HOME Banwave Ongoing

[theSLAYER]

A HOME banwave has been reported, and as of time of writing, it apparently is still ongoing. It restricts access to HOME accounts that may have, and not limited to: god egg, bad eggs, shiny variants of shiny locked mons, impossible Gmax mons, impossible moves (not Hydro Pump Drillbur nor the GO Alolan transfer mishap).

Furthermore, there are reports indicating certain URL nicknamed mons are restricting from trading.
Anyhow, do release all illegal and impossible mons, as well as any Nickname/OT that has a URL, before you get caught up in it. Reports indicate that while your console isn't banned from online usage, it cannot make HOME accounts ever again (even in other profiles). This could be a console restriction or IP restriction, details are not clear at this point.

Given HOME's ability to fix Pokémon in saves, it is presently not known if this capability will be used to restrict the online connectivity of players based on the Pokémon they have in their saves.

With that being said, don't break HOME's TOS ever again.

 

Edit: Based on preliminary reporting, it appears that the HOME bans are given out to user accounts that interacted with any other HOME account that has a lot of usage (possibly high volume of varying IP traffic or association with different console IDs), and has illegal mons. (Basically, HOME accounts might be shared across several people or interaction with such accounts). 

Also, do not confused HOME bans with URL trade restrictions. Not the same thing.

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[Frostbite]

Thank you for the heads up!

Forgive the two probably dumb questions, but I'm pretty new to genning & PKHex. 1. What are URL nicknamed mons?

Also, I have a shiny mew that was genned from Mystery Gift database on PKHex. It has the default Japanese original trainer name, which cannot be changed, or it becomes illegal. 2. Do you know if that would potentially be subject to a Pokemon Home ban because it has that original trainer name that is probably commonly used among genners? It is within legal parameters. Screenshot attached.

Thanks!

[TiffanyDarlet]

there are sometimes i trade in HOME and got a shiny pokemon with nickname and OT for example pokegen.com , or something like that, they are hacked pokemon, i think slayer means about that mons.....

actualy there is a chance they hack the save data?

[honcoop91]

8 hours ago, Frostbite said:

Thank you for the heads up!

Forgive the two probably dumb questions, but I'm pretty new to genning & PKHex. 1. What are URL nicknamed mons?

Also, I have a shiny mew that was genned from Mystery Gift database on PKHex. It has the default Japanese original trainer name, which cannot be changed, or it becomes illegal. 2. Do you know if that would potentially be subject to a Pokemon Home ban because it has that original trainer name that is probably commonly used among genners? It is within legal parameters. Screenshot attached.

Thanks!

anything with ".com" cutt.ly, bit.ly.. etc

if u can type it in a browser and it gores to a webpage, its a url

[Blob55]

I got a random .com Pokémon through random trade, so how can I re-name a Pokémon I got randomly in a trade? Honestly seems like they're punishing people for having random mon they had no control of obtaining. Additionally it was a legendary, so now I feel cheated.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Blob55

[theSLAYER]

14 hours ago, Blob55 said:

I got a random .com Pokémon through random trade, so how can I re-name a Pokémon I got randomly in a trade? Honestly seems like they're punishing people for having random mon they had no control of obtaining. Additionally it was a legendary, so now I feel cheated.

No. Release it.

also read my update. Trade restrictions aren’t the same as account bans.

[Chicxulub12]

I would like to ask if this also include modified pokemon? by modified for example I have edited the crown tundra max den legendaries to be shiny and changed their natures too

[- x - - -]

question. I have a bad egg stored in my HOME and I'm unable to move the Pokemon to Let's GO Pikachu/Eevee and Sword & Shield due to the Pokemon being Meoletta. the reason as to why it's a bad egg is due to the fact the Meoletta is in it's battle form as default. at the time I had no idea Meoletta could only go into this altered form when it has a certain move and in a battle so I had left it alone. that is until the bad egg wave started to appear and that was the only Pokemon that turned into a bad egg. a bit more context, I transferred this Meoletta during HOME's release from Pokemon Bank. Is there any possible way I can delete this bad egg or am I suppose to wait until Meoletta is released in Sword & Shield or potential future games?

[Hayato213]

52 minutes ago, - x - - - said:

question. I have a bad egg stored in my HOME and I'm unable to move the Pokemon to Let's GO Pikachu/Eevee and Sword & Shield due to the Pokemon being Meoletta. the reason as to why it's a bad egg is due to the fact the Meoletta is in it's battle form as default. at the time I had no idea Meoletta could only go into this altered form when it has a certain move and in a battle so I had left it alone. that is until the bad egg wave started to appear and that was the only Pokemon that turned into a bad egg. a bit more context, I transferred this Meoletta during HOME's release from Pokemon Bank. Is there any possible way I can delete this bad egg or am I suppose to wait until Meoletta is released in Sword & Shield or potential future games?

Not much you can do if it is a bad egg as it just take up one of your available slot in home, I have a bad egg that I can't move either, no big deal.

[Guest]

so i just found out that the ban wave is now spreading to youtubers who play pokemon. 

[グリーン]

1 hour ago, SpringtraP-MasK said:

so i just found out that the ban wave is now spreading to youtubers who play pokemon. 

anyone relevant?

Edited January 26, 2021 by グリーン
response was pretty vague.

[theSLAYER]

14 hours ago, SpringtraP-MasK said:

so i just found out that the ban wave is now spreading to youtubers who play pokemon. 

anyone who isn't a seller/distributor or hacker?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, theSLAYER said:

anyone who isn't a seller/distributor or hacker?

from what i can tell its people who gave out unreleased shinys or tubers who have them just cuz they like the shiny of that mon (blanze got hit with a console, account and software ban all at once cuz he had a full living shiny dex with shinys gamefreak still refuses to give out) but from the video blanze did nintendo is looking into all pokemon youtubers cuz he contacted them wanting to know what happend.

Edited January 26, 2021 by SpringtraP-MasK

[theSLAYER]

1 hour ago, SpringtraP-MasK said:

from what i can tell its people who gave out unreleased shinys or tubers who have them just cuz they like the shiny of that mon (blanze got hit with a console, account and software ban all at once cuz he had a full living shiny dex with shinys gamefreak still refuses to give out) but from the video blanze did nintendo is looking into all pokemon youtubers cuz he contacted them wanting to know what happend.

Your description is highly likely to be inaccurate. There's tons of people with illegal Pokémon that are not banned.
Ignoring what a random Poketuber said (cause they typically contain misleading information or they don't follow up when changes occur, or have reasons to lie in their video etc etc), it appears that the bans are targeted to (1) sellers'/distributors' HOME account, as well as HOME accounts of anyone who interacted with those sellers'/distributors' accounts, AND (2) any account that has illegal mons, that also fulfill condition (1).

At present, if you have illegals but don't fulfill condition (1), then you probably won't get banned.
[At least, that is what I've seen as well as heard.]

Note: the situation can and likely will change.

 

Edit: There's presently some reports, that says some bans seem to indicate (3) transferring Gen 8 mons from Bank into HOME, without fulfilling condition (1). However, more of such cases will need to come in, before we can rule it as a confirmed scenario.

[グリーン]

59 minutes ago, theSLAYER said:

Edit: There's presently some reports, that says some bans seem to indicate (3) transferring Gen 8 mons from Bank into HOME, without fulfilling condition (1). However, more of such cases will need to come in, before we can rule it as a confirmed scenario.

by any chance, would you know from your sources the Pokemon that were transferred from Pokemon Bank to Pokemon HOME before receiving the ban-hammer? at least that way we could possibly narrow it down and see the common trend of Pokemon being transferred. that is of course, if we can rule it as a confirmed scenario.

[theSLAYER]

2 minutes ago, グリーン said:

by any chance, would you know from your sources the Pokemon that were transferred from Pokemon Bank to Pokemon HOME before receiving the ban-hammer? at least that way we could possibly narrow it down and see the common trend of Pokemon being transferred. that is of course, if we can rule it as a confirmed scenario.

the transfer of Gen 8 via Bank was patched a long time ago, so I would say it has to be before the current banwave.
They were light on the specifics of which mons, but we know it was Gen 8 mons. Tho given the way everything is handled, I'm assuming it may be shiny locked species..

[Frostbite]

@theSLAYER Have you heard if the Pokemon Company has any plan to start banning genned pokemon across the board? Can they even detect them if they're not shiny mons that should be shiny locked or don't have a URL name or OT? Some rarer shinies, for example, may seem suspicious solely because of their rarity (shiny mew or jirachi, for example), but do they really have any way of knowing they're genned for sure if they're legal and appear legitimate?

Thanks

[theSLAYER]

2 minutes ago, Frostbite said:

Have you heard if the Pokemon Company has any plan to start banning genned pokemon across the board?

They've made announcements regarding bans for altered data.

2 minutes ago, Frostbite said:

Can they even detect them if they're not shiny mons that should be shiny locked or don't have a URL name or OT?

URL nickname/OT mons are not causing accounts to being banned. That statement will cause a lot of confusion..

Also, it depends on how much effort they want to put into a solution, and how much computing power they are willing to use to check each user against such a hypothetical solution periodically.
 

There are probably ways or signs to determine is a mon or an entire save has been modified. But that sounds very resource intensive.

[グリーン]

20 minutes ago, theSLAYER said:

the transfer of Gen 8 via Bank was patched a long time ago, so I would say it has to be before the current banwave.
They were light on the specifics of which mons, but we know it was Gen 8 mons. Tho given the way everything is handled, I'm assuming it may be shiny locked species..

interesting. thank you for shedding light on this topic. hopefully we can figure out a way for players to avoid situations like these within the near future.

[Frostbite]

@theSLAYER Thank you for the response. I appreciate that you always respond with technical accuracy using the information that is currently available! 

However, I'm still unclear on what constitutes "altered data." Is it data that is altered within Pokemon Home or Pokemon Sword/Shield, or is there a way to detect, for example, a mon genned via PKHex's encounter database that has altered (but legal) EVs/IVs/Nature and then is transferred PKHex on PC --> 3DS Pokemon Game --> Pokemon Bank --> Pokemon Home? No worries if there's no clear answer on this yet regarding their capability to detect legal genned mons or any intention to implement more broad bans of even legal genned mons transferred through Bank.

Edited January 26, 2021 by Frostbite

[theSLAYER]

15 minutes ago, Frostbite said:

@theSLAYER Thank you for the response. I appreciate that you always respond with technical accuracy using the information that is currently available! 

However, I'm still unclear on what constitutes "altered data." Is it data that is altered within Pokemon Home or Pokemon Sword/Shield, or is there a way to detect, for example, a mon genned via PKHex's encounter database that has altered (but legal) EVs/IVs/Nature and then is transferred PKHex on PC --> 3DS Pokemon Game --> Pokemon Bank --> Pokemon Home? No worries if there's no clear answer on this yet regarding their capability to detect legal genned mons or any intention to implement more broad bans of even legal genned mons transferred through Bank.

Np.

Anyhow TPCi themselves aren't clear with what they mean altered data. I'm assuming it's just a catch all term for any kind of hacked data, whether is it (and not limited to) save hacking or modified mons.

Well, when it comes to detection, the whole point of legal mons, is that is it indistinguishable in terms of data.
However, all of that operates on our presumption of a legal mon. We constantly update our legality checks.

So it can result in situations where a hypothetical mon A was illegal, but it was hard to catch to us (for various reasons, such as we did not create the game and may have missed some super technical explanation, such as memories, for example), and was thus flagged legal.
Anyhow, it really depends if they bother with such an in-depth check and catching things non-Ninty/non-GF devs missed.
(Tho given our other extensive checks, I'll say it's pretty unlikely for an illegal mon to be flagged legal nowadays)

Next, just because your save is filled with legal mons doesn't mean it cannot be detected that a save was modified. Maybe the save other edits, such as an impossible amount items between 2 save states (stored in the logs on their servers) with very little advancement time-wise between both save logs. Or maybe it compare 2 save states and see there's different mons in both saves, despite no changes in withdraw/deposit/trading values. Anyhow, there's probably lots of ways they can try to detect altering of save data, but it goes back to my previous reply:

Quote

it depends on how much effort they want to put into a solution, and how much computing power they are willing to use to check each user against such a hypothetical solution periodically.

Anyhow as long as one reckless do save edits, there's probably something said person will miss or do wrong.
Just because you got legal mons don't mean your save is 100% safe.

[ryuko2002]

On 1/25/2021 at 10:18 PM, Chicxulub12 said:

I would like to ask if this also include modified pokemon? by modified for example I have edited the crown tundra max den legendaries to be shiny and changed their natures too

I doubt Nintendo would go as far as to scan every pokemon PID/extra data to check if it matches. Even they stopped deleting cloned Pokémon’s with the same Home ID months ago. Plus, pkhex edited Pokémons seems to tick all the boxes when it comes to legality, so I wouldn’t worry about it. I also doubt Shiny Mew from this page would be targeted since its not that popular (its easier to find shiny mews created from power saves than that).

When Nintendo/GF talk about altered data I think they mean clearly genned Pokémons such as shiny zacian or pokemon with impossible moves. I read that some customers of the most popular genning site were banned because they purchased the “unreleased bundle” which probably had shiny Keldeo, zacian, zamazenta or victiny. People who paid for that (and I check the prices and it was expensive) clearly knew what they were doing.

I’m curious about the god egg. I understand it could be a risk if you have it in a box in game because it get scanned by HOME when you open the app, but I think having it in the nursery should be ok. I really don’t care about cloning Pokémon’s, but cloning items was really handy.

[theSLAYER]

5 minutes ago, ryuko2002 said:

When Nintendo/GF talk about altered data I think they mean clearly genned Pokémons such as shiny zacian or pokemon with impossible moves.

I think they are talking about any altered data. But realistically, combining resource consumption and detectability, they are presently only bringing the hammer down on super obvious stuff. Whether they decide to push forward, is something only they themselves would know for sure.

5 minutes ago, ryuko2002 said:

I’m curious about the god egg.... I think having it in the nursery should be ok.

Well, it's kinda easy to find (if they decide to look for it). It's basically a mon with a species ID that isn't available in SWSH.

Also, being in nursery isn't safe; they fixed Alolan mons with invalid moves (due to GO->HOME move transfer nonsense) anywhere in the save, even in nursery. They can see every aspect of your save, if they really wanted to.

[Frostbite]

Another question that's maybe in the weeds a little bit: why aren't non-poison type Pokemon with Toxic that are transferred over to SWSH forced to delete Toxic and change it to something else like other moves? For example: I have a Lapras with Toxic I created on PKHex, and since most non-poison types can't use Toxic anymore, I assumed I would have to change that move upon transfer, but it wasn't flagged, and I'm able to use it on Lapras. Could that be seen as potentially altered data that would warrant investigating or are Pokemon from previous generations that know Toxic but wouldn't be able to learn it in Gen 8 given a pass?

Ty

[theSLAYER]

55 minutes ago, Frostbite said:

Another question that's maybe in the weeds a little bit: why aren't non-poison type Pokemon with Toxic that are transferred over to SWSH forced to delete Toxic and change it to something else like other moves? For example: I have a Lapras with Toxic I created on PKHex, and since most non-poison types can't use Toxic anymore, I assumed I would have to change that move upon transfer, but it wasn't flagged, and I'm able to use it on Lapras. Could that be seen as potentially altered data that would warrant investigating or are Pokemon from previous generations that know Toxic but wouldn't be able to learn it in Gen 8 given a pass?

Ty

You can legitimately bring the move over. You're only forced to delete it if you wanna make the mon Battle Ready. It's a legitimate transfer move, why would that flag you as having altered data, unless you gave it to a Pokemon caught in Gen 8 that shouldn't have access to the move?