Phone rockers.
So - you can buy a phone rocker on Ebay for under $20 to simulate steps for Pokemon or Kinetic caps in Ingress.
Any chance Niantic can see the cadence / timing of steps and just suspend any suspicious step counts/and/or ban the accounts?
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What would be considered as "suspicious" with steps? The only thing that Niantic grabs is the distance and steps from the fitness app.
Defits more common for Android, literally inputs distance into Google fit for you
Doubt they ever will, because apparently checking for players above 50,000 KM walked is hard...
The only thing i can imagine is checking "distance walked" per week/month isn't it absurdingly high,and if yes checking other activity pattern(eg player opens scanner from one location and one wifi,but in the gaps gets enough "walked" distance).
So i doubt this case will ever be fixed. Introduction of adventure sync negotiated Trekker medal at all.
So, you cant detect each steps basically perfectly timed? It just gives a total distance?
Well that sucks.
Treadmills exist and work with Adventure Sync.
Apart from an insane amount of distance, there isn't anything telling about the data that Niantic can see.
People doing 240km per day every single day should be banned, but that would only make people figure out how much they can push it before being banned and keep to those numbers.
Why you buy? you can get it from play store. Niantic grabs the distance and steps from the fitness app. And this app, work to deceive fitness app. I founded many new account get trekker onyx 3 time or more. And many suspect the backpack account (level 8 but just trekker onyx 3 times or more).
Add another factor to the KC, hack 3 portals.
Ie you won't be able to open it unless you have hacked hacked 3 different portals
I use a treadmill when I work from home. Works well with adventure sync when I actually use it. When you leave your phone on your desk, and walk a few miles at lunchtime on the treadmill....doh!
That could su ck if you aren't around portals, but walking. If I finish up multiple capsules walking around at work, I can't open them to go somewhere else to hack some portals?
Indeed,
However it does help prevent cheating.
Which is super bad in the other game.
I too complete multiple KCs each day just from walking around at work.
There is unfortunately no method that benefits both players and Ingress, while preventing cheating.
Cheating is super bad in the other game because they let it happen. They don't seem to do much to stop cheating in that other game where the cash machine goes brrrrrrt.
If I have to stop and go find portals each time kcaps complete, it would cause them to start to lose value. I often complete them when I'm not around portals. But if I have to gear to reload them, I reload them when they complete. Adding portal hacks to it, seems like it wouldn't do much for most users other than to annoy them further.
You haven't suggested a viable alternative.
The devs in the other game letting players cheat, when the same method will work equally as well, spin a few spots.
I know it is annoying, it would annoy me a lot, as I am in the same boat, but it is the simplest method. Make the effort, walk to a couple of spots and hack a few times to release the crafted gear, is within the framework Niantic wants players to do in any game
It currently works as is.
Cheaters gonna cheat. Don't punish those who play correctly because some want to cheat.
"Players should be punished because people cheat."
I don't have to offer a viable alternative to know yours is bad.
And the status quo is worse...
If you think so.
I've also seen accounts that are barely or just L8 and already own the onyx trekker badge (that is over 2500km walked); I don't even want to know how high that number actually goes (because of course the first thing these accounts do is make their profiles private) and how many kinetic capsules were abused. The only way I found out that account was attacking a known multi-accounter's home and I think in the heat of things he opened up the wrong account to deploy resonators and I took note of the codenames. Otherwise those would have been nearly impossible to detect since those bots leave zero traces behind. Who knows how many unseen accounts are still there cranking out gears 24/7 without being detected/banned at all.
Yep those should be autoban.
Accounts that have trekker that aren't L8. Depends on how old the account is. I've seen those recently since we've gotten Adventure sync. Some people walk a ton. Look at the WWIC contest results to see that. Some crazy people walked more than 1,000+ km in a month. If you have a job working at a retail shop, its very easy to walk a ton daily. When I worked in retail in College, I walked more than 20k steps every day I worked. A friend of mine, who is a FitBit friend, works at Rural King (farm supply store semi like Walmart) and she puts in up to 30k steps daily when she works. It's possible for the Onyx and a low level. I constantly see new accounts start playing in comms, but never make it past L1. Mostly PoGo people looking or maybe just bots, or alt accounts or spoofers. Who knows (Niantic likely doesn't based on lack of bans for the obvious ones).
Yeah especially with the scanner off. When I worked retail, my store was a pretty good size and did laps around the store just from errands. The only thing I had back then to count steps was a 3DS and it would always be around 30k steps.