently?

They're not random anymore. The balloons spawn every 5 minutes. They spawn from the east from about 6am-6pm, then spawn from the west from 6pm-6am.
 
Good find, I hope they fix it. This is an actual complaint I can sympathize with, thid seems like an oversight instead of a design direction/choice.
 
Oh my D: I hope this is fixed soon! Would be a shame if players missed out on the sakura items because of this ):
 
It could always be that this isn't a bug but rather an intentional thing but I doubt it. The game as it stands seems to be a bit buggy. We have this error. The already mentioned error of lights being on at night and the door opening when nobody is home and others (myself included) have experienced load times of something like 10 minutes on at least one occasion as if the game is getting stuck when trying to load.

Patches needed. And upcoming I'm sure.
 
Wow thank you so much for your thorough research! I really appreciate people like you, putting in time and gathering evidence to prove your theory. Amazing work! I haven't gotten close to 300 but it makes me think I should slow down a bit in case this isn't patched before the cherry blossom event. Kinda related but I currently live in Korea and the cherry blossoms have already bloomed so I'm excited to see them in the game as well!
 
Back
Top