Remove Artificial Speedlock
While I'm sure most of us agree the speedlock is a good thing - sure it's frustrating not being able to hack portals at a train station because you recharged a portal 15 minutes ago, but it helps stop idiots from killing people due to playing Ingress while driving - the client side artifical speedlock in Prime is frustrating. If I hack a portal then hit the home button on my phone to send Ingress to the background and walk for 15 minutes, when I open up Ingress again I have to wait for the client to 'catch up' after it thinks I've just teleported 1km. This isn't an issue with Redacted, so would appear to be a Prime client 'feature'
So given we already have server side speedlock, how about removing the client side artificial speedlock only present in Prime?
Comments
I vote "Yes" about speedlock.Definetly "Yes".Ingress is a game with walking.Not by car,not by bike/car/helicopter/teleport... Current speed limit is 60 km/h linear to portal afaik.As for me as a fair and strong enough pedestrian player even this is a bit "too much".I'd like to see all vehicle-users use their feet:) especially stealth-pilots xD But also if Prime is not closed and u travel somewhere u can gain speedlock 4 nothing,this is an issue and needs some fix.Cheers.
The same effect you explained is also in Go. You sometimes make the "driving or passenger" pop up from the quick movement. Maybe this is where a similar notification should be made?
This doesn’t really bother me, I just keep the game on top all the time. This way I might get the black trekker medal one day!
@Damogran72 that's not how it works in ingress.
Pokemon go get all the distance walk even if you don't play but in ingress it's distance between 2 actions. So that's why trekkers is always lower than actual distance walked.
You must live in a city/place where portal density is thick and there are sidewalks to walk on.
This is simply not true and I say that as getting plat trekker from walking in my community with no portals nearby. The server is constantly grabbing an update on your location.
I think I have a pretty good picture how it works in Ingress thank you. Keeping the game in background is very good way not to get trekker.
There is also other things that need to be done to actually gain kilometers, but they can be discussed in another thread and another area.
Just to reiterate my point here, I ended up using a car over the weekend and after hacking a portal I drove for about 20 minutes through the city to return the car, then walked for about 5 minutes to the nearest portal. Upon opening Prime at the portal, because it obviously wasn't running whilst I was driving, I had to wait about 10 minutes before it would let me hack as it thought I'd just teleported half-way across the city! 10 minutes of just standing there like an idiot waiting for Prime to 'walk' me from the earlier portal to the one I was physically standing at.
I'm surprised more car drivers don't raise this as an issue - all it's doing is encouraging people to leave the game running whilst driving in an effort to minimise the speedlock catchup time!
More people don't raise your issue, @McWibble, because most people don't have your issue.
I've never had a 10-minute lockout after starting the app. Either you're doing something else wrong, out your phone is doing something weird with its location services.
I have the same problem, and have been experiencing it for months now. It is definitely not an isolated issue. When moving to another portal and the app has been in the background, upon re-opening Prime it'll show your last location briefly before it updates. You will be locked out until it "catches up" to your new location. The only ways I have gotten around this was to either:
Perhaps others aren't seeing the problem if Prime offloads itself from their phone while it is in the background?
Summary of issue: Speedlock when Prime is in the background (repro instructions above)
Device: Samsung Galaxy S9+
OS: Android Pie
App Version (Settings > Scroll to the bottom): 2.26.2
Shouldn't server side speedlock turn off after about 20 minutes? Or is that only client side with Redacted?
@mcwibble I'm sure it will be an issue come September, or Friday...
It's 30 minutes server side, but Prime has the additional client side faff that I'm complaining about here. For example, if you're on a moving train and hack a portal in Redacted, you won't be able to hack the next one in a 30 minute window in Prime either. However, send Redacted to the background and walk a kilometre to the next portal, and you'll be good to hack - Prime will insist you travelled at 1km/s :-|
Update:
Issue PERSISTS in ver 2.27.2
I've definitely experienced this - Wizards Unite is far more intense and so when I'm playing it, Ingress is in the background waiting until I get to a portal. I'm walking to the next portal playing Wizards Unite and when I switch back to Prime if the distance was significant I get speed locked. 😪
Same experience here.
I dont often get speedlock. I can go in car and hack portals in 70km/h I think the system for speedlock must update.
@jontebula The issue we're discussing here is when Prime is put in the background (while moving). When you re-open the game, it takes a second to update and thinks that one has "jumped" to location B, thus speedlocking you out until it "catches up".
For your point, I also find that speedlock has gotten lax while moving quickly.
I am also driving to go from one portal to the other because walking is hardly an option if you live in a rural area. Actually I am using Redacted but once it stops working and this lock is still in the game I am out of Ingress.
In my opinion it should check the actual speed from the GPS information only and not by calculating it from the time and place between two interactions!
This is getting ridiculous. After traveling back from an anomaly on a slow moving bus (so not speed locked) I switched to telegram to respond to a few anomaly chat channels (you know, the social aspect ingress claims to encourage), and after switching back to Prime I was speed locked the entire journey. Redacted worked fine.
Come on Niantic, you *cannot* expect uptake of Prime to increase if you deliberately add extra hurdles that aren't present in Redacted!!
I have the same issue since... well, actually since Prime was released. @NianticScot, can you please tell us any suggestions about this? The speedlock when app is in background mode really inconvenient.
This is, indeed, a properly irritating problem, especially given that there appears to be no good technical reason for it. The server end has sufficient information regarding the location of the last action (or at least it flippin' well should!) to work out that the player in question isn't teleporting instantaneously between locations (or provide speed data for human investigation into spoofing) so there's no good reason for the client to be checking for cheat prevention purposes, and a simple reasonableness check on speed values in the client would be enough to sort out the speed lock.
Wholeheartedly agree! I came to the forums intending to make a new thread raising the same issue! The biggest issue for me is how JEALOUS prime is! I play while walking most of the time. However, if I am playing and walking and see that I was messaged in a chat program, or tab over to check on another game or program, Ingress Prime gets very angry. I become locked out of playing for minutes at a time! This is frustrating to the point where my sister, who prefers Pokemon Go, won't even play Ingress most days. If she's playing Pogo, and I say "Hey want to help me build up this portal" her reply is that she can't. And it's true. We'd have to stand around and wait, while the dog got impatient, and wait and wait before she would finally be able to deploy. In Pokemon the "Adventure Sync" tracks your distance while the app is closed or in the background! Please add the same feature to prime to avoid these false GPS lockouts.
I have this issue with Prime if I'm sitting in one spot, not moving at all. Hack a portal in Prime, switch to telegram/browser/HPWU for a few minutes, switch back to Prime and I'm speed locked without even moving physically.
Same here. I hack a few portals. Get into my car and drive somewhere, using Maps or some other app in the foreground. When I get to the other location I try and hack with prime and I'm speed locked for anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 minutes. Using Redacted works just fine. If I remember to close the Prime application (android, swipe app away) before I start driving, then it works, although I need to reload the application at that point.
I agree that we need something to combat spoofers, but this is making it so that legitimate players are getting locked out.
It has bug now. I hope Niantic fix it soon. When Prime in backround speedlock are activate. When we run Prime Speedlock dont activate or works bad.
Prime is player hostile in this respect. If I put the app into the background and walk or drive for a couple of kms and then open the app again, it will be speed locked. Redacted will not be. This means that I have to have the app running in the foreground at all times, which means - no maps for nav, no music player, etc. It's super annoying and will keep me from using Prime.
It appears Prime's speedlock mechanism isn't friendly with being in the background. It seems to compare a location snapshot from when it was last active (which would be a long time ago) to a location snapshot from when it was made the active app again, determine the distance is too great regardless of elapsed time, and speed lock.
If prime isn't running, this doesn't happen.
If prime is a background task, this happens.
This is an immensely frustrating oversight.
I also am experiencing this issue, on Android Pie and Ingress 2.30.2. This "feature" really discourages playing other Niantic games. I primarily see the issue when I hack a portal, then switch to Harry Potter in order to get my .25km walking to the next portal (semi rural area, so portals are several blocks apart), but once I get there, I cannot do anything with said portal. This particular use case will be resolved with Adventure Sync that is coming to Harry Potter, but does not solve if I want to try and get foundables while walking between portals
As it is currently implemented the speed lock severely impacts game play. Switching between applications should not result in speed locks at all. But still no word from niantic and redacted already scheduled to be shut down.
So niantic, as a first measure you should either remove client side speed locks completely or fix. And please please before redacted will be shut down for good.