I feel the same way. At the end of the day, a Lapras is a Lapras. But how we get the "laprases" (or whatever we want) matters. Some people care while others do not. I know that if I were to cheat I may feel good short-term but long-term that feeling would quickly fade. Cheating aside, spoofing takes an aspect away from the game that ultimately makes me decide not to do it.
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Quit, or start spoofing? Is there any other choice?
With the Pokemon Go Japan Lapras event spawning hundreds of Lapras in a part of Japan things seem pretty dire.
Either you do nothing, and all of the spoofers get hundreds of Lapras candy and soon enough every gym will be stocked with multiple maxed out Lapras.
Or you join the party and spoof, and become part of the problem.
I guess the only other option is to not cheat and hope Niantic finally bans these spoofers. I guess I'm just ranting - I really have no intention of cheating because a game isn't fun if you cheat... I'll be quitting if I start seeing loads of maxed out Lapras and get no indication that mass bans took place. Really hope this is a bait and Niantic will be thoroughly vetting all accounts that participated in this event and banning any that didn't actually travel to Japan...
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There is a lot of accounts to manually go through and look at to ban.Banning accounts is a big deal since people have paid money in game. Using an automated program may not be an option at this point. It's not as easy as other games where it's obvious that people have unobtainable stats or hacked items.
This would be an excellent way to make the process easier for them. Having a lapras with "Japan" and the appropriate date caught would really thin out the accounts to look through and expedite the process.
I can imagine a few articles in the near future "Niantic event trap for cheaters" it would get them positive coverage and ease the process for their staff.
I really hope so. They'd have to verify people didn't actually go to Japan (as there are definitely at least 2 Canadians that flew to Japan, and almost definitely others I've not heard of) but otherwise it should be an easy start to catch a lot of spoofers.
The only thing I don't get is that this event went relatively unadvertised... You'd think it would have been heavily advertised if it were really a trap.
IV's have been generally terrible so far, and it's not like Lapras are everywhere, stlll have to search around a lot, but certainly much more common. Have caught a lot of eevee as well most have terrible IV's, have like 500 eevee candy now. Still haven't caught a Lapras with good IV's and the best defensive moveset yet which is my final hurdle in the game.
Why should the things that other people have affect your enjoyment of the game. Those cheats will probably get bored of the game eventually because the game itself doesn't have much content. There's nothing to do when you have super rare pokemon without putting in the effort to find them.
I was lucky enough to catch a lapras during the increased pokestops + spawn event and even though it's only level 10, I'm using it as a buddy so when I find another one that's a higher level to power up it'll be worth the time/effort I put into walking that lapras.
I don't know how prevalent spoofing is where you are, and where I am it doesn't seem to be. There's a few people with multiple snorlaxes or dragonites on gyms in my town but that doesn't stop me taking down their gyms, so I could care less if they got them legit or not.
Gym battling is easy enough that it doesn't really matter what's on a gym or what you're using to attack with, besides saving a few seconds per fight.
If you have super high powered pokemon gym battling gets boring because all you do is just spam your moves until the enemy pokemon faints.
Also niantic are banning accounts
https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongodev/comments/5cy1cw/ban_waves_started_again/
Don't let the cheaters get you down. Playing the game the "right way" and having to "work" to get your Pokemon where they are is the most fulfilling in my opinion. Be the better player, take down their gyms and report any suspicious player.
And if all else fails, you can join me in the grey side, with our advanced Trackers that show IVs, movesets and send notifications for rare/high IV Pokemon. It's questionably "cheating" but that's the way I like to play and it doesn't really hurt anybody.
