Worse kind of cheating.
I have been thinking a lot about what is worse for the game, considering trackers, snipers and shavers, and in my opinion the worse are the shavers, they really ruin the gym strategies. I think that snipers can be better or worse than trackers depending on the situation, if you see someone taking a gym down and put one of the 3 first pokemon there you are not so bad, the only thing you did wrong was not help the guy who was attacking, but if you steal the last spot of a level 10 gym from the guy who trained all the 10k prestige you are so bad as a shaver. I did not count for spoofers and bots, they are clearly worse. What about you guys, what do you think is the worse from the 3?
Answers
Shavers are really pissing me off right now. I was in a gym for over 2 months (yes I know... lucky for me) and was recently booted by a shaver. Now I've noticed more and more taking over. I can play my legit game against other cheaters, but I can't defeat a shaver (when gyms around me are slow to turn over) unless i would choose to get a second account to kick them off. And I'm not about to do that so I simply have to wait, cheering for a different color team to come by and defeat the shaver.
Yeah, they really ruined my game, I have been forced to power up vaporeons and a bad moveset dragonite just to be able to not be shaved of the bottom of every gym. Sometime ago where gyms mon had lower CP I only had to use an army of eggys with confusion, now 2600-700 cp is not enough to hold a gym anymore.
This is why I am still trying to level ASAP...Gyms in my area are generally stagnant and you are more likely to get shaved I think since some gyms have never gotten torn down...even after a few months. I get shaved, leveled a few more times, put myself back in, etc...repeat.
Gyms are at 3000+ CP mons on the bottom now for some gyms.
I didn't even know bubblestrat was still used, I don't see it at the gyms around me. Similar note, I took out a gym and wanted to put my 2900 CP Gyarados in it, then level up the gym with a 1400 CP Jolteon. I assume this would be an "acceptable" variation of bubblestrat? Or maybe it wouldn't have worked as well as I thought... I didn't end up doing it.
No, shavers affect people that strategically place pokemon to make a gym harder to take down, or put the best defender available. You sticking the 4th Gyarados, Rhydon, Dragonite, or Vaporeon in the gym isn't making it stronger, it is only a selfish move that makes your gym easier for people like me to take down. I always tear gyms down to 0 and I love it when people string Rhydons and Vaporeons. I assure you, my 2800 cp Eggys, my Scizor between water pokemon, my Jolteon between Rhydons, or my 2700 cp Blissey is better than the stuff you are adding to your gyms. If you have an inventory full of REAL defenders like Snorlax and Blissey, over 3000 cp, you didn't do it legit.
Shavers and snipers atleast in my area are the worse I can't tell you how many times I prestige a gym just for someone to drive by and throw there Pokémon in there from my own team. What's even worse I have people sit at a gym regardless if it's my team or another waiting to either snipe the spot or take the gym over. Yesterday I had this happen to me twice and also tonight. Go to prestige a gym that was about to be level 10 and a normal car I see playing in the area just sitting there waiting there to snipe my spot I worked for. Thankfully I got in the spot before they could. It wouldn't be a big deal like you said if there were spots open but when I'm useing my potions for you to get in a gym I'm like wtf makes that person think they can do that, just because there a higher level then me? Like cmon now...
Until a couple of weeks ago, my worst problem was shavers. Oh how I miss those days!
Now it is a person with multiple accounts, filling every gym with Blisseys. Every gym around me is a level 10 blissey hotel. This dude must have like 40+ gyms all full of blisseys. Niantic really needs to limit players to 15 gyms max.
Some who has two accounts, each from a different team. They use their "fake" secondary account to knock down the prestige of a gym one level. Then they switch to their "real" account with the same team color as the gym, and prestige up the gym. Their logic is that it's easier to "shave off" someone on my own team rather than actually work to build the gym.
So example:
I'm team blue, and position 10 in local gym. I've been there three days. Team blue guy shows up, switches account to team red, knocks me out and puts gym down to 49000 prestige. Switches back to team blue, only needs 1000 prestige to build up and puts himself in.
Spoofing is blatant cheating and the worst practice, IMO. In my area the vast majority of players in gyms are spoofers, unfortunately. Niantic should probably just make spoofing a legal part of the game (you'd GO to pokestops and find mons, but fight gyms from the comfort of your home through some function in the app).
Sniping is legal but very sleazy, especially since it is usually done to cheat teammates at this point.
Shaving is a legitimate strategy, IMO. If you have friends who are on other teams you can work together to shave gyms and get your friends in. It's social, gets people out, and (if you're putting stronger mons in to replace the shaved ones) it's strengthening your team's hold on a gym.
Stagnant gyms are bad for the game. Gym turnover, either by total conquest or by shaving makes people work to earn their coins.
My wife, daughter and I are yellow, and we especially enjoy taking down level 10 enemy gyms as a team. Sometimes we work together with our red friends to take down level 10 blue gyms even faster. When we come across level 10 red or yellow gyms we often shave those for each other as well.
Shaving is a legitimate strategy, IMO. If you have friends who are on other teams you can work together to shave gyms and get your friends in
This is not how it's supposed to be done. When you play soccer you pass the ball to this asshole you can't stand because he's in your team, not to your buddy who plays in the opposing team. If you can't play by this rules play a different game.
Says who? You? You're joking right?
This isn't soccer. And frankly, if you could score a goal for your team by passing the ball to the "asshole" on the other team then guess what? There would be a lot of passes to the other team.
Shaving is playing by the rules. Just because you have a problem with it doesn't mean there's something wrong with it. If you can't accept how players have adapted their strategies then play a different game.
In our case, the asshole almost certainly spoofed one of his 4 illegally farmed Blissies into that gym. He's more of an enemy than our friends who play the game by GOing places with us and getting exercise.
This isn't soccer. It's a game intended to motivate people to socialize, exercise and explore. Niantic has failed in some of their goals, motivating many to exploit via spoofing and other cheats. I consider those cheaters to be my real enemies and legitimate players on any team to be my allies.
Didn't Niantic implement something that gives you time to drop something after you prestige a spot? I thought they fixed snipers with that.
Shavers are the worst!
Tracking is cool with me, Niantic should give us tools to track down mons. I'd rather walk 5km to go track a dragonite than catch all these fucking pidgey etc. everywhere.
I'd also be stoaked if they let you track real time local gym positions too, that just seems like it'd make the gym scene better.
I don't think tracking is cheating, it should be part of the gym scene. I've been tracking shavers with a third party gym tracker. Everytime I see a known shaver I take the gym down to kick them out. Shaver trash got to go!
