With the "Pokemon GO" app getting the new Sightings tool recently, it seems that beta testers are now beginning to see the major game-changing mechanic for the new in-game Pokemon tracking system.
Droid Life reports that there had been a number of reports made by game testers on Twitter and Reddit, and it seems that with the way these reports are made, Niantic Labs has heard the community's grievances regarding the current in-game tracking system. What this means is that the game intends to bring a more reliable system to the game, making it easier for players to find Pokemon around their vicinity.
The same article explains that the new system works by listing down Pokemon at the Pokestops near the player's location. The photos listed in this all-new Nearby section will represent the stop where it's located. In order to obtain the Pokemon, the player simply needs to head to that location. Users can tap on the Pokemon and the game will point the player to the Pokestop where it is located, in case the players are not that familiar with the Stop's picture.
As for the Sightings feature, the International Business Times reports that it is a subset feature, marked by the Pokemon's picture on a small patch of grass. This means that it is within the vicinity of the player, but of course the application does not in fact reveal its exact proximity to the player. This idea is more reliable than its former systems, since the "one to three" steps system had this "three-step" glitch where it constantly showed all nearby Pokemon as three steps away.
With this, Niantic Labs purged this feature from their system entirely in the update before this one. This new patch aims to fix the broken system and balance it out, to the delight of fans and enthusiasts.
