Pokemon GO Banning Players for Too Many GO Rocket Battles During Event Focused on Fighting Team GO Rocket

During a Pokemon GO event like Adventure Week: Taken Over, players encounter the antagonistic Team GO Rocket more often. Battling Team Go Rocket to save Shadow Pokemon is kind of the point — and yet, players are getting banned for doing exactly that.

Early in the Taken Over event, players began receiving a concerning message when taking on those Team GO Rocket Grunts: “Your account has been suspended for violating the Terms of Service” pops up on players’ screens, accompanied by the inability to log in and play the game. These bans can last anywhere from 24 hours to, well … forever if it’s not the first time your account has been flagged.

Many popular Pokemon GO content creators, including @_ZoeTwoDots, have posted videos warning players about this issue:

Getting banned from Pokemon GO for too many Team GO Rocket encounters isn’t new — Niantic introduced this battle limit as part of ongoing anti-cheat measures. In theory, this should prevent spoofing and other forms of cheating. In reality, it has more or less broken the game during an event centered around battling a ton of members of Team GO Rocket.

According to player reports, the Team GO Rocket encounter limit is supposedly around 160 encounters per day. That might seem like a huge number, but if you head out for a few hours during a Team GO Rocket event, it’s not implausible you’ll face that many Grunts on your way to the Team GO Rocket Leaders and the Big Boss.

Then, of course, there’s the fact that it seems the limit somehow got reduced to 100, during an event where it was supposed to be increased to allow players to go all out in efforts to beat Giovanni and snag a Shadow Cresselia. Players report receiving bans for GO Rocket encounters even though they aren’t anywhere near the alleged cap of 160.

Banning players for participating in your in-game event as intended isn’t exactly a good look. According to some reports on Reddit, Niantic is aware of the issue and is looking into it. But as of now, the issue seems to be ongoing.

While bans for battling — or even talking to — Team GO Rocket are being handed out quicker than Poke Balls, trainers are warning one another to tread carefully. For all you might want to snag those new Shadow Pokemon, it’s best not to take Adventure Week: Taken Over too seriously, lest you lose the ability to access your Pokemon GO account.

Pokemon GO is available now on mobile devices.