Niantic managed to seriously upset the Pokemon Go crowds over the weekend when it updated the iPhone and Android versions of the mobile game. The company removed the three-footstep tracker feature rather than fixing it, and also shut down several third-party maps-based services that would show players Pokemon on the map. As if finding Pokemon isn’t already hard enough without these features, Niantic has made catching them harder as well.
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It’s not just you, Kotaku notes. Catching Pokemon is a lot harder, meaning that you may waste more Pokeballs on monsters, even low-CP ones. The higher the level, the higher the chance for a Pokemon to escape. That means you’d level up harder, and you might have to spend more money on Pokeballs if that’s how you prefer to refill them. Niantic, obviously, benefits from this particular move.
One other change that may have gone unnoticed hinders Pokemon Go playing while driving a car – okay, so that’s a good thing – or while riding a bike.
The company apparently changed how often the game scans for new monsters, increasing the time from 5 seconds to 10 seconds. That means you might not see as many Pokemon around you by just driving a car or riding a bike. That might be a useful feature, as it prevents you from playing and driving, but it’s still annoying if you prefer to do your Pokemon exercising by biking, especially in rural areas where Pokemon might be harder to find.
So, in short, you can’t track Pokemon, and it’s harder to catch them following the recent update. Let’s hope Niantic is preparing some fixes.
