Source
r/TheSilphRoad•
stygianz

Silph Cup Tournament (we need to address this issue)

Discussion

Yesterday was my first time joining Nightfall Cup under Silph (Accredited Tournament) and it was amazing experience for me but there is a serious issue that Silph need to address.

To battle (remotely), we need to have at least 1 Level of Friendship from our opponent and to increase the level to 1, we need to either Gift them (so when they open, Level is increased from 0 to 1) OR scan QR Battle Code (this takes more effort than Gifting).

Upon receving gifts from my opponents throughout the tournament (it was a 4-round tournament), 3 out of 4 rounds, I got a Gift from Zaragoza.

Now, there might be a coincidence that the all 3 players were all from Zaragoza, and I'm fine by that - but then, it happened. They were able to communicate within the Discord server using my country's native language. We used street language, therefore even Google won't be able to translate it correctly.

Now this was a huge sign, that they were indeed spoofers (it's effing covid season out here, don't tell me they just came back from Zaragoza - you can't even enter/leave the country during covid). Somehow, I'm half convinced that they were spoofers but then, when I checked their Distance Walked, it all speaks for itself. The Distance Walked for each player were roughly around 40,000 KM.

In no effing way they have travelled as far as Earth's circumference what the heck.

Silph Rule #11 stated that Competitors who have falsified their GPS location in Pokémon GO must opt out of player rank and may only compete in accredited tournaments with an Unranked Arena account. Basically NO SPOOFER IS ALLOWED for Ranked Accredited Tournament (unless you play with Unranked Arena Account a.k.a Guest Account).

Now when a player joining using Guest Account, it will label as "Guest" on the RSVP Page, but all I can see those spoofers were labelled as "Rival" and "Challenger" - this means that THEY JOINED THE TOURNAMENT USING RANKED ARENA ACCOUNT INSTEAD OF UNRANKED ARENA ACCOUNT (GUEST ACCOUNT).

One of the spoofer even won the tournament, a 4-0 Sweep point, ohhh so surprising. Also, I went to check his profile and saw all badges that are related to Ranked, meaning that he did not opt out of player rank and instead should play on a Guest Account.

Now my question is, why would Silph sets up a rule that no spoofer is allowed, if the rule itself did not get enforced, like at all ?

Also, those spoofers were definitely not joining Accredited Tournament (they should be using Guest Account if they still want to join) for the first time because their Tier level is Challenger. I understand if that account is newly created, so he maybe passed a spoof check once or twice, but he's already a Challenger, that's quite a journey to get there and he has done it multiple times without getting any penalty whatsoever.

If this issue continues to not get addressed, might as well remove that rule. Don't tell me "dude, it's not like they can hack their pokemons' damage to deal gajillion damage in one turn" - this is not about spoofing specifically but more on not obeying the rule and get away with it easily.

Silph, can you do something about this, please ?

Posted Dec 7, 2020, 6:23 AM UTC · edited

8140
YerryLi•

There’s a spot in Zaragoza that is famous to spoofers. It’s the number 1 grind spot in the world at the moment for stardust. Access to about 25 stops standing one location with almost all the stops lured

45
_mtl•

So thats why i get so many gifts from there lol

23
CitehManchester•

How does that happen?

edit: just looked it up, this is kinda nuts.

3
losmaddenUtah | Level 40•

Dang. I was in Zaragoza in March 2019 but didn’t know of this spot!

1
sidoma_kismetArena Legislation•

Hiya! @SilphGG_Mel here!

First of all, I want to say congratulations on joining your first tournament. I'm excited you had a great time, but I'm sorry to hear of your difficulties too. I hope this doesn't dissuade you from taking part in future tournaments and I hope that this post can help with that.

First thing I want to do is clear up one misconception here because clarifying the rules is important so everyone is on the same page. Unranked is not the same as just using a Guest Account. Guest accounts are intended for those who do not want to track their progress in the Arena or for someone just giving it a try so they can create an account later. There's two ways a player can compete unranked though:

  1. Head to https://silph.gg/opt-out and opt out of ranked play. This option is available to anyone who wishes to compete unranked in the Arena, but it required for certain competitors like those who manipulate their GPS location.
  2. For those who violate the Arena Rules they may be disqualified from competing ranked as a penalty from the Arena. Those players are deranked by the hard working and dedicated Arena Legislation team.

Now to address some of your questions and concerns:

Now my question is, why would Silph sets up a rule that no spoofer is allowed, if the rule itself did not get enforced, like at all ?

My team absolutely enforces this rule, and all the rules, but especially when we are provided with proof of a misconduct. Those can be reported at any time via our Evidence Submission Form. The Legislation Team exists in order to provide a fair and level playing field for all competitors. These volunteers spend countless hours committed to enforcing the Arena rules and procedures. Every single report is reviewed and investigated to the fullest extent possible. And even those reports that may not be actionable are logged and tracked in case of further reports.

Since this was my first tournament, I'll let it slide (although I do have all the evidences against those players).

No, please do not "let it slide." It is your responsibility as a competitor per section 1.6 of the Arena Rules to call attention to any rules or policy violations you encounter. While I wish we had eyes and ears in every single community around the globe, we don't. So we rely on upstanding community members to share any information with us on communities, tournament officials, or competitors who are violating the rules.

As always, our team is here to help. But we can't help with a problem if people don't come to us through the channels we've made available:

We have volunteers to answer questions or guide you to the proper channel to get your issue or concern addressed. But I hope that this helps clear up some of your concerns and that you'll submit a misconduct report so my team can take a look. Best of luck with the rest of the Season, and please don't hesitate to reach out if you have more questions!

-Mel

29
JabronoEvolve Eevee while jumping on a trampoline to get Jumpeon•

How would something like this be addressed? I completely understand what gifts from Zaragoza mean, but it's not the only spoofing hotspot, and there may very well be players from there. Probably not 4, but I digress.

1
sidoma_kismetArena Legislation•

Honestly, without having all the details and full evidence it's hard to say. Just getting gifts from a specific location isn't enough proof on it's own to take action. The Legislation Team has access to tournament details and other information that can help piece together the full picture of the situation. And we never take any action unless we are 100% certain that we have solid proof. But it's also a reason why multiple reports are not always a bad thing either. Because one person might have slightly different information or details that could help complete the puzzle.

4
SilviaStellaM•

Lots of spoofers are in best ranking position Silph, but Silph don't ban them.

19
stygianzOP•

I don't get it why they set up that rule if they don't even bother to enforce it.

12
HarlockHrkITA•

To look good and give a false sense of transparency and honesty to the other players.

During S1, the "report a misconduct" page wasn't even working. It gave a 404 error.

During S2, after being told by Silph staff what kind of proof was needed, I provided such proof but nothing happened. Spoofers were allowed to enter Regionals and Regional organizers were told they could NOT prohibit spoofers from playing.

During S3, I don't care anymore.

I understand that checking reports and banning players requires time and effort and Silph are all volunteers and COVID hit hard and everybody is coping and whatever. Then I'd appreciate the removal of the rule: let spoofer play (not that they *aren't already*) and have people "shut up and git gud" as it's often what's told to people complaining about spoofers.

8
akcoug:flair-usa-mountain-west:Idaho Ranger•

the silph arena bans people all the time that get themselves to the best ranking positions. still see some there? report it: https://silph.gg/misconduct

7
TEFAlpha9UK - Gengar Fan Club :upvote::SilphExecutive:•

Ah I was thinking of going back to it, but meh then

1
Flashnhc•

Btw, somebody actually living in Zaragoza half of the year... The spoofers have destroy the local community... Nobody meets for raids anymore, as all the gyms around will start a half full lobby when the egg cracks... It was a very nice place to play Pokémon go, with huge community days and great community events, but know it has almost disappeared

15
elconquistador1985•

I was just thinking about this earlier, that real players in Zaragoza must have a terrible experience with gyms and getting coins and that probably just drove players out of the game over time. That's unfortunate.

11
septacle•

I visited San Francisco last year and same thing was happening there in certain part of the city.

2
ProjectExistNet•

r/TheSilphArena might be the better place for this.

40000 KM isn’t too farfetched either, that’s “only” about 27KM a day... which is insane but not impossible. (20KM was my daily average for a long time.)

11†
The_ToxicityMystic Lvl 40•

40000 KM isn’t too farfetched either, that’s “only” about 27KM a day

Uh yeah, walking 3/4 of a marathon every single day since the game got released (with a walking distance lower than 10mph), from monday to sunday, even during a pandemic. That's almost the definition of too farfetched. Especially since adventure sync is still a relative to this game young feature, and keeping in mind how badly distance got tracked from time to time.

25
pasticcioneITALY LV 40•

Not at all. People exploited adventure sync a lot (100 km a day) without spoofing. And GPS drifting has always been a thing (local players clocking in 30 km a night).

One can definitely argue they they are cheating, but they never spoofed.

7
Nathan__96•

There are other ways than spoofing to artificially increase walking distance, too, but this + plus gifts from Zaragoza is definitely suspicious.

8
pasticcioneITALY LV 40•

100% agree that those guys are spoofers! Just that many players used other methods to increase distance.

5
XSoulReaperX212•

zaragoza is sus tho

24
ProjectExistNet•

Yeah, it is, I’m just not sure it’s a core-subreddit-wide issue.

3
stygianzOP•

How do you explain the gift from Zaragoza from all 3 players ?

4†
ProjectExistNet•

I can’t, but I don’t think it’s a core-subreddit-wide issue. More of an arena/moderator issue.

Anyway - do you have screenshots/proof of the gifts? The staff will probably want those.

3†
stygianzOP•

I mean I don't mind what's in the past, but, moving forward, it is supposedly not up to the players to do spoof-check every single time and give it to Silph or organizer of the cup. The organizer themselves or Silph directly should do these checks even way before a tournament has begun.

And if there's really no way to detect a spoofer, some of you really believes a person is able to dedicate his life to a game and has walked a total of 40,000KM, might as well we all spoof to join this cup.

Same as Go Battle League, most players joining in are spoofers but I'm okay with it because there is no rule saying a spoofer can't join a Go Battle League.

-2†
JackBlack1709Berlin•

Although it is: Spoofing itself is against the Terms of Service of the game, so by that rule Spoofers also aren't allowed in Go Battle League (given some niche with the Three Strikes system).

To that other point: People tell that all the Time. I read so many times, that spoofers are a majority in the game, Spend more, etc. Truth is: i know just 4 spoofers, none of them doing GBL. But i know at least 20 legit people from my Community that play GBL and aim for Rank 10/24, even more playing for Elite TM. So that point isn't really valid, since we have no numbers, probably never will, and everything will just be wild guesses.

7
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
DweadPiwateWawbuts•

I agree with this being the wrong place for the post. It’s also absolutely terrible subject line.

1
gshgshPorto Alegre, Brazil | Level 40•

This may be a dumb question, but did you report the players to the tournament organizer? It would probably be the first step to take.

6
stygianzOP•

Since this was my first tournament, I'll let it slide (although I do have all the evidences against those players). But if this continue to grow like a cancer, like hell I would ignore this. DURING the tournament itself I would gladly to post all those evidences and let the organizer decide. I really hope that the organizer themselves are not a spoofer because if they do too, that's gonna be a huge biased for a decision to be made.

-4
gshgshPorto Alegre, Brazil | Level 40•

There's really no way for Silph to verify this on their own, you should always contact the organizer and if in case they seem hesitant to take action, try reporting directly to Silph.

9
shaanman•

Definitely a spoofer. All my friends who spoof grind there.

4
stygianzOP•

For those who know how spoof works, you KNOW know one when you see one. Up to a point they no longer try to hide it anymore and goes on full-on spoofing.

5
shaanman•

My community has around 80% spoofers and all they do is discuss places to spoof, and ofc they don't even try to hide coz it's a norm here now.

4
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
komarinthMystic L46•

Perhaps not a question for this subreddit, as already mentioned.

But if it cannot be enforced, don't make it a rule. The silph arena could ask of Niantic to enforce their ToS, but not much else. Niantic caring about the issue is the only thing that might make a difference for an even playing field, as spoofer catch cup made quite obvious.

1
Mvewtcc•

I can lie and just say the same thing about you that I received gift from you from zaragora. The main problem is things are hard to enforce.

0†
stygianzOP•

I can provide ss lol. You can ? But I won't do it since I mentioned MOVING FORWARD. What should we do to tackle this kind of issue in the future - should not worry about it in the past.

4
Fit_Value_8218•

🧐

1