New Pokemon In Eggs Suck
Another event, another singular new Pokemon and yet again, it’s a Pokemon in an egg. The last few new Pokemon have either been in raids or in eggs. Drampa was in raids, while Revaroom and Charcadet were both locked in eggs. But while new raid Pokemon aren’t too bad, when it comes to egg Pokemon, it is 100% luck.
The thing is, you can actively hunt down a new Pokemon either in raids or in the wild. At the very least, finding your first wild new Pokemon is easy, because they have priority on the Nearby radar. Sure, with a wild Pokemon, it might be harder to catch more after the initial one (and it also depends on how rare they are, like Frigibax) but the first is at least almost guaranteed. You just need to walk there. With raids, it’s even easier. All you have to do is wait until a raid pops up nearby, then walk over to that raid and go and do it. Campfire also allows you to see raids outside of your normal field of view as well, so you can scan your entire city for a raid. Granted, if you live somewhere rural, this becomes more difficult, but playing Pokemon GO in a rural area just sucks no matter what.
When it comes to eggs though? It’s complete luck. The only way you can get a new Pokemon from an egg is to keep on getting eggs and hatching them, but that might take ages. And hatching them can take time. As of writing, Charcadet is currently available in 2km, 5km and 10km eggs, but after this event ends, it will be relegated to 10km eggs only. Meanwhile, Varoom is only available in 12km eggs. Sure, an active player can knock that out in a couple of days, but really, Niantic wants you to buy incubators to increase your chances.
And it’s even worse when it comes to things like Salandit. To get Salazzle (which is one of my favourite Pokemon), you need to hatch a female Salandit. But Salandit is only available in 12km eggs, and there is a LOT of crap in 12km eggs. Mostly Vullaby. I swear, 12km eggs are 90% Vullaby, 9% Larvitar, Deino and Pancham and 1% everything else. And only 12% of Salandit are female, meaning you have a tiny, tiny chance of getting a Salandit you can even evolve. With a rough 1/8 chance of getting any individual Pokemon, getting what you want is all down to luck, and walking 12km just to hatch another Vullaby doesn’t feel good.
And then there’s Larvesta. A Pokemon that needs 400 candy to evolve but is stupidly rare. Sure, it’s available in 2km, 5km and 10km eggs (most eggs outside of gift, rocket and event eggs) but it is so rare that my brother hasn’t hatched one yet, and he goes on daily jogs. I have only hatched one, out of a 10km egg (where it is apparently slightly less rare) and even then, I still need to hatch a ton more if I ever want to evolve a Larvesta into a Volcarona.
Now, I get that Niantic want to make their money, but it just sucks, not having a new shadow on your nearby radar to chase after. The last few new Pokemon though have all been locked away behind more money-based unlock methods, and the new system is quite simple: spend money to get it now, or wait until it becomes easier to get in the future, either via an event, a spotlight hour or a community day. The only problem is, we don’t know how long that will be. After all, Keldeo came out 2 years ago in an exclusive ticket, is technically one of the best fighting types in the game and STILL hasn’t been made available to normal players.
I suppose at least all the new recent Pokemon haven’t been meta-changers. Because sticking those in what are essentially random loot boxes would really suck.