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tl;dr version:
If you're using an illegitimate copy of ACNH, the game may alter its RNG to make rarer fish impossible to obtain.
This was based on catching 100 fish by visiting an island on an illegit copy and seeing how many were rare fish, then trying to do the same by visiting an island from a legit copy. The "visitor" was from a legit copy of the game.
The long story, along with raw numbers:
Has anyone else tried anything like this before? I kinda lost the will to live after pulling up over 100 fish, recording the stats, and comparing between islands. I'd be interested to see if anyone else experimenting has also observed similar results. Bearing in mind that out of the 3 devices tested only device C is my own main device so there might be other factors involved on the other 2 consoles. However I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo implemented something like this as an intentional way of trolling pirates.
If you're using an illegitimate copy of ACNH, the game may alter its RNG to make rarer fish impossible to obtain.
This was based on catching 100 fish by visiting an island on an illegit copy and seeing how many were rare fish, then trying to do the same by visiting an island from a legit copy. The "visitor" was from a legit copy of the game.
The long story, along with raw numbers:
Summary
By visiting islands in both legitimate and illegitimate copies of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and examining the spawn rates of fish, a discrepancy was found in the distribution of rarity tiers of fish that may indicate a potential anti-piracy mechanism within the game. While spawn rates appeared normal within the legitimate copy, only lower-tier fish would spawn on the illegitimate copy's island. No "rare" fish or above were caught within a sample size of 100.
Method
Three Switch systems were set up to test different scenarios.
Console A
2017 original Switch running firmware 10.0.1 and Atmosphère 0.11.1
Illegitimate copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons installed via nsp file with update 1.2.0
Acted as host island
Console B
2017 original Switch running firmware 10.0.1 and Atmosphère 0.11.1
Legitimate copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons purchased from the eShop with update 1.2.0
Acted as host island
Console C
Unmodified Switch Lite running firmware 10.0.1 and no CFW
Legitimate copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons purchased from the eShop with update 1.2.0
Acted as visitor to the host islands
Cheat engines such as EdiZon or any other external means of manipulating spawn rates were not used at any point during the tests.
The first test was opening up the island on console A and then visiting it via local multiplayer from console C. I positioned the player character on the pier of the beach on the island and used fishing bait to spawn fish and recorded each species of fish caught. This was repeated until either a "rare" tier or above fish was caught, or 100 fish had been caught with no rare fish spawning.
The second test was opening up the island on console B and then visiting it via local multiplayer on console C. The same test was performed by positioning the player character on the pier and capturing fish until either a "rare" fish appeared or until 100 common fish had been caught in a row.
The rarity of fish was defined by the star-rating from an ACNH guide app.[1]
Results
When visiting the island on an illegitimate copy of the game, no rare fish spawned at all. Based on the spawn table for April in Southern hemisphere islands[2], the following fish were supposed to be available at the pier/sea area, and the numbers actually caught were as follows:
All of the 100 fish caught on the island were of 1-star rarity and no "rare" or above fish were spawned at all. On the other hand, when I travelled to the island on console B, within 7 attempts I was able to catch an oarfish, which is a 3-star rarity fish. Going back to the island on console A, I tried catching fish in the river areas as well as bugs and found that only 1-star rarity creatures spawned. On island B, I tried again on random rivers as well as bugs and was able to find rarer species within less than 50 attempts. Detailed numbers aren't available for these as river fish and bugs were not originally part of the scope of this "experiment".
Other Notes
From these numbers, it seems that rare fish are either impossible to obtain or have abnormally low spawn rates on illegitimate copies of the game. The sample size of 100 might not be very large though and ideally there should be many more tests to confirm this. But based on these limitations it seems that "rare" sea fish have a less than 1% spawn rate on illegitimate games and is significantly different to that of legitimate copies. Also this was only tested on two different islands, while the main difference is the legitimacy of the games there is always the possibility that this is caused by another factor.
Sources
1. ACNH guide Android app by Gene Sy
2. Eurogamer April Fish List for Animal Crossing: New Horizons
By visiting islands in both legitimate and illegitimate copies of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and examining the spawn rates of fish, a discrepancy was found in the distribution of rarity tiers of fish that may indicate a potential anti-piracy mechanism within the game. While spawn rates appeared normal within the legitimate copy, only lower-tier fish would spawn on the illegitimate copy's island. No "rare" fish or above were caught within a sample size of 100.
Method
Three Switch systems were set up to test different scenarios.
Console A
2017 original Switch running firmware 10.0.1 and Atmosphère 0.11.1
Illegitimate copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons installed via nsp file with update 1.2.0
Acted as host island
Console B
2017 original Switch running firmware 10.0.1 and Atmosphère 0.11.1
Legitimate copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons purchased from the eShop with update 1.2.0
Acted as host island
Console C
Unmodified Switch Lite running firmware 10.0.1 and no CFW
Legitimate copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons purchased from the eShop with update 1.2.0
Acted as visitor to the host islands
Cheat engines such as EdiZon or any other external means of manipulating spawn rates were not used at any point during the tests.
The first test was opening up the island on console A and then visiting it via local multiplayer from console C. I positioned the player character on the pier of the beach on the island and used fishing bait to spawn fish and recorded each species of fish caught. This was repeated until either a "rare" tier or above fish was caught, or 100 fish had been caught with no rare fish spawning.
The second test was opening up the island on console B and then visiting it via local multiplayer on console C. The same test was performed by positioning the player character on the pier and capturing fish until either a "rare" fish appeared or until 100 common fish had been caught in a row.
The rarity of fish was defined by the star-rating from an ACNH guide app.[1]
Results
When visiting the island on an illegitimate copy of the game, no rare fish spawned at all. Based on the spawn table for April in Southern hemisphere islands[2], the following fish were supposed to be available at the pier/sea area, and the numbers actually caught were as follows:
All of the 100 fish caught on the island were of 1-star rarity and no "rare" or above fish were spawned at all. On the other hand, when I travelled to the island on console B, within 7 attempts I was able to catch an oarfish, which is a 3-star rarity fish. Going back to the island on console A, I tried catching fish in the river areas as well as bugs and found that only 1-star rarity creatures spawned. On island B, I tried again on random rivers as well as bugs and was able to find rarer species within less than 50 attempts. Detailed numbers aren't available for these as river fish and bugs were not originally part of the scope of this "experiment".
Other Notes
From these numbers, it seems that rare fish are either impossible to obtain or have abnormally low spawn rates on illegitimate copies of the game. The sample size of 100 might not be very large though and ideally there should be many more tests to confirm this. But based on these limitations it seems that "rare" sea fish have a less than 1% spawn rate on illegitimate games and is significantly different to that of legitimate copies. Also this was only tested on two different islands, while the main difference is the legitimacy of the games there is always the possibility that this is caused by another factor.
Sources
1. ACNH guide Android app by Gene Sy
2. Eurogamer April Fish List for Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Has anyone else tried anything like this before? I kinda lost the will to live after pulling up over 100 fish, recording the stats, and comparing between islands. I'd be interested to see if anyone else experimenting has also observed similar results. Bearing in mind that out of the 3 devices tested only device C is my own main device so there might be other factors involved on the other 2 consoles. However I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo implemented something like this as an intentional way of trolling pirates.
Last edited by NekoMichi,
