The case of the 90 second cooldown
With the newest event schedule, Niantic shared the following:
"Starting this quarter, each quarter, we will evaluate the following temporary changes added in early 2020 to determine their impacts on gameplay while considering real world circumstances:
(...)
- Portal cooldown between hacks to be adjusted up from 90 seconds
(...)"
From the sounds of it, Niantic is at least thinking about reverting the Covid boni back to either the original values or 'adjusted up' from their current values.
While a smaller set of people don't like the 2x L7 Resonators disappearing or the AP for recharging going back to 10AP, the overwhelming majority of people do not want the 5 minute timer back, going by the comments in the announcement.
So, I invite you to make your case why or why not the cooldown for hack should stay at 90 seconds or why it should be adjusted up. While they don't always reply, I'm sure Niantic is at least reading, and seeing that they didn't outright state that they want to put the cooldown back up to 5 minutes (only 'adjusted up'), it seems like they already know that agents would break down their doors if the cooldown gets reset.
Comments
As for me, I'd hate it if the cooldown went back up, and would actually loath it if it went back to 5 minutes. The current, lower cooldown means that you can get your gear and keys faster, moving around quicker and faster. It is much easier on the mood to wait 90 seconds for another hack then to wait 5 whole minutes. I'm not against adjusting the efficiency of Heat Sinks if the 90 seconds stay permanent, but raising it would cause me to not look forward for a quick build session anymore.
Remember the clusterduck when they tried reverting the Radius in Pokemon Go back to 40m from 80m?
And support is shet for spoofers and multiaccounts, these bonuses at least let you get back your gear decently to fight against the 4 account spoofers
There is a solution if waiting 5 minutes is too long for you, it's heat sinks. I get that 5 minutes was basically arbitrary to begin with, but what I don't get is why the game must become progressively easier for everyone because people get used to effortless gameplay and they realized they can bully Niantic into giving them more bonuses and free stuff or easing the rules, instead of actually making an effort.
The more time I have to spend farming, the less time I have to do things that change the map, which is a whole lot more fun than driving around in loops. A lot of times waiting for the 5 minute cooldown literally means just sitting in your car (or standing around if on foot) waiting. There were many nights where I didn't do something I wanted to do because I ran out of time after farming.
My case is simple: Twiddling my thumbs while waiting for portal cooldown does not add significant strategy, interest, or fun to the game. It wastes players' time without providing any benefit.
OTOH, I've acquired the skill of reading Facebook in 90-second chunks.
I'd rather see the cooldowns return personally. I'm ready!
Definitely will play less if I have to sit around for 20 minutes farming keys. After nearly two years of 90 seconds hacks, 100% uninterested in sitting around for 5 minutes between hacks.
Whats in the rest of your inventory?
I like the new lower cooldown times. Agree - waiting an arbitrary time just to perform another hack seems wasteful.
However, don't get rid of cooldowns completely. Too open to abuse then.
When I was playing more actively, when taking a walk around the neighborhood, or going to/from work…
Obviously, two hacks made it more likely than one hack that I'd get at least a couple of keys to micro-field portals as I wandered along my way. And 1.5min is the upper limit of how long I can be bothered to stop at a portal before getting stir-crazy.
So, to build or not to build? That's (part of) the calculus Niantic needs to think about when adjusting the cooldown interval.
I'd prefer to return to the 5min cool down.
While 90s was fine during the last 2 years, the novelty has worn off.
Time to get moving agent
get moving? I can't move, I'm stuck at this portal for 20 minutes getting my 4 hacks in, lol
Keep the 90s cooldown, and reduce the drop rate of heat sinks.
I really like the reduced cooldown period, it just speeds up the game so much. No more waiting around waiting for an arbitrary five minutes just for the chance to get another key, I can swiftly move between portals and not waste time.
If PoGo get to keep the increased radius to improve gameplay, why can't we keep the reduced cool down time to improve gameplay?
I feel double r7 as long as active de-values the third player as its too easy build p7 even Thia said its to easy... About cooldown if they do it slowly rewind back to original value its ok too i mean we have vr heatsinks that dont feel useful i myself prefer pop in a common hs if i want some extra hacks i dont even get excited if i get a vr hs anymore since cooldown is low as it is. Also since the game still has lag problems lower cooldowns sometimes is just frustrating when u press hack nothing happens.....
That's simple: 5 min cooldown - I'm stuck. 90sec cooldown - I'm moving.
I think 120sec cooldown could be a compromise.
5min cooldown was relevant in 2013, but now the world and the game has changed a lot.
how so ? today there is far more portals then 2013 so if anything u shouldnt be stuck at same portal vs back then when less portals... I feel they could go back to max like maybe 3 minutes? that would been okay and a little better then old 5min ...
Hacking is absolutely the most boring part of Ingress. I was rapt when cooldown changed to 90 seconds. Don't change it, please.
Cannot agree more, it has been a lot more fun to see fields being created than people not being bothered to field, because key farming takes too long.
100% this.
I've only been playing for two years, but I'm not going to be playing a game to sit around for 20 minutes at each group of portals (yes I get the heat sink argument). For a game that is about getting exploring and moving, why would there be such a long forced breaks in play. If Niantic do up the time, that's up to them, but there would definitely be less linking and fielding activity in my area.
but it makes things a bit too easy, even farming keys way too easy for it to be permanent imo. Niantic has waited too long on this "temp change" and ofc ppl will react different nothing strange about that but at same time the balance makes things a bit too easy in aquire gear etc...
Yeah, 5th wave and another lockdown. Perfect time to get rid of COVID bonuses.
I don’t really care about any of the perks. But adding more waiting between hacking will surely have an unwanted side effect. We’re already waiting and restarting the game plenty due to all the latency.
I would rather see the 5 minute timer come back, at this point. It's made the game too easy.
If they're going to keep it at 90 seconds, make all heatsinks the same variety and rename them "hack count reset" mods, or something along those lines.
I would like for the 90s cooldown to be a permanent change. Let me give you an example of how much more I started fielding after this change:
Before 90s cooldown, these were my stats from April 2019 to March 2020: 20,343 links, 13,373 fields (total count)
After the 90s cooldown, I managed 24,811 links and 29,927 fields (total numbers at this time: Connector: 45154, and Mind Controller: 43,300) during a similar time frame (April 2020 to March 2021), which was 4,468 more links, and 16554 more fields than the previous year. My current numbers stand at 66,938 for my Connector, and 77,285 for my Mind Controller.
I don't think I need to say a lot more, but these numbers speak for themselves when it comes to how much more I started enjoying fielding with the lower cooldown than I did with the 5 minute cooldown. Also, to those of you saying your heatsinks are no use with the 90 second cooldown, you really need to reevaluate your strategies. Even with the 90 second cooldown, I am almost always out of heatsinks because of how many I use to keep getting those extra keys and ultimately speed up my fan fielding.
I'm really confused on people wanting 5 minute gameplay then saying the game got easier...what the hell did a time difference do to make gameplay easier? The ability to acquire extra keys from RNG? It's definitely not skill because we're all dependent on RNG regardless of the the base hack time.
People who have a home or work portal will have an "advantage" regardless of the base hack time as well.
Regardless of time, agents are limited to a storage of 2k or 2.5k items. If someone was key gathering, they would already be using key caps and MUFGs to benefit from it - a quicker hack time just saves time on acquiring the resources. It's just the argument of sitting around one portal seems crazy when it can be used to moving to other portals.
You pretty much reach your max point when you hit level 8. What becomes beneficial is your familiarity to places as a routine and understanding which actions minimize time.
Speeds up gear output. You can use up your inventory and refill it in less than 1/3rd the time, even when doing it with a self made l6. Two VRMH, that's 33 minutes for 90 seconds, versus 110 minutes for the 5 minute cool down. Old bitter-vets missing the time investment accomplishment feeling the game used to provide, maybe?
The game has been made easier and easier through changes that have been implemented to inventory management over the years. In this case "easier" could probably be read as "quicker". Common heat-sinks have become trash mods for me, in particular, and rare heat-sinks aren't too far behind.
Yeah it should be set clearly stating it's quicker but to be honest, it seems like a long overdue QoS. Common mods have always been trash - you use them for either the Engineer medal, reset a portal cool down, or to advance a mission if burnout happened.
There's so many ways to acquire gear, I believe it's somewhat null to focus on the 5 minutes. Maybe 3 minutes is a nice medium of the two?
Maybe for lore, an unstable environment has caused hack cooldown to be anywhere within 90 to 240 seconds every 2 weeks at a time? (but only as multiples of 30 seconds so the possibility is 90, 120, 150, 180, 210, or 240 seconds)
I don't care, either way. My preference would be a return to the five minutes, though. I know that's an unpopular opinion because everyone wants everything, five minutes ago these days. If things continued on the trajectory they have been for the past few years, it starts to seem silly to differentiate between common/rare/very rare mods, though. The amount of gear output, in my experience, makes it feel like common and rare shields don't make a difference, and VR/Aegis shields are slightly better than a wet paper bag. If they're going to simplify hack timers, why not simplify other parts of the game at the same time?
the more dynamic gameplay is the better.
90 sec is ok and allowed to play and not stand and doing nothing. If niantic still want to increase the cooldown maybe add a cooldown reduction after scanning as scan bonus ? Win-win
65ap for recharge is fair and actually make people keep keys and recharge instead of systematic decay
Double r7 well i personaly like it as you can build l6 portal even alone in the middle of nowhere and have a 4 glyphs sequence (i freakin love glyphing 🤣)
90 second cooldown allows for more fast-paced gameplay. Standing for 5 minutes on a portal waiting between hacks is not gameplay, it's useless waste of time. Heatsinks should be rebalanced, other than that 90 (or sliiightly more) seconds cooldown should stay.