That's a Wrap! - The Global Wayfarer Review Challenge is ending ahead of schedule

[pixelbytes]

Not an excuse for them to cut off just like that.

During previous challenges it was know that the goals will be exceeded and the wayfarer team ended up adding more regions just for everyone to get a chance to complete it.

Slowness of website is not a new issue during wayfarer challenge as it was the same during the last few challenges as well.

If they want, they could open up edits/photo submissions as part of the challenge to ensure there is a sufficient amount of submissions for everyone to approval.

[SpyKid128]

A bit unfortunate to hear the challenge ended early, it was announced too late, just when I had planned to review a lot today to make a final push. (Edit: I agree with the exam comparison that has been brought up by others, perfect example). But with that, here’s my thoughts and feedback about this one.

Even despite the lag and errors, I had a lot of fun with this challenge, I participated in challenges before and having it be worldwide rather than a few select countries felt so much better.

It was very interesting for me to bonus hop through all the foreign location just to see what the difference in culture is between the countries I’ve already been in, for example the decorative fountains in Spain, many mosques in the Middle East, the churches of the USA… made it feel like exploring the world in that sense and I loved it. It kinda makes me wish we’d get to bonus hop a bit more but I can also see why it’s like it is to combat abuse.

The worst part of the challenge was day 2 for me, where for some reason, me and a lot of other people got a 24 hour cooldown after completing our first review of the day. That was clearly a bug and a very frustrating one! I was very annoyed because this would have been the day I had the most time to review. There was a lack of communication about this bug. I don’t know if that would have been possible but I would have changed the cooldown value in the system from 24h to just 30 minutes before starting the challenge.

One thing that was also a bit buggy was the grace period, it greatly hindered the process and contributed a lot to the balloon waiting times. In anticipation of this challenge I submitted anything and everything I had originally planned to, with me going outside just to take photos of a few more things around my town just as the challenge had been announced, but still right now, after the challenge I have stuck nominations that never made it into voting and are still in queue now. Tehstone noted something in discord about that grace period acting weird and I think it should have been reduced to 1 day or 12 hours at least - still enough time to write texts for those submissions and put them on hold if you didn’t finish them - but not like 5+ as it had been the case for me during the challenge. Normally outside a challenge I have my stuff enter voting after 2 days, it’s unusual. And it’s unfortunate to have a couple of submissions left that didn’t get resolved during the challenge, specifically those I submitted on April 16th. Changing that would have also reduced the lags, because it would be more to review!

Or just something simple as making the range for each the bonus and home location larger. Like making it find the most nearby reviews by extending the search radius.

I dont get the anger towards the people who reviewed more than 500. It’s not like a single person reviewing one thing in a location where others havent gotten it yet would have resolved it with that 1 vote, things need a bunch of votes to come to a conclusion.

Personally I also somehow enjoyed the community effort of trying to find a location that still had reviews left? I liked discussing on discord with others and sharing our finds about which places still had stuff to review. Got me to connect with people in the community more rather than just rushing through all the reviews trying to empty the backlog.

Now after this challenge I have very mixed feelings. It’s the feeling of not knowing what comes next. With the transfer to Scopely there is so many lingering questions we do not know the answer for… such as if the submitted wayspots through Pokemon Go will keep ending up in Ingress, how that Spatial system will work, and so on.

In the end, very fun challenge for me aside from that one day. Hope we will get more of these that focus on globally. Ended with 1135 resolutions and really enjoyed having helped clear the backlog, I wasn’t really particularly focused on the rewards, but it’s also nice to get the OPR live medallion for the first time.

[nulunas]

This is the 4th and never before cut early like this, and I too made the exam comparison. While you take the last minutes to review your answers, that’s planned. That gets clipped away and even if you landed a high grade, you’d never want that professor again.

@NianticTintino you’re the face of this event, and I do hope there are accountable lessons learned here.

As an event coordinator and organizer, I’ve only once had to shut it off early, but that was communicated 20% of the time into the event. Disappointment, sure, but that was early enough that everyone still had a good time. That was a situation out of my control. This is 100% in your control even now. Honor the original conditions. Everything still says the event is ongoing.

[Shironaa]

A one-day quarantine period is still necessary.
AI pre-screening can filter out many low-quality and non-compliant POIs,
and many players also need time to modify the wayspot text they applied for (Otherwise we will see a lot of titles and descriptions like ohhhh, waaagh, hehe..

[OnceGone]

It’s amazing that as soon as the challenge is turned off that I can sit here and review submissions with no issue. Just went though 25 back to back with no delay between them.

[P1dg3ySlayer]

You should have stood on one toe and tap danced. * Shakes fist *

[dot37]

I had a second goal. Before the start I was at 7500 pts, I started a couple of days before.
During this week, two days I couldn’t do anything because of the holidays. But I have always dedicated about 2 hours a day to carry on this challenge. For those who say that it has always been slow, it does not seem true to me. Until Sunday I saw the logo jump very few times. I moved the positions where the generous Ambassadors told us to put it.
It’s true between Monday and yesterday, I was also suffering because he was jumping, but I kept changing locations even different from those written
The goal of 500 pts could easily be done even in 4 days, you must never get to the last to do things.

Now for all those who ask for the OPR LIVE point, even without the 400pts. I should be given 5 of OPR LIVE Since I have reached the goal of the event 5 times.

Question for the Ambassadors, there will be a ranking just on a whim, compared to other players based on record points?

Ps: Yesterday the hot air balloon did not stop hopping, I changed location every review. If the proposals run out, it is useless to keep it open. If they had, this post would have lasted 1 more day of complaints because nothing could be done.

Thank you and have a nice day

[NotASmurfTorb]

With all of the bad in this challenge without the help of AliceWonder1511 and others giving constant updates about where there were reviews many people wouldn’t of gotten past the final tier

[F1djit]

As someone who only got to the 30s before finding out it closed early, I think I’m mostly frustrated with the tone of the post. “That’s a wrap” with a 3 hour notice of it ending a full day earlier just sounds so patronizing because they cut the requirements a little bit. I didn’t even see it was over until it already ended, so it really sucks that there’s no recourse to get anything at this point. Would have waited out the queues if I had known it ending earlier was possible. Actively makes me want to avoid Wayfarer entirely

[gggt377]

I agree that that was very poorly done and a poor use of English. That’s something you would post if it had gone as planned and everyone was left satsified after the effort. If you’re going to walk back your own event rules and disappoint thousands of people you don’t start with “That’s a wrap”. Very very bad taste.

[nuttynat2000]

This is very annoying as i was looking forward to my first OPR Live tick but only got to about 290 . I spent hours to get to that point and would have made the 500. As others have said more notice would be appreciated or instead of setting an end date maybe set a target number of nominations

[IntoRuin]

Is there any way to see how many you have done now? It ended when I was asleep and I was either in the 30s or 40s. I would cry if I just barely didn’t make it

[gggt377]

The admins might want to unwrap what they thought was wrapped A lot of people telling the same story. Just give a 24h grace period. Ending it randomly is just so weird and unprofessional.

[P1dg3ySlayer]

Serious question to those who didn’t use this forum before and during the challenge. If you look at some of the other threads on this site relating to this challenge, would you have done things differently if you were on here early on in the challenge? Would you have changed your location based on the info presented here?

[JoshiGAT0R]

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to share my experience with the recently concluded Global Wayfarer Challenge — and maybe also give voice to others who found themselves in a similar situation.

I had been actively reviewing throughout the challenge and had reached 386 reviews by the evening of April 22 (CEST). My goal was to hit 500 reviews by the originally announced deadline of April 23, 12:00pm PST (which is 9:00pm in Germany). I had planned to finish the last chunk of reviews the next day and get the full Tier 3 rewards.

Unfortunately, I went to bed on April 22 around 10pm (CEST) — and just one hour later, the announcement was posted that the challenge would end early due to a lack of submissions. I woke up early the next morning, saw the message, and realized I had missed the finish line by just 14 reviews, especially painful since the Tier 3 requirement had just been lowered from 500 to 400 reviews.

I totally understand and appreciate that the challenge was overwhelming in terms of participation and that the backlog was cleared much faster than expected — hats off to the entire community for that! But I do feel the short notice of the early ending and the time zone difference made it really difficult to adjust in time. I didn’t have a fair chance to reach the new threshold, even though I was clearly on track.
This experience has also left me feeling quite demotivated to continue reviewing for now, as it felt like my efforts didn’t count in the end — even though I was actively participating.

I’ve submitted a support ticket for my specific case (though I don’t have high hopes), but I also wanted to bring up something for general discussion:
Wouldn’t it be fair if participants who were just under the threshold (due to the early ending) received one tier higher as a gesture of goodwill?
For example:
• If you hit Tier 1 (75), you get Tier 2 rewards
• If you hit Tier 2 (200), you get Tier 3
• Or maybe some alternative, smaller compensation

Just an idea — but I feel it would be a nice way to recognize those who were committed, but caught off guard by the timing change.

Thanks for reading, and tagging @NianticTintino in case this feedback helps with future challenges or the reward handling for this one.

Did anyone else have a similar experience?

Best regards from Germany

[gggt377]

For me I would have tried to avoid getting hit with the 24h cooldown early on. After that it was a slog, with or without the information. And i would have tried to grind more yesterday and leave nothing for today. But that’s the kind of advice a grandfather could give you - don’t rely on any dates or words people say.

[P1dg3ySlayer]

A lot of people were caught out by the 24 hour cooldown. I don’t think it could have been avoided. But my comment was intended to ask, would you have had a better reviewing experience if people knew about this forum and actively monitored or participated.

It’s more for curiousity.

[Ferrothorn]

Would be nice if upgrades could allow us to skip the quarantine period though. Having the extra time for post submission edits is nice in most situations, but if I’ve got the text just right already and want to get a nomination through fast, the extra wait ends up being a hindrance.

Plus having more stuff to review during a challenge would help avoid repeats of what just happened with this one.

[gggt377]

I do believe so, yes. The Jakarta and Hong Kong tips that I got from the forum made me realize 500 was possible. A lot of the Jakarta ones were easy too, I was shooting up the ranks. My mistake was going to sleep and expecting to finish the job today. I could have had it yesterday before the whole thing was shut off. I saw people posting location tips right until the end.

[pixelbytes]

Agreed. The lead time wasn’t sufficient for those who missed it. There are multiple solutions which can be implemented to improve the event experience.

1. Temporary disable or reduce nominations/edits available for those who have reached the target. This will allow sufficient nominations/edits available for participants for approval and also reduce performance issues when there are lesser users.
2. Enforce locations where more nominations/edits are available instead of everyone playing the guessing game by changing locations to see which areas still has nominations and edits.
   (Example: Jaraka/Taiwan/Hong kong still has an amount for approval, Enforce nominations from these sites)