Why doesn't Niantic deal with cheating players?

[SargonofAkkad]

Where I live all of the gyms in walking distance--and even well beyond--have been taken over by what looks like a single player from a different team who is using 10 accounts, and loading up every gym with a Blissey wall. Seriously. I mean, three of the accounts have the same account name just with "A" or "B" or "C" added to it, and pretty much every gym has all the same "players." I've been at a gym this player was taking over, and there was nobody around. Definitely there were not ten guys in a car filling up the gym. So, a player geo-spoofing and using multiple accounts. After weeks of this, I finally reported this flagrant abuse. That was three weeks ago--the situation is still the same. Every gym in walking distance is still being dominated by this player. Niantic has done nothing. Is this how they support legitimate gameplay? Wondering what anyone else's experience is.

 

[Meganium]

That is spoofing alright, and Niantic already started banning them as we speak, starting with Android 7.1.

Of course it's unfair, it's really bad here in my area...I can't even take down the gyms here

besides, it takes a while because Niantic is filled with so many requests. They still haven't taken down the Pokestops at Discovery Green as they specifically told them to. So, don't expect a request to happen immediately.

 

[VisualJae]

If you play a lot of online games, then Niantic's activities is no different from the norm.

1. Too many players.
2. No 100% foolproof way to detect cheats, as much as you would like to think there is. Even through reporting, you can't be 100% certain unless you literally investigate every single corner within a 50-ft radius—indoors and outdoors, above ground and underground (where I'm from, New York City, players can be hiding underground in subways or 50 stories in a skyscraper above)—for any potential spot a player may be camped in.
3. Taking action on players for false positives is the best way to lose your legitimate players, which is counterproductive if your goal is to stop cheaters.
4. Smart cheaters will always beat anti-cheats. This is not an exaggeration. It's an eternal uphill climb for those responsible for maintaining a fair playing environment.
5. Hardcore cheaters that don't care are your worst enemies because taking action on them have no effect. They'll just create another account and continue cheating.

All of the above are present in virtually any popular online-only game with a wide player base. Take a page out of my book (and this is just my personal way of handling things). Stop caring so much. It's extra stress that you don't need. I personally don't even care about spoofers because I can kick them out just as fast as they kick me out of Gyms. Beyond that, I target Gyms that are in locations where it's not efficient to double up on Pokémon hunting. With less reason to hang out in those locations, the Gyms are generally safe from targeting.

 

[SargonofAkkad]

Thanks for your response, and let me clarify the facts here--you might not be quite as ready to normalize them. I live next to a small park. A month or so ago Niantic changed the pokestop there to a gym. I had some concern about this, because there has been rampant cheating by a geospoofing, multiple-accounts player, but OK, it's convenient to have a gym near by. After a couple of weeks (meaning it's unlikely this gang-cheater lives in the five apartments that can reach the gym), the cheat found this gym next to me and loaded it up to Level 10 with mostly Blisseys. It took me maybe five hours over three days to collect the resources to take it down--but I did it.

Then, after a couple of days of normal gym-type takeovers by all three teams, I happened to open my account just when the cheat was taking over the local gym again. Here's what happened: the gym was at level 3, with just one of the cheat's pokemon, and two from other players. That was 8:04 p.m. By 8:14 p.m., just 10 minutes later, the gym was at level 10, and stuffed full of the (multiple) cheating account's Blisseys again. During that 10 minutes I walked around everywhere within 100 feet of the gym, looked in every vehicle, and thoroughly scoured the park. There was not a single person even holding a phone, much less seven or eight people playing Pokemon Go.

Buildings here have no basements (water table issue) and are at most two stories high, so there aren't the challenges of NYC. Besides, some of the cheating accounts have the same name and number, and just differ by "A," "B," and "C" designations. The multiple-accounts and geospoofing cheating are really pretty obvious. This is the second time I have directly observed the cheating in situations where there was no one around--the other time was after 11 p.m. with only two totally dark 2-storey medical professional buildings (also without basements) in range of the gym--and I watched the gym being taken over and go to level 10 in a short period of time with these same accounts. There's no way 10 people were hiding somewhere and doing legitimate gameplay. I'm a PhD who does some scientific research, so I'm careful to base my claims on good evidence.

I've now reported these accounts multiple times to Niantic, and the cheating rampage has gone on for about three months, with every gym within the area I have time to reach being repeatedly taken over by this cheat. Every time I log on, I am playing right next to a gym that is dominated by the cheat. Sure, I can spend hours in the process of prepping for and taking down the gym by myself--most everyone else who used to play here has disappeared--but then the cheat will literally spend 10 minutes taking it back.

"Not care so much" is your advice. This cheat is dominating the entire neighborhood in every direction, so the fact that Niantic has done nothing for three months to curtail this, is a little more of an issue than just moving on to another gym. It essentially cuts me out of any gameplay with gyms that isn't wholly futile. I personally find Niantic's lack of action in response to blatant, witnessed, reported cheating over months of time to be unacceptable. I appreciate your thoughts.

 

[Neltharion83]

They clearly are not doing enough. The thing i do when there is a cheating issue is that i play less and stop spending money on the game. People quit because of it. Games went down because of it.

They need to find big data solutions. Spoofers who want to get to lvl38 (the required level to max out pokemon) and a hoard of Blisseys have to teleport around to do it, when limting yourself to reasonable movement speed it is not possible, or it is very very slow.

Now the cheaters that leveled up and got their Blisseys before the cheat detection got more strict, and who now move very cautiously, they have to hunt these down by hand. No other way.

The way to do it is to keep certain logs, and develop data analysis that can find certain kinds of cheaters in the data, then you double check to make sure you are not hitting legitimate players, and then you ban them all at the same time. You do not ban them at the time you catch them, you build a list, then you whack them in a ban wave.

One thing may be important: Pokemons of cheaters do not get removed from arenas. Never. The account is banned, cannot be accessed, the arena pokemon stay. In my city, most gyms change teams every now and then, but some arenas drop to level 9, go up to 10, drop to 9, go up to 10, until they are full of CP 3300 or stronger pokemon. There can be old pokemon from cheaters in there. So real players actually team up to take down arenas that have grown into these monsters, some real players get their pokemon back, and cheaters as well as inactive players also get removed.

Arena space is limited, cheaters end up banned and have to start from zero, also some players quit, or maybe they just pause until generation 3 or another major update is announced. Arenas that stay with the same team for a long time get stronger and stronger.

To free up space for the players who still play actively and push the button each day, it makes sense to completely take down the very strong arenas every now and then. Can you rule out that the accounts behind the Blissey wall did not get banned or bored 2 weeks ago?

Arenas in my city actually got easier. You can find arenas to put in pokemon that are just 2800 or 2900, and they can stay for quite a while. If there is a really massively strong red arena, and you take it down, it will be a red level 10 arena again if some real red players live nearby, but the pokemon inside will be weaker. The active red players will actially be happy about the reset.

Niantic could help a lot, by simply doing arena resets every now and then. The players i talked to would welcome it. They could, for example, do it at the start of events. Just make the arenas grey and send the pokemon home and give the players a one-time bonus for the pokemon that returned that way. Inactive players and banned cheaters will not claim the bonus.

Arenas would be back to normal after 2 days in the big cities if they do this, except that lower level players with pokemon that are a bit weaker will now also find places inside. Bonus gets paid to active players because you click the button in the shop to claim the bonus. Heck, you do not even need the bonus.