The "Pokemon GO" nearby tracking tool was major failure despite the game's stupendous success post its launch. Broken features and Niantic developers' silence even made users question the future of the game. However, it was back with a bang after a new "Pokemon GO" patch made major improvements to its tracking tool, renaming it the Sightings tool.
The new tool replaced the former step-based tracking tool to make it easy for Pokemon hunters to track their favorite Pokemon. Even though the "Pokemon GO" new tracking system still does not allow users to track as they did during the game's first two weeks, it's still an improvement over the bugs and the changes that replaced them.
After the "Pokemon GO" patch update, the Sightings list can accurately represent the Pokemon near the player and the tool can be trusted. The last few weeks turned out to be a horror show for the players as the former tracking tool became totally unreliable and it was impossible to know whether a Pokemon was actually in a directed location or not.
As per Game Rant, the new Sightings tool has a radius of 200 meters and the map refreshes every 10 seconds to remove despawned Pokemon from the list. However, this new "Pokemon GO" tracking system does not inform a player which of the Pokemon is nearest in one's area.
According to CNET, another version of the new "Pokemon GO" tracker is called the Nearby tracker, just like the old one. This tool lists all Pokemon in one's general vicinity along with the PokeStops one has to visit to hunt the Pokemon down.
If a user wants to track a Pokemon, he/she has tap on it and hit the "View" button. The player will be taken back to the "Pokemon GO" map where the screen will zoom in to show the PokeStop where the Pokemon is located. The user gets a warning signal, "The Pokemon fled! Check the nearby list for other Pokemon," if the Pokemon flees from the spot before the user arrives.
