Niantic, we have a problem!
PrHawk-PGO
Posts: 2 ✭✭
Dear Niantic, wayfarer's respondets have a problem!
We very often see a situation where users place markers of new requests in the wrong level 17 squares. Users do this so that the portal appears in the PokemonGO. Later, people start to move these requests to the right place. The only reason for this is that not all portals appear in the Pokemon Go, unlike the Ingress. As a result, we have a lot of requests that are out of their real place.
Look at this situation!
The only correct decision that does not break the balance of the game it is the introduction into the game of all portals located in the same cell of level 17 into the game, but under the guise of new objects. These can be pokecenters, Day Care, or other objects familiar to us from the original series of games.
We are tired of checking requests with a shifted location. We are tired of waiting for the approval of our requests.
Hear us!
Comments
I thought they already fixed this so that the pokestop gets removed now if its location is changed to an already occupied cell?
I mean, they should still crack down on people who submit things in the wrong location but it's difficult to know if they do it to abuse the system or if it's an honest mistake. They could probably weed out a lot of the people who do this on purpose just by reading these forums though, there's no shortage of people admitting they do it.
This also creates a new problem. Now every edit is rejected because of a fear of cell re-evaluation. Even a simple spelling mistake doesn't get fixed because of a fear that a stop or gym gets removed.
Maybe, maybe not. There is still the appeals process for rejected edits that PoGo players have no control over.
We can only hope that when Niantic looks at appeals they also check out the original submission and who rejected it and take appropriate actions if it's clear they did not review properly.
Does the name edit recaluclate pokestop validty? I thought this is so far for location changes only.
@SimonMaddison-ING You are correct that it is location changes only but not everyone is rational in their reviewing.
It's only location edits that recalculate it.
And how would you feel about the fact people submit something and the location suddenly changes while it is on the same building
You can blame pokemon go players but it certainly doesn't help if People change locations on a submission if they don't have a clue about the location this is mainly the reason i am only submitting stuff far away from other stops but that shouldn't be the purpose
The location should be where the picture is. If I see a submission where that isn't the case, e.g. the marker is at a corner, in the middle or at the back while the picture is of the front door I fix it. If I'm unsure I leave it alone.
If you want to submit the corner of the building then take a picture of the corner of the building. If pokestops are your only motivation then find something photo-worthy in a spot that works for you but if you can't find such a spot then I guess you'll have to be prepared for reviewers fixing the nomination.
I genuinely don't understand why people are acting like wanting more stops is a bad thing, iys mostly ingress players, so really, why should it matter to them? Ive played both games and honestly can't see a single reason why slightly out of place portals or portals getting moved matter. I know ill get a lot of dislikes, as it will seem like I'm making this a pogo vs ingress players thing, but the ingress players complaining sound more like gatekeepers, complaining because they used to be the ones with the power.
Would it make you feel better if I switched to posting from my PGO account? I've been level 40 since before the gym system was reworked.
Wanting more stops is perfectly fine, it's the entire reason for Wayfarer to exist. Deliberately misplacing POIs to achieve that isn't.
Yep, if there is no space for a new PoGo involved POI, Im not submitting it, as long as it is not in a priority area. But this is rarely the case.
I'm not going to submit something that won't go live in either PoGo or Ingress myself. We all have limited nominations and typing on a phone and getting a good picture can be a hassle anyway. Niantic misses out on POIs they could have used in other games and future projects but that particular hole is one they've dug for themselves.
What Does it matter if its misplaced by a few meters? Will it affect ingress? No, will it affect pogo? Yes in a positive way, will it affect hp? Probably in a positive way. Will it affect niantic? No, because its minor, they get their poi. So why do people complain? I agree that we should reject if miles away, but up to 5 or even 10 depending on the size of the poi and positioning of the pin, doesnt cause any issues
Its all about quality.. my submissions partly get moved 2 meters, from the Site of a memorial to the middle...
EDIT: this post randomly disappeared for me, so I wrote a second comment. Now this one has turned up again. Apologies for double post.
Wanting more stops is fine. Breaking the rules of the game to do get them is not. Here's a few reasons why:
1. Niantic's business model and it's long term survival is based on being able to sell their database to new clients. To do that the database needs to accurate. I enjoy Niantic's free to play games and wish them to continue making them.
2. For the game to be fun, everybody needs to follow the same rules. I grant you, this aspect is more in important in Ingress (which is more PvP than PoGo). For example, if I climb a mountain to get portal keys, I like to know that nobody can just photo any empty coke can on the other side of the mountain, declare it a portal (because what's wrong with wanting more portals) and use it for blocking links.
3. Constantly shifting portals absolutely screws Ingress players as it kills all the links on that portal. We have enough trouble with ingress players using this as a tactic without the PoGoists joining in.
You are probably right that Ingress players are more concerned with location accuracy but it's not because of a superiority complex as you suggest. It's because the distance to the portal impacts gameplay, while in PoGo it does not. A change of 2-3 meters can be the difference between being able to effectively ultrastrike or not.
I wrote a long post in answer to this but it disappeared when I edited it. So here's the short(er) version:
Does it affect Niantic? Yes, of course it does. Niantic's business model is based on being able to deliver an accurate POI database to their clients and partners. The less accurate that database is, the less valuable it is, the less money they make. Now the have expend resources on fixing all the locations that were fraudulently changed. How much do you think Gmaps would be worth if everything was off by 5-10 meters in a random direction?
Does it affect Ingress? Absolutely. For one thing, every time a portal is moved, it is reset to neutral and losses its mods and links. We have enough trouble with Ingress players using this as a tactic without PoGoists joining in. Also, in Ingress the distance you are from the portal is a factor in the game play. How close you are affects the damage you can do and how the resonators are placed. 5-10 meters can make a lot of difference. It can also be the difference between the portal being safe or not safe.
Does it affect PoGo/Wizards/Catan? You're right. Probably not.
Last but not least, it's against the rules. How many rules of a game can you ignore before it ceases being a game and becomes just an unchallenging grind?
Niantic has already declared that deliberately mislocating a Wayspot is abuse. It doesn't matter if you perceive that no harm is done by mislocating a Wayspot, but that attitude is exactly what got Pokemon Go into the mess it had with artificially dense clusters of stops/gyms. It is like asking what harm is there if you cheat (use multi-accounts, spoof, etc).
Well Niantic is going to Niantic. Often taking unilateral decisions without consulting the players first. Their communication with players needs a lot of work. They are a big business and big tech companies aren't known for caring for loyal customers. For example Google trying to force Google+ on everyone who uses YouTube (when people didn't ask for it) and realising years later what a total failure Google+ is/was and closing it down.
I wrote a long post in answer to this but it disappeared when I edited it.
@JohnnyAlphaCZ-ING Sometimes that happens when your edit triggers something that requires the post to be reviewed before published. It's visible now. The fact that you're at no point told this is just one of the many things about this forum software that are hilariously broken.
After trying to do portal scanning, I realised what a PITA all these misplaced POI are.
The original underlying purpose of ingress and POGO was to get people out exploring their environments and finding unique and interesting things that they maybe weren't aware of. Intentionally misplacing items by 5 or 10 throws the whole concept out the window. The POI exists where this exists, there some leeway with bigger POI like churches and playgrounds, but plaques and trail markers and other smaller items pretty much have one location, situating away from it is abusing the system.
There were so many responses to this post, now, but nobody discussed the original idea, created by @PrHawk-PGO : Bringing new POIs to PoGO, that are not gyms and neither stops, in "full" S17 cells is a pretty interesting idea to me. I hope the right people in the Nia Headquater read this, so that they may at least think about that.
It's funny, that the other responses don't reflect the core of this idea. It's just the same thing, like in several other discussions: "All Ingress-players are waaay to serious about the rules" and "All PoGO-players constantly abuse our beloved system", and a little salt on top. We all love our Wayfarer-tool, Ingress and PoGO (obviously; otherwise, we were not in this forum), but this seems to leed to the terrible situation that we're stuck in our positions, but there are no reasonable solutions to obvious problems, that can be found in this way.
.......
PoGO-players obviously want to interact with more POIs. And this wish for itself is not even bad. But they may not, due to the actual cell rules.
Some tricked the system. As a consequence, there were many edits in the wayfarer-system, Ingress-players had to deal with movements in their game-environment, and we all talk much about 10 meters (there is nothing more important than micro-movements and the several subjective definitions of abuse).
Nia has now found the solution, that Pokestops vanish from the map, when one moves them "in the wrong way". So, vanishing stops are the solution, to the "problem", that PoGO-players want to interact with more POIs, than possible. Mh, probably not the best solution, so I just want to highlight the idea from this post, again. To me, this would be a better way to deal with the players' wishes.
Let us all don't forget that Wayfarer and all of Niantic's games are all about exploring the real environment via POIs, and that's a beautyfull idea. But it's a fact, that PoGO-players may not interact with that many POIs, like those players of Ingress and WU; PoGO-players may not experience their environment like other AR-players may. This simply is a minus to the game, right now. But this has not to be.
@KoriNoDokutsu-ING since you mentioned it, I'll throw my idea for this out there *again* in the off chance that Niantic reads it and actually considers it.
The idea of a different tier of pokestop. I really don't want a berry ****. I'd love it if the invisible POIs showed up intermittently and maybe only for an hour before they disappeared again. My thought-
-have it give a special rare research task with a really good reward.
- give better items than normal
- give you a special upgraded gift you can send to someone.
-maybe even a rare rocket leader/some other battle
I've mentioned it a bunch of times now. Until someone convinces me it's a bad idea I'll probably keep mentioning it. I just know if they were really good, theyd get reported in our local groups, and I'd rush to it before it disappeared. Kinda like reigniting the excitement of a rare spawn report. Heck, maybe they could even have better spawns. I'd also submit all the things I've not bothered with because of cell issues.
It's a bad idea because you'll then create an incentive for having "invisible" POIs which is the exact opposite problem of the problem we have today, but an equally big problem. The incentive should be on placing POIs where they belong in the physical world.
I really don't think that would be the case. There are enough "invisible" POI already. When there is an incentive for both kinds of POI there really is no advantage in misplacing things. Players would benefit regardless of the location.
Perhaps it would be an idea, to let them be visible permanently,...
1.) but let them give less items the more there are in a cell; or (worst case) let them drop just stickers (noone needs stickers!),...
2.) or give them a totally different purpose.
In this way, the incentive to cheat on the system couldn't be that big, but every PoGO-player can still see nice POIs, explore his environment and have a complete map.
Another way to get rid of the incentive to cheat would be to totally rework the cell system. If Niantic would use S18 instead of S17 cells, most of the actual POIs would be visible in PoGO. There wouldn't be the need for those hated micro-movements anymore and everything can remain in its correct place / can be moved in its correct place.
.......
Nearly everything would be better than the actual system:
PoGO-players can't see every existing POI. This causes so many duplicates. The message "The community accepted your submission, but at this time, we can't bring it to the map" (because the S17 cell is full) is just a slap in the face for a PoGO-submitter, who just plays PoGO, as well, as vanishing stops, that magically disappear, when one corrects its position. And then, all these new bugs, because of the "ghoststops". There is one vanished stop in our city (because I put it in its correct position (no intention to cheat in any way!)), that constanly gives PoGO-players the AR-scanning quest. What a message to the community: "We took away your stop, but you still may invest your time to improve other games, that you probably don't play."
The suggestion was to have them provide rare researchtasks, better items or upgraded gifts. I think that would create incentive for someone to try and create such stops which is not really a solution to the problem with misplaced POIs.
It comes down to balancing. I like the idea of POI showing up for a limited time at random. The problem is caused by the fact that PoGo players can only benefit from a subset of POI - if all existing POI were equally important for the game no one would benefit from misplacing. Building some randomness into the system would also help because you can't trick a random number generator.
I thought pogo had invisible pois to interact with where ingress portals are. They are called spawn points where a trainer may encounter and catch a pokemon. Just sayin'.