Best Of

That's fine 364 days a year. Anomalies have always been about teamwork.

Clearly Niantic is working off of feedback that is not available to us, and also completely contrary to the feedback that faction organizers typically get from those who attend events in person and help to organize them. Top of the feedback that apparently Niantic has been getting:

- Competition is bad, and agents want less of it.

- Having two opposing factions is bad, because competition is bad. These other games don't require opposing factions, and that lack of direct competition makes them so much easier to monetize!

- Ingress is a game best played in my own personal bubble. Because MY reality is the only one that matters. I mean, why should anyone else play on my game board? If I'm going to travel to go to the ONLY competitive event this year, clearly I need my very own instance of the game to play in. Because competition is clearly bad, and we need less of it.

I'm sure you guys at the top are familiar with the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.". Since the forced roll out of prime (and likely many things before this), Niantic really should have this motto at every desk, over every door frame, and tattooed on the forehead of every employee. You keep trying to "improve" a product that people like as is. Change is not always progress. And trying to move away from the one thing that Ingress has that NO OTHER GAME OUT THERE DOES is not progress in the eyes of the community that has grown and stuck with the game. Let me give you some feedback that matches the voices I am used to hearing:

-WE LIKE COMPETITION. THIS IS WHY PEOPLE FIELD OVER LARGE AREAS, WHY THEY ATTEND ANOMALIES, OH, AND ITS ACTUALLY THE CORE OF THE GAME.

-Unlike the other AR games available, Ingress has a pretty darned healthy global community, both intra- and cross-faction. Sure there are bad apples, but no one is walking up to an anomaly with 10+ accounts.

-New events are a great concept to augment the ones we are accustomed to and already enjoy. Not in lieu of the events we enjoy. But also keep in mind the nature of the events you are planning. You already have regular individual stat competitions (e.g. the ongoing [Font] [game mechanic] sets) as well as player-driven First Saturdays. Am I going to travel 14+ hours for another individual stat competition? Some might, and I did it for the first time. Where y'all couldn't accurately track all of the stats. Cool idea, terrible implementation, and it really should be a replacement for IFS, not a new event structure. Similarly, global shards are a mechanic that is dearly loved by many. When competitive, it brought agents out of retirement, got huge global community engagement. Xfac shards did the exact opposite.

- Communication. Look, Niantic is known for being slow and opaque, to the point that soon is yalls trademark. In the last year, things have only gotten worse. The global community manager is gone, with zero visible effort to replace him. The new director for the game has openly admitted that he doesn't engage with the Vanguards. Several agents have dropped out of the Vanguard program. And there is nothing coming from Niantic. Including the new "here, submit your mission day!" And then wait. Not even a "we got it and are reviewing your application." Meanwhile events are having mission days sprung on them without any local input going in. And the move to remove officially recognized PoCs? How long did it take before you had to ask "Uh, who do we contact locally regarding this aspect of the anomaly?". The increasing opacity and the fact you continue to ignore the input from the agents who still support your game is not promising.

On the communication front, I could have included this above, but no. Remember that really epic communication error y'all had last fall? Sure, it was a huge "mistake", but announcing 10+ anomaly sites in 2020, to retract that and wait MONTHS before announcing that there would be only one. Talk about a massive affront to a large chunk of your player base. Yes, there are agents who will (and are planning to) attend from all over the world. That's awesome for them to be able to attend and participate. And if it were like last year, I would actually applaud the whole "let's culminate the series in a dramatic fashion with one region per weekend." I liked that. I was looking forward to it happening again with [redacted] in the Americas, [redacted] in Asia, and Munich in Europe. But no. No ability to remote recharge for an anomaly event for the majority of the world, no ability to attend without a passport for the majority of the world, no quick day/weekend trips for the majority of the world. And now you're encouraging people to just go rogue at the event.....

So as I'm getting down off my soapbox, all I can ask is that you listen to your player base (you know, the ones that actually play this game and contribute to the community), particularly those who actually attend the events. Be more open about what the intent and direction of the game are. A little bit of information goes a long way in keeping the masses appeased. And please adopt the mantra, If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I feel like the OP's statement is one that can get cross faction agreement, easily. Anomaly organizers on both sides have put lots of effort into finding and optimizing strategies for anomalies, and for some, that's even the main part of why ingress is fun for them. (And in my book, Ingress is so great, because everyone can find some aspect, that is fun to them, and all together, they can reach great things...)

It'd be sad to see Niantic dumbing down anomalies, really. I hope they reconsider this, and edit that event page, accordingly.

Also, tagging into the thread @NianticBrian

It's been pointed out to me that we haven't seen the rules for this anomaly yet and it's possible that Niantic is considering an anomaly format that de-emphasizes teamwork. That would be horrible. Please don't turn Anomaly into First Saturday, Hexathlon, or GoFest.

(And note: I love First Saturdays, haven't missed one since the badge was introduced, and been POC or staff at more than half. The last Ingress global email featured a FS photo I posted to Twitter. But that's not what I'd want to see at an anomaly.)

Respectfully, I disagree. Might be a regional thing, but here anomalies are won using team strategy, not allowing random rogue agents run around ruining the experience for the other 99% of players. The vast majority of anomaly-goers in my area go for the team participation and camaraderie. So why would Niantic go supporting that rogue 1% of players who ruin the experience for everyone else unless they're out-of-touch with their players or have some sort of ulterior motive?

I think the primary reason the OP is upset is the fact that this is yet another time that Niantic has made a statement that shows that they either don't know or don't care about how the community plays their game.

Niantic is out of touch with it's player base. Again.

Teamwork is what makes anomalies fun, I just don't think Niantic understands this.