# Personality Subtypes - The Details



## aibo (Apr 27, 2020)

*The Explanation*
The New Horizons Companion Guide leaves an infuriatingly exciting note on the page detailing personality types- "each resident can have one of eight personality types, each with two sub-types". It leaves you with more questions than it does answers.

I don't claim to know everything about what's going on under the hood in this game- it's 100% possible that there are additional variables that might make the sub-types relevant. In addition, the tools I used to examine the game's contents were intended for Breath of the Wild (https://zeldamods.org/wiki/Main_Page), which does end up obfuscating certain aspects of the files. @_Ninji mentions an eventual release of a fork of one of these tools specifically for ACNH, so the entire mass files will absolutely be worth reexamining in the future with more personpower- I personally do not posses the binary wizardry to go into the raw info. Alas!

With that said, I am sad to be the first on the Bell Tree to announce that* the personality sub-types affect only one tree of dialogue*. Thankfully, it's an interesting tree of dialogue! Here's how we know:
Each villager has a parameter called `NpcTalkType`- it's a boolean, so that's either a one or a zero (two states). Here's the complete readout of every single villager with every single point of data associated with them: (ggs Astro on the awesome sheet)








						NmlNpcParam - ACNH
					

READ ME   4/21/2020,hi this is astro im the sheet owner im changing this to comment only cause theres like 70 viewers as of writing this which is scaring me LOL and the doc keeps getting weirdly sorted and its nooot something im a fan of 4/25/2020,i have a habit of reordering columns so make sure...




					docs.google.com
				




At first there wasn't much to support the theory that the NpcTalkTypes were the sub-types, but the fact that there is only one variable associated with a villager that has only two options was compelling. Now we know that NpcTalkType specifically influences dialogue, though.

Animal Crossing manages the flow of character interactions with a system created inside Nintendo called EventFlow. There's no code- it doesn't handle the randomness or the actual selection of the dialogue- but it provides a literal flowchart for the game's interactions to follow. Therefore, I don't know when exactly this dialogue will activate, but it sits directly alongside the common villager interaction dialogue trees where it picks randomly for dialogue in specific categories- asking questions, the dialogue when you first interact with a villager, when you talk to a villager and they want something in your inventory, or just the basic interactions when nothing else is of note. These specific dialogue options could be common or rare- it's something that will have to be determined via reverse-engineering the game's code. But they sure do exist.







Here's the tree influenced by the sub-type, or NpcTalkType. Your game checks if your villager's type is a 0 or a 1- in the case of a 1, the villager pulls dialogue from the 'AlwaysA' category- if it's a 0, it pulls from 'AlwaysB'.

If you're interested in exploring these differences for yourself, check out GoogleBen's visualization of the dialogue CSVs. *(Spoilers from here on out!) *
https://googleben.github.io/ACNHDialog/
The relevant dialogue is under `TalkNNpc/B1_Bo/Free/BO_FreeA_AlwaysA` and `TalkNNpc/B1_Bo/Free/BO_FreeA_AlwaysB`, using Lazy as an example. The personalities are as follows:

Lazy: B1_Bo
Jock: B2_Ge
Cranky: B3_Ko
Smug: B4_Zk

Sweet: G1_Fu
Peppy: G2_Ge
Snooty: G3_Ot
Big Sister: G4_An

There are a couple of lines differentiating the personalities that highlight surprising differences in worldview between the sub-types... but that's about it. The dialogue specific to each sub-type is definitely _there, _but, again, it's a _very_ small selection compared to the rest of the dialogue for the personality types.

*The Quick Q&A
Should I plan my island around the sub-types?*
I would say no- just pick the villagers you like, regardless of their NpcTalkType value. The selection of dialogue specific to each villager sub-type is pretty small. If you're the type of person that lives for unique dialogue choices, it could be worth it, but it's really just up to you and not a huge deal!

*Is this the same thing as villager interests?*
No. Villager interests are not the same thing and as far as I can tell do not affect dialogue. Villager interests are fun, but they are associated with activities/movement- not personality type.

*Is this why some villagers love to talk about bugs/being a popstar and others don't?*
As far as I can tell, no. I expect reverse-engineering the game code to reveal more about the RNG behind the "cWildCard" dialogue selection, but it seems to me that differences in this general scope are RNG confirmation bias. Don't let this ruin your perception of the villagers, though- the beauty of randomness in this context is how it generates character!

*In Conclusion*
This is not the game-changing feature players hoped it would be. However, it adds zest to the world and really makes you appreciate the amount of detail in the Animal Crossing franchise! There's a ton of variation in the way each villager interacts with the world, and the few unique bits of dialogue is a nice bonus.

The datamining of this game is *live and ongoing. *Developments can happen in the future. (ACNH YouTubers that lurk this forum: don't include this in your videos if for some reason it's ever relevant, at least until the investigation is 100% mature (you'd be doing all of us a massive favor ;_; )

Finally, all of the information I present here I present through the lens of my digging through my own files and investigations on the eventflow files, but Ninji was the one who originally brought this up offhandedly (and was kind enough to let me know that dialogue is referenced in the BFEVFLs.) Ninji does a lot of amazing work and deserves your respect! Check him out on Twitter and be nice to him if you like the inner workings of ACNH.

*EDIT: New- *additional observations from Stoney on Discord. Check it out: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b2rrEIeNZKnQrvoyD4JtkKSNJs2VAHobCBGKSnO2A_o/edit
Important notes include the fact that subtype-specific dialogue only appears with high friendship, and that the villagers within the subtypes will have one or two possible hobbies out of the group.


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## aibo (Apr 27, 2020)

Making a second post just in case it ever becomes necessary- and also because I wanted to mention that- and this is totally unsupported by ingame data, just existing observations- I sent this post to some friends and they report that they see the subtype-specific dialogue quite often, which leads me to believe that the FreeA_AlwaysA and FreeA_AlwaysB dialogue is designed to function in parallel to the FreeA_Always dialogue (standard interaction dialogue). Perhaps obvious by the naming, but I do not have the best memory and it's hard to know for sure so I'm glad other people are taking note!!

With that said, if there are specific dialogue options you dislike, the sub-type might matter to you, but the lines I notice people complaining about most often aren't included in the sub-types. The ball's in your court on that one.

Either way, the types add variety.


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## ooraloo (Apr 27, 2020)

That's a really interesting piece of information. Thanks for sharing!

Which of the ZeldaMods tools did you use to make that flowchart? I tried using the evfl library on my own and didn't get very far.


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## aibo (Apr 27, 2020)

ooraloo said:


> That's a really interesting piece of information. Thanks for sharing!
> 
> Which of the ZeldaMods tools did you use to make that flowchart? I tried using the evfl library on my own and didn't get very far.


I used eventeditor. evfl is good, but the lack of documentation is frustrating.

eventeditor has the latest vc++ redist as a dependency, by the way. I struggled with that the first time.


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## MayorMudkip (Apr 27, 2020)

this is some really awesome, thorough investigation, great work! i love the extra detail this adds to new horizons; creating the perception in the player that _something_ differentiates villagers of the same personality, without making that differentiation super obvious or noticeable, is a super cool touch and very difficult to pull off. i also love how clearly you've written and formatted this documentation! the look into EventFlow is super interesting, i work with similar tools and it's always neat to see how writers/designers/developers choose to structure their flowcharts to create subtle effects like this.


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## moonbell (Apr 27, 2020)

Thanks for the update and all the information! Really appreciate it.


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## ctar17 (Apr 27, 2020)

Interesting!  What a day for datamining and theories.  I looked at the spreadsheets and there's so much info, I don't even know where to start lol


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## Bioness (Apr 30, 2020)

Bump for visibility. This is really good to know information about personality sub-types in New Horizons. While unfortunate these do not make that big of an impact, it is still good to know.


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## Believe (Apr 30, 2020)

Hm this really makes me curious to understand what drives the popstar/bug dialogue. Once determined it's something I'm willing to grind for considering I have the amiibo for most of the villagers I want in my town (though id want to know how amiibo ties into this if at all and if those brought in through that method have fixed values rather than being random every time)


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## Last_bus_home (Apr 30, 2020)

Thank you for all this, when I first brought it up on the forums I was hoping that in addition to anecdotal evidence, someone would be able to shed some light on the code and who is in what category. Not because it is groundbreaking to how we plan our islands, but because this sort of small detail that means a lot to me and the kind of thing that would keep me awake at night. The ‘interests’ within the code was a fascinating revelation but I’m so glad you’ve found this in addition, our villagers are now truly different to one another, albeit subtly.


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## aibo (Apr 30, 2020)

Personality Subtypes
					

Personality Subtypes?  So you may have read the companion guide and came across this:   It doesn’t elaborate beyond that, but we have found information that suggests these subtypes exist.  It’s called NpcTalkType    What does it do?  As far as we know currently, the only thing NpcTalkType affect...




					docs.google.com
				



Stoney on Discord has their own document with some additional observations. I'd recommend everyone check this out.


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## Mairen (Apr 30, 2020)

From what I can understand from this, the subtypes don't effect activities or hobbies that the villagers partake in. It just effects a small portion of their dialogue. Otherwise, the personality types of A and B are still basically the same. Is that correct so far?  Is there an example of the various dialogue that you can get from the types? Meaning, what is some Jock A dialogue that we'd get vs. Jock B dialogue. (or feel free to provide examples from any personality)


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## Underneath The Stars (Apr 30, 2020)

oh thanks for the info, we were convinced it affects the hobbies because they all have different ones... why does my punchy or apple never sings??? T_T


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## aibo (Apr 30, 2020)

Mairen said:


> From what I can understand from this, the subtypes don't effect activities or hobbies that the villagers partake in. It just effects a small portion of their dialogue. Otherwise, the personality types of A and B are still basically the same. Is that correct so far?  Is there an example of the various dialogue that you can get from the types? Meaning, what is some Jock A dialogue that we'd get vs. Jock B dialogue. (or feel free to provide examples from any personality)


The subtypes themselves only effect the dialogue. Stoney (read link above) points out that Cranky A villagers are exclusively Education or Music while the Cranky B villagers are exclusively Nature, for instance, so the subtypes will fall into one or two hobbies as well. They *are* separate, though, with cross-over between the personality types- and they effect totally different things (overworld actions vs dialogue)- so please don't confuse them.

99% of dialogue between the subtypes are completely the same. Please follow the instructions in the OP to view the specific dialogue.




Underneath The Stars said:


> oh thanks for the info, we were convinced it affects the hobbies because they all have different ones... why does my punchy or apple never sings??? T_T


Punchy is Lazy-A and Apple is Peppy-B, and both have the interest Play. Music types have the greatest chance of singing.


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## Underneath The Stars (Apr 30, 2020)

aibo said:


> The subtypes themselves only effect the dialogue. Stoney (read link above) points out that Cranky A villagers are exclusively Education or Music while the Cranky B villagers are exclusively Nature, for instance, so the subtypes will fall into one or two hobbies as well. They *are* separate, though, with cross-over between the personality types- and they effect totally different things (overworld actions vs dialogue)- so please don't confuse them.
> 
> 99% of dialogue between the subtypes are completely the same. Please follow the instructions in the OP to view the specific dialogue.
> 
> ...



thanks! is there are data of sub-types per villager somewhere?


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## aibo (Apr 30, 2020)

Underneath The Stars said:


> thanks! is there are data of sub-types per villager somewhere?


Yes, please follow the link to the NmlNpcParam sheet in the OP. You can view both your villager's subtype and hobby there.


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## Miss Misty (Apr 30, 2020)

My dreamy list has two duplicate personalities (smug and snooty) and by complete happenstance, I ended up with one A and one B for each of them. So that'll be nice.

Thank you to everyone who put in the hard work to figure out what Nintendo meant by that one-off line in the guidebook!


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## Bioness (Apr 30, 2020)

Miss Misty said:


> My dreamy list has two duplicate personalities (smug and snooty) and by complete happenstance, I ended up with one A and one B for each of them. So that'll be nice.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who put in the hard work to figure out what Nintendo meant by that one-off line in the guidebook!



That one-off line about personality subtypes I feel was in bad faith. Maybe the internet blew it out of proportion, but given what we know now, it hardly seems like it should be mentioned as it will make people think the personalities are different, when they really aren't. If anything the hobbies and style make the villagers stand out more and are what I feel would be more appropriate to highlight.

A line like this could have been better: "Even if they share a personality, each villager comes with their own set of styles, hobbies, and stories to tell."


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## Miss Misty (Apr 30, 2020)

Bioness said:


> That one-off line about personality subtypes I feel was in bad faith. Maybe the internet blew it out of proportion, but given what we know now, it hardly seems like it should be mentioned as it will make people think the personalities are different, when they really aren't. If anything the hobbies and interests make the villagers stand out more and are what I feel would be more appropriate to highlight.


I don't really see it as bad faith. One of the most common complaints I heard from people about New Leaf was that the villager dialogue is stale. I think Nintendo was excited about this solution to that particular issue and wanted to highlight that they had in fact tried to come up with a way to fix it. I just think they didn't realize how far people would go in investigating what they meant by it.

I do agree, though, that they should highlight the hobbies and interests both in game and in their publications a little more.


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## Bioness (Apr 30, 2020)

Miss Misty said:


> I don't really see it as bad faith. One of the most common complaints I heard from people about New Leaf was that the villager dialogue is stale. I think Nintendo was excited about this solution to that particular issue and wanted to highlight that they had in fact tried to come up with a way to fix it. I just think they didn't realize how far people would go in investigating what they meant by it.
> 
> I do agree, though, that they should highlight the hobbies and interests both in game and in their publications a little more.



It still could have been worded better, something like: "Even if they share a personality, each villager comes with their own set of styles, hobbies, and stories to tell."

Saying "two sub-types" implies they act differently when this mostly affects high friendship dialog, although I suppose there is a correlation between hobbies and the personality subt-ype for villagers.


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## Miss Misty (Apr 30, 2020)

Bioness said:


> It still could have been worded better, something like: "Even if they share a personality, each villager comes with their own set of styles, hobbies, and stories to tell."
> 
> Saying "two sub-types" implies they act differently when this mostly affects high friendship dialog, although I suppose there is a correlation between hobbies and the personality subt-ype for villagers.


I agree they could have worded it better, definitely. Your way sounds much better, especially for a companion guide. The way it's worded honestly sounds like the person writing it didn't have a clear understanding of what the subtypes actually were (and subtype is such a weird word to use). Hopefully this information can circulate around the internet enough that everyone who's read the guide book can finally learn what it actually refers to.


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## Last_bus_home (May 1, 2020)

aibo said:


> Personality Subtypes
> 
> 
> Personality Subtypes?  So you may have read the companion guide and came across this:   It doesn’t elaborate beyond that, but we have found information that suggests these subtypes exist.  It’s called NpcTalkType    What does it do?  As far as we know currently, the only thing NpcTalkType affect...
> ...


Peppy B is also able to have the Fitness interest - not listed here. I would contact them, but you’re probably in touch.


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## moonbell (May 1, 2020)

Last_bus_home said:


> Peppy B is also able to have the Fitness interest - not listed here. I would contact them, but you’re probably in touch.



Yeah, Rosie and Tangy are A and B and both like Music. Unless I'm misunderstanding some wording in the explanation at some point or another!


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## ecstasy (May 4, 2020)

Hmm.. O'Hare is subtype A but he hasn't said anything from subtype A and only stuff from subtype B. Same with Raymond. Not sure about Marshal tho. I'm confused


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## aibo (May 4, 2020)

Sugaryy said:


> Hmm.. O'Hare is subtype A but he hasn't said anything from subtype A and only stuff from subtype B. Same with Raymond. Not sure about Marshal tho. I'm confused


Are they subtype 0 saying B dialogue? That's normal.


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## Dustbird (May 4, 2020)

Huh, I checked out the dialogues and my Jocks from subtype B have MOST DEFINITELY said things from subtype A. (Sparro had a dream about fractal abs, to be precise.)

Edit: I might have just looked under the wrong dialogue tree, I'm not even sure anymore...


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## starlightsong (May 4, 2020)

Can someone let me know if I'm misunderstanding something? I checked the linked spreadsheet in OP's edit--the one by Stoney on Discord--so that I could see which uchi type Reneigh was, and it says she's subtype B. It also only lists 4 villagers under uchi A so I thought "aw man, there are so few A-type uchis and I don't think I like any of them... might as well just read what their special dialogue is" so I went to the linked webpage with all the dialogue, and navigated to TalkNNpc/G4_An/Free/AN_FreeA_AlwaysA. Which... just showed me dialogue that I've definitely gotten from Reneigh several times. And then the dialogue under FreeA_AlwaysB is stuff I've definitely never heard her say. I also found that the same thing applies to Punchy and Chief: they're listed as a lazy A and cranky A respectively but when I check the FreeA_AlwaysA sections for their personalities they've definitely never given me any of that dialogue, but I often get the dialogue that appears under FreeA_AlwaysB from them. I can't tell if I've misread or misunderstood something somewhere.


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## moonolotl (May 4, 2020)

im way too dumb to understand whats going on lol


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## Tunaverse (May 5, 2020)

Hey, thanks for all this information! It's great to know that there are differences even between villagers of the same personality type.

Like a couple of others above, I'm a bit confused about the dialogue tree. I have a video of Sherb (Lazy Type B / _33af13e1 boolean
0) saying something from BO_FreeA_AlwaysA. I've also experienced Dom (Jock Type B / _33af13e1 boolean 0) saying something from HA_FreeA_AlwaysA, but I don't have that recorded. Is it possible that the types were swapped (and boolean 0 = A instead of boolean 0 = B)?


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## cainhurst (May 5, 2020)

aibo said:


> The subtypes themselves only effect the dialogue. Stoney (read link above) points out that Cranky A villagers are exclusively Education or Music while the Cranky B villagers are exclusively Nature, for instance, so the subtypes will fall into one or two hobbies as well. They *are* separate, though, with cross-over between the personality types- and they effect totally different things (overworld actions vs dialogue)- so please don't confuse them.
> 
> 99% of dialogue between the subtypes are completely the same. Please follow the instructions in the OP to view the specific dialogue.
> 
> ...



Thank you for spelling it out like this, I was having issues parsing the source info, but the way you put it here I think it finally makes sense to me.


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## GEEBRASS (May 12, 2020)

So the NmlNpcParam spreadsheet shows Rodeo the lazy with a fitness interest, but the Personality Subtypes google doc shows him as a Lazy B who will be into education or play. Trying to understand the discrepancy.


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## starlightsong (May 12, 2020)

Tunaverse said:


> Hey, thanks for all this information! It's great to know that there are differences even between villagers of the same personality type.
> 
> Like a couple of others above, I'm a bit confused about the dialogue tree. I have a video of Sherb (Lazy Type B / _33af13e1 boolean
> 0) saying something from BO_FreeA_AlwaysA. I've also experienced Dom (Jock Type B / _33af13e1 boolean 0) saying something from HA_FreeA_AlwaysA, but I don't have that recorded. Is it possible that the types were swapped (and boolean 0 = A instead of boolean 0 = B)?


Hey! I'm one of the people who brought up being confused about this and actually, I think this might have been the case for at least some of them? Because I looked again and I noticed that, to quote my own post:



starlightsong said:


> so that I could see which uchi type Reneigh was, and it says she's subtype B. It also only lists 4 villagers under uchi A so I thought "aw man, there are so few A-type uchis and I don't think I like any of them... might as well just read what their special dialogue is" so I went to the linked webpage with all the dialogue, and navigated to TalkNNpc/G4_An/Free/AN_FreeA_AlwaysA. Which... just showed me dialogue that I've definitely gotten from Reneigh several times. And then the dialogue under FreeA_AlwaysB is stuff I've definitely never heard her say. I also found that the same thing applies to Punchy and Chief: they're listed as a lazy A and cranky A respectively but when I check the FreeA_AlwaysA sections for their personalities they've definitely never given me any of that dialogue, but I often get the dialogue that appears under FreeA_AlwaysB from them.



None of this is correct anymore! Reneigh is now listed as uchi A, and it's the uchi B section that only has 4 villagers under it. When I go and look at the FreeA_AlwaysA section, it does have the dialogue I've gotten from Reneigh. Punchy and Chief are also now listed as lazy B and cranky B respectively. I also checked my other villagers and I'm not sure about my smug, peppy, or normals as I don't know if I've ever gotten the subtype-specific dialogue from them at all, but all the others seem to match! So yep, I think there was just a mixup somewhere as you suspected.

Gotta say though, it makes me kinda sad how lopsided some of these categories are--only 5 villagers are smug B? I guess it's lucky for a lot of people that one of them is Raymond lol. But then only 4 uchi B, and coincidentally all of them are very unpopular and aren't even really liked by me, someone who loves uchis  And it looks like pretty much every personality is lopsided like this. That's not the fault of anyone who did the datamining obviously and I'm grateful to those who did! It's just that I wish the subtypes were more even as the way it currently is might make it hard for people wanna experience both of them. Ah well, maybe if we get the sanrio/nintendo collab villagers back or even get more new villagers down the line things will be evened out a bit more.


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## Tunaverse (May 13, 2020)

starlightsong said:


> Hey! I'm one of the people who brought up being confused about this and actually, I think this might have been the case for at least some of them? Because I looked again and I noticed that, to quote my own post:
> 
> [...]
> 
> None of this is correct anymore! Reneigh is now listed as uchi A, and it's the uchi B section that only has 4 villagers under it. When I go and look at the FreeA_AlwaysA section, it does have the dialogue I've gotten from Reneigh. Punchy and Chief are also now listed as lazy B and cranky B respectively. I also checked my other villagers and I'm not sure about my smug, peppy, or normals as I don't know if I've ever gotten the subtype-specific dialogue from them at all, but all the others seem to match! So yep, I think there was just a mixup somewhere as you suspected.



Thanks for checking back and pointing that out! Glad it's been sorted out now, and thanks to the dataminers and all the people that are making sense of the info and explaining it to everyone else! 

It is interesting how the split A/B in some personalities is reaaally uneven. It can be pretty unfortunate for the smaller personality groups such as uchi (and smug, to a lesser extent). I'm curious if it was intentional that one subtype would be more "rare" than the other, but it's at least comforting to know that it won't make a huge difference!


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## Blueskyy (May 13, 2020)

Yeah it’s all confusing. I feel like Tipper said the same stuff Judy and Blanche said, but Kitty says entirely different stuff. I feel she is more education and career focused and the others were fashion.


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