A large number of Pokémon GO players have been reporting serious issues with their in-game accounts, noting that they've received bans for cheating despite being completely innocent.
Eurogamer says that it has received "more than 100 messages" from concerned players in the last couple of days, noting that fans believe the total number of affected users are in the "thousands", and threads on popular subreddits paint a pretty worrying story. It would appear that some iPhone users on the iOS 12 operating system are being wrongly impacted, with those affected receiving the app's infamous seven-day soft ban warning.
Usually reserved for players caught cheating, this warning serves as a first 'strike' on your account and can limit the Pokémon you can find in-game. Repeat offences can cause a player to earn more strikes, eventually resulting in a permanent ban.
Developer Niantic has acknowledged the issue, sharing this message to social media today:
If you've been affected by this problem, we'd urge you to keep an eye on Niantic's Twitter account above to be informed of any updates.
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 15
I use Galaxy so Im not affected. I feel sorry for those using iOS.
Unfortunately, Niantic never fix problems until they get called out on it and get exposure.
This has happened before with devices getting false positives on anti-cheat systems resulting in unfair bans, and they also didn't fix an entire island's lack of spawns until it hit the wider news.
Let it be known that Niantic has awful, awful customer service and do not proactively aim to provide a satisfactory experience. They just keep pushing new events and features (that people often didn't ask for), and hoping that we forget that they trickle-feed new Pokémon or meaningful content or long-demanded fixes.
They don't even look at the bigger picture of how all parts of the gameplay loop at important, and how neglecting any part of it can be detrimental to the player attachment rates.
Consider their neglect of the trading feature during the lockdown, they completely ignored this aspect of the game and players who depend on it for making progress or clearing out storage, or otherwise enjoyed the activity with other players were left hanging.
Also because they haven't figured out a way to monetise trading.
But you know what they are trying to monetise now? Gifts, by letting you buy stickers to attach to them. It's so desperate.
@TheLightSpirit
It's more a symptom of having lots of devices with lots of different firmware iterations, and the complications of being able to QA your software across all of them. It's a huge challenge and someone is always going to fall foul of their device or software being too old, or even too new.
Phew, luckily I don’t use an iPhone for Pokémon GO.
@RupeeClock Also, some places have about one Pokémon every hour, while some have five at once, re-spawning constantly. They haven’t ever fixed that.
@BabyYoshi12
I believe how it works is that Pokémon spawns are procedurally generated based on the amount of real world user activity on smart devices.
As in, network traffic in given locations determines the placement and frequency of Pokémon spawns.
Which is why you're more likely see Pokémon in places that people live or frequent, and carry cellular devices with them.
@RupeeClock That must mean a lot of people play Pokémon GO at work. 😆
@BabyYoshi12
No, it actually means a lot of people have smart phones on their person that are persistently connected to Google services via WIFI or mobile internet, and that sort of geo-located data flow provides a heat map of human activity.
@RupeeClock Oh, so whether or not they actually play Pokémon GO doesn’t have an effect, just if their connected to WIFI?
@AJDarkstar
No, what I'm explaining is how the spawns are generated from a seed.
They don't regenerate this seed every day, more like every couple of months.
Spawns appear to belong to sets, like set 1, set 2, set 3, and they turn on or toggle sets for events when they need to increase the overall spawn rate.
There is no way to incorrectly ban iPhone users.
I have never even played Pokémon Go, so I have a question: what sort of activities would warrant a ban or a warning in the first place? Meaning, what is there in the game to actually cheat at that warrants punishing players in the first place? Sorry for the total noob question. I had my Pokémon fill back on Leaf Green so I’m a little out of date 😛
Honestly I am surprised this kind of thing isn't more frequent, given the number of phones and different versions of iOS and Android.
@TG16_IS_BAE
Haven't played it in years but there was a lot of things that annoyed actual players when it launched.
Getting to max level takes an incredibly long time, there were bots to do that instantly. New features tend to be rolled out to higher leveled players first.
You get coins by taking control of gyms, but you can only interact with them while you're nearby; spoofers could just instantly visit every gym nearby and take them all over at say, 2am when nobody's going to head outside to actually be near the gym, then earn coins all night.
Your country doesn't have specific Pokémon at all? A rare Pokémon spawned tens or hundreds of miles away? Just spoof the location to catch them easily from home.
Etc, etc. I think all of that gets warnings if you do it now.
@bluesun Got it, now I understand, thanks!
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