AF07-ROMEO-12 Struggle for a balanced board

Disclaimer: This relates to AF07-ROMEO-12 (cell center roughly 38.821315,-8.567907), where ENL is and has been for a long time, the underdog faction. I will try my best to keep faction rivalry out of this and stick to facts. Apologies in advance if I fail to do so.

TL;DR: any agents that use spoofing apps in AF07-ROMEO-12 to harm RES are swiftly dealt with. Any agents that do it against ENL, or use practices like win trading, take weeks and several continuous reports from ENL players to be sanctioned, IF they are sanctioned at all. Also, any lower level agents that show activity in the area are often reported and banned, even if no harmful action aside from casual playing was taken.


We recently tried to bring our act together and put up some fighting for Cycle control in the Cell. The following is how we feel NIA and Vanguards in the area have been biased so far. What do I hope to achieve with this? I'm not really sure... Some assurance that Niantic tries to keep Ingress fun and fair for all?

I tried to keep agent names out of this for privacy's sake. I do have real agent names to match every fictional name in this tale. Some cases are more detailed than others since I had to scavenge conversation logs and agent memories, and not all of them had printscreen proof.

Also some bonus reading regarding playing in this Cell and its neighbor AF07-ROMEO-15, from a RES agent:


RES agents personally and in Telegram channels claim to have the ears of Vanguards in the area, and to report every active ENL player regularly 'just because'. How much of this is truth or baseless bragging, it is obviously impossible to know. They also like to use catch phrases like "Everyone can report anything. If NIA acts, it's because they found something". This is interesting when related to the following cases.


Quickly banned:

PlayerA, ENL Level 7 - Recruited from PoGo since he has access to a portal usually only accessed by RES agents (38.775455,-9.127308). Personally walked through the game by fellow ENL agents, physically seen and even stroke conversation with RES agents at the portal in question. 07.11.2020 Banned in less than 24h after portal activity. Appeal denied.

PlayerA_2ndACC, ENL Level 7 - New account from previous agent. This time made a video of accessing the restricted access portal. Provided certified credentials to prove legitimate portal access (it is inside an airport controlled facility). 16.01.2021 Banned less than 24h after attacking the same portal (38.775455,-9.127308). Appeal denied.

PlayerB ENL Level 5 - player from Braga (41.5472695,-8.4464407), made a trip to Lisbon and played casually and without meaningful impact on Cycle score on 04.03.2021. Banned on 05.03.2021. Appeal denied even after providing bus ticket as proof.

PlayerC, RES Level 5/6 - usually plays in Algarve (37.2440998,-8.755662). Came to Lisbon for a doctor appointment and played casually and without Cycle impact between 24 and 29 of March 2021. Banned shortly after.

PlayerD ENL Level 6 - Recently recruited new player, played around the Lisbon suburbs (Coina, Mata da Machada, Barreiro) often in the company of an experienced agent. Also played solo in Fernão Ferro and Azeitão. Casual playing, no meaningful Cycle impact. Banned on 11.06.2021, appeal pending.

PlayerE ENL Level 6 - took down a RES held portal in a lighthouse only accessible a few times per year (38.660468,-9.29893) on 31.05.2021. Banned in minutes. The fallen RES links that were there were actually in the way of a trans-atlantic RES field that appeared a few days later.


Tough to Ban/Sanction:

PlayerF, RES Level 6 - showed amazingly at the right places (far apart) shortly before Check Points to **** ENL key portals. Low level agent without even Trekker badge 10km, only glyph and recharge badge. Never seen physically at attacked portals by agents on site. Reports denied until this day, still active (and doing the same magical appearance acts).

PlayerG RES/ENL - recursed from RES to ENL recently. Has access to the restricted portal accessed by PlayerA (38.775455,-9.127308). Never touched it despite the huge advantage it would bring to ENL. Spotted several times win trading with RES agents after recursion, clearing blocking links or protecting RES fields with ENL links. All reports to have him change back to RES or sanctioned were denied and agent is still in ENL to this day.

PlayerH, RES - destroyed several key portals to harm ENL scores or benefit RES scores. Eventually banned after weeks of providing evidence, including destroying portals with restricted access where no one saw the agent in person (no buildings, no cars passing by).

PlayerI, RES Level 6 - destroyed several key portals to harm ENL scores or benefit RES scores. Never seen by agents physically on site. Only banned after several days and many occurrences.

PlayerJ ENL - Captured a portal with restricted access to RES players (38.616944,-9.052608) and a hard to access one usually in control of RES (38.648625,-9.100538) and cleared most of Almada of RES links and fields with speed and impunity. This opened the way for a link between two restricted access portals controlled by RES agents (recaptured 38.616944,-9.052608 and previously mentioned lightouse 38.660468,-9.29893) which served as a base layer for several RES fields. Banned within a week after these events.


Recalling the "dictatorship" mentioned in the post linked at the start of this post, right now the feeling among ENL agents is that recruiting new agents, among family and friends or from PoGo communities, is hopeless. They end up banned 'just because' if they play in the Lisbon area.

Likewise, travelling agents from other spots of the country are currently avoiding playing if they pass by, because they might just be banned for it. The lower the level of the agent, the more likely it is to result in a ban.

On the other hand, no matter the proof mounted against really spoofing agents working in line with RES goals (From both factions) seems to take huge effort, many weeks, and many stolen check points before they are acted upon.

Please, whoever is enforcing fair play in this cell needs to recheck what they base their decisions on. Harassing new players and undermining veteran players from a whole faction cannot be a good business practice.

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Comments

  • Players using more than one account, no fair play, random bans, all great stuff experienced in first hand, unfortunately. A big reason why I'm very casual in this game

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    There is no faction imbalance on spoofer bans. We have equal success with green and blue account reporting.

    I know tons of poke players spoof location, maybe that's part of the problem.

  • NysyrNysyr ✭✭✭✭

    Nope we've seen the same thing. Ban/Revert in 24 hours for RES portals/fields taken down, while 1-2 weeks for ENL portals/fields. Best part is the ENL ones are so much more obvious.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Depends on who you use for reporting prob

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    Isn't that because the FastTrack bot telegram program (I forgot the actual name), that is basically runned by the vanguards?

    They're still players, and this is still a very competitive game and more than that, it is has a strong "community power", basically a bunch of fanatics and extremists, so I'm not impressed if there's corruption and some sort of "mafia" going on.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    @TurckoPT can I recommend that you contact @PTavares76 and find out how he submits spoofer reports using fast-track? He has successfully reported accounts in PT before.

    In short, in your reports, be brief in your description. Always copy the IGN from comms to ensure right spelling, and always supply a portal link (one is sufficient), including the date, time and timezone of the incident.

    Following that, your description should please be brief. Something like "This location is not accessible at the time of the incident and cannot be reached by legit means". Or "This account completed a trip from (Portal A with timestamp) to (Portal B with timestamp) in 10 minutes, but this distance requires 2 hours to complete via car."

    And be aware that fast-track is evaluated based on the portal location/difficulty to access, NOT the spoofer actions. Not all fast-track requests are eligible, and those would be resolved in the standard time only.

  • Hi @Azhreia, most of us (if not all) know how to report a spoofer and use the fast track. But you have to analyze, not only the movement, but also the account reported itself. If not, anyone could use a spoofer to break the same portal over and over again, because there was no problem with movement or if it is a portal in the middle of the street accessible at all times. Just create a bunch of spoofers in key places and use them at any time, knowing they won't be banned.

    The truth is this, and I'm talking about thr same cell, when an account benefits Resistance it takes forever to have effective action done. But when it's an Enlightened just playing, even if there's no suspected action because they're playing clean, it's very swift. And I say this knowing it for sure. As I already had an account banned and I'm pretty sure I did not cheat with it.

    All we, Enlightened, ask is for justice and balance. Treat every report the same way, with the same urgency and applying the correct action, regardless of the Faction.

    Maybe start by analysing the reports and actions of those who supposedly investigate the reports in this cell. You might find a pattern there.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    I cannot comment on why some reports are actioned swiftly while other accounts roam free. Ops are the ones investigating and Ops are the ones that ban accounts if they see reason to do so.

    Also, there isn't a dedicated Ops person per cell or region in this game. They have x amount of Ops agents that attend to all tickets that come in. There is no "Ops agent A only accepts and investigates tickets from reporter B or region/cell C."

  • Hello, 

    I can understand that some accounts are easily to remove than others in this Cell. When it's a ENL account, the movements are purposely impossible, to everyone knows it's a spoof account and the RES community have a excuse to call us cheaters and "force" RES players of that zones to play in the areas of the predominant RES communities (that zones magically dont suffer from spoof :Shocking:). The RES accounts usually don't have movement. Only have recharge and hack medals (for obvious reasons) and magical appear on different keys points on checkpoints. Anyone can see a pattern here?

    I helped one new player near me. I teach him how to play, i triple checked if he use any ilegal stuff, tell him to not respond in COM (RES players spam mass reports to players receive warnings even the message dont have nothing offensive, intimidation tactics -.-u), and to play casually because all new accounts low level who dont joins RES purposes (ENL for blocking ENL key zones or RES who will not block their fields) end banned. This account it's super clean, i played with him several times, he spam photos and videos to me of all his activity, even near his home, i mean ALL activity😂 but because he dont help RES in any way, he gets banned. It's disgusting this behaviour and even more the NIA Staff responsible for this.

    I stop playing more than 1 year ago because the spoofing and RES intimidation and low tactics (i even got warnings for something i said in chat, and i didn't said nothing bad or could be considered offensive). I'm still afraid to say "good morning" there. In this cycle ENL players of AR-12, played real Ingress and for some time this Cell had a beautifull dispute RES vs ENL. I was thrilled remembering the past times when players of both sides played real Ingress and not what happened after. What was a great dispute of the cycle, became a shamefull cycle. I fell sad for my fellow ENL players who spent a lot of time and money for moving, but i fell even more sad for the legit RES players who played fair, who have been used and knows what really happened. I don't want to know the feeling if i was in their position.

    TL:DR: Only the cheaters win with this because NIA allow it.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    @Redunyum there is no Niantic bias here. You will never really know if another player is clean or not, because you can't watch him/her 24 hours a day. They may spoof when you're not aware. They might share accounts, buy gear, create other accounts, etc. You will never be 100% sure that someone other than you is playing clean. The only person you can vouch for 100% is yourself.

    Niantic doesn't ban because "This player isn't RES and won't join RES and won't help them". Niantic bans when they find evidence of cheating.

  • @Azhreia I know what you saying, but the player in question says this to me:

    "I did everything you said and nothing more, i dont know what i did wrong because the email i receive was vague. How can i play this game?"

    I don't know what to say to him.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Thank you for your clarifications.

    Are the OPS team players or actual Nia employee/team with paid jobs to do that activity?

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    I don't quite understand your question? Ops agents are Niantic employees. They are hired and paid for that job.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    You might not have understood the question, but you replied it correctly. Thanks 👍🤣

  • Good afternoon.


    I'm just going to add one more real opinion...... and very well present in this cycle.


    It is clear to all that there are pristine areas for spoofers, and I will mention areas and names as I have no fear of reprisals.

    many years have already been dedicated to this game.

    at this moment, Setubál and the entire area of ​​Greater Lisbon.... where RES dominates at its own pleasure in various situations..... from spoofers cleaning up at dawn ..... since MudoScp Agent changed agent res to ENL Agent who knows what for............ Of course we know...... generalized cleanings ..... of blockers that the res says with mouth full that they are the ENL that they do...... but the funny thing is that filds always come out where this happens...... a lot of coincidence............ of course not.........

    we all asked...... and Setubal??? Quinta do Anjo.... Azeitão.... Vila Franca..... Mafra.... and other areas...... because it doesn't happen............... they know well why......

  • Years pass by, but nothing changes, typical moves from ReS and some enl’s are not better, not giving space to people play - only moves valid is their vision, don’t want plays to simple enjoy the game

  • Summarizing this thread and being perfectly clear:

    (Some) RES agents do not play fairly and they institute a climate of fear among their own. Faced with this, proper action has been been slow or inept.

    What do we ask? Firstly, we can start by removing the shared accounts that are passed amongst them, secondly crack down on the obvious spoofers as soon as their rear their ugly head, and thirdly trace the origins.

    The most extraordinary thing here is that this needs to be brought to light here. One would hope that game that promotes real world interactions would do its best to promote fair play, and prevent and punish inappropriate behavior.

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    Well, it's pretty obvious that spoofers have their own faction, their own vanguards and their own support.

    You refer to just one cell but there are more, many more...

  • I thought Ingress was a far more serious game, I'm deeply disappointed. Therefore, I gave up my C.O.R.E subscription, along my other teammates because there is no will to change or improve our current situation: the game is full of spoofers.

  • The main issue here is the time Niantic takes to act on different spoofer accounts based on their faction.

    The example we gave took 5 days, FIVE DAYS to ban the account, and during that period that account stole millions of MUs to the ENL.

    This weekend french res made an huge OP over Portugal and Spain and a spoofer took down one of the anchors portals and Niantic took 5 hours to ban that spoofer.

    I don't have to explain that 5 days >>>> 5 hours do I?

  • I don't know to what extent I can also put wintrad proofs here, where there is a portal together and I have opening prints for the same person used to play with making links and filds, this player was res and now changed to enl, just to serve as human jarvis.

    There are 3 very explicit cases, to what extent I can make a disclosure here, although the comm is open to everyone I assume that I am free to accuse what we have all seen and know.

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