I'm not a ****. Being bitten by mosquitoes or other bugs is not considered an adventure. I do not want other agents to suffer the same experience out there. Think about Lyme Disease or other insect-related bites. I wonder if someone was ever bitten by a snake by simply farming keys from an anchor.
With regards to the topic of rebalancing, Niantic already nerfed some items out there like the QC cap's ability to duplicate keys, unable to deploy a beacon and fireworks in one portal at the same time, etc. So, it is only right to keep the 90-minute cooldown time in between hacks as a permanent feature of this game.
I really have to disagree with this one. Glyphing to get more gear has a higher reward for effort, and an excellent game mechanic IMO. Twiddling my thumbs for five minutes isn't effort-- it's just a waste of time.
XMPs deal the right amount of damage for the time to get them
L6 to L8 Resonators have the right amount of health for the time to get them
You seem to be approaching this as though there's some objectively correct level of power for gear, and that is definitely not true. Having said that, an X8 deals the same amount of damage regardless of how long it took me to hack it.
What you really seem to be arguing is that the shorter cooldown makes the game more dynamic, while a longer cooldown makes it more static. That is almost certainly true. I would argue pretty strongly that a more dynamic game is objectively better, at least within the range that we're talking about here.
Not the very rare ones. It basically hack 10 count hack again rinse and wash until you burn out the portal. Being in range of two portals simultaneously becomes buffet table especially if the portal is 7+.
Not everyone has access to a cluster of portals suitable for farming. Some have to travel to a distant location. In that situation, the 5-minute cooldown isn't such a good idea. The pace with a 5-minute cooldown is perfect for agents who want to socialize and have tea and biscuits with someone. You might as well play bridge or bingo with the 5-minute cooldown.
Funny, you are doing the exact same thing by whining over an extended cooldown that only seems to be something older players like.
Whatever your FEELINGS may be, the balance does not change by adding wait time. If you think that has something to do with remote raids, or larger action circle you’re crazy. That are actually things that break game balance, getting to hack a portal faster does not.
This thread clearly shows most players prefer the fact that you have more actual play time instead of waiting (also nothing else to do in this game, unlike Pokémon.) and I’m all for it. Heck, if they change back the wait time to 5 minutes, they can say goodbye to most of the people that started playing during the pandemic. (Because there is literally no reason to extend the wait time. I know that is true because literally nobody came up with an actual reason to do so.)
Oh never mind. I should’ve kept reading. If you’re actually claiming XMP’s are “too strong” and “R6 to R8 become weaker” because you can hack faster, you really don’t seem to understand the impact. So the people without jobs and social life are always “too strong”. * sigh *
That’s a thought process of toddler.
You really seem to be under the impression that you’re listing valid reasons, but nothing changes besides the fact that if a player has the time, nothing changes. This only hurts the people that don’t have copious amounts of free time to begin with. It has literally nothing to do with balance no matter how many time you state the same things.
Players didn't demand for remote raids to be permanent, niantic said that was always going to be in game, just the pandemic brought it forward
The 80m rule, everyone says pogo players whined, but there was several good reasons why the players said it should be made permanent, with 2 being making it easier foe disabled players to play and safety in general. Even then, it was a good qol addition, just like 90s cooldown is.
you have yet to put forth a good reason why it shouldn't be 90s, your only argument is heqt sinks, which several people have said still work even now, and "game balance" which is such a vague argument, cause I could say the game is more balances now with less wait time
The reward for effort isn't any different, you still get the same amount of gear from 5 minutes or 90 seconds. The only difference is 90s gets you moving faster, 5 minutes means you have to sit and wait, doing nothing
People still use heat sinks even with the shorter cool down because they still want faster gameplay, so really, it's not that the 90s makes them redundant, it's that YOU feel they are now redundant
The resos and xmps make no difference if you get them faster or slower, I think you are reaching to try and get something else for your argument
But here's the thing you've failed to come up with arguments against the pros of the shorter speed time, which vastly outweigh the cons
The pros being
Faster gameplay
More moving around rather than standing in place waiting
Better when in adverse weather
Better when in awkward places (be it because of where it is, intermittent signal, bugs biting etc.)
More fun gameplay (it's a game, it should be fun, not a chore or boring)
Better for player retention and new players
Better for microfielding (and common heatsinks will have their use here, as people will want a key fast)
Better for preparing for fields (get keys faster so that tight time limits can be met)
The cons being, nothing. Literally nothing. I still stand around waiting at portals, even with VRMH and VRHS. I still consider them very powerful, and it’s not like I’m getting massive amounts of gear from that portal as it will be level 5.
Claiming higher level gear is worth less is just plain stupid, because you need more players, who can then in turn also hack, leveling everything out.
In any case, I’m curious to see how Niantic will proceed. The pandemic is most likely going to last until 2024, we’ve just been hit with a new lockdown.
I really don’t care about the other changes, changing the hack timer back is going to impact the active player count massively, I can’t imagine anyone who plays this game will want that to happen. And I sure hope Niantic doesn’t want that either.
Personally I wish they would keep the 2 l7 reso deploy, just cause there's bot enough players in general (even though it will benefit the frogs in my cell more cause there's more of them 🤣🤣). I enjoy getting relatively high level gear, I'd rather they keep the 2 r8 for events and leave the 2 r7 deploy alone, instead of making the 2 r7 deploy an event thing instead.
But the most important one is keeping the hack time down, genuinely if that leaves, I think I and many others will completely stop playing as it just makes the game slower and boring. Hopefully niantic have seem just how unpopular moving it back will be
To answer your fallacy, the extended range was done as part of COVID. Niantic had to create an "internal cross-functional team" to figure out the extended range was an actual quality of improvement and figure out COVID was still active in the world. Talk about tone deaf. If you think the players were in the wrong, you're just butthurt because Niantic thought they could ignore the users on a popular game.
I would say keep the 90 sec drone cooldown ! Waiting around for a long cooldown is just boring and of no interest for the players. I'm here to play now... not to play soon*.
And if you MUST put it back to 5 min, PLEASE do it gradually. Something like : 90 sec --> 2,5 min --> 3,5 min --> 5 min
As for the 2xR7, it will clearly force players to be better teamplayers. That is if they have a team around them, otherwise it will just penalize them.
Nope, players bombarded the devs to increase the range because they couldn't spin stops from their couch. Despite the fact that they could, and still get more than enough gear from gifts.
My argument still stands, and has been proven that the game balance and game economy has been irrevocably damaged.
Please consider the wider implications with regards to Ingress
@Hosette my passion for Ingress, over other games is still high, I am super time limited.
Not many players realise this, but Ingress has had a power cre-ep with new features.
* When power cubes were introduced
* Ultrastrikes
* levels 9 to 16 came in
* Glyphing was introduced
* Frackers
* DroneNet was brought into the game
These things meant that the dynamics of the game changed drastically as each came into effect. Changed players play behaviours. Many done the better.
I wasn't keen on glyph Hacking with the Drone, I felt that it took away from the efforts of physically going out to portals to hack. Then I realized that the nominal 1 hour between Hacks with it meant that my concerns with players not physically going to portals (if they can) wasn't really there
Thus did not raise this as a problem.
Year and a half later, truth is, the bulk of my gear now comes from using the Drone.
I just don't go out Hacking to farm gear like I used to. And have had to accept the fate that this dynamic is here to stay.
'You seem to be approaching this as though there's some objectively correct level of power for gear, and that is definitely not true. Having said that, an X8 deals the same amount of damage regardless of how long it took me to hack it.'
Yes, this "power level" exists otherwise we just have no levels for XMPs if you have access to only P7s then you value every single X7 and U7.
Same with level 8 gear, if the number of Level 8 portals you have access to is limited, then you value the gear that comes from them. It is so easy to forget how hard it used to be to have L8 XMPs. Even now, I don't throw away L8 XMPs when I can use L7s or L6s, as these portal levels are much more common around for myself.
At 90 seconds, it feels like throwing snowballs at wet tissue paper (cardboard when there are shields). I just don't feel any value in Wayspots, in XMPs, Resonators or Shields.
I can also go a lot into game theory, post up links to GDC talks which prove this point of having longer wait times, because we value our time in what we do.
To find ways, manage inventory, to reduce our time.
As I stated earlier, this is counterintuitive, we want it easier, faster, so there needs to be a way to slow it down, so that we VALUE our time when we play, and when the hack timers are shorter for example in events.
But also it balances out the strength, and weaknesses of the other items in our arsenal.
Additionally,
The tool the devs use for events includes changes to the timers for Hacking, drone Hacks, decay times, etc.
If we keep the 90 second cooldown, then that also means that future events can't offer shorter hack times as an incentive.
“I can also go a lot into game theory, post up links to GDC talks which prove this point of having longer wait times, because we value our time in what we do.”
Please do, and feel free to be specific. Demonstrate how a 90s cooldown is game theory unbalanced vs 300 s.
In my opinion , the key balance is the “4 hacks to burnout and wait 4 hours” feature. That can’t be significantly changed without unbalancing the game, and I think the MHs are well balanced for managing this.
90s only speeds up how quickly we reach burnout and so it doesn’t actually change the balance much at all.
Edit to add: Also, your statement that you now get most of your gear from drone hacks (1 hour cooldown) seems to strongly undermine your argument that a change from 300 s to 90s for in person hacks unbalances the game.
power cre-p exists, you listed enough examples to illustrate how easy it is to get the gear. However, you focus only on the farming part. Many agents here (myself included) like 90 sec cooldown as quality-of-life upgrade for (micro)fielding. Don't wait 5-10-15 min at single portal to get the keys (throw in wind, rain, snow, limited number of multihacks you can deploy to reset the timer, etc.). Get keys faster, move on, field more, get more done.
If the change is good for actually playing the game, and power cre-p is a concern - why balance it back exactly where it was before? Why not keep the 90 sec cooldown and find another way to balance farming?
Then, "that also means that future events can't offer shorter hack times" - very good! Personally, I see no reason to slow down game between events)). Events can be more interesting (matryoshka fields, etc. The R8 double-deploy goes here - enjoy level 8 portals for 2 weeks).
I can also go a lot into game theory, post up links to GDC talks which prove this point of having longer wait times, because we value our time in what we do.
To find ways, manage inventory, to reduce our time.
Well, yes. The longer I have to spend hacking for gear, the more I value it, and so the more I think before using it.
In practice, because I have a limited amount of time for Ingress, what that means is that I take fewer actions in game. I smash fewer portals. I make fewer fields. I play the game at a slower pace.
And I don't find as much fun in a slower pace for day-to-day play.
I can accept an argument that reducing cooldown to 90s with no other trade off will shift balance, at least a little. As I have argued above, this is limited by burn out. However, if Niantic concludes that an adjustment is needed I think it would be better to find other adjustments such as:
Reduce XMP and US from hacks
Increase cooldown for hacks 5+ (i.e. the extras from MH)
increase cooldown for high level portals
increase default cooldown but add a feature where you can get a 90s cooldown for a hack with reduced gear rewards (but not reduced keys!)
the "increase default cooldown but add a feature where you can get a 90s cooldown" can be a new glyph command, like, "key" glyph - only get keys, no gear, and reduced cooldown after this hack.
90s cooldown has had a positive impact in how much I've played.
I really enjoy microfielding and being able to hack for keys twice without stopping the walking/moving has kept me hooked.
Before these changes, when I had to wait, I'd move to other Niantic games or browse social media and eventually forget Ingress midway.
Now, the minute and a half (or half that when using heatsinks) is enough time to intercalate quick actions like double-checking Intel, recharging a few portals or manage inventory and then move to the next point.
The time we spent passively waiting is now transfered into active game actions and I think it made Ingress into a more pleasant game experience.
I agree with your statement that having a 90s cooldown made Ingress Prime a more active and dynamic gaming experience. As opposed to a 5-minute cooldown wherein one can also do other tasks like surfing the net or playing another video game. It would be a shame to forget Ingress Prime when one is absorbed in another video game. For video game developers, it's a tough market out there. Staying stagnant and accepting the status quo before (5-minute cooldown) will not help in attracting potential agents and retaining current players.
As for Mr. 5-minute cooldown Cassanova, can someone get him a New Year's date, it is almost New Year and he needs to let this issue rest..lol. Peace!
It does not shift balance, because it's the same for everyone. We all 'benefit', we can all play 'faster'.
I don't understand why anyone would want to increase the hack timeout. Even a little. If anything, all other changes have added up to the game being easier. The main reason Ingress is getting 'easier' is the ever increasing amount of portals. Yet everybody keeps requesting more, and that's fine.
This is the game evolving, if anything is making Ingress easier - and if you care so much about difficulty, I suggest taking a look at how to 're-balance this' - look at the increased storage, the fact that you can recurse and level up for more Loadout kits, the just insane amount of Hypercubes available, double R7 deployment (I agree, L6 portals by yourself and L7 with two agents is in fact too easy), etc.
The fact that there would be less to actually do in Ingress (more downtime during play) would hurt the player base and that would in turn be devastating for the game. (And no, portal scanning is not a viable option to do in between hacks, I play at night mostly, and during the day I don't really want to be 'filming' my environment as it's creepy in most cases.)
One of the simplest and most effective improvements in Ingress is the reduced cool down. Pray it will last! As countless agents already have pointed out, time is finite, and is better spent on actually playing Ingress, than waiting for a timer to expire. Some places standing around for 20 minutes is called loitering. The number of hacks and hack loot remain the same, so we are actually getting more time to spend it. So balance??? If anything, the balance between idling and activity has vastly improved.
Finally, Niantic has a new toy in the store called the VR BB that requires lots of keys. They will probably sell less of of the VRBBs if it´s going to take ages to hack keys again, so it would be strange of them to step up the cool down time.
You have yet to give an actual pro to 5 minutes, and you have yet to go against any of the pros of 90s, all you're doing now is seeming like an arrogant gate keeper rather than admit there is no actual reason to move it back to 5 minutes
Also, the spinning stops, while some people might have wanted a couch stop, but it had other uses, like helping out disabled players, helping with the anxiety of people that the pandemic has instilled in some people. There were other reasons as well, but at the end of the day, it was a qol upgrade, qol are not bad things, it's even in the name
The cooldown isn't the main contributor of too much gear making defending hard and shields invalid; get enough portals in a spot and cooldown is diminishing returns. Its: ITO- being overpowered with the counterpart ITO+ being trash (all you get is greens) combined with mods not being upgrade-able, double 7s, frequent double 8 events, drone events reducing cooldown, hypercube inflation meaning portals dont do diddly squat for meaningful damage back at the attacker.
Splash popping mods with XMP is way too easy honestly and the only reason why I can't say it should be nerfed to force people to ultrastrike to get rid of VR shields is because it would greatly increase the impact of restricted access portals which can only be splashed at like 100+ meters, which there are a great many.
Comments
Once you get Mr 5-minute cooldown Cassanova a New Year's date, this will cease. Good luck with that! 😀😂🤣
I'm not a ****. Being bitten by mosquitoes or other bugs is not considered an adventure. I do not want other agents to suffer the same experience out there. Think about Lyme Disease or other insect-related bites. I wonder if someone was ever bitten by a snake by simply farming keys from an anchor.
With regards to the topic of rebalancing, Niantic already nerfed some items out there like the QC cap's ability to duplicate keys, unable to deploy a beacon and fireworks in one portal at the same time, etc. So, it is only right to keep the 90-minute cooldown time in between hacks as a permanent feature of this game.
@Grogyan A few things...
Effort for reward is higher
I really have to disagree with this one. Glyphing to get more gear has a higher reward for effort, and an excellent game mechanic IMO. Twiddling my thumbs for five minutes isn't effort-- it's just a waste of time.
XMPs deal the right amount of damage for the time to get them
L6 to L8 Resonators have the right amount of health for the time to get them
You seem to be approaching this as though there's some objectively correct level of power for gear, and that is definitely not true. Having said that, an X8 deals the same amount of damage regardless of how long it took me to hack it.
What you really seem to be arguing is that the shorter cooldown makes the game more dynamic, while a longer cooldown makes it more static. That is almost certainly true. I would argue pretty strongly that a more dynamic game is objectively better, at least within the range that we're talking about here.
Not the very rare ones. It basically hack 10 count hack again rinse and wash until you burn out the portal. Being in range of two portals simultaneously becomes buffet table especially if the portal is 7+.
Where I am 5 minute waits for a portal means move on especially if there are more 7-8s nearby.
Pace of play under Covid has become different, but in my box it has only taken players off the board, not made ingress any less frenetic.
Not everyone has access to a cluster of portals suitable for farming. Some have to travel to a distant location. In that situation, the 5-minute cooldown isn't such a good idea. The pace with a 5-minute cooldown is perfect for agents who want to socialize and have tea and biscuits with someone. You might as well play bridge or bingo with the 5-minute cooldown.
90 second cooldown makes XMPs more powerful and resonators weaker? Don't pull a muscle going for that reach.
Funny, you are doing the exact same thing by whining over an extended cooldown that only seems to be something older players like.
Whatever your FEELINGS may be, the balance does not change by adding wait time. If you think that has something to do with remote raids, or larger action circle you’re crazy. That are actually things that break game balance, getting to hack a portal faster does not.
This thread clearly shows most players prefer the fact that you have more actual play time instead of waiting (also nothing else to do in this game, unlike Pokémon.) and I’m all for it. Heck, if they change back the wait time to 5 minutes, they can say goodbye to most of the people that started playing during the pandemic. (Because there is literally no reason to extend the wait time. I know that is true because literally nobody came up with an actual reason to do so.)
Oh never mind. I should’ve kept reading. If you’re actually claiming XMP’s are “too strong” and “R6 to R8 become weaker” because you can hack faster, you really don’t seem to understand the impact. So the people without jobs and social life are always “too strong”. * sigh *
That’s a thought process of toddler.
You really seem to be under the impression that you’re listing valid reasons, but nothing changes besides the fact that if a player has the time, nothing changes. This only hurts the people that don’t have copious amounts of free time to begin with. It has literally nothing to do with balance no matter how many time you state the same things.
Players didn't demand for remote raids to be permanent, niantic said that was always going to be in game, just the pandemic brought it forward
The 80m rule, everyone says pogo players whined, but there was several good reasons why the players said it should be made permanent, with 2 being making it easier foe disabled players to play and safety in general. Even then, it was a good qol addition, just like 90s cooldown is.
you have yet to put forth a good reason why it shouldn't be 90s, your only argument is heqt sinks, which several people have said still work even now, and "game balance" which is such a vague argument, cause I could say the game is more balances now with less wait time
The reward for effort isn't any different, you still get the same amount of gear from 5 minutes or 90 seconds. The only difference is 90s gets you moving faster, 5 minutes means you have to sit and wait, doing nothing
People still use heat sinks even with the shorter cool down because they still want faster gameplay, so really, it's not that the 90s makes them redundant, it's that YOU feel they are now redundant
The resos and xmps make no difference if you get them faster or slower, I think you are reaching to try and get something else for your argument
But here's the thing you've failed to come up with arguments against the pros of the shorter speed time, which vastly outweigh the cons
The pros being
Faster gameplay
More moving around rather than standing in place waiting
Better when in adverse weather
Better when in awkward places (be it because of where it is, intermittent signal, bugs biting etc.)
More fun gameplay (it's a game, it should be fun, not a chore or boring)
Better for player retention and new players
Better for microfielding (and common heatsinks will have their use here, as people will want a key fast)
Better for preparing for fields (get keys faster so that tight time limits can be met)
Better for just flash farming
The cons being, nothing. Literally nothing. I still stand around waiting at portals, even with VRMH and VRHS. I still consider them very powerful, and it’s not like I’m getting massive amounts of gear from that portal as it will be level 5.
Claiming higher level gear is worth less is just plain stupid, because you need more players, who can then in turn also hack, leveling everything out.
In any case, I’m curious to see how Niantic will proceed. The pandemic is most likely going to last until 2024, we’ve just been hit with a new lockdown.
I really don’t care about the other changes, changing the hack timer back is going to impact the active player count massively, I can’t imagine anyone who plays this game will want that to happen. And I sure hope Niantic doesn’t want that either.
Personally I wish they would keep the 2 l7 reso deploy, just cause there's bot enough players in general (even though it will benefit the frogs in my cell more cause there's more of them 🤣🤣). I enjoy getting relatively high level gear, I'd rather they keep the 2 r8 for events and leave the 2 r7 deploy alone, instead of making the 2 r7 deploy an event thing instead.
But the most important one is keeping the hack time down, genuinely if that leaves, I think I and many others will completely stop playing as it just makes the game slower and boring. Hopefully niantic have seem just how unpopular moving it back will be
To answer your fallacy, the extended range was done as part of COVID. Niantic had to create an "internal cross-functional team" to figure out the extended range was an actual quality of improvement and figure out COVID was still active in the world. Talk about tone deaf. If you think the players were in the wrong, you're just butthurt because Niantic thought they could ignore the users on a popular game.
I would say keep the 90 sec drone cooldown ! Waiting around for a long cooldown is just boring and of no interest for the players. I'm here to play now... not to play soon*.
And if you MUST put it back to 5 min, PLEASE do it gradually. Something like : 90 sec --> 2,5 min --> 3,5 min --> 5 min
As for the 2xR7, it will clearly force players to be better teamplayers. That is if they have a team around them, otherwise it will just penalize them.
You are wrong, very very wrong.
So wrong. That I cannot comment on your post as it it is so wrong in so many ways.
Nope, players bombarded the devs to increase the range because they couldn't spin stops from their couch. Despite the fact that they could, and still get more than enough gear from gifts.
My argument still stands, and has been proven that the game balance and game economy has been irrevocably damaged.
Please consider the wider implications with regards to Ingress
@Hosette my passion for Ingress, over other games is still high, I am super time limited.
Not many players realise this, but Ingress has had a power cre-ep with new features.
* When power cubes were introduced
* Ultrastrikes
* levels 9 to 16 came in
* Glyphing was introduced
* Frackers
* DroneNet was brought into the game
These things meant that the dynamics of the game changed drastically as each came into effect. Changed players play behaviours. Many done the better.
I wasn't keen on glyph Hacking with the Drone, I felt that it took away from the efforts of physically going out to portals to hack. Then I realized that the nominal 1 hour between Hacks with it meant that my concerns with players not physically going to portals (if they can) wasn't really there
Thus did not raise this as a problem.
Year and a half later, truth is, the bulk of my gear now comes from using the Drone.
I just don't go out Hacking to farm gear like I used to. And have had to accept the fate that this dynamic is here to stay.
'You seem to be approaching this as though there's some objectively correct level of power for gear, and that is definitely not true. Having said that, an X8 deals the same amount of damage regardless of how long it took me to hack it.'
Yes, this "power level" exists otherwise we just have no levels for XMPs if you have access to only P7s then you value every single X7 and U7.
Same with level 8 gear, if the number of Level 8 portals you have access to is limited, then you value the gear that comes from them. It is so easy to forget how hard it used to be to have L8 XMPs. Even now, I don't throw away L8 XMPs when I can use L7s or L6s, as these portal levels are much more common around for myself.
At 90 seconds, it feels like throwing snowballs at wet tissue paper (cardboard when there are shields). I just don't feel any value in Wayspots, in XMPs, Resonators or Shields.
I can also go a lot into game theory, post up links to GDC talks which prove this point of having longer wait times, because we value our time in what we do.
To find ways, manage inventory, to reduce our time.
As I stated earlier, this is counterintuitive, we want it easier, faster, so there needs to be a way to slow it down, so that we VALUE our time when we play, and when the hack timers are shorter for example in events.
But also it balances out the strength, and weaknesses of the other items in our arsenal.
Additionally,
The tool the devs use for events includes changes to the timers for Hacking, drone Hacks, decay times, etc.
If we keep the 90 second cooldown, then that also means that future events can't offer shorter hack times as an incentive.
“I can also go a lot into game theory, post up links to GDC talks which prove this point of having longer wait times, because we value our time in what we do.”
Please do, and feel free to be specific. Demonstrate how a 90s cooldown is game theory unbalanced vs 300 s.
In my opinion , the key balance is the “4 hacks to burnout and wait 4 hours” feature. That can’t be significantly changed without unbalancing the game, and I think the MHs are well balanced for managing this.
90s only speeds up how quickly we reach burnout and so it doesn’t actually change the balance much at all.
Edit to add: Also, your statement that you now get most of your gear from drone hacks (1 hour cooldown) seems to strongly undermine your argument that a change from 300 s to 90s for in person hacks unbalances the game.
@Grogyan
power cre-p exists, you listed enough examples to illustrate how easy it is to get the gear. However, you focus only on the farming part. Many agents here (myself included) like 90 sec cooldown as quality-of-life upgrade for (micro)fielding. Don't wait 5-10-15 min at single portal to get the keys (throw in wind, rain, snow, limited number of multihacks you can deploy to reset the timer, etc.). Get keys faster, move on, field more, get more done.
If the change is good for actually playing the game, and power cre-p is a concern - why balance it back exactly where it was before? Why not keep the 90 sec cooldown and find another way to balance farming?
Then, "that also means that future events can't offer shorter hack times" - very good! Personally, I see no reason to slow down game between events)). Events can be more interesting (matryoshka fields, etc. The R8 double-deploy goes here - enjoy level 8 portals for 2 weeks).
@Grogyan :
I can also go a lot into game theory, post up links to GDC talks which prove this point of having longer wait times, because we value our time in what we do.
To find ways, manage inventory, to reduce our time.
Well, yes. The longer I have to spend hacking for gear, the more I value it, and so the more I think before using it.
In practice, because I have a limited amount of time for Ingress, what that means is that I take fewer actions in game. I smash fewer portals. I make fewer fields. I play the game at a slower pace.
And I don't find as much fun in a slower pace for day-to-day play.
I can accept an argument that reducing cooldown to 90s with no other trade off will shift balance, at least a little. As I have argued above, this is limited by burn out. However, if Niantic concludes that an adjustment is needed I think it would be better to find other adjustments such as:
the "increase default cooldown but add a feature where you can get a 90s cooldown" can be a new glyph command, like, "key" glyph - only get keys, no gear, and reduced cooldown after this hack.
90s cooldown has had a positive impact in how much I've played.
I really enjoy microfielding and being able to hack for keys twice without stopping the walking/moving has kept me hooked.
Before these changes, when I had to wait, I'd move to other Niantic games or browse social media and eventually forget Ingress midway.
Now, the minute and a half (or half that when using heatsinks) is enough time to intercalate quick actions like double-checking Intel, recharging a few portals or manage inventory and then move to the next point.
The time we spent passively waiting is now transfered into active game actions and I think it made Ingress into a more pleasant game experience.
I agree with your statement that having a 90s cooldown made Ingress Prime a more active and dynamic gaming experience. As opposed to a 5-minute cooldown wherein one can also do other tasks like surfing the net or playing another video game. It would be a shame to forget Ingress Prime when one is absorbed in another video game. For video game developers, it's a tough market out there. Staying stagnant and accepting the status quo before (5-minute cooldown) will not help in attracting potential agents and retaining current players.
As for Mr. 5-minute cooldown Cassanova, can someone get him a New Year's date, it is almost New Year and he needs to let this issue rest..lol. Peace!
It does not shift balance, because it's the same for everyone. We all 'benefit', we can all play 'faster'.
I don't understand why anyone would want to increase the hack timeout. Even a little. If anything, all other changes have added up to the game being easier. The main reason Ingress is getting 'easier' is the ever increasing amount of portals. Yet everybody keeps requesting more, and that's fine.
This is the game evolving, if anything is making Ingress easier - and if you care so much about difficulty, I suggest taking a look at how to 're-balance this' - look at the increased storage, the fact that you can recurse and level up for more Loadout kits, the just insane amount of Hypercubes available, double R7 deployment (I agree, L6 portals by yourself and L7 with two agents is in fact too easy), etc.
The fact that there would be less to actually do in Ingress (more downtime during play) would hurt the player base and that would in turn be devastating for the game. (And no, portal scanning is not a viable option to do in between hacks, I play at night mostly, and during the day I don't really want to be 'filming' my environment as it's creepy in most cases.)
One of the simplest and most effective improvements in Ingress is the reduced cool down. Pray it will last! As countless agents already have pointed out, time is finite, and is better spent on actually playing Ingress, than waiting for a timer to expire. Some places standing around for 20 minutes is called loitering. The number of hacks and hack loot remain the same, so we are actually getting more time to spend it. So balance??? If anything, the balance between idling and activity has vastly improved.
Finally, Niantic has a new toy in the store called the VR BB that requires lots of keys. They will probably sell less of of the VRBBs if it´s going to take ages to hack keys again, so it would be strange of them to step up the cool down time.
You have yet to give an actual pro to 5 minutes, and you have yet to go against any of the pros of 90s, all you're doing now is seeming like an arrogant gate keeper rather than admit there is no actual reason to move it back to 5 minutes
Also, the spinning stops, while some people might have wanted a couch stop, but it had other uses, like helping out disabled players, helping with the anxiety of people that the pandemic has instilled in some people. There were other reasons as well, but at the end of the day, it was a qol upgrade, qol are not bad things, it's even in the name
The cooldown isn't the main contributor of too much gear making defending hard and shields invalid; get enough portals in a spot and cooldown is diminishing returns. Its: ITO- being overpowered with the counterpart ITO+ being trash (all you get is greens) combined with mods not being upgrade-able, double 7s, frequent double 8 events, drone events reducing cooldown, hypercube inflation meaning portals dont do diddly squat for meaningful damage back at the attacker.
Splash popping mods with XMP is way too easy honestly and the only reason why I can't say it should be nerfed to force people to ultrastrike to get rid of VR shields is because it would greatly increase the impact of restricted access portals which can only be splashed at like 100+ meters, which there are a great many.