Niantic Is Dropping The Ban Hammer On Pokémon GO Players Who "Cheat"

Joke's on you, I stopped playing a long time ago.

I'm fine with that. If you're cheating, then you've got what's coming to you.

......"Your account and been terminated."
Wat?

Oh, mylanta...
There is no point by cheating a simple game.
It will turn into quick boredom.

Cheaters should be banned.

"It isn't cheating, they've temporarily taken down their in game tracking system to help them cope with the large traffic of users, so I used a third party one that causes just as much, perhaps even more, strain on their servers."

This is how it sounds to me whenever I hear people say they've been forced to use third party tracking sites. They're not a solution, they are adding to the problem.

Gotta terminate 'em all!

Why would anyone cheat on this? To more quickly get all of the fictitious, virtual things that don't really exist? It's like if someone cheated on Tetris by making all blocks be the long lines. Why play it at all at that point?

My wife and I share an account and it's definitely helped me be more into it because we get to talk about what we did or were able to catch that day, etc. But with the latest update they made it where it'll be glitchy at best since we can't travel halfway across town and start using it there, we must be using location services and cheating. We haven't gotten banned but we can't really both play it now, which sucks and drops our usage rate. Not good for anyone.

I think companies should be allowed to send code to brick your phone/system when you cheat, but I guess banning them is good enough.

Yay!

@XCWarrior That can be done on Nintendo 3DS, but since phones aren't video game systems, and actually have important uses for people's everyday lives, I understand not being able to do it on phones.

Good.

I have the problem, that my GPS is faulty. I don't know why, if it's my phone, the app, or that I live on the countryside, but most if the time, I'm constantly walking around in Pokemon Go, while I'm actually sitting in my house. My eggs got 1km, just from sitting. Heck, lately the app likes to place me next to a gym in the next bigger city - 25km away! (But not close enough to interact with it... <.< such a tease...)
I have no control over this, but I'm getting really worried about it, as I don't want to loose my Account to a bug...

I have no problem with them banning cheaters. That seems to ruin the point of the game if you would rather spoof your location than get off your lazy rear and do the work yourself.

My only qualm with them banning all third-party apps (though I understand the reasoning) is that this includes PoGo, an app someone developed for Windows Phone 10 users so that they could play Pokemon GO along with their Android/iOS friends. There are tales of accounts getting perma-banned for using the app.

I been hearing about this for the past few days but this is the first time I see proof from the creators themselves. Happy days.

I always find it annoying when people deny/justify cheating to make it ok doing in a game that affects everyone (vs a single player game). Especially the spoofers who justify it because there is hardly any Pokemon and/or PokeStops where they live and use the Pokemon they caught in gyms.

I think they're going too far. Pokémon GO is not perfect, so why do they ban people who try to make it perfect?

I still enjoy the game. And I am all for pointing out those who abuse the game.

I do however still find the game a little rough around the edges at times. I know its still early and its a massive undertaking. But I'm still finding no rhyme or reason sometimes to how Pokemon appear or found and why after the update, areas that had Pokemon are now deadspots.

Dang, that last line of the email is cold. But, I find it fair for cheaters to be banned. If it can affect the community then it's for the best.

Also, the whole catching/running issue has gotten annoying. There is absolutely no logic behind why it takes 10 Pokeballs to catch a Weedle.

@nab1 Yeah, imagine if people did precisely that in the main series. Oh wait.

@entisocial You might be right, but it seems to me that the main series has way more gameplay elements to it, whereas all that pokemon Go has is pretty much just going around and looking for pokemon.

This game is unplayable because the people already cheated to get where they are. They can't fix that. Or will they ban people that have used it in the past?

@Ninten-san Without more details about the types of cheats Niantic is trying to prevent, there's no way to tell if those people are really just trying to make it perfect

@nab1 There's a big difference though, nobody can see your perfect IVed shiny Arceus on a map with your name, its level and yours, here it is a thing, you might want to show off.

@super08mario I'm pretty sure they can. My brother was cheating before (I warned him this could happen) but hasn't played the game for 2 weeks (he was cheating at that time). He received the ban notice yesterday when he logged back in for the first time in two weeks.

He mentioned that he would get soft banned for a certain period of time every time he teleported so I assume there had to be a way in-game already to track that.

@Rutana If you are using an Android device, make sure that your Location Settings are set to high accuracy mode. Mine was not, and I was having a lot of problems getting the app to register my location when attempting to visit PokeStops.

Gen 1 haha!!!

It's only cheating as long as there is no MISSINGNO. with which to get things done. Then it'd be fair game.

Gotta ban them all. Poke moan

It'd be nice if TPC would ban all cheaters in the main game.

@diastelo that's a great advice, thanks!

Are the people who got all 145 to date getting banned as I bet they used some tracker to locate rarer pokemon?

@nab1
I'm talking about PokéVision.

@CosmoXY While cheaters don't get banned completely out of the game, they can get banned from online multiplayer for bringing hacked Pokemon into it. That and hacked Pokemon are unable to be transported between generations via bank

I read it all in arnolds voice......

@ALinkttPresent Mankind survived for thousands of years without phones. You aren't dependent on them. You just think you are.

checks
...Ok my account is fine...lol

That doesn't sound like a punishment. In fact it must be quite liberating.

If you're cheating at a game, you have no right to be playing it. That's my two cents anyway.

@Lizuka except that it does hurt people. If you have the rarest and best Pokémons you will have an easier time taking over and defending gyms. And the gyms is the only way to get coins for free. So it does hurt the honest people.

I was banned and have not cheated or done anything that would be a violation of their TOS. Unfortunately the appeal process is a complete lie. I have appealed and as soon as you fill it out you get a generic auto response, and a follow up ticket number. The problem is that they immediately mark the ticket as solved which shows they have no intention of reading them or responding. Niantic Labs is the most awful game company I have ever dealt with. Their communication is completely non existent. They could care less what happens after the game is downloaded. Shame on them.

@FireFlower Agreed. The only time I find "cheating" acceptable is for single player RPG games where you have already beaten it and just want to experience the story again and have a leisure time doing it.

The Tales of Series even build in those types of playthroughs with New Game +

Not enough. Cheaters should be stoned to death with Geodudes

Good to hear. Nothing more annoying than people that cheat the system to gain an advantage, both in online competitive games and games like Pokemon Go. It's unfair to everyone else that's playing legit, and frankly, it just makes you a douche.

Where's the crying Pikachu picture?
If it's not being used anymore maybe NL should do a retrospective. There definitely needs to be something. End of an era.

So I guess their inability to bring the game to all Android 4.4 phones is considered cheating/accessing in unauthorised manner and by turning on the app on phone by downloading apk will get account terminated.

Punishing people for their own laziness/incompetence and greed. Good job.
I can see many innocent people getting banned and numbers dropping.

I think it's overkill when it comes to tracking. They really owe it to their players to fix tracking. People sink money into this game. Being able to find the Pokemon that the game shows you should be a given. I really don't see how in-game tracking can cause load on the servers when the Pokemon's location data obviously already exists as it shows it on the nearby. A picture of a Pokestop does no good to someone who has few Pokestops in their area. These people are more likely to use real money to purchase Pokeballs because of this, and telling them whether or not they are walking in the right direction would be nice. Give us an arrow to show that you're looking in the right direction, at least give us something.

GPS hacking is a different story, that's just dirty. I agree with banning that.

@FireFlower

Not into Go, but I cheat all the time (save states) and think it adds tremendously to some games in the funfactor. Which is all gaming should really be about. I would have never beaten any of the original trilogy ghosts and ghouls games without them.

@Whopper744 Don't mind me, just a stupid bot created by someone with no life.

What about cheaters who paid for game coins? Banning them for cheating is one thing but take someone's money away without provide goods/services is another. There should be at least some sort of refund process, rather than saying "sorry cheaters, we gonna take the rest of money from your account and you're not gonna have them back".

I think that it's smart to get rid of the cheating players but I would like to know if the location network is up and running the right way and not mistaking someone for cheating because they location didn't look right or whatever. Because since I've been playing this game on my smartphone I've noticed if I catch a Pokemon something happens and my phone will freeze up because the location services is timing in and out and my GPS and phone service is on and working so I don't know if it's from the game network or what but I'd hate to lose my Pokemon I've worked so very hard on to get marked off because something didn't look right when I'm not even braking any rules. I'm not that desperate to find ways to get ones I don't have when it's much more fun working hard on the tasks and everything to get the unlocked Pokemon from the Researches you get from the professor. But this is my thoughts on it all hope I was helpful have a wonderful day.

Dunno if this counts as cheating but occasionally when I enter what I call a ‘dead zone’ (which is where the game can’t get a stable GPS reading and my little avatar ends up running around for a few minutes) I’ll find myself next to a PokéStop. Usually I’ll be ‘travelling too fast’ to spin it but every once in awhile she’ll stand still long enough for me to get a few items even though I’m not technically there. But if the dead zone happens to be RIGHT NEXT TO the Pokémon Gym that I’m currently Raiding and I suddenly find that my little guy is thrown out three kilometres away next to a PokéStop then YES I am going to spin that disc!! 98% of the time we’re going too fast, anyways... 🤷🏽‍♀️

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