Yesterday, I wrote a post detailing a few tips and tricks for Pokémon GO that I wished I’d known from the very start. My tenth and final point was about tracking, how it's a pretty muddled system, and fans have been debating about how it actually works since the game launched. Tracking “nearby” Pokémon is never explained at all in the game, and so far, my attempts to ask Niantic for clarity directly have gone unanswered. For this, and many other aspects of the game, Pokémon GO players are on their own.
And yet, I think I now have a few answers all the same. After four full days of play and consulting with dozens of other players, I pretty much have the system down. It’s not easy certainly, and not 100% reliable, but I’ve used it to track down very specific Pokémon in the wild more than a few times now, from elusive Tauros and Vulpix to a pair of matching Pikachus for my wife and I.
First, we’ll start with something the “nearby” tracking system is not. Namely, the Pokémon that show up in this list are not the exact Pokémon that will come to you if you place lures or use incense. You may see a Squirtle with three footprints under it, and hope that it comes your way if you put incense on, but this almost never happens. You are never attracting these specific Pokémon with these items. You might find ones that are relatively common in your area (for me, this is an infinite amount of Drowzees) or ones that are common in the game generally (Pidgeys, Rattatas, Zubats), but it is nearly impossible to lure specific rare Pokémon to you on purpose.
Now, getting cool stuff can happen with lures and incense. I’ve gotten high level, pretty rare Pokémon from these items, but they were not any that appeared on the nearby chart. This system is separate from that one in almost every way.
So, what about actual tracking then? That system shows specific Pokémon that you can purposefully navigate to. The best way to explain this is probably just a step-by-step guide.
1. Most people will understand that zero footprints means you are practically on top of a wild Pokémon, and should actually be able to see it. One footprint is very close. Two is sort of close. Three is…well, this is the problem. There are various "ranges" of three footprints, but that's never made clear in the game.
2. When it comes to three footprints, you then have to switch to judging the order in which the Pokémon appear in the list. In the 3x3 grid, if a Pokémon is in the top left, it is the closest to you, even if everything has three footprints. If it is in the bottom right, it is the furthest, and may soon fall off the grid entirely if you keep walking away from it.
3. So, what you do in order to find a specific Pokémon list is select them on the grid, which will circle them. But do NOT close the grid. There’s been a rumor that the grid will pulse when that Pokémon is near, but that’s wrong. It pulses when new Pokémon are added to the grid, and it does not have anything to do with distance.
4. You do not want to close the grid and focus only on a single Pokémon, because you need to see its position within the grid in order to track it. You need to see it moving from between the #1 and #9 spots to gauge if you’re getting close or further away.
5. So, go straight, in any direction, to start. If the Pokémon dips down one slot, it might just be something new being added to the grid, so give it a second. If it dips down two or three slots? You’re going the wrong way. Do a complete 180.
6. Now, go straight that way. You should see it start to tick up. If it doesn’t get past the top three or four spots and starts to go down again if you keep walking, now that’s when you have to go left or right. Backtrack to where it was last highest on the list. Pick left or right. Go that way. If it starts dropping, you picked wrong. Do a complete 180 and go the other way.
7. The trick is getting out of three footprint territory. Once you can finally track the Pokémon to no more than two footprints away, that means it is really close, and with just a tiny bit of trial and error searching using the above method, you should be on top of it soon enough. It’s dealing with the three footprint part that’s the hardest, but a lot of people don’t seem to understand the importance of the order of the grid. I certainly didn’t. This whole strategy is sort of a variant of this diagram which has been making the rounds, but that skips the part about getting through the mess of the three-print grid.
8. I don’t know the exact distances represented by the footprints, but usually, Pokémon I tracked were no more than a city block or two away, even if they first appeared low on the grid. If you take too long however, things can change, as Pokémon move. It’s why even if you stand still, you will get a rotating stock of what’s near you. With that said, I don’t think something you’re actively hunting can disappear or outrun you, unless there’s some sort of technical glitch. I have had two and one-print nearbys just disappear completely on me, but they usually come back if I just press on a little bit further. Sometimes maybe you’ll just lose something, and won’t know why. But once I figured out the above system, that almost never happened to me. If you are rolling around in a group, the Pokémon will spawn multiple copies for each of you, but they may not be in the exact same spot, so don't freak out. I've seen a difference of about a half block or more, so just keep looking around a bit.
9. Once you find your prey, make sure after all that effort you’ve loaded them up with berries and are throwing your best Pokéballs to ensure they don’t flee. They might anyway, but at least you did everything you could. If you catch them, enjoy, you just completed what is the probably most fun part of this game, a Pokémon treasure hunt.
So, that’s tracking. Some people may say all this is obvious, as they’ve had it figured out for ages. But I know a lot of people who have next to no idea how the “nearby” system works, and it took me days to get down what I would deem a pretty reliable system.
Go try it out for yourself, and tell me if it works for you. Remember, getting your Pokémon to work its way up the grid and past the three footprint stage is the hardest. After that, you should have relatively smooth sailing.
Let me know how it goes. Alright, I need to go track this vaguely Australian-shaped shadow that I’m pretty sure is a Rhyhorn.
Update: I'm trying to confirm the existence of "fishing," where certain Pokémon will routinely appear in an exact spot after a certain amount of time (a few hours, maybe). So far, after learning how to track, I have found four Dratini in the exact same spot a quarter-block away from my apartment. When something, anything is "one footprint" when I'm sitting at my desk, If I walk to my closet about sixty feet away, I will almost always see/catch whatever has spawned there. I've done this about a half dozen times now. I have also heard of people "fishing" for enough Magikarp to get that crazy 400 candy evolution. In short, if there's a certain Pokémon you want multiple copies of, if it pops up again later, try to go to more or less the same spot it was the first time, as your first option. Let me know how that goes.
Update 2: Fifth and sixth Dratini, exact same spot. I'm going to go ahead and say that fishing is real, but is probably only useful for areas that you find yourself in for long periods of time, ie. home, school or work. Guess I'm on my way to building a Dragonite!
Update 3 (Regarding Compass Tracking): Dozens of people have written me to say that if you unlock your compass and look at the "pulse" of the nearby tracker for specific Pokemon, you can find them that way. Well, I spent a lot of time putting that to the test, and I've written up a new post detailing my findings.
Update 4 (7/16): Apparently within the last day there has been a "three step glitch" where almost everything is now showing up as three steps on the "nearby" list, making tracking harder than ever. This renders most normal tracking methods really, really hard to use, and while Pokemon will still shift their position within the grid and get close, getting them down to two or one step is now almost impossible in many instances. This is a really serious bug and hopefully will be addressed soon, but if traditional tracking methods are proving useless, this may be to blame. I will update this post when this glitch is resolved, but it's been going on for about two days now. Right now, the servers are down because of the weekend/Europe launch, so we'll see what it's like when they come back up.
Update 5 (7/17): I've written a new article about the three footprint bug, which started Friday and continues today. It's really screwing up one of the main components of the game, and needs to be fixed as soon as possible. I apologize if my tracking methods aren't working for you, but this is why.
Update 6 (7/24): Hey guys, since 100,000 people seem to still be viewing this every day, I want to update this again, because we are now entering the ninth day of tracking continuing to be broken, so this method is largely unhelpful. You can still get "closer" to Pokemon by making them move to the top left of the grid through tracking, but without two, one and zero footprint indicators, it is much, much harder to actually find them. The hope is that if this "bug" is an intentional move by Niantic to stabilize the servers, since the servers are pretty stable now post-Japan launch, maybe it will be reactivated soon. Or if it's an actual bug, that they can devote their attention to fixing it now. After repeated attempts to get in touch with Niantic about this, I still have not heard anything, nor have they said anything publicly about it, which in my opinion, is inexcusible. So, while I stand by this tracking method, I feel like I have to keep explaining why it doesn't work great right now since the game remains broken.
Update 7 (7/30): For now, it seems Pokemon tracking, in any form, is dead. The latest update for the game removed the footsteps from the game entirely, and it no longer seems to matter where a "nearby" Pokemon appears on the grid, in terms of its distance from you. I am hoping that this is still just a temporary solution for a server issue, and that nearby tracking will be brought back down the road, but it seems like we may be waiting a good long while for that to happen. So thanks to everyone who has read this post, I hope it managed to help you when it was still relevant.
Update 8 (8/8): Niantic is testing a new feature called "Sightings" which replaces the nearby system, and may actually be the tracking fix the game is looking for. I've tested it out, and have been able to successfully track Pokemon once again using nearly the exact same strategy I used to, which was featured in the above post. Read more about the new Sightings system here.
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