Is there any explanation for seeing the same villagers on mystery islands?

[Etown20]

I thought I had a decent understanding on how the RNG worked with mystery islands, but today I used about 30 tickets, and I think there were 2 or 3 villagers I saw twice. A while back I remember seeing one villager 3 times over the course of 20-30 tickets.

If the game RNG rolls species (1/35) and then villager (1/x), it seems like it would be extremely unlikely you would see the same villager twice in a short span and yet this seems to be a fairly regularly occurrence that I've seen other people mention too.

Has anyone else noticed or experienced this? I suspect RNG is the best answer, but it seems strange at times.

 

[Firesquids]

What villagers are you seeing repeatedly?

 

[Croconaw]

The villagers you’re seeing twice may be a species and personality you don’t have. If you don’t have any lazy villagers or dogs, you’re more likely to see Bones, Lucky, Benjamin, Biskit and Walker.

 

[Sharksheep]

The villagers you’re seeing twice may be a species and personality you don’t have. If you don’t have any lazy villagers or dogs, you’re more likely to see Bones, Lucky, Benjamin, Biskit and Walker.

Pretty sure this only applies to the campgrounds not the mystery islands. I've ran into the same villagers 3-4 times before in like 50 or so tickets.

 

[Etown20]

Anecdotally it does seem like it is usually a species I don't have, but it is often personalities I do have.

I'm never really surprised it selects the same species, but when there are around 10 or more villagers in most species, it seems really statistically unlikely it would pick the same villager again.

 

[Moonlight.]

i get it all the time, it's why villager hunts are so frustrating. i think you're more likely to run into species with a lesser amount of villagers (for example, octopus only has 3 villagers so you're more likely to run into the same villager over and over again as there's only 3 to choose from).

a lot of it does feel like bad luck honestly, i've ran into the same villager three times in a row before :/

 

[Etown20]

a lot of it does feel like bad luck honestly, i've ran into the same villager three times in a row before :/

Oh wow, that's the type of thing that seems like it should be almost statistically impossible. I think I saw it happen to someone on a stream once but it was only twice in row (which also should happen very rarely). That's why I've wondered if there was some explanation I wasn't aware of it.

 

[Moritz]

Its just RNG. There's nothing more to it than that.

The odds are slim, but it's bound to happen to happen at some point.
I've had it happen to me before but with naomi, who is a cow. There are only like 4 of them so the odds are comparatively pretty high. Its actually more likely to find the same cow twice on a hunt, than it is to find a specific cat you are looking for.

And does it actually happen a lot or does it just seem that way? We don't really take much note of villager hunts where it doesn't happen. Only when it does because its frustrating to have a "wasted" ticket on a villager we already rejected.

 

[Mattician]

It's strange. I see duplicate villagers a few times each session.
You would think the odds of seeing the same species back to back, and also the same exact villager from that species are pretty low. But it's happened to me several times.

 

[Bloodflowers]

I’ve seen multiple villagers 3 times tonight. I saw Hornsby 5 times. Luck is not on my side tonight.

 

[Mairen]

I've experienced this as well. I would be villager hunting with 20-30 tickets, and within those, I had not only the occurrence of running into some of the same villagers two or three times, but I once ran into the same villager twice in a row. It was a bit disheartening because I had expected a pool of 20-30 different villagers to choose from, but that was not the case at all for me.

 

[deana]

The Animal Crossing Gods want you to have them on your island

I have heard other people suggest various things to prevent this from happening such as restarting your game or making sure you actually talk to each villager at the island before you leave but I don't think there is actually any real way to prevent this from happening. It is annoying though and definitely can feel like a waste of tickets.

 

[nightglow]

I talk to each villager before leaving the island because it does feel like it helps, but I still get repeats.
Vladimir has been haunting. He appears multiple times each time I try hunting.