Pokémon Go removes a bummer Pokémon from its rarest eggs (update)

Pokémon Go received a quiet shake-up recently, as discovered by community members: Eevee, a popular-if-common find, is now one of the Pokémon that hatches out of a five-kilometer egg. That’s a big deal for players who have cracked open one too many eggs that require far more steps, only to find the normal-type favorite instead of a far more desirable Pokémon.

Previously, Eevee occupied a slot in the random rotation of Pokémon that could be inside the coveted 10-kilometer egg. Players receive Pokémon eggs after leveling up or after an occasional PokéStop visit, each of which require between two and 10 kilometers’ worth of steps to hatch. Finding a 10-kilometer egg is both rare and exciting, as it generally promises an especially uncommon Pokémon.

Eevee aside, that is. One of the committed Pokémon Go trainer’s biggest frustrations was walking the requisite 6.2 miles to hatch the egg, hoping to find a Snorlax ... only to get another dang Eevee instead. Now, it takes half as many steps to possibly hatch an Eevee or some other, less rare Pokémon on the same egg tier.

This is the kind of change that may be more in the weeds than casual players are familiar with, but the members of places like The Silph Road are celebrating it. Users of the dedicated Pokémon Go forum discovered the new egg lineup recently, following an update that arrived after the global Halloween event ended on Nov. 1. To them, it represents developer Niantic’s acknowledgment of the player base’s frustrations with the mobile game in recent months.

“This is good new for more than just the fact that Eevees are now in [five-kilometer eggs],” wrote user CrazedArtistCat in a popular thread on the Pokémon Go reddit. “More importantly, it shows that if enough people have a problem with something, and it makes sense for Niantic to do, there is a chance that they will do it.”

We’ve reached out to Niantic to confirm that the change in Eevee’s egg rotation was made in response to player concerns. Whether or not that’s the case, though, players generally seem more sated with Pokémon Go’s changes this fall than they were over the summer, when important features went missing and server crashes plagued the game.

Other players are reporting that they’re finding unique kinds of Pokémon in their local areas now, indicating an update to spawn locations post-Halloween event. The Halloween festivities were also popular, as players got a chance to collect rare ghost-type Pokémon and collect more candy than usual.

The lack of an in-game tracker still looms large over Pokémon Go, however. There’s no timetable for its return, although Niantic has another big feature up its sleeve: Daily bonuses, which will reward players for logging back into the game on a regular basis.

Update: Niantic confirmed to Polygon that Eevee is now a member of the five-kilometer egg tier, but no other Pokémon have been moved around.

“Prof. Willow's recent study indicates that the distance required to hatch a Pokémon could change and Eevee is likely the first example,” a rep for the company told us. “No other reported cases yet, but stay tuned.”