I just hope Niantic is happy with it, and employees are not allowed to talk about it on the forum it seems. Seeing them nog responding to any treat, mostly someone leaves a response at their forum. This game is over.
It seems the biggest complaints are the speed of the growth and inaccessible areas. If those two issues could be resolved it might be easier to play against. I don't think there's a reasonable answer to inaccessible portals because that's always been a fault in the game but they could slow down the spread or just let them decay. Sadly it seems it's either accept them the way they are or remove them entirely. Because there is no answer that will help. I think it's a good addition to the game if they stay out of inaccessible areas. But because the portals in those areas will never go away it will never happen. The only real answer it seems is to get rid of it. Inaccessible portals have been a problem from day 1 and it's never going to change
I think it's a good addition to the game if they stay out of inaccessible areas.
The problem that has existed sincee forever is how you define an Inacessible Area though. Whether it's Machina, Big Fields, or single faction farms, the definition has always been the stumbling block both in terms of scalability and even definition.
If we could define inaccessible portals, there's a host of things that would be achievable.
I hate Machina. I am a casual player. I use ingress as a motivator to exercise in the morning. I like to make a weekly field plan, and achieve a section each day, or every other day. There's a Machina infection in an inaccessible area nearby and it's rapidly growing every day. Instead of making progress each day, I have to run around dealing with Machina portals or settle for a less satisfying or beneficial plan which will end up making me quit the game (founder badge holder here). The number one thing I hate about Machina is that it is forcefully trying to make me play more than I want to with no incentive or benefit, in order to play how I want to play - which is the opposite of the original goal of Machina as per the original post.
I'm wondering if there are any actual strategies other than "just play more"
Can we start a thread that contains all that we know and have observed about how Machina behaves so that we can better understand this woeful implementation and make strategies to stop or slow it?
Normal gameplay before the red autonomous BOT spoofer:
Normal gameplay after the red autonomous BOT spoofer:
Genius idea this to put the spoofer bot to move the game. They just forgot to match the real players. Congratulations @NianticBrian and @NianticAustin , you managed to disable the ingress 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
The game has slowly been losing players for a few years now. Rather than promote the game they gave us a computer opponent. I actually like it but I realize I'm probably in the minority of opinions. I'm not sure how many more people have to quit before Niantic just gives up on it. But the numbers are getting really low. If machina isn't the answer then they need to change gears before they lose everyone.
Good point above - if you want to keep fielding, Machina FORCES you to play. At least with human opponents, if you have issues with them they get bored and go away if you do nothing.
Am having fun with Machina, it just is too slow in my area. I get to pop red piñatas about once every 3 weeks. Only have access to two infections, one is apparently on life support and the other goes from 5 portals to about 60 in 3 weeks. I took 54 today and it will be weeks before the half hour drive is worth it.
lol "Without any effort" ? You're dead wrong. What about solo, on foot, casual players planning one or more neighbourhood stacks that contribute in a not insignificant way to Cell MU count? Planning a stack, walking to numerous destinations to farm keys, then enacting that plan over multiple days while doing morning exercise - that is "no effort"? And now thanks to Machina, instead of using the little time I have to play the game in a way that is both enjoyable to me and actually beneficial to my team, I have to walk (and also, now drive) numerous kilometres out of the way to first clear some bullsh*t links that grow too rapidly to control.....Unless I am willing to commit double the time or even more to taking out rapidly growing Machina clusters. Some people have lives outside of the game and can only dedicate little time to playing. Machina activelydiminishes the value i can add as a player in the small amount of time I can play. So, what's the f*&king point of playing? I could spend that time smashing Machina portals, but A) That's not satisfying for me, I like building mini stacks and B) Machina grows too rapidly for my effort to be actually worth anything. So I guess i may as well quit.
What Niantic doesn't understand is that Ingress largely lives off the mischievousness between the two factions. Now both factions need to clean the trash in front of their door for many hours, before anything productive can be done.
Kill a machina portal and you get a bunch of keys off that portal. It would be great for building, but how, when the entire surroudings are full of random trash and your inventory gets filled up quickly...?
Yesterday, I went after machina for 3 hours in my small city, cleared half of them without any personal planned progress, then I just gave up. Going after Machina portals has the same excitement level as trying to get rid of herpes. I expect that everything is full of **** again next Saturday, when I go out for a tour again.
I think, if Machina must absolutely persist in the game, if they had any sort of rules attached to them instead of being completely random, then it would be more fun to have them around.
Not being allowed to cross links would be one of those rules that we need here. Limit links to 200 Meters. Why not let them build small fields? Make them look like they're not complete idiots.
Also, any Machina network could have a designated hub portal, blowing that one up and the whole network attached to it immediately crumbles in a chain reaction. That gives players the choice of playing with machina junk or not.
The area where I play has a high number of active agents. Machina portals are usually destroyed in a few days. I had to drive over 100km to get to the closest infestation bundle, to check the portals out and take them down.
Unless Machina changes its behaviour, to become more active / agressive, it has a very limited presence in my area.
If you have enough active agents to keep Machina under control for over 100 km you should consider yourself lucky.
If Machina was made aggressive enough to maintain footholds in your area indefinitely then it would likely be so aggressive that it would overwhelm just about everywhere else.
Machina is supposed to be about providing an opponent in areas with low activity, not to be strong enough to destroy the game in areas with low to moderate activity. Or is it?
That's what I would think. Take every not heavily patrolled BAF off the board. Certain places need rightsizing because of lack of agent activity however.
Comments
I just hope Niantic is happy with it, and employees are not allowed to talk about it on the forum it seems. Seeing them nog responding to any treat, mostly someone leaves a response at their forum. This game is over.
It seems the biggest complaints are the speed of the growth and inaccessible areas. If those two issues could be resolved it might be easier to play against. I don't think there's a reasonable answer to inaccessible portals because that's always been a fault in the game but they could slow down the spread or just let them decay. Sadly it seems it's either accept them the way they are or remove them entirely. Because there is no answer that will help. I think it's a good addition to the game if they stay out of inaccessible areas. But because the portals in those areas will never go away it will never happen. The only real answer it seems is to get rid of it. Inaccessible portals have been a problem from day 1 and it's never going to change
I think it's a good addition to the game if they stay out of inaccessible areas.
The problem that has existed sincee forever is how you define an Inacessible Area though. Whether it's Machina, Big Fields, or single faction farms, the definition has always been the stumbling block both in terms of scalability and even definition.
If we could define inaccessible portals, there's a host of things that would be achievable.
Good luck with your micro fielding plan.. don't know why anyone had some brains to let this sht happen.
I hate Machina. I am a casual player. I use ingress as a motivator to exercise in the morning. I like to make a weekly field plan, and achieve a section each day, or every other day. There's a Machina infection in an inaccessible area nearby and it's rapidly growing every day. Instead of making progress each day, I have to run around dealing with Machina portals or settle for a less satisfying or beneficial plan which will end up making me quit the game (founder badge holder here). The number one thing I hate about Machina is that it is forcefully trying to make me play more than I want to with no incentive or benefit, in order to play how I want to play - which is the opposite of the original goal of Machina as per the original post.
I'm wondering if there are any actual strategies other than "just play more"
Can we start a thread that contains all that we know and have observed about how Machina behaves so that we can better understand this woeful implementation and make strategies to stop or slow it?
Doc with a compilation of what is known about Machina:
Until Niantic makes some real changes to Machina though, the only conceivable strategies seem to be:
1) destroy as many Machina as possible
2) capture as many neutrals as possible
Normal gameplay before the red autonomous BOT spoofer:
Normal gameplay after the red autonomous BOT spoofer:
Genius idea this to put the spoofer bot to move the game. They just forgot to match the real players. Congratulations @NianticBrian and @NianticAustin , you managed to disable the ingress 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
The game has slowly been losing players for a few years now. Rather than promote the game they gave us a computer opponent. I actually like it but I realize I'm probably in the minority of opinions. I'm not sure how many more people have to quit before Niantic just gives up on it. But the numbers are getting really low. If machina isn't the answer then they need to change gears before they lose everyone.
Good point above - if you want to keep fielding, Machina FORCES you to play. At least with human opponents, if you have issues with them they get bored and go away if you do nothing.
Am having fun with Machina, it just is too slow in my area. I get to pop red piñatas about once every 3 weeks. Only have access to two infections, one is apparently on life support and the other goes from 5 portals to about 60 in 3 weeks. I took 54 today and it will be weeks before the half hour drive is worth it.
i only see less easy fields without any effort ?
lol "Without any effort" ? You're dead wrong. What about solo, on foot, casual players planning one or more neighbourhood stacks that contribute in a not insignificant way to Cell MU count? Planning a stack, walking to numerous destinations to farm keys, then enacting that plan over multiple days while doing morning exercise - that is "no effort"? And now thanks to Machina, instead of using the little time I have to play the game in a way that is both enjoyable to me and actually beneficial to my team, I have to walk (and also, now drive) numerous kilometres out of the way to first clear some bullsh*t links that grow too rapidly to control.....Unless I am willing to commit double the time or even more to taking out rapidly growing Machina clusters. Some people have lives outside of the game and can only dedicate little time to playing. Machina actively diminishes the value i can add as a player in the small amount of time I can play. So, what's the f*&king point of playing? I could spend that time smashing Machina portals, but A) That's not satisfying for me, I like building mini stacks and B) Machina grows too rapidly for my effort to be actually worth anything. So I guess i may as well quit.
Last post above sums it up well.
A lot of us have busy lives with limited time to play. Now we need far more time, which frankly, we don't have.
People who can play basically unlimited hours, fine. For others, no so fine.
What Niantic doesn't understand is that Ingress largely lives off the mischievousness between the two factions. Now both factions need to clean the trash in front of their door for many hours, before anything productive can be done.
Kill a machina portal and you get a bunch of keys off that portal. It would be great for building, but how, when the entire surroudings are full of random trash and your inventory gets filled up quickly...?
Yesterday, I went after machina for 3 hours in my small city, cleared half of them without any personal planned progress, then I just gave up. Going after Machina portals has the same excitement level as trying to get rid of herpes. I expect that everything is full of **** again next Saturday, when I go out for a tour again.
Ingress: Planned building became planned misery.
Follow-up:
I think, if Machina must absolutely persist in the game, if they had any sort of rules attached to them instead of being completely random, then it would be more fun to have them around.
Not being allowed to cross links would be one of those rules that we need here. Limit links to 200 Meters. Why not let them build small fields? Make them look like they're not complete idiots.
Also, any Machina network could have a designated hub portal, blowing that one up and the whole network attached to it immediately crumbles in a chain reaction. That gives players the choice of playing with machina junk or not.
The area where I play has a high number of active agents. Machina portals are usually destroyed in a few days. I had to drive over 100km to get to the closest infestation bundle, to check the portals out and take them down.
Unless Machina changes its behaviour, to become more active / agressive, it has a very limited presence in my area.
come to here if you want a challange to destroy some red :D https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.751888,5.512274
Seeing things like this makes me believe that Niantic just wants to destroy Ingress completely.
If you have enough active agents to keep Machina under control for over 100 km you should consider yourself lucky.
If Machina was made aggressive enough to maintain footholds in your area indefinitely then it would likely be so aggressive that it would overwhelm just about everywhere else.
Machina is supposed to be about providing an opponent in areas with low activity, not to be strong enough to destroy the game in areas with low to moderate activity. Or is it?
That's what I would think. Take every not heavily patrolled BAF off the board. Certain places need rightsizing because of lack of agent activity however.