Appeal by Ban by COMM

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Comments

  • ArtilectZedArtilectZed ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2021

    It's not a matter of being worse or not, it's that Niantic is likely to take action against you for it if someone reports it. I've seen it happen a number of times over the years, to both green and blue players.

    Just don't do it, if you value your account.

    Edit: Think about it. If someone is cheating/spoofing/etc, and making the game worse, getting into COMM and making the situation more negative isn't going to help anyone. Someone may see that talk and figure Niantic isn't doing anything about cheaters, and figure they might as well start doing it too.

    Now, before 'BUT NIANTIC DOESN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT CHEATERS!' starts following this post, I've seen more than a few people I've watched and reported over the years suddenly stop playing for awhile after I've sent in reports. I've seen a lot of people I've reported keep playing.

    Niantic runs as a black box. It's just the way it is. We don't get to know, directly, the outcome of our reporting. Do I think that's really stupid? *Yes*.

    But, on the other hand, you have to assume that they look at the backends data, see what we're reporting as "obvious" cheating to actually look like normal, legit play, and they choose to do nothing.

    Or, that they saw something, and they email a warning to the person you think you saw cheating, and that person takes it to heart and stops doing whatever they were doing.

    Or, that person continues what they're doing, and they'll eventually **** up so badly that Niantic will take immediate action. Maybe take a look at what other accounts have signed into that device, and ban all of them at the same time.

    Of those three hypothetical situations, I've seen two of them happen with immediate effect, and the third, I've seen screenshots of. I'll let you guess which is what.

    Now, think about it from the other side.

    Someone is absolutely convinced that you're cheating. They yell at you in COMM about it. Other players on your team who may not play with you see it, and they might start thinking of you and your play differently. Maybe not invite you to participate in group activities.

    Or, what if that person stays quiet in COMM, but they report you. If Niantic just took the reporters word at face value, and just banned you. Well, that's great. The game becomes a race to see how many players you can get banned before you're banned, yourself.

    Given these scenarios, there's only two real choices you can make, if you want to stay an honest player, and not get banned.

    1) Report what you think as cheating, and move on with life.

    2) Stop playing.

    As always, ultimately the choice will be yours.

    Post edited by ArtilectZed on
  • CliffMCliffM ✭✭✭✭✭

    First Rule of COMMs: Don’t use COMMs

    you aren’t changing minds, you’re not stopping them from cheating. You’re just imperiling your own account.

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I was more meaning that it sounded like accusing was worse than actually doing, I do get the logic for it.


    Also, based on how many complaints appear on here about spoofing, my guess is noantic aren't as good at catching cheats as they should be, either because the cheaters are getting smarter or niantic needs better support

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    It's a mix of both, really. Cheaters (and the software) get smarter all the time, and Niantic is playing a catch-up game. They do need to do better. And they are. A lot of the things they do isn't visible to us, so it's hard to say "Yes, look here and here and here, see how we are improving".

    Communication, however, is one visible aspect that needs improving. It's gotten better, but it's not where it should be yet.

  • The best way to appeal it is to send a legal threat to NIA themselves.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2021


    Partially because in many cases, spoofers will defame normal players by doing this. You couldn't imagine the effrontery of some cheaters. Usually spoofers have massive sub-accounts and thus normal players are overwhelmed and driven away by hara.ssment of spoofers, if not managed.

    Which means a passive protection of normal, good players when spoofers and multi-accounters are not identified and punished by the system well.

  • Calling them out on COMM is like taking out an ad in the Daily Mail... it doesn't change a thing, and just puts you in the tabloids as a whiner.

    The correct method is to block them, report them to Niantic, and move on. If that doesn't work, blathering in COMM is going to have less of an effect. If you prefer alternate methods, discuss it within your regional chats (outside Ingress) and work on XFac mediation in your region. The vast majority of players on both sides don't like this, and the other faction may be able to apply pressure internally to convince the player to back off, or they may simply commiserate with you and then you can report incidents in a cross-factional manner to Niantic.

    Yelling on COMM just gives them a target they can whine to Niantic about.

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Are you talking about people being mean? I was meaning more about the spoofing side.

  • Thing is, any good player worth their salt will help low level agents, REGARDLESS OF FACTION. The person who introduced me to my local ENL Community was Resistance. Of course, there are toxic players, and I dont deny the severity of the current situation, and that it should be addressed. However, disabling COMMS is not the answer. I’ve avoided several a misunderstanding via comms. The ability to communicate with ALL players is something that should not be denied to the community. If Niantic saved chat logs to investigate BOTH SIDES, then they could easily determine if reporting fraud was taking place, and punish the fraudulent reporter(s) accordingly.

    I reiterate: removing the situation is not an acceptable substitute to addressing the problem. If it were, I would have had no form of redress when I was told to exit the classroom, sacrificing my instruction time, because other students were using cologne in excess and triggering my asthma (I had actually ended up blacking out because someone wore too much Axe. I still don't remember that one day in English class). It is disappointing to see people and organizations avoid addressing the situation in favor of an easier alternative.

    While some situations do necessitate the removal of Comms, this should be a last resort, not an easy way out.

  • The whole post is about calling people out on COMM. Regardless of the initiating reason.

    Niantic may not be able prove someone is spoofing, but if you say harassing things on COMM it's a slam dunk for them.

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