@ikaros02 that's a good point, gaining AP for each successfully uploaded Portal Scan would be consistent with other actions. These are early days for Portal Scanning, and iterating on making the act of uploading Portal Scans (reducing the byte size of each Portal Scan; improving the upload flow) as well as exploring ways to use the AR maps generated by Portal Scanning in Ingress are being worked on.
@NianticBrian Firstly, I would like to say, wonderful update. I really look forward to getting it on iOS. Secondly, I understand you want to keep Onyx badges as difficult as possible to achieve so that it doesn't take away someones fun/hard work in getting them. However 15000 for Onyx Scout Controller is absolutely insane and unrealistic at best. While it may seem like you are comparing Apples and Oranges when you compare Onyx Scout Controller to Onyx Pioneer but you are actually comparing Apples (a fruit) and Cars (a vehicle). Think of it this way, there is no limit to the number of portals you can capture in a day. However you can only have 200 scans every 13 days. As @InvestigateXM already said, it takes a second to capture a portal but it takes at the very least 30 seconds to capture a nice portal scan. Perhaps 5000 Unique Portal Scans for Onyx Scan Controller would be ideal. It would still be insanely hard to achieve given you are limited to 200 portals scans every 13 days but it would still be achievable. I, along with everyone else on this thread commenting about the insanity of 15000 scans, sincerely request you to kindly take into consideration revising these numbers. Please and thank you!
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.
@NianticBrian Though I kind of enjoy portal scanning, I can't help but agree with some of the comments here. In many Ingress communities, I see a LOT of concern that Portal Scanning will only benefit Niantic's cash cows (PoGo and HP:WU) and Ingress players will not benefit from any in-game features, though we're doing most of the work at this point. It's reassuring to hear that you're looking into plans to incorporate scans into Ingress. PLEASE talk early and often with your community about these plans. From my observations (and I'm sure your Vanguards as well) most agent complaints stem from lack of communication from you and your team. Your comments on this thread are a great start (I can't emphasize this enough!!!), but please move to being proactive in your communication, rather than reactionary. We want to go on this journey with you, not be drug along for the ride.
15000 unique scans?? I recently get 5000 pioneer, i playing ingress since 2014, i live Canary Island and was very difficult to get unique portals, there are thousands players on the world that dont live on big cities or countries. There are a lot of possible medals as control fields destroyed or portal enemy neutralized, portal Photos ( normals photo no scans) etc etc etc,
Portal scanning is slowly and i think that is very far to that ingress game, links, destroy, hacks, make control fields ....
Claiming Scout Controller on 15K Portals is more challenging than 20K unique captures or 30K hacks on unique Portals. It is certainly not an easy Onyx medal. I hear your feedback on the Scout Controller medal tiers, and I'd like to see how the Scout Controller feature affects Portal Scanning activity over the next 2 weeks, then I'll revisit these medal tiers.
Niantic can easy resolve all fake portal scans with limit distance to portal say minium 2 meters from portals. I hope @NianticBrian help us fix the limit before relese 2.51.1
Were the Vanguards even consulted about this? Or was this just another thing Niantic have shoved down people's throats without any thought about its impact to the game or its players?
I feel like there is a very definite line between reality and illusion, and I feel like that line is being crossed here. 5000 scans for Scout Controller would be challenging. I say this because I religiously do portal scans every 13 days. I am at 1591 right now (I lost 9 due to the initial bugs on your end and despite contacting support multiple times, I never got credit for them).
When you say you will see how things go over the next 2 weeks before you revisit them, it feels like you are only hearing but not actually listening to our very valid concerns. I have to side with @oscarc1 on this that perhaps you or your team needs to actually play the game to see what is feasible and what is not. 15000 for Onyx Scout Controller? I am afraid it is neither realistic nor feasible.
@NianticBrian so Guardian Hunting is now a thing again? I ask since essentially showing who the scan xontroller of a portal is will lead to griefing just like what happened with Guardian Portals.
Also many people around the world are still in lockdown due to COVID, movements are restricted and people are not allowed to go outside except for essential purposes.
Here in Melbourne, Australia we have gone back into a six week lockdown due to a massive resurgence in COVID cases.
Releasing Scout during COVID was a stupid idea, but still doable (although to a small amount of immediate portals in the area). Encouraging people to get unique portal scans while COVID still looms is just a threat to human health and safety.
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.
Either lower the tier or nobody scans. We don't pay as much as POGO players but our time is as valuable as anyone else's. Or maybe just push the subscription so we can pay to have the dignity we deserve.
Is it possible that medal tiers can be adjusted? I don't want to go off tangent of the discussion but onyx seer was 10x more than platinum seer. Portal Nominations seem to be the closest thing to Portal Scans as there's a forced limit every 14 days and it involved interacting with the world much more than a portal capture.
Is there any possibility to evaluate the data of portal nominations when they returned since 2017 with OPR? This could bring back the incentive of Seer for all players while having realistic adjusted tiers that still factor quality over quantity. It's one of the few ways I can see the badge come back. I gave up on the math to figure its maximum potential (14 submissions every 13 days) but I think it's already over 1k (I also factored in the time where you could submit up to 28 every 13 days). Just some two cents for thoughts.
TLDR: Looking at Portal Nominations might give similar results to Portal Scans. The paragraph about Seer is not necessary but figured to bring up incentives.
So the suggestion to make Scout Controller a challenge equivalent to Pioneer comes from a Level 8 player with no badges (somehow?!). The lack of badges and overall in-game experience (based on overall AP) questions our confidence in the decisions being made. Since you clearly don't play, maybe it's best to listen to the people that do play?
That's enough from me, I hope you will take agent's feedback on board.
Guardian Hunting is the closest analogy I could come up with since its data that can be scraped and because doesn't match "Photo warring" (even though by knowing someone's scan total you can do a low grade war with someone if they are dead set on being the total owner of a portal. But the certainty only really exists for maybe the first few months or for portals with low number of scans) .
I’ve re-read this a few times and are baffled at the thought behind this.
I originally thought this to be unique portals scanned, but the concept of a battle to have the most scans on a portal for it to count as one is ludicrous.
Scanning portals isn’t a core gameplay mechanic, it takes time, is clunky and a lot of data.
A better incentive would be to track unique portals scanned, a metric for one scan per portal, this will encourage more scanning and adds to the Niantic aim of exercise and exploration.
Even if the stat was for one scan per portal, the numbers are exceptionally high.
I’d suggest:
Bronze: 50
Silver: 200
Gold: 500
Platinum: 1000
Onyx: 2000
Making a badge that is going to be quite probably as challenging as Onyx Connector that will distract from the core gameplay of making links and fields for something that doesn’t net any AP, is without logic.
If Niantic wants to encourage more scanning, great, I’m sure it can really help some of the AR+ features, but there is a more sensible way to encourage agents to scan.
Plus there is still a pandemic on, so people aren’t playing as much as normally, so if the current level of scanning is low, once the global crisis is over, scanning is likely to increase without any intervention.
Thanks @ikaros02 and @MinusFive, I stand corrected. NianticBrian only has 4,167 for gold Pioneer and 276 for silver Scout on his personal account. Still a drop in the ocean in terms of experience or effort in attaining the higher tiers for those badges, not enough experience to say that the effort for Scout Controller is equivalent to Pioneer.
Comparatively, I have 1,451 for gold Scout and 16,008 for Pioneer.
At least we can now confirm that Niantic employees multi account lol
Comments
@ikaros02 that's a good point, gaining AP for each successfully uploaded Portal Scan would be consistent with other actions. These are early days for Portal Scanning, and iterating on making the act of uploading Portal Scans (reducing the byte size of each Portal Scan; improving the upload flow) as well as exploring ways to use the AR maps generated by Portal Scanning in Ingress are being worked on.
@NianticBrian Firstly, I would like to say, wonderful update. I really look forward to getting it on iOS. Secondly, I understand you want to keep Onyx badges as difficult as possible to achieve so that it doesn't take away someones fun/hard work in getting them. However 15000 for Onyx Scout Controller is absolutely insane and unrealistic at best. While it may seem like you are comparing Apples and Oranges when you compare Onyx Scout Controller to Onyx Pioneer but you are actually comparing Apples (a fruit) and Cars (a vehicle). Think of it this way, there is no limit to the number of portals you can capture in a day. However you can only have 200 scans every 13 days. As @InvestigateXM already said, it takes a second to capture a portal but it takes at the very least 30 seconds to capture a nice portal scan. Perhaps 5000 Unique Portal Scans for Onyx Scan Controller would be ideal. It would still be insanely hard to achieve given you are limited to 200 portals scans every 13 days but it would still be achievable. I, along with everyone else on this thread commenting about the insanity of 15000 scans, sincerely request you to kindly take into consideration revising these numbers. Please and thank you!
@NianticBrian if you needed a incentive for players to do scans just reward 10cmu per unique scout controler and scan of 30sec minimum
With minimum scan time 15k if you are lucky enough to be 1st to scan represent 1250h of scanning.
For 5sec scan you won't be able to use anything and will just drop the medal like the seer when you'll have 1M 5sec scan of the floor.
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.
@NianticBrian Though I kind of enjoy portal scanning, I can't help but agree with some of the comments here. In many Ingress communities, I see a LOT of concern that Portal Scanning will only benefit Niantic's cash cows (PoGo and HP:WU) and Ingress players will not benefit from any in-game features, though we're doing most of the work at this point. It's reassuring to hear that you're looking into plans to incorporate scans into Ingress. PLEASE talk early and often with your community about these plans. From my observations (and I'm sure your Vanguards as well) most agent complaints stem from lack of communication from you and your team. Your comments on this thread are a great start (I can't emphasize this enough!!!), but please move to being proactive in your communication, rather than reactionary. We want to go on this journey with you, not be drug along for the ride.
15000 unique scans?? I recently get 5000 pioneer, i playing ingress since 2014, i live Canary Island and was very difficult to get unique portals, there are thousands players on the world that dont live on big cities or countries. There are a lot of possible medals as control fields destroyed or portal enemy neutralized, portal Photos ( normals photo no scans) etc etc etc,
Portal scanning is slowly and i think that is very far to that ingress game, links, destroy, hacks, make control fields ....
Claiming Scout Controller on 15K Portals is more challenging than 20K unique captures or 30K hacks on unique Portals. It is certainly not an easy Onyx medal. I hear your feedback on the Scout Controller medal tiers, and I'd like to see how the Scout Controller feature affects Portal Scanning activity over the next 2 weeks, then I'll revisit these medal tiers.
Niantic can easy resolve all fake portal scans with limit distance to portal say minium 2 meters from portals. I hope @NianticBrian help us fix the limit before relese 2.51.1
Were the Vanguards even consulted about this? Or was this just another thing Niantic have shoved down people's throats without any thought about its impact to the game or its players?
I feel like there is a very definite line between reality and illusion, and I feel like that line is being crossed here. 5000 scans for Scout Controller would be challenging. I say this because I religiously do portal scans every 13 days. I am at 1591 right now (I lost 9 due to the initial bugs on your end and despite contacting support multiple times, I never got credit for them).
When you say you will see how things go over the next 2 weeks before you revisit them, it feels like you are only hearing but not actually listening to our very valid concerns. I have to side with @oscarc1 on this that perhaps you or your team needs to actually play the game to see what is feasible and what is not. 15000 for Onyx Scout Controller? I am afraid it is neither realistic nor feasible.
@NianticBrian so Guardian Hunting is now a thing again? I ask since essentially showing who the scan xontroller of a portal is will lead to griefing just like what happened with Guardian Portals.
@MadRelique I'm glad it was said on your side of the isle first. 🤣
Also many people around the world are still in lockdown due to COVID, movements are restricted and people are not allowed to go outside except for essential purposes.
Here in Melbourne, Australia we have gone back into a six week lockdown due to a massive resurgence in COVID cases.
Releasing Scout during COVID was a stupid idea, but still doable (although to a small amount of immediate portals in the area). Encouraging people to get unique portal scans while COVID still looms is just a threat to human health and safety.
I doubt how many of active Ingress agents have AR+ capable device. My guess less than 10%.
Please consider re-introducing 'Seer' and 'Guardian' medal, with a twist.
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.
Either lower the tier or nobody scans. We don't pay as much as POGO players but our time is as valuable as anyone else's. Or maybe just push the subscription so we can pay to have the dignity we deserve.
Is it possible that medal tiers can be adjusted? I don't want to go off tangent of the discussion but onyx seer was 10x more than platinum seer. Portal Nominations seem to be the closest thing to Portal Scans as there's a forced limit every 14 days and it involved interacting with the world much more than a portal capture.
Is there any possibility to evaluate the data of portal nominations when they returned since 2017 with OPR? This could bring back the incentive of Seer for all players while having realistic adjusted tiers that still factor quality over quantity. It's one of the few ways I can see the badge come back. I gave up on the math to figure its maximum potential (14 submissions every 13 days) but I think it's already over 1k (I also factored in the time where you could submit up to 28 every 13 days). Just some two cents for thoughts.
TLDR: Looking at Portal Nominations might give similar results to Portal Scans. The paragraph about Seer is not necessary but figured to bring up incentives.
So the suggestion to make Scout Controller a challenge equivalent to Pioneer comes from a Level 8 player with no badges (somehow?!). The lack of badges and overall in-game experience (based on overall AP) questions our confidence in the decisions being made. Since you clearly don't play, maybe it's best to listen to the people that do play?
That's enough from me, I hope you will take agent's feedback on board.
Guardian Hunting is the closest analogy I could come up with since its data that can be scraped and because doesn't match "Photo warring" (even though by knowing someone's scan total you can do a low grade war with someone if they are dead set on being the total owner of a portal. But the certainty only really exists for maybe the first few months or for portals with low number of scans) .
Psst, his original account is goliadtx. NianticBrian is just his separate Niantic one
No agent under that name :(
Interesting, I can't ping either but here's this post:
https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/comment/40724/#Comment_40724
OMG😯😯😯😯 15k😵😵😵😵😵
If the badges appeared more easily achievable, more people would be likely to give it a go. With this there is no incentive.
@MoogModular @oscarc1
I actually don't think it's that goliadtx either, on his Twitter there are screenshots with a profile named GPC2C.
NianticBrian is just an account used for forum, it looks like it is also used for the medal screenshots when a new Archives medal is available.
Here's a current screenshot. Please excuse my battery life.
I’ve re-read this a few times and are baffled at the thought behind this.
I originally thought this to be unique portals scanned, but the concept of a battle to have the most scans on a portal for it to count as one is ludicrous.
Scanning portals isn’t a core gameplay mechanic, it takes time, is clunky and a lot of data.
A better incentive would be to track unique portals scanned, a metric for one scan per portal, this will encourage more scanning and adds to the Niantic aim of exercise and exploration.
Even if the stat was for one scan per portal, the numbers are exceptionally high.
I’d suggest:
Bronze: 50
Silver: 200
Gold: 500
Platinum: 1000
Onyx: 2000
Making a badge that is going to be quite probably as challenging as Onyx Connector that will distract from the core gameplay of making links and fields for something that doesn’t net any AP, is without logic.
If Niantic wants to encourage more scanning, great, I’m sure it can really help some of the AR+ features, but there is a more sensible way to encourage agents to scan.
Plus there is still a pandemic on, so people aren’t playing as much as normally, so if the current level of scanning is low, once the global crisis is over, scanning is likely to increase without any intervention.
Since the update won't be coming right away, could we please get a sneak peek of the medal design?
I'm curious about how it looks.
Thanks @ikaros02 and @MinusFive, I stand corrected. NianticBrian only has 4,167 for gold Pioneer and 276 for silver Scout on his personal account. Still a drop in the ocean in terms of experience or effort in attaining the higher tiers for those badges, not enough experience to say that the effort for Scout Controller is equivalent to Pioneer.
Comparatively, I have 1,451 for gold Scout and 16,008 for Pioneer.
At least we can now confirm that Niantic employees multi account lol