Sometimes, you have to extend your number of villagers you'd be willing to move in to have any luck island hopping. I do that, and on my 12th island I found Penelope to move in just recently!
Sometimes I ave decent luck, other times not so much. I don't go out looking for a specific villager, but one that i like that is the type i am looking for that fits my theme. I found Fang on my third ticket one trip. On other trip, I found Erik on the first ticket. I found Kiki after 2 tickets. But this other time I was looking for a jock/normal/snooty, it took me 46 tickets to finally settle on Leonardo as I was out of tickets. Fortunately, I do like him so it was a win in the end. But I do sort of dread when I need to islan hop again when my next villager moves out.
I’ve only gone island hopping for my initial three villagers so far. But within 13 tickets I got Megan, Wendy, and Filbert! Wendy was the villager I was looking for specifically, since I like the default peppy house more than her regular interior. I was also lucky enough to get bamboo island twice! I know I won’t get as lucky with the full villager pool, so I haven’t done it since.
You gotta take breaks and know when to call it a day. There's just so much RNG that I expect nothing and only feel surprised when I actually run into someone I actually want to invite.
Oh sorry about your lack of luck, I've been very unlucky when looking for a specific villager, but I was lucky in the beginning of the game, I found Audie as one of my first villagers and then Diana!
Good luck hunting!
It's all RNG. For most villagers, the chance of finding them is less than 1 in 400 because the game rolls for species first then randomly chooses a villager belonging to that species. Cats would be the most difficult to find because they are the most populous species; 1 in 800), while octopuses are the easiest to find because there's only 3 (1 in 100). Tbh I find island hopping tiring but I've had luck with it every once in a while!
I found Raymond island hopping. Although I didn’t consider him a dreamy! i once island hopped for about seven hours real time and during that time I didn’t see one cat (I wanted Olivia, Kiki, or Bob) I saw a lot of goats, crocodiles and hippos. In the end i got Savannah.
i was island hopping today for any Of the cats or a squirrel or a penguin and I got a crocodile, a chicken and a hippo.
I accidentally forgot to invite my first three villagers after the two that arrived on the island and I got lucky with what the game chose. I’m tempted to just let the game pick again because island hopping is pretty boring.
its entirely about grinding hard and spending loads of time and loads of tickets to find them, its a shame you havent been able to find your dreamies! good luck! dobie such a sweet old man, he’ll make a lovely edition to your island!
I was the same for Raymond.... I spent over 200 tickets in a day and decided to call it a night. I found someone else on my lost the next day though... I found Dobie a bunch of times inislands and the campsite so I finally got him from someone and I love him.