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@NianticBrian We still don't have a metric of pending scans to be uploaded... Everything is still blind.

There is no option to skip one (1) scan (skip next scan from being uploaded)... if we get a message 'upload error', the only option is the button 'clear data' which causing us to lose all our pending scans from been uploade, because of the one that crushed and clearing data will cause us to lose all our effort, since the game won't reset our counter in order to be able to redo the scans we had to clear.

IMHO adding a new ultra effort demanding feature to something that isn't yet 100% user friendly isn't the wisest thing to do... Also the numbers are crazy...

Guardian hunting won't be a thing with Scout Controller, since you don't need to hold the Controller status to get points for the badge. Having the Controller status is kinda like owning the portal itself, someone can just come and take it but it won't affect your Pioneer badge.

@NianticBrian I had assumed the point of portal scans was to give Niantic useful data. When the feature was first launched my husband and I went out several times to scan portals. It quickly became apparent that we had to do this as a separate activity to playing.

Usually we like to play two or three Niantic games at the same time, but even with new phones and excellent internet connection, we discovered we had to close every other application to allow portal scanning without frequent crashes.

My husband realised that he could get more scans done with higher success rate (no crashes or mysterious lost scans) if he did a five second sweep, rather than a thirty second meticulous walk around the portal. But we both agreed that this wouldn't give Niantic the data they needed.

So we ceased portal scanning, after attaining the bronze medal, as we don't want to submit useless scans, and we do want to actually play Ingress as well as other Niantic games.

We had hoped changes would eventually be made to make portal scanning easier and even enjoyable. Instead this new medal makes us feel even less inclined to restart.

If done properly (generating useful data for Niantic), portal scanning takes a long time and stops or limits gameplay of Ingress and other Niantic Games.

Scanning hundreds of unique *and* scannable portals, (less than half of portals in our area are scannable) is a tough ask. If this was the only requirement it would be difficult indeed. But we also need to keep track of which of us has scanned what portals (since we can't both get scanning controller credit for the same portal in the same month) and this is without factoring in other players.

The numbers required for the tiers are ridiculously high but at least the lower tiers would be attainable if it was only for unique portal scans. Requiring portal scanning control pits all players against all other players, making it a miserable lone wolf grind.

Living in Finland I mostly play in portal sparse areas. I have played since 2013 and visited just over 20,000 portals. My husband and I have made many trips here and abroad with one of our top objectives to get unique portal visits.

I cannot imagine why we would do the same for portal scanning. It would slow us down considerably *and* we would almost certainly not get many portal scanning controller points since locals would likely overtake the vast majority. If the medal were purely for unique portal scans it would seem worth the effort.

Please rethink this mechanic. Concentrate efforts on making portal scanning much easier and actually fun. Turning portal scanning into an activity which disincentivizes playing together with anyone else and pits teammates against each other seems counterintuitive.

TLDR: Concentrate on making portal scanning less heavy on phones, rethink tiers and especially please consider changing controller to simply counting unique portal scans (or make this an additional medal, like UPV / UPC).

LoL 3 years 1 month and 2 week to get the onix only if no one else is trying to do it... Plus 15k different portals.

Impossible to do it's a very warm sentence 😂😂😂

Oh and as you keep doing unique portal objectives (unique hacks, unique captures and now unique scouts) can we at least have a marker on portals for those 3 actions ?

already hacked

already captured

already controlled.

Please.

You are forgeting that hacking, capturing, linking, etc, are parst of the game. The others badges are action of gameplay, you can get the other badges by naturally playing the game, and if you want to, reinforce your achievement by focusing on that and playing in specific ways. Scaning isn't part of the game (yet at least), is just a feature developed to gather data for future use. The only reason to do scans now is to get the badge, anything else. Scans don't change the portal network, don't provide points, cmu, score, anything. in the other hand taking extra pictures and editing tittle/description at least provide some AP and can improve the gameplay, (but that doesn't even have a status record on profile).

It was a nice idea to add some kind of competition on scanning, but is basically just to compete who scan more?

Until the scan feature proves itself being usefull and improve the portal network, becaming essential gameplay feature, scanning is just free labor aimed for badgehunters only.

If it is easier to UPC than unique-scout-controller and has a rate cap, then isn't unique-scout-controller of 15k orders of magnitude more time consuming and difficult than Pioneer 20k?

Needing to hold for 30 days and having the stats public also make this easily griefable if people cared by taking back portal controller status on a portal after 20 days.