I think that the reset program is a good thing. It seems like it should disincentivize spoofers because they don't get to win through cheating.
Which method you used to request the reset (Support ticket, fast-track form, contact VG, etc),
--> I have done support ticket both with and without fast-track. Either way, it is unusual for any action to happen without following up with a vanguard, for which I will always be grateful.
What you requested for restore/removal? You can generalise here or be specific.
--> I have requested restoration of portals to their original configuration as well as restoration of links.
How often you've had to request resets? Was it a once-off event or do you require resets more often?
--> I request resets a few times a year.
How soon were those resets processed and was everything restored as requested? If not, please add why not.
--> When working with the vanguard, I have been delighted by how quickly the restoration is accomplished.
How did the spoofing and the restore impact you? Either personally, or your community?
--> Spoofing affects all aspects of play - why bother doing a big thing as a community of players if some cheater tears it down without consequence? It's a good thing to have cheaters not prosper :-). I think it is telling that there are special channels set up for agents to collaborate both within their faction as well as x-fac to bring the spoofers down. It's a side of the game that I hadn't anticipated when I started playing, but I think bringing spoofers down improves morale for all players. Except the spoofer, perhaps. The restore made me feel like anti-spoofer measures have meaning. Without the restore, a spoofer can spin up or buy a burner account to take out a field and they would win through cheating, at some level.
Please be honest but respectful in your criticism. Suggest improvements.
--> for improvements, I suggest creating a technical exception for "override links" - that don't require the lane to be clear, allows the portal reset to happen without requiring extraordinary effort to clear new blockers, and allows the resulting field(s) to be re-established. Crazy, I know, but totally worth it.
Absolutely agreed on the last paragraph. Regardless of if intentional or not, blockers thrown in the way of a taken down link are usually done with the purpose of preventing the spoofed down link from returning, giving a much more real and tangible weight to the power of spoofing. If you want to be the person who takes a BAF down, having someone else spoof it, then throwing a few micro blockers, will do the trick, and that should not stay the case.
The post is really only to thank the people that were involved in restores I have submitted. Particularly the Vanguards who have assisted me. Every Vanguard from both factions that I have interacted with have been professional and efficient. It isn't a paid position, they have real lives, and could be out capping portals rather than trying to get my pet portal restored. I appreciate you and what you are doing.
Which method you used to request the reset (Support ticket, fast-track form, contact VG, etc): Wrote up the incident with all supporting evidence then submitted via the App>Contact Us. Once I had a ticket number I filled out the fast-track form and repeated for the other portals. Once done I also let the community know they were submitted. Usually this information is then passed on a few Vanguards if they are available.
What you requested for restore/removal? You can generalize here or be specific: The latest was 3 hiking portals, 16 links representing 26 miles of hiking, at least 18 hours of driving, multiple weekends.
How often you've had to request resets? Was it a once-off event or do you require resets more often? Usually they are not a one time situation: It will happen again. Other hiking portals have been spoofed and restored but in most cases the lanes are clogged so there are no links restored. I have also had hiking portal spoofed that was not restored. I report spoofing accounts from both factions. They don't have a faction so you report them.
How soon were those resets processed and was everything restored as requested? If not, please add why not: It seems like forever. Sometimes it is 11 days, other times it is within two days. Sometimes only the portal is restored, other times portals and links. Sometimes there is not enough evidence. Waiting without a conclusive answer is the worst part.
How did the spoofing and the restore impact you? Either personally, or your community: Personally, I get to hike something new, rather than repeat something I have already done. It represented a significant investment of time and money. Mostly time, there are only so many hiking days until you die. Much of the community doesn't even know other than the scoreboard changed, the sky is a different color, or I can link.
This game rocks, I have visited so many places that I would not have visited because there is a man made object out there in the desert, in the jungle, or up on that peak. Cheers.
We have a problem with a relentless, persistent spoofer with multiple accounts in AM01-MIKE-01, which renders the game unplayable in large sections of southern New Hampshire and adjacent Massachusetts.
This is the typical response:
Trusted Reporters have reviewed your report. However, we have decided not to escalate your incident at this time. Please submit a ticket via https://ingress.com/support if you feel the incident requires further review. For your records, we will record this as report number #ETR_2020_1696 #ETR_2020_1695 #ETR_2020_1694.
ENL and RES players have teamed to document specific incidents of spoofing, including photographing the location, documenting presence at the portal with a timestamp of activity at that location, and Niantic consistently ignores reported spoofing incidents.
Hi @MeekayCat the TR program has been phased out for over two years already.
For support tickets though, less is more. Just report the current incident, provide the portal link, timestamp with timezone and if you want, a brief description of why that is considered spoofing. Walls of text or long documents are really not needed for these kind of tickets.
If the portal affected is a durable or remote portal, you can request fast-track via the link on the support ticket.
For this testimonial call though, I'm looking for experiences with the reset program itself.
Which method you used to request the reset (Support ticket, fast-track form, contact VG, etc),
Was using support ticket + fast track, not effective. Contacting VG is the way for me.
What you requested for restore/removal? You can generalize here or be specific.
Almost always i request restore after a spoofer actions.
How often you've had to request resets? Was it a once-off event or do you require resets more often?
I may not need anything for months and then i may need help 3 times for a week or something, depends generally on spoofer actions.
How soon were those resets processed and was everything restored as requested? If not, please add why not.
Until recently I had no hope in the reset program since i sent multiple reports for obvious spoofers along with fast track requests and days could go until something is done. Until there, a lot more damage was done by spoofers and i have to write reports again and it all becomes a mess.
I contacted a vanguard personally and thins started happening more adequate and faster. Usually in a matter of 1 - 3 days.
How did the spoofing and the restore impact you? Either personally, or your community?
Unfortunately this is a major issue. Even with the reset in place, when there is a spoofer actions, block links may appear during the restore time and it again becomes a mess. A lot of players actually quit because of this. People are spending a lot of time and money and it all goes down in minutes.
As a suggestion, its 2021, manual work should be at minimum. What i mean is that the spoofer detection program should be improved, a lot. I saw accounts spoofing for years and as long as im concern, if they dont do something massive and being reported, they can live for years. Its not normal for someone to cross the country in 30 minutes and everything to be okay with it. The system should ban it immediately. I play games a lot, they dont care if you are a payer, if you cheat you are being banned and not just banned but by mail,ip,device etc... Nia should step up their game and not be that much tolerant.
Actually i do write tickets for years and unless vanguard interferes, its totally unreliable. Im making effort to describe everything by details with super obvious time ... literally after minutes i receive answer that they reviewed it and actions were taken, but actually nothing is done. Sometimes i get answer literally after seconds and this is the experience with literally everybody. It looks like a joke to the community. I dont know how NIA is still doing this, people everywhere are complaining about it since few years now ....
Im not sure how much can you improve the reset program itself since people are trying to do what they can, but it tooks a lot of time while the spoofer continues. Maybe the critical issue here is that a spoofer can be banned and with all the AP bonus items they can level another one literally in minutes and start again. There is no tool for banning by device, ip or whatever. Someone can spoof as long as they have the will for it while it destroys the will for play to everyone else which creates a toxic community for the game.
As last thing, maybe VG should have direct access to the restore program, not just being messengers. Things will go way way faster and accurate this way.
An update to my earlier post about my reset program experience. The Level 3 spoof account that I reported through the form, that took out two P8's in a currently restricted access area, was banned, but the portals were not restored to P8's. I received no contact from anyone about the account or the portals. I only found out by trying to look at the profile of the spoof account.
While it's great the spoof account was banned, not restoring the portals on restricted areas shows they can just create more spoof accounts or continue to trespass without repercussions. And they did. After those two attacks, a third agent came and destroyed more P8's.
Since they have now seen that the portals won't get restored, I feel like they will continue to trespass or spoof until all the P8's are gone, so I didn't report them and have decided to just let all the remaining portals die off. It's been a good run, but a few have spoiled the game. I've canceled my CORE sub, but will try and continue with microfielding and doing missions, instead of the strategy of building layers and large fields, which I found much more interesting and creative.
I brought this up in a local xfac telegram and even in a regional chat there were lots of views on what is considered trespassing and whether or not it's acceptable for a mobile game, so I can't imagine how complex these reports are to manage on a worldwide scale. Thanks for listening and asking for feedback, and good luck with improving the system.
Yes. I requested a reset of the first two pairs of portals (first 2 from the trespasser, second 2 from the spoofer) through the fast track form, and none of them were reset. I filled out the support ticket and fast track forms the day off the attacks, and waited six days before doing any action on the portals to recover what was left of them.
I didn't know about any of the timing of the resets or how long the investigations take, so it might be worth noting that on the form. Also, if they're only going to reset portals that are super-remote and anchor big fields, then why list all the other options in the form? From this thread is seems like they are very selective in the portals that are actually reset since it's such a difficult manual process to do so.
The options on the form are to evaluate whether the ticket should be fast-tracked or not. Ops may not fast-track all requests.
We only get reset requests forwarded to us (VG) IF the ticket is fast-tracked and the account is banned.
It does sound like these portals were accessible to you and easily recaptured, thus would not qualify for reset. Your assumption is correct though, we only reset remote/strategic/difficult to recapture portals. It is a manual process.
They were easy to recapture for me, but only as level 6 portals. They were originally level 8 portals (created before the area became restricted due to covid) and the whole purpose of the attacks were to remove the level 8's. The area is still restricted to the public due to covid, so other enl agents can't legitimately bump them back to 8's.
But it's a moot point for me now. In order to prevent additional trespassing we let all the remaining portals die off. I was more concerned about continued trespassing than having a bunch of level 8 portals, since they lacked respect for real life location rules, weren't dissuaded from trespassing, and were good at alluding the local security when they were called.
And it's not a case of "hiring a proper programmer", it's a question of time and resources from a small team that has other more-pressing priorities. Ignoring blockers for restored links is a faster fix that they were able to fit in before year-end, and it's still a big win in the fight against spoofer interference.
I would like to share some feedback from me regarding the recent change in the reset process that allows restored links to cross existing links.
There have been a couple of resets logged since then that made good use of the new functionality. Situations where portals holding links were spoofed and subsequently blocked (some blockers were thrown not even an hour after the portals were spoofed), by both legit players and further spoofing.
It has been a pleasure to see those links restored, despite the blockers that went up. This change means that we will no longer be delayed by blockers, and blocking links that were spoofed up can be taken down after the links have been restored. It also allowed local agents an easier time to remove cross links as they are no longer pressed to get this done before a restore is run.
While these are still early days into the new process, I can honestly say it's been heartening to see that blockers, legit or otherwise, will no longer hamper a restore. 💙💚
I'm glad that's going to happen, so it does away with the excuse if some other link appeared accidentally (avoiding playing ADA or Jarvis in the source or destination portal) or if it was done on purpose.
one suggestion I make is that, when banning a spoofer account, all actions that that banned account has done in the game are remade in the way they were before the cheat happened, no matter if the destroyed portals are easy to access or difficult access and in case any other player has captured portals destroyed by spoofer, the items used by this agent will return to him when the portal is reset to the original configuration before the action made through cheating.
So it helps to inhibit the continued creation of spoofers, as in the region I play more spoofers than legitimate players have come since 2016.
Comments
I think that the reset program is a good thing. It seems like it should disincentivize spoofers because they don't get to win through cheating.
Please be honest but respectful in your criticism. Suggest improvements.
--> for improvements, I suggest creating a technical exception for "override links" - that don't require the lane to be clear, allows the portal reset to happen without requiring extraordinary effort to clear new blockers, and allows the resulting field(s) to be re-established. Crazy, I know, but totally worth it.
Absolutely agreed on the last paragraph. Regardless of if intentional or not, blockers thrown in the way of a taken down link are usually done with the purpose of preventing the spoofed down link from returning, giving a much more real and tangible weight to the power of spoofing. If you want to be the person who takes a BAF down, having someone else spoof it, then throwing a few micro blockers, will do the trick, and that should not stay the case.
The post is really only to thank the people that were involved in restores I have submitted. Particularly the Vanguards who have assisted me. Every Vanguard from both factions that I have interacted with have been professional and efficient. It isn't a paid position, they have real lives, and could be out capping portals rather than trying to get my pet portal restored. I appreciate you and what you are doing.
This game rocks, I have visited so many places that I would not have visited because there is a man made object out there in the desert, in the jungle, or up on that peak. Cheers.
Hello, @Azhreia! Thank you very much for your really amazing job at battle against spoofers.
I've asked several resets, some of them were approved
We have a problem with a relentless, persistent spoofer with multiple accounts in AM01-MIKE-01, which renders the game unplayable in large sections of southern New Hampshire and adjacent Massachusetts.
This is the typical response:
Trusted Reporters have reviewed your report. However, we have decided not to escalate your incident at this time. Please submit a ticket via https://ingress.com/support if you feel the incident requires further review. For your records, we will record this as report number #ETR_2020_1696 #ETR_2020_1695 #ETR_2020_1694.
ENL and RES players have teamed to document specific incidents of spoofing, including photographing the location, documenting presence at the portal with a timestamp of activity at that location, and Niantic consistently ignores reported spoofing incidents.
Get serious.
Hi @MeekayCat the TR program has been phased out for over two years already.
For support tickets though, less is more. Just report the current incident, provide the portal link, timestamp with timezone and if you want, a brief description of why that is considered spoofing. Walls of text or long documents are really not needed for these kind of tickets.
If the portal affected is a durable or remote portal, you can request fast-track via the link on the support ticket.
For this testimonial call though, I'm looking for experiences with the reset program itself.
Let me answer in the same order
Was using support ticket + fast track, not effective. Contacting VG is the way for me.
Almost always i request restore after a spoofer actions.
I may not need anything for months and then i may need help 3 times for a week or something, depends generally on spoofer actions.
Until recently I had no hope in the reset program since i sent multiple reports for obvious spoofers along with fast track requests and days could go until something is done. Until there, a lot more damage was done by spoofers and i have to write reports again and it all becomes a mess.
I contacted a vanguard personally and thins started happening more adequate and faster. Usually in a matter of 1 - 3 days.
Unfortunately this is a major issue. Even with the reset in place, when there is a spoofer actions, block links may appear during the restore time and it again becomes a mess. A lot of players actually quit because of this. People are spending a lot of time and money and it all goes down in minutes.
As a suggestion, its 2021, manual work should be at minimum. What i mean is that the spoofer detection program should be improved, a lot. I saw accounts spoofing for years and as long as im concern, if they dont do something massive and being reported, they can live for years. Its not normal for someone to cross the country in 30 minutes and everything to be okay with it. The system should ban it immediately. I play games a lot, they dont care if you are a payer, if you cheat you are being banned and not just banned but by mail,ip,device etc... Nia should step up their game and not be that much tolerant.
Actually i do write tickets for years and unless vanguard interferes, its totally unreliable. Im making effort to describe everything by details with super obvious time ... literally after minutes i receive answer that they reviewed it and actions were taken, but actually nothing is done. Sometimes i get answer literally after seconds and this is the experience with literally everybody. It looks like a joke to the community. I dont know how NIA is still doing this, people everywhere are complaining about it since few years now ....
Im not sure how much can you improve the reset program itself since people are trying to do what they can, but it tooks a lot of time while the spoofer continues. Maybe the critical issue here is that a spoofer can be banned and with all the AP bonus items they can level another one literally in minutes and start again. There is no tool for banning by device, ip or whatever. Someone can spoof as long as they have the will for it while it destroys the will for play to everyone else which creates a toxic community for the game.
As last thing, maybe VG should have direct access to the restore program, not just being messengers. Things will go way way faster and accurate this way.
One clear thing from all of the replies, the normal ticket system appears to be a complete waste of keystrokes.
An update to my earlier post about my reset program experience. The Level 3 spoof account that I reported through the form, that took out two P8's in a currently restricted access area, was banned, but the portals were not restored to P8's. I received no contact from anyone about the account or the portals. I only found out by trying to look at the profile of the spoof account.
While it's great the spoof account was banned, not restoring the portals on restricted areas shows they can just create more spoof accounts or continue to trespass without repercussions. And they did. After those two attacks, a third agent came and destroyed more P8's.
Since they have now seen that the portals won't get restored, I feel like they will continue to trespass or spoof until all the P8's are gone, so I didn't report them and have decided to just let all the remaining portals die off. It's been a good run, but a few have spoiled the game. I've canceled my CORE sub, but will try and continue with microfielding and doing missions, instead of the strategy of building layers and large fields, which I found much more interesting and creative.
I brought this up in a local xfac telegram and even in a regional chat there were lots of views on what is considered trespassing and whether or not it's acceptable for a mobile game, so I can't imagine how complex these reports are to manage on a worldwide scale. Thanks for listening and asking for feedback, and good luck with improving the system.
Did you request a reset? Resets are only run twice a week.
Yes. I requested a reset of the first two pairs of portals (first 2 from the trespasser, second 2 from the spoofer) through the fast track form, and none of them were reset. I filled out the support ticket and fast track forms the day off the attacks, and waited six days before doing any action on the portals to recover what was left of them.
I didn't know about any of the timing of the resets or how long the investigations take, so it might be worth noting that on the form. Also, if they're only going to reset portals that are super-remote and anchor big fields, then why list all the other options in the form? From this thread is seems like they are very selective in the portals that are actually reset since it's such a difficult manual process to do so.
The options on the form are to evaluate whether the ticket should be fast-tracked or not. Ops may not fast-track all requests.
We only get reset requests forwarded to us (VG) IF the ticket is fast-tracked and the account is banned.
It does sound like these portals were accessible to you and easily recaptured, thus would not qualify for reset. Your assumption is correct though, we only reset remote/strategic/difficult to recapture portals. It is a manual process.
They were easy to recapture for me, but only as level 6 portals. They were originally level 8 portals (created before the area became restricted due to covid) and the whole purpose of the attacks were to remove the level 8's. The area is still restricted to the public due to covid, so other enl agents can't legitimately bump them back to 8's.
But it's a moot point for me now. In order to prevent additional trespassing we let all the remaining portals die off. I was more concerned about continued trespassing than having a bunch of level 8 portals, since they lacked respect for real life location rules, weren't dissuaded from trespassing, and were good at alluding the local security when they were called.
Restores can now cross blockers! Whoot.
Yeah, I don't think they though about it properly. I expect the ghost links to be removed after the restore since they would block new legit links.
It must be really hard to get a proper fix to the issue or really expensive to hire a proper programmer.
They are not ghost links though...
And it's not a case of "hiring a proper programmer", it's a question of time and resources from a small team that has other more-pressing priorities. Ignoring blockers for restored links is a faster fix that they were able to fit in before year-end, and it's still a big win in the fight against spoofer interference.
I would like to share some feedback from me regarding the recent change in the reset process that allows restored links to cross existing links.
There have been a couple of resets logged since then that made good use of the new functionality. Situations where portals holding links were spoofed and subsequently blocked (some blockers were thrown not even an hour after the portals were spoofed), by both legit players and further spoofing.
It has been a pleasure to see those links restored, despite the blockers that went up. This change means that we will no longer be delayed by blockers, and blocking links that were spoofed up can be taken down after the links have been restored. It also allowed local agents an easier time to remove cross links as they are no longer pressed to get this done before a restore is run.
While these are still early days into the new process, I can honestly say it's been heartening to see that blockers, legit or otherwise, will no longer hamper a restore. 💙💚
excellent news. congratulations NIA OPS. congratulations dedicated VGs
I'm glad that's going to happen, so it does away with the excuse if some other link appeared accidentally (avoiding playing ADA or Jarvis in the source or destination portal) or if it was done on purpose.
one suggestion I make is that, when banning a spoofer account, all actions that that banned account has done in the game are remade in the way they were before the cheat happened, no matter if the destroyed portals are easy to access or difficult access and in case any other player has captured portals destroyed by spoofer, the items used by this agent will return to him when the portal is reset to the original configuration before the action made through cheating.
So it helps to inhibit the continued creation of spoofers, as in the region I play more spoofers than legitimate players have come since 2016.
Unfortunately that won't be possible. Niantic doesn't store portal history. It would be great to have that though.