This is NOT a healthy game to play.
In the short span of time I've begun playing I can already tell that this game comes at a huge cost for money in transportation costs as well as the mental health costs from psychological abuse by the tormentors that specifically focus on forcing the attrition of opposing faction members. I can only imagine the amount CO2 wasted and the amount of hostility and violence that has escalated as result of this real world "capture the flag" style game. The friend of mine (from a completely different city than mine) that recruited me to play had me convinced that this would be a good way to make new friends here where I just moved to. I've found that it does quite the opposite... it's the fastest way to make new enemies. I just don't need that in my life, so forget it.
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Wow. Super sorry to hear you had that experience. It’s not a local community but there are a lot of very friendly virtual IFS groups you could join to experience some positive cross-faction interactions if you’re interested. The Utah IFS is a great place to start.
And you don’t have to pay for transportation to play, I’m a pretty avid runner and am fond of hitting a few portals while I’m out. I know a lot of other agents who do bikegress as well.
That’s one of the beauties of thus game there are a lot of ways to play it and many of them aren’t impacted by other agents nuking your portals or throwing fields over your head.
bye bye then ?
pokemon go is always available.
or diablo 4 soon too !
How much have you actually played the game? Looks like you've barely played the game at all. But your account appears to of been around for a while.
Until you actually level up to 8 it can feel like you aren't getting much done because your stuff will get hit and wiped out quickly. If you are able to find other agents locally I'm sure you might have a different experience.
Or maybe you just need a good tutorial to start the game with. Like https://sites.google.com/view/smurfling-guide/home
**Edit Looking at the stats a bit more, other than hidden, all of the badges you have, aren't things that will gain you AP that you need to level up. Almost looks like a backpack account in some ways, or a PoGo player, who tried Ingress, and didn't like it, because it was too complex/hard to understand. Capture portal, hack portal, make triangles, make new friends, get some exercise, enjoy!
In person FS and anomaly participation are the real ways to make new friends and acquaintances
Why so many disagrees? Hostility, violence, psychological abuse and real-world enemies are serious issues. No specifics are given, but I suppose that there was more involved than just overfielding and destruction of portals.
Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with the local players. In other places you may find friendly communities, or only solo players who completely ignore you.
In Ingress everyone can see your movements in the real world, and follow you around, which is why I recommend the game only with a certain hesitation.
Ingress now is a lot less toxic than it used to be.
Mind games, are part of the game, but if you are receiving hostile messages, you can either or both, report the offending players via an in game ticket or block them.
Every area has the full time Ingress players that spend eight or more hours a day every day driving around playing. Yes it's a huge waste of gas but it's their life. So to them it's worth it. Hang in there and avoid the bullies at all costs. It's a fun game when you ignore them.
because he's a troll. level 4 is roughly few hours of playing.
there's no way a real new player would cry about transportation cost or harassment.
just another fake troll account
The reply @EvilSuperHeros made about checking his account is pretty spot on about the toxicity that's in this game. Like you really need to check someone's stats to weigh their opinion? Get over yourself.
As much as trying to get past bad parts of the "good ol' days", it's still a reality that some people experienced (or still do to this very day).
Thanks for the lively discussion! Based on MoogModulars failure to understand basic vetting, I'll be closing this thread for new responses.
Bingo!
Most new players that quit, are frustrated that the game is too complicated or complex. Its a little bit lesser so, now that they can triangle under fields, so that frustration isn't as great.
The account has a Y10 badge, so it's at least that old (Nov 2022 so at least 6 months old). Only level 4, so not very much play over that time. Badges for things such as going to at least 100 portals, recharged portals to at least 100k (at a low level is a lot of work), 200 translator points (usually most new agents don't even know what glyphing is), and walked at least 100 km. So knew to enable adventure sync, or has been in the game for quite a bit of time without seemingly doing very much.
Checking stats usually tells you quite a bit about an agent. Especially a newer one. I'm guessing that @MoogModular doesn't realize this. See a new agent playing in comms you don't know? I check their profile first, see if they are new, see if it appears that they know what they are doing before I send them a message. Don't want to offend a seasoned agent with a smurf.help link.
You realize the discussion is closed based on reports. If people can manage a discussion without being at each other throat's, it would be ok.
Then my apologies, @EvilSuperHeros. The skill level for Ingress at the start can be too much for people. It's really nothing new to see lower levels quit for months and then come back to play again. I'm so used to my area having visitors because I'm in Florida - we have the snowbird "seasons"
Depending on your area, not something many folks have seen for over three years...
always check profil because of trolls. i really doubt that someone l4 after more than 6 month has really played enough to see toxic players or huge transportation cost. probably just another angry pogo player
Why would it be wrong for a level 4 player to see this as an example of the game? I'm level 16 many times over and I see it. It isn't the entire picture of the game but it's definitely part of it. People do drive and play, also people troll players until they quit. You can't say it isn't happening. If there's more bad players than good players it's not a fun game. And let's face it, a lot of the good players already left.
I can confirm, meeting strange persons at level 1 is possible.
1. Took me until level 5 until F2F. That didn't go well, and created a situation that is still an issue four years later.
2. First positive meeting was level 6 and led to periodic Sunday morning drops. .
3. I didn't get fully immersed in my box culture until level 9 at a resource ( ok it's recharge, lol) room for an anomaly.
My wife and I started playing and we got approached by two same faction agents at a park. (Presumably to check if we were real and to welcome/report accordingly). (We would have been about level 4-5).
Luckily they were two very nice players. One has since retired and the other is semi retired, it's now been 9 years.
This game is super addicting I play whenever I'm out and don't go out of my way to do too much get out there and have fun
Rolled through an enl farm a couple days ago and capped some portals and blew up some green stuff. Someone ended up using what we think is a backpack right around the same time, but since I happened to be rolling through, I’m now accused of using enl backpacks. An account that is a couple years older than my own account, lol. An account that appears to have visited several states I’ve never even been too. Reported and blocked. But that’s the sorta stuff that occurs all too often. I happened to be in the same area as a group of 8 or so ENL agents are farming and I’m somehow the one with an enl backpack and then get harassed about it in comms. No thanks. Why would there ever be backpacks present at a farm?!?!
With how little Niantic seems to care about this game these days (one event this year that isn’t an anomaly or FS/SS #loweffort), I’m kinda over trying or wasting my time with bored people with no other hobbies who try and gaslight other agents about their own drama.
Lol, I miss it when I used to be falsely reported more. I feel like it must have been pretty disheartening to the trolls that tried and failed. I never block anyone (except the old gear sellers), I'll usually draw at least a comm ban for the really vitriolic turds. Most locals have figured out not to engage me in comms, but this is why you gotta get out and explore new places and find new and bigger a-holes to get banned... or at least muzzled. If that was a backpack, NIA has been banning them in my area. Might be worth trying a report on the players or the backpack... as far as the Op goes, I agree with ESH, those stats make me feel like this story is a fiction, what level 4 could do enough damage these days to draw any kind of rage... This is someone posting tales from the alt-verse here.
There is absolutely no reason to continually follow people around.
I've had this issue with a player in London. Within 10 minutes of showing up in their area, they are following you around constantly. A few portals behind, and/or on a bicycle looping round in circles in the area where you are. On one occasion they even stopped what they were doing five miles away just to rush back to do the usual trick of following around.
When I spoke to them, they came out with a BS excuse about being 'a combatative game'. Whilst this is true, following a few portals behind someone on every visit to their area is just plain trolling, stalking and harassment. It is clear they don't like opposition on their turf, and by being an utter idiot, they stupidly believe they will hopefully put people off visiting.
I'm not the only player they have done this to. I've observed other players getting the same treatment.
Don't you think it's eerie to be followed around by other players out there who act like members of a cult or something?
There are a few bad agents, but overall it's a great community, in both factions. The scoreboard is based on MU, which encourages travel, especially driving, to make fields large enough to win a cycle, depending on where you play. Maybe if the scoreboard was not solely based on MU if would be different.
Pokemon Go is worse. People are encouraged to drive from raid to raid in caravans. Some use botnet driven maps to get reports of rare Pokemon and drive to collect them before they disappear.
These games, which can be played on foot or bike, are played a lot by car due their design. And I'm not talking about people who have disabilities and cannot get out to walk, they number in the few compared to all of the more able-bodied players.
I have no proposed solution, other than each of us trying to do our part to drive less.