Incentive to Scan
So, as discussed quite a bit on the forum, Niantic has introduced the “Scout Controller” Stat and Medal, in an effort to encourage more scanning, while already bringing out the “Scout” Stat and Medal.
Do you feel that these additions encourage you to scan, if so, why not?
Rather than being angry at new features, let’s give Niantic appropriate constructive criticism, where necessary, so they know what issues the community has, and suggestions of how to improve.
Personally, I’ve done 6 scans after having a load of issues. The wolf in the scout badge is gorgeous the requirements are fair, though I would like to see an increase to the cap of scans. I’m very much a “feast and famine” player, and can’t consistently go to a park and scan.
With the scout controller, it’s kinda interesting to make it a Control feature, rather than just a unique tracker, but i just can’t get behind the outrageous requirements on the Scout Controller. I feel so deflated by the idea of such a requirement, I’d rather not start something I know I’ll never be able to finish.
Suggestions on how to make scanning more appealing: Niantic could explain how the scanning data could enhance Ingress and most importantly, making the badge much more attainable. I suggested something like:
Bronze: 100
Silver: 250
Gold: 500
Platinum: 1,000
Onyx: 2,000
Onyx Wings: 4,000
Its about finding a balance, if the badge is too easy, Onyx Recharger level easy, people could hammer out the scans, get their Onyx / wings, and stop scanning, or make the requirements outrageously high that people may not bother at all. I think my suggestions strike a nice balance - encourage scanning, but not making the Onyx requirement easy, overall netting the most scans for the network.
I’d love to hear other people’s ideas, hopefully Niantic will be able to see and potentially change their course of action.
Comments
That sounds reasonably challenging.
I'd also like to see Scout Controller have real game effects. Like 1.33x mu on fields anchored by portals your team has scout controller on.
I think that 5000 is a good balance between challenging and spreading the unique portal scan.
But the real problem is that scanning don't do nothing else for the agent beside the scout point for the medals. If it has any impact in gameplay, becaming part of it, player would get more interest in doing it.
It's a good chance to improve the scoreboard systems, adding more challenge/competition between players, like isntead of just winning by MU amount, it could have extra points or multipliers like portals captured, links created, and of course scout controllers. Your faction might be the best on MU, but the other could have more captured portals and account controllers, and this would give a x% on final MU, being e enough to became the winner of that cycle. Or just complete separated scoreboards, like the anomalies that have like 3 different competitions, and the winner is the faction dominant in the most areas.
Scan needs to give more than stat numbers. It is discouraging enough to put in 15s for 1 increase in stats that we don't know how well it is used.
200AP for 1 scan is quite encouraging for me, though one might say that's too small.
And 1000ap for every scout controller. Or 10cmu.
I like the idea of CMU. Especially because there is a cap limit on how much you can scan.
How about a tiny benefit, maybe an extra resonator when hacking a portal you have scout controller on?
One thing I wouldn't care for is more visual special effects inside the existing scanner.
Edit: this is interesting, using the words eye and candy together apparently got flagged as inappropriate.
Or a big benefit. hover faction color or agentname big and nice, to show you can take the controller away.
Scanning is boring and isnt really gameplay at all feels u doing something that isnt fun really, therefor i will not contribute sadly.. i was hoping for a drone badge instead :( and we still dont know how will ingress benefit from all scans if anything ? that would be also good to know if u are scanning u help ingress or not somehow....
I've done a bunch but I kind of feel silly and conspicuous when I'm scanning something in public. It really takes away from the secret agent aspect of the game.
Chicken and egg, I dont imagine anything going live till a significant percentage of the pois are scanned....
I feel it's too early to tell how scans will be used in Ingress. My guess is that 3D rendering will be added to portals when you tap on them.
As for incentives, there are none for me anymore. The only reason I uploaded scans was because I read a thread that posited scans contained location data and, once registered, they might prevent cell tampering. At the time, I was actively fixing portal relocation abuses. Spoiler: It didn't stop bad actors from abusing location edits.
Let's talk about crowdsourcing. Wayfarer provides an incentive in the form of an upgrade. Notice how the review requirements are being lowered because players stop working for free once they finish their project, be it a home portal or a gym for their community. The Wayfarer model has substance.
Meanwhile, getting people to scan portals obviously isn't going as planned. Scout Controller is trying to exploit personal rivalries, but no one in my city is bothering to scan at all. There needs to be tangible benefits for people to provide labor. If the medal requirements are high, the concomitant rewards must be appealing enough. It doesn't help that Ingress agents are speculating that the scans will be used for other I.P.s such as CATAN or Pokémon GO instead of Ingress.
I love the idea of a sizable A.P. or even a modicum of C.M.U. per scan. Will Scan Controller affect the upcoming Battle Beacon feature in any meaningful way? In-game bonuses sound a little overpowered considering how certain portals are controlled by one faction indefinitely.
Below is my suggested action plan:
Real problem is that this badges actually prevent you from playing and also don't have any impact at all in your gameplay. If I go out I want to play, if I want to take pics of everything I just travel around.
The way this is implemented would require AP rewards about 500 AP for each succesfull upload to say the least. How much time do you waste scanning portals? Currently, there is a 200 scan restriction, with a 500 AP reward this would make up to 100K AP reward counting on a 100% succesful upload round. Is this too much? I don't think so, perhaps if you only got 5 portals and no one else around this would be significant, but this is not the common case, 100K AP is easily achievable in less than 1 hour gameplay.
It doesn't take a mathlab to see this details and as I mentioned in some other post about the same topic, this badges only show how disconnected Niantic is from Ingress.
I had posted this in another discussion, but this one seems more appropriate.