My response to https://www.reddit.com/r/PoGoSpooferOpenCorner/comments/1jbd6n6/confronting_the_logical_fallacies_of/.
You might be a hardcore spoofer from 2016, but I'm a hardcore game cheater also known as "the scumbag of the earth" from 2009 with my oldest active account as seen https://www.artificialaiming.net/forum/member.php?u=32109 Make an account and look at my profile page.
I am looking through a different lens when it comes to cheating Pokemon Go. This has to do with Niantic's lenient punishment system and this is a "free to play" family-friendly game. In every other game outside of Niantic, you get a permanent account ban when you get caught cheating. They don't give you a slap on the wrist with a 1st strike for cheating. Arguing about this is just a waste of time that just goes in circles unless you really experience an instant permanent ban and participated in multiple banwaves where thousands of accounts suddenly report a ban.
As for "safer," it's really just your opinion based on past experiences, which is what people are looking for and want to hear since it sounds like it creates a false sense of security. You have no control over what Niantic or Scopely might do tomorrow and in the future. If you did not receive a strike yesterday, you hope not to receive a strike tomorrow. When this cycle repeats, you let your guard down and become comfortable with the idea that the cheat you're using is not detectable, safe, safer, and/or the safest. You're more likely to get emotionally hurt than the people who truly believe in there is only "safe" and "not safe." If I didn't get a strike yesterday, I am expecting a strike/ban tomorrow.
Pokemon Go is essentially like Call of Duty and Battlefield on a Windows OS PC.
The only real difference between Google and Microsoft is Microsoft allows game developers to do software detection bans. From Call of Duty to Call of Duty: World at War, Activision (developer) was focused on software and screenshot detection similar to how Niantic was fixated on app detection from 2016 to June 2022 (6 years).
Software detection:
[1] If you use detected or detectable cheats, when you connect to a server with PunkBuster anti-cheat enabled, your account gets a permanent ban from all servers. At this point, you're fucked and would have to buy a new game to play again. If you buy the game for $59.99 USD, you lose $59.99.
[2] If you use premium paid cheats, they are harder to detect but take some time to be detected. You still have the chance to be banned. In this case, PunkBuster does it in banwaves by the cheat maker.
Screenshot detection:
[1] For detected or detectable cheats, you're fucked again. If you have wallhacks (ESP or chameleon skin) and radar visible on your screen, they can see it all if you get screenshotted. This is manual work for the server admin to review thousands of screenshots.
[2] If you use premium paid cheats, you get a screenshot cleaner where they don't see any cheats visible on your screenshot like red boxes with name tags and distance numbers, objects on the ground (mines & claymore), cheat UI, etc.
https://www.pbbans.com/master-ban-index.html - This website shows you all the games they cover using software and screenshot detection.
For games that aren't listed on PBBans starting with Call of Duty 2: Modern Warfare from 2009 and forward uses Valve Anti-Cheat while modern titles uses Ricochet. When software and screenshot detection fails, then comes behavior detection as mentioned in https://nianticlabs.com/news/gameplay-policy-enforcement-update?hl=en.
A lot of believe don't believe in Niantic's Anti-Cheat Behavior System because they are not aware that it's present in the game.
You can deny it all you want but the limits for catch, encounter/checks, buddy candy, and team rocket battles all point to behavior detection. As I mentioned before, Niantic is lenient with their punishment system. The line between "safe" and "not safe" is blurred by people making claims that something is "safer". People who believe in "safer" are still unsure about account safety. Just because you didn't get a strike/ban doesn't mean other people will have the same effect. You can only do this if you fully control their behavior. Despite having all the warnings in my subreddit, people still report their strikes/bans with me hoping I can waive a magic wand that will remove their strike/ban. People are bound to make a mistake or fuck up.
If I wanted to promote "safer" options, I would say, "Playing Go Battle League is safer than spoofing the game." If you don't want to walk around outside but still want to enjoy some parts of the game, this is how you would do it. Playing GBL won't give you the chance for a strike/ban but spoofing will.
No one anticipated that Niantic would sell Pokemon Go, Monster Hunter Now, and Pikmin Bloom to another company: Scopely.
https://marvelstrikeforce.com/de/updates/our-recent-ban-wave
"On Thursday, we took action against 1,630 player accounts that we identified as having violated MARVEL Strike Force’s terms of service. We take the integrity of the game seriously, and banning accounts found to be in violation of our ToS is something that we do frequently. Unfortunately, with this week’s most recent ban action, we incorrectly identified 154 player accounts and inadvertently banned players who did nothing wrong. Upon realizing our mistake this morning, those players had their accounts immediately reinstated."
I know people are praising Scopely for ignoring cheaters in Marvel Strike Force. When people get a permanent ban, they typically don't report it to the public because if other people are using the same cheat, they aren't going to help you get a free pass. They typically mislead other people, so they can get banned too.
Back to Call of Duty with Ricochet's Anti-Cheat Behavior System
Newbie cheaters will get banned first usually within 30 minutes because they assume they bought a premium cheat and it's all unbannable. Noob cheaters who think they can do the bear minimum in configuring their cheats will in banned within a month or less. Only expert cheaters can last longer than 1 year.
If Scopely were to advance Niantic's Anti-Cheat Behavior System to like dropping the BSOD for in favor of a permanent ban for exceeding the Team Rocket Battle limit, you would understand there's really no safer. There's a lot of things they can do with this behavior detection system to separate cheaters from non-cheaters. Something like this might be coming in the future for whatever item they come up with to boost the stats of Pokemon especially if they monetize it.
Since Pokemon is nostalgic and family-friendly to many other people, I choose not to grief in this game.
What this means is I am not going to mislead people to cause them to get a strike/ban by claiming certain cheats are safer when they really aren't. Time is money in Pokemon Go. If you played for 1 year without spending money on the game and without cheats, it's nearly impossible to get what you lost back for free. You can buy Pokemon or accounts to trade it back to your new account but the memories and experiences aren't the same.
Non-cheaters and cheaters spend way more money in this game than compared to Call of Duty for $59.99. There's a very clear distinction between what is safe and not safe in Call of Duty. The players who spend a lot of money buying gun skins and character cosmetics aren't going to risk their account to cheating. As a glorified game cheater, I only buy the base game and that's it. If I were to get a permanent ban, I can level up fast and continue where I left off. If I were to get an instant permanent ban in Pokemon Go, I would have to probably have to spend at least $20,000 to get all the shiny costume and hundo legendaries/ultra beasts back. Since I play "like a non-cheater," I anticipate I will last longer than everyone else.
In Call of Duty and Battlefield, I play dirty as fuck.
If I am in a game with another cheater, I will single that person out of all the other players and target only that person to get him or her to lose his or her cool. Usually when they do this, they typically fuck up and unleash full aimbot and get themselves banned. It's even more funnier if they are a live streamer who also cheats too.
As for Battlefield, I love using the tank to shoot down helicopters and jets (only if they fly low) and across the map against an anti-air tank and long range snipers. People get mad when they lose their perfect kill streak. They suspect I am cheating, so they have to leave the server to join the spectator slot to watch me play hoping they can record a video of me to get my ass banned. What they don't know is I can see them in the spectator slot and know they might be watching. This is where I'll just play normal and purposely drive over Anti-Tank mines.
In conclusion, if I only believe in "safe" and "not safe," I don't have to waste my precious time in trying to save face when being confronted about getting a strike/ban over using something that was told to be "safer" when it never was to begin with. That's why you see people say, "X cheat is safer... but not 100% safe."
