Bring on Combat Badges!
While we're talking about badges elsewhere...it's high time we have badges awarded to us for combat!
In game you have badges for:
1) Builder -- deploying resos
2) Connector -- making links
3) Mind Controller -- creating fields
4) Illuminator -- capturing MU
5) Liberator -- capturing portals
Even though the stats are on our profile for Resos destroyed, portals neutralized, enemy links destroyed, and enemy control fields destroyed, we only have 1 badge, Purifier, awarded for destroying enemy resonators. That's it.
I know this has been discussed before, but I'm bringing it up again because frankly, these are good badges to have and the game cannot be only focused on building; things need to be torn down to be built back up.
(I'd also love an MU destroyed badge, but since that isn't a captured datapoint already, I'm not suggesting it here.)
I say it's high time we have matching destruction badges to complement the creation badges. What say you, fellow agents?
Comments
Clutter.
Aside from Liberator though, each of the badges you listed requires a "specific action" independent from the others.
That's why there's only one badge.
Liberator is a little odd, because you can only get Liberator by deploying on a portal but I guess it's to promote variety.
Badges exist only for building or creation aspects so that people are always encouraged to build. Building is super important because everything else relies on something having been built in the first place.
Destruction is easy as an action. Unfortunately more badges for it would lead to more grey empty areas.
You have a valid point here.
In addition, some players like to play a game of denying the opposition badges, so this would be one more reason people would single deploy and not link when visiting opposition territory.
Remembering the Cassandra Neutralizer challenge, a lot of players went so far as to neutralize portals but not even to deploy a single resonator, so as to deny the badge to their "enemy". Niantic had to introduce extra AP for deploying the first and last resonators to encourage people to keep deploying.
Maybe think of new things that rely on creation?
Eg. Upgrade portals to P7.
Or make consecutive links to a single portal.
Or make a total link length of the distance to the Sun.
Or visit an anomalous portal. This one could actually drive more folk to anomalies.
Hack media items.
Successfully redeem passcodes.
It would be interesting to see an MU destroyed badge which could provide more incentive to drop perma-BAFs. I get it wouldn't be retroactive, but could be another potential easy onyx for new agents chasing leveling badge requirements, and another opportunity to build community having vets accompany or at least point n00bs to these enemy anchors.
IMO there needs to be more incentives to destroy. So many areas get built up then builders have to wait for decay, even having opposing factions deploy on portals next to each other. I also realize low player population has a part to play, but that's another topic.
Capture portal in unique scoring cells.
I don't know if we need a dozen destroyer type badges, but there is a crying need for MU destroyed. A variant on this would be MU-days destroyed (there's a small opportunity for perverse incentives here, but it also really could be juice the hunt for old fields). I'd couple it with something where you can click on fields on the map or in scanner and get a value for the MU enclosed. This data used to exist but was removed (I guess to save on bandwidth?).
My arguments for why:
= Strongly incentivizes attacking fields of all kinds; optionally could reward destroying longer standing ones
= Ingress is at its best with churn. More churn => more action => more stuff happening. It's best to incentivize building and destruction for this reason.
Misgivings:
= There are just a ton of badges now; I feel like it's now almost too easy to get higher level.
= Another thing that makes layering fields "too good", since you get credit for the 8- 37,000 layers someone on the other side throws in one fell swoop.
I think the arguments why outweigh the misgivings for sure, but I would be cautious about other destruction badges without some good reason.
For a combat badge I would count all three: portals neutralized, Links destroyed, and fields destroyed as one badge stat.
I think it's important not to underestimate the desire to "stick it to the other team." Even after deploy bonuses were added to the Cassandra Neutralizer event, my local opposition still didn't bother to deploy on any portals. Even now, they seem content to not build farms, not make MU, etc. But if I so much as touch one of "their" portals, anything I own will get wiped off the map.
In general, though, I would imagine and hope that incentives to build would eventually become incentives to destroy for the simple reason that Agents will eventually run out of space and need to clear the game board to make room for themselves.
I would argue they're not the same at all. Destroying fields is directly related to MU control. Destroying links may not impact MU at all. You can destroy portals without fields, portals without links, or any combination of those.
Yes, but a portal holding multiple links and fields would be a high value target, so why not go all the way? Maybe players would go after those permafields now?
I am in favor of destruction badges. I understand that badges for building encourage people to do exactly that, but there are places where building requires waiting for decay because nobody is destroying. There is compromise in Builder/Purifier, with the Purifier badge requiring 50% more destruction than Builder requires deploying. I think that's reasonable and I think it's a pattern that could reasonably be carried forward for other destruction badges. (While I found it reasonable, I found it frustrating when I was pushing for onyx purifier and had 100K to go.)
I am also in favor of an MU destroyed badge. I think that should happen in conjunction with there being an MU destroyed leaderboard during each septicycle, parallel to the current one for MU creation. Destruction of MU is just as important to the cycle score as creation is, but it isn't rewarded.
Mods destroyed i would like as badge, why is there none ? u dont even get ap for mods deploy fine, but gives us a badge then.
Mods have always been weird to me in this game. Resonators have a direct relationship to portal distance, but mods don't. Mods are just as strong regardless of distance deployed. And while you get AP for deploying them you get none for killing them. Heavily unbalanced in favor of the deployer.
I'm in favor of an MU destroyed stat.
I enjoyed the Unique Neutralized Portals stat we had temporarily. Would like to see that come back.
A stat for mods destroyed would be good. And AP. You get 125 AP for deploying a mod. You should get 75 AP for destroying one, same as resos.
Badges would be nice. Any skill based badge would be nice. Additional badges, or additional levels to the current badges. For the existing stats I'd probably suggest neutralizer and salvator (fields) badges.
I would say at this point, it's already "too easy" in terms of badges to level, especially with the annual year badge, trekker, illuminator, sojourner, and now the new Epoch badge and the Scout / Scout Controller badges. We now have 2 badges that can go to onyx just from doing nothing but hacking a portal every single day. I would say at this point, if you're badge locked there is VERY little excuse.
So therefore I'd want to disconnect the notion of badges to leveling and instead have badges be a more visual representations of gameplay styles. Being a boomer vs a builder are definitely unique styles and as evinced by above discussion, both are key to gameplay; churn is important. Therefore, we should have SOME badges besides purifier to represent the effort that agents put into the game, just as we have 5 distinct badges for builders to represent their gameplay style.
I think fields & links destroyed are much more relevant to effective gameplay than resonators destroyed; if you go and wipe out a bunch of single-cap portals, that has far less of an impact than taking down tons of enemy fields & links. Badges for those stats promote that.
We now have 2 badges that can go to onyx just from doing nothing but hacking a portal every single day.
And one of them requires that if you fail once in a year, you start over, and the other requires you to play for a year and two months at least.
Those two aren't always easy for players who are more casual or have less regular access to portals. For someone who only plays on weekends, those are basically impossible badges.
But that said, as has been raised multiple times, destroying stuff is done through the same action. Multiple destroyer badges is credit for the same action.
Multiple destroyer badges is credit for the same action.
Multiple credits for the same action is already well-established in Ingress:
You can't work on Translator without also working on Hacker. You can't work on Pioneer without also working on Liberator, which entails also working on Builder. You can't work on Illuminator without also working on Mind Controller, which entails also working on Connector. Working on SpecOps entails, in practice, working on at least one other badge.
Some people make a mini-game out of trying to get multiple badge "dings" out of a single action.
Each of those actions you listed above, except for Liberator, has additional conditions though.
The only 'additional condition' for destroying fields is that the portal has fields hanging off it. The only 'additional condition' for destroying links is that the portal has links hanging off it.
Destroying doesn't require any additional effort or real choice.
Destroying doesn't require any additional effort or real choice.
Sure it does, same as any of those other "conditions":
These are non-trivial requirements when the local opposition doesn't believe in building anything worth a hoot…
But those are additional conditions. Not sure why you're putting those in quotes. You could earn purifier without ever killing a single link or field, which does nothing to promote MU changes.
For me I get the Resos destroyed leads to almost all other actions achieved but mods destroyed is its own action. Sometimes no reso is destroyed but mods are and now I see you can get AP for destroying Mods but no badge. It has been a baffler for me. For a long time, no AP was earned for destroying Mods despite mods deployed earning players AP. I get everything else not being badged but at least mods destroyed gets its own category. Call it Destructor or something.
To be honest, as badges for deploying and constructing is available readily, my feeling is so should badges for destroying and destruction. Why not? If Niantic had done it the other way round peeps would have still played similarly because the game never awards AP for holding on to actions only for changing situations which is why deploying AND destroying is together crucial to the game. You can get profile stats for holding onto fields, portals, links, etc. but no AP. As long as portal interactions continue AP will be gained. If the colour of the portal changes you get badges for changing white portal to allied faction colour, for changing from enemy faction colour to white and then for all the stuff that goes with building up stuff. I have seen that MU is given for size of real life population covered but a static amount of AP for creating a field thus a large field and a small field yield the same AP. Destroying fields also can yield up to about 2000 AP depending on when and how much you destroy. Yet no badge. One action to build can yield plenty of results and can build several badges at the same time. One action for deploying = increments to a lot of badges.
One action in destroying = increment in only one badge. Ingress can be more diverse. It always seems to have been since it adjusts things during events. Why do they insist on leaving one badge for destroying stuff?