Pokemon GO players are voicing their frustration with hatching the Bug/Fire-type Pokemon Larvesta. The larval Pokemon's extremely high rarity results in an absurdly small hatch rate, and some Pokemon GO fans say that it takes a miracle to get one.
Developer Niantic launched Pokemon GO in July 2016. An augmented reality mobile game on iOS and Android, the game was a massive hit and quickly became a worldwide cultural phenomenon. It continues to be Niantic's most successful game, though that doesn't mean that fans are happy with all the company's decisions. Most recently, Pokemon GO experienced a significant drop in Remote Raid participation following changes to that system.
Larvesta and its evolved form Volcarona are the newest Pokemon Niantic added to the game. Developers introduced them as part of Pokemon GO's latest event. Players can hatch them from 2km, 5km, and 10km Eggs. However, Larvesta is unusual because players can't encounter it anywhere in the wild or get it through any other normal means of catching Pokemon. Instead, players can only get Larvesta from Eggs, and as many Pokemon GO fans are discovering, its hatch rate is dishearteningly low.
Reddit user windycitykid89 shared a screenshot of their "Hatchable Pokemon" progress, lamenting that it would "take a miracle" to hatch Larvesta using Eggs. Other users quickly chimed in to agree with windycitykid89's assessment of the newly added, caterpillar-like Pokemon. One user shed some light on the problem by linking to a post on The Silph Road, a website that publishes news and other information about Pokemon GO. Titled "A Window into Egg Transparency," the post provided a breakdown of how Pokemon GO's Rarity tiers relate to the probability of hatching a given Pokemon. Tier 5 Pokemon like Larvesta have a hatch rate of less than 2%.
And that's assuming the game even lets players hatch their eggs when it's supposed to. One commenter under windycitykid89's post complained that Pokemon GO wasn't tracking their travel distance accurately, which prevented them from hatching their eggs. Players can sometimes fix this issue by refreshing the game data in the options settings, but it's still inconvenient.
Even among Pokemon GO players whose game is working correctly, the under 2% drop rate is still a major turn-off. A few commenters noted how the low hatch rate makes it hard to get excited about new Pokemon when they know they're going to have to grind for it. Others expressed the opinion that the low hatch rate defeated the point of featuring Pokemon in the game's events.
Pokemon GO is available on Android and iOS.