I created a new account about 10 hours ago. I was botting in the same city as my IP. I used 50km speed and the perfect throw. It got soft banned after reaching level 23. I can still loot stops but every pokemon fled.
My guess is reaching certain number of pokemon caught per day would trigger this soft ban, which makes good sense to know some people got banned looting and others banned fled. And guess what? I checked the log and the total number of pokemon caught was 1001. the number doesn't look like random at all. so this maybe something developers could look into.
And for people who did not teleport or do other crazy stuff (dual login or so), you can also check your log before soft banned. Account got soft banned within a day of botting would be best.
==this is very easy by opening your log using ms word and use the replace function.. key word I used was caught.
2016/8/13
my new account ran into a soft ban on pokestop after another 10 hours or so. and guess what? after checking the log, the soft ban was imposed after looting the 2001th pokestop. So it's obvious the upper limit for daily looting. i.e. 1001 pokemons and 2001 pokestops before you run into a soft ban. (this is unrelated to the distance soft ban after teleporting)
2016/8/14
a quick update about the first account aforementioned, the account's soft ban became unable to retrieve data from server (so a hard ban). Before it is hard banned, I logged on the account once on the bot at exact same location it was off and tested a few pokemon fled (which was still under soft ban after around 12 hours of the soft ban imposed)
the newer account which was pokestop banned, did not get hard banned, even though I did about exactly the same thing as above. So my guess is that at least the hard ban was not automatically generated by computer algorithm and probably was done by person inspecting flagged account (i.e the soft banned account)
So lesson to take would be not to get under such flag and make sure you don't hit 1001 pokemon/ 2001 pokestops a single day... and probably leave plenty of spaces.
2016/8/15
My main was banned two days ago, but that was no surprise to me because it was soft banned multiple times. However, one feature I notices before it was banned was that I one last time logged it in on my phone with GPS open (a successful log in), I locked phone screen with pokemon go running upfront. Just about 30 mins later, I I woke up my phone it retreated to data retrieve and showed "fail to retrieve data". So this may show the possibility that bots were not 100% being detected while running around like mad dog, but actually got detected when you logged into your phone. Some obvious detectable glitches are new achievements and all rewards from leveling up pops out all together.
However I'm still testing out this theory because I have a alter account which was logged in on my phone with GPS open after running 10 hours' bot (under crazy settings) were still intact. My theory is that this account is not leveled enough to receive attention. I also have another 3 accounts that were running under relatively conservative settings and I will use them to test out this theory later once they are leveled to 25.
So to sum up, certain algorithm are out there imposing soft bans automatically, including huge GPS changes (teleportation), endless farming (1001/2001 limits) and maybe certain experience/hour cap. Then there are more clear human efforts directed towards obvious high level accounts (my guess is 21-23) that were flagged with soft bans to impose permanent bans. There are so many ways that I can think about that Niantic could detect botters, but at this point, it would most kindly if developers could give us some idea how much information they are getting from us, because it is a little bit creepy and I don't want to let Niantic to not only know my address but also my height and thus my condo floor!!!
My guess is reaching certain number of pokemon caught per day would trigger this soft ban, which makes good sense to know some people got banned looting and others banned fled. And guess what? I checked the log and the total number of pokemon caught was 1001. the number doesn't look like random at all. so this maybe something developers could look into.
And for people who did not teleport or do other crazy stuff (dual login or so), you can also check your log before soft banned. Account got soft banned within a day of botting would be best.
==this is very easy by opening your log using ms word and use the replace function.. key word I used was caught.
2016/8/13
my new account ran into a soft ban on pokestop after another 10 hours or so. and guess what? after checking the log, the soft ban was imposed after looting the 2001th pokestop. So it's obvious the upper limit for daily looting. i.e. 1001 pokemons and 2001 pokestops before you run into a soft ban. (this is unrelated to the distance soft ban after teleporting)
2016/8/14
a quick update about the first account aforementioned, the account's soft ban became unable to retrieve data from server (so a hard ban). Before it is hard banned, I logged on the account once on the bot at exact same location it was off and tested a few pokemon fled (which was still under soft ban after around 12 hours of the soft ban imposed)
the newer account which was pokestop banned, did not get hard banned, even though I did about exactly the same thing as above. So my guess is that at least the hard ban was not automatically generated by computer algorithm and probably was done by person inspecting flagged account (i.e the soft banned account)
So lesson to take would be not to get under such flag and make sure you don't hit 1001 pokemon/ 2001 pokestops a single day... and probably leave plenty of spaces.
2016/8/15
My main was banned two days ago, but that was no surprise to me because it was soft banned multiple times. However, one feature I notices before it was banned was that I one last time logged it in on my phone with GPS open (a successful log in), I locked phone screen with pokemon go running upfront. Just about 30 mins later, I I woke up my phone it retreated to data retrieve and showed "fail to retrieve data". So this may show the possibility that bots were not 100% being detected while running around like mad dog, but actually got detected when you logged into your phone. Some obvious detectable glitches are new achievements and all rewards from leveling up pops out all together.
However I'm still testing out this theory because I have a alter account which was logged in on my phone with GPS open after running 10 hours' bot (under crazy settings) were still intact. My theory is that this account is not leveled enough to receive attention. I also have another 3 accounts that were running under relatively conservative settings and I will use them to test out this theory later once they are leveled to 25.
So to sum up, certain algorithm are out there imposing soft bans automatically, including huge GPS changes (teleportation), endless farming (1001/2001 limits) and maybe certain experience/hour cap. Then there are more clear human efforts directed towards obvious high level accounts (my guess is 21-23) that were flagged with soft bans to impose permanent bans. There are so many ways that I can think about that Niantic could detect botters, but at this point, it would most kindly if developers could give us some idea how much information they are getting from us, because it is a little bit creepy and I don't want to let Niantic to not only know my address but also my height and thus my condo floor!!!
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