Riolu’s Hatch Day event took place for three hours on July 22, and the player’s feedback looked mostly negative on social media.
Numerous Reddit threads and posts on Twitter saw players complaining about the event and the egg system as a whole.
“I wasn’t able to participate in the Riolu event because I couldn’t hatch my already incubated egg in time,” wrote one of the top threads about the event on July 23. The player showed their unlucky egg inventory, which only included 10-kilometer and 12-kilometer eggs.
With only one Super Incubator to use, the player would have to walk for over 60 kilometers to get nine eggs from Riolu’s Hatch Day event. Players complained about not being able to discard eggs, which means walking to hatch them is the only way to get rid of those items.
Related: Pokémon Sleep’s recommended way to play poses a fire hazard—but there is an alternative
The Hatch Day Event offered players special two-kilometer eggs that featured Riolu in their pool, as well as increased chances of getting its Shiny version, from 2 pm to 5 pm, local time, on July 22. It also featured ways to get more Incubators, hatching more eggs simultaneously from walking.
Players argued the game’s egg system is poorly suited for this kind of event. Another popular thread targeted Pokémon Go‘s “busted” tracking system for hatching eggs.
They explained not being able to see when they hatched the two-kilometer eggs and walking too much before trying to get new eggs as a result, losing opportunities to get more event eggs and Shiny Riolus in the process.
To update hatch distance correctly as players walk, the Niantic app needs to be closed and reopened. If players let it run in the background, they won’t see the updated information. Players complained that it could mislead them and make them miss potential hatching distance.
The last main complaint players made on social media was the duration of the Riolu Hatch Day event, which was considered too short —similar to many other recent events, many of them featuring one-hour or three-hour durations. A user explained they worked overnight and missed all the events in Pokémon Go, since they are set during day hours, on a Reddit thread.
“These 2 pm to 5 pm time frames are always when I have to sleep for work. It’s so frustrating cause I love the game and I’ve been playing since day one, but I miss out on a lot of events,” they wrote. “And then at night, there are no raids!!! Why?!? Night owls deserve to have fun playing too!”
The players have been criticizing the length of events since Niantic shortened those of recent events, such as the Dark Flames event on June 29. At the beginning of the year, the developer also brought a controversial change to Community Day events by shortening them from three days to one.
Meanwhile, players are having some more time to enjoy the last Pokémon Go event, Blaze New Trails, which celebrates the launch of the Routes feature from July 21 to 24. It will end at 8 pm, local time.
