The community needs help

Today after the complaint of some players and my outburst on the telegram, I decided to come here to make an appeal.

I've been a player since 2016 and what attracted me to the game was the challenge of the different ways you can choose to play.

Anyone who plays for some time will remember the various emotions we experience to climb a mega field covering several cities or all the logistics to be able to capture a strategic portal, unfortunately I believe that everyone will agree that this will not be lost over time.

Today it is even disheartening for you to join a large number of agents to create a mega field and a person on the home sofa can take down in 5 minutes, all the logistics, time and money of many involved go down the drain in minutes and very discouraging.

With the exception of the beginning of the game, I think we never had a wave of spoofer as big as we are now, the community needs help, I remember that I moderated a game in 2013 and we had more resources to stop this type of cheating than we have today at ingress almost 20 years later

We urgently need to create measures that can at least minimize this problem, I will mention a few below:

1- Create a team to help fight spoofers, this team could act as a level.

2 - Link the Ingress account to the cell phone number or IMEI, even if you do not block the use at least you would have control for an investigation, in addition to making it difficult to use the game in emulators.

3 - Prevent the sale of items within the game, with some scripts it would be easy to identify these transactions.

4 - Increase the inventory space, which could even be a paid product, even I see a huge potential that could be explored within the game to obtain sponsorships.

I see that these and other actions would help to rescue the essence of the game, bring new players into action, and keep the spirit of the game alive.

That's why I come here to make an appeal, don't let the ticket die, don't let the game lose its essence, together we are stronger. spoofer has no faction.

Prazer Apokalypsi

@fabnick @LuDGeRBriNk @NianticBrian @NianticAndrew @Azhreia

Comments

  • CauNasCauNas ✭✭

    Great @Apokalypsi! It is sad to see bad players end the game. It is time for NIANTIC to take action. There are spoofers recognized by both teams, who have already received several complaints, and nothing happens. This discourages good players. Something has to change.

    CauNas

  • I agree that the increasing amount of bad actors spoofing down portals that take time to get to, just to troll legit players trying to enjoy the adventure needs to stop

  • I do really WANT to believe that Niantic is working toward elimination of spoofers in the game, but I KNOW that the management team must answer to the shareholders. Answering the community anxiety about spoofers is one of the topics about community management.

    All the approaches suggested by @Apokalypsi could be implemented long Ago, but would Niantic permaban an account that is proffitable? Or permaban the cell phone? What I see otherwise is a "strike" system that just encourages bad behavior, because it gives clues to the bad people about what is "strikeable" and what ia not, and what rules can be pushed.

    Unless I see some work toward real elimination of spoofers, I will stand for what I know, rather for what I want It to be.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Do we have any clue if a confirmed spoofer will get an autoban/deletion, or if is possible to receive just a warning strike or temporary ban?

  • So sad you feel like quitting Ingress, @lmlmartins, but I understand your reasons - as the reasons of many others also. In other hand, I believe the more good players leave the game, the more abusers get strong.

    This specific topic came in the right time to call everyone to share their feelings and (why not?) even more: to share suggestions, I think. And I’m glad it came.

    So... Could you stick around a bit more? ^^

  • The problem is reporting on the standard robot form never get handle. Even if you have enough evidence the ticket does not get looked up unless you know someone inside niantic. I feel it is very disappointing and sad as abusers seem to be driving off good agents. I my self are on the verge of stop playing when one area decided to send 20 abusers to take out all hiking, bgan, and local portals.

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    Ins't anybody wondering how do get "almost 20 years" from 2013 to 2020?

    About inventory space, I think it is OK the way it is, perhaps just missing the Medialocker. Niantic is the first company I've met that allows multiaccs in games where having multiaccs is a huge advantage.

  • Let’s focus on the main problem:

    We get to know many cases of multiple accounts serving as backpack for a main account, and I guess I don’t need to say it’s not fair with many good players, specially the ones who keep items strategically. AFAIK, having more than one account is not allowed.

    This said, let me ask: do you think it is an advantage (I mean “allowing” more than one acc per player)? If you don’t, what more do you think we could suggest to prevent bad players to use this kind of strategy to take advantage over us?

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    Well, I don't quite understand the question since I already stated that multiaccs are a huge advantage in this game at least.

    And, yes I am VERY WELL AWARE that it not allowed, but yet so very few times a punishment is applied for this reason, so what difference is there actually? Communities aply their own rules and, the way I see it, if communities are the only real difference, then something is wrong!

    About prevention, well, tricky part comes in because first you need to solve the access problem: how much access to personal data are you willing to requesto to each player? How are you going to handle it? Do you think it is going to increase your player base? Don't forget Niantic is a company, therefore money is priorized, and less players always mean less money.

    Current situation is bad, we all agree... well, anyone that really wants to see will agree :)

  • Ok, it was not clear to me if the issue of multiple accounts was a criticism, or if it should be considered a minor problem. Thanks for the answer. =]

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2020

    Oh, well, if that is the question, it is a problem, it always has, but if I had to place it in a list of problems sorted by urgency, it would be almost the top one. I say 'almost' because Top One is and will always be spoofers.

    Does this fulfill it?

  • @NianticBrian hello. The worst part of it all is when you report on the bot, with all the info you need ( portal link, name of portal, time/date) and get a bot answer ("we have carefully reviewed your report")... my last report (8068542) the spoof entered a cemitery at 23:17 pm and sent links from there.. the cemitery closes at 17h. I sent on the report the oficial time of operattion from website and nothing.. the spoof is still active in other city now 😂.. you can only ban someone if you use the trusted report bot (but need to be urgent and non city related) or got a trusted report budy.. sadlife

  • YURI5KYURI5K ✭✭

    welll problem with spoofing down BAFs is, that whole BAF design is terrible. players spend huge amount of time for it, they spend huge amoun t of money, and niantic has no cut from it. also most of them are not good for enviroment (hundreds of kilometers traveled to build triangles, that other faction has to **** (and travel some distance to do so)). multicell fields are tricky thing, and killing spoofers wil not make it better. without spoofers, sooner or later you will end with cities under unkilllable fields. which is not greenlighting spoofers, but just piointing at design flaw of this game.


    yeah, whole BAF game is nice, but mostly boring for most part of players. since they cannot play dner baf (but in prime they can at least see roads in game)

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    Taht is not correct, the social media is what Niantic gets and also what presents this game as a great game.

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭

    How do you know this "spoofer" isn't the cemetery guard? Or someone other who has access?

  • The worst of it all is seeing players stop playing, others coming to you for help, some even questioning the extent to which FairPlay is worth keeping in mind that N Nia takes no action, there is a player who is already thinking of stopping or even going to the dark side of the force to try to balance the game, this is sad but our dear game is getting lost

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    bots only make legit players stop playing and niantic looses players that would have spent money ingame, what do bots earn niantic? nothing.. its very bad for the pr if the game has bots and cheaters that roams free and nothing happens to them yet massive reports....

  • MirthmakerMirthmaker ✭✭✭✭

    Legal concerns. Tech concerns. Take too heavy a hand and you run afoul of things like laws, hyperactive bans that need corrective measures after the fact.

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