haha nope! But it also shows that even after 10 years, theres still much to discover in this game! 😆
But I must say, I really admire the founders medal, it means you have been around for long, and have experienced the development of this game. Many of those have very interesting points of view. Not always the same thoughts as I, but they sometimes ser things we newbies cant.
Except when I don't care about the next portal.. when I want to farm this specific one. Or when the next portal is 100s of meters or even kilometers away.
Thank you for supporting the majority consensus - we should keep the cool down at 90 seconds.
Living in the greater rural Coachella Valley area, we often must drive or hike miles to get to the next portal. Sitting and waiting is extremely boring and therefore the hack cool down must NOT be increased.
If we're going to change the rules again (from the current status quo to anything else) then it should be trivial for folks in favor of such a change to tell us: "increasing delays and reducing agent play time will result in the following positive changes/benefits for the game: X, Y, Z."
Simply saying "we should revert because that's the way it was in the past" is nothing more than an appeal to tradition. (Should we also remove the drone, eliminate battle beacons and kinetic capsules, etc? That too would be a reversion to "the way things once were" so shall we blindly assume that would benefit the player base as well?)
I'm in favor of keeping the new cooldowns; I spend much less time sitting in my car and listening to the radio (waiting to hack more keys) and more time playing now. I think that's a positive change.
➡️ I'm completely open to having someone change my mind, however. But I'm still waiting for someone to list the benefits of increasing the delay. ⬅️
If it's such an obvious beneficial change, then if really should be quite simple for someone to give a better reason than "because that's the way it used to be." Yet that continues to be the primary reason I see listed by players advocating for it.
I listed a reason, even though I’m against the change. It’s a tactical advantage. I’m not willing to sit at a portal for twenty minutes and maybe get 4 keys, but someone else is and that will become an advantage in certain communities. With these Covid bonuses in place, it was easy to keep fields alive, restock keys and rebuild them 2 or 3 times a day, now, there will be a separation.
Myself, I’ve got much better things to do with my time, especially for a game whose devs mostly ignore its community anymore.
I appreciate your reply but it still doesn't quite fit the format I was hoping to see, eg:
"This will make the game better/help retain more agents/entice more new players/benefit the playerbase as whole because it will do the following: X, Y, Z."
I agree with you that this change will indeed provide a strategic/tactical advantage to the teams that already enjoy a numbers advantage in a given play area -- but that just begs the question (s): "how does this benefit the game? How does it encourage more play? What are the actual benefits of giving areas with lopsided team numbers an even stronger advantage than before?"
It feels like this would *discourage* play in areas that are already dominated by one faction. I'm struggling to understand how that benefits the game overall. (Unless the idea is "maybe if fewer people are playing, the server lag will be better?")¹
¹Obviously that last suggestion is meant to be sarcastic. At least, I hope it is?
You and I had a great discussion about this topic as a whole yesterday on the IEUNG telegram chat, but this is the first time I've seen you mention frackers, so I thought I might reply to that really quickly.
(But since we've already gone back and forth on the other topics you mentioned, I'll spare you a copy/paste of those comments here. ♥️)
The idea that a fracker would be *more* (and not less) useful for farming keys, when the cooldown is literally *half of the life of the fracker* strikes me as as bit odd. (Yes, I realize hack mods exist; I'm trying to keep the focus as narrow as possible here because God knows I'm wordy enough as it is!)
You stated that frackers have been "rarely used" in the past 2 years, and I'm curious what your source is for that claim. Because I know I (just one person, sample size of one, absolutely not claiming this is evidence of anything) have used frackers *much* more often in the past two years, given that they were actually *useful* for farming, even if you didn't have multiple agents at a given location.
Conventional wisdom in the past had always been that the cost of a fracker really wasn't worth it, unless you had multiple agents hacking the same portal at once. (Because the number of hacks you were going to enjoy any "bonus" on was just too low to justify the cost.) This has certainly changed in the past two years and I'd suspect the number of single agents buying and deploying frackers has been much higher lately than in the past.
Again, I don't have any data to back this up. But I think the claim that this change will encourage fracker use (and therefore increase Ingress revenue from them) is extremely dubious. (And lowering the price, as you suggested, wouldn't change their relatively low utility. So you'd just have fewer people using frackers at lower the cost -- so less income all around, no?)
Forgive me if I'm missing something (for example, if data on fracker use is actually available somewhere so we can test our respective claims/theories) and feel free to point me in the right direction if there's a source for any of this.
Pretty obvious why it doesn't. I csm give an example for how I was playing a couple of months ago, I would go to one anchor, vr heat sink and vr multi hack, burn it out, drive round taking out blockers, then go to the other anchor, do the same with that ine, then go through and walk down the spine fielding. All in all, depending on blockers, I would be done in 2 hours maybe 3. Now, that will add another hour to the game, changing the time at anchors from 10 to 15 minutes each to nearly half an hour each, so I'll be sitting about doing nothing for longer, therefore, I'm sitting about, not playing the game
Source of the claim of Frackers barely used, actually near zero in the last 3 years in the whole of New Zealand, after talking with dozens of players from all over the country on both factions.
I mentioned frackers multiple times on Telegram, and I have actually created a separate discussion as to reducing the cost of Frackers, and to include up to 2 in the CORE Subscriptions.
The math of the utility for key farming efficiently with frackers with the new cool down times, is sane and sensible. What isn't sensible, is that the cost of Frackers is absurd. Twice the cost of an Apex.
Outside of key farming, frackers these days have not much use, especially now that we have a Drone to farm gear at our leisure.
The last time I used a Fracker to farm gear was in Kuala Lumpur post Cassandra Prime Anomaly that was in Singapore, September 2018. I was meandering around KL as a holiday, but needed gear too.
I'm baffled by the "jUsT uSe hEaT sInKs" argument. I already am using heat sinks! Even with 90s cooldown, to bring it down to 27s cooldown. I can get my 4 key farm hacks done in about 2 minutes and move on. It's pretty great. I'm gone before I'm seen as a "loiterer." Doubling my time at the portal (or more), as this change will do, will just increase encounters with police or nosy people who want to know what I'm doing.
The 90s cooldown era also made fielding a lot less tedious. I made 24k fields in 6 years before 90s cooldown. In the last 2 years, I've made 20k fields and reached onyx mind controller. Mostly from micro-layering. It was a project that was a lot more appealing to undertake with 90s cooldown. There was a lot more incentive to field when I could get the keys I needed in maybe an hour rather than entire afternoon/evening.
Different cooldown for friendly and enemy/neutral portals seems like a good idea. Reducing the cooldown to 90s was another good idea, it should be kept at least for the friendly portals. Enemy/neutral portals cooldown could be higher -like 180s- to please the strategic thinkers. Anyway, I hope the decision can still be considered.
or just hack with multiple people without mods problem solved, keys should be hard earned i dont see a problem really its alot easier if u coordinate with your faction
I always expected the cooldown to increase at the end of September but was hoping I would be wrong or they’d at least only increase it a little. So I’m actually a bit relieved it didn’t completely revert to 300s, although I agree the different cool down for opposing portals may create its own problems.
I’ve said in earlier threads that 60-120s is what I consider a reasonable range for the unmodded cooldown time. Less than 60 would make VRHS effectively the same as RHS even at solo portals while more than 120s becomes a useless bore.
To those saying “use a HS”, I already do as 90s is a bore already.
To those saying “walk”, I play almost 100% on foot/bike and often the next portal is a 10 minute walk. Don’t assume everyone lives in an area with 100+ portals/km2.
If Niantic doesn’t back off from this decision I will cancel my CORE subscription in October, and I will bring it back if they come to their senses later.
Proposed compromise:
Allow 90s cooldown with a “key only” glyph mechanic similar to the current “more/less” and “simple/complex”.
Comments
Keep 90 seconds cooldown!
haha nope! But it also shows that even after 10 years, theres still much to discover in this game! 😆
But I must say, I really admire the founders medal, it means you have been around for long, and have experienced the development of this game. Many of those have very interesting points of view. Not always the same thoughts as I, but they sometimes ser things we newbies cant.
u can always move to next portals, standing still is kinda boring...
Except when I don't care about the next portal.. when I want to farm this specific one. Or when the next portal is 100s of meters or even kilometers away.
Thank you for supporting the majority consensus - we should keep the cool down at 90 seconds.
Living in the greater rural Coachella Valley area, we often must drive or hike miles to get to the next portal. Sitting and waiting is extremely boring and therefore the hack cool down must NOT be increased.
Agreed.
If we're going to change the rules again (from the current status quo to anything else) then it should be trivial for folks in favor of such a change to tell us: "increasing delays and reducing agent play time will result in the following positive changes/benefits for the game: X, Y, Z."
Simply saying "we should revert because that's the way it was in the past" is nothing more than an appeal to tradition. (Should we also remove the drone, eliminate battle beacons and kinetic capsules, etc? That too would be a reversion to "the way things once were" so shall we blindly assume that would benefit the player base as well?)
I'm in favor of keeping the new cooldowns; I spend much less time sitting in my car and listening to the radio (waiting to hack more keys) and more time playing now. I think that's a positive change.
➡️ I'm completely open to having someone change my mind, however. But I'm still waiting for someone to list the benefits of increasing the delay. ⬅️
If it's such an obvious beneficial change, then if really should be quite simple for someone to give a better reason than "because that's the way it used to be." Yet that continues to be the primary reason I see listed by players advocating for it.
I listed a reason, even though I’m against the change. It’s a tactical advantage. I’m not willing to sit at a portal for twenty minutes and maybe get 4 keys, but someone else is and that will become an advantage in certain communities. With these Covid bonuses in place, it was easy to keep fields alive, restock keys and rebuild them 2 or 3 times a day, now, there will be a separation.
Myself, I’ve got much better things to do with my time, especially for a game whose devs mostly ignore its community anymore.
I appreciate your reply but it still doesn't quite fit the format I was hoping to see, eg:
"This will make the game better/help retain more agents/entice more new players/benefit the playerbase as whole because it will do the following: X, Y, Z."
I agree with you that this change will indeed provide a strategic/tactical advantage to the teams that already enjoy a numbers advantage in a given play area -- but that just begs the question (s): "how does this benefit the game? How does it encourage more play? What are the actual benefits of giving areas with lopsided team numbers an even stronger advantage than before?"
It feels like this would *discourage* play in areas that are already dominated by one faction. I'm struggling to understand how that benefits the game overall. (Unless the idea is "maybe if fewer people are playing, the server lag will be better?")¹
¹Obviously that last suggestion is meant to be sarcastic. At least, I hope it is?
You and I had a great discussion about this topic as a whole yesterday on the IEUNG telegram chat, but this is the first time I've seen you mention frackers, so I thought I might reply to that really quickly.
(But since we've already gone back and forth on the other topics you mentioned, I'll spare you a copy/paste of those comments here. ♥️)
The idea that a fracker would be *more* (and not less) useful for farming keys, when the cooldown is literally *half of the life of the fracker* strikes me as as bit odd. (Yes, I realize hack mods exist; I'm trying to keep the focus as narrow as possible here because God knows I'm wordy enough as it is!)
You stated that frackers have been "rarely used" in the past 2 years, and I'm curious what your source is for that claim. Because I know I (just one person, sample size of one, absolutely not claiming this is evidence of anything) have used frackers *much* more often in the past two years, given that they were actually *useful* for farming, even if you didn't have multiple agents at a given location.
Conventional wisdom in the past had always been that the cost of a fracker really wasn't worth it, unless you had multiple agents hacking the same portal at once. (Because the number of hacks you were going to enjoy any "bonus" on was just too low to justify the cost.) This has certainly changed in the past two years and I'd suspect the number of single agents buying and deploying frackers has been much higher lately than in the past.
Again, I don't have any data to back this up. But I think the claim that this change will encourage fracker use (and therefore increase Ingress revenue from them) is extremely dubious. (And lowering the price, as you suggested, wouldn't change their relatively low utility. So you'd just have fewer people using frackers at lower the cost -- so less income all around, no?)
Forgive me if I'm missing something (for example, if data on fracker use is actually available somewhere so we can test our respective claims/theories) and feel free to point me in the right direction if there's a source for any of this.
This “change” does not promote gameplay, it discourages gameplay.
C.O.R.E subscription has been canceled. Gameplay will also be reduced on Sep. 30th.
-cheers NIA, well done!
care to explain why it doesnt?
Reducing the number of actions that can be done at one spot for a given time frame is not promoting gameplay; it's reducing gameplay.
So what exactly are people meant to do at pita portals that they are hacking keys for and the nearest portal is miles away?
Pretty obvious why it doesn't. I csm give an example for how I was playing a couple of months ago, I would go to one anchor, vr heat sink and vr multi hack, burn it out, drive round taking out blockers, then go to the other anchor, do the same with that ine, then go through and walk down the spine fielding. All in all, depending on blockers, I would be done in 2 hours maybe 3. Now, that will add another hour to the game, changing the time at anchors from 10 to 15 minutes each to nearly half an hour each, so I'll be sitting about doing nothing for longer, therefore, I'm sitting about, not playing the game
I did the same thing. thanks @NianticThia for listening to us.
Using frackers would definitely be beneficial in that case
Basic math shows that with the 3min cool down, you can still achieve excellent key farming in 90 seconds with mods, and frackers.
But if you want to cancel your subscription then that is your decision.
Source of the claim of Frackers barely used, actually near zero in the last 3 years in the whole of New Zealand, after talking with dozens of players from all over the country on both factions.
I mentioned frackers multiple times on Telegram, and I have actually created a separate discussion as to reducing the cost of Frackers, and to include up to 2 in the CORE Subscriptions.
The math of the utility for key farming efficiently with frackers with the new cool down times, is sane and sensible. What isn't sensible, is that the cost of Frackers is absurd. Twice the cost of an Apex.
Outside of key farming, frackers these days have not much use, especially now that we have a Drone to farm gear at our leisure.
The last time I used a Fracker to farm gear was in Kuala Lumpur post Cassandra Prime Anomaly that was in Singapore, September 2018. I was meandering around KL as a holiday, but needed gear too.
throw vr mods and multiple people can hack its ok
I'm baffled by the "jUsT uSe hEaT sInKs" argument. I already am using heat sinks! Even with 90s cooldown, to bring it down to 27s cooldown. I can get my 4 key farm hacks done in about 2 minutes and move on. It's pretty great. I'm gone before I'm seen as a "loiterer." Doubling my time at the portal (or more), as this change will do, will just increase encounters with police or nosy people who want to know what I'm doing.
The 90s cooldown era also made fielding a lot less tedious. I made 24k fields in 6 years before 90s cooldown. In the last 2 years, I've made 20k fields and reached onyx mind controller. Mostly from micro-layering. It was a project that was a lot more appealing to undertake with 90s cooldown. There was a lot more incentive to field when I could get the keys I needed in maybe an hour rather than entire afternoon/evening.
Yeah **** strategy, let’s just make it plain obvious what the anchors will be ;)
Different cooldown for friendly and enemy/neutral portals seems like a good idea. Reducing the cooldown to 90s was another good idea, it should be kept at least for the friendly portals. Enemy/neutral portals cooldown could be higher -like 180s- to please the strategic thinkers. Anyway, I hope the decision can still be considered.
or just hack with multiple people without mods problem solved, keys should be hard earned i dont see a problem really its alot easier if u coordinate with your faction
The only thing that reduces gameplay, is not actually playing.
Gameplay is not measured in "hacks per hour" or "fields per minute" or "AP per week".
It's measured by the amount of time the scanner is open doing something.
And finally, if you burnout a portal before walking to the next one, you are literally playing the game wrong.
Hack - Move - Hack - Move - Hack.
BLOODY WALK!!!
Not necessarily - however we definitely don't understand niantic crapping on the core game mechanics by allowing under-field linking.
And doing the same now by differentiating between faction portals. It will have far bigger impact than anyone realizes now, I believe.
. insert Jennifer Lawrence okay gif .
I always expected the cooldown to increase at the end of September but was hoping I would be wrong or they’d at least only increase it a little. So I’m actually a bit relieved it didn’t completely revert to 300s, although I agree the different cool down for opposing portals may create its own problems.
I’ve said in earlier threads that 60-120s is what I consider a reasonable range for the unmodded cooldown time. Less than 60 would make VRHS effectively the same as RHS even at solo portals while more than 120s becomes a useless bore.
To those saying “use a HS”, I already do as 90s is a bore already.
To those saying “walk”, I play almost 100% on foot/bike and often the next portal is a 10 minute walk. Don’t assume everyone lives in an area with 100+ portals/km2.
If Niantic doesn’t back off from this decision I will cancel my CORE subscription in October, and I will bring it back if they come to their senses later.
Proposed compromise:
Allow 90s cooldown with a “key only” glyph mechanic similar to the current “more/less” and “simple/complex”.
Also, I like the drone and being able to link under fields but I’d ditch them both in a heart beat to keep 90s cooldown.
And what about those that
1. Can't make it to these portals due to health, lack of fitness, inability to get there anyway etc?
2. The places where there aren't enough agents, or even more than one agent to do this.