Concerns RE: Inaccurate Hometown Address by Mistake
Lynkboz-PGO
Posts: 2 ✭✭
I was doing my profile set-up on Opera GX, using my phone. Once I saved the changes, the displayed hometown address was inaccurate; nearby but not that near. Worse yet, it wasn't possible for me to know that I had tapped somewhere inaccurate until after saving changes... Of course, when it becomes permanent.
- Why is there apparently no way to fix mistakes like that?
- Why is this designed kind of awkwardly on mobile? (Niantic makes mobile games, right..?)
Factors In Play:
- used a phone - tapping is intuitive to mobile users, as opposed to selecting the search function.
- no indicators or text to display the address that was tapped on.
- once saved, cannot be changed again.
User-Suggested Solutions:
- Add a time-limit (i.e. 30 mins) that enables all users to correct wrong addresses after saving. When the time limit is up, the last address selected becomes officially permanent.
- Add indicators/brief instructions to inform users to search their address instead of tapping/clicking on the map locator.
- Access to customer support for the ability to correct permanent mistakes like this.
Comments
The larger problem is that the new wayfarer onboarding makes people set a hometown before they even know what it is. In the event you do get to change yours you should not place it anywhere within 200+km of where you currently play. You actually get 3 review areas, Hometown, Bonus, and Local Play Area. Each is very large and if they overlap then you can quickly run out of things to review. If you only want to review things in your current play area then you should not set a bonus or hometown at all. Setting them both to your current area does not help you review local things since you are already seeing them anyway. Also Niantic's definition of "local" and ours is very different so even with local reviews most will be places you have never been that are hours away. Some of this is intentional since people are more likely to accept random local ineligible things that they might get to use compared to ones they will never see.
I appreciate your explaination, although I kind of wish that I knew before doing so. Although it's more so a design fault when people are advised to go against what it's supposed to do.
Unfortunately, it makes sense from a developmental point of view to keep the "local" circle larger and less truly local. Maybe one day they'll decide to change their approach and make it more player-friendly. Not likely, but one can hope...
It also makes sense from a high quality database standpoint. If you get to review mostly things you may use then there is a lot of incentive to just approve everything you see, even the absolute abusive coal.