I don’t have any links alas which makes me look like a bit of an ar-se now. 😆
But have seen various posts on social media discussing it previously. Didn’t know I would need them to ever reference.
I’m in the Pokémon GO playerbase too, hence the name, and I know that there’s various groups/sects that want different things from the game, so they may not have come up for discussions you’ve been involved in.
Short answer: No, neither the 20 m rule nor the S2 cell system - and level 17 in particular - are really needed, but people will always keep making up excuses why they should be there. There is only one argument supporting it and it's the user interface when interacting with the Wayspot. There are solutions for that instead of completely removing most objects which happen to be "too close" (which is still the official wording) to something else by some arbitrary standards.
Hahahahaha this is a wayfarer issue. If I can't see it to correct my typos I am not submitting it. Pokemon players who are serious about nominating have access to intel for their cell placement. We need knowledge and if ingress intel can be see all until they make a light ship client then we need every poi to be seen in ingress.
I have spent years already not knowing the why my pois weren't coming through even though they were accepted and I am not going back to that. The first year or so until some of the rules were figured out people lost a lot of time to wasted. I would get something accepted that I spent 30 mins driving to and back just to put it into the game. then it would be accepted but no key no portal no explanation.
Your comment here really rubbed me the wrong way. Good advice when you start a comment with " I dont' want to make such a statement... " probably that's a good idea not to say it.
Ingress causes damage in other games? - that's fairly uninformed. You only have as many stops because ingress made them. I wonder if ingress would have been more popular had we started with the stops pogo did.
Can't stand pogo-only-people whinging on ingress. Let me tell you my pogo community got over 130 pokestops because of me I did this in a period of time while my son was battling cancer. I worked had to choose stops that would come into pogo too. Most of the Pogo people aren't interested in wayfarer once they got their couchie or work pokestop or a few stops in their local town. It's been a big disappointment for me not have more wayfaring done by the pogo people in my area. There are so many poke stops and gyms to made still.
I see this as more similar to the backlash when Niantic returned interaction distance to its original amount before eventually giving in and making the doubled distance permanent but that's just my personal take.
RIght. People see something nice and want more of it.
Niantic takes care of fixing bugs that people enjoy.
There is definitely a comparison to be drawn in the behaviors that this choice will lead to along with the behaviors we see as a result of the L17 S2 restriction in Pokemon Go. The big ones are purposely inaccurate locations, needless location edit requests that make the location less accurate, and simply choosing not to bother nominating something at all.
So you agree that the S2 restrictions also impose such problems in Pokemon Go players.
But whenever one person comes to this forum to ask why his nomination isn't being added to the map those threads are quickly reported and closed "That's not a wayfarer issue, ask the in-game support". Is that fair?
That last reason is the big one, and it transcends game loyalty. Regardless of other current or future incentives for nominating, simply seeing the thing you took the time to nominate appear in any way for other players to view is a big deal for a lot of us. As it stands currently, the only way to see these approved nominations at all is in our personal contributions list on the wayfarer website, and on the map displayed while submitting new Pokestops. There is currently very little incentive to take the time required to nominate things that are within 20 meters of an existing waypoint and nearly all wayfinders will choose not to. This has a negative impact on wayfarer and niantic's lightship db.
So, could you please tell me what are the incentives for a Pokemon Go player to nominate anything in a S17 cell that it's already occupied? They might appear in Ingress yes, but they don't play that game and the contribution won't show their trainer name.
What can niantic do about this? well they could explore the possibility of lowering the distance limitation to say 10 or 5 meters. on a human scale 20 meters is a fairly long distance, does it make sense to keep it? they can provide tools such as a lightship intel map, or a new platform to explore all the way points in your area outside of the context of a game. will either of these be enough? hard to say, at the end of the day a lot of us simply want to improve our gameboards so maybe this will just become another permanent sore spot just like the cell restrictions in pokemon go.
Nice, a new Lightship map!, that would surely satisfy those that don't care about the games and their goal is to provide as much data as possible to Niantic.
And guess what: that lightship map isn't related to changing the rules of any game.
They can keep the 20 m. rule and that wouldn't change one iotta about that lightship map or a listing of the greatest wayfinders, so it turns out that this nowadays these are the rules about how Ingress uses the Lightship database, so any request to change those rules should be addressed in the Ingress forums.
Fortunately such forums do exists as well as the XM Ambassadors, so they are the ones that should adress changes to distance rules in the game and the Wayfarer Ambassadors should talk with Niantic about these ideas on a Lightship map and any other feature to showcase the best wayfarers.
Playing Pokemon, it DOES have a terrible time with regards to its "which specific thing did you mean to tap?" interface. And the entire point of having a minimum distance between in-game locations is to make sure that when you're playing the game, you're playing the game, not getting frustrated at the interface.
There's a spot on my walk between home and work, with four spawn points surrounding one side of the pokestop. Most of the time there's nothing worth catching, but sometimes I just want that one guy in the middle of the cluster. But seemingly no matter how I tap, I keep hitting the one on either side. It usually takes some five tries before I finally get the "sweet" spot.
And there's a couple spots where the pokestops are slightly closer together than average. Normally not any trouble tapping one stop or the other, but sometimes... there's a rocket person standing there, and trying to tap the stop at his feet instead of him? Ug. It's more common to have the rocket guy standing on a spawn point, since the stops are sufficiently distant from each other, but my point stands. (Both of the locations where this is even occasionally problematic, with the rocket person standing on the stop, were created when the real-world object was physically moved, and then Wayfarer approved the location edit; neither was done in an "abusive" manner, but if they had been moved today then it would have gone "poof" in a flash of virtual dust.)
We've seen the screenshots of the artificial clusters of stops and gyms, created via "edit abuse"; and every time they're discovered Niantic reduces the numbers of ingame spots back down to playable levels. Regardless of whether or not any individual wayspot is actually a valid POI at its real-world location, their goal is just that: PLAYABILITY
When you're only able to select spin a specific stop because you happen to have the current incarnation of the hardware button (Nintendo's own Plus device, or the ball one for the Switch, or even some third-party clone like the Gotcha), the game is broken. You're mentally taken out of the AR world and are stuck back futzing with an interface. When it's working properly, the interface more or less fades away and you're more "in the game".
Maybe it is the way I am reading your message but what is wrong with a Lightship map?
I do care about the games and my goal is not to “provide as much data as possible to Niantic”. My goal with Wayfarer is to find interesting things while I am playing Niantic games, submit them well, and get them accepted so myself and others can then interact with them in said games. If something I submitted cannot end up in a game, I would at least like to see the cool thing I submitted on a map instead of it disappearing into a database.
No, niantic are the ones thw program and evidence what ti do in game the pokemon company maybe get a little input, but at the end of the day, the poi database is niantics intellectual property, they would decide what happens in each of their games, the pokemon company can maybe decide what events happen, but I doubt they even get tjat invovled except for costumed pokemon
I am disappointed that the 20m rule was reinstated, I submitted 20 nominations and upgraded what I could before the rule was returned. I found so many possibilities of interesting points of interests that I wouldn’t have submitted in the past, honestly it was refreshing to have the new portals in a dense area, adds interest and more portals for me to scan, I hope the Niantic rethinks and would allow for less than 20m
I think this is a great place to have this discussion, but it also really puts into perspective how much more tolerant the community on this forum is of ingress discussion versus pokemon go discussion. That's to be expected given the make up of the users here, but it's still interesting to see it this starkly.
The Wayfarer forum isn't the place to discuss the rules for displaying wayspot in the game and the game system, so the Wayfarer team cannot draw conclusions if you express your opinion here.
All they can do is tell the Ingres and Pokémon GO teams when there is an inter-team meeting that they had this opinion about the wayspot display in your game.
We should understand this point.
Therefore, players who object to the reinstatement of the 20m rule this time around should express their concerns to Thia and Fumi in the Ingress forum, not here.
What tosh. You can't expect the average punter to know this.
There is no information saying that you are nominating pois for a database you are not going to have access to. Lightship is neither mentioned in nomination screens nor in email communication. It's mentioned that it might not make it into your game of choice not that it will be used for another game.
I really really feel for the pogo folk that don't have access to a map or the real rules about nominating I would have close to 70 portals that were too close to be added into ingress. Before someone let me know about the 20 metre rule 2 years in. Let's be honest most pogo folk have more sense not to keep nominating things after the first few knock backs.
@tp235-ING Most people nominate certain pois directly to convenience them and their game. So it does impact wayfarer. It dramatically effects pin placement. argh.... I am not here I have quit.
If you had read earlier, i stated that an xm ambassador said that it should be brought up here. It has been brought up on bith forums so both teams that are involved in ingress waypoints know
You are right, I don't mind if we take it up and discuss it here.
Not all XM Ambassadors have the in-depth knowledge of wayspot that Wayfinder has in this forum.
If I were an XM Ambassador with little knowledge of wayspot, I would respond the same way he did.
It would be the same as if a key government official were to ask an expert to set the direction for a policy decision.
However, Thia and Fumi are not here.
So we cannot reach a conclusion on this issue here.
The best we can do is to get a commitment from the Wayfarer team to share the results of our discussions with those responsible for the Ingress team (Thia and Fumi).
From that point on, it is not our decision.
It is up to the Ingress team to decide if their conclusions are adopted.
It is up to the Ingress team, not the Wayfarer team, to determine the balance of the game.
And if this matter has already been communicated to the Ingress team, all I can do is to wait for their decision.
They will decide on the direction to take based on what the Wayfarer team has told them and in consultation with the XM Ambassadors.
In my opinion and hypothesis, if it wasn't for this post above, the Wayfarer team would not have notified the Ingress team that the 20m rule was not functional and they wouldn't have gone through the liberty of disabling Ingress syncs for an entire week only to rejig it with this rule reimplemented.
Now we have the pogo-only wayspots. The primary issue was all about Pokestops being too close to each other to interact with them but end up tapping on the other one right next to it. It is still an issue now because the only check now is whether it is in an unoccupied cell, and ignoring the 20m rule anyway.
The 20 metre restriction stops dozens of POIs from getting into any games. The same can be said to Pokémon Go stop restrictions on 1 stop per s17 cell, not showing half the potential Wayspots for the game. These hidden stops could be used for other means in various games. A new type of Pokestop maybe, this could be a little medicentre or something regarding pokemon eggs.
The various game have to have some mapping system as the basis for the placement of the various Portals / Stops / Fortresses / Flowerpots (?) etc, but no matter what sysyem was chosen there would still be people complaining about something. Yes - cells are smaller nearer the poles, but's thats because you are trying to map a rectangle onto a sphere - read the posts on the Cell system and map projections you can find on like. What is the fuss about "better modern Waypoints" - if there is a Waypoint there what does it matter if it was placed 7 years ago or 7 weeks ago - it makes no difference to the game. A lot of the fuss about "the 20m rule" just sounds like an extension the usual "M0aR St0pZ" arguments.
There has to be some minimum spacing. 20m seems fine to me.
The "20 meter rule" only applies to Ingress. It does not affect other games, which use different spacing systems. But all of Niantic's games are created to promote walking, so there needs to be some sort of spacing system that will encourage people to do exactly that.
I totally agree with you ! A lot of selfish reviewers (most of them from Ingress obviously) didn't care about pokemon go players complaints about area restrictions on their submissions (they always used the wonderful speech of "Your contributions are for Niantic Wayfarer only. Each game has it's own rules"), so now why are they crying about that ?!?!
Looking at the games I can see a few legit game reasons for having a space limit as well as a few financial reasons for Niantic.
In ingress, having a ton of portals densely packed and shielded could be difficult to attack and take down if the right shields and mods are put on and if the other team recharges too. It could lead to total control of an area by a team.
More so in Pogo, People might buy more items due to running out like red balls for their auto catch device. If there are more stops to spin, people get more items and less likely to give money to Niantic for those things.
It could be argued that in ingress farming gear could become too easy with too many portals bunched together.
Niantic could say that with less local stops people would have to travel/explore/excercise to spin enough stops to send all their friends gifts and that kind of thing
Pogo is getting quite big and close to the RAM limit of some devices when running so I wonder what affect more stops and Pokémon would have there as well as causing lag on some older devices.
More POI closer could benefit the games too though.
More poke stops for pogo players in small villages especially where the only valid POI are a pub and a post office but they are next door to each other type situation so only one stop can appear.
In ingress it could create more layered fields by creating more spines. It could also bring people together in pubs to track for kit if more POI could be made in reach of a pub for example.
Im sure there are much better reasons for both sides that others could come up.
Saying all that, I would like the minimum distance decreased to about 10 to 12 metres in ingress. Or no minimum distance but limit it to 4 a cell or something.
It's difficult with pogo because stops seem to affect spawns with more things spawning around stops, so I assume more stops means more spawns which could make things a bit crowded and heavy for some phones. Not sure how it changes the dynamics and Niantics pockets of how people buy lures and stuff...
So I think for some games money and decisions about how phones and servers can handle things play a part but we never know if certain decisions that shouldn't be set in stone are ever revisited years later when things change ...
Comments
Odd. I've been active since the start and I have never read or heard such wish.
Sect makes it sound a large group. Again, could you provide at least some links to confirm that you're not just bad mouthing another player base? :)
Wouldn’t the people programming, or at least owning the programmers contracts, be the Pokémon Company International in this case though?
I don’t have any links alas which makes me look like a bit of an ar-se now. 😆
But have seen various posts on social media discussing it previously. Didn’t know I would need them to ever reference.
I’m in the Pokémon GO playerbase too, hence the name, and I know that there’s various groups/sects that want different things from the game, so they may not have come up for discussions you’ve been involved in.
"What is the purpose and the goal of Niantic Wayfarer?"
If the purpose of wayfarer/lightship is to have an accurate map of POI, having a distance rule make sense.
In no map you can have points on top of each other, you need a distance between the points, so you can discriminate them.
But is 20m the best distance ?
For a good map, readable, yes. But for an accurate map with a lot of POI, it's too large.
Probably something like 5 meters should be better, like @tehstone-ING said.
Short answer: No, neither the 20 m rule nor the S2 cell system - and level 17 in particular - are really needed, but people will always keep making up excuses why they should be there. There is only one argument supporting it and it's the user interface when interacting with the Wayspot. There are solutions for that instead of completely removing most objects which happen to be "too close" (which is still the official wording) to something else by some arbitrary standards.
Hahahahaha this is a wayfarer issue. If I can't see it to correct my typos I am not submitting it. Pokemon players who are serious about nominating have access to intel for their cell placement. We need knowledge and if ingress intel can be see all until they make a light ship client then we need every poi to be seen in ingress.
I have spent years already not knowing the why my pois weren't coming through even though they were accepted and I am not going back to that. The first year or so until some of the rules were figured out people lost a lot of time to wasted. I would get something accepted that I spent 30 mins driving to and back just to put it into the game. then it would be accepted but no key no portal no explanation.
Your comment here really rubbed me the wrong way. Good advice when you start a comment with " I dont' want to make such a statement... " probably that's a good idea not to say it.
Ingress causes damage in other games? - that's fairly uninformed. You only have as many stops because ingress made them. I wonder if ingress would have been more popular had we started with the stops pogo did.
Can't stand pogo-only-people whinging on ingress. Let me tell you my pogo community got over 130 pokestops because of me I did this in a period of time while my son was battling cancer. I worked had to choose stops that would come into pogo too. Most of the Pogo people aren't interested in wayfarer once they got their couchie or work pokestop or a few stops in their local town. It's been a big disappointment for me not have more wayfaring done by the pogo people in my area. There are so many poke stops and gyms to made still.
Let's see your previous reply:
I see this as more similar to the backlash when Niantic returned interaction distance to its original amount before eventually giving in and making the doubled distance permanent but that's just my personal take.
RIght. People see something nice and want more of it.
Niantic takes care of fixing bugs that people enjoy.
There is definitely a comparison to be drawn in the behaviors that this choice will lead to along with the behaviors we see as a result of the L17 S2 restriction in Pokemon Go. The big ones are purposely inaccurate locations, needless location edit requests that make the location less accurate, and simply choosing not to bother nominating something at all.
So you agree that the S2 restrictions also impose such problems in Pokemon Go players.
But whenever one person comes to this forum to ask why his nomination isn't being added to the map those threads are quickly reported and closed "That's not a wayfarer issue, ask the in-game support". Is that fair?
That last reason is the big one, and it transcends game loyalty. Regardless of other current or future incentives for nominating, simply seeing the thing you took the time to nominate appear in any way for other players to view is a big deal for a lot of us. As it stands currently, the only way to see these approved nominations at all is in our personal contributions list on the wayfarer website, and on the map displayed while submitting new Pokestops. There is currently very little incentive to take the time required to nominate things that are within 20 meters of an existing waypoint and nearly all wayfinders will choose not to. This has a negative impact on wayfarer and niantic's lightship db.
So, could you please tell me what are the incentives for a Pokemon Go player to nominate anything in a S17 cell that it's already occupied? They might appear in Ingress yes, but they don't play that game and the contribution won't show their trainer name.
What can niantic do about this? well they could explore the possibility of lowering the distance limitation to say 10 or 5 meters. on a human scale 20 meters is a fairly long distance, does it make sense to keep it? they can provide tools such as a lightship intel map, or a new platform to explore all the way points in your area outside of the context of a game. will either of these be enough? hard to say, at the end of the day a lot of us simply want to improve our gameboards so maybe this will just become another permanent sore spot just like the cell restrictions in pokemon go.
Nice, a new Lightship map!, that would surely satisfy those that don't care about the games and their goal is to provide as much data as possible to Niantic.
And guess what: that lightship map isn't related to changing the rules of any game.
They can keep the 20 m. rule and that wouldn't change one iotta about that lightship map or a listing of the greatest wayfinders, so it turns out that this nowadays these are the rules about how Ingress uses the Lightship database, so any request to change those rules should be addressed in the Ingress forums.
Fortunately such forums do exists as well as the XM Ambassadors, so they are the ones that should adress changes to distance rules in the game and the Wayfarer Ambassadors should talk with Niantic about these ideas on a Lightship map and any other feature to showcase the best wayfarers.
Playing Pokemon, it DOES have a terrible time with regards to its "which specific thing did you mean to tap?" interface. And the entire point of having a minimum distance between in-game locations is to make sure that when you're playing the game, you're playing the game, not getting frustrated at the interface.
There's a spot on my walk between home and work, with four spawn points surrounding one side of the pokestop. Most of the time there's nothing worth catching, but sometimes I just want that one guy in the middle of the cluster. But seemingly no matter how I tap, I keep hitting the one on either side. It usually takes some five tries before I finally get the "sweet" spot.
And there's a couple spots where the pokestops are slightly closer together than average. Normally not any trouble tapping one stop or the other, but sometimes... there's a rocket person standing there, and trying to tap the stop at his feet instead of him? Ug. It's more common to have the rocket guy standing on a spawn point, since the stops are sufficiently distant from each other, but my point stands. (Both of the locations where this is even occasionally problematic, with the rocket person standing on the stop, were created when the real-world object was physically moved, and then Wayfarer approved the location edit; neither was done in an "abusive" manner, but if they had been moved today then it would have gone "poof" in a flash of virtual dust.)
We've seen the screenshots of the artificial clusters of stops and gyms, created via "edit abuse"; and every time they're discovered Niantic reduces the numbers of ingame spots back down to playable levels. Regardless of whether or not any individual wayspot is actually a valid POI at its real-world location, their goal is just that: PLAYABILITY
When you're only able to select spin a specific stop because you happen to have the current incarnation of the hardware button (Nintendo's own Plus device, or the ball one for the Switch, or even some third-party clone like the Gotcha), the game is broken. You're mentally taken out of the AR world and are stuck back futzing with an interface. When it's working properly, the interface more or less fades away and you're more "in the game".
Maybe it is the way I am reading your message but what is wrong with a Lightship map?
I do care about the games and my goal is not to “provide as much data as possible to Niantic”. My goal with Wayfarer is to find interesting things while I am playing Niantic games, submit them well, and get them accepted so myself and others can then interact with them in said games. If something I submitted cannot end up in a game, I would at least like to see the cool thing I submitted on a map instead of it disappearing into a database.
Nothing wrong!
It would be a great addition!
No, niantic are the ones thw program and evidence what ti do in game the pokemon company maybe get a little input, but at the end of the day, the poi database is niantics intellectual property, they would decide what happens in each of their games, the pokemon company can maybe decide what events happen, but I doubt they even get tjat invovled except for costumed pokemon
I am disappointed that the 20m rule was reinstated, I submitted 20 nominations and upgraded what I could before the rule was returned. I found so many possibilities of interesting points of interests that I wouldn’t have submitted in the past, honestly it was refreshing to have the new portals in a dense area, adds interest and more portals for me to scan, I hope the Niantic rethinks and would allow for less than 20m
I think this is a great place to have this discussion, but it also really puts into perspective how much more tolerant the community on this forum is of ingress discussion versus pokemon go discussion. That's to be expected given the make up of the users here, but it's still interesting to see it this starkly.
The truth needs to be told: Both Ingress 20m rule and Pokémon GO S2 cells rule are total rubbish.
It only hurts places that could be awesome for both games.
The Wayfarer forum isn't the place to discuss the rules for displaying wayspot in the game and the game system, so the Wayfarer team cannot draw conclusions if you express your opinion here.
All they can do is tell the Ingres and Pokémon GO teams when there is an inter-team meeting that they had this opinion about the wayspot display in your game.
We should understand this point.
Therefore, players who object to the reinstatement of the 20m rule this time around should express their concerns to Thia and Fumi in the Ingress forum, not here.
There is nothing that @NianticGiffard @NianticVK and @NianticTintino-ING can do, as they aren't authorized to change the system of each game.
Also, since Pokémon GO has no forum, you should tell Michael or Tatsuo about the cell on SNS.
Exactly! Remember people, you are submitting poi for lightship database, not for ingress or pogo
What tosh. You can't expect the average punter to know this.
There is no information saying that you are nominating pois for a database you are not going to have access to. Lightship is neither mentioned in nomination screens nor in email communication. It's mentioned that it might not make it into your game of choice not that it will be used for another game.
I really really feel for the pogo folk that don't have access to a map or the real rules about nominating I would have close to 70 portals that were too close to be added into ingress. Before someone let me know about the 20 metre rule 2 years in. Let's be honest most pogo folk have more sense not to keep nominating things after the first few knock backs.
@tp235-ING Most people nominate certain pois directly to convenience them and their game. So it does impact wayfarer. It dramatically effects pin placement. argh.... I am not here I have quit.
If you had read earlier, i stated that an xm ambassador said that it should be brought up here. It has been brought up on bith forums so both teams that are involved in ingress waypoints know
You are right, I don't mind if we take it up and discuss it here.
Not all XM Ambassadors have the in-depth knowledge of wayspot that Wayfinder has in this forum.
If I were an XM Ambassador with little knowledge of wayspot, I would respond the same way he did.
It would be the same as if a key government official were to ask an expert to set the direction for a policy decision.
However, Thia and Fumi are not here.
So we cannot reach a conclusion on this issue here.
The best we can do is to get a commitment from the Wayfarer team to share the results of our discussions with those responsible for the Ingress team (Thia and Fumi).
From that point on, it is not our decision.
It is up to the Ingress team to decide if their conclusions are adopted.
It is up to the Ingress team, not the Wayfarer team, to determine the balance of the game.
And if this matter has already been communicated to the Ingress team, all I can do is to wait for their decision.
They will decide on the direction to take based on what the Wayfarer team has told them and in consultation with the XM Ambassadors.
I respect their decision.
In my opinion and hypothesis, if it wasn't for this post above, the Wayfarer team would not have notified the Ingress team that the 20m rule was not functional and they wouldn't have gone through the liberty of disabling Ingress syncs for an entire week only to rejig it with this rule reimplemented.
Now we have the pogo-only wayspots. The primary issue was all about Pokestops being too close to each other to interact with them but end up tapping on the other one right next to it. It is still an issue now because the only check now is whether it is in an unoccupied cell, and ignoring the 20m rule anyway.
Lightship-only wayspots was a mistake.
The 20 metre restriction stops dozens of POIs from getting into any games. The same can be said to Pokémon Go stop restrictions on 1 stop per s17 cell, not showing half the potential Wayspots for the game. These hidden stops could be used for other means in various games. A new type of Pokestop maybe, this could be a little medicentre or something regarding pokemon eggs.
The various game have to have some mapping system as the basis for the placement of the various Portals / Stops /
Fortresses/ Flowerpots (?) etc, but no matter what sysyem was chosen there would still be people complaining about something. Yes - cells are smaller nearer the poles, but's thats because you are trying to map a rectangle onto a sphere - read the posts on the Cell system and map projections you can find on like. What is the fuss about "better modern Waypoints" - if there is a Waypoint there what does it matter if it was placed 7 years ago or 7 weeks ago - it makes no difference to the game. A lot of the fuss about "the 20m rule" just sounds like an extension the usual "M0aR St0pZ" arguments.There has to be some minimum spacing. 20m seems fine to me.
The "20 meter rule" only applies to Ingress. It does not affect other games, which use different spacing systems. But all of Niantic's games are created to promote walking, so there needs to be some sort of spacing system that will encourage people to do exactly that.
I totally agree with you ! A lot of selfish reviewers (most of them from Ingress obviously) didn't care about pokemon go players complaints about area restrictions on their submissions (they always used the wonderful speech of "Your contributions are for Niantic Wayfarer only. Each game has it's own rules"), so now why are they crying about that ?!?!
Looking at the games I can see a few legit game reasons for having a space limit as well as a few financial reasons for Niantic.
In ingress, having a ton of portals densely packed and shielded could be difficult to attack and take down if the right shields and mods are put on and if the other team recharges too. It could lead to total control of an area by a team.
More so in Pogo, People might buy more items due to running out like red balls for their auto catch device. If there are more stops to spin, people get more items and less likely to give money to Niantic for those things.
It could be argued that in ingress farming gear could become too easy with too many portals bunched together.
Niantic could say that with less local stops people would have to travel/explore/excercise to spin enough stops to send all their friends gifts and that kind of thing
Pogo is getting quite big and close to the RAM limit of some devices when running so I wonder what affect more stops and Pokémon would have there as well as causing lag on some older devices.
More POI closer could benefit the games too though.
More poke stops for pogo players in small villages especially where the only valid POI are a pub and a post office but they are next door to each other type situation so only one stop can appear.
In ingress it could create more layered fields by creating more spines. It could also bring people together in pubs to track for kit if more POI could be made in reach of a pub for example.
Im sure there are much better reasons for both sides that others could come up.
Saying all that, I would like the minimum distance decreased to about 10 to 12 metres in ingress. Or no minimum distance but limit it to 4 a cell or something.
It's difficult with pogo because stops seem to affect spawns with more things spawning around stops, so I assume more stops means more spawns which could make things a bit crowded and heavy for some phones. Not sure how it changes the dynamics and Niantics pockets of how people buy lures and stuff...
So I think for some games money and decisions about how phones and servers can handle things play a part but we never know if certain decisions that shouldn't be set in stone are ever revisited years later when things change ...
This was asked by many during the Q&A for Ingress that was held on Niantic Social and @AisforAndis-ING got selected out on it.
That confirms that it's an ingress issue and wayfarer doesn't care about the distance between wayspots
How do we get them to revisit 'Portal ingestion rules' again now is the next question ;)
You’ll have to ask that at the next Q&A/AMA I guess.