Should we be able to fire multiple weapons at once?

HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

When I'm recharging I can use recharge-all to throw a ton of energy into a portal all at once. I can load up on multiple power cubes at once, and even use Hypercubes to use power with less overhead.

Why doesn't the ability to do multiple things in one action exist for firing weapons as well? Allowing someone to load up like 4-6 bursters all at once would be the moral equivalent of recharge-all. It seems like it would be more efficient in terms of network traffic, since one message for "fire N weapons of type Y" barely more than firing a single weapon, as opposed to N round trips with one for each weapon.

I guess this goes for deploying too, though I fully deploy so rarely that it wouldn't make much difference to me. For people who like to just walk around an area and microfield it would save tedium/toil as well as server transactions and probably have a negligible impact on gameplay.

(This message brought to you not by a bone to pick, but by recycling X6s and thinking that it would be fun if that big red FIRE button let me launch the weapons I'd queued up.)

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Comments

  • While I agree that defense is too high with round-trip confirmation vs rechargers, the community for years complained that their portals died because people were manipulating their network connections to generate burster stacking. Literally the thing you want used to be possible and everyone complained about it.

  • Thinking on the 'halfway point' between these, a command to "fire 8 bursters" that was queued and done in sequence, not all at once, would free you up, but should both have a cancel button, and not allow you to fire any other bursters at the same time, but be able to cube etc.

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    Burster stacking in ye olde days was unloved by many, for sure, but was that not, in large part, due to the fact that it involved manipulating network connections, which striked many as beyond the limits of fair play?

    An official implementation of burster stacking could be limited and tweaked for balance. For example, just making up some numbers:

    • You can stack only 2 or 3 XMPs.
    • You can stack as many XMPs as you want, but with a (steep) exponential decay as to the power/effectiveness of each additional XMP you pile on. For example, if each additional XMP is 1/2 the power/effectiveness of the previous one, you'll never do better than the equivalent of 2 XMPs.

    I feel like implementations along these lines would be a modest form of stacking that feels similar to current behavior resulting from the vagaries of network and server lag.

    As for Boost Recharge All itself, it occurs to me: Why is this a quick and easy tap, now, and not press-and-hold, as was the case before Prime?

  • Tons of people complained that people were doing that, when they weren't but were just firing rapidly. I've never manipulated my network connection, but got accused of it constantly because I got the timing down to muscle memory, and know how to properly position.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    I feel like it’s still being done. I know Niantic put out a fix to curb some of it, there are still ways to do it and some agents definitely know it, lol

  • NysyrNysyr ✭✭✭✭

    If you want the portal so bad use a flip card or ultrastrike the resos.


    Or get a teammate...

  • I heard a theory on that. Aside from the "You don't get notifications", someone claimed their opponents were using multiple devices to fire multiple bursters at once from the same account. Each device is latency locked, but together they're essentially not.

    We need to get a new statement on simultaneous use of multiple devices by one account to point at. The last one died with G+.

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Sometimes I find it happens with me if


    1. Niantics servers are having their usual breakdown (like the recent black screen), it's not exactly the same time but it's within micro seconds when the game finally catches up


    2. When I have bad signal it does a fairly similar set up to bad servers, if it doesn't error out of it. but I've found that if you queue them up then walk away it treats the busters going off as though it's where you've walked to, not working it out fron where you tried to launch them. It only happened a couple of times for me admittedly

  • The second part, where you fire a bunch and they don't fire till later is server latency.

    The process is:

    1. You tell the server to fire burster {XYZ}.
    2. When the server says "I got your message", the Fire button unlocks and you can fire again.
    3. You can keep sending messages t o fire a burster until you hit the "Too many attacks pending" message.

    Meanwhile on the server, there's a queue that's built up with all your requests. That queue being delayed because the server is lagging out since someone built a 10,000 link star in Germany, is all on the server side.

    So players can't manipulate the server side of the lag and the local side is supposed to be fixed because you can't request a second burster fire until the first one has been acknowledged.

    Whether there's a new way around this (besides simultaneously using multiple devices), I've not had anyone explain the how yet.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Perringaiden writes:

    We need to get a new statement on simultaneous use of multiple devices by one account to point at. The last one died with G+.

    At a meta level, Niantic needs to stop making rules declarations and clarifications anywhere other than an official rules document. Someone new to the game must be able to go to one central source and learn everything they need to know. Imagine telling someone that they were cheating and that they should have known that because Niantic made a statement on it on the fourth page of a contentious discussion buried deep in a forum that only a tiny percentage of players even know about.

    My personal take is that I don't consider it a rule unless it's in an official document that I can find on Niantic's site.

  • My personal take is that I don't consider it a rule unless it's in an official document that I can find on Niantic's site.

    That just seems like an excuse to ignore the rules that Niantic has publicly announced like:


  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭

    We need no statement. We need this loophole to be terminated technically.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yes, especially when some rules on Niantic's site are even not enforced as expected such as forbidding multi-accounts. Not to mention those that are not on the official website, very likely not developed into functional code.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2021

    To anyone who still looks for a "statement": Brian has mentioned that stacking XMPs has been considered fixed from Ingress team's perspective

    1 account firing XMPs with 2 phones at the same time is another thing. It's blatant multi-account cheating.

    Post edited by TheKingEngine on
  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Perringaiden I'm not ignoring any rule that says falsifying my location is cheating. I'm also not attaching my phone to any drones, helicopters, dogs, weather balloons, model rockets, full-sized rockets, radio controlled cars, model airplanes, kites, fishing poles, or well-trained racing pigeons.

    Imagine you're a brand new player in a small town with no teammates nearby. You go to the site and read every word of the rules, twice for good measure. You play for a while. You find a portal that's just out of reach but would be a cool anchor for your fields so you stick your phone on your drone and deploy the portal and farm some keys. Someone reports you and your account gets banned. From your perspective you've done nothing wrong. You've read and followed the rules that are published and visible from the help links in the scanner. In fact, the rule that @NianticBrian referred to reads like this:

    Using any techniques to alter or falsify a device’s location (for example through GPS spoofing); and/or

    When you put your phone on a drone you are NOT falsifying your device's location-- the device is reporting its location just as though it was in your hand, but you are moving the device using something other than your body. If Niantic wants all users to know that moving your device away from your body is cheating then they should update the central rules document to include that. It is not realistic to expect players to read not just every document that is linked from the scanner but also every ex officio statement from a Niantic employee that has ever been posted to any forum. That is an unreasonable burden to place on players.

    I think it is Niantic's responsibility to keep rules documents up to date with clarifications that are posted in forums. If Niantic wants to clarify the location rule to explicitly state that using a drone counts as falsifying your location then they should update the Terms of Service to reflect that. Creating rules that can't be found through reasonable effort is a poor customer experience.

    Don't forget that there are still some pseudo-rules that were only stated 50 comments deep on a contentious Google+ discussion. G+ has been shut down for over two years... how would you expect a new player to find those "rules"?

  • KarM3LKarM3L ✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2021

    How do you operate scanner if it's all the way over there on a Drone????

    Post edited by NianticVK on
  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @LuoboTiX I'm boggled by how you can describe "1 account (doing something) with 2 phones" as multi-account cheating. I used to be pretty good with numbers but that particular branch of mathematics is completely unfamiliar to me.

    I remember when using multiple devices was perfectly acceptable-- you'd go to anomalies and a lot of people had two phones, one for bursters and one for power cubes. And then one day there was a big pile of butthurt, really a tempest in a Barbie-sized teapot, with a few people screaming "CHEATER!" at some folks on the other faction for doing something that they and their teammates did regularly. After probably a hundred or more messages of vitriol a Niantic account commented that people shouldn't do that. Nothing changed after that except that occasionally someone would refer to that deeply-buried comment as justification for calling out their opponents... though they'd generally only do it after they put their second phone in their pockets.

    TBH, there are occasionally good reasons for having two devices logged in at once. I do it when I'm going to areas with difficult signal-- I'll take phones on two different carriers and try both to see which one can get signal first. If you're flipping a portal it doesn't really matter if you try to do it with one phone or ten-- only one is going to succeed.

  • grendelwulfgrendelwulf ✭✭✭✭✭

    Dude it has been stated multiple times playing on two devices at the same time is cheating.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2021

    I've been to 6 XMAs but I never heard or saw that "using multiple devices was perfectly acceptable-- you'd go to anomalies and a lot of people had two phones, one for bursters and one for power cubes. " as you said. May be XMA partipants do it differently in Europe/USA comparing with in Asia, or your community more proactively promoted such use.

    1 account logged into 2 or more devices simultaneously FOR MORE FIREPOWER is not proper use and is gaining an unfair advantage. This is with common knowledge and there is no need to argue. I won't say that it's fair when Ingress team has not fixed this loophole. This is Ingress not PoGo. "More phones, more advantage" is not appreciated here.

    By the way, firing XMPs on 2 or more devices at the same time with 1 account is 100% different with "take phones on two different carriers and try both to see which one can get signal first". Everyone could notice the difference.

    Post edited by TheKingEngine on
  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2021

    By the way I thought that everyone including you has already achieved an agreement on this topic in previous post but now it looks like I'm wrong.

    To avoid making your post going off-topic, if you disagree with that common agreement, you are welcomed to elaborate your idea there.

    Actually I'm surprised that you seemingly agree with the idea that "1 account 2 phones for firepower" is unfair there but strongly disagree with my sayings here. That seems so inconsistent.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @LuoboTiX Multi-accounting is using two or more different accounts. My comment about math was that it's impossible to multi-account using a single account. You can multi-device. I don't know when you started playing but I saw a fair bit of it in 2014-2015. Mid-2015 is when the G+ dumpster fire happened.


    @grendelwulf I'm well aware that it's been stated multiple times in forums. I think you're missing my point. If a brand new player signs up for Ingress and reads every single document on Niantic's site they will not know that Niantic considers it cheating to use multiple devices at the same time. I'm not arguing about Niantic's opinion on this. I'm arguing that anything Niantic considers a rule should be in the official rules documents and not buried in forum comments. I'd be willing to bet that less than 5% of players log into the community forum on a regular basis, and even people who do aren't going to read every single word in every discussion.

    Rules should be centralized in the rules documents so that everyone can find them easily and changes should be announced so that everyone knows the rules changed. I don't think that statement should be controversial.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭

    When we talk about multi-accounting we do not only say they are about how many accounts. Essentially it's about the state of the accounts, usually in terms of ownership. One person one account and additional accounts more than 1 should be considered not belonging to this person leaglly according to the T&Cs and thus he/she should not use that sub-account.

    But when it comes to using 1 account on 2 devices simultaneously, the Singleton state of the account is broken as well. When I think about 1 account I would consider it as "at the same time only 1 account allowed to be logged in and sending network requests to the server in one main thread, more login attempts should result in the log out of previous sessions" i.e. the Singleton state.

    Thus it's still multi-accounting. Logging on multiple devices allow you to send multiple network requests in multiple sessions that is not supposed to be allowed in our common knowledge and as we all know, players' doing this is to gain unfair advantage undoubtedly. Why unfair? Very simple. If you allow 1 account on 2 devices, why not 3 devices? So technically you could play Ingress like this



    It's OK for PoGo because PoGo is a PvE game so whatever, but is it fair for Ingress? Well, human beings generally have two hands so the devices they could manage simultaneously is limited. But if supposed someone has additionally binded a lot of sausages together and aimed at the Fire button of Ingress clients on 10+ devices accurately at the same time so that he/she could fire XMPs via 10 cellphones together with 2 hands...Is it fair? That's why Singleton state is needed to be enforced.

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    .... not gonna lie, I've now pictured someone trying to train their dog to play ingress for them because of you saying attaching a phone to a dog lil

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Remote support software allows you to operate phone over network. But its a no no for Ingress.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Updated rules and ToS would be great. One official location for rule updates instead of spreading them across the internet is something Niantic has always done and its just bad practise.

  • Completely agree, but until then we can't ignore their rule declarations because they will act in accordance with their updates spread across the Internet when it comes to bans.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2021

    @Perringaiden Well, people who happen to have stumbled across the rules declarations that are posted in forums, buried in comments, or hidden between seat cushions shouldn't ignore them. For people who have ready every word of Niantic's rules documents, don't visit forums, and weren't around for the G+ days my expectation is that they will follow the published rules on the website. They've done their due diligence.

    Does that create a two-tiered system of rules? Yes, yes it does.

    Is that an utterly ridiculous situation? Yes, yes it is.

  • jontebulajontebula ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2021

    If we **** more weponds at the same time and turn off internet access we cheating and not follow TOS. Hope @NianticBrian can help us implant agents cant do nothing if agents test cheating with turn of data connection or internet access in phone.

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    Is it really cheating if no punishment is applied? How long can an exploit be expeted not to be used without a fix?

    These are all basic questions in any online multiplayer game.

    About the topic, I would feel OK if XMPs had the random chance to get a delay and burst when the next XMP does (or after X seconds if no more XMP are used). Not very unbalanced and would give attackers that random extra chance to take the portal down if multiple defenders are recharging.

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