recently, the new pokemon go patch makes some major improvements to the nearby tool, and renames it the sightings tool, and attempts to get back on the good side of the community.
full of pokemon go 0.33.0 update patch notes:
* added a dialog to remind trainers that they should not play while traveling above a certain speed. trainers must confirm they are not driving in order to continue playing.
* made improvements to the accuracy of a curveball throw
* fixed a bug that prevented ”nice,” ”great,” and “excellent” poké ball throws from awarding the appropriate xpbonuses.
* fixed achievements showing incorrect medal icons.
* enabled the ability for trainers to change their nickname one time. please choose your new nickname wisely.
* resolved issues with the battery saver mode on ios and re-enabled the feature.
* added visuals of team leaders candela, blanche, and spark.
* we’re currently testing a variation of the “nearby pokémon” feature with a subset of users. during this period you may see some variation in the nearby pokémon ui.
* minor text fixes
the biggest and most interesting change has to be the new nearby system, which is now named ‘sightings". how does pokemon go“sightings” work?
- the new system replaces the nearby system altogether, as i suppose that word now has negative connotations. there’s a new graphic where pokémon appear by a little tuft of grass, and the list changes periodically due to spawns and despawns.
- the new system works by “pulsing” the area every ten seconds. this will refresh the list to show new pokémon, depending on what’s spawned around you. this is more or less how it always has worked, but now you can actually use the list to track specific things.
- to “track” pokémon, you simply use the original method of tracking i recommended at launch. you walk in a direction. if the pokémon stays on your “sightings” screen, keep going. when it disappears, go back a bit until it returns, then go left or right. if it stays there, keep going. if it disappears, turn around and walk the other way. using the method (in city blocks it’s easy to be pretty rigid about these hard 90 and 180 degree turns) i was able to track down nearby pokémon within a few minutes of them appearing on my “sightings” list.