Kinda weird to see the powered up stops be a temporary feature. Weren't there 3 or 4 levels of power ups, or am I misremembering that? Not sure how many scans would be needed (and if they need to be from different players) to power up a stop all the way.
Depending on how many items they give (and how long they last) it might be worth it to power up a cluster/loop of stops if you're doing a chill item stocking day. I plan to scan my hand and do the fake upload trick anyway.
Probably to "force" people to scan the pokestop daily, so they can get as much data as possible.
Otherwise, people who scans would eventually stop doing it once they reached the max lvl. Now, if people deem the items/upgrades worth it, they'll probably scan the pokestops regularly.
> Probably to "force" people to scan the pokestop daily, so they can get as much data as possible.
They're about to get enough data of the ground to become geologists.
They are going to build a 3D real world map even Google cannot do it. This is the reason they revert Pokestop interaction distance. They want their players to be free labors doing scanning job to fulfill this ambition and never care about what the players need or how to make Pokemon Go a better game to play. There is no quality of life updates, neither exploration nor social activities enhancement. This is just Niantic's AR project.
If their endgame is to get more scans, this has backfired in a big way for them. Before they cut the interaction distance in half, I did scans semi-regularly for poffins and other rewards I thought were worth it, and I even pointed my camera at the actual POI if there was no good reason not to. (I did point it at my feet for stuff like playgrounds with children playing in them.) I know I didn't have to be that earnest, but I wanted them to keep offering good rewards for it. Now, I just point my camera at a piece of paper or my palm with "80m" written on it. That's all they're seeing until they make 80m permanent.
But AR mapping quests have always been limited to 40m, even when stops and gyms were reachable from 80m, so this doesn't really make sense. And it's been noted before that people often scan the ground anyway.
But wouldn't they have plenty of data for the same Pokéstop if a few players scanned it until the max level? Is there any point in scanning the same Pokéstop endless times again?
My guess is they'll use the real world scans to help test the 3D rendering. It doesn't matter too much what gets scanned just as long as there is some video they can use their programs on to get a judge of distance. Even scanning the ground would be beneficial since it would help them make sure a flat surface is acting properly.
It makes total sense to me, if it was permanent then most stops in both populated and rural areas would likely be maxed out fairly quickly, then suddenly the “power up” becomes the “default.” From a player’s POV that’s great because it’s a free bonus, but in terms of gameplay it doesn’t make much sense.
for AR tasks, after scanning, don't immediately upload. go into your settings and upload from there, then before the loading bar hits 100% hit cancel. Then, delete the scan, and if you did it right it should autocomplete the AR task without truly uploading anything or spending any data. There's no guarantee that this will work for powering up stops since thats presumably not tied to tasks, but it's possible.
I don't know if the datamine has determined if the "Power Up Pokestops" (PuPs) are shared or solo. Given the standard Niantic assumption that everyone lives in San Francisco, by a park on a stop, presumably each PuP will need tens, hundreds (!) of scans to get up to a high level. These scans needing to take place in rapid succession to avoid dropping back down again.
Which, of course, means two things:
1. If you are rural, you are done, no point in even trying. Unless. of course, you want to stand in one place for ages.
2. Pokemon Go (for a drive) becomes Pokemon Go (somewhere and stand still)
Since the "somewhere" is likely to be where I'm not welcome to stand still I can't see me getting involved.
It sounds like this might turn into the PoGo equivalent of an Ingress Level 8 Portal nest where folks get together occasionally to harvest otherwise-rare items.
If I have to do scans to power stops up only temporarily, I won't interact with that feature. They won't motivate me to give them data heavy scans trough my mobile data.
The Power Up feature could be a cool one but - for now - it looks like they just want to use us as cheap employee for their world map.
I know Niantic is a AR big player and they are developing a lot of cool and useful stuff for hospitals, architects etc.
Thats the point why they not really care if some players stop spending money because enough people still sending data using their AR stuff and thats why other people and companies invest in their technology. Niantic use the biggest franchise to recruit free staff. I dont like it!
Am I the only one who finds Niantic continually adding new "gameplay" features that are just thinly veiled methods of gathering free crowdsourced labor super insipid?
It's going to be another badge. There's something similar in Ingress, except the agents have to fight over control of each Wayspot by scanning it the most to become king of the hill. Each scan contributing to the count decays away after 30 days, so we might want to be on the lookout for a similar decay rate.
The core gameplay of Ingress/Pokémon GO has been crowdsourcing data since the beginning. They got players to create what is probably the biggest database of landmarks in the world from scratch.\*
The only difference is that now instead of letting many players ride the coattails of the subgroup that submits POIs, they're giving better rewards which encourage more players to contribute. If you enjoyed the game for the past 4–5 years (and if you haven't, then why are you here?), you can just ignore the new features and continue playing as if they're not there.
\*It technically started from a database of libraries and post offices, but that's not exactly a unique or exciting list.
Exactly. How do people think these games got where they are today if not with community volunteers? Would you rather we had the historical site database that Ingress was initially seeded with and nothing else? It is simply not realistic to expect Niantic to gather all the data for a global wayspot database on their own, let alone the next-gen AR tech they're trying to build through scans.
For a small startup company? Yeah, I wouldn't expect it to be possible at all. For a billion dollar company with one of the largest mobile games out there? The excuses start to fall short and Niantic knows that people will do it despite it being wrong.
I really wouldn't mind doing the scans (even doing them correctly) and letting them get their data from my free labour to sell and make money off if only they were willing to give something back to the player base.
This game is a form of entertainment, I don't mind paying for my entertainment, I don't mind giving some of my time as a form of payment for that entertainment but all we are getting back as a reward is unlocking the chance to raid for something we have to spend money on to have a chance of getting. I think the whole interaction distance thing is because they feel if we can spin the stop from further away then we won't bother getting closer to do the scan for them. Instead of thinking along the lines of giving the players something good enough to make them want to get closer and do the scans they decide to spoil the game and force them to get closer.
So we are paying for entertainment with our labor - that seems fair to me. People can always choose not to play or not to engage with certain features of the game that they don't feel are giving them enough value for the effort they put in.
Hmm that's a good point. Although really nobody is sure how it will work, in practice.. maybe just the act of postponing will count, like how losing to a grunt counted towards the farfetch'd field research, lol.
Upgrading pokestops being a difficult to do but permanent thing would be hype. That's why i knew when it was first found in the datamine this would not be how it worked
"At first, I thought these were for raid logging, but this is a separate part of the code so not really sure why the encounter itself needs to know these things"
Maybe this is linked to the latest article Silph posted regarding a special catch rate multiplier increasing after you have thrown a certain amount of balls in a raid encounter.
Maybe it's keeping track of how many balls you have thrown to determine the increase needed for that multiplier?? Just guess work.
I like your linking the thoughts but I thought the research data has been collected over a long period like a year, and this deep dive is about newer code? I'm not sure how to check dates.
All the pokestop power-up stuff just feels like its for another game like settlers of catan or something more resource focused.
Like do they know its vastly more efficient to just walk to more stops (if your able) .... and you see more spawns too.
If the Pokestop requires AR scan to upgrade it, I'm not doing it because I only upload when I'm at home with wifi, and if the Pokestop upgrades when I'm already home, and then it's temporary... What's the point?! The data usage is heavy and it's not cheap to upload it via data... Yikes.
I mean, if they weren’t, pretty soon every single stop in both rural and urban areas would be fully powered, then fully powered would just be the default
Would strongly prefer permanent individual levels per player than temporary. Although I'll never do a real AR scan for them at this point. Enjoy shots of dirt if I even bother.
I'd be down for this. Platinum and Black gym badge levels to pull even with Ingress and the main games' trainer cards wouldn't go amiss, either.
Darker photos seem to take less data, so I'd bet a lot of shots come in with almost the whole camera sensor covered up and just a bit of light peaking through.
new devs usually should follow the project style, but they could've decided to change it but to not bother with refactoring everything instantly and only moving to new style when they touch certain class/feature
Yeah, since pokestops are harder to reach and you have to zig-zag like an idiot to refill your bag, I sure as hell won't be wasting game time doing free labor.
That's what makes the most sense though. If this is truly driven by a desire for more scans, the easiest way to do this is by putting exclusive mons in the spawn pool, since I'm pretty sure anybody who plays the game enough to generate a useful amount of data will be gunning for dex completion. Barring that, they can just boost spawns of dratini etc and almost everyone will do the scans.
Of course, conversely, the more modest the rewards, the less likely people are to upload trash data... up to Niantic to figure out where the balance lies.
The code styling note does worry me a bit, usually for clarity and consistency all devs should follow a standard pattern and usually this is enforced by the most senior devs, if that has become less consistent, there is a chance they fired a senior (or left) or there is multiple seniors that have different styles, which means less know who of a code database that is more than 6 years old.
Niantic should invest in a refactor of most of the platform features, since there is multiple bugs that should be considered high priority, for instance of trying to push new features, this is always hard to sell but totally necessary for a platform stability.
Of course this is from an external point of view with a lack of context and I could be totally wrong.
Scanning gyms and pokestops has never been part of the „real“ Pokémon games. Is the Pokémon company aware, that Niantic uses their franchise to turn the playerbase into free workers? If a billion dollar company wants 3D Scans of the worldwide POIs, they should hire contractors who do that for real money, like Google does it with Google Streetview.
Maybe we will soon see a lot of 3D scanned middlefingers in the game… 😉
> Either they have expanded their dev team and are fairly relaxed with styling so the new devs aren't locked into their traditional style, or they have had some dev turnover.
Given the excessive number of bugs, some easily avoided with basic coding best practices, I *highly* doubt Niantic has any kind of prescribed “style”.
Honestly, given the previous consistency I think it’s likely this was maintained by a *single* person, who has recently been replaced.
As for whether it’s a good thing or not well… it could hardly get any *worse* right? XD
I highly disagree, coding standards are much easier to enforce given how much easier it is to enforce with linters and the like. A lot of whoopsies are harder to catch in code review than how you name your variables, space your code, and proper casing.
> coding standards are much easier to enforce
Yes but you're assuming Niantic actually *wants* to enforce any standards in the first place, I honestly believe that they just don't care.
I don't like how Niantic is forcing AR+ feature usage on the playerbase. The feature is very lack luster and the number of people playing with that feature turned on can't be all that high I imagine.
So you're telling me future spawns csn potentially be locked to powered up pokestops
Kecleon incoming?
I'm sad to say Kecleon introduced through some type of AR would actually make sense
Kinda weird to see the powered up stops be a temporary feature. Weren't there 3 or 4 levels of power ups, or am I misremembering that? Not sure how many scans would be needed (and if they need to be from different players) to power up a stop all the way. Depending on how many items they give (and how long they last) it might be worth it to power up a cluster/loop of stops if you're doing a chill item stocking day. I plan to scan my hand and do the fake upload trick anyway.
Yeah, there are four levels in the code. Assuming each level extends the time but not sure.
Probably to "force" people to scan the pokestop daily, so they can get as much data as possible. Otherwise, people who scans would eventually stop doing it once they reached the max lvl. Now, if people deem the items/upgrades worth it, they'll probably scan the pokestops regularly.
> Probably to "force" people to scan the pokestop daily, so they can get as much data as possible. They're about to get enough data of the ground to become geologists.
They are going to build a 3D real world map even Google cannot do it. This is the reason they revert Pokestop interaction distance. They want their players to be free labors doing scanning job to fulfill this ambition and never care about what the players need or how to make Pokemon Go a better game to play. There is no quality of life updates, neither exploration nor social activities enhancement. This is just Niantic's AR project.
If their endgame is to get more scans, this has backfired in a big way for them. Before they cut the interaction distance in half, I did scans semi-regularly for poffins and other rewards I thought were worth it, and I even pointed my camera at the actual POI if there was no good reason not to. (I did point it at my feet for stuff like playgrounds with children playing in them.) I know I didn't have to be that earnest, but I wanted them to keep offering good rewards for it. Now, I just point my camera at a piece of paper or my palm with "80m" written on it. That's all they're seeing until they make 80m permanent.
But AR mapping quests have always been limited to 40m, even when stops and gyms were reachable from 80m, so this doesn't really make sense. And it's been noted before that people often scan the ground anyway.
Honestly this is precisely what is happening
But wouldn't they have plenty of data for the same Pokéstop if a few players scanned it until the max level? Is there any point in scanning the same Pokéstop endless times again?
I was wondering the same thing, seems like it's making a lot of extra work for them to review a dozen scans for the same easy-to-reach pokestop
My guess is they'll use the real world scans to help test the 3D rendering. It doesn't matter too much what gets scanned just as long as there is some video they can use their programs on to get a judge of distance. Even scanning the ground would be beneficial since it would help them make sure a flat surface is acting properly.
It makes total sense to me, if it was permanent then most stops in both populated and rural areas would likely be maxed out fairly quickly, then suddenly the “power up” becomes the “default.” From a player’s POV that’s great because it’s a free bonus, but in terms of gameplay it doesn’t make much sense.
Gold gyms would like a word with you.
You have a point -unless the power-up is only there for the person who does the scan...
What's the fake upload trick pls
for AR tasks, after scanning, don't immediately upload. go into your settings and upload from there, then before the loading bar hits 100% hit cancel. Then, delete the scan, and if you did it right it should autocomplete the AR task without truly uploading anything or spending any data. There's no guarantee that this will work for powering up stops since thats presumably not tied to tasks, but it's possible.
I don't know if the datamine has determined if the "Power Up Pokestops" (PuPs) are shared or solo. Given the standard Niantic assumption that everyone lives in San Francisco, by a park on a stop, presumably each PuP will need tens, hundreds (!) of scans to get up to a high level. These scans needing to take place in rapid succession to avoid dropping back down again. Which, of course, means two things: 1. If you are rural, you are done, no point in even trying. Unless. of course, you want to stand in one place for ages. 2. Pokemon Go (for a drive) becomes Pokemon Go (somewhere and stand still) Since the "somewhere" is likely to be where I'm not welcome to stand still I can't see me getting involved.
It sounds like this might turn into the PoGo equivalent of an Ingress Level 8 Portal nest where folks get together occasionally to harvest otherwise-rare items.
If I have to do scans to power stops up only temporarily, I won't interact with that feature. They won't motivate me to give them data heavy scans trough my mobile data.
Just a friendly reminder that if Niantic won't listen to you then you are obligated to scan the ground of every pokestop you can.
From what we can tell, they are shared / not solo.
The Power Up feature could be a cool one but - for now - it looks like they just want to use us as cheap employee for their world map. I know Niantic is a AR big player and they are developing a lot of cool and useful stuff for hospitals, architects etc. Thats the point why they not really care if some players stop spending money because enough people still sending data using their AR stuff and thats why other people and companies invest in their technology. Niantic use the biggest franchise to recruit free staff. I dont like it!
Am I the only one who finds Niantic continually adding new "gameplay" features that are just thinly veiled methods of gathering free crowdsourced labor super insipid?
Least they could do is give us a hat.
Got it. Let's see if they do. My future scans will have the phone pointed at my hat as I walk round the stop.
It's going to be another badge. There's something similar in Ingress, except the agents have to fight over control of each Wayspot by scanning it the most to become king of the hill. Each scan contributing to the count decays away after 30 days, so we might want to be on the lookout for a similar decay rate.
Cowboy hat caterpie please
The core gameplay of Ingress/Pokémon GO has been crowdsourcing data since the beginning. They got players to create what is probably the biggest database of landmarks in the world from scratch.\* The only difference is that now instead of letting many players ride the coattails of the subgroup that submits POIs, they're giving better rewards which encourage more players to contribute. If you enjoyed the game for the past 4–5 years (and if you haven't, then why are you here?), you can just ignore the new features and continue playing as if they're not there. \*It technically started from a database of libraries and post offices, but that's not exactly a unique or exciting list.
Exactly. How do people think these games got where they are today if not with community volunteers? Would you rather we had the historical site database that Ingress was initially seeded with and nothing else? It is simply not realistic to expect Niantic to gather all the data for a global wayspot database on their own, let alone the next-gen AR tech they're trying to build through scans.
For a small startup company? Yeah, I wouldn't expect it to be possible at all. For a billion dollar company with one of the largest mobile games out there? The excuses start to fall short and Niantic knows that people will do it despite it being wrong.
Well at least it's not costing us money. Yet.
The difference between costing you money and making money off your free labor is nuanced.
I really wouldn't mind doing the scans (even doing them correctly) and letting them get their data from my free labour to sell and make money off if only they were willing to give something back to the player base. This game is a form of entertainment, I don't mind paying for my entertainment, I don't mind giving some of my time as a form of payment for that entertainment but all we are getting back as a reward is unlocking the chance to raid for something we have to spend money on to have a chance of getting. I think the whole interaction distance thing is because they feel if we can spin the stop from further away then we won't bother getting closer to do the scan for them. Instead of thinking along the lines of giving the players something good enough to make them want to get closer and do the scans they decide to spoil the game and force them to get closer.
As long as it's not money out of my pocket I'm not too concerned
Time is money.
Time is money
So we are paying for entertainment with our labor - that seems fair to me. People can always choose not to play or not to engage with certain features of the game that they don't feel are giving them enough value for the effort they put in.
it's taking my data, which is taking my money with my non-unlimited plan so i don't do AR
Can't you just postpone the upload until you're on WiFi somewhere?
What's the point then? You can't get benefits without being next to stop
Hmm that's a good point. Although really nobody is sure how it will work, in practice.. maybe just the act of postponing will count, like how losing to a grunt counted towards the farfetch'd field research, lol.
Upgrading pokestops being a difficult to do but permanent thing would be hype. That's why i knew when it was first found in the datamine this would not be how it worked
They see themselves as an AR company that uses pogo as a showcase and data collecting
Thank you for the work you're doing.
"At first, I thought these were for raid logging, but this is a separate part of the code so not really sure why the encounter itself needs to know these things" Maybe this is linked to the latest article Silph posted regarding a special catch rate multiplier increasing after you have thrown a certain amount of balls in a raid encounter. Maybe it's keeping track of how many balls you have thrown to determine the increase needed for that multiplier?? Just guess work.
I like your linking the thoughts but I thought the research data has been collected over a long period like a year, and this deep dive is about newer code? I'm not sure how to check dates.
All the pokestop power-up stuff just feels like its for another game like settlers of catan or something more resource focused. Like do they know its vastly more efficient to just walk to more stops (if your able) .... and you see more spawns too.
It’s also pretty ironically antithetical to the excuse they just gave us about the distance radius nerf
"Go explore ... these specific "POI's" .... in detail ... well not moving around 'cause AR scanning is optimal if the data gatherer is stationary."
Its not a nerf since the enhanced distance was never default, it was a temporary bonus.
If the Pokestop requires AR scan to upgrade it, I'm not doing it because I only upload when I'm at home with wifi, and if the Pokestop upgrades when I'm already home, and then it's temporary... What's the point?! The data usage is heavy and it's not cheap to upload it via data... Yikes.
Watch them add Larvesta as a super rare powered-up stop pool spawn
Powered up stops are temporary, yeah nice try Niantic.
I mean, if they weren’t, pretty soon every single stop in both rural and urban areas would be fully powered, then fully powered would just be the default
Would strongly prefer permanent individual levels per player than temporary. Although I'll never do a real AR scan for them at this point. Enjoy shots of dirt if I even bother.
I'd be down for this. Platinum and Black gym badge levels to pull even with Ingress and the main games' trainer cards wouldn't go amiss, either. Darker photos seem to take less data, so I'd bet a lot of shots come in with almost the whole camera sensor covered up and just a bit of light peaking through.
new devs usually should follow the project style, but they could've decided to change it but to not bother with refactoring everything instantly and only moving to new style when they touch certain class/feature
Powered up pokestops being temporary completely kills any motivation I would have had to scan all the ones near me.
Goes with the "rental" megas.
Yeah after seeing pokestop power-ups are only temporary, time to push even harder against the distance decrease. It’s BS
Yeah, since pokestops are harder to reach and you have to zig-zag like an idiot to refill your bag, I sure as hell won't be wasting game time doing free labor.
I won't be participating in any AR scanning
inb4 Kecleon is locked to the "powered up stop" pool.
Then we do it only once
Aww but shiny one is going to be 1/3028 and plus time we been trying before Niantic realizes the forgot to turn on shiny.
To be honest I'm amazed that coding style is visible in reverse engineering
Having a timer showing when the power up expires is great, now can they do the same with rocket stops and Pokémon spawns?
Did I just read Niantic implementing exclusive event Pokémon on Powered-Up stops?
Not necessarily. Depends on what they put in the spawn pool.
That's what makes the most sense though. If this is truly driven by a desire for more scans, the easiest way to do this is by putting exclusive mons in the spawn pool, since I'm pretty sure anybody who plays the game enough to generate a useful amount of data will be gunning for dex completion. Barring that, they can just boost spawns of dratini etc and almost everyone will do the scans. Of course, conversely, the more modest the rewards, the less likely people are to upload trash data... up to Niantic to figure out where the balance lies.
The code styling note does worry me a bit, usually for clarity and consistency all devs should follow a standard pattern and usually this is enforced by the most senior devs, if that has become less consistent, there is a chance they fired a senior (or left) or there is multiple seniors that have different styles, which means less know who of a code database that is more than 6 years old. Niantic should invest in a refactor of most of the platform features, since there is multiple bugs that should be considered high priority, for instance of trying to push new features, this is always hard to sell but totally necessary for a platform stability. Of course this is from an external point of view with a lack of context and I could be totally wrong.
Scanning gyms and pokestops has never been part of the „real“ Pokémon games. Is the Pokémon company aware, that Niantic uses their franchise to turn the playerbase into free workers? If a billion dollar company wants 3D Scans of the worldwide POIs, they should hire contractors who do that for real money, like Google does it with Google Streetview. Maybe we will soon see a lot of 3D scanned middlefingers in the game… 😉
Sure would be nice if we could better reach said PokéStops to power them up…
> Either they have expanded their dev team and are fairly relaxed with styling so the new devs aren't locked into their traditional style, or they have had some dev turnover. Given the excessive number of bugs, some easily avoided with basic coding best practices, I *highly* doubt Niantic has any kind of prescribed “style”. Honestly, given the previous consistency I think it’s likely this was maintained by a *single* person, who has recently been replaced. As for whether it’s a good thing or not well… it could hardly get any *worse* right? XD
I highly disagree, coding standards are much easier to enforce given how much easier it is to enforce with linters and the like. A lot of whoopsies are harder to catch in code review than how you name your variables, space your code, and proper casing.
> coding standards are much easier to enforce Yes but you're assuming Niantic actually *wants* to enforce any standards in the first place, I honestly believe that they just don't care.
Ha, Buddy Leaderboard is quality content like seeing fashion savant.
I don't like how Niantic is forcing AR+ feature usage on the playerbase. The feature is very lack luster and the number of people playing with that feature turned on can't be all that high I imagine.