ideas on the eternal BAF

GorillaSapiensGorillaSapiens ✭✭✭✭✭

several ideas occurred to me today to deal with the "eternal BAF" problem. (large persistent fields anchored by unicorn portals, killing play under the field)

(several ideas listed, any of which would deal with the problem)

(*) make matryoshka rules permanent (change rules to allow linking/fielding under fields)

(*) make fields decay at a rate proportional to their MUs (portals/links of big fields decay faster, rate can be changed to make city/region crippling fields unsustainable)

(*) add a new type of weapon that damages any links within action range (allow players to attack long links without being near their unicorn endpoints)

(*) add a new type of weapon that damages any fields you are currently under (allow players to attack large fields without being near their unicorn anchors)

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Comments

  • I personally think the first one will destroy the game.

    However, I'm on board with the others, and have discussed them multiple times over the years. The additional one which actually would have the greatest effect, is Quantum Capsules not reproducing keys.

  • VenomousToadVenomousToad ✭✭✭✭✭

    Just allow linking under fields. It will make the perma fields less attractive. And get rid of quantum capsules altogether. Because of them people have dozens of accounts breeding gear. Not exactly how the game was intended. Players have almost unlimited gear with no effort. Kinda lame. And legit players have serious disadvantages. But that's ingress in a nutshell really.

  • edited March 2022

    a) They were specific limited events with a known endpoint.

    b) The long term effects of a change cannot be shown in a week long event. They opened up a temporary advantage because the situation they were counter to is not being addressed in any meaningful way.

    Personally if they changed this, I think it'd have the opposite effect. People would care even less about the score, and would leave large fields up permanently, because they aren't affected by them, and therefore the region scores would become meaningless because of whoever chose to make the biggest field, and apathy would set in further.

    Addressing fields that interfere with long term gameplay is important, but this one specific change that people keep repeating, would not have the desired effect, while making it even less engaging of a gameplay loop to compete as a team.

  • VenomousToadVenomousToad ✭✭✭✭✭

    Dynamic decay will just cost more cubes. I doubt anyone would let a large field just decay.

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2022

    Four agents redeeming the IFS@Home Master Code for the month gain 100 Hypercubes total, I believe?

    If one of those Agents happens to be L14+, that's enough Hypercubes to keep three L8 portals charged for the entire month, even with near 100% decay per day.

    Another way of looking at this: 3 L8 portals = 144k XM total energy = 18 L8 Power Cubes. I won't call that a trivial amount of Power Cubes, but it's also not a great burden to hack each day, especially if spread out amongst a few agents.

    So, for dynamic decay to actually become hard to keep up with, we're talking multiple decays per day for a total well in excess of 100% of the portal's max energy level.

  • Eventually it should be impossible to recharge beyond a certain point because dynamic leads to instant.

  • Part of the problem is things like whether that includes Disneyland. Niantic would have to identify exactly where on the site is employee accessible only and where is public access.

    Part of the reason for the criteria being how it is, is that enforcing it would become a nightmare in manpower.

  • DrHydrosaurDrHydrosaur ✭✭✭✭

    That depends on exactly how the dynamic decay is calculated. I have yet to see a specific proposal here where it reaches 100% decay in one step (although I think that’s what I think needs to happen to stop permanent BAFs).

    Which open up the question of do you apply this to all portals, just portals with fields, or just portals with BAFs (and what defines a BAF, exactly)?

  • GorillaSapiensGorillaSapiens ✭✭✭✭✭

    Or a new KIND of link amp that allows linking under fields (because more mods are fun)

  • GorillaSapiensGorillaSapiens ✭✭✭✭✭

    Up to a point. If the decay increases over time, eventually you'd get to the point where you'd need dozens of agents recharging constantly, and the field will fall.

  • KonnTowerKonnTower ✭✭✭✭✭

    Thankfully they are continuing to test/work on matryoshka. The people stating it will **** the game only think this because the people who have stayed are the ones who used it to push out competition.

    Please continue working on matryoshka. It's an important evolution of the game as the "network effect" breaks down and populations skew even further. The latest anomaly results show that the bulk of cells are lopsided.


    Play on a small scale should be encouraged while still allowing the scoremakers keep their big fields.

  • Permanent BIG fields are one kind of problem. There are a few of these in the world at a given time. Maybe 100, but less than 1000.

    Another kind of problem is pretty-big local fields, mostly because one faction is dominant (or has agents retired or something, with have plenty of time to build and rebuild). These are WIDESPREAD. Maybe tens of thousands at a given time.

    Either way, your faction or opposing, it's boring to play under. And really hard to convince new agents to stick around.

    With the more common scenario: matryoshka is no help at all. A link can't cross a link (enemy or friendly). Big Local Fields don't have enough portals under them, for either faction to do much fielding. Even a special mod wouldn't change that.

    Increased decay is a better option. Like, +5% for each incoming link. (Outgoing links show that the portal is reachable.) Or decay based on MU a portal holds, divided by 3, for each corner of the field.

    New weapon types are also a good idea.

  • BreenzyBreenzy ✭✭✭✭

    Disable portal recharging.

    Disable key duping.


    That's it. Fixed.

  • I think the difficulty of maintaining a P8 portal would make no recharging painful. We don't have the numbers in the game to expect people to rebuild it every week.

    But some sort of trigger that prevents recharging after a certain age of fields of a certain size hanging off it, might be interesting. This falls in line with the impossible decay rates though, without damaging farms or small fields.

  • BreenzyBreenzy ✭✭✭✭

    Maybe maintaining a P8 farm should no longer be a thing.

    Or a portal decays only max health. Attacking a portal early would be harder than waiting for a few days. Shields can slow decays rates (up to 2x)

  • XQlusioNXQlusioN ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2022

    I think the best option without the most impact would be to have different decay rates for resonators and links.

    Resonators decay but can be recharged (to maintain farms and strategic portals)

    Links also decay but can not be recharged (to ensure gameplay is more dynamic)


    I would set link decay to match checkpoints.

    Ie. After 5 CPs a link (and any field associated with it) decays.

  • edited March 2022

    Maybe maintaining a P8 farm should no longer be a thing.

    You're going to need to provide a replacement then. And usually when you start needing a string of fixes, that's an indication that the first one isn't right.

    Double deploy? Increase P7 drops of P8 gear? The existing damage to teamwork from Frackers and Glyphing would be compounded by a change that destroyed any idea of building farms ever again.

    No recharge would also have heavy impacts for things like actually building big fields, because you'd need people at every portal at the time of the field, making it far less likely for anyone to bother making the megafields that made the community excited for a global game in the first place.

  • KonnTowerKonnTower ✭✭✭✭✭

    I can see making a weekly item similar to the Pokemon "free raid pass". Make it so if 4 agents activate their weekly item together, they can build up a small P8 farm. 4 folks meeting up for a meal/drinks should, at this point in the age/progression of the game, be able to build and farm 8 gear without having to make P7s (aka the poor man's 8). But you need the limitation of time so they're not spawning tons of farms at-will. You also should have it so they all have to be there at the same time. No drive-bys or builds over time, encourage a meeting. Beers and farming!

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    Let's play what-if.

    Your hypothetical: You are someone who maintains a perma-BAF. Niantic changes the portal decay equations for field so that eventually you have to recharge the portals multiple times per day. How would you adapt to that so that your field was always up?


  • The problem is that these people will be the last ones out the door, not that they can easily adapt. The first people out the door are the ones who watch all their hard work decay immediately even though they're not trying to hold fields over others. Portal decay changes results in everyone's portals decaying. You have to target the field itself.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Perringaiden That doesn't answer my question. If it's your field how do you adapt?

  • I'm not trying to answer your question. I'm pointing out that you're ignoring the victims of the proposed change in your question's premise.

    Those people with permanent fields will be the same ones with backpacks of hypers and C8s and can maintain the fields long enough for everyone else to quit, then they have a free playing field to just put them up whenever they die.

    They adapt by pushing the last remaining other players out of the game so that this increase decay doesn't affect them.

  • DrHydrosaurDrHydrosaur ✭✭✭✭

    I posted elsewhere that the potential answer is to have resonators decay based on how old they are and the MU of their attached fields in a way that has a negligible effect on small fields but eventually makes a BAF portal decay instantaneously so that it’s impossible to maintain past a certain value of days*MU.

    something like:

    Decay rate = 15%*exp(sum(AGE*MU)/X)

    AGE = age in days of each field on a portal

    MU = MU of each field on a portal

    X is a very large number that needs to be calibrated but probably on the order of millions

    in the above equation, if sum(AGE*MU) is greater than 1.9X, the portal will decay at the next decay time even if fully charged

    A variant is the same exponential approach but implemented as a random probability the resonators self destruct.

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