PSA: balloon gifts no longer spawning after 300 balloons popped achievement : AnimalCrossing

Authored by reddit.com and submitted by Raichu4u
image for PSA: balloon gifts no longer spawning after 300 balloons popped achievement : AnimalCrossing

Since I couldn't find anyone reporting this issue at the time, I decided to do some more research to get to the bottom of this. Apologies for the wall of text but I love balloon gift hunting and have dedicated a huge portion of my game play to it since New Horizons launched. TLDR at the bottom!

On 3/26, I received the 300 balloons popped achievement for "It's Raining Treasure". After I received this achievement, I started to notice balloon gifts have completely stopped spawning for my character. At first, I chalked this up to bad RNG and stopped playing for the night. On 3/27, I ran around my island continuously but did not see/hear any balloons so this caused me to start to think this might not just be bad luck on my part.

I've chatted with friends and other players on discord to confirm they are still encountering balloon spawns but none of them have completed the "It's Raining Treasures" for 300 balloons.

I did some additional testing based on my theory that it's a bug/glitch linked to the 300 balloons shot achievement per character. I created a second profile on my Switch to enable local co-op and a new resident. I logged in with the new secondary resident and walked around the beaches to wait for the balloons and can confirm the balloon gifts started to show up once again.

I used the "Call Resident" feature on my NookPhone to get my main character into the game. What I discovered was the balloons will continue to spawn ONLY IF I am controlling my secondary character who does not have the achievement completed.

My current work around to hunt for balloon gifts is to control my secondary character while my main character tags along behind them. As you can see, this work around is incredibly clunky and I much prefer staying on my main character while I play the game.

I have shared my findings on the Nintendo Support forums and on r/ac_newhorizons subreddit (click here). Other players have since confirmed this has happened to them as well after completing the achievement.

Got achievement for popping 300 balloons. (image here)

No balloons spawning after receiving achievement.

Created second profile on the Switch to add another resident.

Balloon gifts will spawn if controlling secondary character without achievement.

Balloon gifts will not spawn if controlling main character with achievement.

Current work around to hunt for balloon gifts is play second character.

This bug may only be affecting the resident representative (aka main character) as someone reported they recieved 300 balloons on a second character and can still see them! (link here).

My boyfriend did not collect his miles after hitting 300 and he's not seeing any balloons spawn. Another redditor said they did not collect the miles but they are seeing balloons spawn. Would love more data for this!

With the cherry blossom event coming up in April, players with achievement won't be able to pop balloons for those seasonal recipes.

Players with achievement won't be able to complete Nook Miles+ goals relating to popping balloons; especially the 2x and 5x multipliers.

I called Nintendo Support to let them know about the error. The representative acknowledged this is not in their current database of known bugs/errors so they will make a note to pass this along. I've also emailed this to Nintendo's support email so hopefully this will get some eyeballs on it sooner rather than later.

I highly recommend anyone who is currently experiencing this bug or is concerned this will affect them in the future to call Nintendo's customer service number @ 1 (800) 255-3700 (press 1 at the automated menu for Nintendo Switch and then press 0 to get connected to a live agent). OR call the direct supervisor line 1-877-803-3676. Press 2 at the menu if you don't have a reference number.

The very helpful live agent told me that if more people report the issue, the bug/glitch will be put higher up in the priority for the development team to review. The call took less than 10 minutes out of my day and if it leads to a faster patch turnaround time, it's definitely worth the effort!

4/1 EDIT: /u/BacentRekkes shared the following good news after calling Nintendo Support so keep the calls going folks! There is light at the end of the tunnel!

BatmanvSuperman3 on April 1st, 2020 at 17:10 UTC »

How have you guys popped 300. I have popped like 5....

OneEyedCoral on April 1st, 2020 at 15:55 UTC »

Thanks for the heads up.

I don't know how to feel about this Bunny Day event yet. It's kinda neat, I guess, but it also makes fishing much more annoying. It makes the game feel a bit too grindy, imho, and I also think the event goes on for too many days...

That's my initial reaction at least, but maybe it's not so bad.

Raichu4u on April 1st, 2020 at 15:44 UTC »

This can make the recent Bunny Day event unplayable for many, considering that Egg Balloons are a thing. The higher frequency of them spawning can also make people hit 300 easily too.