Nerfing Quantum caps won't solve the key duplication problem

HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

There's been a lot of discussion for months, years, that Quantum caps should no longer duplicate keys. Based on statements made by @NianticBrian they are planning to sunset them sometime soon. I think that's a bad idea, but in discussing this elsewhere today I realized something important... Disabling key duplication will not change anything, at least not for a very long time.

Why is this? Every player who is involved in strategic/tactical play in any way has been duplicating high-value keys for years. This means that both factions have a massive oversupply of keys to their most valuable portals, a supply that probably won't be exhausted during Ingress's lifetime.

Here's one story: A few years ago a player gave me a souvenir key to a unicorn portal. It's one that has no strategic value for me because it's well over 10K km away from anywhere I play, but I stuck it in a Quantum cap anyway. A year later I had dozens, and I would randomly drop a key at friends' couch portals when I passed by just to say hello. I've recycled dozens, and I still have dozens left... and that's a key with no value but "fun".

Durable keys are even worse, because everybody and their brother has been duping them for years. At least where I live I can guarantee you that there are thousands of keys in circulation for the most valuable portals and hundreds to thousands for lots of the others.

I still think that keys should stop duplicating. I just don't think it will make a difference to the game.

Tagged:

Comments

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    A secondary concern is that if key duplication ends some players will turn to spoof farming. Most players are ethical and wouldn't do that, but not everyone is ethical. Spoof farming is impossible for players to detect, and if someone gives me keys I have no way of knowing if they were farmed legitimately, duped, or spoof-farmed.

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    Why make a new topic from one of your posts? It's not going to change the visibility.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    I made a new topic because it's a separate concept.

  • DSktrDSktr ✭✭✭✭

    But there's one case,if quantum capsules will be suddenly removed with all items in...🤣

  • We survived the same thing when Quantum's stopped duplicating VR items.

    There were accounts full of Aegis, ADA and Jarvis to supply enough people.for years to come.


    If people are that concerned about the excess of keys still existing, break down links to durables as fast as you can to force them to use them.

  • joecainjoecain ✭✭✭✭✭

    How about niantic just leaves muffys alone? Dwindling player numbers should mean the servers get a little more relief every day.

  • VaskinCallVaskinCall ✭✭✭✭
    edited December 2022

    Your example is a bad one. 

    - You have many keys to a portal that is 10,000 km away.

    - You don't need that portal in any way, do you?

    But the agents who use that portal regularly use up their keys all the time, so there aren't many keys left. These agents are hardly aware that you have many keys to their anchor portal.

    Let me give you an example of an OPS in Russia. We were building fields in the city all the time, but a few anchor portals were available to a very limited number of agents. I had such a portal at the factory where I work. I had to constantly farm the keys to this portal. Every day! They were spent very quickly. 

    I had 24/7 access to my work portal, and I had no trouble collecting a lot of keys. But there are portals that are difficult to access, or inaccessible portals at that time. In this case, agents would duplicate keys, leaving supplies in their capsules to resupply such keys through duplicates.

    It is easy for a spofer to collect new keys from such portals. In the same way, spoofer can stack these keys in a third-party account, which does not appear anywhere and will not be banned. That is, spoofers will not be harmed by such a restriction. But for honest agents, such deprivation would be very damaging. There will be even less OPS. 

  • MirthmakerMirthmaker ✭✭✭✭
  • If there really isn't an option to **** one of the links, then the amount of keys in inventories doesn't matter either, as they won't ever be used.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @VaskinCall My example was just an illustration of how quickly keys can be duplicated, and how a single key can turn into a glut over time.

    I live on the California coast, and we have countless durable portals available to us. Everyone I know has a stash of keys to coastal lighthouses, remote islands in Alaska and Hawaii, difficult-hike portals in the mountains (many of which are only accessible part of the year), areas with no cell service, and even a Superfund site. As soon as MUFGs came out everybody dropped their durable keys into them and made lots of happy baby keys.

  • VenomousToadVenomousToad ✭✭✭✭✭

    Key duplication will stop. It may take several years of taking them from backpacks but eventually they will run out. The faster they turn them off the sooner the inventory will be depleted. I have a feeling once they are off people will either give up the game or suddenly create an interest in farming for gear.

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Disagree, however as I have said several times.

    And created a feature request for a solution that best fits what the Ingress devs can do that benefits most


Sign In or Register to comment.