Under fire from players worldwide, Niantic today released the newest update to Pokemon Go. What does it do? Well, it ‘fixes’ the tracking feature. It’s more like a complete revamp though. The earlier step-based tracking system has been completely removed, and in its place, you get a Sightings screen. According to reports, there’s a Nearby list, still, but that hasn’t rolled out to all users. The Nearby list seems to be under testing right now, and is available to only a few users.
How does this work?
In the new method, you get a Sightings menu where Nearby used to be. Here, you see a list of Pokemon seen around you, in a tuft of grass. This, presumably, means those Pokemon are around you, although there’s no clarity on how far they are. Reports online say that the spawn radius has been reduced, although it’s too early for us to confirm that.
So, if you’re one of the less fortunate, with Sightings alone, then you simply need to keep walking in a particular direction till a Pokemon disappears from the list. If it does, turn back and walk till it reappears. Stop when it reappears and then take a left or right, and continue till you find it.
While it’s definitely better than the utterly useless Nearby feature we’ve been working with for the past few weeks, Sightings alone won’t solve the issue. This is where the Nearby feature comes in. According to reports, this one works in unison with Sightings and puts the Pokemon in relation to Pokestops near you. The Pokemon in this screen will appear next to the picture of a Pokestop, and will presumably be around it.
Will this work? Let’s hope it will.
Other updates worth noting
To start with, the spawn and despawn times for Pokemon near you have reportedly been reduced. Also, if a Pokemon despawns, then it’ll disappear from the Sightings screen, instead of staying on it like it used to. However, this raises the question as to what happens when a Pokemon despawns while you’re tracking it? Let us explain. In the Sightings screen, a Pokemon will disappear either if it goes out of your radius, or despawns. There’s really no way to know which one happened right now, is there? Don’t worry, we’ll walk to the ends of the Earth to figure this out for you!
Further, other changes in the game include the return of the battery saver mode. In addition, players can now, for once only, change their nicknames in the game. So, as our colleague Shrey Pacheco is doing, go fix that typo you made while first starting the game.