Allow the drone to be used for Missions
in General
Hello,
I think an improvement on the drone that wouldn't break the game would be to allow the drone to be used for missions that require "hack this portal". It would help for temporarily inaccessible portals (possibly under construction or closed for the night/season) or for if you miss a portal and instead of a possibly long backtrack to fly the drone over to do the hack.
The drawback is the 1 hour cooldown during non-events, but I still think this would be an easy and none-the-less pretty neat little improvement on the drone.
Tagged:
8
Comments
I'd be for this, but the one issue I can see is its an easier way to get the mission medal. So maybe if you complete a mission with the drone or at least, complete say more than 25% with the drone, it doesn't count towards that medal
it could be a thing like virtual NL they did ? do it once a year for a chance to do a set of missions a limit or something and unlock the Mission day badge perhaps?
The whole point of missions is to lead you around an area, so you can see it. We're at a point where any development work for a COVID related development would probably somewhat wasted, and there's no non-pandemic reason to encourage people to sit on their couch even more.
After pandemic restrictions are lifted, drones are a useful tool for maintaining a sojourner streak, and a useful tool for getting a little bit of extra gear from a distant farm.
They aren't how Ingress is played at it's core.
The op wasn't saying for it to be used for pandemic reasons, he was saying it more for either missing a portal and letting the drone go back and get it or for portals that can't be reached for 1 reason or another. I do agree with you that they shouldn't be used to do full missions, but they could be used to do less than a quarter of them. Like, hypothetically, what if there was a mission that required climbing a mountain to finish the mission, a lot of people can't do that because of physical ability or health issues, being allowed to have the drone go up and get that last one wouldnt be game breaking, and the person who did it managed the rest of the mission so it still managed its course for the most part
he was saying it more for either missing a portal and letting the drone go back and get it or for portals that can't be reached for 1 reason or another.
This is an impossible-to-code distinction. What defines a portal that can't be reached?
In reality, it would be used for every portal by many players, to complete missions. If further changes like being able to traverse links, or deploy via keys, were implemented, this would give people the ability to complete missions anywhere, any time, from their couch.
The "best-case scenario" isn't the concerning aspect here. The 'worst-case' scenario is going to be the more common usage.
Drones are such a cool topic to discuss, because they at different times complement and subvert the main goal of Ingress: to get out and move. I want to see drones be expanded, but not if it goes against the core tenets of the game.
On one hand, a drone would be immensely helpful for missions with one or more inaccessible Portals. I can painfully remember having only a day to complete a 36-mission banner that almost got derailed because of a single Portal at a museum that was closed and gated off four days of the week and juuuuust out of reach. If implemented well, drones present an opportunity to "smooth over" some of the issues that arise in a game based on real-world access issues (like locations closed for maintenance, unsafe PoI that have not yet been removed in-game, etc).
On the other hand, at what point does a drone become Diet Spoofing™ and begin to replace the intended gameplay? What value does a mission have if it can be earned without even visiting the required Portals?
I'm happy with the status quo as it is, but if they did allow for it, I'd imagine it could be balanced by only counting hacks that occur within X meters of the user and only allowing Y% of drone hacks within a mission to count. That way, the user must still be present nearby and cannot just sit in one place and complete missions entirely by drone, but can use the drone to catch the occasional out-of-reach Portal.
I'm more in favor of "let missions use drone".
Don't be obtuse, no one is suggesting that you be able to complete an entire mission with a drone.
The idea is that if you're doing a mission a drone could be used to help out if you suddenly encounter a portal in a closed area.
So an easy way to enforce it is only 1-2 drone hacks per mission, and the rest must be done by the agent in range.
No one is asking them to code in a, "I cannot reach this" exception. It's agent discretion.
Stop arguing just to argue, bront. You singlehandedly ruin these forums.
It's agent discretion.
That's *the point*.
Agent discretion is "Always". Therefore this is a request to allow all missions to be run by drone. Claims about "only portals that are hard to reach" are just fluff to hide "Let me do all missions by drone", which defeats the purpose of missions.
Don't be obtuse, no one is suggesting that you be able to complete an entire mission with a drone.
Yes. That's the effective request. It's not 'obtuse'. Its literally the obvious result.
Claims about "only portals that are hard to reach" are just fluff to hide "Let me do all missions by drone", which defeats the purpose of missions.
Since the game's start in 2012, you never had a portal that was hard to reach even though its placement was generally correct but not within the action radius? I can list off portals that are legit hard to reach at Disney World because you're constraint to where you can go versus the portal being on the cusp of your action radius.
It would help with portals that you find are temporarily inaccessible due to some event or change to the site that wasn't known to even people familiar with the area. I hate how we have to assume bad faith on these suggestions when there's legit situations for them. We could discuss ways to prevent any abuse if they were ever permitted. For instance, if a drone hack was ever used in a mission, the only way you can finish the mission would be with a physical hack. You could also make it much more restrictive than the usual 1 hour period for drone hacks.
Since the game's start in 2012, you never had a portal that was hard to reach even though its placement was generally correct but not within the action radius?
Sure. That was part of the challenge of the game.
I hate how we have to assume bad faith on these suggestions when there's legit situations for them.
If you've been playing since 2012, you know that the Ingress community is an extremely inventive and aggressively creative group of people who will eke out every single advantage they can find, within a set of rules and game mechanics. So any new idea should be addressed from it's worse conditions, and then determine whether those conditions are something that can be lived with, to justify the advantage.
Not all ideas are bad, but most ideas focus on the gain and ignore the negative consequences. The Ingress team generally is considered to "ignore player ideas" but in reality, they understand better how to maintain game balance, and how to ensure that there is choice and consequence in those choices.
Games that are too easy become far too boring quickly, because there's no challenge or stakes. Expanding the drone to replicate in person behaviors, is one of the examples of a bad change.
[A]t what point does a drone become Diet Spoofing™ and begin to replace the intended gameplay?
Long ago, the idea was, "Ingress is about where you are, not where your scanner is." In that era, strapping your phone to a physical drone and flying it somewhere was considered illegitimate play. The fact that the drone is now virtual and available to all makes no difference as far as the basic principle is concerned.
Of course, I've heard that even longer ago, Niantic actually celebrated strapping your phone to a physical drone and flying it to somewhere you could not otherwise get to, so I suppose the current virtual drone is just on the path to bringing us full circle. 🤷♂️
Bit of discussion here: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/comment/131242#Comment_131242
Im still of the opinion that missions done by drone could be shown in a different area and a new stat enabled by any missions that required a drone, even a single hack. Id be extremely disappointed if they ever brought drones to missions and didn’t have a way to separate the stat and or specops badge. I’ve done a few missions that were pretty tedious, a couple in the pouring rain. Knowing someone did that from their couch would be pretty lame...
That's still the case for the game's design: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/10926/altering-or-falsifying-a-devices-location
Of course, I've heard that even longer ago, Niantic actually celebrated strapping your phone to a physical drone
The IR was done by a PR company initially, and Niantic really wasn't aware of how far players would go, in January 2013. Things have changed a lot. Same company managed to put fake images of selling X8s in the store into the IR when it was first released.
I'm all for "Drone Specific Play Modes". Doing things with drones that don't have any relationship to in-person activities. I still want to see drone-on-drone combat. 😁
I'm just very against 'justifying spoofing' by replicating capabilities in the drone for in-person activities. A "Drone Mission" as a completely separate thing that doesn't award a Mission badge etc, would probably be fine, but relatively pointless. The whole point of missions is to explore an area.
Ultimately, as a game you play on the couch, Ingress absolutely sucks, compared to most fare on an XBox or PS5. Attempting to expand to couch play would not only be a pale attempt, but would detract from Ingress' core gameplay, which is in-person play. Drone's have a place, and expanding things like traversing links or deploying from a key, would be an interesting adaption, but replacing in-person play with couchgress would just continue the downward spiral of less activity.
This is not true at all, you're literally just making up straw man arguments. NO ONE is suggesting that we be allowed to do full missions by drones.
Please do us all a favor and stop talking.
You don't get to gatekeep who can reply and who can't. And yes, people are proposing exactly that, because that's the end result of allowing drones to complete mission objectives. Just because you don't want to think about it doesn't mean it's not true. Without significant limitations on what drones could or couldn't complete in a mission, then completing the entire mission by drone is exactly what will happen.
This is the part of the argument when someone from Niantic steps in and gives us a god damn update. Tell us what you’re thinking. What you’re planning. Tell us this will never happen. Save us from arguing amongst ourselves. Why is it so difficult to communicate. You’re not doing anyone any favors by hiding behind this excuse of being too busy. Get real.
This is the exact kind of discussion that Niantic is looking for, though. Brian said so in the September 2020 AMA:
> We’ve discussed different ways to enable Agents to play from anywhere with Dronenet. I think it’s important that Agents who physically travel to a Portal are able to do above and beyond what an Agent using a Drone is able to, which is why Drone Mark I is limited to hacking and Glyph hacks. We’ve been discussing what a Mark II or Mark III could potentially become, and if you have ideas please let us know in the forum.
The drone is a feature that the devs are building around community feedback. They threw the Mk I out there, and said "okay, what do you want to do with this?" The only real stated restriction is that a player using a drone should not have all of the same actions as a player physically at a Portal. From there, they design around what the community wants and suggests. For all we know, this thread could cause them to tweak their development plans for an eventual Mark II release. Or maybe it won't, and they're happy with the current features but don't want to say anything definitive in case they change their minds later on.
I'm with you, I want Niantic employees to share more information and be more candid about development and the plans they've already committed to (*cough* scanning *cough*), but for something like drones, Niantic has been pretty forward about developing to how the community sees appropriate.
We’ve rehashed this specific argument multiple times and there has been countless other discussions regarding drone development. I feel like we’re beating a dead horse at this point. Let’s get some feedback, let’s get some back and forth. Let’s communicate...
Here's an idea for a new store item: A single-use Mission Assist Drone that gives an agent credit for hacking a mission waypoint. I am unsure what the sweet spot would be in terms of price. 1,000 to 2,000 CMU? I'd like a a strict one-hour cooldown that is shared with Drone Mark I and isn't affected by events such as the one we have right now.
Last year, I embarked on a banner that comprises 72 missions. On mission 14, I came across a construction site that blocked access to four waypoints. It took me two months and three visits to retire them. Meanwhile, I attended First Saturday events but gave up on doing the FS missions because the only way to reorder the medals would be to do them all over again. I'd hate for anyone else to go through such trouble when there's a possible solution that benefits both Niantic and the players.
I suggested adding an option to mission creator: for "hack" objective do the checkbox "drone hack allowed", disabled by default and for all existing missions. Also make a constraint that there should be at least one "real", not achievable by a drone, objective per mission. Or the other way around: there can be only one droneable objective, all others real.
Ability to fully pass a mission with a drone is nonsense and shouldn't ever be part of *real world* game.
You shouldn't be able to get a banner from somewhere you've never actually been to.
Jesus people, stop making this game easy.
Agree. As I said,
The argument of going against the merit of Ingress is egregious. Niantic never planned to have missions result in mosaics. Does that mean I should discourage people to play mosaics? The answer is obviously no but this game attracts such an odd mentality when it comes to gatekeeping. When we state "Niantic" in the span of this game - there's "Niantic Labs @Google" from 2010 to 2015 and "Niantic, Inc." since then.
A whole another issue is that Missions hasn't been touched since its launch in 2014. What the hell is Niantic's plan with them especially that Field Trip has ceased to operate?
It's a big step from "I can make patterns from the missions I complete" to "Let me sit on the couch".
Conflating the two is a straw-man argument and very egregious.
Something like this?
I lean more against being able to use drones during missions. However, I do see the utility in being able to use it when you're deep into a banner and you reach that one portal that is in a construction zone or otherwise temporarily inaccessible. It would have to be very limited and come with some pain. Perhaps you lose access to the drone for 72 hours or a week if you use it to complete a mission waypoint. Edit: and not allow more than one use per mission.
I would buy 1 special drone hack from the store, just to reach that inaccessible portal during a banner. Just a hack, no keys as output. Make it expensive enough, so it won’t be abused for ehhhh...
It’s literally his entire persona.
I am not in favor of allowing the drone to hack “inaccessible portals” just to complete missions that allow agents to complete banners and help them achieve spec ops badge. An aspect of the Ingress Prime that I found challenging and interesting is completing missions. Sure, there were portals during the last mission of a certain banner that I thought were inaccessible. Like a center/museum located in a university that was closed due to the pandemic, but I walked around the building and was able to reach those portals. It was rewarding and satisfying to physically complete those missions because it contributed to the gold specs badge I got. It would not be as satisfying to complete a banner or be deserving of a specs op badge using a drone. There is a reason why physically completing missions are tied to the spec ops badge.