I'm with you. I was also using a good-faith approach that the scans are being used for ingress, so my goal was to scan as much of the area local to me, because it would look cool as heII, in-game.
That being said, once the controller tiers were released and after getting the bronze tier yesterday, I'm so not interested in working on either badge anymore, especially not knowing how they'll be used in-game. The 15K number seems SO unattainable that I'm not interested in even working towards it, at all. Jokes on you Niantic...
Maybe instead of trying to make people fight with scanning, the medal could just be about scanning unique portals one time. The points could only be added if the scan sent got over x frames (or 360°).
Th regular scout medal could have a higher goal and not limited by framesizes.
I really wish the limit was raised or eliminated. For example, when I go to Disney World, there are many many portals there that would actually be kind of fun to scan. But on my 9 day trip, I'll only be able to make 200 scans, which may or may not even be 200 Scout Controller points depending on whether 1 scan per portal is enough. Sort of disappointing.
I can't agree with your paragraph enough. It feels like a chore that you just grind through. I did a push to get to Bronze on the Scout badge and really don't plan to do anything beyond that. There is nothing enjoyable about it.
I played Ingress in Disney a couple years ago and it was great, hacking and capping portals as you move around the park was fun. But do you really want to stop and take the time to scan each one of those portals while at a theme park?
I have an annual pass so, at least before COVID, I went pretty frequently. For me, it's more of a leisurely hang out place rather than a destination where I have to rush to get lots of stuff, rides, etc, in. So, hanging out with a beer and scanning stuff (among other gameplay) with music and entertainment around isn't a bad way to spend some afternoons :)
In terms of requirements, the difference between Pioneer and Scout Controller is time.
Pioneer requires simply deploying a single resonator on a grey portal, or spending a few minutes to capture the portal beforehand. This can be done from a distance, in the car or walking along a path. It takes very little time and when working on the badge, people often may add 1000 new captures over a weekend in a new city.
Scout Controller requires at least a few minutes of scanning and waiting for the processing to complete, for each portal. It also requires you to directly access and circle the portal. It's not something you can simply slap down as you pass.
Additionally, if someone else is already Scout Controller, you need to do it multiple times for a single portal, and you're often going to be competing with your own team.
In simple averages, the effort to get 1 point in Scout Controller, is far higher than Pioneer and Explorer.
The purpose of the badge is clearly to ensure that people scan more and more portals, rather than the same ones over and over, to spread out the requirements. But since you added a competitive element, instead of simply scanning unique portals, it's even harder.
I would be suggesting a far more reasonable level for Scout Controller:
Bronze: 20 points
Silver: 50 points
Gold: 200 points.
Platinum: 1000 points.
Onyx: 2000 points.
It seems silly to me that a badge requiring you to make a portal scan of a unique portal and out-perform anyone else also making scans, requires a far higher requirement than a badge to simply do scans in bulk...
EDIT: The other thing is, Pioneer captures award you 625AP. Portal Scans are a choice to take time out of playing, for no AP gain bedside the badge.
I'm positive if he set the bar at a more reasonable height and awarded AP, there'd be more people eager to compete against each other and thus have more scans than if the majority of players are ignoring it because "why bother if it's unobtainable?"
I think those numbers are reasonable given the time and bandwidth requirement. You could even double them, and they'd still be fairly reasonable. As the tiers are now, they are way out of balance for what is required... why are the tiers for the action that requires unique portals higher than the action that can be performed multiple times on the same portals anyway?
for reference, the other onyx badges are balanced based on the ease of completing the task:
hack: 200,000 (easy, repeatable)
capture: 40,000 (not as easy, if portal is not neutral)
hack unique: 30,000 (requires extensive travel)
capture unique: 20,000 (even more difficult, since you must travel to neutral portals or neutralize them first)
scan: 6,000 (minimum 60 weeks, and ~150GB data)
It seems logical that, following the same pattern, controller should be around 2k-4k.
I have to admit that I find the medal requirements a bit high. I live in a town with roughly 200 portals, give or take. I have the fortune of being the only agent in my town currently interested in scanning, so I can get bronze easy enough. However since I don't drive and I'm reliant on the train or my bicycle, I'm limited to what portals I can actually scan at present, so lower requirements would be a benefit for me, and others like me, that can't travel far often to find more portals for the scout controller uniques.
But, you can eventually achieve (if you travel a lot) without intentionally doing it, meanwhile the scouts you must willing do it, just for the sake of the medal and not regular gameplay.
True, if you travel a lot, jump on a local bus and hack, you may get Onyx Explorer.
However my statement is similar, that the target for both Explorer and Scout Controller at Onyx is unachievable for most, even with extensive travel, which is currently impossible.
The disincentiveness for Scout Controller at Onyx, is a lot of wasted time, that would be better suited for doing missions or any other badge.
I sincerely hope Niantic take all this criticism and realised their mistake at setting the bar too high, and reduce it.
We only need one unachievable Onyx Badge, best leave that for Explorer
I think 15k isn't just unachievable, but also a punishment for the few who are willing to contribute at free will. 5k is already practically unachievable for a sporadic scanner, and most people won't leave their comfort zone, but 5k is hard enough to be a true challenge. And let's not forget the recursed who seeks the 2x.
I had the same. I reported a portal for non-existence. Scanned whatever now exists instead and took photos of the area as proof. When request gets denied I will just appeal and even mention the scan. Maybe they could technically look at the scan and see that it doesnt exist anymore.
I've never heard anyone complain about Explorer. It is a large number, but it encourages people to go and visit new places. I know a lot of players who will never get it, but they don't complain because it is a badge that makes sense to have a high number. It is impressive and those who have it can be justly proud that they have played a lot of Ingress in a lot of places.
Three other very high badges are Hacker, Connector and Purifier. Very few people get these to onyx. However, if you keep PLAYING Ingress, you will eventually get these three. The problem with Scout Controller is that if you want it, you now need to do something else alongside playing Ingress when you go out.
As a player who hopes to eventually have onyx Explorer, Hacker, Connector, Purifier and Pioneer, I quite like the challenge. I accept that they are difficult challenges and I even accept that I might never get Hacker, Connector and Purifier. However, they are badges that support each other, so I keep working on them.
I think the difference is that all of these other badges support each other. Yesterday I visited a small town that had been captured and linked up by a player of the opposite faction. In the space of a couple hours I was able to get decent progress on all of the difficult badges: I destroyed 316 resonators.,made 95 hacks, I created 105 links, and 79 fields. My Explorer and Pioneer only went up by 15 because I had been there before, but I didn't mind because I made progress on my other difficult badges.
The problem with Scout Controller is that rather than supporting the other difficult badges, it takes time away from working on them. I wouldn't mind if the numbers were more reasonable. In fact, I would probably really go for it if the onyx was as high as 8k. But as it stands, I'll probably go for gold and then never bother with it again.
If Explorer provided an indication on the map to what was visited and what wasn't, this badge would be far more often gained. And there are actually quite a few Onyx Explorers. Far more than you might think by looking in the Plat/Onyx Explorer chats.
If you want ridiculous badge requirements, Onyx Seer was it.
I bumped the thread in the feedback forum about unique indicators. It’s really does need to happen, not only for traditional uniques, but now scout controller uniques...
I do like the idea of this badge, and I would like for Niantic to keep it. However, I agree the requirement is extreme. Add an additional incentive:
increase the drop rates of certain very rare items for the scout controller's faction
gain a consumable special item (not CM) that is attainable only by claiming scout controller status on a unique portal (increments of 5 or 10 maybe)
add a debuff feature if you claim scout controller status on an opposing factions portal
You make a good point with the numbers here. I think it is better to emphasize this rather than someone's opinion of how boring a scan is.
As you say, an agent with no opposition and access to 15k portals would take 3 years. Add an opposing agent, and that one agent can prevent the other from ever claiming controller status by scanning one portal more times in 30 days. We don't play in this kind of scenario, however, so let's consider some other variables that add to the difficulty. Agents in dense portal areas are competing against many other agents, even from their own faction, which I think will create divisiveness within factions. For agents in areas where portals are much less dense, the requirements for the badge are even more difficult. These agents have to travel much farther to find unique portals.
Those who have never tried the feature (E.g. how do I know.... I might not get... etc).
I have a couple controllers just to test. When you scan it shows who has control and how many points you have. So it’s pretty obvious if you need to scan 2+ times to take a controller.
The other complaint is always it’s too hard. I feel like I see that with nearly every badge these days. This isn’t Pokemon, you aren’t supposed to level up in a week. I doubt I will get Onyx (avg scan has been well more than 120mb every time... it maybe more with higher res cameras?) but even with unlimited data it’s just time consuming.
I was going to stop with the bronze, but I’m also not a fan of the bronze badge colors, so, I’m gonna push for silver and that will be it. I’ll have completely forgotten what most of my uniques are by then anyways, I also don’t need any badges to get to 16, so there really isn’t a single reason to grind for something that has no effect on my gameplay.
For now, until we hear anything new, I've stopped just shy of bronze. Over the last two weeks I visited three states and took long walks in several parks trying to get to 100 uniques; reaching 500 is going to require more travel than I can reasonably foresee myself being able to do in the near future. Or I'm just going to have to lower my standards and start submitting junk scans of the unscannable stuff, of which there is a lot. I tried to find a way to scan almost 2x the portals that I ended up submitting scans for.
Silver for me is going to require travelling as well once I've scanned everything in my town. I've already hit bronze and there's still some portals i need to scan but can't now until Sunday at the earliest when I get a fresh batch of scans.
The other issue is as well if someone already has the scout controller on a portal, I would imagine it would me we would have to do extra scans on that portal to get the scout controller- I could be wrong since I'm the only one in my town that's bothering to scan at the moment.
You are correct: if someone has scout controller on a portal you have to upload one more scan than they did in order to get controller. Or wait 30 days for their control status to expire.
@NianticBrian Since it's been two weeks and you promised us you'd look at the numbers and reevaluate the controller medal tiers, I'd like to ask if you could please consider the following summary of community input, and consider reducing the silver-onyx tiers to 1/2, if not 1/3:
Of the hundreds of comments in several different threads, the unanimous consensus from players is that the current tiers are not just high, but unobtainably high. I cannot find a single post that speaks favorably of the tiers.
You're going to see an initial surge, especially from players who want to unlock the badge, but I predict it will dwindle quickly and most players won't try, or won't go past bronze. In fact, a number of players have commented that they plan to stop at a very low tier.
As with any badge that requires uniques, progress becomes incrementally harder... i.e. the first 100 scans are going to be easier than the next 100, and so on as players have to travel farther from home to find uniques.
Pushing players toward "quantity over quality" is going to seriously hurt the value of the scan data we are contributing. (i.e. 5 second scans from vehicles or while standing still)
Players who are scanning want to contribute more during play, but frequently encounter circumstances (unscannable subjects, misplaced portals, bystanders, lack of daylight...) that prevent scanning.
Many of us are constrained by both data caps (mobile and wifi) as well as the 200 scan limit.
Comments
I wonder if you scanned it like 5 times, you would become scout controller once all the other scans had expired.
I'm with you. I was also using a good-faith approach that the scans are being used for ingress, so my goal was to scan as much of the area local to me, because it would look cool as heII, in-game.
That being said, once the controller tiers were released and after getting the bronze tier yesterday, I'm so not interested in working on either badge anymore, especially not knowing how they'll be used in-game. The 15K number seems SO unattainable that I'm not interested in even working towards it, at all. Jokes on you Niantic...
Maybe instead of trying to make people fight with scanning, the medal could just be about scanning unique portals one time. The points could only be added if the scan sent got over x frames (or 360°).
Th regular scout medal could have a higher goal and not limited by framesizes.
I really wish the limit was raised or eliminated. For example, when I go to Disney World, there are many many portals there that would actually be kind of fun to scan. But on my 9 day trip, I'll only be able to make 200 scans, which may or may not even be 200 Scout Controller points depending on whether 1 scan per portal is enough. Sort of disappointing.
I can't agree with your paragraph enough. It feels like a chore that you just grind through. I did a push to get to Bronze on the Scout badge and really don't plan to do anything beyond that. There is nothing enjoyable about it.
I hope understand @NianticBrian and remove the limit of portal scanning soon. We never have limit for capture unique portals.
I played Ingress in Disney a couple years ago and it was great, hacking and capping portals as you move around the park was fun. But do you really want to stop and take the time to scan each one of those portals while at a theme park?
Honestly, I consider the 200 cap a blessing.
I think the limit is there as sending portal scans requires data and storage and i dont think they have unlimited ?
I have an annual pass so, at least before COVID, I went pretty frequently. For me, it's more of a leisurely hang out place rather than a destination where I have to rush to get lots of stuff, rides, etc, in. So, hanging out with a beer and scanning stuff (among other gameplay) with music and entertainment around isn't a bad way to spend some afternoons :)
In terms of requirements, the difference between Pioneer and Scout Controller is time.
Pioneer requires simply deploying a single resonator on a grey portal, or spending a few minutes to capture the portal beforehand. This can be done from a distance, in the car or walking along a path. It takes very little time and when working on the badge, people often may add 1000 new captures over a weekend in a new city.
Scout Controller requires at least a few minutes of scanning and waiting for the processing to complete, for each portal. It also requires you to directly access and circle the portal. It's not something you can simply slap down as you pass.
Additionally, if someone else is already Scout Controller, you need to do it multiple times for a single portal, and you're often going to be competing with your own team.
In simple averages, the effort to get 1 point in Scout Controller, is far higher than Pioneer and Explorer.
The purpose of the badge is clearly to ensure that people scan more and more portals, rather than the same ones over and over, to spread out the requirements. But since you added a competitive element, instead of simply scanning unique portals, it's even harder.
I would be suggesting a far more reasonable level for Scout Controller:
Bronze: 20 points
Silver: 50 points
Gold: 200 points.
Platinum: 1000 points.
Onyx: 2000 points.
It seems silly to me that a badge requiring you to make a portal scan of a unique portal and out-perform anyone else also making scans, requires a far higher requirement than a badge to simply do scans in bulk...
EDIT: The other thing is, Pioneer captures award you 625AP. Portal Scans are a choice to take time out of playing, for no AP gain bedside the badge.
I'm positive if he set the bar at a more reasonable height and awarded AP, there'd be more people eager to compete against each other and thus have more scans than if the majority of players are ignoring it because "why bother if it's unobtainable?"
I think those numbers are reasonable given the time and bandwidth requirement. You could even double them, and they'd still be fairly reasonable. As the tiers are now, they are way out of balance for what is required... why are the tiers for the action that requires unique portals higher than the action that can be performed multiple times on the same portals anyway?
for reference, the other onyx badges are balanced based on the ease of completing the task:
It seems logical that, following the same pattern, controller should be around 2k-4k.
Pretty much.
No gain but a badge you'll never see, why bother.
I have to admit that I find the medal requirements a bit high. I live in a town with roughly 200 portals, give or take. I have the fortune of being the only agent in my town currently interested in scanning, so I can get bronze easy enough. However since I don't drive and I'm reliant on the train or my bicycle, I'm limited to what portals I can actually scan at present, so lower requirements would be a benefit for me, and others like me, that can't travel far often to find more portals for the scout controller uniques.
Not to forget that we said the same thing about Explorer. only a handful of players around the world have got that as Onyx
But, you can eventually achieve (if you travel a lot) without intentionally doing it, meanwhile the scouts you must willing do it, just for the sake of the medal and not regular gameplay.
True, if you travel a lot, jump on a local bus and hack, you may get Onyx Explorer.
However my statement is similar, that the target for both Explorer and Scout Controller at Onyx is unachievable for most, even with extensive travel, which is currently impossible.
The disincentiveness for Scout Controller at Onyx, is a lot of wasted time, that would be better suited for doing missions or any other badge.
I sincerely hope Niantic take all this criticism and realised their mistake at setting the bar too high, and reduce it.
We only need one unachievable Onyx Badge, best leave that for Explorer
I think 15k isn't just unachievable, but also a punishment for the few who are willing to contribute at free will. 5k is already practically unachievable for a sporadic scanner, and most people won't leave their comfort zone, but 5k is hard enough to be a true challenge. And let's not forget the recursed who seeks the 2x.
I had the same. I reported a portal for non-existence. Scanned whatever now exists instead and took photos of the area as proof. When request gets denied I will just appeal and even mention the scan. Maybe they could technically look at the scan and see that it doesnt exist anymore.
I've never heard anyone complain about Explorer. It is a large number, but it encourages people to go and visit new places. I know a lot of players who will never get it, but they don't complain because it is a badge that makes sense to have a high number. It is impressive and those who have it can be justly proud that they have played a lot of Ingress in a lot of places.
Three other very high badges are Hacker, Connector and Purifier. Very few people get these to onyx. However, if you keep PLAYING Ingress, you will eventually get these three. The problem with Scout Controller is that if you want it, you now need to do something else alongside playing Ingress when you go out.
As a player who hopes to eventually have onyx Explorer, Hacker, Connector, Purifier and Pioneer, I quite like the challenge. I accept that they are difficult challenges and I even accept that I might never get Hacker, Connector and Purifier. However, they are badges that support each other, so I keep working on them.
I think the difference is that all of these other badges support each other. Yesterday I visited a small town that had been captured and linked up by a player of the opposite faction. In the space of a couple hours I was able to get decent progress on all of the difficult badges: I destroyed 316 resonators.,made 95 hacks, I created 105 links, and 79 fields. My Explorer and Pioneer only went up by 15 because I had been there before, but I didn't mind because I made progress on my other difficult badges.
The problem with Scout Controller is that rather than supporting the other difficult badges, it takes time away from working on them. I wouldn't mind if the numbers were more reasonable. In fact, I would probably really go for it if the onyx was as high as 8k. But as it stands, I'll probably go for gold and then never bother with it again.
If Explorer provided an indication on the map to what was visited and what wasn't, this badge would be far more often gained. And there are actually quite a few Onyx Explorers. Far more than you might think by looking in the Plat/Onyx Explorer chats.
If you want ridiculous badge requirements, Onyx Seer was it.
I bumped the thread in the feedback forum about unique indicators. It’s really does need to happen, not only for traditional uniques, but now scout controller uniques...
I do like the idea of this badge, and I would like for Niantic to keep it. However, I agree the requirement is extreme. Add an additional incentive:
You make a good point with the numbers here. I think it is better to emphasize this rather than someone's opinion of how boring a scan is.
As you say, an agent with no opposition and access to 15k portals would take 3 years. Add an opposing agent, and that one agent can prevent the other from ever claiming controller status by scanning one portal more times in 30 days. We don't play in this kind of scenario, however, so let's consider some other variables that add to the difficulty. Agents in dense portal areas are competing against many other agents, even from their own faction, which I think will create divisiveness within factions. For agents in areas where portals are much less dense, the requirements for the badge are even more difficult. These agents have to travel much farther to find unique portals.
I feel like majority of complaints are two types.
Those who have never tried the feature (E.g. how do I know.... I might not get... etc).
I have a couple controllers just to test. When you scan it shows who has control and how many points you have. So it’s pretty obvious if you need to scan 2+ times to take a controller.
The other complaint is always it’s too hard. I feel like I see that with nearly every badge these days. This isn’t Pokemon, you aren’t supposed to level up in a week. I doubt I will get Onyx (avg scan has been well more than 120mb every time... it maybe more with higher res cameras?) but even with unlimited data it’s just time consuming.
Most people are ok with Scout Controller being hard, we just don't want it to be impossible. 15,000 uniques is pretty excessive.
I was going to stop with the bronze, but I’m also not a fan of the bronze badge colors, so, I’m gonna push for silver and that will be it. I’ll have completely forgotten what most of my uniques are by then anyways, I also don’t need any badges to get to 16, so there really isn’t a single reason to grind for something that has no effect on my gameplay.
For now, until we hear anything new, I've stopped just shy of bronze. Over the last two weeks I visited three states and took long walks in several parks trying to get to 100 uniques; reaching 500 is going to require more travel than I can reasonably foresee myself being able to do in the near future. Or I'm just going to have to lower my standards and start submitting junk scans of the unscannable stuff, of which there is a lot. I tried to find a way to scan almost 2x the portals that I ended up submitting scans for.
Silver for me is going to require travelling as well once I've scanned everything in my town. I've already hit bronze and there's still some portals i need to scan but can't now until Sunday at the earliest when I get a fresh batch of scans.
The other issue is as well if someone already has the scout controller on a portal, I would imagine it would me we would have to do extra scans on that portal to get the scout controller- I could be wrong since I'm the only one in my town that's bothering to scan at the moment.
You are correct: if someone has scout controller on a portal you have to upload one more scan than they did in order to get controller. Or wait 30 days for their control status to expire.
@NianticBrian Since it's been two weeks and you promised us you'd look at the numbers and reevaluate the controller medal tiers, I'd like to ask if you could please consider the following summary of community input, and consider reducing the silver-onyx tiers to 1/2, if not 1/3:
Thanks for your consideration.