Pokémon Go’s latest event has come under fire from fans trying to collect a rare, costumed creature – Flower Happiny – which has only a tiny chance of hatching from one of the game’s loot box-style eggs.
This creature was advertised as one of several new additions to Pokémon Go in its Spring into Spring 2021 event, and was listed as being available only from eggs with 10 other species.
But the reality is a huge number of creatures are available in the game’s event egg pool – and Flower Happiny has a very low chance of actually appearing.
Pokémon Go does not publish the specific odds of hatching particular creatures from its eggs but does, as of last month, now list potential hatches and separate them into rarity tiers.
Upon acquiring an event egg, players can peer within its possible contents and see Flower Happiny is of “five-egg” rarity – denoting the game’s lowest chances, and a tier usually reserved for ultra-rare creatures like Axew. You can see this in the image below.
This does not seem to fit with the wording of developer Niantic’s earlier blog post, which stated:
“The following Pokémon will be hatching more often from 2km eggs: Exeggcute, Eevee wearing a flower crown, Pichu wearing a flower crown, Togepi, Azurill, Buneary, Happiny wearing a flower crown, Munchlax, Rufflet, and Bunnelby.”
Is Flower Happiny hatching more often than normal? Well, technically yes, since it is not available normally at all. But this obscures the fact that it (and Munchlax) are in reality much rarer than everything else on this list.
But even with this indicator of rarity, there are several other points of criticism fans have raised.
First off, there’s the length of the event. Having an ultra-rare creature available via eggs is not intrinsically terrible (though long-time Axew and Riolu hunters may beg to differ) if players are given a fair enough window to find one. Some creatures should be rarer than others, while also feeling fair. But Flower Happiny is not a permanent addition – it is slated to disappear at the end of the Spring into Spring event later this week. In total, the event lasts four and a half days, from Sunday 4th April at 10am local time, to Thursday 8th April at 8pm local time.