Your experience with the Niantic Reset Program - A call for testimonials
Azhreia
Vanguard › ✭✭✭✭✭
Hi All
We would like to put out a request to everyone who has worked with the reset program to restore spoofed portals/links/fields, so that we may highlight to Niantic the value this program provides, as well as the frustrations experienced with the program in its current state. We are pushing to have improvements prioritised, but in order to do so, we need you guys to chip in and show Niantic that it is worth doing.
So tell us of your experience, and include, if possible:
- Which method you used to request the reset (Support ticket, fast-track form, contact VG, etc),
- What you requested for restore/removal? You can generalise here or be specific.
- How often you've had to request resets? Was it a once-off event or do you require resets more often?
- How soon were those resets processed and was everything restored as requested? If not, please add why not.
- How did the spoofing and the restore impact you? Either personally, or your community?
Please be honest but respectful in your criticism. Suggest improvements.
We look forward to hearing from all of you, and thank you for participating.
-- The Alliance of the Prime Vanguards
Tagged:
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Comments
I'll make this post generalized:
How often you've had to request resets? Was it a once-off event or do you require resets more often?
-- This entirely depends on portal location. Our local community has territory that runs from the mountains to the beach, with urban territory in the center. The spoofing that occurs in the urban areas isn't eligible for resets, so it doesn't get brought up. We will request resets for the other areas though. This can sometimes occur multiple times a week, and then go weeks without any incidents.
How soon were those resets processed and was everything restored as requested? If not, please add why not.
-- The resets were processed generally same day, but often things are not restored as requested. While the portal itself will be restored as requested with supporting evidence (screenshots) for resos/mods, from our experience our spoofers will **** heavily-linked portals, and then a different account will immediately throw links across the now-opened lane. Somehow these links are considered legit, even though they were only made accessible by a prior spoofed action. Therefore, while the portal itself will be restored, the links usually won't be.
How did the spoofing and the restore impact you? Either personally, or your community?
-- The restoration does help show the community that Niantic is doing something about the spoofing, even if it's not ideal. But the spoofing itself is extremely damaging to the community and to the individual players who put in hours of time to access certain portals. It's also more time consuming for legitimate players to put in the necessary requests to get an account banned, get a portal restored, etc., whereas the spoofers can just keep spinning up new accounts. It's extremely exhausting when it happens over & over again.
- Which method you used to request the reset (Support ticket, fast-track form, contact VG, etc):
Everything, even multiple times.
- What you requested for restore/removal? You can generalise here or be specific.
Mostly link takedowns after spoofer ban. But also tried to ask for portal restore or even neutralize legit portals to takedown spoofed links.
- How often you've had to request resets? Was it a once-off event or do you require resets more often?
Daily, many times a day.
- How soon were those resets processed and was everything restored as requested? If not, please add why not.
Never seen a restore, never had any motivation. Usually those were all eligible requests, but took so long we managed to find a way ourself, wasting resources (ADA/JARVIS, not to mention fuel and time)
- How did the spoofing and the restore impact you? Either personally, or your community?
We're playing against spoofers daily for years and see that Niantic takes so long to even ban a spoofer who's able to destroy and cross multiple fields in a single night is demotivating, to say the least, for most players in my area. Many of which just decided to give up with the game at all.
The reset program is so valuable for the ingress community.
I worked with it so many times and all of them by contacting a vanguard. I requested all kind of resets, from simple portals to links and fields, both removal and reinstatement. It's difficult to say how often because you can't predict spoofers but i'd say on a monthly basis (at least once every month).
Usually the requests were very quick but sometimes it took few days for them to happen.
I'd say that the reset process went good 95% of the times; sometimes there were some slight errors that were fixed in the following reset.
Spoofing and restore never impacted me personally, it was always the community that receive harm.
The only improvement I feel like suggesting is a quicker action if possible or either the chance to undo some legit actions that weren't possible due to spoofing in order to restore what was spoofed.
Thank you for this useful service.
Just a brief note:
Unfortunately, I've had to make use of the reset program a bit too often. In my case I've mainly asked for help from VG, even for the times I've used the form since, to be honest, VG are by far the most effective 'method' to have spoofed items back to its original state.
Let's be clear, I think spoofing is slowly killing Ingress. I can't really count the number of times I've had to report accounts killing important anchors, blocking fields, messing with the cell scoring; let's say I've been at it for a bunch of years. It's really sad and extremely disappointing and, I'm sure, I wouldn't be here without the help I've had to stop spoofers and reset the spoofed items. I know I speak in the name of others, too.
I can understand tackling spoofers is not easy, I may not agree with the way Niantic does it, either, but, for sure, I know the reset program has had a very positive impact and I, for one, owe not quitting Ingress to the VG helping with the program. Things are bad, but at least you have an option (if you manage to have the account stopped) to return things to normal, albeit this is often temporary, since spoofers are stubborn. Both spoofing and restores have, clearly, an impact on the community.
I'd love to have the requested resets checked more often, sometimes you can't wait 4 days to have something back; sure, it's back, but the damage is done and we run out of options to fix it in the field, or for the cell, or for the op. 🤷 Not to talk about the many times resets were useless cause spoofers may not be great but they're not idiots and have a person behind: the best way to make a reset fail is not doing it quickly (ie. in my experience, when resets fail, it's 90% of the times due to new blocks made while waiting for the reset to be actioned).
Thank you for all your work. 💜
Which method you used to request the reset (Support ticket, fast-track form, contact VG, etc),
Always contacted a vanguard after the spoofed agent was banned, provided details about the portal that needed reset and/or any links and fields that needed to be restored.
What you requested for restore/removal? You can generalise here or be specific.
The restoration of strategic portals to their state prior to spoofing, and if possible the restoration of links or fields they held. Have requested that many times for that kind of portals and it worked every time.
How often you've had to request resets? Was it a once-off event or do you require resets more often?
Whenever a remote / strategic portal was spoofed and the agent was banned after a report and the other way round, when an agent was restored after a request ticket also. I've used it 4 times so far, all the times successfully.
How soon were those resets processed and was everything restored as requested? If not, please add why not.
In a matter of a day of two, once it happened in hours, very fast in general.
How did the spoofing and the restore impact you? Either personally, or your community?
Spoofing is the plague of Ingress, not dealing efficiently with it caused most of the agents to quit or lose interest in playing, that's well known to agents that love the game for it's original, strategic gameplay. It's frustrating investing time and assets, to organize and trying to achieve something just to have it messed up sometimes even before succeeding by people who have no real interest in the game and their whole fun is to mess up other peoples gameplay. Having that said, restoring is an oasis at a desert. Vanguards in my opinion did an amazing job sacrificing personal time and dealing with a lot of valid or absurd, or anything in between requests, just to bring an air of "fairness" to the game, a role that should be NIA's to begin with. I personally was very close to quitting the game if it wasn't for their part and the trusted reporter program. I don't say that it worked perfectly, but it sure was better than nothing!
What I would love to see? Come on it's easy, spoofing is easy to ban if the will and assets are there...
I used Fast Track form once.
I requested a restore for portal that is about 9 kilometers away at the edge of my city. It was spoofed down with all links and fields on it.
I waited for about day and a half, and after discussing my situation with people in IUENG (specifically that it is taking too long), a Vanguard reached out to me and said I wasn't even in contact list! Because apparently the spoofer was reported by someone else too. Then I was told that my request was already processed and the spoofer was banned; so far so good.
But, I've also been told that the portal that was spoofed down is ineligible for recovery, apparently because it's close to active players (yep just 8 kilometers away from the nearest agent daily activity), and the access to it is not restricted in any way. Which was underwhelming; I though they'd reset any portal that was spoofed down.
With that, I wasn't completely satisfied with the resolution. I'd like stuff being processed faster, and resets happening always no matter if the portal is far away or has restricted access, or not.
I've always had to contact VG for resets. Also the game data doesn't get deleted once a spoofer is banned I've had to contact a VG to get that deleted too. My opposite faction here in my region heavily indulges in spoofing and data scraping activities since the beginning of the game so I and my community members do need to contact VG often. Many times the reports don't go through because of insufficient proof and it takes months to gather proof and the portals which were spoofed more than a month ago don't get reset. It is saddening for the members since those portals would have been captured after long travels and treks to remote places. It would be good if these portals can be restored. I've seen many agents who played along with me quit because of the increase in spoofer activity, specially in times of guardian badge. It still continues today and we are definitely getting lotta help from VG in this regard. I have not had any complaints about the reporting and reset system. It's good as it is!!
Sorry long winded response incoming..
Which method you used to request the reset (Support ticket, fast-track form, contact VG, etc),
Generally we contact a vanguard directly if the situation is urgent or if it's something that actually needs to be fixed. I have used a fast track form in the past and had some luck with that, generally support tickets don't get you anywhere productive and in their current state just waste your time and sanity.
What you requested for restore/removal? You can generalise here or be specific.
In more recent times we have had 1 agent who has been spoofing a lot, this included lots of stuff in town but also included lots of durables of both factions, working with the vanguards in these situations has helped get the situations resolved at least temporarily till the person in question spins up/buys a new account and the process repeats.
How often you've had to request resets? Was it a once-off event or do you require resets more often?
Up until a month ago when we finally got the agent in questions main account banned we were dealing with quite a few resets mostly of durable remote portals by low level throwaway accounts. Not every cell has these problems but even if you don't now or have in the past all it takes is one bad actor going off the rails to ruin the experience for everyone else.
How soon were those resets processed and was everything restored as requested? If not, please add why not.
Lots of the resets were done in probably about a week with some of the very obvious spoofing low level throwaway accounts being banned with a couple hours.
One of main issue with resets is the way Niantic prioritizes a new link that is made in a given lane vs an older link that was spoofed down and needed to restore. We have numerous issues of getting a large durable link restored or even a spoofed field when the lane is crossed by other agents(some of which don't even know that they are doing it so it's sort of hard to blame them).
This problem can also stack with the other problem of how soon the reset happens as the more time a lane stays open after a spoofer generally the greater chance of someone linking across it and nullifying the chance at a restore. The spoofing of a durable that was planned to be taken down anyways can also really mess things up when it gets restored a week later and has to be dealt with again.
And lastly for this the restore process itself as it stands now can be super hard for us and for the vanguards(from my assumption) that have to figure out all the details. Since Niantic doesn't keep any sort of historical records of the previous portal states you have to remember or have documentation for what exactly needs to be restored which can be extremely painful depending on what has been spoofed and who draws the straw of dealing with it. This isn't just what portal, it can be all the resos and who owned them and what level, it can be what mods were on a portal, what was a portal linked to. Lots of the time you end up sending a bunch of portal links and context screenshots to the vanguard and they make it happen.
How did the spoofing and the restore impact you? Either personally, or your community?
It really sucks dealing with someone who's only objective is to be toxic to the rest of the community by spoofing and making throwaway multis to spoof with. This behavior really takes a toll on the community we have left of both factions. It taints cycles and if they just make new accounts or throwaways it's seemingly endless.
The restores that were done and the hard work the vanguard provide is awesome and really is appreciated by people that have to deal with this.
All of the above.
Remote portals.
Depends on the portal. Usually it is too much of a hassel too restore a portal, especially links / specific mods.
Vanguards is very helpfull. Making support tickets you hit a brick wall of copy paste answers. Fast-track is not fast enough for important portals.
The restore shows the community that cheating is not okay.
I have facilitated this process for other players more frequently than I've actively participated in it, mainly because I am exquisitely aware how much work the Vanguards do for the community, and how eager Niantic is to over-use their dedication to Ingress & Agents to the point of abuse. Thanks to Vanguards' extraordinary and largely uncompensated efforts, the reset service and spoofing suppression occasionally crosses over into adequacy. Aside from tapping the community to increase the Vanguard rolls, the better solution would be to formally hire and compensate individuals dedicated to solving the problem and performing this job - it's not like working with the Ingress player community in this fashion wouldn't benefit the other products in Niantic's stable, or development of future products and services with similar potential susceptibilities.
I have used the reporting system on several occasions, I have requested replacement of portals through Fast Track and also contacting Vanguard
But I have never been contacted to make a replacement of portals or Control Field
Although we have managed to Ban FLy (Spoofer) accounts, there are still many accounts that habitually use location spoofing methods without being sanctioned
Any portal that is "spoofed" should automatically be restored as it was enabled prior to the "cheat" activity.
A sanction or replacement should not depend on whether or not you know a vanguard
Used to be 100% VG Route, but filling out the fast-track form normally has the same VG reaching out to me instead. So I work on their schedule instead of bothering them constantly.
More than often restores, but sometimes removals when things get so abused we need to cleanup the spam links/resos of a fake.
It used to be so frequent and common that I lost the passion of just playing the game. Now it happens, but many more folks are able to help so the burden of how often I in particular do it is much lower. Not to mention some knowledge of the common spoof portals and links is easier to restore. I do think in this specific region though, player base for organized/large things is down so the chance for attracting more spoofs is low.
For the most part, they work. The times they don't hurt badly. This is normally because of a wrong link direction in my initial resets, but then it became player abuse. Spoofing a lane and having a legit agent cross moments later means even if the reset happens, the links/fields won't. This could be an accident, it could be intentional, it could be someone not understanding the rules.
It helps, but also breeds a new level of toxicity between groups. I'm also incredibly happy and positive with all the changes to make resets faster and quicker for approvals.
IE: A portal gets spoofed. You throw a link blocking restores to hold the lane. Reset happens, you are missing links. Its over. Drama ensues.
IE: A portal gets spoofed. Its reclaimed in under an hour. Will it be reset if its already reclaimed? It shouldn't according to the rules, but It will. So if a new link is thrown from a spoofed portal. Is it game on? Do we wait for the reset even though new links are up? Tough call.
IE: A portal gets spoofed. A legit agent crosses the lane. Are they working with the spoofer? Are they dumb? Drama ensues. A reset is blocked and a legit thing is taken down.
IE: A portal gets spoofed. Do you log/reset the enemy's portal/field/link? You might TR the bot, but draw the line there. Callouts occur that one side gets resets but not the other. Is it up to you to teach the other side about available things? Maybe not - drama ensures.
Kudos to those doing these things, its a never ending race with new abuse - new enhancements.
Support ticket, contacted a vanguard and fast track.
Asked for a portal to be reset and a spoofer to be banned. Multiple players asked this.
We've been fortunate in this location to only ask for after one spoof event. However at 6 people reported it.
Still waiting. This was late July or early August. We've only gotten the canned info messages back.
The spoofing was obvious. It bothered a great many. The lack of restoration, or the inability to do anything about it is more destructive. It made our community less happy about niantic, if that's possible. The lack of actual care or customer support is becoming appalling. I know a few of the support people occasionally respond, but clearly, there need to be better processes to make the customer support team a pleasure to work with instead of just a complaint to the Remy bot.
Which method you used to request the reset (Support ticket, fast-track form, contact VG, etc)
Usually Support Ticket and Fast-track form depending on the speed of response or the severity of the actions performed by the accounts that have performed the spoof actions
What you requested for restore/removal? You can generalise here or be specific.
Normally, the restoration of portals (resonators and mods) of strategic portals or of very difficult access is usually requested to be able to resolve them quickly again, on the other hand, the restoration of blocking links is also usually requested. And finally, it is quite usual to request a reset of all the resonators deployed by the accounts in question.
How often you've had to request resets? Was it a once-off event or do you require resets more often?
Unfortunately, the need to request restoration of portals and links is quite common. In the gaming area, it is quite common for agent accounts to appear who are specifically dedicated to it, so it is common to make such requests more than once a week.
How soon were those resets processed and was everything restored as requested? If not, please add why not.
The resets are carried out following the instructions provided once the actions have been validated, the problem is usually the waiting time between when the reset is requested and the required information is provided, until the reset is finally effective. Sometimes that time is long enough to allow time for actions to be generated again precisely aimed at blocking or hindering the expressly requested reset.
How did the spoofing and the restore impact you? Either personally, or your community?
For months the actions of spoffer accounts in our gaming area have been multiplying over time, although special attention is paid to the appearance of them and they are reported in account, possible fraudulent actions are detected, the problem is that Sometimes it is necessary to report the same account, over and over again, until the illicit action is finally detected and processed. It is an ongoing struggle in the community so that players who still appreciate the game can continue to enjoy it.
I know it's not related to the reset, but the most frustrating part is really the spoofer not getting banned early enough in the beginning when it is reported. Typically what we've seen happen is they seem to test the system - you might get an attack and no kills. Or you get kills of a couple portals in one area and then later a bunch more in another area. It's reported early on, but comes back later and kills more and makes the problem worse because it hasn't been acted upon in a timely fashion. These accounts are obviously spoofers with crazy times between portals and their profiles usually indicate weirdly unbalanced play styles. They are quickly verified as spoofers in our own communities together, but then don't seem to get banned until they have done a large amount of damage.
To be clear, I am not including here some generic blatant spoofing/bot leveling we have seen in the last year where an agent far exceeds the speed limit or does a lot of weird travel on one-way streets that is clearly spoofing and it's just local portals and it's reported but no reset is requested.
As far as the reset, a difficult part for me is knowing what the prior state was. Especially when reporting for the other faction where you haven't been tracking what they have been doing.
Getting that request in early enough so that lanes can be maintained while waiting for the reset to go through. The longer the request to go in the more likely you are going to miss a window for when it seems Niantic actually does the resets which is only a couple times a week.
A couple days of maintaining lanes is fine - a week and people just get tired of overthinking everything waiting for Niantic to pull their finger out. And this causes extra community friction where people blame each other for not holding back their teammates. And the typical drama about how one side's "infrastructure portals" have been hit more than the other side's or whatever. That's really too much to ask people to try to preserve something in a game where you always have to play a changing playing field as it lays at the time.
Thank you @Azhreia for giving us this chance to express our feelings towards this program. I only asked restore when a spoofer neutralized the portal Port of Tenés (Argelia), I did not know how it worked and I was really nervous about it (I would never thank enough @ATR0P0S for his input and help, I was really devastated). In addition, I had contact with other agents who requested this service as well so I'll try to summarize everything.
Which method you used to request the reset (Support ticket, fast-track form, contact VG, etc),
The usual one, first I reported, filled the google form and immediately after that I contacted the vanguard. This is the only way I know, however, in the meantime a Vanguard answer and escalate ticket to Niantic, players may lose valuable time and other agents may take chance to make links and destroy all the hard work of agents. This is the primarly source of frustration, as the other faction may take advantage (willingly or unwillingly) and hinder the process as happened in Madrid, forcing another agent to move and destroy the link of the other faction.
(Needless to say, I would really appreciate some approach with the other faction in order to diminishing the impact of spoofing attacks. I heard some steps have been taken in Valencia and I want to express my gratitute to all the RES agents who did not take advantage of the spoofing attack)
In addition, we cannot demand 24/7 attention of Vanguards, they have private life and mental health too, I want to rise concern about the overload burden of Vanguards, they have replies from agents all over the world and they need to submit tickets as well. In some cases of complex spoofing, they should be handled by a specialized team from Niantic instead of submitting 1 by 1 tickets to Niantic and another one from Vanguards, it leads to burnout from both sides.
What you requested for restore/removal? You can generalise here or be specific.
I requested the portal Port of Tenés back and bring the links back.
How often you've had to request resets? Was it a once-off event or do you require resets more often?
Frankly, once in my lifetime and the experience was awful enough to not repeat it, although I sometimes report dubious timing between portals in remote places (they end in the same place, as usual).
How soon were those resets processed and was everything restored as requested? If not, please add why not.
I am going to pull Niantic at both ears, processing takes really long time, especially on weekends. I acknowledge everyone needs to rest, but this should be automatized. We cannot wait 3-4 days until the reset is done (as it happened in Mallorca or Madrid). If an agent has been found guilty of spoofing, all the actions should be reversed immediately. As you can see, the process takes a long time, even though, I have to acknowledge @ATR0P0S again for his hard work because we could short it to 3-4 hours, we owe you a lot!
Needless to say, I have had to request restoring twice because not all links were restored. The links spanned a wide area and if the portal is neutralized you need to zoom out and scroll up all comms tab trying to find the exact time all the links were broken (other agents make comm actions and they bury the older messages). So I spent like 15-20 minutes scrolling up the tab while dealing with my nerves and team complaints towards the spoofer (we were about to start an OP and all agents were scattered all over the map). Luckily, @ATR0P0S got almost ALL the links, I was astonished of his diligence and hard work, even if some links missed, @ATR0P0S sent another restore ticket and got them fully restored. You may not believe me, but he really saved the night.
All of this stress, could be easily avoided with a single small script of the last actions of the spoofer or to extract a small record of the last actions of the portals. Some portals in Galicia are frequently spoofed and research is needed to elucidate what is going there and who may be behind.
How did the spoofing and the restore impact you? Either personally, or your community?
Now I am burnt out, I am really tired of helping others, it ends sucking you up and reports should be shared within the members of the team (it turns to be the opposite). I mostly play for the sojourner /epoch medal and craft some kinetic recipes along the way while playing Pokemon Go / Wizards United.
The spoofing attack totally mined the morale of the team, we could muster some courage and do the OP we planed 10 days ago. It was really hard to encourage the team and I felt a bit guilty because I was dragged to those negative feelings too. In the end some members cheered me up and we could do it nicely. I am so proud of them (and of course, of @ATR0P0S too 😉).
Hi all; I am an Enlightened Agent out of the Midwest United States. There are quite a bit of things I wish to value my input on.
Recently, there has hardly been any spoofing in the area to which our community is from. But, when there were a lot more frequent incidents, it would go back and forth, caused by a response from either teams’ secure portals. If one was spoofed, the other was sure to follow within a day or two. The spoofing incidents would occur straight after a large field or important link was established between other ENL communities in the area.
We were often prompted to a Vanguard to help Fast Track our requests, but other times we would reset the portal ourselves, with an agent driving an hour or so to reclaim it.
During the Reset process, we would be required to, annoyingly, track down portals with Resistance links blocking the links that were spoofed down. This was a hassle, and is a big issue when considering the reset process.
I believe a fix to this may come in removing the link that was thrown, either on purpose or accidentally, and contacting the account in which the link was thrown from, and detailing the actions that they did interfered with a link that someone else created, and was illegally taken down.
Of course, this comes with its own complications. Beyond that is not my place to decide, but I would see this as a big step in the right direction when resetting spoofed portals/links.
Other than that, the resets have been helpful. They are not immediate, and i don’t really expect them to be, but a response in 12 to 24 hours is reasonable, unless there is an impending operation going on.
Lastly, spoofing has impacted our community more often than not, in terms of both teams. Big fields have been planned, and taken down within the night by a spoof account, and many agents, not only in our own community, but outside of it as well, have expressed a vast amount of responses. Some want to bring much change, some want to quit the game, some want to cancel their C.O.R.E membership, and many have wasted alot of money in gas or guest passes to reach portals that are difficult for others to get to, all for it to be taken down from the comfort of one’s home. It is not fair; It is not plausible, and quite a few tweaks need to be made to the reset process, if links are thrown in front of the lanes that resided before the spoof.
I hope my input is of notice.
Here is our story: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ingress/comments/ofibw3
About this system is a very important tool for the Ingress community since the spoofed problem is something that never ends, many agents spend time, money and sacrifice to enable portals and coordinate large operations, however they are brought down by Spoofed, this system it is of great help to everyone. In particular, I always use it and help other players to use it to restore everything they need,
• What method was used to request a restart?
I contact the system agents who run the complex reboots as needed to restore.
•What did you request to restore / remove?
I commonly request a reboot to portals and links that are difficult to access.
•How often have you had to request restarts?
I almost always request it because there are a lot of impersonations in my play area.
•How soon were those resets processed and was everything restored as requested?
Commonly every day and almost always accurate details.
•How did impersonation and restoration affect you?
Counterfeits have progressively decreased as their dirty work lasts for a short time in restoring the portal they affected.
My suggestions:
- Reboots of portals and / or links should be executed immediately or as soon as the spoofed was banned.
- Portals that are knocked down by Spoofed must have an immunity time when restored.
- Agents who block the OP after being downed by a Spoofed should be penalized.
- Points made by Spoofeds adding to the Score must be removed and the counter must be restored as it was before the counterfeit added points.
- For a better organization in reboots, there must be trusted agents in each area who take care of reboots, in this way there would be more order and not abuse of the system.
Hey, I will keep the pattern of @Azhreia
Support used once, but not responsive enough for this. VGs are by far the most efficient way to get an answer.
I (too often) asked to put back the portal (resonator + mod) and the links which held fields.
I ask punctually. It is very painful to do the same when the cheater can repeat accounts over and over again.
On average, it's a week. Officers can understand that fighting cheaters can be tough. But you should also know that following a cheating attack that breaks a field, seeing links make ... it's very frustrating, many agents left the game.
Personally: I'm an optimist, but cheaters are slowly killing Ingress. Too often I have the comments "unnecessary report" "he will redo other accounts" . Community: RES or ENL, cheaters **** us off. I would like a much heavier sanction on them or a faster reaction from Niantic.
Thanks to the VGs, the support and all the little hands,
Shooters42
I've had to request resets several times, sometimes starting with the form, sometimes starting with a vanguard, always eventually involving a vanguard (thank you all so very much!!!).
When I do request a reset, it's generally on portals that are considered "urban remote" (by which I usually mean portals in areas that are gated and closed for the season/indefinitely due to Covid, on islands without regular ferry service, in secure areas of military basis not accessible with ordinary military credentials, etc). When I do request a reset, it's generally to wipe activity caused by the spoofer - e.g., when they linked/fielded from completely inaccessible portals. These are fairly straght-forward to get through the restore process because there can be no intervening activity to make the reset harder. I typically do not bother requesting a reset if the portal was previously owned by me/my faction/a legitimate agent as we can either figure out a way to get back there or work around the spoof - and if we don't do that the odds are highly likely that unconnected play will block up the lanes before we get a chance to restore anything.
Because I know how taxing this process is on VGs, I try as much as possible to avoid requesting a reset until we've exhausted all other possible options. Spoof reports are quite common, but I've only been directly involved in reset requests a small number of times (maybe 3-4 total).
I know from many conversations with VGs what is eligible for reset and my requests have always been restored as requested within a few days as expected, though that is never a complete undoing of the harm caused by the spoofer.
Resets are incredibly valuable and important to reduce the harmful impact spoofers have on the game, prevent legitimate agents from getting so frustrated they withdraw entirely, and as a small but meaningful deterrent to would-be spoofers who know their impact isn't permanent. The work that both VGs and Niantic do to implement restores is very much appreciated.
But... (you knew there was going to be a but)... they are far too slow and limited to completely negate the harm that spoofers cause. Restores can address many of the high-profile cases that undermine large operations or long-term durables, but the average agent in my community isn't concerned with that. They are concerned with the local spoofers that impact them or their friends personally. It's hard to even get those kinds of spoofers banned, and even if you did the activity would not be eligible for a restore. But the damage from these "small time spoofers" is real, and over time it tends to drive agents away from the game.
Please be honest but respectful in your criticism. Suggest improvements.
This is a pretty radical proposal and is sure to earn me a large number of disagrees, but I really think that Niantic should evaluate whether the kinds of portals that tend to be eligible for resets actually should exist at all in the game. A portal is supposed to be eligible for reset if no legitimate agent is able to reclaim the portal within a reasonable amount of time. While these durable portals can be anchors for some of the exciting ops that have given us some legendary stories, they are more often used to prevent those kinds of ops than they are to create them. And in the event they are used as anchors for big ops, those ops themselves become spoofer bait because nobody (on either faction) really wants to be under a large field for an extended period of time. If real agents can't go and reclaim a portal within a few days, maybe it shouldn't actually be a portal.
Along with that, Niantic could/should look more carefully at urban spoofing - breeding grounds for bots that will later go on to do damaging things, or become gear-sellers. Although it's become less prevalent, I used to see a bevy of accounts ever week spoof leveling on portal dense spots around town. In the days of TRv1 I would report these and usually get them banned. They no longer get actioned at all. I don't especially care if some low-level account captures portals that I can easily go and wipe and reclaim, but I care very much what happens next with that account, and Niantic should too.
All of them.
The portals I appealed for were not eligible for being restored, I rely on reso wipe.
I always ask for resets in terms of clearing fake accounts' resos.
It took several days for having the resos cleared. Most of the time we clear by ourselves, it's faster.
It doesn't impact me personally (only thanks to my mindset though...), but it dangerously affect the community and most of the time it results in players' frustration. Worst case scenario, regular players decide to respond by cheating as well, as they feel Niantic doesn't put enough effort in stopping inappropriate gameplay. In many cases, they quit. The worst aspect is that cheating will impact good players the most, because they are those who fight teeth and nails every day and see everything taken down in seconds by a cheater.
Contacted a vanguard for portal reset after spoofer was banned via TR bot
Requested restore of a difficult-to-get-to portal in the middle of the wilderness. Only requested a resonator restore. Portal was strategically capped at a certain time of year (before flash flood season).
Just once.
I was told the reset request would likely take over 3 days to process. Another community had an op planned using that portal before the reset would be processed so they sent an agent to recap it.
Our community was obviously bummed by the spoofing since the portal is difficult to get to (and dangerous to travel to during the time of year the spoofing happened). The vanguard was very kind and placed the reset request almost immediately after being contacted. It was TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE that the reset would take so long on Niantic's end. We were overjoyed by the quick response time of the TR system and the vanguard, but Niantic once again succeeded at showing our community that we take a backseat (heck, not even in the vehicle) to whatever delusions they have.
A "simple fix" to this would be to immediately/automatically process reset requests when the vanguard sends them in. edit: This spoofing event was *a while* ago so some of these fixes may have already been implemented on Niantic's end.
VG have been great. Reporting through trusted people has worked for me.
Spoffing has reduced. 5 times in 1 week was worst. Remote portals.
Resets helps !! Slowed it down. loss of keys and vr gear has been a help for the need not to relink..
Only problem is when portal is spoffed blocking links are put in and then can't be restored as before.
Can we have a niantic super link that dissolves anything that is in the way to restore as it was?
Some of these links take a lot of timing and work to do, accoss countries.
Keep improving, it's getting there.
I have used the reset program way more often then i would like to have to. Most times with MONTHS of wait.
I'm still waiting for a portal to be reseted from a spoofer attack in MAY and yet nothing has been done but ban the spoofer. This is a Win for cheaters.
(Yes, i made the report, filled the form asking for reset and even talked to 2 Vanguards, one told me nothing could be done the other just plain ignored me).@NianticThia @NianticBrian @Azhreia
And this is a portal that has been reseted several times already, so nothing changed for it not be reseted this time around.
The program, imho, is vey necessary but need major improvements.
Still waiting for the reset to come through.
I usually submit ticket, fill out fast track and reach out to VG. Occasionally VG contacts me if it's not super urgent restore request
Almost exclusively restores from spoofing incidents.
Too often for the game. as @iBotPeaches mentioned, now bigger team of agents helping with the requests, so i personally do less, but overall the amount of request has increased.
Biggest issue is speed for not getting things reset. After spoof we usually see blocking links out in the lanes that we held, which then restricts the restore and hard lanes being protected again that agents spent time and money capturing. Sometimes it feels like spoofing faction wins because they get blockers in time and we get nothing, even the portal is being restored.
Community impact is bad overall. It really splits faction relationship to the point where everyone is point fingers and yelling about cheating. In our area, we have non-stop spoofing on one hard opponent anchor. It takes away joy of competitive play as every effort is tainted by the spoofing.
Personally i had fields (city covers) that were stopped in the middle of the the throw because spoofer killed a single resonator of an anchor. Fields (multi million MU/layer) taken down by spoofers from hard anchors. Personal portals killed because ... who the hell knows. Hard portals killed in remote areas (thankfully restore helps there).
One suggestion I'd love to see is rapid response team creation that could make decisions in minutes. For BAF gameplay it would be lovely to have such team available in case anchor is spoofed or spoofed blocker appears. Quick resolution of such items would help community to come out with expected result rather than spending months or planning, hours of driving, dollars in expenses for a big field just to be taken down by spoofer from a couch. Rapid response would really minimize impact of spoofing at the critical gameplay moments
In the end, restore program really helped in fight with spoofing and made my gameplay more enjoyable. Kudos to all vanguards that helped me in the past and continuing to help in the future. You guys are the rockstars!
I'm not a fan of the current system, but I do see that the current system has been a step-up from not having a system before. However; Resets take too long, there's no transparency of the ticket process, nor any confirmed outcome. There's a lack of any 'pro-active' actions against shady accounts, and the systems that are in place prevent gameplay of legit players (inability to **** a long link from remote portals, to name an example). In essence, there hasn't been much improvement since the current system was implemented.
I feel that the main issue is that players are kept in the dark. It's all hush-hush hidden behind pages of NDA. Are 'Trusted Reporters' still a thing? Is the lack of improvement a result of Niantic not listening, or not caring, or having other priorities? Or is it because Vanguards are not able to forward or request Niantic to take action on matters? Have Vanguards become an extention of Niantic, looking at their current tasks and inability to share details because of the NDA?
I'm aware that this topic is an effort made by Vanguards to make Niantic aware of what should already be a priority for them. It's no secret that 'spoofing' and 'botting' and 'multiaccounting' and many of the other things on the list of 'things not to do' is happening all around Niantics' games. By making more effort to counter this, by making it a priority and really invest resources into 'fair play', you can not only make Ingress but all games more fair and fun.
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Which method you used to request the reset (Support ticket, fast-track form, contact VG, etc)?
All methods available to me.Creating tickets, using the fast-track form, using the fast-track 'Trusted Reporter' bot system on which the current ticket system is based, contacting Vanguards directly, and even sharing details on the community forums.
What you requested for restore/removal? You can generalise here or be specific.
All types of portals; from the many remote strategic portals to limited access (company grounds, seasonal, etc) portals. The amount of tickets differ per day/week, but can be as low as 1 per week, or as many as 8 per day (not exaggerated).
How often you've had to request resets? Was it a once-off event or do you require resets more often?
Usually portals that contain a lot of links and/or fields are the target of spoofing. The more remote and strategic the portal, the more often is happens. Countless reports and resets I've been part of; they have been to many to count, even if I tried I couldn't tell you.
How soon were those resets processed and was everything restored as requested? If not, please add why not.
I've seen resets that take only a few days to complete, while others can take weeks. The reason behind the delay is simple; resets are only run on 'confirmed' data. By that I mean that first the Vanguards have to verify if links/fields were really there before the portal was spoofed, based on screenshots and drawtools-exports that player share with them. To keep each faction fair, the other faction is asked to confirm, before a reset is run.
This is manual process, and takes time!
Time is unfortunately the enemy of the process; the longer the reset waits, the less likely it is to get all links restored. The reset process is bound by the same rules we have as players: Links are not allowed to cross others. If a link has been created that crosses the links that are scheduled to be restored, then those links won't be restored. It doesn't matter who creates them; could be the same/different spoofer, or a legit player that wasn't aware of the spoofed portal and decided to randomly link across the 'open' area.
Years ago it was already requested to automate more of the reset process. I don't understand why this hasn't happened yet, and what is preventing it.
How did the spoofing and the restore impact you? Either personally, or your community?
Simply said: Reporting is a timesink, and the results will not be equal to the prior situation.
Link lanes become blocked by crosslink(s), and missing MU from the time from reporting to resetting is not being reimbursed.
Spoofing as well as other cheating unfortunately is a viable tactic in this game, as well as in Niantics' other games. The results outway the risks and downsides.
It's to darn simple to create a second (third, fourth, w/e) account on a phone with 'enhanced functionality' to allow players to for example use a joystick to move around while having a birds eye view.
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I'm disappointed most of the questions are about 'resetting' the portal, while avoiding the rest of the chain.
In many cases the only reason why resets work is because of the effort players themselves put into it. With (Gentlemens') agreements between players/factions most of the lanes stay open after a spoof, making it possible to have links/fields restored. If such agreements didn't exist, the game would be unplayable, for both factions.
There is a current decline of players willing to submit tickets, as submitting each ticket takes time, while the outcome is mostly negative (unchanging).
For a point of reference, I've been involved in reporting spoofers since late 2013, I've done it through standard reports, contacting people at niantic directly, trusted reporters, vanguards, fast track, spreadsheets, google forms, etc. The biggest issue all of the programs have ever had is... it's so slow it STILL rewards the spoofers. That said-- I'll directly address the questions above.
We normally fill out a support ticket for every instance, the current support system does NOT always give a ticket number to your email which is a huge problem for tracking instances over time. We typically then fast track any eligible portals (which make up about 50% of the spoofing instances we see.) When a restore is necessary we typically then use the forms/spreadsheets/contact a vanguard to engage in that process.
We we requested a restore/removal typically we want resonators, mods, and links restored/removed. Mostly islands, mountain tops, bgan only, etc.
We have had this occur as often as several times a day and as infrequently as once a week. We've had the same portal reset now almost every few days for over a month.
The resets/removals are generally processed within a couple days. What fails to get reset are links that have since been blocked by game play after the spoofing incident.
It has resulted in multiple groups dedicated to tracking the spoofing across 6 cells roughly, it has cost people tends of thousands of dollars in gas, bgan expenses, time, and burns people out... makes them feel every action they take is pointless. It discourages gameplay or large operations that involve a lot of people because "why bother, it'll be spoofed down." It has resulted in decreased gameplay, decreased community and cooperation, and decreased player numbers on both teams. I am aware of people in both factions who have quit due to spoofing. It actively causes fraction tensions and bitterness between the factions and can lead to cheating escalation and justification. If it weren't for restorations/removals I doubt there would be enough people left in the local community for the game to continue... People get very frustrated by their time, money, and investment being thrown away to someone investing <15m to cheat.
Suggestions (includes one for spoofing in general, but this includes and ties into my recommendations for restores/removals)--
1) The automated processes/initial review is too poor at catching instances of spoofing.
Why is a newly created account, moving faster than a commercial jet can fly (>700mph/1130kph), knocking down multiple huge fields across multiple countries allowed to persist?
Why is it not automatically banned?
Why does a basic report not trigger a VERY basic automatic sanity check on the movement and ban then if its impossible?
Why do fast tracks (assumption of a human looking at data) on the same data STILL fail sometimes?
Why is urban spoofing being allowed without an effective recourse, we know the last 10 accounts were leveled here... using same portals, why can't we get it eliminated BEFORE it spoofs things that need restored? Urban is how accounts are leveled FOR fast track eligible spoofing... and a LOT of it at this point is so predictable and consistent it's likely automated in some way.
2) Restores/Removals for accounts banned for spoofing should be automatic and immediate and should occur 100% of the time on all spoofing incidents.
This removes most of the incentives for spoofing.
3) Allow link crossing on restorations.
Again this removes incentive (prevents some issues destroying links that block, better they cross than destroy.) This will help prevent people from spoofing an anchor to throw a blocking link (something we see frequently to drop fields they want out of the way.) We've seen an anchor spoofed and <1m till there are multiple coordinated blocks thrown.
4) Baring everything prior suggestion wise... we NEED restores/removals done much more rapidly and actual investigations to enable the restore/removal done more accurately and rapidly to mitigate on going damage. The process needs to be more automated and automatic, there aren't enough vanguards and niantic employees available for that work load.
That all said, I have nothing but respect for the the TRs that used to, niantic employees, & vanguards, and everyone else involved in keeping the game legit and fun who have helped mitigate the damage of cheaters. The community appreciates the time, energy, and money you spend.
Spoofing isn't really resistance vs enlightened, it's niantic vs spoofers, and really needs addressed by everyone as such... it harms both teams communities dramatically.
Metod :
Fast-track and contact VG
Request:
Restore spoofed portal and links/fields
How often:
When needed
How soon request processed:
Pretty fast after the request is escalated to OPS and contact with VG
Impact
Its always sad when spoofing is happening. We have a difficult topology in Norway and everything takes alaot of time and usually a bit of money to travel . The communtity is uasally in pitchfork mode when spoofing occures