In Pokemon GO only one waypoint in a certain cell can be a pokestop, while all the surrounding waypoints stay hidden. You can see those hidden waypoints in certain situations (for example in a small radius around you, while submitting a new nomination) but otherwise there is no way to interact with them in the game.
In my opinion it would be a huge improvement to allow for adding/liking photos (or upvoting them in another way) of those hidden waypoints. This would allow the most proper thing in each cell to become be a pokestop. Unlike in the current system where we are stuck interacting with something unamusing when it could be something wonderful.
Another solution to this would be to have an option to simply downvote a pokestop. This would allow another existing waypoint to become a pokestop of that cell.
Good example of this is in my area is a 7 year old pokestop of an information sign. Itās boring, itās a semi-duplicate (the thing that it refers to is a pokestop in a neighbouring cell) and I donāt like it but it was there first. Over the years in that cell appeared other cool waypoints that could provide nice postcards and better experience.
Am I missing something? Any thoughts? Iām sure in many places around the world people have some nice piece of art blocked by generic playgrounds or information signs.
Here itās a remote rural area and we have only a few pokestops so Iām determined to find a solution. Perhaps a level 10 Ingress account could add/like a picture to a portal of an invisible āpokestopā, which would then overpower the existing one (either immediately or during a gym creation).
11 Likes
In general I do not disagree with you. I do think that Niantic has picked some items for the game boards that are not that interesting.
From there things get complicated. Currently the Niantic games (Ingress, PokƩmon Go, Pikmin Bloom, Peridot, and Monster Hunter Now) all us a single database - Lightship, to populate their game boards. Each game uses different inclusion rules ( proximity or density).
So while I agree that your game should have quality wayspots, that should be true for all the games. And unfortunately that is not a Wayfarer decision.
1 Like
I am in full support of Niantic shaking up all the game boards! But not sure how popular that opinion is.
2 Likes
If everyone used it correctly, it could be a good feature, but if the constant Ingress Faction wars that weāve seen on this and the previous wayfarer forums are anything to go by, I suspect it would get abused by players.
8 Likes
I agree with you @hankwolfman based on the current setup. But I do have some (silly?, random) ideas how the community could judge āawesomenessā of wayspots.
I do think Niantic is already considering nuance in eligibility with their new voting scheme. They are asking for how large a crowd is reasonable at a spot that pegs as Social.
That said Iām thinking on a Lightship scale. The individual games would need to do things to disambiguate if that wasnāt done.
There are way too many Pokemon Go things tied to specific Pokestops for me to get on board with changing them with a thumbās up. If the stops they are tied to get removed, routes are unusable, and when showcase stops are removed, they donāt get replaced. We already see upvoting battles over changing the disc photo, so I can only imagine what would happen with people changing around a couchie pokestop. When I tell my group thereās a Kecleon at āBig Bend Boardwalkā then people know where that is. If it is constantly changing, they wonāt.
5 Likes
I agree with you @cyndiepooh, we canāt go by thumbs up/down. That just gets us to heated debates on singular wayspots.
You are a trusted member of the community, so I want to ask what your recommendations are to asses the Lightship database for implementation in the various games?
Iām a bit of a rebel (but still wholeheartedly want to follow guidelines) so Iād like to analyze Lightship database and score each item. Then Iād like each game to come in with a clean slate and pick quality items based on their inclusion rules.
Cherry on top is if the games would coordinate and not use all the same spots.
Tell me if Iām overstepping!
Definitely not overstepping. It is frustrating to know there are so many great Wayspots that the games I play - Pokemon Go and Ingress - will never see. But I am not an ideas person.
That said, for Pokemon Go at least, I think there could be a lot of ways to use these other Wayspots that arenāt Pokethings. Maybe this new Dynamax thing I am hearing about could use them instead of existing Pokestops. Maybe non-PoGo Wayspots could be hidden surprises to find like hidden Pokeballs with items in the main games. Maybe non-PoGo Wayspots could be where trainer battles pop up instead of blocking Pokestops like they have done a couple of times. There has to be a lot of other ways these other Wayspots could be used without rotating of established Poke-architecture.
2 Likes
I will need to look up Dynamaxā¦
These are cool ideas!
I feel like a lot of them translate to Pikmin Bloom mushroom battles or Monster Hunter Now encounters!
Maybe popups for Ingress? That would be fun.
Sadly I canāt think of something for Peridotā¦ itās so cozy, Iām sure someone has an idea?
More thought still needs to be put in to the quality of the Lightship database choices. I advocate for items meeting eligibility going to the database. My concern is older items in said databaseā¦
Both @cyndiepooh and @hankwolfman have said points I would make.
Iām sure we can all find S2 level 17 cells with multiple objects in the lightship database ( there is no proximity rule in adding to the database.) a lot of what you describe is down to personal bias as to what an individual thinks is wayspot worthy. There is no set answer. In many ways what we have is totally random. The percentage of S2L17 that have this perceived issue is tiny.
It would be great if the wayspots available for use in the database could all be used in a different way to the one way that the PokĆ©mon Go team has opted for ā¦ā¦.but that is a game decision.
As wayfinders we can only put stuff in the database, how it is used is out of our hands.
I am also very much in favor of shakeups for games and of a dynamic gameboard Ć la Catan (didnāt make it into the game? it probably will in a few weeks) which would really minimize the game-related biases that Wayfarer constantly suffers and that we keep talking about on here (no more incentive to misplace that wayspot pin), but I hear people get VERY particular about their gym gold medals (routes, anchors, missions, showcases, uhhh monsters).
1 Like