Whats the point in winning cycles?

gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

So my team has just won the cycle for the first time since I started playing 8 months ago, and in this cycle I put in a lot if effort to make sure we stayed ahead at the start. But now that we won I honestly can't see why anyone puts it as a big deal, its nothing more than bragging rights, didkt seem worth the petrol or the stress. Maybe this is one of the reasons the games going stale according yo older players? Imo there needs to be a reason to win, like some kind of prize

Comments

  • No point at all.

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    You just said, "bragging". There is people who just enjoy that. It's pitifull, but true.

    But hey, at least you realized, you can now look for other ways to play, this game has a lot :)

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    nothing has changed since early days its only bragging right and not much else.. winning teams gets no benefits for winning a cycle year in year out and other team gets no disadvantages either..

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I Say bragging rights, but the opposite team tend to be very trolly or huffy,so bragging g wouldn't even be useful lol. So it really is pointless and I'm better just doi g what I like, big fields whenever I can rather than in time for checkpoints

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2020

    It depends on regions and players.

    In my cell there always been like 2-3 people single handling beating up the score and winning for almost 4 years in a row, with only few loses because spoofers interference.

    The ENL have a winning streak since February this year (6 cycles lost because one spoofer, and res took advantage). Usually the res just stay dead and don't even try anything, but when they finally see a bit of hope they try to beat it. Most of ENL also just stay dead themselves, because theres nothing to do, and the winning is already guarantee.

    This constance makes the scoreboard extremely unappealing and competition boring. Why bother competing if winning or losing is always the same result?

    That's why the score need to be reworked and include more categories and possibly prizes. Things like number is portals online, portals destroyed, AP gain, even battle beacons wins, should be score material.

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    ..... you don't happen to be in my area do you, cause that's almost exactly what happened in my area, the enl winning for months, this is the first time they didn't use their easy scoring tactics and me and another res agent went for it, him because it was easy for hi to do big fields that they couldn't take down easily, and me because I could score high without having to go tok far out my way lol

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    The problem here isn't easy scoring field that are hard to take down, but actually the lack of strategic thinking from the local resistance. They're so busy competing against each other, or just making random links that they get in the way of each other and when they finally take some enl fields down, they don't even throw link blocks on the way, leftin the path open to be rebuild.

  • aaronviannoaaronvianno ✭✭✭✭

    I would agree on the prize bit if septi-gameplay was more localised and controlled.

    As it stands septis are easily influenced by people outside of the cell and by bad actors.

    Also, I would rather see any kind of reward, other than the current recognition, being adjusted to individual contributions as well during each septi. That would encourage even people who go solo to actually play for the faction even if in their own way.

  • MirthmakerMirthmaker ✭✭✭✭

    Depends on box. Some boxes hinge on a big field making more than one cp to determine winner. Others are so lopsided it doesn't matter what happens.

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    While there is no "Prize"

    There is the feeling of accomplishment being at the top of the leaderboard.

    Same with the septicycle.


    Septicycles were brought in initially because Ingress at the time was getting dull, there was nothing to aim for. Septicycles are brought in, and even now three is a lot of players who are trying to beat the other faction's MU weekly score.

    This is as much of the game as getting badges.


    It was also the reason to leave the house on Saturday to win back my factions weekly score

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2020

    Sepicycles were brought in before the start of the Recursion anomaly. The cells come from S2 which helps explain a bit to why your area contains the area that it does. Nothing much really expanded on it ever since then.

    There was a memo in the story released about it, my bold is emphasis on important information about the cycles and cells:


    OVERVIEW: 

    Since December 2012, the NIA has successfully deployed a constellation of 64 LEO satellites containing IQTech's 4th-Gen XM visualization hardware. The orbits are designed to provide XM activity coverage via a 24,576 region or Cell' matrix of the Earth's surface. Per the NIA'S request, oceans and polar regions were included in the monitoring matrix in order to allow for detection of XM in these locations (e.g. to support investigation of the "Lost Civilization" theory). While lower resolution than other legacy systems, this new constellation provides continuous coverage of the entire surface of the planet. The system also tracks individual Agent activity at the resolution of the grid.


    The NIA's current analysis of XM activity has resulted in what is being referred to as the Shaper Septicycle or, colloquially, as the Cycle.' NIA analysis of the Data Bursts has revealed a queue and execute cadence to Portal Signals, with execution taking place on a 175 (7 x 25) hour Cycle. To enhance our understanding of this phenomenon, the new XM monitoring constellation will create a global composite view that will be automatically published every 5 hours and summarized every 175 hours. Agents in the field will be able to view data for both their immediate region or Cell' (approx. 18,000 km2) as well as the 8 regions that surround them. The system will also keep a record of high performing agents within each region. The data collected by the system will be presented as a running average of Mind Units (MUS) within the current Shaper Septicycle. In addition, a record of previous Cycles will be maintained for detailed analysis. NIA researchers believe that regional activity analysis will provide a better understanding of how Agent activity affects XM Anomalies, and, importantly, will enable monitoring of potentially destabilizing changes in population Mind Units. Evaluation of XM activity at a regional level will also serve IQTech's long term infrastructure investment goals. 

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    Ofc, no one is disscussing that, but the reward feeling it's only a thing if there is any struggle or if you are just a newcomer. Apart from that, it's just pointless. Not to mention spoofing activity related to cell scores...

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Scoring Mind Units is the core of the game.

    So I disagree, you can go and make large fields, how would you know if you are making more MU than the opposition.

    Hence the Septicycle scoreboard is still very relevant.


    @NianticBrian Niantic have had 8 years to sort out spoofing and bad actors, this is a very difficult problem to solve, some methods have been implemented, which has fixed some spoofing, but spoofing still continues.

    Weirdly, Resources Game was a game developed by 2 people, which is still more effective at removing spoofing from the game than Niantic.

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    What I do agree with, is the scoreboard needs to be reworked, starting at zero MU where only MU gained that week is counted.

    Instead of carrying over the previous week's score

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    It does it that way for the top player of the cycle.

    The MU score count online fields, not made recent. I wouldn't make any sense not count all active fields.

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2020

    @Hydraulinski I don't know if I can mention this here.

    In Catan after each season the scores are zero'd and the race is on again. This is arguably better than Ingress because you have to do play to win.

    Example in my cell for Ingress, we haven't needed to do much for months and just win each Septicycle with minimal effort.

    It might be better to have the score zero'd out each Septicycle and count MU from new fields.

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    Is that not what it does already? A baseline is established at the first checkpoint of the septicycle. The MUs anyone makes from that checkpoint is then factored with each checkpoint. The MU count shown is the average MU of all checkpoints.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Each game have different objectives and measurements. Catan is a race, based on a gameboard that is played by section and once one end it need to restart. It make sense for it's origins and lore.

    Ingress scoreboards isn't measuring a race or anything like that. It is just monitoring CURRENT status of global MU captured. So it doesn't make sense to it's lore to reset it every week.

    So I believe the current system should be removed or changed, but be improved by adding new scores to represent actual competition and provide rewards to participants (like hexatlons, with multiple categories that the agents could choose were to focus their efforts).

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭
  • aaronviannoaaronvianno ✭✭✭✭

    I think Ingress could add a badge / stat for septis.

    Presenting the Comrade badge.

    Earn it by having our name feature in the top 50 of any septi list. 1 count per septi of course like the FS.

    Tiers 15 septis / 30 / 70 / 150 / 300

  • I agree both that scoreboard ought to be key to the game, and that it isn't really as effective as it could be at motivating many players. I love the badge suggestions, but would go further:

    1. Create some all-time top-k leaderboard badges (like @aaronvianno suggests above), that reflect cumulative performance. Perhaps one for time on leaderboards, and one for cycles above a threshold score?
    2. This requires some UI changes, but I would create a "cycle trophy case" page, that has quarterly trophies for things like number of cycles won while on the leaderboard, number of cells on which the players was on the leaderboard, total cycles on the leaderboad, and perhaps something for stealing a cell from the other side. Basically, you want several different kinds of things to compete for, and you want a new slate of badges every quarter with slightly different designs. (Yes, you have to pay for four icon designs per year. But the Tesselation showed that they can manage that.)
    3. Make the leaderboard easier to find and more salient overall. It should be something that new players immediately gravitate towards.
    4. Create some in-game advantage to owning the cycles. It should be minor, but there should be some small benefit that the whole team gets from owning cells, that even non-participants can share. That creates goodwill and support from the community for cycle chasers (who are otherwise perhaps less beloved, due to their propensity for fielding things over).

    Some of these things involve system changes, but other things could be done with pretty minimal labor. It would really help make this part of the game a bigger motivator for the average player, and with ongoing trophy badges would also keep things fresh. Flagging @NianticBrian just in case he's inclined to be sympathetic. :-)

  • A more rewarding point system would only lead to larger and longer aged permafields. That would make it harder for many to play and would attract even more spoofing.

  • aaronviannoaaronvianno ✭✭✭✭

    Which is why the Septicycle scoring needs to shift to a combination of XM controlled along with MUs controlled, with a higher importance given to XM controlled. XM controlled should be via portals owned (Some other benefits of such a shift discussed here .). A shift would open up the doors to so much more!!!

    Does anyone else find it odd that Niantic's most useful asset is underutilized in its only original game?

  • PangarbanPangarban ✭✭✭✭✭

    Given that so much of Ingress lore is about XM and controlling portals, I have always thought it odd that there's no score for the number of portals controlled by each faction. It could either be a separate board to the MU board, or a score could be created based on a combination of portals controlled and MU held.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Reduce it only top3 players and onyx being 50 (one year at top3).

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    It could go that way, or it could force the other team to come up.wifh ways to take down those bafs whilst also getting their own up

  • aaronviannoaaronvianno ✭✭✭✭

    I think a cell can have many important contributors. Leaving them out doesn't feel right. The other way to go about would be a points system. 5 points for overall top 3, 3 points for top 3 faction, 1 point for top 50.

    I think Onyx achievable in a similar time period as FS events would be reasonable.

Sign In or Register to comment.