Once again, Niantic DOES NOT store portal state data as you claim they do.
Blaming Resistance for orchestrating that spoofing incident is also without any fact or merit. Resistance did not cross these spoofed lanes after the incident. The blue links you see on the map now were thrown AFTER the reset took place.
Florida Enlightened were informed of the reset process and its constraints. They were informed that Niantic will not remove legit links. They were also informed that we asked the reset to be expedited. The person that went out and threw those links was among the informed agents, and decided to risk blocking the reset.
To address the limitations of the current reset process:
Can it be automated to take place immediately after a ban?
No. Niantic doesn't store portal state data and thus will not know what to restore the portal to, and what links may need to be restored with that. Unless Niantic can add that, and have that data be accurate at any given moment, it's not going to happen.
Can the link restore be changed to cross existing links?
Probably. Requires investigation and dev. We've asked for this, but dev priority is currently on fixing COMMS and CORE. We'll keep trying.
Can the link restore automatically remove crossing links?
No. Link removals are manual, and done individually per link. VERY VERY manual (there isn't a handy "remove all links thrown by Agent A" option). Current process only allows for link removals of spoofed links, if the links are thrown from portals that would normally qualify for reset (ie, they can't be dropped by locals).
This still requires us to identify each link and log it for removal. The Niantic that runs the reset still has to find each link manually and remove it manually. It's slow.
Can Niantic develop a tool to remove all links from Agent A? Yes, I think so. Resource/time/priority-dependent, obviously.
Can Niantic develop a tool to identify and remove links blocking a particular lane? Maybe. See above.
Should links from legit agents be removed if they cross a spoofed lane?
Not an easy answer. We've had heated discussions on this. True, those links should not have been possible in the first place. But they were thrown. Agent X expended keys to throw said link. Agent X probably spent money/time on transportation etc to be able to throw said link. Agent X may have been completely unaware of the spoof, OR Agent X was aware and took full advantage. How do you prove that beyond a reasonable doubt?
Would a bi-weekly snapshot of strategic portals help to automate resets?
Maybe. But in most cases I don't think so, no. The number of BAFs/links that get spoofed down either during an Op or shortly after is reasonably high. Which means that a bi-weekly or even weekly snapshot will not be accurate to initiate a restore, and may cause more problems in the process
Would it help us VG to have this information to assist with logging resets? Yes, I believe it would, but we would still need to confirm that the information we have is/was current at the time of spoof before we log the reset.
Should resets be run more frequently?
Absofrigginlutely! And hopefully soon that'll be the case. It would reduce the time window in which the playing field can be altered that might interfere with said reset, but sadly wouldn't eliminate it entirely.
In short, Automation should ONLY be considered IF and WHEN Niantic has accurate portal state data that is a true reflection of a portal and its links at any given time.
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If I can make a recommendation to the players in the meantime.. take regular screenshots of your durable portals/links. Take screenshots and/or save raw_data on zoom level "All links" when you're planning on / executing / completed a large OP that you might expect to be spoofed down. Take screenshots of the map on occasion showing your durable links/fields. All of this information is extremely helpful to us (VG) in the event that something gets spoofed down.
For the Resistance agents, #Reswue is invaluable for this. PM me if you'd like to know how you can use this to document your durables. Enlightened agents, I believe you have something similar for planning your Ops.
The core of this open letter regarding the timeliness of reset runs is extremely important, but the delivery focuses too much on this being a faction specific issue. Spoofing impacts our entire community regardless of faction. If Niantic takes nothing else away from this letter I hope it will renew interest in improving the timeliness of the reset process.
Spoofing should never be seen as faction specific - if anything, this is the "third faction" where you have people who will act in bad faith for the overall gameplay.
I wish there was a more efficient way to report spoofers in all of NIA's apps. The ingame method is tedious and is not good when you have 10+ different spoofers a day that you are trying to report (Mainly PokeGO but the process is the same in Ingress). I miss the days when you could go to the Ingress website and view to see if your ticket is in process or was completed.
Yeah for real, I had my hands tied by only being able to do one report over the July 4th weekend for the large field spoofed up over Idaho by 5+ accounts. The first report didn't close until this Wednesday so I was unable to use support at all until it closed.
What's worked for me in the past: Visit https://ingress.com/support using an "incognito" or "private" browser window. When done submitting the report, close the window, and open a new window for the next report.
With what happened in Idaho those got taken care of pretty fast. Those 5 accounts were removed quikly but the restoration of portals needed people at the office so they couldn't reset portals till they got back in. Those accounts were elevated pretty fast.
Wasn't sure what the situation on ground was there since I was only watching it happen remotely. Good to know it was dealt with quickly, but it sucks that people couldn't play during the long weekend if they had plans to
We deal with this at every reset in AM03-GOLF-00 (yes our anchor is spoofed this often). Spoofing has become a viable tactic to our opposing faction. They go out of their way to intentionally clog lanes hours before a reset preventing our links from being restored. Yet our time, effort, keys become null/void due to a link “prioritizing” loophole.
Comments
Also, to prevent some redundancy. This was also posted on reddit yesterday:
Just wanted to provide this as a reference.
To address the specifics of this incident:
Once again, Niantic DOES NOT store portal state data as you claim they do.
Blaming Resistance for orchestrating that spoofing incident is also without any fact or merit. Resistance did not cross these spoofed lanes after the incident. The blue links you see on the map now were thrown AFTER the reset took place.
Florida Enlightened were informed of the reset process and its constraints. They were informed that Niantic will not remove legit links. They were also informed that we asked the reset to be expedited. The person that went out and threw those links was among the informed agents, and decided to risk blocking the reset.
To address the limitations of the current reset process:
Can it be automated to take place immediately after a ban?
Can the link restore be changed to cross existing links?
Can the link restore automatically remove crossing links?
Should links from legit agents be removed if they cross a spoofed lane?
Would a bi-weekly snapshot of strategic portals help to automate resets?
Should resets be run more frequently?
In short, Automation should ONLY be considered IF and WHEN Niantic has accurate portal state data that is a true reflection of a portal and its links at any given time.
-----
If I can make a recommendation to the players in the meantime.. take regular screenshots of your durable portals/links. Take screenshots and/or save raw_data on zoom level "All links" when you're planning on / executing / completed a large OP that you might expect to be spoofed down. Take screenshots of the map on occasion showing your durable links/fields. All of this information is extremely helpful to us (VG) in the event that something gets spoofed down.
For the Resistance agents, #Reswue is invaluable for this. PM me if you'd like to know how you can use this to document your durables. Enlightened agents, I believe you have something similar for planning your Ops.
The core of this open letter regarding the timeliness of reset runs is extremely important, but the delivery focuses too much on this being a faction specific issue. Spoofing impacts our entire community regardless of faction. If Niantic takes nothing else away from this letter I hope it will renew interest in improving the timeliness of the reset process.
Spoofing should never be seen as faction specific - if anything, this is the "third faction" where you have people who will act in bad faith for the overall gameplay.
Thank you @Azhreia and @VAIN for your always insightful, informative posts regarding these issues.
I wish there was a more efficient way to report spoofers in all of NIA's apps. The ingame method is tedious and is not good when you have 10+ different spoofers a day that you are trying to report (Mainly PokeGO but the process is the same in Ingress). I miss the days when you could go to the Ingress website and view to see if your ticket is in process or was completed.
Yeah for real, I had my hands tied by only being able to do one report over the July 4th weekend for the large field spoofed up over Idaho by 5+ accounts. The first report didn't close until this Wednesday so I was unable to use support at all until it closed.
What's worked for me in the past: Visit https://ingress.com/support using an "incognito" or "private" browser window. When done submitting the report, close the window, and open a new window for the next report.
With what happened in Idaho those got taken care of pretty fast. Those 5 accounts were removed quikly but the restoration of portals needed people at the office so they couldn't reset portals till they got back in. Those accounts were elevated pretty fast.
Wasn't sure what the situation on ground was there since I was only watching it happen remotely. Good to know it was dealt with quickly, but it sucks that people couldn't play during the long weekend if they had plans to
We deal with this at every reset in AM03-GOLF-00 (yes our anchor is spoofed this often). Spoofing has become a viable tactic to our opposing faction. They go out of their way to intentionally clog lanes hours before a reset preventing our links from being restored. Yet our time, effort, keys become null/void due to a link “prioritizing” loophole.