Someone informed me that apparently Niantic reduced the number of stops needed to make a 3rd gym down from 20 to 7, so a single new stop in my area would create this new gym. But so far that's the only ingress portal to come into the game, at least within a couple mile radius of where I live, and there is at least one more ingress portal within that park.
Maybe this is a new test phase that Niantic is slowly rolling out, to get player feedback before they do all the portals?
Hmmmm....the number of L14 cells we have with 7-19 in-game objects (Gyms + Stops) is considerable, but only a small fraction of those had an extra stop converted to a gym. If this is a true algorithm change, it's poorly done - and rolling out a massive change like the one described, on a Friday night, makes little sense to me.
So two portals became new stops. Both were a second+ stop in a L17 cell that already had a gym. And in both cases a new gym appeared in their L14 cell.
I didn’t see any obvious signs of other new stops or gyms during my bus ride. Not even at the two spots with the still-unsynced portals.
I am praying for the end of the ridiculous cell and 20m restrictions ever since users could review nominations.
Having players nominate game elements and then punishing them by not having them appear anywhere is not a pleasant experience and has led to abuse of the wayfarer system with proxy locations and abusive location edits.
Let's hope this is intentional and a step in the right direction.
Niantic likes to treat its customers like total **** and their commnication is horrible. If the system has changed, Niantic will refuse to communicate and players will figure it out what's changed pretty quickly. I fail to see a benefit to Niantic for not explaining the cell rules to people. Customers who are unaware of the maps cells get frustrated and those in the know sometimes will get frustrated by those who don't know about map cells.
If this was the exception and not the rule and they were normally good communicators then I would not be so frustrated. Players have been let down time and again. Topic are created seemingly every single day on this forum berating the lack of transparency by them.
Niantic has never once acknowledged the S2 cell system as a means of populating their gameboard. All of the information that wayfarers have about it came from the community's observation and deduction.
I sincerely doubt that they will disclose information on their gameboards are populated now.
Whether this an intentional or unintentional change to the Pokemon Go gameboard is likely going to be left to speculation.
@NianticGiffard@NianticDanbocat Care to comment as to what actually happened and why suddenly nothing makes sense when it comes to S2 cells? Did Niantic just drop all the rules?
I don't see why a comment about hoping that Niantic has listed to its customer base has disagrees and is controversial. Players should not be punished. I too hope the changes are a step in the right direction.
Classifying cell and 20m restrictions as "ridiculous" is a bit inflammatory. In Pokemon Go, the cell restrictions allow easier retrieval of on-the-ground objects like Pokemon - and isn't that the main point of the game? The 20m restriction in Ingress allows easier choice of portals to hack, and fewer interactions with the disambiguation menu. Players of any game who submit objects that do not appear on any game map are not being punished: if accepted, their candidate may well go live in time if the conflicting objects are removed. With the move to Lightship, those candidates do seem to be retained.
stops have no burnout for spins and have double interaction range. to be perfectly honest I wouldn't want every portal in my area to be a stop. it would be overwhelming. it's a game design choice that was made and folks like you acting like it's some kind of atrocity is pretty ridiculous.
I wouldnt want the cell system gone, but I would like it less strict, especially for places outside of cities, ive seen places that have like 2 stops in the whole place and yet about 10 portals, all because of the way the cells were.
The design choice in a vacuum is all good and I do resonate with the sentiment you express.
However, given the fact that NIA gave players the ability to influence the game board (via nominations, wayfarer and edits), coupled with opaque unsaid rules, it creates an avenue for abuse vectors that players will (as they did) eventually figure out and maliciously use for their own selfish purposes.
Opaque rules in "open to contribution" systems does not work as a permanent security measure.
For the sake of contributor transparency, recognition and to curb wayfarer abuse, every wayspot should be something in every game that allows contributions.
That being said, I'm also not suggesting (even though it would be the easiest option) that every wayspot should be a main POI (stop/gym/portal).
From a game design perspective, having "secondary points" that feed into the game isn't a novel idea: Ingress has mission waypoints, Pikmin has "invisible" points that Pikmin are able to interact with, Pokémon has spawn points...
Cleverly using, balancing and representing those would not only help motivate players to see the outcome of their work, prevent duplicate submissions, but also serve as an indirect measure to counteract the famed abuse vectors we all know and hate.
Well, lets say a Pokéstop is at one end of an S17 cell and there is another Ingress Portal at the other end of the S17 cell which Pokémon GO players cannot see. If I wanted to nominate a new Pokéstop in the neighboring unoccupied S17 cell that happened to be within 20m of that Portal, then under the usual (hopefully now changed rules), the Pokéstop would not appear, even though it is going to be many, many tens of metres from the other Pokétop and in a different S17, as per Niantic rules. We see in the situation that the 20m rule can become a bit ridiculous if applied consistently across all games.
Church, post office and a little statue in a park/playground.
It makes me think.. they spawned just now because maybe Niantic has changed the criteria/priority for some POI: if it is listed as a location when people gather it'll appear in PoGO (parks, post offices or a church!).
Yeah, I think we'd all appreciate some info from @NianticGiffard (who now seems to be the Forum Person) and the crew. I don't really care about specifics, just want to know if it's temporary glitch or a permanent logic change. As in the past, if it's a permanent thing then the player community will work out the logic in time: Niantic shouldn't need to publish the details.
@AScarletSabre-PGO's case above is a valid one, and if the move to Lightship base map for all games rectifies that as I hope it does, then all the better! It doesn't fit in with what I'm seeing live in-game, though. New gyms have appeared with no newly published items in either game. I'm intensely curiouss about the underlying cause. 😁
It's also important to point out, that if players do not know how Wayspots are populated in the games, they may not be able to regonise cases of abuse when they see it. A lot of people are super casual reviewers and nominators and will be none the wiser as to intricacies of Wayspot placement. So I would again reiterate that Niantic sorely need to improve their communication with their customers.
I've seen on this very forum people calling out abuse they have found using tools/methods which Niantic would consider abusive to use. Other times, use of such tools/methods has made people paranoid and called "abuse" when there really isn't enough evidence for something to be considered as abusive. I believe this lack of transparency from Niantic to its customers hinders more than it helps.
A big part of this problem depends on cell and spacing algorithms, that were violated here. These are for sure wayfarer-related. Your company only doesnt want to talk about these algorithms.
Comments
Someone informed me that apparently Niantic reduced the number of stops needed to make a 3rd gym down from 20 to 7, so a single new stop in my area would create this new gym. But so far that's the only ingress portal to come into the game, at least within a couple mile radius of where I live, and there is at least one more ingress portal within that park.
Maybe this is a new test phase that Niantic is slowly rolling out, to get player feedback before they do all the portals?
Hmmmm....the number of L14 cells we have with 7-19 in-game objects (Gyms + Stops) is considerable, but only a small fraction of those had an extra stop converted to a gym. If this is a true algorithm change, it's poorly done - and rolling out a massive change like the one described, on a Friday night, makes little sense to me.
Meanwhile nothing changed in my area. Even in the city, where are many Portals not visible in PoGO, nothing changed at all. Lower Saxony, Germany
So two portals became new stops. Both were a second+ stop in a L17 cell that already had a gym. And in both cases a new gym appeared in their L14 cell.
I didn’t see any obvious signs of other new stops or gyms during my bus ride. Not even at the two spots with the still-unsynced portals.
I feel you. Woke up to a new gym but it’s very much not the gym I nor others want.
I am praying for the end of the ridiculous cell and 20m restrictions ever since users could review nominations.
Having players nominate game elements and then punishing them by not having them appear anywhere is not a pleasant experience and has led to abuse of the wayfarer system with proxy locations and abusive location edits.
Let's hope this is intentional and a step in the right direction.
Niantic likes to treat its customers like total **** and their commnication is horrible. If the system has changed, Niantic will refuse to communicate and players will figure it out what's changed pretty quickly. I fail to see a benefit to Niantic for not explaining the cell rules to people. Customers who are unaware of the maps cells get frustrated and those in the know sometimes will get frustrated by those who don't know about map cells.
It's the week-end dude, calm down. Sure, Niantic doesn't care about their players, but it's not work time for them atm.
Unlikely Niantic will reply with anything but their usual "not all wayspots will appear in all games...."
Buenos Aires
If this was the exception and not the rule and they were normally good communicators then I would not be so frustrated. Players have been let down time and again. Topic are created seemingly every single day on this forum berating the lack of transparency by them.
Niantic has never once acknowledged the S2 cell system as a means of populating their gameboard. All of the information that wayfarers have about it came from the community's observation and deduction.
I sincerely doubt that they will disclose information on their gameboards are populated now.
Whether this an intentional or unintentional change to the Pokemon Go gameboard is likely going to be left to speculation.
@NianticGiffard @NianticDanbocat Care to comment as to what actually happened and why suddenly nothing makes sense when it comes to S2 cells? Did Niantic just drop all the rules?
Player's response to all this:
Niantic's response to all this
I also noticed one cell with 4 gyms here in Brunei
I don't see why a comment about hoping that Niantic has listed to its customer base has disagrees and is controversial. Players should not be punished. I too hope the changes are a step in the right direction.
Classifying cell and 20m restrictions as "ridiculous" is a bit inflammatory. In Pokemon Go, the cell restrictions allow easier retrieval of on-the-ground objects like Pokemon - and isn't that the main point of the game? The 20m restriction in Ingress allows easier choice of portals to hack, and fewer interactions with the disambiguation menu. Players of any game who submit objects that do not appear on any game map are not being punished: if accepted, their candidate may well go live in time if the conflicting objects are removed. With the move to Lightship, those candidates do seem to be retained.
stops have no burnout for spins and have double interaction range. to be perfectly honest I wouldn't want every portal in my area to be a stop. it would be overwhelming. it's a game design choice that was made and folks like you acting like it's some kind of atrocity is pretty ridiculous.
I wouldnt want the cell system gone, but I would like it less strict, especially for places outside of cities, ive seen places that have like 2 stops in the whole place and yet about 10 portals, all because of the way the cells were.
The design choice in a vacuum is all good and I do resonate with the sentiment you express.
However, given the fact that NIA gave players the ability to influence the game board (via nominations, wayfarer and edits), coupled with opaque unsaid rules, it creates an avenue for abuse vectors that players will (as they did) eventually figure out and maliciously use for their own selfish purposes.
Opaque rules in "open to contribution" systems does not work as a permanent security measure.
For the sake of contributor transparency, recognition and to curb wayfarer abuse, every wayspot should be something in every game that allows contributions.
That being said, I'm also not suggesting (even though it would be the easiest option) that every wayspot should be a main POI (stop/gym/portal).
From a game design perspective, having "secondary points" that feed into the game isn't a novel idea: Ingress has mission waypoints, Pikmin has "invisible" points that Pikmin are able to interact with, Pokémon has spawn points...
Cleverly using, balancing and representing those would not only help motivate players to see the outcome of their work, prevent duplicate submissions, but also serve as an indirect measure to counteract the famed abuse vectors we all know and hate.
That would require them to know 🙃
Well, lets say a Pokéstop is at one end of an S17 cell and there is another Ingress Portal at the other end of the S17 cell which Pokémon GO players cannot see. If I wanted to nominate a new Pokéstop in the neighboring unoccupied S17 cell that happened to be within 20m of that Portal, then under the usual (hopefully now changed rules), the Pokéstop would not appear, even though it is going to be many, many tens of metres from the other Pokétop and in a different S17, as per Niantic rules. We see in the situation that the 20m rule can become a bit ridiculous if applied consistently across all games.
More than two days have passed since this new "thing" (bug? feature?) and still no information from Niantic regarding it?
The weekend has finished and there was even an event announcement in PoGo, so people can't use the "it's weekend, they don't work" excuse now.
I did notice something..
The new visible stops in my area:
Church, post office and a little statue in a park/playground.
It makes me think.. they spawned just now because maybe Niantic has changed the criteria/priority for some POI: if it is listed as a location when people gather it'll appear in PoGO (parks, post offices or a church!).
Also we might get more info on the 8th...
Yeah, I think we'd all appreciate some info from @NianticGiffard (who now seems to be the Forum Person) and the crew. I don't really care about specifics, just want to know if it's temporary glitch or a permanent logic change. As in the past, if it's a permanent thing then the player community will work out the logic in time: Niantic shouldn't need to publish the details.
@AScarletSabre-PGO's case above is a valid one, and if the move to Lightship base map for all games rectifies that as I hope it does, then all the better! It doesn't fit in with what I'm seeing live in-game, though. New gyms have appeared with no newly published items in either game. I'm intensely curiouss about the underlying cause. 😁
Precisely. I couldn't have said it better myself.
It's also important to point out, that if players do not know how Wayspots are populated in the games, they may not be able to regonise cases of abuse when they see it. A lot of people are super casual reviewers and nominators and will be none the wiser as to intricacies of Wayspot placement. So I would again reiterate that Niantic sorely need to improve their communication with their customers.
I've seen on this very forum people calling out abuse they have found using tools/methods which Niantic would consider abusive to use. Other times, use of such tools/methods has made people paranoid and called "abuse" when there really isn't enough evidence for something to be considered as abusive. I believe this lack of transparency from Niantic to its customers hinders more than it helps.
Hello Explorers,
Thank you for commenting on this. Although this is not a Wayfarer issue, we have sent your notes up to the appropriate team. Sae Exploring!
Thank you @NianticTintino
not wayfarer related?
A big part of this problem depends on cell and spacing algorithms, that were violated here. These are for sure wayfarer-related. Your company only doesnt want to talk about these algorithms.