This is the ultimate guide to Friendship with Villagers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
The friendship is based on points and there is a villager point system that determines how close you are with villagers and what interactions you get with their friendship.
These points range from 0 to 255, with 0 being a new villager that you’ve just met, and 255 being a villager you’re best friends with and have known for quite a while. These points make up levels and when you level up the friendship, you get more interactions with your villagers. It means the higher your points are with the villagers, the more you level up, and the more you level up, the more interactions you get.
There are six levels of friendship according to the Animal Crossing wiki and the levels determine the friendship tier you’re in. The following are the tiers:
- New friends for levels one to two.
- Good friends for levels three to four
- Best friends for levels 5 to six.
The benefits of these levels are when you are level one with your villager, you’re considered new friends. It is the level you’re at when a villager first moves to your Island and level one is from points 0 to 29. A level 1 villager can give you gifts and level 1 ends at 29 points.
A starter villager is between 25 and 27 points, you’re not too far off from level 2 which is 30 to 59 points. Level 2 is still considered new friends.
How to increase Friendship
To increase the friendship to get past level one, there are a lot of things that you can do.
1- You can talk to them once a day, and you will get one point.
2- If you’ve noticed a flea hopping on them, you can use a net to capture that flea, and in return, you will be awarded five points. If you can do this early on, that will set you up for level two.
3- If their birthday is coming up, you can give them a good gift. It will give you at least 5 points, You can use items of clothing that they already own or clothing you are wearing, turnips, fruit, cake, mushrooms, creatures, fossil shells, or honeycombs that are worth over 2000 bells.
But if you can’t get them any of the items, you can get at least 4 points by giving them those items that sell for at least 501 bells or any other items that sell for at least hundred and twenty-nine bells.
You can get at least three points for items that sell for at least a bell.
It is based on how good the gift is on a scale from one to three, you can get a wrapping bonus of at least three points for a great gift, four for good, and at least, three for a decent enough gift.
4- Now you need to rely on if the villager initiates this dialogue but if they do give you some sort of action, such as hide and seek, then you can get one point. As you become better friends, this quest action can go up to two points.
5- If a villager asks you to find a treasure, then you can get at least one point from that depending on the difficulty of the hunt, six minutes being easy and three minutes being hard. You can get additional points for completing the task if it’s hard and if you fail the task, you can still get that one point though.
6- A villager can ask you to bring an item to another villager and you can get three points for the villager who asks. You need to make sure that you do not open the gift prior to delivery because you’ll only get one point if you do that. You will lose points if you fail to give the item to the other villager and even more if you opened it up and didn’t return it.
7- If a villager is upset, angry, or sad and you’re able to cheer them up, then you can earn up to three points.
8- If a villager is sick, you can bring them medicine and get one point.
9- If you find a lost item and return it to the correct villager, you can get at least two points for giving it to the owner before they ask for it. But if that’s not the case and you just return it after they say something about losing it, you can get a point at least.
10- Apart from all these, you can just continue talking to them once a day. And the initial conversation you have with them will give you the point.
The Benefits
Once you’re in level two, you will notice a new dialogue option you have with your villager. when you initiate a conversation with them, it will give them a daily gift.
Depending on the type of gift, you can earn over three points.
Now if you give them furniture, you will get at least three, and at least two for giving them clothing they like. Finally, you can get at least a point for clothing and music that they don’t necessarily like.
If you give them the gift and they end up giving you one back, you can get at least two additional points if your new friends are at level two and it can really increase your friendship tier.
Level three is your initiation into the good friend’s tier, level three is sixty to ninety-nine points. In level three, villagers can now sell you items and you’ll sometimes notice they come up to you saying that they have an item that they don’t want anymore and they’ll ask you to buy it from them.
and in addition to this, they can now give you a random nickname they’ll ask if it’s okay to call you that. You’ll notice that once they start doing that if other villagers are also at level three they’ll tell you “hey I heard a villager calling you this can I do it too”.
On level four, you can change their catchphrase and you’ll notice when they talk, they repeat a word over and over again. Now you have the power to change it. You can always reset it by talking to Isabelle about a certain villager and it will bring them back to their default settings.
Level five starts when your villager is 150 to 199 points.
It is when you finally reach the best friends tier with your villager, that you can change the way they greet you when initiating dialog with them. But, more importantly, you will finally have the chance of obtaining the villager’s framed photo.
Now you have a couple of ways here to get this photo. You can give your villager a daily gift for the and you need to give them a good or a great gift to have a chance at receiving the photo or you can complete delivery or request from the villager. As your friendship points increase, the chances of obtaining a framed photo do too. It maxes at a ten point two percent chance of obtaining the photo when your villager is at the highest amount of points two hundred and fifty-five.
Speaking of Max, let’s move on to the last level six. It starts at two hundred points and you can get to this level when a villager runs up to you and ask to buy something from your inventory. To figure out what level you’re at, you have to just wait and see what kind of dialog springs up for you and your villager. You can calculate it in your head but you know some interactions give at least some amount of points, it can get a bit tricky to figure out the exact amount of points that you have with them.
The Interactions
Now for the interactions that do not affect the points you currently have with your villager.
1- Sending letters to your villager through the airport function does not give any additional points.
2- If you ignore your villagers or maybe you’re time-traveling and haven’t spoken to them, then it is not going to hurt your friendship level with them.
3- If you hit the villager with tools, such as axes and shovels, then there will be no effect.
4- Have your villager falls into a pitfall seed and if you walk over it, you will fall into a hole.
5- Talking to your villager multiple times a day regardless of their comments on how much you speak to them is not going to do anything to the friendship.
To decrease the level of friendship
1- Hit them with a net until they get upset, and if you apologize, you will have a 20 percent chance of gaining the points you lost. So if you’re trying to worsen the friendship, then do not apologize to them. If they end up becoming very happy with your apology and begin frolicking around or singing, then you will get an increase of at least three points.
2- If it’s a villager’s birthday and you give them lost items, spoiled turnips, garbage, or weeds, you will lose five points.
3- If your daily gift to a villager is trash or spoiled turnips, you will lose two points all right and that is it for the friendship guide.
So if you’re trying to increase the chance of a certain villager asking about leaving, then make sure you lower their points as much as you can. But remember all the other rules about birthdays, new villagers, and such that you need to watch out for.