Are trackers considered okay in the pokemon go community and are they what give spoofers power??
I'll start off by saying I have access to groups that call out pokemon of interest. I'm way out of range to get any benefit from it personally because it will have despawned by the time I could get there. I see these spawns and I'm not sure if I'm mad I can't get there or if I'm mad they can just take advantage of these great spawns. Aren't trackers what give spoofers power? If you spoofed where would you go without a tracker? I just can't help but think that spoofers have no power without trackers. Is it okay to just go get that 100% and consider yourself a great pokemon hunter?
Answers
raid maps should be basic support for the game, even ingress has better support for it's raid equivalents then pokemon go has.
Unfortunately we lost our map a couple of months ago all the bot bans made it to difficult to maintain with our small population (very few of whom were donating).
there are so many ways in which this game creates unnecessary geographical privilege.
Totally agree...I've always felt that any gyms we have a badge at, we should know at least "what" raid is there if we wanted to raid or check...
Maybe different gym levels give different clues so gold gyms, you can learn everything as if you're there...(times, boss moves even, etc...).
The eggs still annoy me since I hate them and can't wait and simply not patient to bother raiding honestly...
Without a true ranking/PvP or anything, I'm also too lazy to care if people use trackers...post rares, etc...I just live without and don't really care if people do it.
I used to be of the opinion that trackers were against the spirit of the game. But then they introduced Raids, and now I'm seriously considering installing one on my phone (or on a secondary device that isn't connected to my main account, or something like that) because I don't particularly care to sit around for an hour waiting to see what Raid Boss is going to hatch from the Level 1-4 Eggs.
I'm also getting tired of missing out on uncommon to rare Pokémon because they spawn literally a block out of my range. The Discord server I've been using has a new "Nearby Spawns" feature, and it turns out that literally 1 block outside of my viewing radius there are regular spawns of some uncommon to rare Pokémon, including Slakoths, Mudkips and Wailmer (three that I'm interested in). If I lived 1 block in another direction, I'd see some of these spawns.
"Just get out and go explore!" says Niantic, ignoring the fact that it's been -40 (both Celsius and Fahrenheit). This is the second Winter that Niantic has utterly ignored the fact that in much of their playing area (particularly in the USA and much of Europe), come November going outside to play a game on your phone isn't only not feasible, it's actively dangerous. So I'm not inclined to give Niantic any leeway in this.
Niantic should create a way to track raids at a long distance. Maybe something like having an option on your Gyms list that shows gyms which have Raids either starting soon or ongoing. So you go to your Gyms list and it has an Egg icon next to it instead of a Pikachu icon, and when the Egg hatches it turns into the shadow of the Raid Boss.
""Just get out and go explore!" says Niantic, ignoring the fact that it's been -40 (both Celsius and Fahrenheit). This is the second Winter that Niantic has utterly ignored the fact that in much of their playing area (particularly in the USA and much of Europe), come November going outside to play a game on your phone isn't only not feasible, it's actively dangerous."
How is Niantic ignoring the fact that part of the world is experiencing cold weather right now? They don't control the weather. Should the game just not work when you are too cold? Sorry, but this is probably the dumbest thing I've read so far in 2018. Congrats on this accomplishment.
Justifying the use of a tracker because it's cold outside - whatever. But don't blame Niantic or try to pretend you aren't cheating.
So you think that someone should mindlessly wander around until they see a raid pop up.
I'm not going to take a 30 minute walk just to get in vision range of the gyms in my local area to see whether it's got a raid on it and then go back home, and repeat every hour so I don't miss a raid, and then go back to see what hatches if it does have a raid on it.
Cold weather isn't important. Not being able to see raids outside of the vision range (which seems to be around 500m) is annoying regardless of weather conditions.
If using Gymhuntr and calculating IVs is cheating then I wonder if the revenue only from the "non-cheating" playerbase could keep this game afloat.
Do people actually still play with our trackers? In my area, we have access to all kind of trackers; raids, Pokemon and even IV+level.
I feel like I'm the only one still trying to play w/o. People even pay a membership to keep those devices on air, which really made me furious some times.
I don't mind public maps, as long as they are free of access. This way players can decide by themselves whether to use them or not. But paying for them, and making them exclusive is really 2 steps too much for me.
Unfortunately I'm the only admin in the community that thinks this way.
This sounds exactly like my situation. When I joined my local discord at the start of the raids, I discovered that I'd been missing out on the tracker for who knows how long. Everyone in my town uses it. I try not to, and I mostly haven't. I'm pretty sure I'm they only one who doesn't follow it religiously.
However, the scanner also picks up raids and that is invaluable information that I won't be giving up easily. In my small town there would be very few raids fought if there was no tracker. There aren't enough of us to keep eyes on all the raids that happen.
Here are my thoughts:
- They are partially what give spoofers power; spoofers also have an advantage of taking over gyms without being required to physically be there, therefore they have an advantage in this sense AND the ability to continuously roam around discovering pokemon without physically being there, also giving them an advantage. But yes, spoofers do have an advantage because of this
- If I were to spoof I would go to popular pokemon go places? Off the top of my head I assume the santa monica pier would be a good place (based on videos of youtubers) as well as Japan
- I do not use a tracker directly however when I link up with my friends they use them to detect raids which I tag along for. Do I feel morally *bad*? No, but I understand it creates an unfair advantage to those that do not have access to trackers to find raids OR to those that live in desolate locations that cannot gather enough people to form discord groups
- I am part of a discord group in my local area, many of which post rare spawns and raids. Although it is no excuse and does not make me better or 'less of a cheater' compared to these people, I still do, and I acknowledge that I am taking advantage of a means that is unfair to other players that play this game. {An exception for me is unown: with such a rare spawn rate, I feel as though possessing a number of them is a dead giveaway that somebody has been using third-party software to obtain them, and with almost-to-no value in battle, I see no reason to obtain them, as I am only looking to strengthen my squad for when PvP is {{eventually ughhh}} released}.
- I (personally) would never embrace the title "pokemon hunter," it is just screaming to be made fun of! But then again I also try to keep the fact that I even play this game under the radar from most people. It's my deepest darkest secret and now you know but don't tell anybody
- To answer the title topic, in my local community, they are socially acceptable. Only one person I can think of frowns upon them in my local group-however, on both here and reddit, the general consensus seems to be they are frowned upon, and I understand.
Truthfully, I would be happy if scanners were removed (although I know many people would stop playing). I do miss the early days of this game, especially when the footstep tracking was live....I felt like an explorer loool.
As a side note, a recent conversation on Reddit titled "Niantic released a new statement on the Ingress cheating ring leak, including issuing permanent bans. What are the implications for Pokémon GO?" stimulated a discussion, and two comments in particular caught my attention (this relates to scanners and their player base). I will post both comments, one a reply to the another, immediately following this comment
link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/7opvhg/niantic_released_a_new_statement_on_the_ingress/?utm_term=2b3a8e02-19ee-4560-a6ba-63320559551a&utm_medium=search&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=TheSilphRoad&utm_content=2
First comment I'd like to highlight:
u/wythefucknaut:
"The thing with scanner bots is that nowadays, a majority of players rely most of their gameplay on them. Either from gym spawns or hunting mons in general.
Just about most other players I know, and the all of the other players I play with, they only play looking and hunting on scanners. I am the only one who actually will still play walking around catching randoms. I enjoy that actually. And when they know I still do that, they often chide me for playing like that. While I myself also will look at scanners and hunt for mons often times. So I'm guilty of that as well I admit.
With that said, I imagine if Niantic ever does successfully rid the bots and scanners permanently, they are going to lose majority of their player base. Especially the more avid ones, which I think make up most of the ones that are still playing right now. Not sure if Niantic is aware of this.
But deep down, I do miss the good old days of walking around with others grinding by catching whatever appears. Now, grinding for most people are, looking at scanners and driving to the desirable spawns they see on it."
Response to the comment, by u/joshwoodward:
"quoting from u/wythefucknaut: [With that said, I imagine if Niantic ever does successfully rid the bots and scanners permanently, they are going to lose majority of their player base.]
Precisely this, both as you meant it, and literally - it's very possible there are more bots than humans playing, due to the number needed to run scanners.
Here's the dirty little secret: they don't want to ban them. If they did, it'd be trivial to flip a switch. For many months, there has been an encrypted field in the API that nobody has been able to crack (UK27). And yet, they still allow those requests through with garbage in that field.
Why? One theory is because they know scanners are a useful addition to the game. But if that were the case, they'd give developers a read-only API. Another darker, but more likely theory is because it massively inflates their player numbers. Almost all of the token resistance they've given to scanners has involved stopping IV/CP checkers (which they seem to legitimately not want) and forcing ops to churn through more accounts (which they've conveniently made very easy to create in bulk)."
I would guess hardcore players and constant raiders use at least gym raid trackers. It's impossible to randomly drive to gyms and do, say 30 - 50 raids or more a day just "hoping" for a legendary...Those are actually the people paying to keep the game afloat now IMO so as a free player, I say Niantic should just let everyone know what's in a gym, raid, etc...
The majority of the player base IMO is casual and just play and catch stuff randomly without trackers or gym trackers...That's how I play now...
I would guess most casuals don't pay at all currently since there's no need to. Gym coins are easier for most folks so removing it for Niantic (gym trackers) would be just bad for business...
I've dabbled with my city's scanner. It doesn't do ivs, but it picks up a lot. Honestly, I find it more exhausting than anything else. It just adds to the "fear of missing out" aspect of the game. Plus, part of me (naively, perhaps) prefers to just play and be surprised when I find something fun. If I check the scanner, find nothing, and then go on my way I have nothing to look forward to.
I'm torn on the issue of scanners. I don't like to use them for the grind for candies. (I won't use it to find all the slackoths in my area and catch them all), but I do use them for getting good IV one's to evolve once I normally catch the rest. I also refuse to drive for pokemon, instead biking for them, so my range is very limited. I feel guilty, but at the same time when people post things like "I refuse to evolve anything under 96%" and things like that it makes me think they must be using scanners. Am I a bad person for using them to get one good one then grinding the rest of the candies?
My discord group tolerates scanners and alt accounts, but not spoofers. I sometimes benefit from scanners when people who use them tell me the location of a very desirable mon, or raid location. I also have no way to distinguish scan found mon from stumbled upon ones.
If niantic wanted to prevent sharing of information, I think they would just randomize IV and cp like they do for shinies and lower level players.
So, I think some of these tools compensate for weaknesses in the in game tools, but an environment where there are grey areas in what is cheating, makes it hard to always be ethical.
In my area they aren't frowned upon by the community as a whole, but they also aren't really used (occasionally someone will pay for a scan- usually during events) but most of the time people just post in our discord chat if they randomly stumble upon something good. Gymhuntr gets used considerably more, but it frequently doesn't update for our area, so for that too we usually rely on each other in the discord to update with what hatches from the level 1-4 eggs. I personally don't use them though as I think it takes the fun away from the game, I like the hunt.
I was a very casual player until I started using SGPokeMap and found out that there are three Dratini spawn points just a ten-minute walk from my house. Trained myself to be prepared to rush out to Pinap a Dratini or two, then come back and continue with my evening routine with minimal disruption. Unfortunately, all my four Dragonites had SW.
Nest discovery and farming was another great use for SGPokeMap. Really enjoyed planning trips to, and actually exploring, new parks. The more goal-oriented gameplay (adding dex entries or evolving more prestigers) also increased my motivation to exercise.
In Singapore, cars are limited to the very rich, with most travelling on foot, by bike or with public transport. With many trainers taking short bus rides and running to catch rares spotted on SGPokeMap, I occasionally had interesting conversations with complete strangers.
Back then, the spoofers struggled to stay relevant in my local meta. Even a ten-Blissey tower would not last twenty-one hours, as there were too many SGPokeMap-armed locals willing and able to knock them down. When Niantic tried to crack down on SGPokeMap, gym activity declined and Blissey towers built by obvious spoofers lasted longer.
After the gym rework, SGPokeMap began showing raids. Legendary raids are frequent (around two per hour per ten square km) and always attract large crowds, as players can easily find and travel to the nearest legendary raid.
As for gym attack and defence, spoofers have greater influence than before due to golden razzberries, which allow them to easily earn 50 coins per day while others (like me) struggle to even get into gyms. Non-spoofers with multiple accounts have turned from the exception (under the old gym system) to the norm, due to raids and golden razzberries.
In short, such tools enhance gameplay and community. They are popular because they provide crucial features that the game lacks. There are other, more important factors that give spoofers "power".
Does the nest map by Silph Road count as a tracker? I rely on that to know which parks to visit for certain nests. Though I have the best nest in town (clusters of mons that spawn hourly, spread all over) at a park near my house, and the game finds out what nest it is way before the map is updated by people.
