Pokemon GO shows important change for wild Pokemon and trainers hope this isn’t a bug

In Pokémon GO, trainers have noticed an important change in wild spawns. We at MeinMMO explain to you what this is all about and why the trainers are still skeptical.

What is the range? In Pokémon GO, interactions with monsters, but also PokéStops and Arenas can only take place within a certain radius. After some protests, this was permanently increased to 80 meters for the stops and arenas in 2021.

You can see this radius as two round circles, one pink and one white, moving away from your avatar. While the pink circle indicates the range to surrounding stops and arenas, you can catch monsters in and slightly beyond the inner white circle.

But over the past few days, trainers have found they can get close to monsters that were previously out of range. We’ll show you what happened below.

Trainer discovers extended range on wild spawns

What has been changed? As noted by Reddit user InvisibleSoul8, the last update 0.275.0 brought changes to the range of wild spawns. He can now reach monsters he couldn’t reach before.

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As he explains in the comments (via reddit.com):

The Magikarp and Baldorfish are at spawn points that were previously never visible to me from home, but with version 0.275.0 they are now. It seems like the radius of the on-screen wild spawns is now going out to the larger circle, while before it was close to the smaller circle

In addition, spawns from lure modules are now said to appear in this extended area, but apparently the monsters could not be caught with his GO Plus, as he continues to write. So he suspects that the interaction range of the autocatcher has remained unchanged.

Coaches are enthusiastic, but also skeptical

In the community, the trainers are enthusiastic about the extended reach. Some have tested it themselves and have also noticed an increased radius. This is especially worthwhile if you have set a lure module on a PokéStop that can also spawn monsters behind it that you could not reach due to the previous radius.

However, many players are also skeptical as to whether this should really be a desired change. After all, two years ago the developers weren’t particularly happy that the range to PokéStops and Gyms was permanently increased due to player pressure.

Because of this, some trainers believe that the current change might just be a bug due to the update, which will be fixed again soon. So you can read the following in the comments (via reddit.com):

  • Trevor-On-Reddit: God I hope this is a feature and not just a bug they will patch later. At my house there are 5 spawns that are just out of range. The Pokemon spawn and disappear immediately before I can click on them.
  • foladar: Considering how hard they fought for the radius, I can’t imagine this being anything other than a bug, but we can only hope.
  • FPG-Matthew: I think that’s an acceptable trade-off for the change to have Pokemon INSTANTLY despawn when out of range. They used to hang around a few seconds longer, which was great for shiny checks as a passenger in a slow-moving car. This change could improve that again.
  • GiaxUp: Ahhhh it would be good news for players (finally) but it will be 100% fixed as it’s a positive thing for Pokemon GO and we don’t earn QoL things in this game, only cuts and removals from them.
  • It remains to be seen whether the new range will remain in the game permanently or whether Niantic will change it again.

    What do you think of the change in spawn range? Do you think it’s an intended feature or more of a bug? Do you also hope that it stays in the game permanently? Let us know here on MeinMMO in the comments and exchange ideas with other trainers.

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