Battle Beacon Virus Abuse
in General
Niantic needs to develop a fix so agents can't use a combination of battle beacons and viruses to upgrade portals to level 8.
They flip to their color. Deploy resonator. Battle Beacon flips it back. Rinse and repeat until level 8. This is an additional unfair advantage for agents with couch portals.
It's still possible without viruses but would require purchasing $30 worth of Battle Beacons instead of one.
A simple fix would be to remove the ability to virus a Battle Beacon portal for up to an hour after the battle completes.
Tagged:
4
Comments
Have you seen this? Because ofer2 said it was impossible.
I believe that it's impossible for one agent, but more than one? Sounds doable. Just wait til they get done, and boom it as soon as they make the 8. No different than waiting for agents to drop a fracker on a portal. pew pew pew as soon as those frackers drop. Even more fun, if they do it at the same time week over week over week...lol
If you're res and enl blew up your portal and made it green. BB-ADA-drop res-BB flip-ADA-drop res-BB flip, etc.
Multiple agents have done it that I know of now. Just because Niantic can't conceive of it doesn't mean players can't.
You prepare a high speed linking base, then every 4 minutes, it resets the portal for you. Faster than using an ADA.
A Battle Beacon will assign ownership to the agent that originally deployed the resonator when it flips back to that agent’s faction, preventing “flip grading” to a level 8 portal.
Read the OP. A battle beacon itself is costly to abuse. Battle beacon + virus is fairly cheap to abuse to level up one's couch portal, and it should not be possible to buy portal leveling.
Niantic: check your data. If the rest of the world is like the part I can see, the primary purpose these things are being put to is to to level up portals, with repeatedly re-throwing the same fields probably second. I've yet to see a single actual xfac contest held at one.
The flip-cycle effect creates way too many side effects and exposes too many edge cases in the game -- and suggests whoever designed it doesn't know how the game mechanics actually work or has been on a competent anomaly team.
That's a finance income. should not be fixed.
Sorry about the confusion here. There is a hole in that, while what I said before is true "BB flip will restore the resonator owner back to the original deployer rather than ADA/JARVIS/the BB deployer", ADA/JARVIS do not behave this same way. ADA/JARVIS will change the owner to ADA/JARVIS as long as you're flipping to the opposite team. So, to exploit you would need 7xADA/JARVIS + 7 BB (assuming 1 lvl8 reso/player). We're looking at solutions to fix this, but it appears that this isnt commonly abused (currently) so it may take us a bit longer to get to. Note that the solution here would likely affect normal flips cards: meaning that if you JARVISes after an ADA, the original owners would similarly be restored each reso. Do you have any thoughts about that?
I'd like to see usual virus flip shenanigans to remain since they require at least 2 players and a ton of viruses and are used in low-density communities to have at least some chances for P8, but BB flips to be fixed somehow since they require just one person and this is a no-no. I don't have an idea how to achieve this, though...
Is Niantic ok with the auto-flip function being used to level up Agents though?
A single battle beacon can get an Agent from level 1-7 within the period because the flipping breaks links.
"suggests whomever designed it doesn't understand how the game mechanics work"
I've said it for years, Niantic devs don't know the first thing about Ingress.
They're getting better.
And too be fair, the Google engineers who built it in the first place had a long history of being bitten by "unforseen consequences". It's not about understanding the game, but rather not understanding the players and the lengths and creativity we go to.
Having the battle beacon neutralize the portal after the boosted hacking period is over seems like the simplest solution. Having the portal revert to its initial state when the battle beacon was first deployed is probably the most ideal solution.
This won't work, as the first ADA immunity is still in play, so you cannot flip the portal again within the same hour.
I didn't tried but I think it's possible to upgrade two resos per BB (assuming 1 L8 reso per player):
If this method works, you need 4 BB and 7 virus to make a solo P8.
In my personal opinion, it's a very high cost than an abuse, so I wouldn't change anything, but what about neutralizing the portal at the end of battle? For the lore point of view, we can say that the battle overloaded the portal and it losts its power. For the abuse point of view, if the portal is neutralized there must be present more players to use the hack bonus with an high level portal. For the money point of view, AP grinders will like BB more, since there is an additional link dropping at the end.
I hope my English is understandable and a personal thank you for your useful answers!
So, to exploit you would need 7xADA/JARVIS + 7 BB (assuming 1 lvl8 reso/player). We're looking at solutions to fix this, but it appears that this isnt commonly abused (currently) so it may take us a bit longer to get to. Note that the solution here would likely affect normal flips cards: meaning that if you JARVISes after an ADA, the original owners would similarly be restored each reso. Do you have any thoughts about that?
Wanted to come back to this point because it has 'implications' for flipcards that may not be in the game's best interest.
Scenario: Two players buy multi-thousand dollar tickets to a tropical island when Global Shards are announced. They fly to that island and capture a portal. (Assume ENL for discussion)
And so on. This has been a time honored method of slowly generating a P8 (or a P7 of sufficiently advanced range) for Global Shards, to move them across the Pacific Ocean.
Under your proposal, when a resonator is flipped back to the original deployer's faction, they would reappear on those resonators, and therefore block the ability for someone to deploy another R8.
While this may sound like closing a loophole, what it really means is that you're denying a key part of the game as it was designed. When you give us Global Shards next, this proposal would require crowdsourcing not two tickets, but eight. Which effectively would make the plan null and void.
The method is generally considered acceptable by the community, because of exposure. To level a portal in this manner takes 12 hours, which would expose the behavior to anyone whose watching. And during shards, people are always watching. It also requires at least two people (more = faster).
The battle beacon method requires only a single person and that single person can do the whole process in no more than 7 hours. (I'm not sure how inoculation is affected by BBs). Its an order of magnitude easier and cheaper to do.
So the process using the Battle Beacon is not people enjoy, but please be cognizant of the damage returning the resonators to the original owners would cause to the "Great Game" before continuing with such a proposal.
Also, regards to gear and cost (approximations):
2 Tickets and Accomodation to a tropical island: $20,000
1 Ticket and 7 Battle beacons: $12,000 + $30.
Tropical islands notwithstanding, this is probably more useful for bumping a portal owned by the other team with 6 R8 to level 8.
1. Find enemy portal with 6 R8. Ultrastrike off mods if you want nice mods.
2. Deploy Battle Beacon
3. Wait for CP2. Upgrade 1. Virus.
4. Wait for CP3. Upgrade 1 more.
I still think it's an expensive way of getting a L8.
To prevent this, every time it flips to same team color, have all portals that would be owned by Jarvis or ADA be owned by the player who deployed BB
@Perringaiden
You said: "The battle beacon method requires only a single person and that single person can do the whole process in no more than 7 hours. (I'm not sure how inoculation is affected by BBs). Its an order of magnitude easier and cheaper to do."
I'm under the impression that you can't deploy another battle beacon on the same portal for 4 hours after you deployed one?
If that's true, let's see what an optimized timeline looks like:
0 hr fully deploy, virus - 1x R8, opposite faction.
1 hr battle beacon. wait for flip, upgrade, virus. wait for flip, upgrade again - 3x R8, same faction.
2 hr virus portal - 3x R8, opposite faction
5 hr battle beacon, wait for flip, upgrade, virus, wait for flip, upgrade again - 5x R8, same faction
6 hr virus portal - 5x R8, opposite faction
9 hr battle beacon, wait for flip, upgrade, virus, wait for flip, upgrade again - 7x R8, same faction
10 hr virus portal - 7x R8, opposite faction
13 hr battle beacon, wait for flip, upgrade. after battle beacon is over, virus again so that portal belongs to your faction.
So it takes 4 battle beacons (I saved you a few dollars) but needs 13 hours and need 8 viruses. If you only level up once per battle beacon, it's going to need 24 hours.
Alternatively, in some situations, you can have agent fly in, capture portal, hack / frack for keys, and leave with keys in order to link back, where the level of the portal doesn't matter.
When can we fly to this tropical island?
You are correct. I forgot the BB's 4 hour limit. It doesn't change the financial equation though.
Alternatively, in some situations, you can have agent fly in, capture portal, hack / frack for keys, and leave with keys in order to link back, where the level of the portal doesn't matter.
Situations where people are levelling a portal on a tropical island are because they need to use another portal that is inaccessible or unmanned.
Examples being places like Easter Island or Tahiti. This is all a specific scenario that has been played out many times in many shard games.
I still think it's an expensive way of getting a L8.
Far cheaper than a plane ticket for extra agents.
I did say "tropical islands notwithstanding" in the very first sentence.
I don't need a plane ticket to find a EP7 with 6 R8 on it, and I'm still not willing to spend 5000 CMU to upgrade one to a RP8.
From the discussion so far, with enough time, BBs, and viruses, we can solo build a level 8 portal.
If it is desirable for Niantic to prevent this, without nerfing the ability of 2 or more agents and sufficient viruses to flip build a level 8 portal, I propose the following (@ofer2):
When a portal with a battle beacon flips:
If the faction of the portal is the same as the faction of the agent who deployed the battle beacon
for each resonator of portal
if owner of portal is Jarvis or ADA, set it to agent who deployed the battle beacon
Let's see how this works. I'll use a resistance agent as an example, since I'm RES.
Agent A captures and deploys on a portal and flips it with a Jarvis virus. Portal and resonators are owned by __JARVIS__
Agent A uses a Battle Beacon on portal. At the end of CP1, the beacon flips the portal. Portal is now owned by __ADA__
In the current design, Agent A can add another R8. Under my proposal, Agent A can no longer do so.
This does not solve the problem of 2 agents using a battle beacon, since Agent A cannot deploy another R8 after the flip, but Agent B can do so. It might make it a little faster than having 2 agents flipping with viruses alone, but it will still require more than one agent.
@ofer2 if we had another Shard Game, or Global DroneNet game, then the realisation of players flipping portals on a remote island/location through flip cards, was already established as a good balance.
I do like the idea that once a Battle Beacon has finished that the portal it is on goes neutral
It would present an alternative way to nullify portals that otherwise can't be killed (due to recharging or whatever) through payment, though flipcards present a similar result.
I see no issue with this.
We're in the middle of a hackathon right now, but I have an idea which I want to run by a teammate which I think will fix the issue here. I'll try and circle back to that sometime next week.
Enjoy your hackathon 😂
So...we've been talking about it and we think there will be a way to do this to solve all the problems...fingers crossed. But it has a lot of corner cases, so the solution is a bit complicated. We'll see when we can actually get to it, hopefully soon...(i know, famous last words)
In time honored Ingress fashion, we will test and document this when it rolls out 😊
It'll be easier than ever to abuse this next week with double 8 deploy. On the other hand, since it is much easier to build 8s, maybe people won't be bothered.