Niantic messes around with their community...business as usual.

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  • KoriNoDokutsu-INGKoriNoDokutsu-ING Posts: 41 ✭✭✭

    These stops and gyms never meant to be there, yes. But what, if they deserve to be there, let me give you an actual example just from totay:

    I submitted a movement of a Pokestop, a historical chimes (is that the right word for "Glockenspiel"?) months ago. It was in that place from the beginning of Pokemon GO and it was in the wrong place. There was no abuse, as it must have been an ingresser, who created that.

    I wanted to move it into its correct place. In that cell, there is a historical building and a beautiful graffiti. The graffiti was "tricked in" there, yes (bad bad), but only because it was in the wrong place, before, again, since the beginning of Pokemon GO. But the historical building was there from the beginning on and it was in the perfect right place. The graffiti was liked in our local community overall. People even went there to send gifts from that stop, as it theme is really nice (it's a bride).

    So, two of these three stops will vanish now for the Pokemon GO community:

    1.) There was no abuse, there were just two corrections for the right location.

    2.) All of these stops fit the Waypoint Criteria perfectly.

    3.) Pokemon GO players got used to these stops, as they were there from the beginning on. And they liked them a lot.

    4.) I wouldn't have even moved the Waypoint, if I knew, that it will vanish now. I submitted the edit, when no one from Niantic even thought of taking these steps against the "abuse". Now, everyone in my community will be mad at me, if I would confess, that these stops disappeared because of my action (so, I will not do that). I, now, just feel bad about doing the right thing in correcting the map.


    Don't see just the abuses, there are other cases of stops and gyms, that simply don't deserve to be deleted from the map (just for PoGO-players). And if my little example from my small German city is not enough, look to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I hope, no one will have the idea of moving "Philippe Petit Tight Walk Rope Memorial" or "Monsieur Eiffel - **** Musch" in its cell (what might be possible, as it should be in that great 10 meter range. We all might say goodbye then to one of the most iconic buildings in the world. But perhaps, it also doesn't deserve to be there, because the Memorial was in the game first, but was in the wrong place all the time?



  • 52cucumbers-ING52cucumbers-ING Posts: 225 ✭✭✭✭

    Yes, you're caught in the fallout that was caused by the people doing these kinds of edits in bad faith. That's unfortunate but also why we can't always have nice things. In Ingress we're left with a broken and largely unusable edit system now, for the same reason. I wasn't saying all PoGo players have been doing this or that all location edits have been done in bad faith, I was simply saying that this was caused by players who gamed the system and the fact that there was enough of them for Niantic to eventually crack down on it.

    It's never fun to be caught in the effects of something you didn't cause but the game was after all designed with a certain pokestop density. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the rules they created for themselves are enforced, although I agree that it would have been better if it had worked like this from the very beginning.

  • 52cucumbers-ING52cucumbers-ING Posts: 225 ✭✭✭✭

    For what it's worth, I think the S17 stuff isn't a very good system. I played to 40 and for a long time after that in PoGo and I was deleting inventory daily. Adding more stops wouldn't have shifted the balance of anything for me. Since I only played in a city I don't know how it would affect play in rural areas to just drop the restriction but I doubt crowded cells is much of an issue there anyway. This would probably also avoid the situations where PoGo players keep submitting duplicates because they have no way of knowing the object they found is already a waypoint without checking Ingress intel.

    The only somewhat sensible argument I've seen for it is the size of things on the PoGo map and the risk of clipping/overlapping and crowding the map itself too much. In Ingress POI are tiny and can cluster more without cluttering the view. I've no idea how it is in the wizards game, never tried it.

  • KoriNoDokutsu-INGKoriNoDokutsu-ING Posts: 41 ✭✭✭

    Yeah, I thought about your last point, as well; and I really hope, that this isn't Niantic's reason to do all this.

    Clipping/overlapping and crowding should be just a problem of the right game design and should not affect these crucial game-mechanics, that are set up, now. It would be shameful for a game developer to solve such a problem in that rather complicated way.

    In the end, it's just a matter of practice to hit the right stop in a cluster.

    Honestly, speaking of a crowded map, a Kyogre-buddy, Go-Rocket Grunts standing besides the stops and balloons following the trainer are much worse, than two stops cuddeling. :D

  • KissakCZ-PGOKissakCZ-PGO Posts: 4 ✭✭

    Of course it did PoGo players, but that doesn't mean it must be placed in wrong position (for example that football field etc.), but that is NOT what I'm talking about in that post. It's not a theoretical thing, it's a fact. Ingress players can affect and DESTROY gameplay for PoGo players without any disadvantage for them. I would be very happy to see the reaction what would happen if the rule of S2 cells will switch between Ingress and PoGo.

  • kostasgki-PGOkostasgki-PGO Posts: 4 ✭✭

    A huge proof that most Ingress players are here just to spit poison and not to contribute anything useful to the discussion is what at last seems to be the problem. The disappearance of the Pokestops and Gyms seems to be only VISUAL. The disappeared pokestops still can be spinned by a Go Plus, a Pokeball Plus or a Gotcha, get items, get a present with the picture of the disappeared pokestop, even a Quest from that Pokestop. Also, the specific Pokestop still counts towards creating new gyms in the 14 S2 cell. From all of these, this shows that it is indeed a BUG and not a vindictive new feature and specifically a VISUAL BUG. Now, Niantic needs to become aware of this and fix it.

  • Raachermannl-INGRaachermannl-ING Posts: 1,070 ✭✭✭✭✭

    do u have any screnshot or video or other reliable source as a proof for this?

  • kostasgki-PGOkostasgki-PGO Posts: 4 ✭✭

    Of course I do, but firstly, you wouldn't understand a game you don't play so there is no reason to show them to you, secondly, I won't even bother to post it to convince you, because I don't care about convincing you. Facts are facts. I only care to bring this to Niantic's attention, to accumulate more data and to help other PoGo players with the new info. They know how to test the validity of my claims. If Niantic employees ask me or anyone for new proof, I will happily give it to them. But it won't be needed, simply because they never intended to erase Pokestops, so they have their hands full trying to find out what was messed in the code.

  • Raachermannl-INGRaachermannl-ING Posts: 1,070 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2020

    dude ....

    TL40x10, 310k catches, over 700 gold gyms. I'm not one of those spiteful ING-only guys, who troll here on their high horses :P

    I'm totally with you that this rule change/bug is the worst decision ever, see my own thread on this:

    https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/8433/alternatives-for-disappearing-pokestops#latest

    Nethertheless this Thessaloniki example is over the top. There is balancing needed. This is really abuse and there shoudnt be this huge amount of stops. Further your style of "argumentation" is as underwhelming as the style of your "opponents" here. Both points together make this whole discussion here neglectible. Do it better.

  • kostasgki-PGOkostasgki-PGO Posts: 4 ✭✭

    As I have already told, i don't care to convince any player, you call it abuse, I don't, but that is not the point. Niantic asked about the info of the invisble stops and we provided them with the infos. Now, we have realised that the Stops were not removed, they became invisible, except for the Go Pluses and Gotchas. Noone is here to defend himself or argue about POIs, only to solve the mystery.

  • 52cucumbers-ING52cucumbers-ING Posts: 225 ✭✭✭✭

    I play both games little friends, maybe you should stop trying to make this a us vs them thing and look at your own actions leading up to this situation.

  • 52cucumbers-PGO52cucumbers-PGO Posts: 5 ✭✭

    Besides, I already stated elsewhere that I don't think the S17 rule makes much sense as long as the overworld map can work with the more clustered waypoints. If it stops people from abusing the system then I don't care if Niantic does it. But untill they do the rules are the rules and if the rules say 1 pokething per S17 cell then stop making such a giant fuzz about them enforcing it and stop misusing the wayfarer system by having every new waypoint need to reviews by first creating it in an empty S17 cell and then moving it to its correct location in another. And stop complaining when you get called out for doing it. Own your actions, it's part of the grown up world.

  • AScarletSabre-PGOAScarletSabre-PGO Posts: 754 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2020

    The most egregious cases of abuse within games cannot take place without some sort of community organisation. People report abuse all of the time. Now, rather than ban the abusers of the system or take reports seriously, Niantic would rather take crude measures and upset people who have put many long hours into making the games genuinely better for everyone.


    EDIT: and add to that they didn't account the recent major changes. Really need to work on their communication. I really hate the lack of transparency from Niantic.

  • WhisperOfDeath0-PGOWhisperOfDeath0-PGO Posts: 11 ✭✭✭

    finally a voice of reason @AScarletSabre-PGO

    Wayspots are about educating people and allowing people to explore.

    There's nothing wrong about "using" the system to create more pokestops. At least Niantic never said that this is abuse.

    I think it's high time we got an actual answer from Niantic however.

  • kostasgki-PGOkostasgki-PGO Posts: 4 ✭✭

    As thorough and insightful as it can be. That is the core of the issue, that the "ghost" pokestops are still there, just invisible. But you can still interact and use them with a Go Plus.

    I am really curious to see what happens if a gym disappears. Most probably, no new gym will appear, as the old one will still be there and the pokemon inside the gym won't return to their owners. But it would be huge feedback if it happened to anyone.

    Niantic needs to step up and take this matter seriously. We generally need much information about S2 cells, but for now, we want them to acknowledge the problem and fix it, at least say what they are planning to do. My guess would be that they don't even know what has gone wrong, so until they found out what is messed in the code, they don't have much to say. But if their intention was to remove only pokestops, they would simply remove all of them that are in an already occupied cell and not wait for an edit to happen. @NianticCasey-ING @NianticAaron-PGO

  • Pokeyparada-PGOPokeyparada-PGO Posts: 4 ✭✭

    I think the outrage is rightly placed in Niantic. Reason? Niantic does NOTHING ABOUT ABUSE REPORTS. when players were making the blatant description edits telling ppl where to move, got reported, and then Niantic did NOTHING.

    Niantic needs to step up and actually take action when there are countless reports made against one single player that consistently abuses the local region.

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Agent563937595-ING Point of order: Niantic did do something. They deleted a whole bunch of pokestops and put rules in place to keep it from happening again. That was a better long-term investment for them than handling each case by hand.

    We don't know if any of the players got directly punished or not, but the results of their cheating disappeared.

  • conio-PGOconio-PGO Posts: 4 ✭✭✭

    Very much agree with the sentiment of the original poster. Hard core players who got involved in nominating moving stuff made the communities game play better by creating new stops/portals for the enjoyment of the player base . Some areas (including my had many new POIS and many new and existing players come back to the games and socially enjoy.

    Now a month or so after these "new rules" many communities have been devastated. This has caused much trouble in various social media chats and discord groups, with people pretending to be virtuous in these forums by escalating their removal requests instead of improving the quality of the POIS and enjoying the games.

    The new more vague rules on criteria should now tip the balance back to the community i hope with more things being elligible.

  • TheFarix-PGOTheFarix-PGO Posts: 5,063 ✭✭✭✭✭

    So you are saying that cheating should be allowed because "it makes the game(s) better"? Sorry that you lost Wayspot do to player's cheating the system, but "makes the game(s) better" is no justification for cheating.

  • WandHerring-PGOWandHerring-PGO Posts: 139 ✭✭✭✭

    Niantic made the informed decision to limit the number of gyms and pokestop per S14/S17 cells. And while you may consider that POI density is all that matters for a better gameplay experience, they're the one with a complete picture of the game architecture and functionalities. They have to take into account stuff like interface user-friendliness, technical performances in terms of battery and cpu consumption for instance, the way assets interact with each other... Maybe too many spots at the same place makes the game laggy, or they did some tests and concluded that cells and radius limitations were the easiest conditions to implement to limit assets overlapping so that players can still tap precisely on any element on the screen. Whatever their reasons are, that's what they decided. So maybe us at the other end of the app may disagree with that. We can think, and tell them, that a higher POI density would make the game better, but at the end of the day they're the ones who see all the moving parts and if they decide that no, more gyms/stops per area won't make for a better gameplay experience, we have to respect their decision.

    So if you choose to ignore their rules and go against official guidelines to exploit a technical loophole to circumvent Niantic's decision, you have no right to be upset when they close it and clean up the mess you made afterward. As much as we can argue with them about guidelines through the lens of different cultural point of view or shortcomings of the review experience, when it comes to technical stuff, they knows their products better than us.

  • spiesr-INGspiesr-ING Posts: 313 ✭✭✭✭

    How the Go developers choose which Wayspots to include or exclude from their game is not a Wayfarer issue and is thus off topic for the Wayfarer forum.

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