We need a frickin machina medal for starters. That will motivate people to clear it, at least in some areas. Right now, lacking interest in my main focus being red portals instead of blue or green. Spending 2-3 hours every weekend to clear it isn’t something I’m interested in doing for much longer..
Nope, it will continue to behave just like a player faction.
And you will at least have a viable means of controlling it.
The vast majority of issues players are seeing with Machina are solely because there is no way to block it.
Having a badge would not solve the issue.
The other issue is that the red portals do not decay to zero even after 2 weeks.
Now, this might be story related, but as we head towards Anomaly weekend and beyond, we will probably see why the Ingress devs decided on the cross linking, decay and non fielding of Machina
Machina needs to cross links because it can't capture claimed portals. So it can't behave as a regular player. And it would be a pointless game addition if we can just link them off and farm them.
The only use it has at the moment is to force the remaining players to wander for miles like idiots to destroy the red portals instead of being able to play in a more complete and exciting way.
It seems that it is a punishment for those who are left to play..
I didn’t say it would solve it, just something to help motivate agents to clear it. In my area, most agents are ignoring them because it doesn’t affect their play style. A medal would definitely motivate agents to go a block or two out of their way… Not all, but more than what’s going on now…
Exactly! I couldn't quite put my finger on how to express how I was feeling. Punished. I feel like we are being punished and forced to go out and find these red portals in order to play the game as intended. If this was a weekend event or even week long that would be really cool cause if you don't want to participate then you just sit out for the short time the event is running. But this is just getting insane now.
And here I am trying to start an infection because the two closest to me are pathetically slow to do anything. I've taken the time to drive over there and reduce the infections to a few portals each. And then it takes weeks for them to begin growing. The drive is only worth it about once a month. I want to start a closer one just to experiment with it.
Reckon we just need to wait a bit more, I'm being optimistic about how the task system is going going to motivate OGs and NPs.
Going from my own experience of the task system from Catan World Explorers, it was very motivating to do the tasks. With the Ingress devs, what they may have in store may be the motivation we need to take down the Reds
It only “needs” to cross link in this sense because Niantic has designed it to be very weak in some aspects (low defensive strength, no attacks v agent portals) and very strong in others (cross links, never decays to zero, always active, unlimited by real world geography/barriers).
This lack of balance makes Machina really weak in some areas (that is, boring) and really strong in others (that is, suffocating), depending on the local game “ecosystem”.
What’s the point of adding a game mechanic that is usually either suffocating or boring?
I’m lucky, at least for now, that Machina is somewhat appropriately balanced in my city. But I can see it has started to take a solid foothold in a number of areas and it’s starting to look like it may soon cross a threshold.
I’d really like to believe Niantic is analyzing all this and is thinking of ways it can make Machina better balanced. I’m not holding my breath though.
One, very minimal, option may be to limit cross links to shorter distances (for example, less than 1 km). Or maybe it can only cross a limited number of links (1 or 2) or some combination of the two (links crossed + distance in km < X).
And Machina absolutely needs some way to “die” without agent involvement. There are a number of natural analogues they could implement: age, overcrowding, isolation, etc.
Same here. People keep saying "Machina is good for those rural players who have no one to play against" of which there is barely any, because without a real person to play against the game is boring as may aswell be an offline game. All it does is punish the teams who plan and execute fields, homogeneous fields, BAFS, layered fields, all near impossible now as machina will grow back before you've made a dent, plus also its spreading to portals which aren't accessible without spending money etc. This should be a 2 week event twice a year with a badge in my honest opinion, or even better, a punishment for a losing faction on an an anomoly. They seriously need to listen to us or this game is finished
Seems like the only people who like Machina are the ones who don't have any near them and just wish they did. Everyone else seems to agree there needs to be a nerf.
While people can play Ingress in various ways, ultimately the game is about making and breaking fields for MU. Machinas spread has made this impossible in some cases but in the majority of places just too difficult and not fun at all.
For many players, fielding is the only thing in the game they get enjoyment from and they are no longer able to do this. This WILL lead to the loss of many players, both long term and newer, so Niantic need to address this ASAP. The longer it goes on, the more people I hear voice their dislike of it.
A few new tasks based on smashing red portals is not going to be a fix for this issue.
Why? Why should you waste time and fuel, cleaning the mess a computer made? Ever dealt with spoofers? This is worse. I rather would play against someone who went to a long trip to make some blockers..
But it's a pointless game mechanic change if it just leads to people not bothering and not playing anymore because it's too difficult to field now.
I don't think Niantic realised it would have this negative effect on so many people. They need to come out and say they are making changes to how Machina works or if it's working how they want it to so that people on the edge of quitting can decide to hold on a bit longer or just stop opening their scanner.
Machina with it’s current behavior is ruining the game. It has nested itself in various boat-only portals in the region and **** out long cross-links over the whole region. Non-playable anymore. This should end or change. Stop Machina making cross-links and let the Machina portals decay. That will solve lots of problems before this game is completely destroyed by an abusive functioning computer-Machina-script.
Agaiy, we don't know what the the long term plan is.
There is hints of a plan.
Can still do fielding, just going to take a bit more work to do.
Those fields might not be as large as we were used to.
I have the same issue. My multifield plans has vanished, but I don't them much anyway because it isn't going to make the slightest difference in the regional score
Lol so instead of having easy Mu you make the people who actually play not want to anymore? Makes no sense. What's the issue with easy MU? That totally depends on battles won by certain factions to control lanes and areas with high population, its not just as simple as Mu is easy
You are not understanding. Ingress is going to lose players because they can no longer field properly without putting in tons of extra work which they don't want to do and won't do.
Future plans may be too late to stop some players leaving and even then, the plans probably won't improve the fielding the situation.
Niantic need to be made aware of how many players feel about this and the numerous threads and posts about the issues are players trying to do this Trying to tell these players it 'might' magically get better doesn't really help anyone.
Some like the update, some are indifferent and some will stop playing if machina continues this way. Already many have cut down their play to bare minimum because of this. I'm just stating facts
If there's a task based system for instance, destroying machina portals. Then someone will go out and destroy every one of them just to stop others from being able to finish the task. It will fail badly if it gets incorporated into tasks. But that's probably what will happen and someone will ruin it for everyone else. It's been done before. Hopefully they've thought about that before they add it.
Another thing to note, is the numerous players I've chatted to, who are yon the forums, who have expressed interest in playing Ingress, and are turned off without a task system.
I'm an OG for Ingress, and if I were to throw a tantrum and rage quit, I'd done that around 3 years ago when the core features of my game were permanently removed.
Still, I'm here, enjoying the game, even with 2/3s of it gone.
I cannot even bother cleaning up blocking links to make fields, because I need an active oppositon. I just play casually and do what I can and not expecting a great deal.
Even booked my trip to go to the Brisbane Anomaly in May, enjoying the game with what is happening.
Mini events such as hexes, are enjoyed by players to be less grueling than an Anomaly, and the new task system will showcase this.
This is definitely something that they did do but appear to have stopped doing, which may be a bug that @NianticBrian and/or @ofer2 need to fix.
The fact that they just sit at 5% and never disappear guarantees uncontrolled growth and we're up to 5 million now, which is way beyond what anyone envisaged (I hope).
Comments
We need a frickin machina medal for starters. That will motivate people to clear it, at least in some areas. Right now, lacking interest in my main focus being red portals instead of blue or green. Spending 2-3 hours every weekend to clear it isn’t something I’m interested in doing for much longer..
Nope, it will continue to behave just like a player faction.
And you will at least have a viable means of controlling it.
The vast majority of issues players are seeing with Machina are solely because there is no way to block it.
Having a badge would not solve the issue.
The other issue is that the red portals do not decay to zero even after 2 weeks.
Now, this might be story related, but as we head towards Anomaly weekend and beyond, we will probably see why the Ingress devs decided on the cross linking, decay and non fielding of Machina
Machina needs to cross links because it can't capture claimed portals. So it can't behave as a regular player. And it would be a pointless game addition if we can just link them off and farm them.
The only use it has at the moment is to force the remaining players to wander for miles like idiots to destroy the red portals instead of being able to play in a more complete and exciting way.
It seems that it is a punishment for those who are left to play..
I didn’t say it would solve it, just something to help motivate agents to clear it. In my area, most agents are ignoring them because it doesn’t affect their play style. A medal would definitely motivate agents to go a block or two out of their way… Not all, but more than what’s going on now…
Exactly! I couldn't quite put my finger on how to express how I was feeling. Punished. I feel like we are being punished and forced to go out and find these red portals in order to play the game as intended. If this was a weekend event or even week long that would be really cool cause if you don't want to participate then you just sit out for the short time the event is running. But this is just getting insane now.
And here I am trying to start an infection because the two closest to me are pathetically slow to do anything. I've taken the time to drive over there and reduce the infections to a few portals each. And then it takes weeks for them to begin growing. The drive is only worth it about once a month. I want to start a closer one just to experiment with it.
While some may find a badge motivation enough.
Reckon we just need to wait a bit more, I'm being optimistic about how the task system is going going to motivate OGs and NPs.
Going from my own experience of the task system from Catan World Explorers, it was very motivating to do the tasks. With the Ingress devs, what they may have in store may be the motivation we need to take down the Reds
Because of this, a decay mechanism is my preferred fallback.
Otherwise, just get rid of it except for special events.
Another possibility - make it so it cannot cross its OWN links.
It makes me wonder why the spoofers are not taking out the Red Machina....
It only “needs” to cross link in this sense because Niantic has designed it to be very weak in some aspects (low defensive strength, no attacks v agent portals) and very strong in others (cross links, never decays to zero, always active, unlimited by real world geography/barriers).
This lack of balance makes Machina really weak in some areas (that is, boring) and really strong in others (that is, suffocating), depending on the local game “ecosystem”.
What’s the point of adding a game mechanic that is usually either suffocating or boring?
I’m lucky, at least for now, that Machina is somewhat appropriately balanced in my city. But I can see it has started to take a solid foothold in a number of areas and it’s starting to look like it may soon cross a threshold.
I’d really like to believe Niantic is analyzing all this and is thinking of ways it can make Machina better balanced. I’m not holding my breath though.
One, very minimal, option may be to limit cross links to shorter distances (for example, less than 1 km). Or maybe it can only cross a limited number of links (1 or 2) or some combination of the two (links crossed + distance in km < X).
And Machina absolutely needs some way to “die” without agent involvement. There are a number of natural analogues they could implement: age, overcrowding, isolation, etc.
Well, I've killed over 1000 Machina portals and barely made a dent in it here.
Pretty over it to be honest.
Same here. People keep saying "Machina is good for those rural players who have no one to play against" of which there is barely any, because without a real person to play against the game is boring as may aswell be an offline game. All it does is punish the teams who plan and execute fields, homogeneous fields, BAFS, layered fields, all near impossible now as machina will grow back before you've made a dent, plus also its spreading to portals which aren't accessible without spending money etc. This should be a 2 week event twice a year with a badge in my honest opinion, or even better, a punishment for a losing faction on an an anomoly. They seriously need to listen to us or this game is finished
Seems like the only people who like Machina are the ones who don't have any near them and just wish they did. Everyone else seems to agree there needs to be a nerf.
Yeah our cell scores basically static now due to inability to add new fields.
The opposition cant even **** our fields to make new ones coz its all shitlinked anyway so no incentive.
While people can play Ingress in various ways, ultimately the game is about making and breaking fields for MU. Machinas spread has made this impossible in some cases but in the majority of places just too difficult and not fun at all.
For many players, fielding is the only thing in the game they get enjoyment from and they are no longer able to do this. This WILL lead to the loss of many players, both long term and newer, so Niantic need to address this ASAP. The longer it goes on, the more people I hear voice their dislike of it.
A few new tasks based on smashing red portals is not going to be a fix for this issue.
maybe it's on purpose.
it became too easy to make a lot of mu.
now you have to really play to do them not sit on keys on a deserted area
Field smaller where you actually control the area
Why? Why should you waste time and fuel, cleaning the mess a computer made? Ever dealt with spoofers? This is worse. I rather would play against someone who went to a long trip to make some blockers..
But it's a pointless game mechanic change if it just leads to people not bothering and not playing anymore because it's too difficult to field now.
I don't think Niantic realised it would have this negative effect on so many people. They need to come out and say they are making changes to how Machina works or if it's working how they want it to so that people on the edge of quitting can decide to hold on a bit longer or just stop opening their scanner.
Machina with it’s current behavior is ruining the game. It has nested itself in various boat-only portals in the region and **** out long cross-links over the whole region. Non-playable anymore. This should end or change. Stop Machina making cross-links and let the Machina portals decay. That will solve lots of problems before this game is completely destroyed by an abusive functioning computer-Machina-script.
Please be patient, it is just piece of the overall game design improvement.
There may be some plans yet to be revealed by the devs for us to contend with the Reds.
This includes the task system
A tasks system is not going to make any difference to those whose main enjoyment of the game is fielding.
Agaiy, we don't know what the the long term plan is.
There is hints of a plan.
Can still do fielding, just going to take a bit more work to do.
Those fields might not be as large as we were used to.
I have the same issue. My multifield plans has vanished, but I don't them much anyway because it isn't going to make the slightest difference in the regional score
Lol so instead of having easy Mu you make the people who actually play not want to anymore? Makes no sense. What's the issue with easy MU? That totally depends on battles won by certain factions to control lanes and areas with high population, its not just as simple as Mu is easy
You are not understanding. Ingress is going to lose players because they can no longer field properly without putting in tons of extra work which they don't want to do and won't do.
Future plans may be too late to stop some players leaving and even then, the plans probably won't improve the fielding the situation.
Niantic need to be made aware of how many players feel about this and the numerous threads and posts about the issues are players trying to do this Trying to tell these players it 'might' magically get better doesn't really help anyone.
Some like the update, some are indifferent and some will stop playing if machina continues this way. Already many have cut down their play to bare minimum because of this. I'm just stating facts
If there's a task based system for instance, destroying machina portals. Then someone will go out and destroy every one of them just to stop others from being able to finish the task. It will fail badly if it gets incorporated into tasks. But that's probably what will happen and someone will ruin it for everyone else. It's been done before. Hopefully they've thought about that before they add it.
Another thing to note, is the numerous players I've chatted to, who are yon the forums, who have expressed interest in playing Ingress, and are turned off without a task system.
I'm an OG for Ingress, and if I were to throw a tantrum and rage quit, I'd done that around 3 years ago when the core features of my game were permanently removed.
Still, I'm here, enjoying the game, even with 2/3s of it gone.
I cannot even bother cleaning up blocking links to make fields, because I need an active oppositon. I just play casually and do what I can and not expecting a great deal.
Even booked my trip to go to the Brisbane Anomaly in May, enjoying the game with what is happening.
Mini events such as hexes, are enjoyed by players to be less grueling than an Anomaly, and the new task system will showcase this.
Please be patient. All I can say.
Problem is that red portals dont decays
This is definitely something that they did do but appear to have stopped doing, which may be a bug that @NianticBrian and/or @ofer2 need to fix.
The fact that they just sit at 5% and never disappear guarantees uncontrolled growth and we're up to 5 million now, which is way beyond what anyone envisaged (I hope).
Is the lack of decay due to the bug in the Google App Engine? If so, please remove Machina until the bug is fixed.