People care about their profiles, how they appear to others and all that, the medals that are and aren't there.
Some of these people will be interested in a particular anomaly medal. They will ask, "how can I obtain it?" If they have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for travel, they will ask, "what can I do to make it worth it?" Some of that is on Niantic, to provide gameplay that's more compelling to be a part of on-site, taking into account the cost of travel, than the alternatives. Some of that is on the Agent, to try things other than twiddling their thumbs waiting for the trip back home.
Failure on either side of that equation leads to disappointment, especially if those dollars have already been paid.
suddenly, after 9 years of bad decisions, one thinks that maybe 2 years of forced pause could have created something cool...but NIA confirms it's being.
good job for the new facepalm decision you have taken.
After leaving the game since Prime came out, and coming back in very recently, I can see Niantic's attention to players hasn't changed one bit. Last minute decisions that literally 90% of players dislike. They will just never care.
The fact this game still has active players is mind boggling to me, after everything Nia has done to literally **** it time and time again.
As someone who had no plans to go to Munich, I sympathize with everyone who shelled out money for travel and lodging after Niantic led people to believe that this event would be exclusive to Munich. It's unbelievable the knack this company has for alienating people time and time again, and then leaving us to shout into the void about it.
I'd have been fine not getting the Superposition medal. I've been to many anomalies, I've also missed several. That's life. Very few people get to every single anomaly. Not everybody needs to get every single anomaly badge. So far all I'm seeing is that agent-deployed battle beacons are low-lying fruit that undermines on-site and other remote participation.
By making this decision, Niantic has put themselves in a position where a reversal will create another sh*tstorm with many who stand to benefit from the decision. I think the two-tiered badge solution would be the likeliest off-ramp for them if they gave a **** about their player base, but it seems like they're going with "ignore the problem until it goes away."
Thank you everyone for your feedback re: Superposition in Munich! While I won't respond to individual posts or other messages, I am reading all of your feedback here and in various other places and sharing it with the team.
Please note that the Q3 list of events is, as has always been, a summary of the events that are happening in the quarter and not necessarily every detail - that includes the Munich event.
A separate announcement will be made soon with more Munich details.
There is no acknowledgement here of community concerns.
Is this like the feedback on the Niantic Community Day where people on the ground still do not know about Ingress despite "feedback to the team" ?
When is SoonTM ?
PS: Will the separate announcement be on Twitter, Niantic Web Site, some IM platform, Slack, here, pushed in game, or in the events section of the forum?
I am a relatively new player, i havent attended the pre covid anomalies where it was a big event where a lot of people travelled from all over the place and i was looking forward to atleast participating in that event once.
But after covid they changed the rules so that even local players can get the badge by interacting with 10 BB, which in my opinion is a good decision. The game is global and even though i would love to meet all the players and attend a big event, its always not feseable.
Majority of people getting annoyed is because they are about to travel for a badge which others can get from their local playzone. But think about it in the perspective of the players who want to travel but cant because of various reasons. The BB interaction will be a good idea for that playerbase.
In Niantic perspective, the players who spend thousands of dollars for ticket etc are spending very little for Niantic in the Anomaly sites. If i remember correctly they introduced a $25 pass in anomaly sites a while back. So if Niantic can get more people to spend money to purchase BB from store for participating in Anomaly locally, which option will niantic will go for ?
I am even ready to pay for some pass especially for anomaly which will guarentee a badge with some minimum gameplay requirements.
haha, all jokes aside, I’m wondering what you can do at this point. I mean people either made plans or cancelled, you wanna switch everything up again?
These are fair comments - I think the primary issue is the ease with which non attendees will be able to get the badge.
Normally, you had to attend site, interact in a connected cell, or, remote recharge etc. All were a fair bit of work.
There were often "trusted" PoC's who added people who deserved it, names to a sheet for badge push. This was quite often abused by some people who would just add their friends etc whether they did anything or not. I really disagree with this btw. You should contribute in a meaningful fashion.
Just deploying and hacking a BB in your local park? It's too easy.
Note the missing anomaly badges below. (Shonin was my first) I'm missing some due to not being able to contribute/attend.
I accept this, because I could not contribute. Throwing badges around just lessens the value of them and cheapens the whole experience.
I really hope that this will be soon and not soon(tm) - ie: 2 weeks before the event.
People need time to plan, book travel, hotels and prepare accordingly whether that be booking time off work, collecting/distributing keys, preparing teams or producing swag…
Even if there isn’t a final decision any updates that can be released and intermittently fed to the community may settle people a bit more and may help increase potential participation at the anomaly site. The decision to allow agent deployed beacons to award the anomaly medal may have lost agents who were undecided if they were going to attend or not on the ground.
I really hope you can come up with something special to counteract this poor decision (in my eyes) and offer a big incentive to get agents on the ground in Munich and make the anomaly the the extravaganza that it should be.
Throwing badges around just lessens the value of them and cheapens the whole experience.
I want to call-back to an old Alan Watts quote:
"Most of us would have rather money than tangible wealth... and a great occasion is somehow spoiled for us unless photographed... and to read about it the next day in the newspaper is oddly more fun for us than the original event. This is a disaster."
The badge is not the experience. The badge does not represent the experience. The badge is not a replacement for the experience. Having the badge does not confer any sense of superiority. The badge is just a marker.
The experience of a real anomaly is unparalleled in Ingress and even if you didn't get the badge, the experience is the thing that matters. If a thousand people who "weren't there" get the badge, it doesn't somehow lessen your experience. It doesn't make your efforts to win somehow smaller.
The obsession with the badge itself is one of the biggest issues in planning anomalies, and I still maintain they should go the route of many other games where simply playing during the period gives you the shiny. Not beacons. Not attendance at a limited event. Just "I played in Q3 '22".
Because when that happens, you can disconnect the angst between 'badges' and the experience, and no-one will care about the badge, and everyone will care about supporting their team and being present at the event.
i can call myself, than i from old time, but never also play anomalies before, but i hear, than that was a real action.
Looks like C19 change much more, even than C4 can change a local.
I think, it is normaly, than peoples, who travel to one city, like this time - Munchen, and take a part of that place, and game there got them badge, and if i stay at home, i don`t get. If i don`t have time, money, or other reasons, why i can`t travel, it is my own problem, and i don`t get badge.
I like to open other players Account and see, how active they are in real life, and not in own room, just to buy all same badge.
This in Ingress, and not PoGo, and i hope than the different of game still stay in here.
If i remember correctly they introduced a $25 pass in anomaly sites a while back. So if Niantic can get more people to spend money to purchase BB from store for participating in Anomaly locally, which option will niantic will go for ?
There's nothing stopping Niantic from doing this again. To keep Ingress going I pay for a C.O.R.E. subscription; I've got no problems paying Niantic $25 for a ticket to an event. I'm spending hundreds on flights and accommodation, I don't mind spending a little extra to go to an event; it's exactly like a concert ticket.
I want this to be something that people look forward to, get hyped up about, get involved in. I want people to be part of planning, key farming and be a part of this as a global experience that made this to much fun to be part of.
THE COMMUNITY IS THE REASON PEOPLE PLAY INGRESS. It's our newly found brothers and sisters; girlfriends and boyfriends; husbands and wives, and in some cases children. This consuming madness that we all love.
The big anomalies is a big reason we used to play, as much as some people hated doing orga for them, we did them because we love the game, and we're willing to do it again. Just give us something to play for.
@SSSputnik I absolutely agree with you that people care about their badges a lot. I am absolutely at the top of the list of people who care about their own badges. My personal quirk is that I never ever want to have a badge on my profile that I didn't earn. A specific anomaly example: I could have easily purchased an Initio T-shirt to support earthquake relief in Japan and gotten an Initio badge to go with it... I didn't because I wouldn't be comfortable having it on my profile.
What I don't understand is why people obsess about OTHER PEOPLE'S badges. There is no inherent scarcity in digital badges, so player X getting a badge doesn't mean that player Y will be denied one. It's a really weird form of gatekeeping for something that really has zero impact on the gatekeepers.
Years go by and things don't change with Niantic. They make announcements that users dislike, they make Ingress players angry and after that, maybe they make modifications, it's the most highly toxic relationship I've seen in the entire history of entertainment companies...
It's really very sad that they don't consult anyone beforehand, to find out what your customers think, to find out what they expect, what they want for the future of their favorite game. And if they consult about something, then they do the opposite.
Many of us love Ingress and it's our daily entertainment, don't **** it up.
PS: fix the lag, which is another thing that is killing Ingress.
On topic of badges I think it needs to be highlighted that not everyone needs to be able to get every single badge, after all it is just a badge. Just as not every game or event is for everyone, you can never please everyone, but you can provide different things for different people. The rewards need to match the challenge. Some people just want cosmetics to their profile in exchange of money and something easy, or they want to show their support to the game, that's fine to offer them. For others the badges are signs of conquering a big challenge, the more challenging the better it feels, it feels good to look at an old badge and go: I did that! To show it to a friend who can go: Wow you actually did that! Large part of challenging ingress badges is also the requirement to plan how to optimize your actions for the goal, people are naturally drawn to taking the easiest route and it's fun to compare how other people executed something. So making it optional to go for the difficult path is a bad idea.
Also as someone who's used to not being able to have hobbies or go anywhere, when I do go somewhere it definitely needs to feel worth it! I know people like me often whine about not being able to attend things but that's not because there's something wrong with the game, that's just on life itself, an easy free badge is not going to make it better.
In Finnish we have this fitting saying: "Don't cry ugly girl, take a raisin, it will make you uglier". It means a comfort reward will make one feel even worse about themselves.
An Annomalie had always been awarded a defined play zone. If you can get the medal anywhere without going to Munich, it is more of an event and you should call it a event.
Wir wollen unser altes Anomaliefeeling wieder haben, so wie es vor der Pandemie gewesen ist, und nicht so einen billigen Abklatsch.
Ingress ist für viele ein Bestandteil Ihres Lebens seit Anbeginn, mit Leidenschaft, Spass und vieles mehr.
Ich erinnere mich gerne an Meine erste Anno zurück Shonin Hannover, und seit dem bin ich auf vielen Anomalien gewesen. Habe ein tolles Team. Die Planung für Anomalien haben immer Spass gemacht, man hatte auf die Daten und Termine seitens Nia gewartet und sich so darüber gefreut das die Maschinerie Ingress Anomalie endlich starten konnte...
Ab diesem Zeitpunkt lief das Thema Anno an. Urlaub machen, Swag, Anreise, Übernachtung, Tagesablauf am Freitag, Anno am Samstag, Party am Abend mit Freunden und MD am Sonntag, Abreise. Das hat so Spass gemacht.
Das waren Annos, dafür ist man gerne gereist, ich glaube die Mehrheit möchte das wieder zurück haben.
The only surprise here is that you all are surprised by this.
Niantic has given up on this game. The PoGo-ification of Ingress is almost complete; sacrifice all gameplay in the name of shiny things and making money.
Challenges are now just excuses to collect more scan data. Anomalies are now just excuses to process more microtransactions. Pay for more inventory space, pay for badges, pay to win.
It's honestly sickening, and it's time to admit that the game we all fell in love with isn't the game we're currently playing.
The medal for everyone who contributes the global score is legit , stop complaining , seems like lot of people just going to Munich for some pixels and don't want that the other players has the opportunity to earn the medal.. ,thats sad , because the exclusive thing is the experience there fighting against the other faction with your friends , you can't do that in a normal day gameplay , and then a recharge room is ok but interact with battle beacons not ( that is easier for everyone than obtain keys from the playzone) come on ! .
I've been in several anomalies and playing there with my friends and faction players was the best experience for me , if you want something exclusive from the anomaly just do some cute banners .
And remember that you could earn some of the old anomaly medals just buying packs , so if you know someone who went there you could had it doing nothing...
Comments
easy fix for that - for Anomaly time unlimited range for recharge. Problem solved.
fair points for sure
People care about their profiles, how they appear to others and all that, the medals that are and aren't there.
Some of these people will be interested in a particular anomaly medal. They will ask, "how can I obtain it?" If they have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for travel, they will ask, "what can I do to make it worth it?" Some of that is on Niantic, to provide gameplay that's more compelling to be a part of on-site, taking into account the cost of travel, than the alternatives. Some of that is on the Agent, to try things other than twiddling their thumbs waiting for the trip back home.
Failure on either side of that equation leads to disappointment, especially if those dollars have already been paid.
suddenly, after 9 years of bad decisions, one thinks that maybe 2 years of forced pause could have created something cool...but NIA confirms it's being.
good job for the new facepalm decision you have taken.
This!
After leaving the game since Prime came out, and coming back in very recently, I can see Niantic's attention to players hasn't changed one bit. Last minute decisions that literally 90% of players dislike. They will just never care.
The fact this game still has active players is mind boggling to me, after everything Nia has done to literally **** it time and time again.
Oh, I think they're pretty active.
IFU is looking for a few good agents.
As someone who had no plans to go to Munich, I sympathize with everyone who shelled out money for travel and lodging after Niantic led people to believe that this event would be exclusive to Munich. It's unbelievable the knack this company has for alienating people time and time again, and then leaving us to shout into the void about it.
I'd have been fine not getting the Superposition medal. I've been to many anomalies, I've also missed several. That's life. Very few people get to every single anomaly. Not everybody needs to get every single anomaly badge. So far all I'm seeing is that agent-deployed battle beacons are low-lying fruit that undermines on-site and other remote participation.
By making this decision, Niantic has put themselves in a position where a reversal will create another sh*tstorm with many who stand to benefit from the decision. I think the two-tiered badge solution would be the likeliest off-ramp for them if they gave a **** about their player base, but it seems like they're going with "ignore the problem until it goes away."
If it took them this long to announce the plans, well...you're expecting miracles with a response back this soon
There's time to remedy the problem, acknowledging there is a problem would be a good first step though.
Thank you everyone for your feedback re: Superposition in Munich! While I won't respond to individual posts or other messages, I am reading all of your feedback here and in various other places and sharing it with the team.
Please note that the Q3 list of events is, as has always been, a summary of the events that are happening in the quarter and not necessarily every detail - that includes the Munich event.
A separate announcement will be made soon with more Munich details.
Keep it coming!)
There is no acknowledgement here of community concerns.
Is this like the feedback on the Niantic Community Day where people on the ground still do not know about Ingress despite "feedback to the team" ?
When is SoonTM ?
PS: Will the separate announcement be on Twitter, Niantic Web Site, some IM platform, Slack, here, pushed in game, or in the events section of the forum?
Hi,
I am a relatively new player, i havent attended the pre covid anomalies where it was a big event where a lot of people travelled from all over the place and i was looking forward to atleast participating in that event once.
But after covid they changed the rules so that even local players can get the badge by interacting with 10 BB, which in my opinion is a good decision. The game is global and even though i would love to meet all the players and attend a big event, its always not feseable.
Majority of people getting annoyed is because they are about to travel for a badge which others can get from their local playzone. But think about it in the perspective of the players who want to travel but cant because of various reasons. The BB interaction will be a good idea for that playerbase.
In Niantic perspective, the players who spend thousands of dollars for ticket etc are spending very little for Niantic in the Anomaly sites. If i remember correctly they introduced a $25 pass in anomaly sites a while back. So if Niantic can get more people to spend money to purchase BB from store for participating in Anomaly locally, which option will niantic will go for ?
I am even ready to pay for some pass especially for anomaly which will guarentee a badge with some minimum gameplay requirements.
“Community losing their minds”
Niantic: “Thanks for your feedback!”
haha, all jokes aside, I’m wondering what you can do at this point. I mean people either made plans or cancelled, you wanna switch everything up again?
yeah good luck with this dumpster fire
These are fair comments - I think the primary issue is the ease with which non attendees will be able to get the badge.
Normally, you had to attend site, interact in a connected cell, or, remote recharge etc. All were a fair bit of work.
There were often "trusted" PoC's who added people who deserved it, names to a sheet for badge push. This was quite often abused by some people who would just add their friends etc whether they did anything or not. I really disagree with this btw. You should contribute in a meaningful fashion.
Just deploying and hacking a BB in your local park? It's too easy.
Note the missing anomaly badges below. (Shonin was my first) I'm missing some due to not being able to contribute/attend.
I accept this, because I could not contribute. Throwing badges around just lessens the value of them and cheapens the whole experience.
I really hope that this will be soon and not soon(tm) - ie: 2 weeks before the event.
People need time to plan, book travel, hotels and prepare accordingly whether that be booking time off work, collecting/distributing keys, preparing teams or producing swag…
Even if there isn’t a final decision any updates that can be released and intermittently fed to the community may settle people a bit more and may help increase potential participation at the anomaly site. The decision to allow agent deployed beacons to award the anomaly medal may have lost agents who were undecided if they were going to attend or not on the ground.
I really hope you can come up with something special to counteract this poor decision (in my eyes) and offer a big incentive to get agents on the ground in Munich and make the anomaly the the extravaganza that it should be.
Can we finally stop this "we don't want to encourage travel yet" bs and make all announcements in detail EARLY please?
Throwing badges around just lessens the value of them and cheapens the whole experience.
I want to call-back to an old Alan Watts quote:
"Most of us would have rather money than tangible wealth... and a great occasion is somehow spoiled for us unless photographed... and to read about it the next day in the newspaper is oddly more fun for us than the original event. This is a disaster."
The badge is not the experience. The badge does not represent the experience. The badge is not a replacement for the experience. Having the badge does not confer any sense of superiority. The badge is just a marker.
The experience of a real anomaly is unparalleled in Ingress and even if you didn't get the badge, the experience is the thing that matters. If a thousand people who "weren't there" get the badge, it doesn't somehow lessen your experience. It doesn't make your efforts to win somehow smaller.
The obsession with the badge itself is one of the biggest issues in planning anomalies, and I still maintain they should go the route of many other games where simply playing during the period gives you the shiny. Not beacons. Not attendance at a limited event. Just "I played in Q3 '22".
Because when that happens, you can disconnect the angst between 'badges' and the experience, and no-one will care about the badge, and everyone will care about supporting their team and being present at the event.
I agree the experience is awesome.
But
People care about badges, a lot.
i can call myself, than i from old time, but never also play anomalies before, but i hear, than that was a real action.
Looks like C19 change much more, even than C4 can change a local.
I think, it is normaly, than peoples, who travel to one city, like this time - Munchen, and take a part of that place, and game there got them badge, and if i stay at home, i don`t get. If i don`t have time, money, or other reasons, why i can`t travel, it is my own problem, and i don`t get badge.
I like to open other players Account and see, how active they are in real life, and not in own room, just to buy all same badge.
This in Ingress, and not PoGo, and i hope than the different of game still stay in here.
I realy hope.
^^^^ This.
If i remember correctly they introduced a $25 pass in anomaly sites a while back. So if Niantic can get more people to spend money to purchase BB from store for participating in Anomaly locally, which option will niantic will go for ?
There's nothing stopping Niantic from doing this again. To keep Ingress going I pay for a C.O.R.E. subscription; I've got no problems paying Niantic $25 for a ticket to an event. I'm spending hundreds on flights and accommodation, I don't mind spending a little extra to go to an event; it's exactly like a concert ticket.
I want this to be something that people look forward to, get hyped up about, get involved in. I want people to be part of planning, key farming and be a part of this as a global experience that made this to much fun to be part of.
THE COMMUNITY IS THE REASON PEOPLE PLAY INGRESS. It's our newly found brothers and sisters; girlfriends and boyfriends; husbands and wives, and in some cases children. This consuming madness that we all love.
The big anomalies is a big reason we used to play, as much as some people hated doing orga for them, we did them because we love the game, and we're willing to do it again. Just give us something to play for.
@SSSputnik I absolutely agree with you that people care about their badges a lot. I am absolutely at the top of the list of people who care about their own badges. My personal quirk is that I never ever want to have a badge on my profile that I didn't earn. A specific anomaly example: I could have easily purchased an Initio T-shirt to support earthquake relief in Japan and gotten an Initio badge to go with it... I didn't because I wouldn't be comfortable having it on my profile.
What I don't understand is why people obsess about OTHER PEOPLE'S badges. There is no inherent scarcity in digital badges, so player X getting a badge doesn't mean that player Y will be denied one. It's a really weird form of gatekeeping for something that really has zero impact on the gatekeepers.
Years go by and things don't change with Niantic. They make announcements that users dislike, they make Ingress players angry and after that, maybe they make modifications, it's the most highly toxic relationship I've seen in the entire history of entertainment companies...
It's really very sad that they don't consult anyone beforehand, to find out what your customers think, to find out what they expect, what they want for the future of their favorite game. And if they consult about something, then they do the opposite.
Many of us love Ingress and it's our daily entertainment, don't **** it up.
PS: fix the lag, which is another thing that is killing Ingress.
On topic of badges I think it needs to be highlighted that not everyone needs to be able to get every single badge, after all it is just a badge. Just as not every game or event is for everyone, you can never please everyone, but you can provide different things for different people. The rewards need to match the challenge. Some people just want cosmetics to their profile in exchange of money and something easy, or they want to show their support to the game, that's fine to offer them. For others the badges are signs of conquering a big challenge, the more challenging the better it feels, it feels good to look at an old badge and go: I did that! To show it to a friend who can go: Wow you actually did that! Large part of challenging ingress badges is also the requirement to plan how to optimize your actions for the goal, people are naturally drawn to taking the easiest route and it's fun to compare how other people executed something. So making it optional to go for the difficult path is a bad idea.
Also as someone who's used to not being able to have hobbies or go anywhere, when I do go somewhere it definitely needs to feel worth it! I know people like me often whine about not being able to attend things but that's not because there's something wrong with the game, that's just on life itself, an easy free badge is not going to make it better.
In Finnish we have this fitting saying: "Don't cry ugly girl, take a raisin, it will make you uglier". It means a comfort reward will make one feel even worse about themselves.
An Annomalie had always been awarded a defined play zone. If you can get the medal anywhere without going to Munich, it is more of an event and you should call it a event.
Wow, besser kann man es nicht schreiben...
Ich hänge was ran und teile die Meinung...
Wir wollen unser altes Anomaliefeeling wieder haben, so wie es vor der Pandemie gewesen ist, und nicht so einen billigen Abklatsch.
Ingress ist für viele ein Bestandteil Ihres Lebens seit Anbeginn, mit Leidenschaft, Spass und vieles mehr.
Ich erinnere mich gerne an Meine erste Anno zurück Shonin Hannover, und seit dem bin ich auf vielen Anomalien gewesen. Habe ein tolles Team. Die Planung für Anomalien haben immer Spass gemacht, man hatte auf die Daten und Termine seitens Nia gewartet und sich so darüber gefreut das die Maschinerie Ingress Anomalie endlich starten konnte...
Ab diesem Zeitpunkt lief das Thema Anno an. Urlaub machen, Swag, Anreise, Übernachtung, Tagesablauf am Freitag, Anno am Samstag, Party am Abend mit Freunden und MD am Sonntag, Abreise. Das hat so Spass gemacht.
Das waren Annos, dafür ist man gerne gereist, ich glaube die Mehrheit möchte das wieder zurück haben.
Never Change a running System!
The only surprise here is that you all are surprised by this.
Niantic has given up on this game. The PoGo-ification of Ingress is almost complete; sacrifice all gameplay in the name of shiny things and making money.
Challenges are now just excuses to collect more scan data. Anomalies are now just excuses to process more microtransactions. Pay for more inventory space, pay for badges, pay to win.
It's honestly sickening, and it's time to admit that the game we all fell in love with isn't the game we're currently playing.
Credits to https://t.me/primememe 😂
The medal for everyone who contributes the global score is legit , stop complaining , seems like lot of people just going to Munich for some pixels and don't want that the other players has the opportunity to earn the medal.. ,thats sad , because the exclusive thing is the experience there fighting against the other faction with your friends , you can't do that in a normal day gameplay , and then a recharge room is ok but interact with battle beacons not ( that is easier for everyone than obtain keys from the playzone) come on ! .
I've been in several anomalies and playing there with my friends and faction players was the best experience for me , if you want something exclusive from the anomaly just do some cute banners .
And remember that you could earn some of the old anomaly medals just buying packs , so if you know someone who went there you could had it doing nothing...