@NianticBrian It has been over 2 weeks and I am still waiting for you to update us on your promise to look into the Scout Controller medal tier requirements. As already started multiple times by multiple agents, the current requirements are not just unachievable but they are also unrealistic given ALL the factors pointed out by multiple users (limited data/wifi, travel time, 200 scan limit, Niantic's request to scan outdoor portals and avoid indoor/publicly inaccessible portals). I and everyone else waiting for a response from you would really appreciate if you could please reply to this concern so we at least know Niantic is doing something about it. Thank you!
I have two points that I would like to contribute. The first being that that cap of 200 scans needs to go.
Sure it is fine for the city I live in, but not when I am traveling. If an agent wants to scan five cities worth of portals in one trip, friggen let them. I can't fly back to Rome or Tokyo every two weeks cause I missed scanning portals with the cap.
Secondly that number is really, really high. I have visited many major Canadian cities east of and including Toronto, sometimes multiple times, with the specific goal of playing ingress and hacking uniques. I have also played extensively in Rome, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Sendai, Venice, and Pompeii, and a bit in New York (context, my point is coming) and my Explorer is just over 13k unique hacks!! If scanning was as easy as hacking (which, reminder, hacking can sometimes be achieved while in vehicles) it would be all right.
The point is even without the cap on scans present the onyx scan controller is ridiculously high for anyone to achieve.
Hopefully my experience can help contribute to this discussion and make a change.
We already do Niantic's grunt work with Wayfarer and the portal reviewing, but we can see the benefits of that. We review, we get new portals, great. With the scanning I am doing the grunt work now for little to no payoff.
But here is the thing. If the badge requirement can be reduced significantly, it won't deter agents from continuing past onyx. Devoted agents WILL continue to scan portals to get the red bird behind their badge.
Sorry that was long winded.
TLDR; plz remove the cap on portal scans, if possible also reduce badge requirement and let the red bird on badge motivate folks
I have a good enough memory. I can remember which neighbourhoods I have previously visited and can take a good guess whether I capped the portals in the area before, but I certainly can't remember caps, hack, and scans.
I want a feature, similar to the ring around the pokestop, which indicates whether a portal has been captured, hacked, and scanned by me previously. Like a tiny little icon indicating each when you click on a specific portal.
Thank you. I thought that was the case but couldn't say for definite sin e I'm the only player in my town that's interested in scanning, and at 228 points on Scout Controller, I'm gettinf very close to running out of uniques to scan.
Here's a case study in why the current tiers are unobtainable...
...Two US states. 5 towns. 5 hours. 11km walked. 169 uniques captured/hacked. 129 scout controller. And only 183k AP. Then this:
And now, for the next two weeks, I cannot submit any more scans even if I'm in a position to do so. Sadly, to date I've only come across one other player contributing scans. Everyone else I talk to says they're not interested because it's too much work to unlock the badge and there are no other perks.
I’ve only seen one other name pop up several times in my area. otherwise, doesn’t seem to be much interest.
I completed the silver badge for scout controller and have stopped with that one. Figure I’ll hit gold on the regular scout badge since I’m kinda close now, though, I’ll just scan stuff nearby that I think might look cool.
It's been about a month now since this badge was released. It was poorly thought out and has received well deserved criticism, and we've gotten complete silence on the topic.
I'm opting out of this entire aspect of the game. I have onyx in almost every single badge in the game (only Connector remaining), and I can tell you that the numbers here are so high that the only sensible option is to opt out.
I wish i could hide this badge from my scanner, i have no interest in it.. i want play the game not scan portals that does nothing to the gameplay for the team or MU scores...
I get that Niantic wants to keep Ingress on the harder side of the games they have. I get that Onyx badges usually require at the very least a year to get if not less (ex: Sojourner). I get that the push to Onyx is supposed to be so hard that only the very few dedicated players would want to achieve that goal (for all medals). What I don't get is how does @NianticBrian decide on the requirements of a certain medal? Do you maybe use like a random number generator or throw a dice and the first number it gives out, you add a few zero's at the end and pick it to be the tier requirement for that medal? I am sure that all of you at Niantic sees Ingress players as free labor to do your background work (to improve every other game but Ingress), which you could very well outsource given how much money you (Niantic) makes off Pokemon Go but that's besides the point. What is absolutely saddening is that you are constantly working on improving your other games (PoGo and HPWU) but you give zero sh*ts about Ingress. I appreciate that we keep getting updates on the app every 2 weeks but with every update it seems like the bugs keep increasing, and there is no resolution of the older bugs whatsoever. What frustrates me is that you never seem to be true to your own words, and all we get from your end are empty promises. I can appreciate that coding is hard and things go wrong, and sometimes you don't even know what is going wrong where. But I don't think I am wrong to ask if you let the community know that you are at least doing something to resolve the issue instead of leaving us in absolute silence.
@NianticBrian told us he would look into revising the Scout Controller requirements in 2 weeks after it was released given the backlash the requirements received in the first place. I think I read your initial message wrong. You did say you'd look into it. You never said you'd give us an update or if you'd do anything about it. I am going to keep working on my Scout medal till it's Onyx. As for Scout Controller? I am opting out till you revise the requirements to something that is more realistic and achievable. Cheers!
@Naruwasher it's gonna be revised in 6 months when everyone stop scanning again, for now there's a lot doing it just to unloack the bronze (some are even borrowing better smartphones from friends just to do it).
Same boat, Onyx in every category except Connector, but I will not be unlocking this badge.
Make it worthwhile - add AP (more AP for longer scans), recalibrate the levels, and get rid of 200 scan cap, and I might do both Scout and Scout Controller. As it is now, not a chance I am doing either.
This does nothing for Gameplay, nothing for Ingress, and doesn't help my team win cycles.
6 months? For Niantic to revise something? That's like saying the pandemic will be over in a month and the world will return to normal. It took them over a year to fix the mission creator tool. They have been "working" on the mysterious Wayfarer bug since March that is causing reviewer ratings to drop to poor. They may eventually release some major benefits to PoGo players to get them to do scans but they won't do anything for Ingress players. Harsh reality!
There is a building near me that is clearly a full-time nursery in a substantial part of it, but actually has not one but two portals ingame. I've reported it without success. So I will just keep scanning it, with the two signs saying 'nursery' clearly visible on each scan, in the hope that one day, someone notices.
There is another portal which purports to be a ruin, but is in fact a collection of sad gravestones in a working cemetery. The ruin in the photo doesn't exist anywhere in the cemetery, I've looked. So again, I just scan the poor gravestones, taking care obviously not to do so during any of the frequent burials taking place right next to this purported ruin throughout the day, and hope someone notices one day. This new 3d map VR creation actually could work out to be an extremely useful corrective tool to some of the in-game anomalies, in the long run! So I think it is fantastic and I hope the Scout and Controller medals make their way into PoGo eventually.
That was about the time they taked to realize nobody liked regular scanning and decided to create a new badge for it. Maybe next year we will get the third badge scanning related.
What they'll do is introduce some sort of new incentive, like AP, but my money is on the prediction that it won't be retroactive for those of us who have already been scanning (as scout controller wasn't) and will be met by lackluster player response leading to a tiny bump in scans submitted which will quickly drop off again.
Ditto. #ForeverLocked like poorly designed #Recruiter badge.
Scanning doesn't help game play, no AP given, just a bunch of time used, along with a ton more data usage to upload the scans.
And I have the Onyx Connector badge. I'm willing to throw over 100,000 links, but not do a single Scan of a portal. Then again, I rarely even submit portals anymore, due to the newer way to submit, where about 50% of the time it fails to even submit the portal. Not worth the time, and if I want to visit new portals, plenty of parks with a bazillion and one sports fields or sign portals to hit up.
@ace@ofer2 We have gotten complete silence from @NianticBrian on this topic. Perhaps either of you might be helpful and if you could please let us know that if there are any plans to revise the Scout Controller requirements to something realistic (as suggested by multiple agents) than have numbers drawn from the toss of a dice? Thanks!
At this point, I would even just love to see some beta screens/video of how this may or may not be used in Ingress. That could motivate me a little, at least locally for the portals I frequently interact with.
But the overall thing for me is that there is currently 0 rewards for my efforts and it's quite time consuming. So both of those for something I don't even know what the end result is, well, low interest level.
Its lowered to 12,000 onyx.. read the relase notes for next version.
Please note that in an upcoming release (after 2.54.1), we're working to reduce Portal Scan encoding time; reduce Portal Scan file size; and reduce the Scout Controller Onyx tier to 12,000 Unique Portals.
Comments
@NianticBrian It has been over 2 weeks and I am still waiting for you to update us on your promise to look into the Scout Controller medal tier requirements. As already started multiple times by multiple agents, the current requirements are not just unachievable but they are also unrealistic given ALL the factors pointed out by multiple users (limited data/wifi, travel time, 200 scan limit, Niantic's request to scan outdoor portals and avoid indoor/publicly inaccessible portals). I and everyone else waiting for a response from you would really appreciate if you could please reply to this concern so we at least know Niantic is doing something about it. Thank you!
I guess no answer is our answer. 😶
guess nothin is decided yet.. just wait
Scout and scout controller goals are swapped.
Are they? Or are you suggesting they should be?
No they aren't, that's probably a suggestion.
I have two points that I would like to contribute. The first being that that cap of 200 scans needs to go.
Sure it is fine for the city I live in, but not when I am traveling. If an agent wants to scan five cities worth of portals in one trip, friggen let them. I can't fly back to Rome or Tokyo every two weeks cause I missed scanning portals with the cap.
Secondly that number is really, really high. I have visited many major Canadian cities east of and including Toronto, sometimes multiple times, with the specific goal of playing ingress and hacking uniques. I have also played extensively in Rome, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Sendai, Venice, and Pompeii, and a bit in New York (context, my point is coming) and my Explorer is just over 13k unique hacks!! If scanning was as easy as hacking (which, reminder, hacking can sometimes be achieved while in vehicles) it would be all right.
The point is even without the cap on scans present the onyx scan controller is ridiculously high for anyone to achieve.
Hopefully my experience can help contribute to this discussion and make a change.
We already do Niantic's grunt work with Wayfarer and the portal reviewing, but we can see the benefits of that. We review, we get new portals, great. With the scanning I am doing the grunt work now for little to no payoff.
But here is the thing. If the badge requirement can be reduced significantly, it won't deter agents from continuing past onyx. Devoted agents WILL continue to scan portals to get the red bird behind their badge.
Sorry that was long winded.
TLDR; plz remove the cap on portal scans, if possible also reduce badge requirement and let the red bird on badge motivate folks
Also, also!!!
I want the following feature added.
I have a good enough memory. I can remember which neighbourhoods I have previously visited and can take a good guess whether I capped the portals in the area before, but I certainly can't remember caps, hack, and scans.
I want a feature, similar to the ring around the pokestop, which indicates whether a portal has been captured, hacked, and scanned by me previously. Like a tiny little icon indicating each when you click on a specific portal.
They need switch to the newer servers for such features but i agree we need it visual like pogo has.
I would so love this feature. I doubt I’ll go much beyond the silver scout badge without it as I’ve got no idea once this first 30 days is up
Thank you. I thought that was the case but couldn't say for definite sin e I'm the only player in my town that's interested in scanning, and at 228 points on Scout Controller, I'm gettinf very close to running out of uniques to scan.
Here's a case study in why the current tiers are unobtainable...
...Two US states. 5 towns. 5 hours. 11km walked. 169 uniques captured/hacked. 129 scout controller. And only 183k AP. Then this:
And now, for the next two weeks, I cannot submit any more scans even if I'm in a position to do so. Sadly, to date I've only come across one other player contributing scans. Everyone else I talk to says they're not interested because it's too much work to unlock the badge and there are no other perks.
I’ve only seen one other name pop up several times in my area. otherwise, doesn’t seem to be much interest.
I completed the silver badge for scout controller and have stopped with that one. Figure I’ll hit gold on the regular scout badge since I’m kinda close now, though, I’ll just scan stuff nearby that I think might look cool.
It's been about a month now since this badge was released. It was poorly thought out and has received well deserved criticism, and we've gotten complete silence on the topic.
I'm opting out of this entire aspect of the game. I have onyx in almost every single badge in the game (only Connector remaining), and I can tell you that the numbers here are so high that the only sensible option is to opt out.
I wish i could hide this badge from my scanner, i have no interest in it.. i want play the game not scan portals that does nothing to the gameplay for the team or MU scores...
I get that Niantic wants to keep Ingress on the harder side of the games they have. I get that Onyx badges usually require at the very least a year to get if not less (ex: Sojourner). I get that the push to Onyx is supposed to be so hard that only the very few dedicated players would want to achieve that goal (for all medals). What I don't get is how does @NianticBrian decide on the requirements of a certain medal? Do you maybe use like a random number generator or throw a dice and the first number it gives out, you add a few zero's at the end and pick it to be the tier requirement for that medal? I am sure that all of you at Niantic sees Ingress players as free labor to do your background work (to improve every other game but Ingress), which you could very well outsource given how much money you (Niantic) makes off Pokemon Go but that's besides the point. What is absolutely saddening is that you are constantly working on improving your other games (PoGo and HPWU) but you give zero sh*ts about Ingress. I appreciate that we keep getting updates on the app every 2 weeks but with every update it seems like the bugs keep increasing, and there is no resolution of the older bugs whatsoever. What frustrates me is that you never seem to be true to your own words, and all we get from your end are empty promises. I can appreciate that coding is hard and things go wrong, and sometimes you don't even know what is going wrong where. But I don't think I am wrong to ask if you let the community know that you are at least doing something to resolve the issue instead of leaving us in absolute silence.
@NianticBrian told us he would look into revising the Scout Controller requirements in 2 weeks after it was released given the backlash the requirements received in the first place. I think I read your initial message wrong. You did say you'd look into it. You never said you'd give us an update or if you'd do anything about it. I am going to keep working on my Scout medal till it's Onyx. As for Scout Controller? I am opting out till you revise the requirements to something that is more realistic and achievable. Cheers!
@Naruwasher it's gonna be revised in 6 months when everyone stop scanning again, for now there's a lot doing it just to unloack the bronze (some are even borrowing better smartphones from friends just to do it).
Same boat, Onyx in every category except Connector, but I will not be unlocking this badge.
Make it worthwhile - add AP (more AP for longer scans), recalibrate the levels, and get rid of 200 scan cap, and I might do both Scout and Scout Controller. As it is now, not a chance I am doing either.
This does nothing for Gameplay, nothing for Ingress, and doesn't help my team win cycles.
6 months? For Niantic to revise something? That's like saying the pandemic will be over in a month and the world will return to normal. It took them over a year to fix the mission creator tool. They have been "working" on the mysterious Wayfarer bug since March that is causing reviewer ratings to drop to poor. They may eventually release some major benefits to PoGo players to get them to do scans but they won't do anything for Ingress players. Harsh reality!
There is a building near me that is clearly a full-time nursery in a substantial part of it, but actually has not one but two portals ingame. I've reported it without success. So I will just keep scanning it, with the two signs saying 'nursery' clearly visible on each scan, in the hope that one day, someone notices.
There is another portal which purports to be a ruin, but is in fact a collection of sad gravestones in a working cemetery. The ruin in the photo doesn't exist anywhere in the cemetery, I've looked. So again, I just scan the poor gravestones, taking care obviously not to do so during any of the frequent burials taking place right next to this purported ruin throughout the day, and hope someone notices one day. This new 3d map VR creation actually could work out to be an extremely useful corrective tool to some of the in-game anomalies, in the long run! So I think it is fantastic and I hope the Scout and Controller medals make their way into PoGo eventually.
A mixed faction scout controller leaderboard that updates on the cycles might motivate agents too
That was about the time they taked to realize nobody liked regular scanning and decided to create a new badge for it. Maybe next year we will get the third badge scanning related.
What they'll do is introduce some sort of new incentive, like AP, but my money is on the prediction that it won't be retroactive for those of us who have already been scanning (as scout controller wasn't) and will be met by lackluster player response leading to a tiny bump in scans submitted which will quickly drop off again.
Ap isn't good enough. Too many level 16 agents who don't need it. It needs a real game effect like MU modifier.
New gameplay has been needed for a while and I know that's a whole other discussion.
It would be great to hear that it's at least still being looked for revising. @NianticBrian
Ditto. #ForeverLocked like poorly designed #Recruiter badge.
Scanning doesn't help game play, no AP given, just a bunch of time used, along with a ton more data usage to upload the scans.
And I have the Onyx Connector badge. I'm willing to throw over 100,000 links, but not do a single Scan of a portal. Then again, I rarely even submit portals anymore, due to the newer way to submit, where about 50% of the time it fails to even submit the portal. Not worth the time, and if I want to visit new portals, plenty of parks with a bazillion and one sports fields or sign portals to hit up.
@ace @ofer2 We have gotten complete silence from @NianticBrian on this topic. Perhaps either of you might be helpful and if you could please let us know that if there are any plans to revise the Scout Controller requirements to something realistic (as suggested by multiple agents) than have numbers drawn from the toss of a dice? Thanks!
At this point, I would even just love to see some beta screens/video of how this may or may not be used in Ingress. That could motivate me a little, at least locally for the portals I frequently interact with.
But the overall thing for me is that there is currently 0 rewards for my efforts and it's quite time consuming. So both of those for something I don't even know what the end result is, well, low interest level.
Its lowered to 12,000 onyx.. read the relase notes for next version.
Please note that in an upcoming release (after 2.54.1), we're working to reduce Portal Scan encoding time; reduce Portal Scan file size; and reduce the Scout Controller Onyx tier to 12,000 Unique Portals.