New Feature: Battle Beacon - Discussion Thread

2

Comments

  • arealrarewailarealrarewail ✭✭✭
    edited September 2020

    I'd like more global challenges and missions to be accepted again, yes.

    But I like this too. My biggest concern with it during the test was that it could be used to ignore portal inoculation. Adding a regular beacon fixes that. They also fixed the issue with a single agent being able to make l7 or l8 portals.

    I also don't mind the price - like frackers, this is designed to be used for multiple people, and if Niantic is going to charge for anything (which we know they need to), I'd support it being things that benefit groups over just one person. And yes, it'll be used by people for solo leveling, but I think it having more than one application is a plus too.

  • Something new, that not only can influence daily play, but fielding and anomalies as well. I love that we have something to think about, try and see how this van be used in a factions advantage.

    (Oh and better be happy it is expensive. A playbox filled with autoflips... 🤔).

    Thanks for adding this item and further developing tbe game 👍💙

  • thesolothesolo ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2020

    I tried out 2 earlier, by myself. These are basically AP Engine mods disguised as minigames. I doubt I'll use them much with other players, but for working on connector/mind controller/AP stats, these are incredible.

    Apparently the forums don't let you say the word g-r-i-n-d. It's not a bad word people. Come on.

  • BB is just useless plus we in the middle of a pandemic

  • GreenVamGreenVam ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2020

    the fact is that ingress is a game about the confrontation of two factions. no need to try to "make peace or make friends". just make us 1000 and one way to defeat the enemy. do not need anything else. many of us do not need events where we have to cooperate to defeat a common enemy. we want to fight a specific opponent.

    and one more thing, many are tired of playing the same triangles. come up with something new. but do not port other Pokemon mechanics. 

  • Oh boy, so much potential in this Battle Beacon system! Having in mind that You can make some additional fun for bunch of agents, lets say during FS, it does sound like a decent price - 2.5-4.5€ per portal in the playfield for 20-50 or more agents.

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    But doesn't that functionality of portals visited/unique captures require NRW servers? That's what I'm really confused on them stating they're not putting Prime along with the other NRW games.

    I would have thought having it uniform with the other games (on the backend not its gameplay) would make stability and new features a bit faster than what we've seen.

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    Some kind of update to the scoring tab would be interesting. Have an unique global challenge that you can view on the tab - for instance, based on stats for that span of time.

    I don't know how rewards would exactly be given out. I know there was at least hints to pursuing something like kilometers walked or missions finished.

    I don't think the cells have been touched since they launched in 2014. We already have seen faction tabulations with OPR.

  • EvilSuperHerosEvilSuperHeros ✭✭✭✭✭

    As you know they've already stated that uniques won't be easy without RWP, which we aren't getting.


    I managed to track down enough portals recently to pick up my Onyx Pioneer (in Niantic, IL) and am under 1500 uniques to Onyx Explorer.


    As much as you travel all over the world, and play in portal dense locations, you should have both of those badges Onyx by now, right?

  • I'm okay with the price for the time being until they work out the functions and how it plays out. It is otherwise a cheap series of timed ADA/Jarvis. Do you want to be able to buy ADA/Jarvis? I don't.

    The only way to stop a battle beacon from being activated is with a basic beacon.

    I'm with @Perringaiden . I wish they would have spent the energy and time on developing a better UI and not releasing a pet project that encourages "gatherings," when we're still in the middle of a global pandemic where large gatherings are perfect vector points.

  • edited September 2020

    200 away from Explorer. I've spent too much time focused on community building and capturing single 'middle of nowhere' portals instead of personal pursuits, but I'm making up for it now.

    As you know they've already stated that uniques won't be easy without RWP, which we aren't getting.

    It won't be automatic like it might have been, I agree. But the sooner they start on it, the sooner it will be done. The Uniques list does exist, or they couldn't track them right now. It's just not in a form that's readily usable as a read vs an hashed write.

    @MoogModular

    But doesn't that functionality of portals visited/unique captures require NRW servers? 

    It would be automatic with the Real World Platform. But without the RWP servers it's something that needs to be written rather than adopted, similar to Adventure Sync.

  • Increases the demand for botting for account sellers. 40M cap make this exclusive and thus wanted by dirty actors. Those will generally pay for quick access via an account seller. An account seller might have to work hard to get to 40M, but at the same till will hurt the system if it's done with botting or dirty means, which is likely.

    We've seen similar with the spoofing and multi-accounting for vote-skewing in Wayfarer.

    Living in an urban environment, beyond First Saturday, I don't see a huge opportunity for it's use either.

    The price is good for this reason, the whole feature is not a good design decision IMO.

  • Honestly, I doubt people will pay botters just to get a battle beacon.


    They simply aren't that exciting.

  • oscarc1oscarc1 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Some ideas:

    • Bonuses based on which faction is leading the local cell score (eg. +5% hack output bonus for leading faction or some other bonus). This could at least incentivise people to work towards winning the cell.
    • Bring back the daily faction review stats from OPR and incentivise some kind of in-game bonus for the faction that reviews the most for each cycle
    • Add fields created/destroyed metrics to the cell score
    • Some kind of Shaper or N'Zeer influence on the game map for a faction that wins the cell x times in a row. For example some kind of MU multiplier, where if Faction A wins 5 times in a row any MU gained in the following week is multiplied by (1.5 (5 being the number of weeks they have won the cell). Add a multiplier limit of 2 (double MU). However to counteract abuse, this may create Dark XM anomalies where fields become unstable and might immediately collapse, or any subsequent fields by the winning faction will revert to 10% of the MU count for the next cycle until x number of fields are created by that faction - this could deincentivise BAF's (that discourages people from playing) and encourage more local fields until the cell scores are balanced out for the multiplier to kick in again.

    Or maybe AFTER coronavirus the pandemic is over, an event similar to Cassandra Neutraliser, but for fields. Incentives would have to be given for the creation of fields at the same time.

    I'm just making up random ideas, but so far it at least promotes more faction vs faction competitive gameplay than drones and Battle Beacons lol

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2020

    I like the idea of Battle Beacons but:

    1) It involves talking to the other faction - given the lack of attention given to cheating, at least here, xfac faction relations are back to awful, again. If Niantic reduced cheating; faction relations would be better and we would be more likely to use these.

    2) $6 AUD is a bit much. (5000CMU = 2 x 2500 CMU packs at $2.99 each). A McDonalds BigMac is $6.60 and a nice coffee from a boutique barista is $4 to $5 for comparison

  • crystalwizardcrystalwizard ✭✭✭
    edited September 2020

    Brian, we had XFAC stuffed down our throats for a very long time - everyone wanted shards, and we got shards, but XFAC shards. We wanted various global events, but what we got were "okay, work together on this goal" over and over. What we want isn't events, we want Ingress to go back to being a war between the factions - we want to go back to competition, and we do not want to see Ingress turn into pokemon go. We HAD a way to battle for portals - they were called recharge wars - when we got alerts fast enough to be able to respond and recharge while someone was hitting the portal. Those were fun.

    Faction vrs Faction war doesn't mean anomaly, it means the game goes back to being a war between the factions all the time.

    We want XFAC to go away, and we want ingress to return to being serious competition between RES and ENL.

  • That's one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time... I wouldn't combine "earning free mu" with accepted nominations because that can cause a hughe problem in the voring process (xfac rejects and wayfarer wars).

    But handing out some free mu for portal scans and (just an extra option) accepted additional portal pictures... that would make my day.

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    This, I agree completely on the stale fields and the older players trying to force new players out

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I See the logic behind your suggestions, but it seems to heavily help overbalanced areas, it will stop the losing team from playing even more, i would change it slightly so that the winning team gets the hack bonus, but that the losing team amybe gets bonuses for feilding, say a 10% increase in mu and ap when fielding? Something to incentives both sides rathe than help the overpowered teams

  • I am ok with Battle Beacon idea. And I am ok with BB price too (although it is a good idea to give BB to players as reward for specific in-game achievements i.e.).

    IMHO, the biggest problem with BB is game mechanic affect: player can flip anchors in BAF or linkstars, flip and destroy farm portals, upgrade home or anchor portals in solo (up to 3 l8 resonators and up to 4 mods, i guess?) or with same faction players (3 high-level agents for l8 portal in 15 minutes).

    We need:

    1. A mechanic that help to protect some portals from BB. Other beacons aren't good option because of their visibility (important for anchors). But, for example, you can prohibit BB use for portals with links.
    2. A mechanic that prevent portal re-upgrade.

    May be a good option is to add some circumstances for BB use. For example, opposite faction agent must accept battle somehow for BB activation.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Wondering if Niantic are hoping the BB is abused to raise cash...

  • PkmnTrainerJPkmnTrainerJ ✭✭✭✭✭

    That would work. I like the lore of Dark XM. So it could be:

    ”Dark XM is affecting <PortalName>. Full takeover at 13:15”

    Then you battle, you defeat the Dark XM. If not, it becomes a red/empty portal and then “spreads” further.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    I like the dark xm idea more like a single player feature, aside from the beacon. But they can merge somehow, like raidbeacons only appearing on already dark xm portals (or neutrals).

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    random infected portal battles would be more fun i think also that would be a good idea.

  • Make it any cheaper or more beneficial than a fracker, and you've got that opportunity. It's not even the beacon that'll matter so much for many of them, It'll be the exclusiveness, that they can't have it. Just like Wayfarer, Spoof and boost to get L-XX so they can add waypoints. Oh denied. Load the system with multiple so you can skew the vote and get things approved.

    Time invested VS paying a few bucks for many of these players appears to be trivial, so while I hear that argument, and agree to a point, it's not helping the game any. It's still a poor design move imo.

  • sorry, but this is the new game. why? because cheating can't be controlled, we got dozens of local spoofed accounts taking turns leveling in a nearby park. anti-cheating has to prevent, not respond to it. in a purely competitive game, this is a problem; more so if devs actually want to make money from the game, so the only solution is to remove the competition

  • Combine it with the general Redfection gameplay. Every so often a bunch of portals become infected by something else, and each teams is competing to take it back and stop the other team from holding it.

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    I suggested this very thing, many years ago, in the end what we got was, flip cards

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