Support Ingress urgently requires attention.

GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

So, Support! Yes, we all know that system is not working properly in a lot of cases. I'll keep it short.

I've been opening some tickets to support for the past days for different matters and found out, by reviewing different IDs (which are sequential) that support is getting about 15K tickets EVERY DAY.

We have witnessed several cases where system applied sanctions with no fundament to do so, being the most recent one in the forum this one. The recent addition of @NianticThia to the team has been a lucky strike for this one and the incorrect sanction was withdrawn, and this, I'm afraid, proves that the system is not just working properly, it is completely automated, which perfectly fits to the insane amount of daily tickets received by support.

Niantic has stated many times that the are people reviewing the tickets, but that is not entirely true since NO HUMAN BEING would find any ToS violation, for instance, in a COMM message with a copy-paste of the most popular and historic quote of the US Mail Service ("Neither snow nor rain nor heat..."). No human being would either find a reason for a sanction in a COMM message where no agents are tagged, no names are named, a call for peace is being stated and no previous COMM messages in at least 5 months were posted.

So, if we want support to be human, there are A LOT of things to do. And the first one should be DISABLING XF COMM chat.

-The rest of Niantic games lack chat for several reasons, so nothing new.

-The amount of income tickets would reduce without big dev cost for Niantic.

I'm aware there are a lot of agents that would just miss it, but is it fair for those who just can't use it without risking a ban for it? Is it fair for you to say "Hello, welcome to my city" if I can't even post an emoji without receiving a mail from Sofonisba telling me that I've violated the ToS?

Cheating destroys the game. Cheating is an abuse. But is not the only abuse. So, before getting the game to grow, abusers NEED to be cutted. And, by losing COMMs, perhaps those who are neutral to the situation because it does not affect them, might, JUST MIGHT, decide to take care of it.

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Comments

  • InvestigateXMInvestigateXM ✭✭✭✭✭

    >The rest of Niantic games lack chat for several reasons, so nothing new.

    Just a little nitpick, but Catan also has a chat. As it's still in beta though, it could still change or even be removed.

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    So, what did you state then? The game is in beta, it might not even make it out of the beta, wouldn't be the first game that doesn't. I'm afraid I don't take your argument as valid.

    Also, given the fact that you didn't talk about the rest of the post, should I understand that you agree with everything else?

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    Agree. XFAC COMM is now widely used by abu.sers just like DDOS attack by filing invalid "hara.ssment" reports, overwhelming good players with the amount of tickets submitted by massive sub-accounts, exploiting the automatic processing algorithm.

    However some players including XMAs and Vanguards on the forum would still insist in "

    no you are wrong because the support system is 100% working well

    all reports would be properly reviewed by human beings and errors won't occur

    players are warned or banned only manually not automatically

    and surely for an appropriate reason that you just don't know because I know NIA OPS more than you do

    you should appeal via support channel not on the forum please leave"

    all the time...for which there are many examples on the forum showing that this is not completely real.

    (while in private chat groups exactly those players are saying that "I already know that the support system is not handling tickets properly", another story though)

    When it comes to real offensive COMM content published by problematic players...are they always properly sanctioned? I don't think so.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    I doubt there are 15000 tickets a day. Maybe something is triggering the counter.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    Addressing the disabling xfac comm point, I disagree.

    Yes, there are regions where this is incredibly toxic and is being weaponised. But that is not true for everywhere, and I see no point in disabling it for everyone.

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    I thought about being the tickets ID's to be common among all Niantic supports, but why Niantic mixing support IDs when support websites are not the same?

    What it is a fact it that IDs are sequential and the calculations where made among several days through several tickets. Numbers don't lie! How many people would yo require to successfully review 15K tickets a day?

    Also, since IDs are sequential, you can tell, with the correct amount of tickets from you, roughtly when was a ticket against you submitted! When you receive a COMM strike, Sofonisba includes the ticket ID in the mail, therefore with some calculations you can tell with fairly good precision when was it submitted.

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    Quoting myslef: "perhaps those who are neutral to the situation because it does not affect them, might, JUST MIGHT, decide to take care of it".

    It's ok if some prefer to keep living in their castle, but that won't solve anything. Too agressive? Won't argue about that.

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    @Azhreia @Hosette at least you agree that support is not working and that is a start. Next step would be you throwing some other suggestions. Because I came here with solutions.

    Wonder if you would change your mind if this issue affected you...

    Also, it would help too if someone from Niantic came with some numbers about how those tickets are distributed. Never said my solution was good! I do want to be able to freely use COMM XF chat without expecting my account to be terminated, is that too much to ask?

    Post edited by GoblinGranate on
  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @GoblinGranate I kind of feel like "support is not working" is too broad a statement to agree or disagree with.

    I have had support shut spoofers RIGHT DOWN very quickly. I've also had them not do so. So, at best it's a mixed bag. I have no recent experience with support having to do with comm messages so I don't have enough data to have an informed opinion on that.

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    Well, I do have enough data to be sure that at least regarding COMMs is not working properly. Support and spoofers... better leave that bit for a different post since I'd like @NianticThia to get involved in this and Spoofing is like the final boss.

    And I'm glad to know that you and your mates have no recent experiences with support! That is awesome, but I used to be like that until some years ago and now here I am. ♥️

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭

    Unfortunately it's not a mixed bag. Many recent posts have definitely proved that

    https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/15010/hk-you-may-be-kidding-allowing-many-times-jogging-two-points-in-1-2-mins-and-100kmh-speed#latest

    https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/14538/10-accounts-1-man

    it's just not working as expected, especially for anti-cheating reports. COMM reports are handled slightly better.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    Maybe he's replying just to explain why he "Disagree" with your post. Anyway this is a good start for him, eventually, and a good thing for this forum, considering the fact he always Disagree when players get disappointed with no solutions provided by customer support for Super Obvious Spoofing cases and have to turn to the forum for help , but do not provide any explanation. https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/comment/144975/#Comment_144975

    Of course players have the rights to disagree with anything and nobody should be criticized about that as long as it's not done maliciously, but IMHO I would not take into consideration comments from players who are seemingly hindering anti-spoofing efforts in a questionable way without valid reasons. We players should unite by pursuing justice, order, and fairness.

    Post edited by TheKingEngine on
  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    Wow! I guess disagreeing to it wasn't just enough, was it? xD Should I expect the post to be flagged aswell? xD


    @Hosette @Azhreia Would you find more reasonable if COMM chat could be disabled in specific regions? Like, the same way a game can be disabled from the appstore in certain countries. Would that be a valid middle meeting for you?

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    Cool, I don't like the solution either, remember I want to be able to use COMMs without the banhammer waiting to fall upon "send".

    About region definition, same as appstore, it would be an entire country. About decision makers, I guess that could be Niantic after some metric on ticket stack (those extremely toxic regions will show extreme levels of ticket submitting).

    About individuals, they already did that when they got the chats separated from intel. Also, notifications go away when you block offending agent, and that is exactly what Niantic tells you to do.

    Issue is not that we can't get rid of unwanted COMMs! Issue is that we can't use COMMs as normal people!

    By disabling COMMs, everyone affected will take awareness and, after some period, Niantic can reset COMMs and it is my belief that agents will be more likely to behave. But, support has too many tickets income and by restricting COMMs from those areas the income should decrease. I want COMMs, but I am willing to sacrifice it if it improves the rest of the support system.

  • AtunatunakAtunatunak ✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    I wouldn't mind if Niantic disabled all the chat comms, in my region it is really toxic, full of lies, with plenty of new accounts verbally attacking other players or with offensive names towards other players that support doesn't find offensive (even if they use the name of an already existent player + some insult as their new name) that I've personally decided that reporting is useless, so I disabled all the notifications and I act as if it doesn't exist and I'm quite happy since then.

    But, of course, ignoring the problem doesn't solve it.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    That is, current system design, which does not solve the problem mentioned here. Which means you don't care much about what @GoblinGranate wants and requests and the problem he/she addressed here at all and you are not interested in how the problems could be solved, am I reading this right?

    Op is here for a solution for problems that really should be solved, not for a NO from some ordinary players without consideration. Please kindly refrain from simply ignoring the problem.

    Post edited by TheKingEngine on
  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭

    Reasonable proposal but seems still rejected by some players somehow...looks like they are simply ignoring the problems described in this post and are happy and stubborn about retaining current system design but not solving obvious problems.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭

    So, do you have any solution solving the problems mentioned here? Or do you simply do not see it as a problem.

    Yes, we would be sad to lose xfac comm. However some players would be even sadder to lose their accounts due to malicious reports towards their normal COMM speech. OP has tried his best to keep polite and make you comprehend why he/she raised such proposal. After going through all your replies, what I feel is that you don't care about the problems raised here at all.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    For what reason would you like to remove this post made by @GoblinGranate which does not violate the community guideline and is trying to help building Ingress a better game?

    This is the first time that I see players making such obvious unfriendly comment in front of the author of the post. Very impressive.

    https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/10/community-guidelines#latest

    Be respectful towards other players. You can share an opposing idea without being rude or offensive.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    So, do you have any solution solving the problems mentioned here? Or do you simply do not see any problem lying beneath the COMM report DDOS-like attack?

    I suppose OP has made it very clear:

    You are welcomed to put a solution here, rather than NO after a bunch of superfluous words.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    Thanks for your prompt reply. In my opinion, if I did not have anwsers to problems then I just keep silent, so that people who really help to solve the problem/seek a construcitve solution won't get interfered with. That's because those people are looking for solutions, not attitudes or feelings from me. And I don't have to make replies when I have no valid reasons beyond my personal feelings to say to refute the proposal presented by those people, if I have not experienced the problems they mention. What do you think?

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