[2.108.1] Concept Discussion: Tap Disambiguation should appear for dropped items still

I was super excited when we got the release notes for 2.108, to see that the "Acquire" screen had been removed. However, the implementation we've received should be better described as

"Mass Pickup Enabled" or "Disabled Disambiguation Menu for Items"

The problem here is the reason for which the disambiguation screen was created, was not the "Acquire" button. That button existed before disambiguation and even with it's removal, we need the disambiguation menu still.

Scenario 1: Swapping Capsules

Two people wish to swap bursters for cubes, an extremely common activity. However, they're both above the 2400 item (or 1900 for non-CORE members) count in their inventory. The standard process is:

  1. Person A notes the first three digits of the capsule's ID, then drops the 100 X8s.
  2. Person B notes the first three digits of the capsule's ID, then drops the 100 C8s.
  3. Person A taps the pair of capsules, the disambiguation menu appears with both capsules, and Person A selects the capsule who's ID is not the one they noted.
  4. Person B taps the pair of capsules, the disambiguation menu appears with both capsules, and Person B selects the capsule who's ID is not the one they noted.

The key points here are that each person can only pick up one capsule, but both capsules are on top of one another, because the people dropped their capsules at the same time. Before Disambiguation, the only way for this to work was for people to walk 20-40m apart and drop the capsules, because they couldn't know which one they'd be picking up.

Scenario 2: Inconsistency will lead to creativity

The disambiguation menu does appear but only when there's items vs portals. It will lead to players feeling compelled to move to portals to swap capsules. This is similar to the "Players must walk 20-40m apart" which almost defeats the purpose of having the tap disambiguation menu.

Scenario 3: Many Item Drops

This one is more of a question for performance. If I drop 600 items on the ground, then someone taps them all once, what is the performance impact. Will the game cause issues for having that many items dropped for a 'mass pickup'? We've already begun to see issues with people getting hundreds of retry errors. This can't be good for the performance of the system.

Conclusion:

The most common player to player item transfers in modern Ingress are single capsule swaps, often with an exchange. Unless the goal is to encourage mass drop, mass pickup of items (in which case, we need the "Drop 1" button to show more than a single item) then the tap disambiguation method should continue to appear for items, not just when a portal is involved.

Comments

  • Agree.

    One solution could be to always present tap disambiguation menu but additionally present players with a button to "Acquire All". Players can then opt to click that to pick up everything, OR click on and acquire a specific item.

  • starwortstarwort ✭✭✭✭✭

    It will lead to players feeling compelled to move to portals to swap capsules.

    ...or they could just turn the auto-pickup option off in Settings.

    I'm not saying the implementation is perfect (and as another agent said, they probably shouldn't have turned it on by default), but there is at least an easy workaround.

  • Would be interesting to see how bad actors would use this:

    1. Go to known enemy couch portal, event, meetup, or anomaly hotel.

    2. Auto tap center of player circle. Nonstop.

    3. Spoofers will enjoy endless routes, becoming the new 'street sweepers' during these events.

  • grendelwulfgrendelwulf ✭✭✭✭✭

    See, I was curious to see what key was lying on the ground around a portal that was out of my reach, but I kept getting the item out of range message instead of seeing what portal the key was to.

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I very rarely, if ever, want to acquire all, is this something people were asking for? Eveb when taking out the red portals, I'll maybe grab a couple of resos and the rare or vr shield of they dropped

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yes because you spend more time picking up the items versus attacking the portal

  • edited January 2023

    This will only be a temporary setting, like all the experimental Settings there. You won't be able to turn it off if they consider it successful.

    If this is why they implemented it this way, they'd have been better off either not dropping dozens of items, or dropping a "Single use Capsule" with the items in it but it disappears when emptied and can't be added to.

    I like losing the Acquire button but mass pickup seems like a bug.

  • starwortstarwort ✭✭✭✭✭

    This will only be a temporary setting, like all the experimental Settings there. You won't be able to turn it off if they consider it successful.

    Where does it say that?

    The "Native Refresh Rate" setting (which has been there for ages) would be a good candidate for just integrating in to the normal scanner operation. The "Nearby Portal Indicators" needs to be switchable on a permanent basis and was put there precisely because people wanted to switch them off (and they were added to the client in the first place because [different] people wanted them because they existed in Ingress Classic).

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    I would imagine as it's under the experimental features section, we most likely see improvements to it. It's a good compromise to have the ability to turn it off to not affect gameplay between version releases.

  • That's why I'm asking for an improvement before the option becomes baked in.

  • Sometimes it is the portal that drops lots of items drops. Could be gear from a machina destruction, or keys from popping an anchor. In battle beacon use it can be a LOT of keys when the anchor is blown many times in succession. In these situations there is no capsuling of items possible

  • edited January 2023

    Not sure about you, but I never want every key that an enemy portal drops. And the keys rarely drop on top of each other unless you're killing a starburst, so this whole post wouldn't apply. Your battle beacon situation is a tiny edge case, specifically for people using a scenario to boost their profile only. Also, you don't get a choice in that situation, because the Disambiguation menu already does appear.

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