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Finding tracking-users

I see a implicite variant to find players, who use trackers. Niantic does not know, which players are using a tracker, because tracker's requests are generated with dummy-accounts.

(1) Let us assume, those dummy-accounts behave in a different way than human players do, and can be identified with good statistic relevance by big data analysis.

(2) Players, who repeatedly move fast to get to a seldom pkm found first by a tracker identified by (1) can be identified too.

(3) Players with a statistical significant higher amount of snorlax, blissey, dragonite and tyrannitar - maybe with strangely high ivs - in relation to their playing time, can be testet, whether they match with (2)

I think, banning them should be restricted to very sure and obvious cases. For the most of them, it would be sufficient to transfer all of their pokemons that have been found or built with a tracker.
It will feel strangely naked for them to play as a legit player.

Regards BB

Asked by Bruno Brezel8 years 1 month ago

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Even though I don't use twitter feeds or trackers, I don't think banning them now would be good for the game...

Niantic should just find a way to block it (randomize spawns maybe like how they did shiny magikarp) and leave it at that.

I'm sure some people who use trackers honestly don't think they are cheating and they were introduced to the game this way and everyone in their group does it. It's a bit harsh to ban them all for something that Niantic does practically NOTHING about and hasn't even warned in game clearly that using a tracker is bad/cheating.

I stopped using it myself and even twitter feeds because it wasn't as exciting if you know so and so is going to be here at this exact spot and it's IVs/moves, etc...I was also too lazy to really drive far away to catch 100% stuff or rare mons so I also don't bother (don't want to waste gas neither)...Completing the dex was also low on my game goals so I care little that I still don't have a Porygon/Aerodactyl/usable Snorlax, Dragonite, etc...

I remember first seeing a tracker and a fellow lady trainer telling us about it and we all thought, WOW, if we had this, we would've found that Lapras we saw in sightings (shadow) just last week instead of wandering aimlessly for 15-20 minutes! (and my wife STILL doesn't have a Lapras since playing since July)...

All that said, randomize spawns and trackers all break (yay!).

I still thinks it's stupid that there are spawn points so when I walk around in my neighborhood, I know NOTHING will ever spawn on this part of my path, etc...It loses it's magic/surprise when you sorta know too much.

I don't use them but I think it would be hard at this point to identify the folks that are using them for the most part. How would they monitor how fast one moved to catch the Pokemon? Heck the way that my guy jumps around sometimes I would not be surprised if 20% of my catches looked jumpy prior to pick up. The amount of server usage it would take to flag all of these accounts based on old criteria could be easier and better spent finding the much more obvious spoofer accounts-the ones that are one week old with multiple 100% monster mons maxed out. Those would also be stupidly simple to know are cheaters. If they cannot or do not do them to those to target these guys would be kind of a futile exercise. I also kind of sympathize with the rural players (of whom I am not one) who use them because they have to travel 10 minutes just to have any decent spawn where the service is so bad they would be unlikely to locate much reliably on their own. Their use of them does not affect my game and is probably the only way the game is a nearly complete waste of time for them. But using these for them is unlikely to make their account competitive with city players with good spawns for a variety of reasons.

The easiest way to fix it is to get the scanners themselves shut down.

I don't use trackers. I most definitely consider it cheating. No doubt about it.

Niantic should just keep shutting those pages & apps down as their hacking into their servers.

First, I won't argue about the fact that this is against the ToS and the stress on the server.

Then, to put a little more context, yes I used a city tracker with my bike in a small city/rural area. In this kind of area, even with the city tracker I still don't have a tyrannitar or a larvitar, or a hight iv/cp snorlax/blissey. My best pkmn are 2 dragonites and 3 gyarados thanks to the water biome.
Be able to spot some uncommon/rare pkmn, in a such little diversity environment, is the only thing that still bring some fun to me. The race against time with my bike is clearly the best part of it.

I understand your point but I still feel kinda naked compared to urban player collection ...

I understand your point but I still feel kinda naked compared to urban player collection ...

And maybe a legit rural player in your region feels naked compared to your collection...

Fair enough. A total legit rural is all at his honour.

All I try to do is to have some fun with a game that have some much potential. But unfortunately an augmented reality game is not meant to erase the disparity between player situation.

We cannot relied on the in-game tracker at all. During the water event, a lapras that spawned on my way home didn't appear on the sighting list because of the pidgeys and rats .... ( I was just walking back home, not on my bike hunting with the tracker)

In the case of my region, the city tracker is available for all of us ( no register fee like I heard in others replies).
Even with that, I can tell you that not everybody is willing to do the effort to catch them ( distance and no car access) .
Again I can understand that this is not fair for a legit rural player, however my pokedex collection I got it through sweat not just sitting at a nest. And that the way I currently like to play PokemonGo.

I live near a small town (actually, nothing EVER spawns within 1 mile of my house) so I drive or bike 3 miles to the nearest park with pokestops and gyms. (I also sometimes play in the city, 25 miles from here).

Despite this rural disadvantage I am not even tempted to use a tracker - it would take the fun (and fairness) right out of the game. I don't have as much as city players, but what I have I have earned.

So I don't buy the rural excuse.

They might as well remove the app from the store at that point.
With all the spoofing, botting and shaving, I'm glad you are focused on the REAL problem of the game Bruno, way to go.
They could focus their manpower to create an in-game tracker that actually gives priority to rare spawns rather than common shitmons, but why would waste time on that right? It took them 4 months to change the loading screen after all.
Nah, better ban as many players as possible or take away the pokemons that they drove for (in the worst of cases).
Also, I doubt scanning is as big as it once was now that you need to pay for it.

using a tracker does give the user an unfair advantage but I understand why people do.

Tonight I spent half an hour walking down the main street there was a whole half dozen trashomon which I cleared out, no further spawn for 15 minutes then on my radar I see a pupitar and think oh yeah i might get a descent catch this week.

I start to narrow it down I think it is in one of three side streets when bam the game decides what I really want to know about is the spearow that just spawned 500 meters down the road.

20 minutes later I finally finish clearing out the trashomon but no pupitar for me.

Niantic could fix the problem by just having a tracker that wasn't crap. even the ability to switch between nearby and sightings which surely shouldn't be that big a deal would be a big improvement,

With all the spoofing, botting and shaving, I'm glad you are focused on the REAL problem of the game Bruno, way to go.

I have adressed the other problems more than once. And at the moment, it is wuite funny for me, how all the trackers freely identify themselfes.

You don't need to make any assumptions, I've stated clearly that I've used trackers in the past before you made this comment.
In case this is not clear to you, I'm not trying to hide that because I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

Pokémon GO is losing 80% of total trainers now, 50% or more active trainers are using trackers, thus if Niantic ban these trainers, Niantic will lose more money. The better solution is to make trackers stop, making them inaccessible to the game data.

Stopping those trackers is almost like banning those players that use them. You think players who track will just go back to playing legit? Yeah, maybe a 10th of them or less. I'm not saying Niantic shouldn't stop trackers, but if you look at it from a revenue perspective, they'll lose just as much money as banning all cheaters when none of the trackers work.

Once a person is used to the high from cocaine, smoking pot just doesn't do it.

I don't agree. People who enjoy the game will stick with it regardless of trackers.

I've used trackers in the past, intermittedly from October to February when they dismissed the old API. Now I have stopped for good, since you need to buy a key which I'm not going to do.
Still playing, for now at least.

I would be quite interested in seeing these statistics. Where can I find them?

Same as the other post bb, I don't understand the hate for trackers so much.. I'm sure you will be surprised at the amount of people that use them. Banned people using trackers right now will make this game even more dead.. banning trackers now will cause even more people to stop playing. Why not focus on cheating that actually hurts other players spoofing etc.. better to find ways to increase the players such as maybe even making a usable ingame tracker and stopping spoofing than banning people for tracking right at this time, priorities is important.

It is niantic that makes the rules. It is hard to accept, that a player who follows the rules should have a big disadvantage.
Yes, it is easyer to achieve a goal by hand. But the rule forbids that. A legit player uses his feet, head, any part of the body, but no hand. A player who uses hand, gets a free kick for other team at least, depending on the situation yellow or red card. If everybody could use his hands without being sancitioned, the game would be different.

If everybody breaks a rule, the rule makes no sense. As long as there is a rule, a regular break of this rule should be sanctioned, or the rule is obsolete.

Yes, i agree, spoofers are a problem too. It might be the bigger problem in some spaces.
For me, it does not matter whether my gym is taken by a spoofer or by a almost legit player takes it with his 6 100% Dragonites and keeps it with one of his 3 100% Blisseys. The gym is away anyway, and hard to obtain back.

I don't know what Niantic is doing about spoofers. I know, they constantly try to disable trackers, by law and technical measures.

The easyest work around for trackers would be a random spawning. I do not know a easy solution how to get rid of botters and spoofers.

I gave a suggestion that adresses trackers. You are free to suggest anything about spoofers and botters. I have not a good idea at the moment. It would be something with big data.

My important point is the one:
Other player's cheeting does never justify own cheeting morally.

There is a facebook page for my city that people post their rare finds and good IV mons to. If it is biking distance I will go grab it. My latest catch was a 95iv cp1300 dragonair. I am not using a tracker but that's how I have found good pokemon, if that makes me have a high proportion of good pokemon than I would be banned by your rule. Not fair I pedaled or ran for those pokemon and put the work in.

Cheeting light. As long as you are not sure that no one in your facebook page uses a tracker, you indirectly profit from a tracker.

That is an absurd statement. The game tries to promote social interaction. Regardless of what the ultimate source is, if someone tells you about a Pokemon and you go and get it, it is NOT CHEATING.

You are confusing "facebook" with "social interaction". Understandable, as facebook sucessfully promotes itself as "social media".

Just a hint: social interaction is something with talking to real humans, not with getting a hint where a dragonite has spawned by notification on a 5.2"-screen.

Yes, social interaction. If you gang up with some guys and take down some gyms, this is ment by social.

Taking a hint by a cheeter is not cheeting, and receifing stolen goods is not steeling. Just let someone else do the dirty work for you.

"Cheeting light"

If even in this case you condemn the person, you shouldn't use a lot a pokemongo fan website.
They got some of their information though the apk with reverse engineering ( CP formula -> IV calculator) against the ToS.
But then, a lot of player kinda "Cheeting light", indirectly profit from this reverse engineering. They know which pokemon will have a better cp max and sit in a gym ...

If even in this case you condemn the person, you shouldn't use a lot a pokemongo fan website.

Maybe the expression is not good, "indirect cheeting" would be more accurate. Yes, as he gets the same advantage as a real cheeter, why should i distinguish?

They got some of their information though the apk with reverse engineering ( CP formula -> IV calculator)

I am not sure how much reverse engineering was neccesairy, or whether this was done by matching numbers given by the game to the known values of the original games, until they found the correct formula - But maybe you are right.

If this was true, you might be right - i would be a indirect cheater using a unfair advantage over others who just play the game.

Does this morally justify other forms of cheeting?

"Does this morally justify other forms of cheeting?"
I agree, definitely no.

But if we talk about ToS, I just wanted to remind that the community already crossed that line long time ago.

I'm not hiding myself that I am doing is against it. But this is how I enjoy to play PokemonGO in its current state.
I like to bike around and hunt some pokemon not randomly encounter them.
When I cannot do this, I just don't play.

No need to ban, but they really should work on thier own tracker to be more reasonable.

2 easy things.
1) Toggle between Nearby and Sightings
2) Fix the distance mod on Sightings

People wouldn't need tracker mods if they had a reasonable in game tracker.

"(2) Players, who repeatedly move fast to get to a seldom pkm found first by a tracker identified by (1) can be identified too."

I took a different route to work today as I wanted to pick up a coffee. It just happened that a Ryhdon popped up near this one stop. It had Mud Slap and Stone Edge.

Sure hope I don't get banned for that. Totally random and may look like I used a tracker since it was one of my only catches on the way to work.

Bruno - banning everyone everywhere....

Please read whole the thing.

You get your coffee coincidently there where a 96%-dragonite has spawned, yes this can happen. If it happens once a week - ummm, yes there are sometimes strange coincidences. Of course.

I would not ban you. I would ad first confiscate the dragonite.

It's probably best if Niantic goes after third party trackers and puts them out of business (I assume they are doing that?)

Also, the code they used for hiding shinies is a step in the right direction and can hopefully be applied to future rares, or even to current ones. If trackers only show rattata and similar mons they will go out of business.

P.S. No tracker found me 3 shinykarp!

I totally agree that the IV & move-set should be generated by the same mechanism than for a shiny pokemon.

most of them aren't businesses anymore they are individuals or groups running the purchased code on private devices very hard to find.

I hate to say it, but I think it would be the smartest thing Niantic can do is to make the IVs randomly unique per user like shinies. That wouldn't kill scanners/trackers completely but it would demotivate a good portion of them.

Another idea is to make spawn times random between 15 minutes and 30 or 60 minutes. That way scanners will never know exactly when a pokemon despawns so cheaters will have to take more risks. But since they're cheaters they don't have time for that. Again, another demotivater.

Developers who make the scanners will continue to bypass whatever hurdles Niantic throws at them. So rather than continuing to bloat the game with anti-scammer code, by just changing the way the game works Niantic can really thwart the efforts of the so called cheaters.

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