Add Pinpointing Duels Mode | Voters

Add Pinpointing Duels Mode

BojanR

Moving Duels, one of the three duel modes, doesn’t do a great job of representing the skillset that Moving-main players have developed over the years. While often fun and enjoyable to play, winning moving duels doesn’t actually require finding the exact location. Occasional 5Ks do happen, but the focus is mostly on guessing quickly rather than with pinpoint accuracy. On top of that, if a player gets multiple 5Ks in a moving duel, all that hard work can easily be erased by a single round with high multipliers.
Pinpointing remains the most underrepresented skill in GeoGuessr - a huge shame considering how fun, immersive, and fast-paced it can feel, and how well it showcases the different aspects of the game.
Pinpointing Duels have existed as a community-made client-side script for the past few months - and very successfully so, despite all the limitations of it being just a simple extension.
To watch some highlights and learn more about the mode, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45WCRYrYIxs
and check out more on Jake Lyons’ channel: https://www.youtube.com/@jakelyonsgeo/videos
In short: First to win 7 to 10 points wins the duel. Rounds last 1min30s with a 15s after guess timer. Players are awarded one point for 5k-ing first, and one point for having a closer guess. There are two extra mechanics: 1) Tie-range: ensures insignificantly closer guesses don't win anyone any points and 2) Penalty for sending early and not 5k-ing: discourages insta-sending and keeps focus on pinpointing.
We’re confident that you could make this mode even better than the community-developed addon, both for solo and team duels. We invite you to discuss it with your player base and make it official as soon as possible. We’d be happy to help in any way we can.

November 8, 2025

ShadowGrif

I love this extension and would love to see it implemented. Not as a competitive mode but as a game mode in Parties. It would make community made tournaments much more friendly towards moving players.

Ringo

So what happens if you send early, but you're closer than the opponent? The points system is kind of confusing.

BojanR

Ringo It's pretty clear if you watch the videos, might only be confusing to some in text. This is one of the things that the Devs can play around with as they can do much more stuff than a simple client-side script can. The penalty for not 5king but sending first probably only makes sense for top players. Something like the timer after guess being whatever is left up to a minute is much better than this.

JET11

Just play no move 🤷‍♂

BojanR

JET11 0/10 ragebait

Lexistential

edit to preface: I think this mode should be added, just with changes to make it more accessible. I have some concerns, but I would have concerns with any of the 3 existing modes.

I'm a moving player primarily these days and played this mode in the Rainbow Classic a few months back and honestly found it much more difficult and stressful than a normal moving duel. I don't see any problem with adding it as a mode (aside from possibly diluting the player pool), but I think it's a bit naive to expect it to fix the issues with moving. I think the majority of the benefit seen here would be for maybe a couple hundred people unless it was overhauled to account for all but that group not being able to pinpoint at all in 1.5 minutes. Finding a sign with the city well before my opponent and then getting a draw because I can't find the pinpoint in time would be far more frustrating to me than losing because my opponent sends early with a good region guess.

BojanR

Lexistential I see this point being repeated a few times, so I’ll reply here. As you yourself mentioned with the “unless” part - there are numerous ways to make this mode accessible even to total newbies, and I’m sure GeoGuessr could figure that out if they wanted to. What we showcased was how it can work for top players; that doesn’t mean we’re asking for it to be copied 1:1.
It’s also not a call to remove regular moving duels. And as for the idea that it might “dilute the player pool” - I honestly find that a bit silly. If anything, something like this could encourage more moving players to queue up for regular moving duels too.
Not to talk about bringing more players into the game, and also actually getting lower rated players interested in pinpointing. Of course people can say that lower ranked players can't pinpoint, when pinpointing does not matter in this game as of right now. People can learn!

Lexistential

BojanR Edited my original post to clarify that I do want it added, I want this to be taken as constructive criticism rather than something trying to prevent it from being added.

As for the lower rated player thing, I regularly play with some friends who are <1000 rated players and it's pretty rare for them to even find the city in 1.5 minutes, often even the country. Even playing on a map of their own city they can struggle finding the right intersection. The map for this mode at lower divisions would have to be extremely info-dense to enable pinpointing at those levels, which I fear might have the same effect that playing on World has on players where it conditions them to expect tons of obvious info or capitals, making the jump to harder division maps a pretty substantial lift. I'm sure it can be done, and I'd like to see it done, but I don't think it's a trivial balance to strike. That being said, you already can't play NM until Gold and NMPZ until Master, and I don't see any reason why this couldn't be set up in a similar way.

Jimmy800

Agree with everything said in the description, this would be a brilliant addition to the game

Ellie B.

This mode is so sorely needed! Please find a way to make poinpointing duels a part of the regular game!

mclean

HECK YEAH!!!

A longer time limit and maps focused on just being in a random (pinpointable) place would make this more fun for casual players, too!

Canadagraphs

While I love watching this mode when Pros do it (best mode to watch.....when pros are doing it), and while I do think this mode would benefit me at the rating I am at right now, I dont think it would be a popular enough mode outside the top 250 moving players to get matches in a reasonable time.
As it is now, wait times for me frequently take 2-4 minutes for a regular moving duel. With peaks of 7+ mins at some times in the week. Pinpointing would take FOREVER to find a match, as the pool for them, again, outside of maybe the top 250 or so moving players, would be near non-existent.
I think extending out the field of 1v1 modes at this time is a huge huge mistake. We have probably all seen how poorly the unranked 1v1s has been received, despite years of crying for it. Adding 1 more ranked mode to an already thinned out pool of players due to the addition of NM/NMPZ duels, would make the already ridiculous wait times, substantially longer.

Mason Hockensmith

I need this mode more than I need oxygen

WanderLust

I like the idea and the pinpointing format however... I'm a 1,500-rated moving main player and sometimes pinpointing is extremely difficult even on info-heavy maps, let alone doing it in 1,5 minutes. I doubt the majority of GG users (who are not even in Master 1 division) would enjoy it as much.

aguardiente

WanderLust That's the thing, i find pinpointing fun if we are using landscape clues, but scanning for a Atlanta suburb or a side road in Gaborone? not happening for me.

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