I just basically look for villagers I've never had before, or ones I don't have Amiibo cards for, so I never have to spend too much.
I think my max has been between 30-40...and I've been very lucky with my hops (to some people).
I've passed Marshal/Julian/Whitney etc etc multiple times because I've had them before. Of the new 8 villagers, I've found 4 of them so far, so hopefully my luck holds out.
I haven't villager hunted in a while and it's completely random each time, but I'd estimate an average of around 50-100 for me. Though I know some people that have found their dreamies after just a couple of nmt. regardless, I think it's safe to say you need a good chunk of nmt to start any dreamy hunt.
10 I never go to any other NMT islands than 10 whenever I have an open slot. (I always prep an Amiibo for back-up, so if I don't find someone I like I can revert to the villager I have chosen via Amiibo)
I usually 1) have a select few villagers I'm looking for, ranging from a specific species to a specific handful of villagers, and 2) have absolutely atrocious RNG luck.
On my current WIP island, Inverness, I've gone on 8 "real" villager hunts (like, not for the starter peppy, normal, and lazy) and I've spent 17, 27, 37, 99, 77, 94, 25, and 6 tickets respectively for an average of 47.75 tickets.
On a previous island, samples of successful hunts include: 33 tickets for Tangy, 350 tickets for Katt, 17 tickets for Raymond, 24 tickets for Felicity, and 136 tickets for Kiki for an average of 112 tickets per successful hunt (so not even counting the ones where I gave up and amiiboed a cat in), at which I decided that the RNG gods had spoken and an all-cat island just absolutely wasn't meant to be.
i’ve been pretty lucky so far when it comes to island hopping and i usually can find a villager i like with around 20 or 30 nmts but my longest session had me using 72 nmts which uh,, was a bit frustrating, especially since i kept running into the same villagers lmao. i managed to find one of my dreamies, though so it was definitely worth it.
I like all villagers so I generally never use more than 5 nmt if I decide to go island hopping. Most of the time I just let RNG decide for me and then embrace whoever I get, it works well because the game will almost always give me a villager with a personality I don't have or have less of which works well for balance. However, I have on occasion set out to get one specific villager for other people, mostly when the game was still very new. I spent 200 nmt in the much earlier days last year of New Horizons on getting Judy for a friend who really wanted her. I have never gotten close to spending that much again though. I value bells a lot more so when I do decide to generate a Nook Miles Ticket it's because I need resources for a lot of crafting or I'm bored lol.
After an absolutely miserable experience of having to visit Nook Miles Islands for real world weeks before I found Tucker to be my Lazy representative in the early game, I swore off using Nook Miles Islands to acquire residents and simply sought out amiibo cards for the specific permanent residents I wanted to have. I don't know how many tickets it took because I didn't keep detailed track of it, but it sure seemed like a lot.
I guess I can sort of see the appeal if someone doesn't know all of the villagers and/or doesn't really have specific residents in mind beforehand, but that is definitely not my playstyle and I just personally find the "random" aspect of it really annoying. I say "random" because I sure saw a heck of a lot of Sherb and Zucker even though neither of them interested me. Glad I finished acquiring my 10 permanent residents months and months ago so I don't have to go through the hassle again.
I generally don’t succeed past 75 at the very most. I love hoarding nmts even if I have all my villagers and have no use for them lol. I think I generally spend around 50 sometimes less if lucky. I remember using like 150nmts once and completely regretted it. I can’t remember who I was looking for tho
In general for me it wasn't a ton, after I decided I wanted to rotate villagers out often to earn their photos. I always have Lucky and Bones in my playthroughs, and I started hunting for them right away when the game came out. I ended up finding Bones after around 80~ tickets.
...It took me 4 months to find Lucky and over 2000 NMTs. Literally selling villagers or materials or whatever to get the NMTs to continue my hunt. Obviously I could have bought Lucky for like 100 or so NMTs at the time, but I really wanted to find him naturally. It was a pretty crazy rush when I finally found him though!
I absolutely will not exceed 20. I don’t have dreamies, though—I just go until I find someone I like. Usually it only takes 5-10 tickets. Last hunt was my longest ever at 19 tickets, ending in Nate. I can’t imagine 100+ trips!
I usually don’t look for a specific villager since my luck is terrible. I make a budget (usually 20-40 NMT) and just go hopping until I find a villager I like. I rarely do that though since I can just trade or buy here.
I haven't used NMT for villager hunting in a long time. I got my dreamies pretty quickly and I've gotten a couple of villagers via trades on here. I have a bunch of amiibos, and will use a couple for my second island that I just started (just upgraded from a tent yesterday lol), but I'm excited to go villager hunting again. Not gonna lie, I kinda miss it!
I’ve had various luck with island hopping. The first time I went, I spent 2 before I found Static (the exact villager I was looking for) on a money rock island. The most I’ve spent is 36 getting Zucker. All of my other villagers were giveaways/selling when I happened to have an open plot.
