Opinions on this Popularity Tier List

[saucySheep]

Curlos is cute... but I'm partial to my boy Shep. I don't normally love the dogs, but his design is just SO cute. Also, his hobby is education, and I LOVE how he wears reading glasses. It's like... really, Shep? THAT'S what's going to improve your eyesight?

...Really?

​

Also, when he's surprised, his hair parts and shows one tiny eye and it's precious

i have shep in nl
he's actually pretty annoying lmfao

 

[Mary]

It’s not really about which villager is “best” per se. it’s more about demand. Of course everyone is going to like different villagers, but there will be some that tend to be more popular than others because overall, a larger number of players like their design. It’s not really personal or an attack on any villager, so I don’t really understand when people get upset over it. It’s totally ok to like villagers that aren’t popular (and you liking them doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be popular or should be considered popular).

 

[Barney]

People like what they like. The tier lists simply reflect that.

What I find fascinating is what makes certain villagers appeal more widely than others when there's no obvious reason for it.

 

[marshallows]

popularity tier list for ac villagers is so useless to me considering favorites are so subjective.
plus your favs list shouldn't matter to anyone else other than yourself anyway so sites with articles like these are just angry clickbait to get people to defend their favs lmao.

 

[Hilbunny]

Ratings don’t mean anything
If you love your villagers then that’s all that matters.

 

[Feraligator]

I have
4x tier 5 (Kody, Del, Vivian, Midge)
3x tier 4 (Reneigh, Biskit, Bea)
1x tier 2 (Julian)
2x tier 1 (Audie, Beau)

According to this list, which I find interesting!

 

[Skandranon]

rofl, finally looked at the lists and my first camper is tier 2, used to be tier 1 and I couldn't wait to get him off my island

 

[Serabee]

It’s not really about which villager is “best” per se. it’s more about demand. Of course everyone is going to like different villagers, but there will be some that tend to be more popular than others because overall, a larger number of players like their design. It’s not really personal or an attack on any villager, so I don’t really understand when people get upset over it. It’s totally ok to like villagers that aren’t popular (and you liking them doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be popular or should be considered popular).

But, the thing is, I disagree about it being about demand. I think it's more about the personal preferences of the people who vote- NOT who they think is worth the most. Like, again, I love Merry... but I have NEVER seen her get more attention than Judy. EVER. I think the whole process is flawed and really doesn't mean much. Unless they literally surveyed EVERY player who ever has bought/may buy/has sold/or may sell a villager... it's just not going to be accurate. Also, as someone else already said, people try and influence it. So it doesn't mean much.

Also, I don't think anyone is actually taking it that seriously here. I know I'm just joking around, and I'm guessing most of us are

 

[Red Cat]

The methodology used for the list linked in the OP is very flawed. It relies on opt-in voting and lets you pick only 3 villagers to vote for, but allows you to pick the same villager all 3 times which can skew the results. It also relies on self-reporting of villager purchases which is not good either. A good villager popularity list should:

1. Clearly document the methodology used to determine the rankings and make all of the raw data publicly available.

2. Have multiple people involved in determining the rankings to reduce individual bias and disclose who is involved with determining the rankings.

3. Not rely exclusively on opt-in polls and self-reporting. Self-reporting has major issues such as people being more likely to report a large transaction than a giveaway. Also, not all giveaways are equal. Someone may be really generous and give away Raymond for free, but if he gets claimed in one minute, that doesn't reduce his value. Ideally the people maintaining the list should look at villager sales and giveaways and take into account how long it takes for the villager to be claimed and if the villager is even claimed at all.

 

[LambdaDelta]

"this tier list sucks because it doesn't cater to me" - general response to literally every tier list for literally every single thing ever

 

[Serabee]

The methodology used for the list linked in the OP is very flawed. It relies on opt-in voting and lets you pick only 3 villagers to vote for, but allows you to pick the same villager all 3 times which can skew the results. It also relies on self-reporting of villager purchases which is not good either. A good villager popularity list should:

1. Clearly document the methodology used to determine the rankings and make all of the raw data publicly available.

2. Have multiple people involved in determining the rankings to reduce individual bias and disclose who is involved with determining the rankings.

3. Not rely exclusively on opt-in polls and self-reporting. Self-reporting has major issues such as people being more likely to report a large transaction than a giveaway. Also, not all giveaways are equal. Someone may be really generous and give away Raymond for free, but if he gets claimed in one minute, that doesn't reduce his value. Ideally the people maintaining the list should look at villager sales and giveaways and take into account how long it takes for the villager to be claimed and if the villager is even claimed at all.

Unless someone was meticulously documenting literally every transaction or every villager online there's no way to have a completely accurate list. Frankly, unless you have one of the newer and/or most popular villagers, the "value" is based entirely on the preference of the people who see you have them. You could find someone who adores Hippeux more than life itself and would give their first born child for him. Or you could find people (like me) who hate Clay and have zero desire to ever have him even if he's "tier two" on that list. Selling villagers for big bucks is often about luck more than anything else. Frankly, I don't think tier lists really benefit anyone. The prices seem utterly arbitrary, and it discounts that you can have a seemingly popular villager but just not find anyone that wants them at that moment. I also think they're confusing for newbies who want to trade/buy/sell villagers. Some assume they're set in stone and then can't understand why they can't sell their tier three villager for the exact price listed, while others will see a villager they want is tier one and just give up ever trying because they think they'll never afford them.

Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe people stick to them religiously and people really are selling Merry for as much as Raymond *shrugs* But I doubt it.

 

[Shellzilla_515]

Oh no! Sterling is only ranked 89 (tier 5) while Queenie is only 79 (tier 6)! My enjoyment of this game is ruined!

I was being sarcastic in case you didn’t know. Speaking on the topic of tier lists, I don’t bat an eyelid to it. Same goes for tier lists in the Super Smash Bros. series. The two of them have differences to determine who is better, but I think we all get the idea that they don’t really impact the gameplay. If anything, I find it to be a waste of time and energy especially when they get updated frequently. I’ll be keeping my cherished villagers thank you very much. Just my two cents.

 

[TheSillyPuppy]

Ranking systems inherently have as much value as we give them. I'd be way more impressed if someone, say, made a web scraper to scour websites like Nookazon, TBT, Reddit, etc. to obtain the data then generate a ranked list of villager popularity based on player (user) demand.

 

[LunarMako]

I think the tier list needs to go in my opinon. It just helps this new Animal Crossing market become more and more ridiously. People not letting others get the villagers they don't even want unless you get hundreds of NMT. And lets me real, most people will all those NMT probably bought it on ebay which is just another market now. Not judging. I bought some NMT myself. To dreamy hunt. You can't dreamy hunt with few tickets most of the time. Which is another thing. Nintendo making it so hard to find out dreamies in the first place. Idk. I think it has all gotten a little out of hand. I liked the market and community more when New Leaf was out. It still felt like a game, and not business. LOL.

And I wouldn't take the list too seriously. What has been happening as well, as streamers online with fan bases have been getting people to vote for specific villagers to get them to the top. I think Merry is adorable, but shes at the top because people voted for her because someone they all watch stream asked them to.

 

[Red Cat]

Unless someone was meticulously documenting literally every transaction or every villager online there's no way to have a completely accurate list. Frankly, unless you have one of the newer and/or most popular villagers, the "value" is based entirely on the preference of the people who see you have them. You could find someone who adores Hippeux more than life itself and would give their first born child for him. Or you could find people (like me) who hate Clay and have zero desire to ever have him even if he's "tier two" on that list. Selling villagers for big bucks is often about luck more than anything else. Frankly, I don't think tier lists really benefit anyone. The prices seem utterly arbitrary, and it discounts that you can have a seemingly popular villager but just not find anyone that wants them at that moment. I also think they're confusing for newbies who want to trade/buy/sell villagers. Some assume they're set in stone and then can't understand why they can't sell their tier three villager for the exact price listed, while others will see a villager they want is tier one and just give up ever trying because they think they'll never afford them.

Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe people stick to them religiously and people really are selling Merry for as much as Raymond *shrugs* But I doubt it.

As a mentioned in my previous post, a good villager tier list wouldn't have "someone" documenting transactions, but rather a team of people dividing up the work. There was a NL villager popularity list on TBT a few years ago that had a few contributors. That thread was only looking at villager transactions on TBT and was clear about it, but I think it was a pretty good representation of villager popularity on TBT and the market for villagers here.

There may be some outlier transactions like someone paying a lot for Hippeux, but if a site has a lot of villager transactions and they are being adequately tracked, then transactions like that should have only a small effect on the rankings. For a popular villager like Raymond, you don't need everyone to like him; you just need enough people who really like him to create a bidding war and drive the price up. There can be a lot of variation in the price of individual transactions, but the odds of you selling Raymond for a lot of bells / NMT / TBT and doing so quickly are much higher than for Hippeux.

I think tier lists are useful because they help you get an approximate sense of the value of a villager. You may set a price for a villager you're selling and not have any buyers initially, but you can always adjust the price if people aren't biting. If you have a high tier villager (assuming a good popularity list), then it's probably worth it to be patient hold out or only reduce your price slightly because eventually someone will bite, but if you have a low tier villager, then you may not get a hit for days even if you're just trying to give that villager away, so you may just want to void it instead. Villager tier lists are only meant to give you a look a average value and trends. Like any market, there's a lot of variation on different sites and different days, but that doesn't mean you should completely ignore the average value of a villager if you're buying or selling.

 

[Hypno KK]

I hope tier lists for NH don't catch on the way they did for NL. The competition over popular villagers got really out of hand and it was hard to find unpopular villagers sometimes (because people would just void them). The only good thing is that a lot of villagers I liked were in the two lowest tiers so I usually got them for free or cheap.

I don't really care where the villagers I like are on a list. I get that some villagers are just popular because their designs appeal to a lot of people or because they're nostalgic so that's unavoidable, to an extent. Some villagers just aren't everyone's cup of tea and that's ok. I don't go out of my way based on lists like this.

All that said, I'm happy for Katt! Way back when she was on the bottom tiers (for NL) and I'm glad more people appreciate her now lol.

 

[WaileaNoRei]

I think tier lists can be somewhat fun an interesting, but they get given way too much importance, and they vary greatly in sample size, methodology, and shouldn’t be viewed as definitive evidence of anything valuable. (I guess except for people selling villagers...but I’m not that interested in that, so I don’t know enough to say)

Also people mistake the tier list for defining rare or unique villagers, [edit - or what villagers are good vs bad] when actually it is the opposite.

Ultimately they are harmless, and it’s harmless for people to get as invested in them as they want.


What I really like are seeing different people’s personal tier lists - I think it is really interesting to see how great the variations are.

 

[virtualpet]

I am surprised that Ribbot, Puddles, and Raddle are all tier 5.

Then Del is tier 6? I didn't know he was that low wow

I think the only tier 1 villager we have is Marina

 

[Uffe]

I pay no attention to whatever tier list exists out there for Animal Crossing, because it's not a competitive game where there are characters who are better than others. If they can't see greatness right in front of them, then that's their problem. I love who I love and I don't need a tier list to tell me how to choose my villagers. When it comes to making a tier list, it all comes down to preference, anyway. It's really not that serious.

 

[King koopa]

Oh, yeah, I never even look at those. I prioritize villagers based on my preferences and that's it Looking at it now, I'm not at all convinced Marshall outranks Raymod. And... poor Hippeaux...

You're really not THAT bad.​

Post automatically merged: Aug 16, 2020

I personally think Gayle LOOKS adorable. But I also feel like I see a lot of giveaways of her end up getting voided.

Noooooooo Hippeux whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa my favorite smug