[Feature Request] Wayfarer + VPS
Brief
Request that Wayfarer Wayspots have an additional requirement before they become in game assets.
Problem
* Too many wayspots being approved are actually garbage/rubbish/junk (unable to use stronger language, which would better communicate the current garbage wayspots being approved)
Scope
* To enable better quality Wayspots across all games and titles to players
* To speed up the process of Wayspots to have scans to be used in the VPS.
Details
* Wayspots reviewed and considered acceptable, remain locked.
* These will be easily distinguishable in Pokemon GO, Ingress, Wayfarer App etc as Wayspots not yet ready for use in games and apps.
* These locked Wayspots need to show a minimum number of community scans meter inside Pokemon GO, Ingress and Wayfarer app.
Recommended
* Minimum of 10 scans by at least 2 different game accounts.
* Wayspots REQUIRE meshing enabled for community activation scans
**What happens if a Wayspot does not get the minimum number of scans**
* If after 30 days, the Wayspot has not received the required number of Wayspot Activation Scans, it should be automatically removed from the Wayspot database.
**What happens when it does get the minimum scans**
* Player that Nominated the Wayspot will get their rewards as normal, as with the current system.
* Wayspot will show up as Active, in all games and apps.
**Reason for feature**
* To better communicate to players about the quality of the Wayspots they Nominated
* To better facilitate Niantic Inc to speed up the process for Wayspots for their VPS
**What about all existing Wayspots without scans**
* As this feature will add a new dimension to the Wayfarer system, ALL current Wayspots will remain as active, as they already are in all games and apps.
**But I don't care about scanning**
* Likely then you don't care about the quality of Wayspot either. This is a massive problem!
Comments
@Grogyan-ING For your last point I disagree strongly with your conclusion.
I've reviewed enough wayspots to be well on my way to double onyx Recon, and I do my best to follow Niantic's guidelines. Except for a tiny unexplained drop that happened after I reviewed and rejected something like 11 garbage candidates in a row I've been in green/great since OPR beta launched. I've done extensive work to track down, document, and report fake wayspots. I've had bad many wayspots removed, some even in places where they personally benefitted me. I am very picky about what I submit, and generally wont' bother unless it's something that I would be delighted to come across while playing. Quality is more important to me than quantity.
Now that I've said that, I couldn't give a flying fuchsia about scanning. It's completely uninteresting to me, and it doesn't contribute anything to my gameplay. I have limited time to spend playing mobile games, and I would much rather invest that time in something that I enjoy doing... like smashing up big piles of high-level enemy portals. Triple onyx isn't going to purify itself. (-:
There's also an assumption in your suggestion that it's easy for people to get back to things that they submitted. That isn't always a case, as some places have extremely limited access. Since you have -ING tacked onto your name you probably understand that those places can have some of the highest strategic value in Ingress. Imagine I've hiked to a place with no cell service and found/submitted a very remote historical marker. It gets approved two months later, but now it's snowed in for the winter and nobody could get there even if they wanted to. Poof, awesome high-quality candidate is gone.
Terrible idea. It is hard enough as it is to get wayspots in more rural areas. I have added hundreds of wayspots in my local and surrounding areas. With your idea, they would likely all be removed after a month. And there are places a lot more rural than where I live.
It already takes a lot of time out of my exercise routine to scout for wayspots and take good pictures. If I have to stop there 9 more times in a month after it is approved to take a scan, and hope at least one more person takes a scan as well, it's just not worth it anymore.
I too have hiked to many remote places. Some also with no cell reception. And nominated them. This is the fun of Ingress.
Even better with friends.
I also enjoy going back to some places where I had nominated some years ago, and find that the area has more quality wayspots than I initially nominated.
As the inclusion of community scans being a requirement, it doesn't matter who does those scans. Be it Ingress and Pokémon GO players who scan.
As I do not like scanning myself, like everyone else, I have looked hard and long, made the decision to go out of my way to scan wayspots as frequently as I can. This proves to Niantic and everyone else who uses the VPS, that I care about that, and every wayspot, and I am prepared to validate the quality of any wayspot. This was the reason for that last statement.and I encourage every single person to do the same.
I do care about the wayspots I'm submitting, otherwise I wouldn't be submitting them in the first place.
I have never been a fan of scanning though. I already feel awkward enough when I have to take a photosphere for a nomination that isn't visible on street view or satellite view and someone catches me in the act of spinning around and pointing my phone camera at weird angles. I don't need the added awkwardness of recording a video of my nomination on top of that.
I then encourage you to ask players in you local community to come out to those rural wayspots to help you by scanning them.
2 players, 5 scans each is a very very small inconvenience.
And as I pointed out, this also enables those wayspots to be instantly usable as VPS wayspots. Niantic will be enabling VPS wayspots for player interaction in Q4 for Ingress and Pokémon GO
What local community?
The local Pokémon community can't get enough people together for Raid Hour, and there is no local Ingress community. Who will be motivated to do even 1 scan on a regular basis in the next town?
@Grogyan-ING You mean that really cool thing that I found on a road trip that's 600 miles away? Sure, I'll get right on that. On the way back we can scan the thing that just got approved but is seasonally inaccessible for the next four months. Oh, wait...
I've had wayspots approved in four countries and on three different continents, and in several different US states including some that are on the opposite coast from the one I live on. This proposal would mean it's not worthwhile for people to ever submit anything that they can't easily get back to on short notice. Oh, and don't forget that not all phones can scan.
You know who this would really harm? Remote communities that few or no wayspots but have visitors come through and submit things. I know lots of people who look for such places when they travel and make it a point to seek out good wayspot candidates and submit them. Requiring scans for something to go live in games would completely undermine this effort.
@Grogyan-ING
I don’t know what part of the world you live in a or if it is urban or rural, but on a global basis this is a non starter. Try to consider a wider range of possible communities more.
I agree with lots of the comments made already.
I recently submitted lots of trail markers on a long distance path that has great views etc. I was prepared to put in the effort of doing photospheres for most of them. It did disrupt the walk considerably, but I am doing it so others can enjoy the walk and visiting each point and quickly moving on. Why should they be expected to stop enjoying the walk to do a scan?
Over the winter the number of walkers drops dramatically. So unlikely to get the footfall - should these perfectly good wayspots get killed off just because of the time of year submitted?
The idea of only having wayspots where there is a high traffic of players, just goes against the grain of encouraging exploration.
I don’t often use the disagree button but I have in this case.
Apologies for the digression but how did you find it? Did adding photospheres/submitting end up eating massively into the walk? Did you find more less than you thought you would?
I was thinking about walking/cycling the John Muir Way from Dunbar to Edinburgh next time I'm home and mapping the markers and anything I find on the way.
It's 40ish miles so easily a days worth of travelling.
It’s the well known coastal footpath. Some sections have a lot of visitors other sections are not as popular - probably because there is a lot of up and down - trusty explorer maps help find these. I’m picking away at it sections 😂 Not enough time to do large chunks.
I was meant to do west highland way with sister but things became complicated and it’s on back burner. John muir way sounds another really good one.
Just realised I didn’t fully answer question 😂
I do look at the way markers from a couple of angles to find best view of it and sometimes get out my trusty microfibre cloth to give it a clean etc.
I’m quite quick at doing photospheres - got the technique off pat.
But I try to wait for people to move on so they are not caught up in it - which can eat into time, sometimes I just get on with it. Of course easier in Nice weather nightmare in rain as on cliff tops rain is accompanied by wind.
I always upload photospheres later. And also do the nominations later too. Signal can be dodgy.
So it does eat into the time but you get a rest 🤪
It's amazing scenery and history dotted about up and down the East Coast.
Cycling 40 miles in a day would be relatively easy except getting off and on a bike might be annoying.
Mobile data signal may also prove annoying.
Do you just upload later as much as possible when along the coast?
See edited version
Thanks
A lot of people (locally) think that the value of a wayspot is dependent on how many people use it. Scans are not a worthy indicator of use, and neither is determining whether or not a featured wayspot is neutral. What makes you think that people can willfully scan garbage and then its existence is vindicated because it has someone's scout controller point on it?
I think I know exactly what sort of "garbage wayspot" you're trying to create these excessive hoops against, particularly when you mention compulsory meshing. That is completely wrong. Even NianticBrian has written about the particular object in the post below. The meshes are completely fine because they can also include some of the surrounding area.
There are only five VPS-enabled wayspots in the entirety of the Sydney Region. One of them, frankly, is the said garbage. There is no problem with the current situation, only with one's perspective. And the scope is extremely limited considering Turkey is still a flaming mess. Niantic does not care about quality. And if they really wanted to have the scans used to enable VPS across locations, they would tell Ingress to host an event and lock the gold tier badge behind 1,000 Scout Controller Points. Can't beat the existing Scout Controller with over 22 points on every single portal in the city? Move elsewhere to unclaimed scout controller portals, simples. Scans for everywhere, done within the scope of FOMOing into a badge.
I think that would **** wayfarer within a month
Niantic should allow a scan with the NEW nomination process. And reviewers should be able to see the scan that was done.
So many people do people do photospheres with nominations. Giving that data to Google. Niantic wants that data!
Scans shouldn't be REQUIRED to nominate, but should be ALLOWED. Sometimes the phone, coverage, people around, etc make it impossible. Many nominators won't want to take the time for it. But, many nominators already always take the time to make a Photosphere - so it is something Niantic could harvest (instead of giving it to Google).
This would also solve the problem of bad scans. If a portal has to have 10 scans to stay alive, people can just scan their feet 10 times. If the scan is part of the nomination/review, the nominator will try for a scan that proves their nomination.
A requirement to scan Wayspots would be a huge mistake. This is the third smartphone I use to play PoGO and the first to actually let me do AR stuff and scans.
I like that idea. The main reason I'm not doing Photo Spheres is because it looks suspicious, takes a lot of time (360° requirement) and sometimes multiple tries. A scan is usually done in like 10 seconds. Scan the surrounding area and the Wayspot you want to submit. This is exactly the data Niantic wants! It shouldn't be required, but it would help a lot to have this option as a reviewer to verify the location. But please compress is a little bit, so I don't have to download 50+ mb of data every time I review one of these
Don't give them ideas... Scans are a terrible feature and locking things behind them will only discourage people to even submit.
Unfortunately Niantic won't take things like that into consideration if they think those scans are the next big thing. Knowing niantic's preference for chasing trends and hoping for a windfall versus slow, sustainable growth from good service it's not inconceivable that they implement something like this and accidentally smother wayfarer completely.
The quick time that a scan can be done in results in something difficult to use. Often the movement is quick and enough to make the viewer feel I’ll.
The good part about photospheres are the pictures are ordered, the stitching is generally very good so as a viewer you control the pace of what you see. If scans were to reach a useable state they would need major investment and are basically reinventing the wheel.
I don't post in this forum much, pretty rarely in fact.
And ONLY post things that I believe are important for EVERYONE.
@NianticTintino It is quite clear in this thread alone, that enabling cheaters, disabling future VPS content, and general resentment,. Hostility, and harassment from a feature, which I strongly believe is in the best interests of players of EVERY Niantic game, and Niantic Inc is being ignored.
The Niantic Lightship conference in the last 2 years shows that VPS has invaluable use cases.
My OP here, when implemented will definitely help clear up a lot junk wayspots, disincentivise pogo players from deliberately gaming Wayfarer. And bring Wayfarer into a cross platform, multi game asset as it was intended to be, along with ongoing work to bring VPS worldwide in Q4 of 2022.
Hopefully, with Ingress enabling the first use case feature set of the VPS.
Thereby enabling pogo and devs to scan wayspots as, "normal thing".
A scan a day, is 30 seconds.
Caring about the quality of wayspots nominated, by having 2 independent players from any game, or Wayfarer app, to scan said wayspot 5 times each, will also enable the wayspot to be pushed out to the front of the queue for VPS.
I have seen the future of VPS, it is very bright and wonderful. But it needs collective effort.
So you choose to ignore all the valid points made by others in this thread, and that your most important point is very weak?
If a cheater community is strong enough to control Wayfarer in an area, they can certainly get the required scans for their invalid nominations in that area as well. Meanwhile many actually legit nominations will be lost, along with the wayfinders who submitted them.
This is truly out of touch and quite hot garbage. This is important to no one. Scans have not benefitted us yet in any way, shape or form and have, markedly nil impact on how Niantic's products are provided to us.
No one from Niantic is listening, and you know that very well based on the lack of communication on another forum you frequent. I'm happy to scan a survey mark five times, heck even fourteen times so I can score a free fracker. Or a Woolworths or an ALDI and bask in the fiery lightshow. And these scans will imbue the excellence of quality of these wayspots, since scans are apparently the sole indicator of wayspot quality. /shrug
Two thousand scans is really not enough. Do more. Remember Turkey.
Don´t quit your dayjob.
There’s a Wayspot in front of an apartment building I live by that frequently asks me to scan it. It’s a sculpture that sits in front of these huge windows of the apartment’s gym that has all of their treadmills lined up by the window. I always feel like a creeper trying to scan.
During the winter months, which are more plentiful than the calendar indicates around here, I work from home all day and don't get done till after dark. I work in a health care setting, with many people who work off shifts, weekends, etc. My weekends are occasionally free but I'm on-call every third week and can't wander far, plus our winter weather frequently prevents safe travel. I go months without submitting as a result, and scanning is a no-go under poor lighting conditions. With so many game elements already unavailable to nocturnal players (no Team Rocket leaders, no local raids, parks that close at dusk, I could go on and on....) why force my summer submissions into hiding because keeping them alive is a physical impossibility?