Forum Thread

This site’s ban system is just ridiculous.

First of all, I got locked for a month, which I believe was done by your software “anti-cheating detection tool.” (Usually, a mod visits the profile of a banned user, while that did not happen to me).

I previously got 2 warnings from this software, and on the second one, I was locked. There should be a review, by mods, before that happens. Just because some AI thinks that I randomly started clicking/coinflipping a lot, that doesn’t mean I was cheating.

Secondly, there should be a better reason than just “Locked for cheating.” It should include a proper explanation, with actual proof.

Third, there needs to be an appeal system of some sort. All I see is a blank screen with an inadequate reason (see point above). There’s no links, or email to contact people.

What I had to do instead:

- Edit the url to go to the support panel, which somehow actually worked. So I sent a message there, but it said I would “receive a reply in PMs.” As if I would be able to access PMs.



- A kind friend then offered to contact a mod on my behalf. They said “only Riako can alter a lock down” and “Riako would need to speak to him directly.” They also said that I should be able to access PMs if banned, which is not the case. (See point 4 for more).

- I had to yet again edit the url, to go to the contact page. There, I could find your contact email address. Shortly after, I sent one. It said “NOTE: It might take up to 24 hours until we are able to answer to your contact mail. But in the normal case, this should be less.” Now it has been over 24 hours, and I have yet to get a response.

- I also sent an email to [email protected], but still no response from that email either.

Fourthly: so basically, your mods are partially untrained, and have no power over bans. This is just ridiculous.

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I found a similar bug reported earlier (mentioned in my support panel message) - [X]

Another friend I was talking to, was previously banned [a year ago] because they fell asleep on the verification page, and/or accidentally clicked the wrong sprite. This may also be the case for me. This is something that needs to be fixed.

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There recently was a user, who was clicking 100k a day straight, ever since they started. They only got banned for a week. I don’t know if this is because they are a new user, while I’m an older user, but that’s just unfair. [EDIT: it's because they were locked by a mod, while my warnings were automatic]

There was recently another user who did 1.7M coinflips in 5 hours of game time. They’re still not banned yet. They are still in the medal rally. This has happened many times before too, but nothing was done about it then either.

So, it appears, this same user has been cheating in coinflip again, and stole the rally from another user. They still haven’t got banned yet. This is ridiculous. I ask that you do something about this coinflip rally.

(I’ve seen at least 1 more coinflip case during the period I’ve been banned for.)

It appears a certain cheater is back, in the form of a number of alts. I don’t get how hard it is to simply [IP] ban these cheaters already.

There have been numerous other cases of users, who were clearly cheating, not getting banned.

There also have been numerous other cases of users, who were banned unfairly, not being able to appeal, in any way.

Your ban system needs to change.

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What I suggest you do:

- Improve your detection software, or remove it completely
- Have a mod approval for auto-bans
- Create an appeal system
- Like I stated in the support panel message, allow banned users to access PMs [to mods]
- Actually read emails from your userbase
- Train your mods fully in what happens to a user during a ban
- Don’t give people warnings/bans if they fall asleep on the verification page.
- Remove/ban cheaters from the medal rally

- Find additional staff (not only moderators, but wiki staff, spriters, artists, and coders as well). I can tell that some of you are stressed with the amount of effort required.

Riako, in the case that you suddenly disappear again, as a result of real life issues, stress, holidays, work, or anything else, there has to be a backup admin, or just another to help the site in general.

(Suggestions take a while to get approved; cheaters are going unnoticed; parts of the wiki are outdated; bugs take a while to get fixed, updates are slow to get added; small sprites are missing; there could be more plushies added)

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What I kindly ask you to do for me:
- Could I get the money I’ve spent on the daycare, during this period, because of your system, added to my account? (2400x31 = 74400 PD)
- As well as guaranteed Rokkyu eggs added to the daycare, to make up for the time lost? [with the same chance that I have with my breeding pair, of good IV Rokkyu being hatched] (minimum 1 per day of being locked, so 31 eggs)
- And a mega-able Skarigami [or egg] added to my party.
- May I have a month of premium/800 nuggets added to my account, to cover for my wasted time, as well as the loss of not being able to enter your giveaway.
- Remove the gold medal from the coinflip cheater. Give it to Luck- instead. Replace my bronze with a silver medal, and give a bronze medal to Kazyaquin. (Former positions of the rally.)
- Could I also get my daily login rewards, which I’ve missed during this time, added to my account. ((1600+3200+4800+8000)x6 + 1600 = 107200 PD) and (5x6 = 30 Nuggets).

- I ask that you also remove my warnings. This is because I am no longer able to interact without constantly checking the screen for the human check. To fix this issue, I suggest that you add an appeal system for warnings, as well as bans.

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Note: this is not intended to offend any moderators

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Word count: 1438

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As you can tell, I am deeply annoyed by this, so I’m sorry to say, but I will not apologise for the lack of civility.

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EDIT:

Quote from Support Centre PM

Hello ~Lycario!

Moderators cannot change a warning, especially for cheating scenarios. You will need to contact Riako directly via PM if you believe this was in error.

If the problem is still not solved, don't hesitate to directly reply to this PM!
In case you have a different question/problem, please send in a new Support Request.
- Moderator Staff

Yeah, so this is the issue, mods are uneducated in the fact that they do not know that locked users cannot access PMs.

I agree with this! There are SO MANY people who are CLEARLY using auto-clickers, but they only get banned for a while. People who don't use auto clickers and only just click a lot get banned for a month. It's unfair and stupid.

PH's verification page isn't even reliable, especially on mobile. One time, I was interacting on my phone when the verification page popped up. I wasn't paying attention so I accidentally clicked on one of the sprites. Luckily, I clicked on the right one so I didn't get a warning. Please fix the verification page. Maybe you can put a warning like: "Are you sure?". There are so many people on mobile who accidentally clicked on the wrong sprite and got warnings.

Just reposting my reply to your feed:

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That's how I got locked but with interacting so I just ignored it.

I simply wasn't looking at the screen and I was tapping (I was watching a movie and was under my jacket coz phones not allowedin the cinema). That was my first warning.

Then my 2nd I was tapping speedy and answering the "which mon?" capchas fast coz ik which mons they are and my wifi got stable connection that it loads mons easily and got my 2nd warning and locked me coz i just kept going

So now I just wait 2-5min every after the captcha tries to get me. Its so annoying af it tries to catch me again


And that is why I refuse to spend anymore cent in this game coz of all this.


Also I needa mention my 2nd warning I got over excited coz I got the books I ordered online and started to read/skim through them coz of it and my adrenaline was too high I was speedy.
If you want proof I bought books that day and the tracking and the exact time, sure I have proof.

... ..

The person who cinflipped 1.7mil within 6 hrs never got banned. They got the gold anyways. But i know when you get banned you still get the medal if you dont show up in the rally

Noone did anything to that cheater

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and in befores any modmins delete this thread

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let me do an experiment: I'll click until i hit the captcha and take a nap

cya in a bit zzzz

putting it here for posterity

every time i interact, if i hit the captcha, i hop off PH and do something else

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^ someone got a warning for leaving their computer in the captcha page for hours even tho they werent clicking

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I've heard it doesn't matter which sprite you click? Because surely its purpose is just to stop an auto-clicker. It would be very unfair if it did matter which sprite you clicked, because many people on this site are new to pokemon and don't know them all off by heart.

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EDIT had to fix a few typos

Disclaimer: I am not speaking in behalf of anyone, just saying this to prevent any future misunderstandings.

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Usually, a mod visits the profile of a banned user, while that did not happen to me)

You do know some mods do visit via guest, right?

I'd like to think that they do this cuz some users do feel uncomfortable whenever a mod visits their profile.

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I previously got 2 warnings from this software, and on the second one, I was locked. There should be a review, by mods, before that happens. Just because some AI thinks that I randomly started clicking/coinflipping a lot, that doesn’t mean I was cheating.

I dont think mods really have the power to review cheat warnings since they're usually issued automatically from what I know.

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Secondly, there should be a better reason than just “Locked for cheating.” It should include a proper explanation, with actual proof.

I'm not sure how the cheat system works here, but from what I know, most clicker games typically detect macros by tracking the frequency and regularity of the clicks made by the user and will flag users with a suspicious click rate.

Also, here's the proof they gave me for a warning I got a few years back, which I think is good enough, well not informative, I did tested some scripts and got myself a warning for it

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Fourthly: so basically, your mods are partially untrained, and have no power over bans. This is just ridiculous.

Just because moderators don't have control over certain things doesn't mean they're untrained, mods usually go through an MIT phase before officially getting the moderator job.

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Another friend I was talking to, was previously banned [a year ago] because they fell asleep on the verification page, and/or accidentally clicked the wrong sprite. This may also be the case for me. This is something that needs to be fixed.

As someone who clicks a lot, I can guarantee you that its not about getting the captcha right, but more about how long it takes you to notice the captcha. I'd like to believe that the system will also flag users making clicks despite there being a present.

There are also times where I can get 3 captchas within a minute and still not get issued any warning(s) for randomly answering them.

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There recently was a user, who was clicking 100k a day straight, ever since they started. They only got banned for a week. I don’t know if this is because they are a new user, while I’m an older user, but that’s just unfair.

There was recently another user who did 1.7M coinflips in 5 hours of game time. They’re still not banned yet. They are still in the medal rally. This has happened many times before too, but nothing was done about it then either.

I do agree with you on this one, cuz making 100k clicks for days straight is honestly very challenging and mentally draining, and them doing it for months straight without fail wouldve been really impressive if they were actually doing it by themselves.

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What I suggest you do:
Improve your detection software, or remove it completely
Don’t give people warnings/bans if they fall asleep on the verification page

And let people cheat? What's the point of even playing if all you're doing is letting an autoclicker run?

And maybe tell this friend of yours to not make any clicks while sleeping？ I dont know if thats even possible honestly.

But I do agree with you on removing banned cheaters from the rally similar to how it works for the ranklist.

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What I kindly ask you to do for me:

That's the price you pay for (supposedly) cheating.

I also found this thread which should explain when you'll be able to mentor again.

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I know you're frustrated since you missed out on an entire month of progress, but I think that's the price you have to pay for (supposedly) cheating.

And to sum it all up, I think everyone should accept that this is the price you have to pay to have a robust anti-cheat system. Of course there's going to be some false flags, cuz there's no perfect system, and it's really at the fault of all the bad actors who actually cheat to necessitate a cheat system in the first place.

I know it sucks for you, but I do hope this is a rare occurence (in the case you didn't cheat), especially since there is really no way around it.

@Jajangmyeon: Great reply, thanks a lot. I agree with all the points you mentioned.

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And let people cheat? What's the point of even playing if all you're doing is letting an autoclicker run?

pretty sure he meant leaving it on the captcha page without doing anything/clicking. Yes people got warnings from that alone

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@AlienSnowflake

What if to solve that a warning was added to the page to say something along the lines of: "Please do not stay on this page for extended periods of time"? Because it seems people staying on it for a long time is how they check for cheaters, and I don't think it's possible to discern between who's staying on it for hours because they're autoclicking or simply afk.

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Forgive me for my naivety, but I don't understand the sleeping on verification page. Can someone please explain that to me?

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Well right after you select a mon and it will correct you. Then you put your pc on sleep mode. Leaving it in the captcha thing open

That Or picking the mon captcha and you didn't click on anything and you put your pc on sleep mode

Or Leaving the window opened and never refreshed it as you use the other windows

I think that's it

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Oh so the user they're referring to (who fell asleep and/or misc-licked the captcha) was interacting, fell asleep, and hence couldn't refresh the page, got captcha, couldn't solve (idk how they mis-clicked the captcha if they fell asleep) and that page remained as it is for as long as they were asleep.

Got it, thanks!

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It's so weird, cheaters are always present and so many people are reporting them (especially that coinflip cheater from last coinflip rally I think) but all the mods are doing are like: Huh, that's interesting. Good luck you're on your own, Even though I know people have lives outside of PH it still sucks to have people clearly cheating that aren't banned. PH how do you even do this!? The ban system needs to be more secure and just more better in literally so many ways. People are making alts so you have to do as previously mentioned IP ban them although I don't even know what that means I don't play Minecraft.

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That didn't work </3 Edit: I did get a warning, see below. Pls fix and compensate me 54k PD for conducting stress tests on the system </3

I interacted for about an hour till I hit verification, left the screen there and continued clicking the verification screen for another hour or so, then left PH alone for 3 more hours.


From my past estimates, 10 berry clicks is 1 GGC, 1 berry click averages to 5PD each, every spin on golden slot plus mode is 320PD in value on average. I can do 6k clicks an hour. Assuming Oran Berries are 2PD each, (even though I normally grow them myself)

I request 54000PD for this pointless experiment where I spent 1 hour clicking thin air when I could have been interacting. And also my warning being removed (not just let to expire)

/hj

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jokes aside, whether or not the autoclicker catcher is working (definitely not well enough) i agree that the current response by the mods (even if their hands are tied) is very demoralising, but also this is something only riako can comment on

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bumping this again. i'll post videos of me clicking, hopefully before the autowarn comes in

Video of me, Meep, the human, clicking
Screen recording

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My two cents:

I used to be terrified of clicking the wrong pkmn on the verification. I have accidentally done it multiple times, and have been fine. I have left my computer open on the verification and clicklists in general. I have never recieved as much as a warning. Either the ban system is EXTREMELY inconsistent (which I find hard to believe, because hello, code indicators), or Lycario and the sleeping human raised other flags previously.

I completely agree with the need for ban appeals. At the very least, it can be a way for players to connect with the mods and they can:
a) let mod know that they understand what they did wrong and are showing remorse
b) help fix actual potential errors in the system.

Obviously there will be people who abuse the system (lying, using it as an opportunity to vent feelings, etc.) but the people of PH just want to feel like they're being heard. Besides, offenses like those can result in longer lock/ban time.

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@Meep: Like I have previously said elsewhere, we aren't sure about the reason people are caught by the detector. Yes, a lot of people say that they got a warning after leaving site on the captcha. There might be a reason for this (I may be wrong; forgive me)

What I think is that maybe sometime ago when someone who actually was cheating got caught, they prob used this excuse when talking to others, and when other dudes who got caught must've seen that since people believed the captcha page thingy, they used the same excuse. And since then, users who did get caught unfairly (Like they weren't cheating but still got caught) they'd ofc think that this must've been the cause. Maybe there's a different detection system altogether. We can't be sure.

(I have not named any names so don't take it personally)

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LOL



so I did get a warning! it just took a couple of hours

proof, including some screenshots of me complaining to my friends about clicking and a video of me clicking into the void at 4am

EDIT: sound is not working lol
audio transcript:
"I thought it would be nice to do a good update over the fact that I've been clicking"
"It's like 4am where I live. I woke up at 2am to get this done"
"I clicked for about 1 hour, got the verification page"
"And I've been clicking ever since; I've been watching like nice food videos"
"So I'm very hungry and very tired. I could have been using my laptop to, yknow, do my homework?"
"But here I am clicking into the middle of thin air to prove a point on a Pokemon website"
"Because I am a sane 20 year old with no university homework whatsoever. Of course."
"But yes, I don't click very evenly, so if anything does happen, let this be proof that something isn't working right."

What auto-click sensors are SUPPOSED to do is track movement, humans will move the mouse at least minutely while a bot will not move. I’m not sure how auto-click detectors are supposed to work on a mobile format… maybe track touch points, because I imagine nobody clicks the exact identical space with their finger every time.

Whatever this is, is absolute freaking garbage. This is more “anti-human” detector than anti-bot detector… people using a bot are probably more vigilant over their screen than those just clicking casually while doing something else.

I don’t even. What is this trash. It makes me so mad. The system is dumb as frick.

Someone can click 100k within couple of hours without getting a warning as long they answer the captcha, no matter what speed.

the system only detects 'auto clicking' during the captcha bit if you don't answer it and refresh the page within 20 min or so

no offense, no wonder a user can make alts and interact millions so easily

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Clearly Meep tested this without auto clicker and still got a warning >_>

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