[Feature Request] Very Rare Kinetic Capsules

GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

@NianticBrian

@NianticThia

I'll preface this first by pointing out that a lot of players will not like what I am suggesting.

There have been several topics of what to do about portal key duplication rates, whilst still allowing them.


Problem 1:

Rare Kinetic Capsules are just too common

Problem 2:

Kinetic Capsules have devalued Very Rare items.

Problem 3:

Portal keys? Still haven't been addressed


Issue:

Since their introduction, Kinetic Capsules have made it easier to get those hard to get Very Rare items, which is great on paper, in practice, they have devalued the rarity of items, significantly.

Crafting and using Very Rare items faster than one can consume candy.

Personally, I cannot use them up fast enough, even as junk mods.


I have been racking my noggin thinking of something that brings items back to their expected Rarity value.


Suggestion:

1) Enable Rare Kinetic Capsules to craft ONLY up to Rare Items. Not Portal Keys

2) Bring in Very Rare Kinetic Capsules. Adding 1 to CORE load out too.

3) VR KCs will be able to craft Very Rare items from Rare items, not commons.

4) VR KCs to also duplicate a very limited number of portal keys.

5). Also Allow for 1 VR Capsule to be bought in the in app store per week.

5) The Common KC we all have should have limited capability to craft a few Rare Items. But still primarily be able to craft Common items such as L1 resonators from L8 Resonators


Since the number of Portal keys that can be duplicated are very limited, and can only be done in VR Kinetic Capsules.


What about Quantum Capsules?

Leave them to dupe common and rare items, just not portal keys. Since this is just a value on the Ingress database, it takes zero effort and no coding to do to adjust the duplication of portal keys to zero.

Have you asked around about player habits?

I have, their habits around Kinetic Capsules are the same as mine, and they too feel that crafting Very Rare items has devalued their rarity.

Tagged:

Comments

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    The rarity of times has never been correct. Also, I see the current bday event pushing out more kcaps just so the 1 km can be used to your benefit.

    Also, this post is mentioning so many more requests than what your topic title is even about. It's a bit misleading as you're also wishing to revamp the rarity of other items for the VR kcap. (You should be able to edit the topic title within the first day of posting.)

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    I could, but then the title becomes confusing.


    But it all centres around Very Rare Kinetic Capsules

  • BreenzyBreenzy ✭✭✭✭

    I like it, but am still of the opinion key dupe should entirely be removed.

  • edited November 2022

    IMO make a VKC unlimited purchase, half-distance and not duplicating keys. Point 2 is a "whine", not an issue.

    The point of #3 is that keys should never duplicate, and if you want more keys you have to go to the portal. It's too easy to fake Adventure Sync distance.

    Ingress: It's time to move. Not Ingress: It's time to put your phone on the roomba.

  • I don't understand the issue with keys duplicating. You have to visit to get a key at least once. When I was lot more into BAFing it was never worth it to use a quantum on keys, because they duplicate too slow. You need a bunch of keys to even get any significant duplication. Whatever fields you were planning wouldn't have needed enough keys for duplication to make a difference. A good old linkstar might have benefited from it I suppose.

    Is it people throwing blockers to inaccessible portals that's causing the issue?

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @netsplit It used to be that keys to durable portals were rare items and that if you wanted to use the durable a lot you had to hack it a lot. You could do that by some combination of spending a lot of time there, going there repeatedly, or taking a lot of people there. With quantum caps you just have to hack a moderate number of keys once and then you can keep using the portal forever... including continuing to use it when there's no possible way for you or anyone else to get there.

    A few years ago someone gifted me a souvenir key to a unicorn portal that only a very few people in the world have ever hacked legitimately. It's not useful to me in any way because it's five digits of km away from me but it has a certain cool factor so I stuck it in a quantum cap. I now have too many of those keys, I've given a couple dozen away as souvenirs to friends, and I've recycled dozens because I needed the inventory space. That one key has become at least a hundred, and for all I know my friends have also duplicated tons of them.

    Now, imagine that I went to a durable portal and farmed 20 keys while I was there. At 1% interest per day I could turn those 20 keys into around 750. If I farmed 50 keys it would be almost 1900 after a year.

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    However, we have been able to hack up to 3 keys of a portal with the more glyph since at least 2016. Remote or not, wouldn't the issue be more of the rate of replicating as it's classified as a common rarity? I have L8 bursters and ultrastrikes that replicate at the same rate. Is that also an issue?

  • netsplitnetsplit ✭✭
    edited November 2022

    Thanks for helping me understand. I used to use quantums on interesting portals such as NL1331, and funny ones to gift to other players, but hard to reach portals could be an issue. There's a lot of lighthouse portals on Lake Michigan that could be an issue like that. Now that I think about it there was one around Indiana Dunes that was pretty infamous. Almost got a raft to get it in the middle of winter one year before common sense, and self preservation over road my competitiveness.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2022

    @netsplit I once flew over the Farallon Islands (30 miles off the coast of San Francisco) in a small plane with two other people and a satellite phone in order to capture/upgrade/farm the portals... those were seriously durable portals. Out here in the west we also have a lot of portals on mountain peaks, e.g. Mt. Whitney at 14K feet... a challenging climb that can only be done by reservation, and there's a mountain in Arizona that's infamous for having three Ingress-related search and rescue efforts... though only two people were involved. (Yes, one's a slow learner.) I have a few funny keys that I dupe as well, but I would sacrifice that to stop duplication of the ones with high strategic value.

    @MoogModular Yes, the rate of replication is part of it, but the number of keys already in circulation is also an issue. If we hadn't had years of duplicating keys like bunnies then turning the replication rate way down would be a solution.

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    Then why not do that versus abstaining them from ever replicating? Even stopping it won't show anything different until a few months down the road.

  • netsplitnetsplit ✭✭
    edited November 2022

    @Hosette Adventures and misadventures like that are what make Ingress exciting!


    As for the key issue, Niantic tracks who's hacked what portal. Seems like keys could be marked common, rare, or VR by how many people have interacted with a portal. Common portal keys would replicate, and so would rare, but ones that require a 14 hour journey by donkey wouldn't get so many visitors and would become VR keys which don't replicate, except maybe if the OP's idea is implimented.


    Edit: further collecting VR keys could add an additional element to the game.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @netsplit It's an interesting idea. I've contemplated similar, in fact.

    I like to evaluate my ideas by thinking about what the unintended consequences would be and how bad actors would abuse a system.

  • You have to visit to get a key at least once.

    No, you have to be given a key by someone who visited once. At one point I had 200 keys for Guantanamo Bay after being given just one, because I was asked to replicate some for an Op. Additionally, one person going somewhere, once, does not justify using a given portal over and over with unlimited keys. That's not in the spirit of the game.

    Is it people throwing blockers to inaccessible portals that's causing the issue?

    Generally that or throwing fields where the spine is accessible, but the two anchors aren't so while you can keep droping the fields, they can also put them up over and over and over again, especially if there are rails to inaccessible portals.

  • When you destroy a hard to access portal and within a day it has another 100 links on it, that's not "Oh I went there and used the more glyph".

    (And yes, there's also an additional issue with 'non-in-person' recapture of the portal).

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    I envisage the VR KC to be a purchased item only. With it discounted as part of core, removing the rare ones entirely from CORE.

    Each with 5 uses

    Having it limited to purchase 1 or 2 per week, reduces the pay2win aspect of it

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