I've been playing this game since the beginning and I've seen people cheat in a lot of different ways.
Just off of the top of my head right now, I've put up with cheaters who
- Steal your earned spot while leveling up a gym without actually being there.
- Knock you out of the bottom of a strong L10 gym with their second alternative-team account just to add themselves.
- Kick you out of the gym, without actually being there, you just took over before you can even go to Shop -> Collect.
- Have dragonites [1] they didn't earn sitting on top of nearly every gym in the area, collecting on 10 gyms a day while making it practically impossible for you to collect on more than 2.
- Run around all day hatching eggs and visiting (and hoarding) at rare pokemon nests without leaving their seat.
- Have multiple same-team accounts so when they take over a gym they get extra prestige instantly.
- Use 3rd party software to instantly get all IVs, extra pokemon info, and recommendations.
- Don't have to bother tracking pokemon in the area, they know where they are and go straight to them, while legitimate players have to scramble around running.
- Use a bot for practically unlimited star dust while the rest of us have to painstakingly save.
These clowns ruin the game for all the legitimate players, and all for what? So that they can feel good about themselves by lying to themselves, thinking they're good at a video game when in reality they are trash and need to cheat. Or even the botters running programs they most likely didn't even write to collect rare pokemon for trading at the expense of the community. The good news is, despite it feeling contrary, we (the legitimate players) do outnumber the cheaters, and if you make an effort to report them then you are really doing the entire community a favor. So please, if you think you have spotted a cheater, screenshot it and then submit a report to Niantic: https://support.pokemongo.nianticlabs.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=319948
Some cheats are harder to prove than others but you can submit suspects and let Niantic decide because they have mountains of data they can then use to confirm. In my experience, Niantic has been fantastic about keeping up with my reports, I've never seen any of the people I've reported come back to any of my local gyms.
[1] http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mRvE%2BGAZL.jpg
I agree with some of your points but how are these cheating:
"- Kick you out of the gym you just took over before you can even go to Shop -> Collect.
- Have dragonites sitting on top of nearly every gym in the area, collecting on 10 gyms a day while making it practically impossible for you to collect on more than 2."
Can you define what you mean by "cheating"? I don't consider all of your examples cheating. In particular, I don't see anything wrong with
- Kick you out of the gym you just took over before you can even go to Shop -> Collect.
and
- Have dragonites sitting on top of nearly every gym in the area, collecting on 10 gyms a day while making it practically impossible for you to collect on more than 2.
The link you gave is to report "inappropriate" gameplay. Presumably that means anything that violates the TOS [1].
How does your definition of "cheating" and the example you gave compare to the TOS?
[1] https://www.nianticlabs.com/terms/pokemongo/en
Hi, sorry I meant to qualify that first point by saying they are GPS spoofing and kicking you out of the gym without actually being there.
The second point, I meant dragonites they didn't earn legitimately. People like this http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mRvE%2BGAZL.jpg
I edited the original statement, thanks for pointing that out :D
Yes, the link I gave has a drop down option to report cheating!
And to answer you about what I consider cheating, I think this explains it pretty nicely:
https://support.pokemongo.nianticlabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/221993967
The page says:
"No cheating.
Don’t do it. Play fair. Pokémon GO is meant to be played on a mobile device and get you outside to explore your world! Methods of cheating, unfortunately, are limited only by cheaters’ imaginations, but include at a minimum the following: using modified or unofficial software; playing with multiple accounts (one account per player, please); sharing accounts; using tools or techniques to alter or falsify your location; or selling/trading accounts."
"Knock you out of the bottom of a strong L10 gym with their second alternative-team account just to add themselves."
I really wish it was easier to detect this. I've been at the top of a level 10 gym and then two mornings later I'm at the bottom of the same gym. I'm practically certain that this is what happens (especially when the gym sat at level 7/8 for several days with no one attacking or training it, then once it hits 10 the nine players below me all got replaced immediately?) but there's no way to actually know if people legitimately attacked the gym and gave up and then these guys retrained it or not. It's also nigh impossible to know if people are spoofing - I trained a gym to 10 and the slot was taken before I could put someone in even though I was looking around to make sure no one was nearby, but you can't be sure someone isn't hiding in a building within range or hiding behind a tree, etc... This is also Niantic's problem really - there should have been an option to exclusively lock out a gym while training (e.g. if you press to lock and no one else aids in training within 3 min, anyone who attempts to train will get a notification that it's locked and they can't put someone in, and as long as you don't have over 90sec inactivity you get exclusive rights to place a pokemon in the gym once it levels up). It's also Niantic's problem for people knocking out the bottom of a gym to put their own in (who's bright idea was it to make it only cost 1000 prestige worth to lower 500 then train 500 and replace, but 8000 to train the last levels of a gym? Could easily have made gyms downgrade at different levels than they upgrade at). As much as you "hate the players" for this behavior, and they're actually breaking rules to do it, these are things that could still be done WITHOUT breaking rules and that's a problem that's on Niantic.
As much as reporting players helps, Niantic really needs to detect it better themselves. Start with GPS Spoofing and then move on to multiple accounts. Get rid of those two (relatively easy) cheaters and the game would open up a lot.
Also, I read some guy on here claiming he had 60 level 10 gyms. Like WTF man... let some other people play. How the heck do you even have 60 pokemon capable of getting in to a level 10 gym. How the heck did you even get to 60 different gyms? Especially when the limit is 10 I don't understand that decision making - I get having 12-15 if you had some time and wanted to stock up. This guy sounds like he's hoping to hibernate for the winter getting the max each day without having to go outside.
"I really wish it was easier to detect this."
I agree. It is entirely possible that one plays with a friend/significant other who is on the opposite team and likes to help out, which technically is allowed I guess but extremely irritating nonetheless. I think Niantic could examine the data and see if this is happening non stop between two accounts, the probability of it being the one scenario in which it is technically legitimate is becomes lower and lower as time goes on (if two people are THAT close then I think they would likely be on the same team, given how young the game currently is). Couple that with some other factors and it could be easier to automate the banning with very high confidence.
I too believe there is a lot more to be done to automate GPS spoofing bans, but I do see the potential issues there, especially in cities with huge buildings where GPS is constantly spazzing out naturally, and there is practically nothing a legitimate player can really do.
If anything, I think it would be great if they had an algorithm to automatically flag suspicious accounts for human review. E.g. if an account has "> X" Dragonites over 3000 CP and suspect GPS history then it should be marked as a high probability of cheats. Then have humans constantly reviewing the high probability cases. This would make it really inconvenient (but not impossible) for the bulk of cheaters, and I think that would drastically improve the game for so many. Algorithms like that would require lots of tuning (e.g. if the game is still being played 10 years from now, then maybe having 10 Dragonites is not such a big deal.) But with the amount of money the game draws I think it is something potentially in Niantics power!
With location of where a mon is caught, I would think GPS spoofing is very easy to detect since I'd assume the time caught is recorded too (it's in the journal)...You can't be in 2 far off places within a few minutes or hours...
Multiple accounts would be very hard to detect as I think family members help each other put their mons in a gym at times which I'd assume many many people do and I didn't think is cheating.
They just need to fix the whole gym thing since I'm now completely locked out when gyms are all 2200+ CP.
I totally agree of getting rid of cheaters and I don't know how can Niantic do that but they should!!! BOTs and GPS spoofing are damn so UNFAIR!!! but bro...
I have 5 gyms near my house. All of them are dominated by a group who joined the same team and used GPS spoofing to collect Dratini's from a nest before Niatic stopped the nests. There is one guy who is level 26 with 5 Dragonites. Eventually, it will even itself out if they continue to enforce their rules, but in the meantime, it is frustrating.
-Use 3rd party software to instantly get all IVs, extra pokemon info, and recommendations.
In fact, this is against Niantic TOS but I don't think cheating is the right word for it, because it does not provide for the "cheater" any significant advantage.
Since appraisal feature you can easily know exact IV of your pokemons and don't need 3rd party software. People who do this, do not ruin the game in any way, just are too lazy to do the "ant work". It's not gamebreaking but it is "worldbreaking" indeed, because it supports people laziness.
While sitting in my usual spot in town I heard someone mention my screen name for cheating because of multiple dragonites. I caught them and hatched 2 dratinis for a ton of candy and upgraded the dragonites. I hate that people around my area think I cheat, I wish they knew the ivs(71 and 51 lol).Its not my fault that gyms have no turnover here and they sit forever.
So please don't report people just for dragonites, that's just overkill people.
I have 3 dragonites, all 85%-95%, all caught, evolved, and powered up without cheating. A lot of work? Yes, been running 5k everyday in the same spot. While multiple dragonites don't denote cheating, some people have cheated to get theirs, and it really is annoying given that I worked so hard for mine. But sometimes you need to give them the benefit of the doubt, cause there are people who worked hard for theirs.
I do wish niantic would crack down more though. It makes it hard for the rest of to keep up. I agree with the notion that we should do our part on reporting cheaters, but only after ample evidence. I've heard of people getting banned for no reason, and that would be very frustrating on the flip side.
If I recall correctly, you were on another thread saying that you cheat to "outwit" the other cheaters. This is hilarious that you think you're so smart when you can't see the bigger picture of what you're doing. So now you're resorting to insults because you feel insecure that I pointed out that you're not good enough to play the game without cheats, lol.
A lot of the reason why people 'cheat' as you say is more down to problems with the game which make it necessary to cheat to play the game properly.
The current system for tracking pokemon is pretty much useless, forcing people into using third party tracking.
There are no decent pokemon unless you live in a major city, forcing people into using gps spoofing.
The way movesets work on evolving currently means the only reliable way of obtaining the movesets you want is to find a reliable source of the pokemon and grind away for hours.
Some things like multiple accounts i agree with but with no way to withdraw a pokemon from a gym I don't see how else you can get it back.
Maybe you should think about why people cheat as opposed to putting all the blame on cheaters themselves.
I have never cheated on a game before but feel it's necessary to make Pokemon Go a playable game past a certain point.
The whole point about IVs is that they are a hidden stat. That's how they were intentionally designed. From Bulbapedia:
"Shigeru Ohmori has stated that the reason EVs and IVs are hidden is because he prefers to think of Pokémon as 'real, living creatures'."
If it were meant to be otherwise then I'd bet it would be readily apparent when viewing your pokemon. So the fact that people use 3rd party apps to get around this intentional part of the game means, for me anyway, that it is considered cheating.
Furthermore, if you played the original GB games, Red/Blue, etc. then perhaps you understand that it is meant to be a game of probability. It's pretty much like gambling. That's what makes it so "rewarding" when you do finally get the moveset you want, you pretty much won the lottery. If people could pick and choose then everyone would have Dragonites with DC/DP, or Lapras with FB/Blizzard, etc. So if other people have to roll the dice to get their movesets and you are able to just pick and choose your movesets then it defeats the purpose of the game and it is cheating.
As for people complaining about not living in a city or area that's populated enough.. I feel for you but it is currently a game designed for more urban play. If there were a game designed for people who live in rural areas then I guess it would be reversed, but this just happens to be the way it is. Let's say I broke my leg but I still felt like skateboarding. Well, it's pretty much too bad, skateboarding is not really designed for people to use with a broken leg. Does that mean skateboarding shouldn't exist? No, it just stinks for people who like to skateboard but broke their leg. Not a perfect analogy but I hope you get my point.
Rural play is incredibly frustrating. Having to buy balls every couple of days is aggravating, especially since they are high for some odd reason. I have to pick and choose what to catch.
This could EASILY be solved by niantic by giving a daily login bonus of balls or coins. Cheating sucks, but leaving out rural players sucks even more. I've spent more money on balls than anything else in this game, and I've spent an embarrassing amount. I'm afraid to look at my Google acct.
I'm not saying either side is right, but niantic should've made it much more fair to rural players. It's depressing driving to town and seeing tons of stops everywhere. This isn't skateboarding, it's a game programmed from scratch; they could've made it more fair many different ways.
You're right, it wasn't a perfect analogy, and I agree that rural play could be drastically improved, with very little effort even. I spent a few weeks in a rural area where the town had like 3 pokestops, it was awful. Taking down one L10 exhausted all my potions! I think you can submit a request to have a new pokestop put in, but I've never tried. Compare that to the city where some people live above 1-3 stops and just spin away!
It's really weird they haven't addressed the issue in some way. Maybe the upcoming daily challenges. Driving 20 mins to stock up is ridiculous.
It's very sad, we are overloaded with gyms. Churches on every corner, but no pokestops. I'm guessing everyone here quit so gyms just sit for weeks and weeks not even level 10. It used to be fun beating gyms and having rivals, now I guess everyone quit around here. I have no idea where I put my poliwrath, slowbro, or unpowered snorlax:/ some random gym on a random road...I'll never know
I disagree, in the other pokemon games you know where to find specific pokemon, in pokemon go you have no clue, its too random.
It still takes a lot of effort to catch enough pokemon to evolve enough to get the movesets you want.
I recently came across a bulbasaur nest and it took 10 venasaur evolves to get the best moveset. even then it has low cp.
This took days of grinding, if I didn't know of a nest it could of taken years.
You really want to put that much effort into this game?
The balance of this game is totally screwed towards making you play for as long as possible.
Exp needed to level after mid 20's is a joke.
This game is designed to be as awkward as possible for a reason. but the balance between grind and reward is way out of whack. that's why so many people have quit the game.
The developers need to make this game more player friendly and less toward their own interests of making money .
I actually really like the aspect of the grind. It makes the reward that much sweeter when you find that right pokemon. I believe they intended to make it that way so it was like you were really in the wild looking for these things. Think about it, if pokemon were real, just like real animals, you would know known habitats because of "sightings" from experts or people or whatever. But just like in the real world, if you went out in the wild to find a monkey, there is no garamtee you'll see one, much less one that has a particular gene set.
That's a really cheesy analogy, I know. But it seems to make sense in my mind. My point is that just as much as that is not for the faint of heart, nor is this game when it comes to really getting exactly what you want out of it. It takes work, and people who go outside of the bounds of that work make the reward for those of us who put in the time soured. And they only cheat themselves the experience of it all.
Actually, IVs are not that hidden as was originaly intended thanks to APPRAISE feature designed by Niantic themselves.
You can take calculator, and calculate IV range by yourself, than Appraise will tell you exactly which possibility is correct. There is no need for 3rd party software.
If IVs should be hidden, why they would provide us with feature that reveal them?
It gives you an idea of what they are, but it doesn't necessarily give you exact IVs.
For example, I have a Snorlax at level 32.5 and I still don't know if it's 84, 87, or 89 % IVs. I get too excited to max it out each time I level up that I always forget I should do a "refine" calculation first. Because CP 2715, 250HP, Stamina 15 is not enough information to give exact IVs. Like someone correctly pointed out, a compromise made by Niantic to stop the swarm of 3rd party apps hooking into your game. You still need 3rd party software (this site is software in a way, it just doesn't hook directly into your game, so it's allowable). Sure you could technically derive the formula and all that yourself but you'd have to be pretty smart, do a lot of research, and have a lot of time on your hands and then do the calculations for each pokemon "by hand".
