Completely and utterly fed up with both game performance and bugs. [RANT]
I'm sorry Niantic, but I've completely had it. Your game is barely playable, and I'm fed up.
We've been on Prime full time now for approximately 2 years. Comm is still completely and totally broken, to the point that we don't get attack notifications, things don't refresh regularly, items that appear in intel comm don't appear in scanner comm, etc.
When it DOES actually work, you can't recharge on an agent attacking because the game completely locks up. You try to use cube after cube after cube, only to have it reject your recharge attempts and give you a cryptic on-screen error, or just sit there and hang for 30-60 seconds (even on Wi-Fi).
When out playing, the scanner still leaks memory and crashes or dramatically slows down after you interact with 50-100 portals. Scanning still crashes regularly on uploads. Lag is extremely common and not a day goes by where I don't miss out on portal captures/upgrades because the servers just lag out and I'm stuck waiting for a previous command to process, unable to cancel it or interact with new portals because the buttons are greyed out. Everything will be fine and then suddenly you just can't mod or resonate a portal; literally every 5th to 10th portal, every single day, I get some kind of game lag. This happened the second you moved us onto these awful budget servers and hasn't abated since.
We still get NoRetries Errors all the time when trying to throw fields quickly or take down (can't say k i l l on here...) a heavily-linked portal. Links randomly error out or won't show as available until you restart the scanner. Alphabetical key sorting STILL does not work properly the second you load or unload a capsule of keys, or have just been out playing for a while; you have to restart the scanner to fix it.
And on top of ALL of that, you don't test a thing and manage to mangle or otherwise muck up every single live event that you put out (the latest being this ADA mess-up in a LONG line of mess-ups). iOS people had to fight for months with your broken subscription implementation, and I have fellow agents who are still locked out of intel after you tried to combine their Ingress and Pogo accounts and screwed it up, and support will not properly help them.
It's utterly incredible that this is the way you run this game and expect us to be happy with it, give you good ratings in the app store, and even pay you monthly for it. Shame on you.
Either fix your game, or shut it off. As it stands right now, it is an insult to each and every agent playing this game.
Comments
@NianticThia waiting for another joke from you here.
If you're this bitter about the game, it says more about you than Niantic that you're still here...
I agree the lag is really sad its still not fixed...... It makes the game less enjoyable ☹️
Sharing the feeling of being playing the game we love and is a sinking boat, getting more and more water (bugs) everyday.
Lag for everything is the latest and most frustrating thing and all this time, nothing is acknowledged by niantic.
There's anger in the above post, but not resentment. Not bitter, but definitely frustrated. My point of this post is to tell Niantic that they are alienating even the most dedicated players. If you're missing that point, that's on you.
I imagine this post will go unacknowledged, much like the others in the past. Responding to the not fun stuff is part of the deal. They threaten the future of the game and ask for 5* reviews and CORE memberships, but then ghost us in the forums when we start to draw lines in the sand.
Ive said it many times in the past, we might be a community, but we’re certainly not Niantics community. We are the product. Paying their salary and bolstering their wayspot database that they will continue to use for years to come and profit from. But god forbid we try to work together…
If some of you think communication is some sassy remarks and an animated gif, y’all are being fooled. Communication is jumping in here and answering the tough questions. Spending less time on Twitter and more time here in your own forums.
PS I am bitter. I’m bitter since the iOS bug last year that never got much of a follow up. Swept under the rug. Tomorrow will be 360 days and I can finally claim onyx sojourner. I was at 280 days.
@ace since we cannot get anyone from Ingress to acknowledge this daily issue, maybe you can help us out here? We love the game. But when it's constantly not working correctly it's a horrible experience. We stick around keep thinking that it's going to get better yet it just seems like the game is forever stuck in BETA.
I've completely changed how I play the game due to the constant issues where the game just randomly freezes up and doesn't allow you to hack or finish deploying a portal or throw some links to make fields. (I used to go out and micro field all of the time, now I only do it once a week if that. I'm tired of the game working like cra p)
I was out this morning with a grand plan to hammer out some kenetic capsules for the event but not being able to completely deploy on portals or even hack them repeatedly happening I basically just gave up. I mean if I can't hack or deploy how do I know that I'm going to even get credit for moving? (hint, I opened more kenetic capsules in the past 24 hours while in a moving vehicle than I did walking)
Is it the cheaper servers? Is it bad code? Does anyone from the Ingress team even care?
Agreed with all of this. I'm upset that I was on the camp for 50 kcaps for gold for this badge, but they heard everyone who said 50 and were completely deaf to the "but if you do that, adventure sync needs to be added and walking tracking needs to be fixed first." The server issues and comm issues are just part of it, there really has been next to no transparency or communication with the community on a ton of these issues or decisions and I'd love for it to change.
I have google OS, Samsung phone, and I don't have nearly the problems others seem to have. Yeah I have to close and reopen the app sometimes, but I still have fun.
I don't think Niantic realise the dedication and love we players put into this game.
I and many others, of both factions have spent $1000s of dollars on it individually.
Travelling to remote locations, participating in overseas anomalies, running and organising social events, competitions, IFS etc, paying for servers to host community web sites, moderating community chats, buying low signal comms gear, crowd funding, cheat reporting, liaising with Vanguards, adding portals..... the list goes on.
New player guide creation, helping new players learn the game.
Sure, many players are casual.
The feedback we get from the company is insulting compared to the effort a lot of individuals put into this game for the community and for Niantic
Maybe it's our fault for being too invested in the game, but without dedicated fans, this game would never have been what it is/was.
It's now been weeks without any coherent response on Foursquare, server lag etc.
I'm of the opinion that Niantic should:
1) Respect us enough to have someone update threads on a daily basis with meaningful feedback.
Or
2) Shut it down
Or
3) Replace the product manager with someone who is a dedicated, done the yards and champions the community.
4) Hand aspects of game management over to us, the players.
First of all let me say I do believe you are experiencing the issue you face.
However there are those of us, like me, who did not experience those things. So to say "it's an insult to each and every player" is inaccurate. I do not believe Niantic has insulted me in any way. The game plays just fine for me. Yes there is the occasional hiccup but I don't find it debilitating to my gameplay.
But I do wish you the best and that Niantic does support you in your issues.
No jokes from anyone at Niantic? These topics are not funny and it's better to ignore them huh? How predictable.
Well guess what? Out trying to fill in the gaps from where I gave up yesterday due to the lag.
3rd time
Then the 4th time. Notice the time stamps. 4 minutes apart. This is about 30 minutes of walking here.
Then I think maybe I will just tag Brian in comms each time it happens with a message like "since I can't do any other actions due to lag or crappy code I'm messaging you".
But that's not going to work. I have no keyboard in comms.
Honestly pondering if I should cancel my core subscription. I only have it for the extra space. But if I frequently cannot play due to constant game lag/slow down / junk servers... Why do I need the extra space?
It's frustrating watching this game go down the toilet.
strange so much lag :/ and drones are not lowered the cooldown.. boooo it makes it less enjoyable struggle with something thats out of your hands.
Right there with you on the subscription. I barely got any alerts this morning from local frogs playing, only 1 out of every 3-4 actually showed up in comm (until I restarted). Couldn't recharge at all. Portals with links ghosted and I couldn't capture them for 30+ seconds, or I could fill them half-out and then they would error on the 5th or 6th resonator.
Can't use a power cube, just get the halo-o'-freeze.
Can't deploy a resonator, you get the whispies of doom over the portal.
Pink ring of d34th...
This is the main reason I cancelled my C.O.R.E. subscription, if I'm paying for something I expect it to work reliably.
I did. Sad, but less frustrating knowing that it's not something I pay for, therefore can't blame anything if not working.
There was a tweet from the Ingress account asking for 'best ingress memories'. I've responded that I remember 'back in the day' when Ingress used to work.
I just don't understand what the Ingress team is doing all day. It feels like everyone is working on another game/project and each employee has about an hour a day to work on Ingress. They created these forums, and the bug report section, but there aren't even replies daily, it's crazy.
The lag is terrible. I tried playing earlier today and it's just a waste of time. Couldn't do anything. With next to no players even playing there shouldn't be lag. If anything it should be flying right along smoothly. But it's still broken. No wonder people have quit.
Completely failing today, barely functional this morning.
@NianticBrian anything new on this?
It’s evening here and the game has been down 3 times. Normally when the game lags, you restart. Today it’s restart, logo, then fade to black. It’s ridiculous. After I finished my mission with extensive times waiting at portals for the game to function again, I walked back to my car trying to scan some portals, jeez that's not working either.
I hope Niantic is aware of the issue, their monitoring should've picked up on it, heck maybe they even did something to resolve the problem, who knows. All we can do is vent on this 'dear diary' platform and hope we can play.
@NianticThia Since no one else from Niantic/Ingress will even respond.
Will you accept the challenge?
NGL I feel all of your pain and misery and experience it on the daily. Frustrated, I yell at my phone, cursing the game...then when it starts to work again (either on it's own or after one of the frequent game restarts) all is forgiven and right with the world...until it goes bad again and I'm cursing and screaming again. But...I love the game...not even gonna pretend I have any intention of walking away. Ingress is that bad relationship you know you should walk away from...but just can't bring yourself to do it.
Would be nice if they could fix a few things...but I'd be happier if they would remove XM Ambassadors that enjoy trespassing and poisoning the community.
but I'd be happier if they would remove XM Ambassadors that enjoy trespassing and poisoning the community.
??? where does the call of removing an XMA come from in a thread about lags and outages?
I will give an amen to this post
I try defend high team value fields, but I experience lagg at literally every second portal I try to recharge defend. The lagg helps the attacker as bursters are stacked - and rechargers get blocked from recharging
Niantic removed two XMAs early on to avoid potential issues, but after that, the XMA program has been pretty successful, and I've enjoyed working with all of the XMAs! They're all great people to talk to and great members of the community. I also fail to see how we're related to this post at all, as InvestigateXM pointed out above.