Quantum capsules - a better way
lgpmichael
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The idea of removing quantums from the game is - quite frankly - terrible. It is a vital gameplay mechanic in so many ways. It reduces the amount of tedious hacking for basic kit, it increases key availability, and makes the game more fun.
As I understand it, the issue is that it takes a lot of cpu to process quantums. So, on this score, I propose 2 things that will help this and allow quantums to stay. Both things are also going to be beneficial to the game in other ways.
1) Quantums only replicate if the player has been active in the previous 24 hours. This will reduce server load and increase game engagement. You could even make it one action gives one quantum replication so players with 30 quantums must do 30 things to guarantee replication. Game engagement increases, server costs go down.
2) If you are in a cell which the other team wins at the end of a septicycle, then each of your quantums has a 1% chance of degrading into a normal capsule. This could be lore based, and would immediately drop your cpu costs for quantums by half a percent per cycle. You can then tune quantum drop rates to manage cpu costs. It would also make cycles mean something and could significantly increase player interest and engagement with cycles.
These ideas will fix your problems, and will not **** off 96% of your player base - again. How many more times will the players put up with you disappointing them?
Comments
Is it tho?
If it dupes keys, it's got to go.
The rest of the Quantum can stay in regards to gameplay, but it seems more like they don't want the QCs at all due to cost issues which we have no real insight into and thus can't provide better methods.
There is a faction within the community that doesn't like key duplication because they don't like being fielded over/don't like having links to durables that block them/think BAFs are bad/etc. Those people have been complaining about Q-caps since the days when they were called MFUGs and still duplicated VR items.
Multiple ways of handling the server load issue have been proposed, some by people who know enough coding that the ideas would likely work (or at least help), but Niantic seems to have decided that they'd rather lighten the server load by appeasing the field haters.
Agree
I recently proposed that the duplication calculations be triggered by the player's first hack of the day. That would completely remove the need for a background process to process dupes, and it would also mean that only active accounts duplicate gear.
I totally agree. Keep muffys the way they are. I like the idea of tying to the first action of the day.
However, niantic has recently demonstrated a lack of concern with established core game mechanics (looking at you, under-field linking).
Maybe they'll keep taking away things agents like and they'll keep leaving the game, thus freeing up server resources.
I proposed on another thread this morning, that the Kinetic Capsule unlocks the crafted items after physically Hacking say, 3 portals.
With MUFGs/QCs having a hack of the day isn't enough to keep bad actors and backpack accounts from doing that themselves.
I still believe that the QCs should go. But I'm definitely going to miss them, as I pretty much only use them to dupe keys that I need/desire. And I'm out every single day doing something in Ingress.
Some say get rid of key duping altogether, regardless if via KC or QC.
IMO limited duping should still exist, and can exist with KCs
Limit the amount of quantums to 10 per agent and then only dupe per active agents by rolling day/week. Agents must satisfy hidden criterias, hacks, links, fields, etc per week.
I feel like basing it on activity might be similar to the issue at hand
Also, the latest VR loadout cards replace the quantums with kinetic caps
Replacing a VR item with a rare item that will disappear after 3 uses? Yeah, sure, sounds legit. I'm sure everyone wants their loadout cards to be further devalued.
When quantums are being removed...does it matter?
I hate the idea of Quantums being removed. Kinetic capsules do not have the same functionality, and the only value that I've found for them is turning cubes into Quantum cubes. I can see the value of flipping flipcards if you have a surplus of one type but beyond that everything else seems like it's a bad ROI or it's easier to hack the gear than to craft it.
Getting rid of key duplication really won't help the game for a long time because both factions have zillions of keys to their high-value durables. At this point the only keys I'm duplicating are souvenirs and keys with funny names. I used to have Quantums full of durable keys but they overwhelmed my inventory and I started aggressively culling them.
I really, REALLY wish they would address the issues with Quantums rather than deprecating them. They are way more useful than kinetic capsules, a daily trigger per-user would solve the issues with background tasks, tying them to activity would address the backpack issues, and getting rid of key duplication would prevent the key surplus from getting worse. @NianticBrian ?
Getting rid of key duplication really won't help the game for a long time because both factions have zillions of keys to their high-value durables.
That's a weird argument to make because wouldn't you want to see how the servers react to no longer having to process the calculations?
The same argument could have been said about VR items in quantums but we're now 2 years after the fact. We have kcaps that can make VR items in place of the quantums.
K-caps only make some of the VR items. Flip cards are a swap and while the shield it makes is VR, it isn't the top of the line Aegis shield.
This decision is just another display of Niantic's inability to read the room. They have a game that has been quite successful for 10 Years, which they have been progressively ruining and constantly showing disregard for their audience. Surely we all remember when Prime was thrust upon us as an update, replacing our original scanner with a broken, non functioning lump of terd?
We can't dupe VR objects anymore.
Pay to win (CORE) was introduced.
In Game Purchases doubled in price.
Linking under fields - ****???
Red Portals controlled by nobody that can link across links? You want to decrease server load surely these pointless additions could be removed.
Now you want our Quantum Caps in exchange for Kinetics? You do realise that there are a lot of players who have physical disabilities for whom kinetics are little more than recycling fodder right?
The argument that players are complaining about being fielded over using keys from Quantum Caps is weak at best. How about you actually mobilise with your community and do something about it? Get your own stash of keys and play strategically, that's what INGRESS is.
Meanwhile, we are still plagued with spoofers and multi-accounters, the two biggest issues for legit players, both creating more than their fair share of server load and both requiring actual time to be investigated (tic) and in the case of spoofers have their actions rectified (again, tongue in cheek).
Perhaps Niantic could actually put some effort into fixing what's wrong with the game rather than breaking it even more. Just a thought....
I Love it and think it is good to remove Qvantum from Ingress Prime. We only use Kinetic to get more keys and itemts! 👍🏻❤️
@NianticBrian
I played before mufg capsules. Didn't have a problem then. I'm sure I'll be fine without quantums.
What's new? Niantic already depreciated the value of this game, anyway. It's a desperate money-generating move to support the game's existence. Niantic's thought process: How can we squeeze more money from our existing players? Oh, let me count the ways! Nerf the Level 7 deployment for each agent to ensure they can't build higher-level farms easily, introduce KCs as freebies, then sell them after retiring QCs so agents without enough resources can buy gears from our store, sell decorative and useless medals, which just add clutter, etc. Nice way of leading to the demise of this game since one of the reasons why some CORE subscribers stick to their subscription is because of the utility of the QC caps.
I'm here to say it sucks that Niantic removed Quantum Capsule!! My favorite use of them was to duplicate Rare HeatSinks & Rare MultiHacks. 97 or 98 of each in a capsule would duplicate them. That said, Quantums would never duplicate Very Rare HS & MH regardless of how many were in there.
Anyway, I think Niantic has made it clear they don't care about the loyal players who've been here since the beginning. I've been playing Ingress since it was in beta, back when you actually needed a invite code from Google to be able to play. Niantic giving the Founder's Badge was a nice way to show appreciation to its longtime players, but since then they've done the opposite. I was still using the old version of Ingress until that was also taken away.
Maybe I'm wrong in thinking Niantic doesn't care about it's loyal players who've been around the longest, and have gotten many other people to start playing. The people who helped make Ingress as popular as it is/was. Maybe.....Niantic actually wants its longest players to quit playing altogether??
That's a very narrow-minded way of thinking. You're basically saying "I don't like it, so nobody should like it!". Believe it or not, there's a lot more to this world than your little community...
This makes no sense. You can't generate keys from Kinetic capsules. I just double checked btw.
My main problem with quantum’s was that they encouraged you to hoard high level gear in order to duplicate more over going out to farm more.
Now I don’t feel like I have hold on to 80+ of every VR mod (or 10+ of certain keys).
It has freed up a lot of space … once I work through the 80 KCs I got because I was also hoarding QCs.