Against anything other than active , maniacal charging you are correct. 7s are maybe 10-15% less effective than 8s but when hit hard and quick before heavy rechargers can get going is needed that is why 8s are needed.
I agree slow decay is boring. If anything there should be fast decay so we can recharge from home.
But I disagree with 7's being good enough. I go against rechargers. The enemy builds more powerful portals, due to 2x R7 deploy, and they have more cubes than ever. when 2 or 3 agents recharge against me, 7s are completely ineffective. I also need the range of 8s due to portals being inaccessible during covid. streets, parks and buildings are closed, but still in the range of 8s.
Due to covid we are not allow gatherings of more than 2 people, so classic farms with 8 are not allowed. 2x deploy makes it feasible to get 4 agents to bump some portals to 8.
Bring back double deploy 8s and extended hack counts, keep decay as is. Higher decay will encourage people to be active but the nature of recharging means they can choose their location to gain cubes, and recharge from a distance.
At the end of the day, the players of Ingress are (mostly) not Niantic's actual customers, unless they also play Pogo and the other games.
But they still deserve to be treated with respect for their safety, by encouraging either hyperlocal gameplay mechanics & balance or changing the global mechanics to discourage doing more. They are already out of balance by rewarding the local factions with players & leaders willing to go further.
Niantic already puts so much on the local players & the communities. This needs to come from the top -> down. We've seen what happens with so many local responses. I know plenty of leaders & operators who are not running active events or ops right now & encouraging people to stay closer to home. One of the best put it this way: "How many big ops have you run where no one had to get out of their car?"
I'd like NIA to introduce mini games into ingress.
Hack 10 portals today: reward 5 bursters
Make 5 links. Make 5 fields. Recharge 4000 XM etc etc
Something that makes opening ingress up during this period more interesting and can give micro rewards for some basic play.
Where I am situated, we don't have strict lockdown, but our player base has been worn out for over 12 months of a vindictive spoofer, COVID, extremely fractured factions, and we're lucky to see if even 40% of the players even open ingress in a cycle, let alone make a field. Cycle play has been non-existant for over 2 years
WE need more mini events before we can have real anomaly etc.. without those game feels it lacks something... many players that are bored just open scanner daily to hack sojourner and thats it.. witout some mini games that gives small rewards not much else to do really.. its obvious sadly the longer covid runs the more ppl play less or even stop play completely... we dont want this ?
The more "Legal Spoofing" they add, the less the game becomes an outdoor experience, and the more the 'illegitimate spoofing' becomes acceptable.
People can leave the house in most cases. The vast majority of players are not in a 1hr a day exercise only lockdown. As long as the gameplay doesn't encourage 8 people to come together at the same time in the same place, it's safe. Thus Double R8s will have a significant effect.
Reducing the cooldown of the drone won't, because people still need to leave the house to actually play the game.
It's not clear making the game harder for the 1% is the goal.
But as part of that 1% it's my experience that the harder the game gets, the more the 1% rise to the occasion, while the casual and new players suffer and quit.
So make the game better.. fewer bugs, and easier. So everyone can thrive. If you level the playing field the 1% will be out numbered and not dominate.
The difference between an extra R7 (5000XM) and it's replacement R4 (2500XM) is two X7s (1800XM x 2). And given that you can make P7s with 2 people (thus under your limit) because of those changes, you should have plenty of X7s. Objectively, double R7 deploy increases the ability of destroyers to destroy, far more than it increases the ability of builders to defend.
Double R8 is a different matter, because it's four people vs eight so far more into the realm of "Gathering".
I think right now, the goal of the Covid Bonuses (this thread), is to allow the 99% to play while remaining socially distant, not having to travel as far to still enjoy the game, and to keep everyone safe. Easier, not harder.
Changes affecting the 1% competitive players are something for after the Pandemic (and a different thread).
2x R8 would make it even harder to destroy, as there is more cubes and higher level resos, I'd like something to offset that on the xmp side. Right now we have to use more bursters, and its harder than ever to get them.
We need to travel further; Currently I need to go 25 miles to farm 8s. With 2x R8 deploys, I went 10 miles or less.
And gather in bigger groups than when they had the covid measures in place. Its hard to get 8 locals.. an often not allowed during pandemic lockdown. A game that encourages gatherings of 8 people is inconsistent with responsible leadership during the pandemic.
2x R8 would make it even harder to destroy, as there is more cubes and higher level resos
The power discrepancy between adding an R8 instead of an R4 is vastly less than using X7s vs using X8s. Higher level portals make it easier to destroy things.
Its hard to get 8 locals..
Which is why I'm suggesting lowering that bar to four.
Maybe its hard to change at this point, but it would be fun to see how the mechanics change if portals had more or less resonator or mod slots.
Less would take fewer agents to max out. Which could help during covid, and there are lots of new portals, so we wouldnt be losing overall reso/mod slots compared to years ago.
More would potentially add higher levels for agents themselves, and portal and gear strength, link range.
more mods would allow us to use more of the new mods, like transmuters and sbuls.
This would allow us to achieve similar stats with fewer portals and less travel.
More reso slots but with multiple deploy would allow a different number of agents to gather. e.g. 10 reso slots = 5 agents.
Fair enough. Most active people on this board are top 10% competitive players and they need an incentive too, but make them work for their reward. You're probably right that the time may not be right, right now, but it has to be looked into.
Comments
Against anything other than active , maniacal charging you are correct. 7s are maybe 10-15% less effective than 8s but when hit hard and quick before heavy rechargers can get going is needed that is why 8s are needed.
Most places allow gathering up to 5 people ....
I agree slow decay is boring. If anything there should be fast decay so we can recharge from home.
But I disagree with 7's being good enough. I go against rechargers. The enemy builds more powerful portals, due to 2x R7 deploy, and they have more cubes than ever. when 2 or 3 agents recharge against me, 7s are completely ineffective. I also need the range of 8s due to portals being inaccessible during covid. streets, parks and buildings are closed, but still in the range of 8s.
Due to covid we are not allow gatherings of more than 2 people, so classic farms with 8 are not allowed. 2x deploy makes it feasible to get 4 agents to bump some portals to 8.
Yeah this ^
Bring back double deploy 8s and extended hack counts, keep decay as is. Higher decay will encourage people to be active but the nature of recharging means they can choose their location to gain cubes, and recharge from a distance.
At the end of the day, the players of Ingress are (mostly) not Niantic's actual customers, unless they also play Pogo and the other games.
But they still deserve to be treated with respect for their safety, by encouraging either hyperlocal gameplay mechanics & balance or changing the global mechanics to discourage doing more. They are already out of balance by rewarding the local factions with players & leaders willing to go further.
Niantic already puts so much on the local players & the communities. This needs to come from the top -> down. We've seen what happens with so many local responses. I know plenty of leaders & operators who are not running active events or ops right now & encouraging people to stay closer to home. One of the best put it this way: "How many big ops have you run where no one had to get out of their car?"
I'd like NIA to introduce mini games into ingress.
Hack 10 portals today: reward 5 bursters
Make 5 links. Make 5 fields. Recharge 4000 XM etc etc
Something that makes opening ingress up during this period more interesting and can give micro rewards for some basic play.
Where I am situated, we don't have strict lockdown, but our player base has been worn out for over 12 months of a vindictive spoofer, COVID, extremely fractured factions, and we're lucky to see if even 40% of the players even open ingress in a cycle, let alone make a field. Cycle play has been non-existant for over 2 years
WE need more mini events before we can have real anomaly etc.. without those game feels it lacks something... many players that are bored just open scanner daily to hack sojourner and thats it.. witout some mini games that gives small rewards not much else to do really.. its obvious sadly the longer covid runs the more ppl play less or even stop play completely... we dont want this ?
Double R8s are not going to fix anything.
L7 portals are still pretty strong, and X7s pretty effective. Even though I have Recursed twice, I will farm whatever I need to take down a portal.
* Reducing the cool down of the Drone will help those in lockdown.
We just need events, which utilises safe methods for play, the DroneNet can do so much more than what it can in this area without being over powered
The more "Legal Spoofing" they add, the less the game becomes an outdoor experience, and the more the 'illegitimate spoofing' becomes acceptable.
People can leave the house in most cases. The vast majority of players are not in a 1hr a day exercise only lockdown. As long as the gameplay doesn't encourage 8 people to come together at the same time in the same place, it's safe. Thus Double R8s will have a significant effect.
Reducing the cooldown of the drone won't, because people still need to leave the house to actually play the game.
The only COVID bonus I’d like to see is increased portal decay.
I’d like to build fields close to home more often.
"Increased" wouldn't be a Covid bonus, it'd be actively making it harder for the average player.
Its harder to smash portals today than before the pandemic.
I live in an enemy dominated city so before I can build I smash. Or travel to a different city.
Double 7s make for harder to neutralizeportals.
More cubes has made for aggressive recharging.
Closures have made for more remote smashing.
Covid restrictions don't allow gatherings beyond 2 people so there aren't farms.
There are fewer players active.
To get bursters we have to travel further.
So I'm looking for a gear solution that keeps ingress playable and safer than it is now.
Increased drop rate.
Increase burster range so a 7 has the range if an 8, and an 8 is increased a bit more.
Kinetic module for flip cards. If we can't hack gear or smash portals we could walk more for flip cards and use those
Give us gear and AP for scanning a portal. It takes about the same time to scan as glyph.
Increase inventory so when we farm less often and further away, we have the space to hold more.
I think what is desired is for the 1% players to have to work 200%+ harder to maintain their grip over an area.
What would be the appropriate way to do that?
It's not clear making the game harder for the 1% is the goal.
But as part of that 1% it's my experience that the harder the game gets, the more the 1% rise to the occasion, while the casual and new players suffer and quit.
So make the game better.. fewer bugs, and easier. So everyone can thrive. If you level the playing field the 1% will be out numbered and not dominate.
The difference between an extra R7 (5000XM) and it's replacement R4 (2500XM) is two X7s (1800XM x 2). And given that you can make P7s with 2 people (thus under your limit) because of those changes, you should have plenty of X7s. Objectively, double R7 deploy increases the ability of destroyers to destroy, far more than it increases the ability of builders to defend.
Double R8 is a different matter, because it's four people vs eight so far more into the realm of "Gathering".
I think right now, the goal of the Covid Bonuses (this thread), is to allow the 99% to play while remaining socially distant, not having to travel as far to still enjoy the game, and to keep everyone safe. Easier, not harder.
Changes affecting the 1% competitive players are something for after the Pandemic (and a different thread).
2x R8 would make it even harder to destroy, as there is more cubes and higher level resos, I'd like something to offset that on the xmp side. Right now we have to use more bursters, and its harder than ever to get them.
We need to travel further; Currently I need to go 25 miles to farm 8s. With 2x R8 deploys, I went 10 miles or less.
And gather in bigger groups than when they had the covid measures in place. Its hard to get 8 locals.. an often not allowed during pandemic lockdown. A game that encourages gatherings of 8 people is inconsistent with responsible leadership during the pandemic.
2x R8 would make it even harder to destroy, as there is more cubes and higher level resos
The power discrepancy between adding an R8 instead of an R4 is vastly less than using X7s vs using X8s. Higher level portals make it easier to destroy things.
Its hard to get 8 locals..
Which is why I'm suggesting lowering that bar to four.
Maybe its hard to change at this point, but it would be fun to see how the mechanics change if portals had more or less resonator or mod slots.
Less would take fewer agents to max out. Which could help during covid, and there are lots of new portals, so we wouldnt be losing overall reso/mod slots compared to years ago.
More would potentially add higher levels for agents themselves, and portal and gear strength, link range.
more mods would allow us to use more of the new mods, like transmuters and sbuls.
This would allow us to achieve similar stats with fewer portals and less travel.
More reso slots but with multiple deploy would allow a different number of agents to gather. e.g. 10 reso slots = 5 agents.
It's essentially the same effect to change the Deploy Count for a given level.
You could make a 2 person portal with 4 deployable 8s etc. There's actually an elegant progression with 5-8 adding agents.
1 L8 Agent = P5
2 L8 Agents = P6
3 L8 Agents = P7
8 L8 Agents = P8
and depending on what they fail to deploy in the earlier levels can cause more agents to be needed.
Fair enough. Most active people on this board are top 10% competitive players and they need an incentive too, but make them work for their reward. You're probably right that the time may not be right, right now, but it has to be looked into.
Oh definitely. When we're realistically past the pandemic, the gloves can come off on changes.