Niantic is Making Location Edits to Improve Map Quality

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  • Gazzas89-PGOGazzas89-PGO Posts: 2,619 ✭✭✭✭✭

    To be fair, that'd on the pokemon go app, there's no reason why it can't have a disambigutor (fun word), I'm actually surprised they didn't bring that over from ingress, its extremely useful and would eliminate the complaint you had

  • MargariteDVille-INGMargariteDVille-ING Posts: 2,848 ✭✭✭✭✭

    What if Niantic could do away with cells, and include/exclude only based on distance from something else? Like Ingress's (1-step) "20 meter rule", but it would be 2-3 steps for PoGo.

  • Gazzas89-PGOGazzas89-PGO Posts: 2,619 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Honestly, I'd say pogo could do the 20m rule fine, but maybe say that if one stop has something within 30m of it, then another thing can't be in the 30m to allow for space

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,470 ✭✭✭✭✭

    We'd still be in the situation where a lot of PoGo players would have things approved that didn't go live and they wouldn't understand why.

  • tp235-INGtp235-ING Posts: 1,383 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I think I have talked about this before, but if you remove the limitation by cell and show all wayspots, the Pokémon GO field view would make it difficult to use anything but Monster Ball Plus autospin in dense areas.

    This is because the field display is 3D.


    Ingress can also be said to be 3D, but in reality it is almost 2D.

    Therefore, while Ingress only requires the resolution of ambiguous horizontal proximity taps, Pokémon GO requires the resolution of ambiguous vertical taps as well.

    In this case, in some cases, a PokéStop or Pokémon Gym 300m away must be displayed as an ambiguous tap candidate when tapped.

    Also, Pokéstop disks and Pokémon gyms are much larger when contrasted with the white dots of Ingress portals.

    In addition, plus Pokémon will appear in the field.

    This is the reason why it is difficult to implement an ambiguous tap display in Pokémon GO.


    Also, if we imagine the change if instead of eliminating the cell limit, we add a proximity limit, we can envision that, considering the size of the Pokéstop disc, the above would make it difficult to spin in some areas at 20 meters, similar to Ingres.

    Therefore, considering a reliable spin, it is assumed to be around 40m.

    In that case, it is unknown which PokéStop will be displayed more compared to the current situation. (I am assuming it will definitely be less)


    And another important thing to note is that Niantic games require players to get out and move.

    So, if they decide to remove the cell limit, they will likely move players by introducing cooldowns for Pokéstop spins and Pokémon catches, similar to Ingress.

    I think it should be done as it is now because it is more in line with Niantic's philosophy, but I don't think Pokémon trainers are asking for it.

    It is still a chorus of incense and 6 hours. It is easy to imagine "don't cool down" being added to this.

    I would hate to see any more spam words thrown at Niantic.

  • FeThorn-INGFeThorn-ING Posts: 71 ✭✭✭

    What I'm saying is; if you make a system that tells people not to abuse, while simultaneously encouraging said abuse, then you shouldn't be surprised when that abuse becomes the norm.

    The way things are set up now is very demotivating whenever the inclusion rules take an area that would be fairly decently filled in and turn it into a single waypoint. It feels punishing for someone who nominates without knowing the unwritten rules.

    Of course there will always be a few bad actors, that's inevitable. But as wayfarer is now, what's considered abuse isn't limited to those few bad actors. It's common practice. But as with many things, niantic still hasn't taken better steps to address the problem.

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,470 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Ferrothorn88-ING I think it would be better if Niantic was crystal clear during the submission process about what people are doing. If you tell people they're submitting portals or pokestops then they're going to expect that portals or pokestops will come out the other end of the sausage mill if something is approved, and they're constantly annoyed when their new shiny thing isn't in their game. If Niantic was extremely clear up front that people are submitting wayspots, and that approved wayspots might appear in their game but aren't guaranteed to, then people would have a better understanding of what might happen in the future. Sure they'll be disappointed if their candidate doesn't appear in their particular game but they'd know going into it that the outcome wasn't guaranteed.

  • Gazzas89-PGOGazzas89-PGO Posts: 2,619 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Make the emails less ambiguous, say there's tok many in close proximity, not the exact distances but it would make sense then

  • Elijustrying-INGElijustrying-ING Posts: 5,486 Ambassador

    Poor communication is at the root of most of this.

    I do think that out of the large number it is not a high percentage that set out grossly cheat the system. However what they create and screenshots of very dense POI and how “easy” it is to have something in rea h of your home, raises expectations by ordinary players that this is perfectly possible, and sets the context for interest in submitting.

    The communication language when they go to submit is misleading. Naturally players assume they are submitting a new location for the game they play. Most have no awareness of lightship and most Pokémon Go players have zero or little awareness of Ingress why would they, they downloaded a specific game. So it is not surprising that in their submission they refer to PoGo and answer honestly why they want the stop.

    it is an improvement that they can see other nearby POI, but they don’t understand what it truly means. They are then baffled as to why it returns as a duplicate even though theirs is different eg features a different piece of play equipment. Or that it never appears at all. I agree with @Gazzas89-PGO that there should be clearer feedback rather than a vague statement about it might not appear.

    it is clear from the sheer volume of repetitive posts around this that the communication is not clear. It’s a good job we are here to help deal with the mess and frustration - all for free 🤔🙄

  • tp235-INGtp235-ING Posts: 1,383 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I am afraid I cannot agree with you.

    Currently, sliding location is being blown up by Pokémon GO strategy sites and some influencers as if it is a legitimate technique.

    Therefore, it is not already a part of the game.


    Unfortunately, many Pokémon trainers also break Niantic's terms of service and have multiple accounts.

    Of course, no one has the data to accurately estimate the difference between the actual number of people and the number of accounts.

    However, my guess is that the number of active accounts is about 2.5 times the number of actual players.

    (30% have only one account, 40% have two accounts, and the remaining 30% have three or more accounts.)

    Naturally, the more abusive the community, the worse this percentage difference becomes.


    Many times in the past, the number of reviewers leading to approval or rejection has been inferred in this forum from the perspective of preventing abuse.

    As I recall, it was then inferred that 35-50 accounts would be approved if they gave positive reviews.

    Now, let's apply this percentage of accounts.

    Even at my guessed percentage, if there were 15 abusers, the number of accounts would exceed 35.

    Then, this estimated number of reviewers is easily reached.

    And the abuser is almost certainly multi-accounted, fitting into the last group of 3 or more accounts.

    The situation is possible with perhaps even fewer abusers.

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,470 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @tp235-ING You are absolutely right. I've been arguing for a long time that local reviewers should have a minority vote for exactly this reason.

  • tp235-INGtp235-ING Posts: 1,383 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Unfortunately, that is not true either.

    As many as 90% of Ingress players, past and present, do not particularly care about location.

    There are players who are "disappointed" when a portal in front of them disappears, but they don't make much of a fuss.

    Most of them just move on to the next portal.

    I'm not saying that there are no misguidedly sensitive Ingress players, as you say, but the percentage will remain the same.


    However, I can guess that the percentage of Ingress players was higher for a period of time, so perhaps you are referring to that.

    Because misdirected and highly sensitive Pokémon GO players were abusing the Ingress app to arbitrarily slide their location data, using remote nominations to nominate false wayspots.

    This was especially higher in 2019 than in 2018.

    And it spiked after 2020.

    This is because the COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in both Pokémon players who were making low-quality wayspot nominations in an attempt to somehow create Pokéstops that they could spin from their homes.

    This continued until eventually Pokémon GO allowed 40 nominations and remote nominations.

    They are now back to Pokémon GO, by the way.

    So, most of the nominations are from Pokémon GO due to the swing back.


    So why are they nominating from Pokémon GO and not from Ingress as they have done in the past?

    Because they can hide their code names.

    Ingress is not convenient because you can't hide it.

  • tp235-INGtp235-ING Posts: 1,383 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @NianticTintino

    Hello.

    This is a topic that inevitably causes a rift in perception between Wayfinder, which considers gaming applications to be the base, and Niantic's Lightship database, which considers AR representation to be the base.


    Today, Niantic held the Lightship Summit and announced the Lightship Visual Positioning System.

    https://nianticlabs.com/blog/lightshipsummit/?hl=en


    This allows the system to determine the player's current location and orientation and fix AR content with centimeter accuracy for realistic, immersive AR on a global scale.

    It enables location-based AR channel apps and experiences to be built by adding locations to AR maps.

    It was announced that over 30,000 public locations in Tokyo, San Francisco, London, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle are supported, among others.


    That's exactly what this was all about! and I am excited about the future Niantic is showing us.

    If possible, could you and your Wayfarer team talk to us about this initiative and its relationship to the Lightship VPS to the extent that it does not fall under Niantic's NDA with Niantic?


    Otherwise, this subject will continue to be a perception gap that will never be filled.

  • Gazzas89-PGOGazzas89-PGO Posts: 2,619 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I'm sorry but no chance is it near the same. Remember, a lot more kids play pogo than ingress, just that alone would eliminate most of the percentage. I doubt its as high as 90% of ingress players that don't care about wayfarer (or what it was called before), I doubt its lower than 75%, but more of them will care ad they were allowed in first and in general care more about the portals. In my area alone I know that it's roughly 1 in 5 to 3 in 10 that care about wayfarer, amd that'd just in my res team, I also know there's a good few enl that care (including the aforementioned complaining about portals being moved to their correct positions). But in my pogo groups I doubt even 1 in 100 cares enough to even submit, let alone worry about edits, unless it's a request to people to do it for then and even then, that's less than 1 in 100. What you're saying about more coming into wayfarer when it opened to pogo will always be the case with a player base of 100 million vs a player base of 10 million (I'm giving a rough estimate of both based on play store numbers)

  • Elijustrying-INGElijustrying-ING Posts: 5,486 Ambassador

    @tp235-ING I don’t think it’s helpful that you are blaming Pokémon Go players on a global basis. You can reflect on the experience you have encountered where you are, but assume it is like that everywhere.

    When I started to pay close attention to POI and was able to edit ( all prior to PoGo allowing it) Within my local area there were plenty of examples of poorly placed POI, effectively duplicate POI, and POI that were not in The correct location, photos that did not reflect the POI. I know a few might have been original seed POI but the spread was much wider.

    I don’t recognise your percentages for multi accounts in PoGo. Yes there are a few and are easy to identify in gyms. And yes every now and then we have come “under attack” by seriously abusive players with 18 or more spoofing accounts on what I can only call a bullying rampage. And I have seen or rather not seen ingress spoofers.

    But the vast majority do not have multiple accounts because they frankly only have time and resources for one account.

    Out of this mixed bag it is very rare to find someone actively interested in submitting and reviewing. Several took the opportunity to try something new when submissions became available in PoGo but that lasted a couple of weeks. There are very few Ingress submitters.

    So locally across both games we have maybe 10 people submitting on a regular basis and maybe half of them at best reviewing.

    Wayfarer and all it entails is a minority interest.

  • SpARTiQL-INGSpARTiQL-ING Posts: 1 ✭✭

    I just noticed some links being dropped due to moved portals, are you doing this work ongoing?

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,470 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @SpARTiQL-ING You're probably seeing player-initiated moves.

  • Tutu000821-PGOTutu000821-PGO Posts: 2 ✭✭

    Trying to find an answer to a specific question and ran into this forum. Wow. Serious negativity here. Trying to wrap my head around why anyone would down-vote your comment. If I'm not mistaken, you are saying that when confronted with a choice between Option A (accurate, consistent with the rules, inclusive of players from all games) or Option B (accurate, consistent with the rules, excludes players from some games), you would choose Option A. FTR: I'm with you on that.

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