Last October, Riolu, the pre-evolved form of the popular Lucario, found its way to Pokemon GO, and many players have been trying to add the Pokemon to their collections ever since. Due to the rarity of Riolu, this has proved difficult for some, and a user on Reddit has recently broken down what fans that are committed to finding one can expect to pay in the process.
Specifically, trainers that have their eyes on a Lucario will need to spend, on average, around $60 to obtain one. This money would be put towards the expendable incubators needed to speed up egg hatching, and u/Fruitymcdoo has elaborated on this cost on the Silph Road subreddit, a popular Pokemon GO community.
This user notes that the hatch rate for Riolu is 0.7% from 7K and 10K eggs, which means that the average player will need to hatch 143 eggs before seeing the baby Pokemon. A single incubator can be used to hatch three eggs, and thus 48 of them are required to accomplish this amount of hatching.
These incubators can be purchased through the Pokemon GO shop, and players that want to use Super Incubators in their search for Riolu will need to spend 9,600 PokeCoins, while those that choose to use regular incubators will shell out 7,200 PokeCoins. This virtual currency can be purchased with real world money, and the aforementioned quantities of PokeCoins cost around $66 and $50, respectively.
Of course, Pokemon GO players can opt to forego real money expenditures and simply earn PokeCoins through gameplay. This can be done at a rate of 50 PokeCoins per day by defending gyms, which means that it would take 192 days to obtain the funds for 48 Super Incubators. u/Fruitymcdoo notes that Riolu has not yet been available for this amount of time.
Alternatively, players that wish to obtain a Lucario without any expenses could certainly hatch 143 7K eggs using the default incubator that all trainers are provided with. However, this would require the average player to walk approximately 1,000km (~620 miles) before acquiring their first Riolu.
Lucario is, no doubt, a popular Pokemon, as once again confirmed by its appearance in the recently released Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. That said, some players may find the expected costs associated with obtaining one in Pokemon GO to be too high.
Pokemon GO is out now in select regions for Android and iOS devices.
Source: Reddit