Late portal decay time

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Comments

  • DrHydrosaurDrHydrosaur ✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2023

    Thanks for this data. What you are describing is more or less exactly what you’d expect to happen if each portal had a random 1% chance of decaying every 20 to 25 minutes (14 portals remaining after 14 days).

    A bit more specificity, 61 portals after 14 days, an average of:

    6 portals with 6 decays

    4 portals with 5 decays

    4 portals with 4 decays or less (usually including one with 2 decays or less)

    You’d also expect a total of about 28 decays remaining on the last 14 portals.

    Finally, if something like this is what is actually going on, the average (mean and median) full decay time for a portal would be about 11 days.

  • DrHydrosaurDrHydrosaur ✭✭✭✭

    Unfortunately, my theory seems to explain all the facts, including why Niantic is apparently doing and saying nothing about this.

    I also expect that the experimental modified decay for portals under friendly fields during the Oct-Dec 2022 period was done to prepare for a global implementation when QCs were removed. And, when we created this bug page, Niantic used our submissions not to fix a bug but to, at most, verify that the decays were performing properly under the new decay algorithm.

    Ingress has a long history of not having its internal rules explained by Niantic. Is it written anywhere official that decay will occur at precise 24 hour intervals? I believe it’s just what we reverse engineered. Now we have something more complicated to reverse engineer.

    I definitely prefer the predictability of a precise decay schedule but I honestly don’t think it’s coming back. For me, I think it’s time to adapt my play style a bit.

  • Well, I've already adapted my play style to this mess, don't like to just sit and wait...

    Main issue is that the decay time this way became significantly longer, and more waiting, more boring.

  • We had an event last year that was based on reduced portal decay time:

    It clearly states portal decay increased from 15% to 19% per day

  • Portals taking longer to decay helps nothing, and is especially harmful for players with no competitors

  • The problem is getting worse. Instead of just being delayed, many portals are going days without decay. I know of two that are +5 days for certain. I recharged one reso, with the other the others stuck on 40% - no change at all for almost a week. I used a virus on another, and in 6 days it only has 15% decay. This is worse than a minor annoyance at this point. If this is intentional, I think it goes down as one of the most foolish and ill-advised “investigations” yet.

  • I really hope you're wrong, having an unpredictable decay is going to be a turn off for many. Two portals that I rely upon to decay haven't budged in about 6 days, that's two fielding walks I haven't been on this week already just because of that.

    On your point about Nia not saying anything, I have to disagree, they don't need a reason to go radio silent, that is pretty much the default setting.

    I would agree with @astraeus4 that if this is intentional, it is foolish to say the least.

  • EvilSuperHerosEvilSuperHeros ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yesterday morning I finally had 2 portals show decay that hadn't decayed in over 2 weeks. Its not very helpful, because still nothing from Niantic. Usually @ofer2 gets in on give us some sort of details. These days, the forums are just a ghost town of what should be some Niantic activity.

  • A slightly less bad scenario is that the change was intentional to have enough server capacity to test Machina's extreme growth. The good news is that Machina is already declining. Let's hope...

  • starwortstarwort ✭✭✭✭✭

    That would be a really stupid way of doing it, in my opinion.

    ...which means that it's probably exactly what they did.

  • There isn’t enough evidence this problem has been fixed, but I have observed in several cases more normal decay rates today, and closer to the actual capture time. Fingers crossed it’s not just a fluke

  • EvilSuperHerosEvilSuperHeros ✭✭✭✭✭

    So is it a coincidence that a ton of Machina portals went poof, and the decay rate is suddenly getting closer to normal?


    I see Machina currently owns 2,247,354 portals. Quite a bit less than this past weekend...

  • Well this is new, the intern has clearly taken a hammer to the decay knob.

    3/11 test portals have decayed a day early so I guess insta-decay is but a few days away.

    I still have one portal on 85% after 16 days though...

  • Portals captured yesterday mostly decaying within a few hours after their exact time. Among those captured earlier, than that, there are still some late more than a day, but decaying twice a day, so, trying to catch up.

    The pattern is similar to the first week after this started. I doubt this was an accident. Well, "investigating" might also mean we had to do? I'd like to find the passcode, too 😁

  • I have more and more portals decaying a day early and my 85%er is on 18 days now

  • Can confirm decay seems to be getting slowly back to normal. Not yet on time but at least around 8 days rather than the intended 7.

    However, this is only for newly captured portals in the last couple of days…. What about the stuck portals on (for example) 70% which have remained so for over a week each?

    Please update us when this issue has been fully ‘fixed’ Niantic. Would be nice to run decay engines again!

  • My observation (should be confirmed, though) if one reso is recharged to full, that looks like resets the countdown for the portals deployed before the anomaly weekend, and the multiple decay per day can be avoided.

  • DrHydrosaurDrHydrosaur ✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2023

    It’s looking more and more like this was all temporary (I’ve been tracking 53 local portals since Sunday) and somehow related to the Machina growth spurt. Decays looking much closer to normal now, although it’s not clear if they will return to their previous decay time or something else.

    I certainly don’t think it’s a coincidence decays are becoming much more normal at the same time Machina portals are decaying at a frantic rate (down almost 95% from weekend , from 5 million portals to under 300,000).

    There is some discussion in General forum that Machina may come back soon but making fields. Hopefully if it does they don’t mess up decay again.

  • Hallelujah, it looks like everything is back to normal. No thanks to Niantic for the lack of feedback, but thanks to all who made a fuss.

  • Not quite convinced yet. Yes more are decaying but I still have several portals that are stuck and not going down. Like many have said, its really disappointing that Niantic have not responded to what has actually gone wrong.

  • I just watched 21 portals I deployed last night and all decayed exactly on time. What a relief!

    Anything deployed before that is still all over the place, my 'best' is now down to 25% but it's 21 days since I deployed it

  • EvilSuperHerosEvilSuperHeros ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2023

    Red is almost gone, and suddenly decay is back to normal (normal times, normal amounts of decay, and the portals that stopped decaying are decaying again). Almost like the two things were tied together...


    Co-****-****? 😋


    *Edit, apparently co-****-**** is blocked? (except when I go back and edit it, lol)

  • MJ78MJ78 ✭✭✭

    Issue does now appear to be resolved.

    Looks like the over saturation and out of control growth of red portals was to blame.

    Still disappointed at lack of official response to what was a game killing issues for many...

  • Hmm it just might be back again. A couple of my portals decayed late tonight, only by a minute or two but late nevertheless

  • MJ78MJ78 ✭✭✭
    edited April 2023

    Unfortunately you are correct.

    I'm currently sitting on a portal that should have decayed at 17:12. Over ten minutes later and it still hasn't done.

    I've also noticed a couple of portals that are a day behind the rest for decay, when all should decay today.

    There does seem to be a weird link between Machina returning (in a reduced form) and this issue rearing its head once again, even if not as bad as before.

    EDIT: Had to flip portal at 17:34 as it still hadn't decayed.

  • A year later, it's happening again...

    This portal is at 10% for weeks by now:

    https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=47.437492,19.175506

  • BaakasurBaakasur ✭✭
    edited January 13

    This is happening intermittently to very few portals, I regularly recharge around 140 every week, one of my main anchors started inhibiting the no-decay behavior 2 months back, I jarvised and rebuilt it, and it decays alright now. So this may be a potential solution to this.

    But one portal which I don't use for my usual weekly fielding has not decayed for close to 2-3 months, any ideas or suggestions on what to try on this glitched portal to test the issue/behavior ?

    https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=19.002952,73.118057&z=18&pll=19.003155,73.118702

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