Pokémon GO Updates to a New Version

[Charlie Brown]

With the newest update to Pokémon GO come a few minor changes and improvements.

Read the full article here.

 

[Neltharion83]

I will be able to tell you later if the nest locations have rotated, i planned to go to bulbasaur park and the nearby glumanda park now.

 

[tokyodrift]

Seems like they're adding more support for the Pokémon GO Plus assessory. I think we can expect many little updates leading up to the release.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

as far as im aware the Bulbasaur/Charmander/Squirtle nests never change. My local park has been a Meowth nest recently so im hoping that has changed

 

[Taemin]

^ I do hope nest locations do some changing around, but for now I'm just glad that they're doing so many small updates. One of my worries when it came out was that it would have big updates every number of months and in between we'd just drag along.

Still too bad the radar is too much for them to bite off right now. I can't imagine what it would take to make it work all over the world without having 29034 glitches.

 

[Neltharion83]

People use a variety of trackers, some tracking apps and websites that work like good old pokeradar are working.

Pokemesh is very popular, for that you use a second google account to make a second pokemon go account which pokemesh then uses to scan nearby areas. You can also feed it with more fake accounts to have it search faster and further. Some people use it with over 100 fake accounts. Then it will scan really large areas really fast, to the point of suffering from diminishing returns because most of the stuff it finds is so far away that you cannot get there in time unless you use a ferrari.

Its a bit ridiculous at this time. So many programmers using fake lvl1 accounts, gps hacking, google maps and some programming find so many ways to get it to work, but niantic cannot figure it out. Niantic not only fails to figure out how to replicate what the hackers are doing, it also fails to ban the wildly teleporting lvl1 fake pokemon go accounts that the hackers are using.

Not an unusual conversation: "I have a lapras in my nearby-list, can someone find it for me?" other guy: "No problem, starting my pokemesh with 16 accounts.... Scanning... There it is. Just walk there, over the bridge, then left, and its on the left side of the building there, and it will despawn in 8 minutes 20 seconds".

And in the end, its the niantic servers that have to handle all the requests from these armies of teleporting and re-logging fake accounts. Players feel like they have no other choice and feel like its no big deal because unlike REAL hackers, their main account is clean and the fake accounts stay level 1.

I also suspect that its inefficient as hell for the servers, when you have 50 people at a popular spot, and a few dudes use several fake accounts each to scan nearby areas, and one guy with a second phone uses 102 fake accounts to continuously scan half of the city. Its getting so badly out of hand that i really think if niantic could fix it and make the trackers useless by putting in a working feature that is just as good, server load would drop by a lot.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

from my experience of working with game developers tracking cheaters is that in this case its not that they cant track the fake accounts just that they havent currently got the resources to go through all their data to find them all. I suspect that there is somewhere in Niantic HQ a team of people going through an unending list of suspicious activity and hitting them with the banhammer but it probably takes them a while in each case as they have to have clear evidence (or what appears to be) that the account and any related accounts are cheaters. Ive definately seen a few GPS spoofers near me seem to have been banned, it is happening but the amount of cheaters out there means that some will get away with it for a while, especially those who know the detection methods niantic use since they know what will flag up as suspicious activity.
To use Pokemesh as an example, if they are accessing that from the same device as their main account then it will be traced easily and be clear evidence of cheating. However if their main account is on a different device that their pokemesh accounts and they avoid any obvious linking up between the devices, ie not logging into same private wifi or shared network (although that would still not necessarily be enough evidence) then they are likely to keep their main account from being banned.
i do find it interesting that Niantic made a big issue with Pokevision and that shut down after a little over a month but the next lot of sites seem to be similar and there hasnt seemed to be any sort of crack down from Niantic but they've been running longer than pokevision was

 

[Neltharion83]

from my experience of working with game developers tracking cheaters is that in this case its not that they cant track the fake accounts just that they havent currently got the resources to go through all their data to find them all. I suspect that there is somewhere in Niantic HQ a team of people going through an unending list of suspicious activity and hitting them with the banhammer but it probably takes them a while in each case as they have to have clear evidence (or what appears to be) that the account and any related accounts are cheaters. Ive definately seen a few GPS spoofers near me seem to have been banned, it is happening but the amount of cheaters out there means that some will get away with it for a while, especially those who know the detection methods niantic use since they know what will flag up as suspicious activity.
To use Pokemesh as an example, if they are accessing that from the same device as their main account then it will be traced easily and be clear evidence of cheating. However if their main account is on a different device that their pokemesh accounts and they avoid any obvious linking up between the devices, ie not logging into same private wifi or shared network (although that would still not necessarily be enough evidence) then they are likely to keep their main account from being banned.
i do find it interesting that Niantic made a big issue with Pokevision and that shut down after a little over a month but the next lot of sites seem to be similar and there hasnt seemed to be any sort of crack down from Niantic but they've been running longer than pokevision was

Would they ban an account not involved in cheating just because it runs on the same device? Is there any evidence they have ever done this? Would it make sense? Do the terms of service cover this in any way?

I think the answer is no to all. The main account earns them money, so why would they ban that?

The first obvious step would be to ban those GPS hacking level 1 accounts that teleport all over the place, but they do not even do that, so for me its very simple: If your main account is clean, it is safe.

And if they ban those level 1 accounts, people just make new ones.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

Would they ban an account not involved in cheating just because it runs on the same device? Is there any evidence they have ever done this? Would it make sense? Do the terms of service cover this in any way?

I think the answer is no to all. The main account earns them money, so why would they ban that?

just depends on whether they can prove the main account is the same player, like i said for those experienced in avoiding anti cheat tracking software they will know what steps to take to avoid that. Niantic have banned accounts that make them money so that isnt going to be a consideration and since the person with all the lvl 1 accounts is doing it to boost their main account so if they ban the main account (if they can trace it) then there isnt so much use for the cheater to make more lvl 1 accounts.

I suspect that when trading comes in it will be a lot easier to niantic to track some of these linked accounts, players may try using their fake accounts to gather items then trade them all to their main account, they could use them for getting lots of rare candies or even really rare pokemon like snorlax. Normally this wouldnt be an issue but if they are using accounts to gather items/pokemon and trade to the main and using those same accounts to cheat then it will give more evidence to linking up cheating accounts

 

[Neltharion83]

If they can identify the main account, why would they ban it if the main account uses no cheats or hacks at all?

 

[Phoenixstarz]

If they can identify the main account, why would they ban it if the main account uses no cheats or hacks at all?

If they can establish that the player who owns the main account also is controlling cheating accounts then the player and all their accounts will be banned for breaking the rules in the terms and conditions since it is the player that is breaking the rules. I understand that people are making 2nd accounts to use various websites to scan for Pokemon but if niantic can tie those cheating accounts to that players main account then the player and ALL their accounts will be banned not just the ones that cheated.
The reason they would want to do it even if it loses them paying players is that if players continue to cheat then long term it will harm their reputation, it will be something that they want to reduce as much as possible as cheaters use up a lot of their server load

 

[Neltharion83]

If they can establish that the player who owns the main account also is controlling cheating accounts then the player and all their accounts will be banned for breaking the rules in the terms and conditions since it is the player that is breaking the rules. I understand that people are making 2nd accounts to use various websites to scan for Pokemon but if niantic can tie those cheating accounts to that players main account then the player and ALL their accounts will be banned not just the ones that cheated.
The reason they would want to do it even if it loses them paying players is that if players continue to cheat then long term it will harm their reputation, it will be something that they want to reduce as much as possible as cheaters use up a lot of their server load

Do you have any evidence to back up any of this? Like, clean accounts that do not use cheats or hacks actually getting banned because a dirty lvl1 account is tied to the same device?

Any evidence at all, or are you just speculating?

So far they only ban the main accounts that use hacks, and sometimes the lvl1 fakeaccounts.

By the way, it is the same for many other games where accounts generate revenue.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

Do you have any evidence to back up any of this? Like, clean accounts that do not use cheats or hacks actually getting banned because a dirty lvl1 account is tied to the same device?

Any evidence at all, or are you just speculating?

So far they only ban the main accounts that use hacks, and sometimes the lvl1 fakeaccounts.

By the way, it is the same for many other games where accounts generate revenue.

To start with that's generally how pretty much every online game deals with cheaters if niantic didn't then it would be really weird.
Right now it's difficult to get evidence for who/how much people are banning unless niantic come out with anything official then we are relying on people who have been banned to inform us and I doubt that the cheaters are necessarily going to be 100% truthful.
At the moment there is not going to be too much interaction between accounts so will be easier for cheaters to stay under the radar for now but we will start to build up a better idea of what they can catch and ban for over the next few months

 

[Neltharion83]

To start with that's generally how pretty much every online game deals with cheaters if niantic didn't then it would be really weird.
Right now it's difficult to get evidence for who/how much people are banning unless niantic come out with anything official then we are relying on people who have been banned to inform us and I doubt that the cheaters are necessarily going to be 100% truthful.
At the moment there is not going to be too much interaction between accounts so will be easier for cheaters to stay under the radar for now but we will start to build up a better idea of what they can catch and ban for over the next few months

No its not. Take blizzard as an example, popular games include subscription-based world of warcraft, free2play hearthstone and heroes of the storm, and buy-once diablo3, warcraft3 and starcraft2 and overwatch.

If you have 3 hearthstone accounts and 2 world of warcraft accounts and also a diablo 3 and overwatch account, and you cheat in 2 of the hearthstone accounts, one world of warcraft account, and the diablo3 account, they will ban EXACTLY these accounts, and in many cases only temporarily (2 days to 6 weeks) with or without taking away the benefits you gained from cheating. All other accounts are safe. Repeat offenders get permanent bans on the offending accounts, with all other accounts being safe.

That represents a balance between making money, keeping the player-base intact, and still catching the cheaters. If a company is based in the USA, the CEO can even be sued if he shoots the profitability of his company in the knee.

give some counter-examples. Really.

The problem is that the following statement that you treat as fact is just an assertion that you made up because it FEELS right to you: "To start with that's generally how pretty much every online game deals with cheaters if niantic didn't then it would be really weird." I want evidence, and i will keep asking for it, and i will dismiss your baseless assertions, because without evidence or at least good examples, that is all you have. Give me examples of game companies going so hard after cheaters that they badly hurt their own player base and profitability, especially in the world of free2play games. If its generally the norm, give examples. I gave blizzard and the games connected to their battle.net system as an example.

 

[theunreal]

I hate those small updates they are doing..

 

[Kid=1412]

Not sure if it is IOS10 or the Sept23 Pokemon Go minor update version that's causing my pokemon go app to crash. I am expecting to see the location where I hatched certain eggs and saw a glimpse when the app was actually working. Then tried again for other pokemons only to see nothing updated as to the location. And boooommmm the app crashes.