What is Niantic doing against spoofing/cheating?

[Elsie1229]

I have the same feeling. They are not going to do anything with this issue.

I saw multiple posts across various Taiwanese forums, all full of spoofers. They are not ashamed of what they are doing at all. Some of them mock people who “do not know how to spoof.” Some say they contribute more to this game by spoofing. (how???) Some claim that they do not create any problem since those mushrooms they take are not taken by any locals anyway.

I am so sick of these people. Every time I open the app and see a bunch of accounts with Chinese names, which I am sure do not come from my community because we don’t have that much Asian population here, taking the mushrooms, I just want to delete this game for good.

And I also found an article on a Taiwanese website that teaches people how to use GPS spoofer apps to avoid detection. What is wrong with these people???

[draculacontacon]

I’m the sole player in my area, I’m sure there are whole towns around the world without a single player yet they still come to my town and steal the only giant mushroom in my radius.

THIS HAS TO BE ADDRESSED

[Bluechirpy]

So this thread doesn’t die…

I have recived a little gift in form of a spoofery that has consistently bloomed EVERYTING in my area for the past 4 months.

This… Jerk named [I don’t know if I can share names in text here] has consistently spoofed EVERYTHING (and by that, i mean E V E R Y T H I N G) where I live. Tried reporting them MULTIPLE TIMES to no avail. They are a petty little freak, as when I have seen them spoof once (and they revealed themselves via the “With everyone” feature), they have moved their spoofing times from whenever.. to 5 AM (where I live)… I at least had the opportunity to collect everything in the 1 hour between their spoof, but now I have NONE. Genuinely, a child.

Oh, and also, they’re doing THIS NOW.

Mhmmmmm. Yessssss.. I love when a small mushroom is LOCKED FOR MORE THAN HALF A MONTH

Again, I tried to report them MULTIPLE TIMES (Like twenty at this point). They’re not even subtle with spoofing at this point… (see the visible flower lines)

I seriously hope that

A) Scopley decide to do something about this, and introduce a REAL report/antispoofing system (at this point, unlikely)

B) this post will get noticed by someone who could work with banning/reporting and actually DOES something with it. (Probably, equally unlikely)

The worst part is, I am not the only one living here, who plays this this game.. I know of at least one, and they’re also school children who play in my area…

Seriously sorry for the rant session, but WHY is nothing happening on this front

Thanks for coming to My TEDx talk

[wallyorue]

This is crazy! Especially because Taiwan is swarmed with players. The density of players here is huge, like it’s absolutely absurd how difficult is to get a spot in the battles (I’m an expat living in Taiwan). You have no idea.

That being said, just having Taiwanese battling in the zone doesn’t mean is spoofing though… You make friends globally and you get to be called with the horn.

[flowerholic]

OMG, just today, I also noticed some small mushrooms in my area are taken by only “one” player (found 3 new players we have never seen are doing so) with like 4 or 5 Strength, and it will take many days to finish these mushrooms…

WTH are they trying to do?! to make their accounts more “local” or what? but those names are just very unusual in Germany…

[WilliamL76]

Why are they doing this?

[flowerholic]

I have no idea…… when I got up this morning, I found they took even more after system mushrooms update last night. Now they took at least 20 small mushrooms in our city, that means we locals won’t get updates of these mushrooms for like 20 days! If this continues, we could only take these mushrooms instead….WTH​

Scoply really needs to do something to deal with the spoofers!

[Bluechirpy]

Mushrooms, the best way to gain nectar before, have been… well, we know where this is going…

So the best way to still get nectar (without putting in the legwork) is to bloom flowers in areas, where nobody is playing… Won’t hurt anyone, right???

except; non-activity isn’t a requirement for capturing and controlling an entire area for spoofing, and they just… Go wherever. Even into places where folks live and play.

And I imagine that they (the spoofers) have been locking up small shrooms for weeks at a time is because some spoofers had their egos bro- i mean, they didn’t get the shrooms they so deserve; and decided to renact some sort of vendetta against mushroom spoofers by removing the chance for Big mushroom spawns

So tldr: they’re probably Unreasonably petty.

Could you tell that I am also sick of them?

[yaongZ]

I’m dealing with the same problem in my area too. After realizing that there have been lots of similar complaints but very little response from the PB team, I decided to start a petition. (I will make an individual post once it gains some traction.) Please consider signing if this resonates with you. Thanks!

Sign the Petition

[flowerholic]

Signed and forwarded, but you need to change the decision maker to “Scopely”, thankssss.

[flowerholic]

Update (created a new topic too)

18th Sep photos updated… all are small mushrooms now.

It looks like this (check the photos) in my city at like 8:30 this morning…giant mushrooms are all full from during the night while all locals were sleeping.

It seems like those 5 or 6 new spoofers came to take small mushrooms few days ago is kind of strategy or what to make sure other mushrooms will be giant or elements mushrooms after update, and yes, now we locals could only get those small mushrooms with only one spoofer sitting in …guess I will need to uninstall this game very soon.

[flowerholic]

You wouldn’t say that if you have seen those spoofers’ behaviors, there’re even some facebook groups for spoofers…well, talking about the horn, it must be used by at least one person who is “actually” not far from the mushroom, isn’t it??

And, really, no locals would go to graveyard at 02:00 am to make the big flowers bloom…

Facebook

[xxcptnhwdyxx]

Same up here in Anchorage, AK. There are almost certainly more spoofers here than there are legit players. I send detailed reports every day and it only ever gets worse. The spelling error/typo (“note” vs “not”) in the automated response (I’ve reported this too, just to see if anyone’s on the other end. Shockingly the typo is still there as well) does not inspire confidence.

[xxcptnhwdyxx]

This is messed up. I can’t believe they haven’t so much as acknowledged that it’s an issue.

My town is currently overrun with spoofers. Can’t wait for this behavior to show up. Thank you for posting.

[jasonvgk8612]

Those are bots, not just random players. Check out my post. It’s the exact same pattern. Seriously, where the hell are Scopely and Nintendo on this?!

The people running this bot service are actually charging players NT$60 per person, PER WEEK! They claim these are just “other players,” but come on, who burns one of their free mushroom attempts AND a bullhorn to invite a total stranger, then immediately leaves?!

They don’t even stick around to finish the battle. They just get the person in and disappear. And we’re supposed to believe this is just normal players helping each other out? That’s bullshit.

Forget individual spoofers. A bot army may be ruining Pikmin Bloom.

People keep blaming individual players for GPS spoofing. But what if the bigger problem is not a few cheaters? What if there is an entire automated system doing this at scale? A service called Pipi Mushroom appears to use bot accounts to: Scan live mushroom and Big Flower locations. Send bots into mushrooms around the world. Use the bots’ free Bullhorns to invite real players. Leave the mushroom immediately after sending the invitation. Enter Large or Giant Mushrooms with absurdly low attac…

[xxcptnhwdyxx]

Please pass this info onto game informer, etc.

If you have the time and energy. I believe those sources might actually do something with the information, unlike Scopely.

[mattlover]

Hello from Tasmania.

There were two giant mushrooms around my house. But both of them were occupied by strangers right after 12am. Only three or four players around this area on the week days. I already reported this situation a lot but scopely never responded

[airidayoo]

Has anyone tried posting in those spoofer fb groups telling them to stop going to your specific town? I wonder if it’ll work.

[flowerholic]

Useless…they are not nice, not all of them I guess, but I saw someone who is also in NZ/AU area complained in thread about spoofers and didn’t wipe out her location in her screenshots…then a few very mean spoofers even looked for her coordinates and shared to the spoofers’ group​

[marley0216]

Hello from Europe,

I’m starting to see a new pattern that essentially prevents us from getting any white flowers… What they do is plant 100–150 yellow and red petals around a Big Flower and then leave without blooming it. They don’t return to the same track and instead move on somewhere nearby. This makes it impossible to bloom white seasonal flowers, which are already difficult to bloom.

Now, I understand that in a big city, you can’t control what other players plant, but at least you have more chances of getting a variety of nectar and fruits. But in a village with only two local players, we rely heavily on mushrooms and Big Flowers. Giant and Elemental Mushrooms are snatched by spoofers, and the flowers are being “contaminated” as well.

I’m afraid that reporting doesn’t help, so I’ve been thinking of leaving bad reviews in the App Store or for the company, besides the actions that others have mentioned.

Honestly, I just want to walk and have fun, but why do some people cheat and disturb those who don’t? It’s beyond my comprehension​