This is real? Ingress P2W
FrontLever
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in General
Ingress has changed a lot, in my time people farmed the items or traded them to other agents. They weren't bought in this blatant way. This is the representation of Niantic and the future of Ingress (if it has one), a game full of pay to win options, from these kits, medals, key capsules, battle bacon, subscription, etc. Absolutely everything only accessible for real money. Without a free accumulative currency such as pokecoins in Pokemon Go. All the values of Ingress have already been lost for a game you get by with effort, not the size of your wallet.
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@ace Once upon a time you said that Ingress would never sell gear in the store. Thoughts on what's changed since then?
Brian took lead, gave up lore, and took all for the $$ path
It's been slowly evolving into this. Five years ago this would have destroyed the game. Everyone would have fled for greener pastures. But now it just feels like it's the next step. It's been a long slow introduction into a pay to win model. I don't think anyone can say they didn't see it coming. And really if people can justify the cost then Niantic will see the rewards of this model. For me I'm just in the middle, I get why they are doing it but it feels cringe from a player's perspective.
You're all being very childish about a game company doing normal game company stuff.
It's an evolution for sure. Just hard to say if it will pay off or not. With less and less people playing the game (in some areas), it's hard to stay interested if an area is completely lopsided. Making it easier for the competition to maintain dominance or give them the potential for better leverage can further alienate some agents. And while it may work in some ways for Niantics bottom end, I think some areas will suffer even more.
Personally, I'm struggling to stay interested in the game so far in 2023. Nothing new for events and zero interest in paying hundreds of dollars to travel for one. I've turned off notifications for Ingress and find myself only opening the app once or twice a day and have let my hacking streaks reset. I remain hopeful for some sort of week-long event, but any more it feels like I'm only playing so I can hack cubes to keep portals charged. When Niantic is ready to engage with its agents, I'm here, but until then I'll focus my energy on things with a better ROI...
No.
This is something being done that discourages the very nature of Ingress.
I am graced with a tough but hyperactive box, good teammates that want to work together for a better board position and if anything a dial forward from two plus years of plague slowdowns.
But I can see why if none of those factors exist why there might be rationale to dial back.
"The very nature of Ingress" is the new "our precious bodily fluids."
You can't figure that out on your own?
I can come up with potential reasons. But I'd like to hear John's thoughts on it. Then again doesn't look like he really plays his own game. So its not hard to think he has no idea what impact changes will make on it. Guess they think it will be easier to play without having to get 8 agents together to create farms.
It seems like these days there are fewer of us who will say "this is not okay".
Why bother? You're not going to be happy with any answer you get.
He's still going to buy it too on top of that
Very disappointing.
What other greener pastures would those have been? Was there some other company running a freemium mobile game who sponsored free game conventions around the globe?
As you know, otherwise please open your scanner and go to the Store, we have this big loadouts. I don't intent to start the 'pay-to-win' discussion here, at least it's not my primary intention, but I think it's a good start point to discuss.
On one hand, Niantic, more specifically the Ingress Team, needs money, of course. And we don't want Ingress finished.
On the other hand, gameplay should be as fair as possible. Permitting to let Agents buy very rare items should be properly limited. But what is 'properly'?
From another point of view, Ingress is the testbed for Niantic's new technologies and measures to collect data, such as waypoints and portal scans. It isn't wrong to say that we provide data instead of money. For example, see Mr Romero's talk about "Overclock": https://youtu.be/0mjIq7Yx_iM
From a game strategic point of view, are these loadouts available only for April Echo weekend? Or only one throughout Echo Anomaly? Or every (three) Echo weekend?
Again, I don't intent to start the 'pay-to-win' discussion, but I think Agents have something to say. Care to weigh in?
Who is John?
John Hanke aka @ace, CEO of Niantic
You're late to the discussion.
Yep, this, in general, discourages the need for players to interact with each other.
Build a farm? Hrm I could just buy what I need.
Go to a pub meetup for farming and trading gear? Hrm I could just buy what I need.
Meet friends to get gear for anomaly trip? Hrm, I could just buy what I need.
Not saying these things won't still happen, but the requirements now being removed.
This is a typical frog in a boiling pot type move by the Ingress team.
I bet this "one off" offer becomes a store fixture before long. Brians killing the games spirit.
I also mostly just play now to charge portals also. Key community people are slowly dropping off the radar and only the super hardcore and the super casuals are left.
Also, you said you would not do this and now introduce it, without discussion, as is normal behaviour for this shadow of a thing.
It is a sad move for Ingress. Very disappointed.
I've never needed a "pub meeting" for farming because agents in my town can work asynchronously and maintain standing farms.
That's always the BS of "spirit of Ingress" arguments. People who only see one way to play Ingress see a change that might help someone who plays differently, and interpret it as an attack.
"Spirit of Ingress" is for the most part, a zeo-sum moron argument.
Sounds like you never have fun.
Without a free accumulative currency such as pokecoins in Pokemon Go. All the values of Ingress have already been lost for a game you get by with effort, not the size of your wallet.
What would your suggestion be for Agents to earn CMU in-game?
At least this wasn't as bad as viruses in the store with ulim buys lol.
What would your suggestion be for Agents to earn CMU in-game?
Scanning
Do we get back payments of it? I’ll be swimming in CMU 😂
Yeah scanning, possibly accepted portal submissions?
This detracts though from the main issue, P2W/snubbing the community.
Hey if I don't get retroactive mission day or NL credits before those badges came out, you don't get that.
That feels like it also shoots down my hopes of all my KCaps counting whenever they finally add a badge for how many have been completed.