Have your upgrades never gotten a response? I have been waiting for two months on some.
I am a US player but I do tend to travel a bit. I submit almost every time I have submissions available for me and I have gone to India and the Middle East fairly commonly. On my trip over 2 months ago I submitted in a country with almost no portals (lost my daily hack streak but I lose this often enough so I am not worried about it) and the nearest ones are over 40km distance away from me at almost any given time with the major cities not even having one portal. Along with the nearest active agent within 200km had played 3 days ago at the time.
I submitted all 14 candidates in two of the major cities in the country and promptly got an upgrade a few days afterwards since I review quite heavily when traveling and having my bonus location giving me US candidates. It's been around 2 months since then and I even contacted Niantic Support about this and they said to wait for it to reach a decision. Since the first upgrade, I have had another 4 upgraded. Does this mean that even if I never get a decision for months my upgrades will go to those other 9 candidates which haven't received any responses over time rather than the ones I am submitting at the current given moment?
Is there any way I can get further help on the situation or do I have to just wait for enough visitors to hopefully review my upgraded candidates when they visit this country? Any help or feedback on my situation would be useful. Thank you.
Comments
My upgrades choice seems random (or missing something) as I've had older submissions and newest ones selected sometimes. Can't do much about those 14 submissions just have to leave them and wait.
My very first applied upgrade (a day after upgrades were rolled out globally) has yet to get a response.
Which is weird since it's a 1 and a half year old submission that is/should be a duplicate for more than a year.
Maybe you got it but didn't notice? Check the Intel if it is there.
Nope not on Intel. Just checked. @Hydraulinski but thanks for reminding me sometimes they don't inform us we got a portal approved. Forgot that happens...
I honestly think the 'upgrades' don't do anything that isn't already happening. Most often all my fortnightly submissions will be approved long before the upgraded ones are.
I think upgrades are just a placebo.
@JohnTheAussie They make a big difference in my local area. I use to get approvals in my local area after 8 to 9 months of submitting the candidates when I started submitting. For the most part its gotten a lot faster where it fluctuates from anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 months now for candidates for me for normal reviewed portals. While upgrades tend to make even new submitted portals get approved within 3 days. So there's definitely been a big impact for me at least. I'm about to get to 80 upgrades soon because its the most reliable way to get portals in my local area now if I really want something to go live.
I have several upgrades still pending for portals in the Bahamas that were submitted almost exactly a year ago.
My upgrades work fine and it makes a big difference to the submitions without upgrades. I live in a high density area, submitions take ages and they are faster proceeded with upgrades.
I've only had one submission "stuck" for a long period of time, it had been in the queue for maybe 9 months, and after upgrade it took maybe another month to be decided in the negative. Hard to say if the upgrade sped things up but it felt like it did.
Perhaps.
An unintended side effect of upgrades though, it confirms the submission is in the system.
@grendelwulf Possibly not enough agents who have OPR covering that area?
I've had 4 upgrades this week and all popped through within the last few days. Some in a very portal dense area took a couple of days longer, but some in a very low density area were next day
@Cespar that's what I'm thinking. I'm hoping the agents who do "mission at sea" cruise do opr while in some of these locations.