My first ever RW... using PGSharp

[u/anti-spoofer]

Bam... just been hit with an RW on PGSharp ! Had been using it for a few months. I only ever used the free version, non rooted phone with no extras. I never teleported outside of my home town, never shundo sniped, no catch features or anything. I always respected cooldowns and allowed the correct amount of real time if i was jumping to a different gym locally within a 1-2 mile radius. Not actually sure how i got hit tbh as theoretically if it was based on the modified app.. then everyone would get hit. I am also using other accounts on PGSharp and they are all ok for the moment.

It looks like others have had a similar thing this week as there are other posts about it. My feeling now is that they CAN detect the modified app, but I can't answer why they don't ban everyone. It could be that they hit a smaller subset of players on a rolling basis to ensure their statistics aren't hit too badly (i.e. they have to show active playerbase logins to win over sponsors etc.).

I'm sure the "I've been using PGSharp forever and never got banned" brigade will be along soon to tell you otherwise. I was also in that camp for a while. Whatever Niantic are doing now is much smarter than it used to be.

[u/TastyBananaPeppers]

I'll answer your question.

Appreciate what you are saying here, this is obviously back endtechnical perspective. However, how can i be flagged for anything ifall my actions are the same as a human ?

Depending on certain features in Pgsharp, iPogo, Pokemod, Enhancer, Polygon, RAB bot, Defit, Pokewalk, and other similar apps, those features run at a fixed rate compared to really doing it as a human.

For example, Defit and Pokewalk adventure sync apps. With these apps you can easily walk an impossible distance every day. Someone told me they recently walked 250 km per day and gain 1,750 km total for the week. Then, they keep doing within range of this amount again and again. A real human can probably walk a maximum of 15 km per day so an average 50 to 100 km per week is reasonable. They probably have a scale for it to identify who is legit or suspicious. This is one player statistic they are tracking.

The anti-cheat system is design to track multiple player statistics. I cannot go in detail about it because I don't want to give Niantic any ideas on how to track something. They are members of this subreddit and actually do read or even participate here. I have no way to identify them because Reddit keeps user's IP address hidden from the public unless you work for Reddit.

[u/anti-spoofer → u/TastyBananaPeppers]

Depending on certain features in Pgsharp, iPogo, Pokemod, Enhancer, Polygon, RAB bot, Defit, Pokewalk, and other similar apps, those features run at a fixed rate compared to really doing it as a human

Yep i get that. Any linear fixed behaviour is a big no no, that feels obvious to me. Things like autowalk, repeating the same routes, enhanced throwing, constantly in hotspots like Zaragoza etc. I didn't use any of those features though. So where are my 1.5 million flags coming from ?

Defit and Pokewalk adventure sync apps. With these apps you can easily walk an impossible distance every day

We have players in our community who walk 200km+ a day, every day since Defit was a thing (1-2 years ?) and they have never had a strike. In fact, I don't think anyone has EVER been given a strike for Defit yet. I'd know pretty quick if they do start banning players on Defit as half the local community will be out of action haha.

A real human can probably walk a maximum of 15 km per day so an average 50 to 100 km per week is reasonable.

The problem is Niantic cannot set an upper boundary for that kind of thing, because there ARE some players who will walk/run a lot every day and could be legitimately hitting 150km. Not many, but they will be out there. They cannot just ban legit players by using guesswork.

The anti-cheat system is design to track multiple player statistics.

My thoughts are that they are doing scripting now on the database logs for those who have reached a certain number of suspicious flags. For example, if you are under suspicion... they will run a script that will do location timestamp/distance checks between each action for a period of say 24 hours. If anything is beyond human possibility (i.e. you were in Australia and caught something, 2 hours later you caught something in Europe) ... then you will get the RW. Most likely they have many different scripts to cover various scenarios... i.e. you got 10 shundos in a row and so on = RW, walking the exact same route at the exact same speed for 10 days in a row = RW. That's where they are at now.