Maybe something like cool down time increasing at each hack, like:
1: 90s, 2:120, 3:150 up to 300again. This would keep gameplay fast for those on the run, but for extensive farming would still require use of heatsink.
So if you just need an extra key, waiting 90s is enough, but if you want several keys, you would need to build up a farm with MH and HS to not waste your entire day hacking, Just like it was before.
Why? They shouldn’t change anything because it just isn’t required. There is nothing wrong with Ingress the way it is right now. (Well, apart from the bugs and latency.)
Listing a handful of handy GDC talks and articles that essentially go over the need to wait in video games.
They explain the nuance need for a game like Ingress to slow down, as Ingress is already a fast paced game, to make informed choices, to value each game asset.
The only mention of Ingress I saw was the part about the guardian badge, which has nothing to do with cooldown time. Most of the games mentioned in your articles are not "like" Ingress because you can play them from home. Waiting around for 5 minutes in public is not even close to the same as waiting around 5 minutes in the comfort of your own home.
Ingress already has plenty of mechanisms that make us wait and aren't questioned. We have to wait 4 hours after burning out a portal to hack it again. We have to wait an hour to move our drones. We have to wait an hour for inoculation to wear off after a virus. We have to wait on the checkpoint timer to make decisions on throwing or taking down a field. And at least with those longer wait times, I can go home or do something else and come back later.
That "Different Take on Turn In Timers" is literally the exact opposite of what we're talking about here. That article is about forcing the player to make a decision because they might otherwise be paralyzed by the options available to them.
In the situations we're discussing in this thread, we've already made a decision -- namely, to hack again. Ingress is stopping us from carrying out that decision.
Even just now, I would not say ingress is fast paced, there might be little bursts where you're racing against the clock for a checkpoint, either throwing up your own fields or stopping someone else's, but fir the most part, it's either a walk round leisurely microfielding or patient planning. Even if we were to say it is fast paced, allowing it down does not help that, it males it worse. As was pointed out most of those games are ones to be played in the house or the like, ingress is an active in the real world game, so sitting about doing nothing for 5 minutes does not help it at all, it just breeds boredom and resentment
And still, you have not said anything to go against the pros of the 90 second cool down even if your "arguments" had more weight behind them, they still wouldn't cancel out all the pros of 90 seconds
Did you even read those articles, or are you just linking random pages?
Video: At 14:06 "we don't get any benefit from a game unless we pay full and complete attention to it", numerous times throughout this thread people have said that they switch to other games or things to wait for a five minute cooldown, that is Niantic losing engagement (even if it is to other Niantic games). However, with a shorter cooldown people will be more inclined to wait and play Ingress (greater engagement).
This blog article is completely irrelevant, it's more about tension in a game. Ingress's tension comes from the time it takes to perform things, the more time, the more tension, but also the more frustration from players having to be forced to wait around, and thus losing engagement. Adding a cooldown timer in-game might be helpful (there are other apps for that), but if you are forced to wait for 5 minutes, it doesn't really increase tension, just boredom.
Mostly irrelevant also. I mentioned earlier I've spent a lot of money on Battle Beacons, if the cooldown is reduced, this is likely to drop as more time is then forced to wait to get keys, rather than playing the game. What does that mean for Niantic, lose of engagement and income! That's bad business.
Loss aversion describes the tendency for humans to continue investing in something that is not working
Well, that's Ingress in a nut shell lol Thanks Niantic :P
The time-discounted utility theory is used in economics to describe subjective devaluation of outcomes as a function of time delay until delivery, where immediate rewards are more highly valued and more strongly influence our behavior than delayed rewards
This article gives greater support to the argument that the cooldown should be kept at 90 seconds, as people have changed, technology has changed, expectations have changed, etc. People don't have 5 minutes to waste any more, there is so much more to do - which is again, the risk of losing engagement.
Now what would a business prefer, keeping engagement high, thus keeping people in the game longer, with the potential of more spend? Or force people to quit or lose engagement by increasing arbitrary wait times and lose out on potential income?
At the end of the day, Ingress is just a mobile game, it has a lot more competitors today than what it used to 9 years ago. Diminishing playerbase has been happening for a long time, if you want the game to survive, the playerbase needs to grow and the only way for that to happen is to keep people engaged (and also fix all the bugs / listen to players lol).
If one wants a slower-paced game that reflects decision-making skills, one needs to play chess, scrabble, or monopoly. Ingress Prime requires quick decision-making skills wherein one has to adapt and strategize to the constant changes in the field.
Nothing in that video or the article speaks to 90 v 300, other than the general fact that it matters, a lot, how a game uses time/timers.
No one here is arguing that it should be sped up from 90s, or that burnout should be eliminated because we want our hacking reward fix more more more and faster faster faster.
It's true that faster isn't always better, but then neither is slower. We’ve had almost 2 years of testing of 90s cooldown and no one here has presented any clear cons to the change.
Actually there was one clear argument in the video to keep it at 90 (or close to it): that Niantic has created an expectation of 90s in players (again, it’s been almost 2 years) and risks losing them if they revert to 300.
90s is a Covid accommodation. If there was talk of moving it back that should be on hold because of Omicron. If Omicron didn't happen, a case could be made to go back to 2019 in q2. I think it has been pushed back because of the Omicron variant locking down areas that must be up in order for return to 2019 rules to return.
With a 5-minute cooldown, it takes 15 minutes to get four hacks: hack1 - 5 minutes - hack2 - 5 minutes - hack3 - 5 minutes - hack4. Merely a technicality - it's still annoying at 15 minutes.
To EVERYONE: You're looking from the wrong viewpoint (as the agent). Niantic made 5-minute cooldown for themselves (not gameplay) - to prevent overloading their 2014 servers. The timer is downloaded as part of the phone app. If you try to hack in less than the cooldown, you are blocked right at your phone, and don't even go to Niantic.
So... Why would Niantic want to go back to a 5-minute cooldown?
Maybe they're hoping that could reduce/eliminate the cursed lagg.
Maybe they think agents will be more outraged by the lagg than by an extended cooldown.
From what I've heard, kag always existed, even before the 90 seconds. My guess is they want to go back to 5 minutes so they can have an easy event "bonus" like they did with double r8 deploy, it's exactly what a company like niantic is like, qol as an event bonus rather than just keeping them
Whaha if that would really cause lag that would be stupid. Prime has the option to spam the link button, this will send way more server requests than hacking every 90 seconds.
90-seconds cooldown is for me still the main motivator to even put up some fields, otherwise I would just destroy/cap because I don't have the time to spend waiting for cooldown during lunch breaks.
Of course this doesn't cause the lag. The timer is queried from the server, no way the timers are client side.
In any case, increasing the hack timer will impact the active player count in a negative way, it will be the beginning of the end, the past two years have been great example of the negative impact the decreased waiting time has, literally nothing. Increasing the hack timer would be a mistake, no matter what everyone will bring as an 'argument'. Not one good/valid reason has been given to increase the wait time between hacks.
In the Promoted page stating January to March 2022 events, the last paragraph states:
Starting this quarter, each quarter, we will evaluate the following temporary changes added in early 2020 to determine their impacts on gameplay while considering real world circumstances:
Number of Level 7 Resonators deployed per Portal by Level 7+ Agents return to its original 1 deploy count, down from 2 deploys per Portal
Portal cooldown between hacks to be adjusted up from 90 seconds
Portal recharge AP to return to its original value of 10 AP, down from 65 AP
Agents will be given two to four weeks' notice if and when any updates are made to the temporary changes.
So, there is a possibility that the cooldown between hacks will be bumped up from 90 seconds. 😑
@Niantic Keep the portal cooldown to 90 sec the way it is now or we flip tables like the PoGo people. You can keep your extra lvl 7 resonator. Also, you either made power cubes give less XM or increased the XM meter to sell more power cubes in the store, didn’t you? 😏
Comments
There's an argument here? I see someone trying to insult the fanbase because they don't like change.
Keep 90s, remove HS from the game.
Maybe something like cool down time increasing at each hack, like:
1: 90s, 2:120, 3:150 up to 300again. This would keep gameplay fast for those on the run, but for extensive farming would still require use of heatsink.
So if you just need an extra key, waiting 90s is enough, but if you want several keys, you would need to build up a farm with MH and HS to not waste your entire day hacking, Just like it was before.
Why? They shouldn’t change anything because it just isn’t required. There is nothing wrong with Ingress the way it is right now. (Well, apart from the bugs and latency.)
Listing a handful of handy GDC talks and articles that essentially go over the need to wait in video games.
They explain the nuance need for a game like Ingress to slow down, as Ingress is already a fast paced game, to make informed choices, to value each game asset.
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/a-different-take-on-turn-timers
http://gamestudies.org/2103/articles/toh
hs are still usefull, instant deburn + 27sec CD is awesome
The only mention of Ingress I saw was the part about the guardian badge, which has nothing to do with cooldown time. Most of the games mentioned in your articles are not "like" Ingress because you can play them from home. Waiting around for 5 minutes in public is not even close to the same as waiting around 5 minutes in the comfort of your own home.
Ingress already has plenty of mechanisms that make us wait and aren't questioned. We have to wait 4 hours after burning out a portal to hack it again. We have to wait an hour to move our drones. We have to wait an hour for inoculation to wear off after a virus. We have to wait on the checkpoint timer to make decisions on throwing or taking down a field. And at least with those longer wait times, I can go home or do something else and come back later.
That "Different Take on Turn In Timers" is literally the exact opposite of what we're talking about here. That article is about forcing the player to make a decision because they might otherwise be paralyzed by the options available to them.
In the situations we're discussing in this thread, we've already made a decision -- namely, to hack again. Ingress is stopping us from carrying out that decision.
You Need to watch it again.
It's a text article. There's nothing to watch. 🤨
Even just now, I would not say ingress is fast paced, there might be little bursts where you're racing against the clock for a checkpoint, either throwing up your own fields or stopping someone else's, but fir the most part, it's either a walk round leisurely microfielding or patient planning. Even if we were to say it is fast paced, allowing it down does not help that, it males it worse. As was pointed out most of those games are ones to be played in the house or the like, ingress is an active in the real world game, so sitting about doing nothing for 5 minutes does not help it at all, it just breeds boredom and resentment
And still, you have not said anything to go against the pros of the 90 second cool down even if your "arguments" had more weight behind them, they still wouldn't cancel out all the pros of 90 seconds
Did you even read those articles, or are you just linking random pages?
Video: At 14:06 "we don't get any benefit from a game unless we pay full and complete attention to it", numerous times throughout this thread people have said that they switch to other games or things to wait for a five minute cooldown, that is Niantic losing engagement (even if it is to other Niantic games). However, with a shorter cooldown people will be more inclined to wait and play Ingress (greater engagement).
This blog article is completely irrelevant, it's more about tension in a game. Ingress's tension comes from the time it takes to perform things, the more time, the more tension, but also the more frustration from players having to be forced to wait around, and thus losing engagement. Adding a cooldown timer in-game might be helpful (there are other apps for that), but if you are forced to wait for 5 minutes, it doesn't really increase tension, just boredom.
Mostly irrelevant also. I mentioned earlier I've spent a lot of money on Battle Beacons, if the cooldown is reduced, this is likely to drop as more time is then forced to wait to get keys, rather than playing the game. What does that mean for Niantic, lose of engagement and income! That's bad business.
Loss aversion describes the tendency for humans to continue investing in something that is not working
Well, that's Ingress in a nut shell lol Thanks Niantic :P
The time-discounted utility theory is used in economics to describe subjective devaluation of outcomes as a function of time delay until delivery, where immediate rewards are more highly valued and more strongly influence our behavior than delayed rewards
This article gives greater support to the argument that the cooldown should be kept at 90 seconds, as people have changed, technology has changed, expectations have changed, etc. People don't have 5 minutes to waste any more, there is so much more to do - which is again, the risk of losing engagement.
Now what would a business prefer, keeping engagement high, thus keeping people in the game longer, with the potential of more spend? Or force people to quit or lose engagement by increasing arbitrary wait times and lose out on potential income?
At the end of the day, Ingress is just a mobile game, it has a lot more competitors today than what it used to 9 years ago. Diminishing playerbase has been happening for a long time, if you want the game to survive, the playerbase needs to grow and the only way for that to happen is to keep people engaged (and also fix all the bugs / listen to players lol).
If one wants a slower-paced game that reflects decision-making skills, one needs to play chess, scrabble, or monopoly. Ingress Prime requires quick decision-making skills wherein one has to adapt and strategize to the constant changes in the field.
Nothing in that video or the article speaks to 90 v 300, other than the general fact that it matters, a lot, how a game uses time/timers.
No one here is arguing that it should be sped up from 90s, or that burnout should be eliminated because we want our hacking reward fix more more more and faster faster faster.
It's true that faster isn't always better, but then neither is slower. We’ve had almost 2 years of testing of 90s cooldown and no one here has presented any clear cons to the change.
Actually there was one clear argument in the video to keep it at 90 (or close to it): that Niantic has created an expectation of 90s in players (again, it’s been almost 2 years) and risks losing them if they revert to 300.
That's not an argument. Try again.
90s is a Covid accommodation. If there was talk of moving it back that should be on hold because of Omicron. If Omicron didn't happen, a case could be made to go back to 2019 in q2. I think it has been pushed back because of the Omicron variant locking down areas that must be up in order for return to 2019 rules to return.
With a 5-minute cooldown, it takes 15 minutes to get four hacks: hack1 - 5 minutes - hack2 - 5 minutes - hack3 - 5 minutes - hack4. Merely a technicality - it's still annoying at 15 minutes.
To EVERYONE: You're looking from the wrong viewpoint (as the agent). Niantic made 5-minute cooldown for themselves (not gameplay) - to prevent overloading their 2014 servers. The timer is downloaded as part of the phone app. If you try to hack in less than the cooldown, you are blocked right at your phone, and don't even go to Niantic.
So... Why would Niantic want to go back to a 5-minute cooldown?
The portal hack timer is implemented at the server.
You're really trying to defend yourself in the oddest ways. Read the room.
From what I've heard, kag always existed, even before the 90 seconds. My guess is they want to go back to 5 minutes so they can have an easy event "bonus" like they did with double r8 deploy, it's exactly what a company like niantic is like, qol as an event bonus rather than just keeping them
2014 servers, huh? I need to get some 8 candles for the celebration cake. 🎂
Whaha if that would really cause lag that would be stupid. Prime has the option to spam the link button, this will send way more server requests than hacking every 90 seconds.
90-seconds cooldown is for me still the main motivator to even put up some fields, otherwise I would just destroy/cap because I don't have the time to spend waiting for cooldown during lunch breaks.
Of course this doesn't cause the lag. The timer is queried from the server, no way the timers are client side.
In any case, increasing the hack timer will impact the active player count in a negative way, it will be the beginning of the end, the past two years have been great example of the negative impact the decreased waiting time has, literally nothing. Increasing the hack timer would be a mistake, no matter what everyone will bring as an 'argument'. Not one good/valid reason has been given to increase the wait time between hacks.
If they really insist on doing an event based on hack cooldown time, they can just keep 90s and do an event with no cooldown between hacks.
In the Promoted page stating January to March 2022 events, the last paragraph states:
Starting this quarter, each quarter, we will evaluate the following temporary changes added in early 2020 to determine their impacts on gameplay while considering real world circumstances:
Agents will be given two to four weeks' notice if and when any updates are made to the temporary changes.
So, there is a possibility that the cooldown between hacks will be bumped up from 90 seconds. 😑
Here's the link: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/17664/january-march-2022-events-schedule-the-kureze-effect
Which is exactly why this thread was created in the first place 😉
In the midst of Flurona (Influenza + SARs-CoV-2 (Omicron)) out there....smh
@Niantic Keep the portal cooldown to 90 sec the way it is now or we flip tables like the PoGo people. You can keep your extra lvl 7 resonator. Also, you either made power cubes give less XM or increased the XM meter to sell more power cubes in the store, didn’t you? 😏
The XM capacity increases when you level up.
Obviously, but not when you’ve been lvl 16 for 7+ years. 😏