A theory about move-out pings

[Hound00med]

Ohey guys, so I've after my countless 16 cycles (it seems!), I've come up with a theory about villager pings..

So if a villager is trying to ping you to move out, I've noticed that they will ALWAYS be outside (but not on Main Street), and they will be ready to ping you when you come by.

However, this doesn't guarantee they will ping you, as some villagers can ping you beforehand about a catchphrase change or whatever.. (I've noticed this because I always go around my villagers clockwise, so I can have Poncho ping who's on the east side about a catchphrase change, when, after a no save reset, I will have Erik ping me afterward and he wants to move) .. So no save resets are always crucial to avoid absolutely no mistakes.

To add on to this though, the villager who's trying to move MUST have been spoken to in the past week, or else, not only will they not ping you, but they can be inside or on Main Street, which means the game will be fooling you into thinking that the villager isn't pinging when in fact they are, they're just unable to..

I will point out that this is simply a THEORY if anyone wants to totally debunk it, then please be my guest, but I thought I'd post my findings

 

[Dogoat]

I think this is true! Annalise is ALWAYS on Main Street, but the only time I saw her in my town was when she pinged me to move!

 

[Shirohibiki]

yeah, this sounds about right. they wont ping you if you get pinged from someone else first, and theyre outside waiting. ive noticed it too from my cycling

 

[Clover]

+1 credit to this observation. I've been hunting down Hamphrey for a while now trying to get him to ping. He was always indoors or hiding on main street, as if he was avoiding me. Two days ago other villagers mentioned his plan to move away, and that's when I started seeing him hanging outside all the time. Today I let him ping me just to get a moving date, then I quit without saving to make sure he never changes his mind.

I've heard the theory where people said the fastest way for a villager to move out is to not talk to them at all after first introduction so the game marks them as "unwanted." This is easier said than done. Do you support this theory based on your experience?

 

[Hound00med]

+1 credit to this observation. I've been hunting down Hamphrey for a while now trying to get him to ping. He was always indoors or hiding on main street, as if he was avoiding me. Two days ago other villagers mentioned his plan to move away, and that's when I started seeing him hanging outside all the time. Today I let him ping me just to get a moving date, then I quit without saving to make sure he never changes his mind.

I've heard the theory where people said the fastest way for a villager to move out is to not talk to them at all after first introduction so the game marks them as "unwanted." This is easier said than done. Do you support this theory based on your experience?

The ignoring theory works better for me for one single reason.

While you're building friendship with a villager, there's a period in between friendship and total stranger in which your villager will NOT ping.. If you then begin ignoring said villager, they will NEVER move (this happened to a Boomer in one of my cycle towns who didn't leave in over 900 day-by-day TT's)

So, instead of getting past that period, I just leave it so they are relatively ignored (except for speaking to them to bypass the 1 week no ping thing)

 

[Clover]

While you're building friendship with a villager, there's a period in between friendship and total stranger in which your villager will NOT ping.. If you then begin ignoring said villager, they will NEVER move (this happened to a Boomer in one of my cycle towns who didn't leave in over 900 day-by-day TT's)

I noticed that with Drift, just wasn't sure if that was a fluke. Thank you. That makes sense.

 

[stitchmaker]

I played about an hour and got gossip that Miranda was thinking of leaving town. She wasn't outside and was in all the shops.
A save and quit got her outside and she ping right away.

Boomer old mayor will visit and the next day he'll ping to move. It's happened 3 times.

 

[WonderK]

I can 100% vouch for this. Animals will always reserve a ping for you and will always be outside if they are wanting to move out. They won't be anywhere else (mainstreet or in their house).

 

[VioletsTown]

I can 100% vouch for this. Animals will always reserve a ping for you and will always be outside if they are wanting to move out. They won't be anywhere else (mainstreet or in their house).

Agree. Its like they are waiting for you to come by.

 

[TeeTee]

I been collecting deer villagers and moving all non deer villagers out since August to November of last year. And I been keeping my deer villagers from moving away since last November.
I found out the hard way with Marshal, Peewee and Fang. If I don't talk to them for over a week. They will not ping me to move, they will try to befriend me by asking for change in catchphrase, clothing or furniture. My final non-deer villager was Fang. I avoided him for over a week and I started to notice Fang tried to ping me for conversations. So I ignored him and turned off the game w/o saving. I turned it back on and talked to him. He said "Cherry! I haven't seen you around town lately... blah blah blah... I missed you!" I saved and quit, then TT a day forward. The next day Fang pinged me to move.
After I got Fang to move. I got Beau (my 10th deer villager) to move in last November. Now the battle of keeping all 10 deer villagers began. I will walk around my town once and see who pings me. For example if Lopez pings me and asks about his catchphrase. I would hit "save and quit." Then I load my game again and find the next villager who pings me. If the next villager says he/she wants furniture or catchphrase. I would save and quit and repeat the process. I'll do this until all 10 villagers pinged me for the day or I will stop when a villager pings to move. In that case I would stop them to move and I don't have to check the rest of my villagers. In fact when I had 9 deer and 1 Fang. Everyday I made sure all 9 deer villagers and Fang pinged me so I wouldn't lose the deer.
Also I discovered if a villager wants to move. They will only ping you for moving and not anything else. For example:
Yesterday- I got Fauna to ping me to move on my first conversation with her.
3 Days Ago- Diana pinged me to move on her first try
6 Days Ago- Fuchsia pinged me to move on her first try
A week+ Deirdre, Zell, Lopez all pinged me to move on their first try.

- - - Post Merge - - -

Also extra tip: your tenth villager (the last villager who moved in) will not ask you to move. Proof: Beau is the last to move into my town. From November until now... he hasn't asked me to move.

 

[Xanarcah]

So if a villager is trying to ping you to move out, I've noticed that they will ALWAYS be outside (but not on Main Street), and they will be ready to ping you when you come by.

However, this doesn't guarantee they will ping you, as some villagers can ping you beforehand about a catchphrase change or whatever..

To add on to this though, the villager who's trying to move MUST have been spoken to in the past week, or else, not only will they not ping you, but they can be inside or on Main Street, which means the game will be fooling you into thinking that the villager isn't pinging when in fact they are, they're just unable to..

Totally agree on all three of these things, based on my experience in my TTing towns and cycling to get villagers back in my main town.

I don't have much else to say about it, you've already summed it up nicely. o:

I generally only get moving out pings (no catchphrase/request/chatting pings) in my TTing towns because I only talk to my villagers there minimal amounts. Friendships tend to be pretty low on the scale. In my main town, I get my high-friendship villagers overriding the moving pings with chatting pings.

 

[Clover]

@TeeTee: Kind of off-topic... As an additional safeguard, if you're only looking to preserve the current villagers, you could try to create a new character each day before loading an existing character. Visit all the villagers that are currently in their houses to make sure they're not in boxes, then either save the new character or if you're confident enough, quit without saving and load your existing character.

Even if a villager did not ping you/did not have a chance to ping you, they will still show up as being in boxes on the day they're supposed to move when you create a new character. If you see someone in boxes on the new day, simply quit without saving, go back to the previous day, load the old save file and make that villager ping you. This way you'd know exactly who's set to move away.

I've been doing this in conjunction with talking to each villager about 3 times per day. As it gets closer to the moving day, more rumors will come up in conversations. I guess I don't have the patience to make sure everyone pings. XD

 

[MayorSaki]

Yeah, I noticed this as well when I did TTing. It's actually a really good thing, cause it's so much easier to find out who wants to move out c:

 

[WonderK]

Yeah, I noticed this as well when I did TTing. It's actually a really good thing, cause it's so much easier to find out who wants to move out c:

It gives you the easy opportunity of preventing villagers you don't want to go from moving haha.

 

[Waluigi]

: o


this info is so helpful

 

[Hound00med]

Also extra tip: your tenth villager (the last villager who moved in) will not ask you to move. Proof: Beau is the last to move into my town. From November until now... he hasn't asked me to move.

This is absolutely true. When I'd had Kid Cat as my latest move-in, I did 6 days of almost constant TT'ing with my usual method and he refused to budge.. As soon as I started a clean sweep cycle to change where some of my villagers were placed (thought it was a good time), he then moved..