[IDEA] Dark XM Cube
The idea is simple, a consumable item that doubles the Ap earned in game actions by 30 Minutes. This item can be purchased at the in-game store.
As this consumable is for private use and will not benefit other players such as Fracker, its price could be affordable. Allowing any player to buy.
1 Cube -> 1,000 CMU
5 Cubes -> 4,000 CMU
10 Cubes -> 7,000 CMU
This item, as well as other purchase items (Key Locker and Fracker), will be very rare and cannot be dropped for other players.
Only the player who buys this item may use it.
After the player activates this item, a cube time counter would start. This counter would be on the left side of the screen and below the button to use Power Cubes.
It could also activate some effects on the player gauge, such as some dark XM particles appearing in the player's range circle. (this I didn't know how to do in photoshop)
Why Dark XM Cube?
According to 'Ingress - The Animation' the dark XM is the pure XM, much more intense and unstable.
Following this logic, when we perform scanner actions under the effects of dark XM, these actions will be influenced and generated a 2x stronger effect, the 2x AP.
Would this item break the game? The answer is no!
With the possibility that players can reset their progress through recursion, the game balance will always be maintained. Players who reach the maximum level (L16) can do the recursion again as many times as they wish.
For players who have not yet made any recursion, there is another factor. The medals will still be a limiter in the player's progress. Even if this player wears the item without the required medals, the player will not level up.
Why do I think this item is good for the game?
1. It will be an item that will make the game a little more profitable.
2. Price is affordable for everyone.
3. Will not break the Game Balance.
4. Only the player you buy will use.
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Any additional questions about the idea, I will be willing to answer.
Thanks for listening
My Ideas:
Comments
Good old idea! Congrats for the efforts spent, it end up pretty well.
My only concern is that I think you pricing was too cheap. While this will lead to more buys, I believe it will probably get the same number if had a higher price. 2400 CMU at least, like old tracker was.
And maybe less time, just 15 minutes, or to fit the lore 13:31 minutes 😉
AP stands for Access Points. They represent your agent experience and throught that you are granted access to higher levels.
The idea of Dark XM boosting this concept doesn't make much sense.
BUT
The idea of an event boosting this concept doesn't make any sense at all either, sooooooo, bring it on, take our money!
I'm loving the effort made with this post regardless of the idea. Great way to represent your idea to everyone.
What about using this item to cheat the AP competition (and double AP bonus) on a First Saturday?
If this item exist, then won't be cheating. Niantic would love to know that iFS are now lucrative, since there's gonna be several people buying at least four every month.
Events boost everyone's AP. This is personal paid AP gain. Huge difference. This would make it wildly easier for multiaccointers to level up at their liesure
That could be a recursed exclusive buy.
Gotta disagree on this one. AP is easy to gain as is. We already have the potential for double AP 12 times a year (IFS), not to mention multiple other events that allow for double AP (sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less).
The only way I'd see this as a legit purchasable Item is that it would need to be expensive. Even then, it's really not needed.
Very bad for the balance in Prime. We have Powercube and Hypercube. If both team play more agents get more AP.
It’s just like the lucky egg in that certain other niantic game. But following the logic of dark XM makes stuff stronger then it should boost the power of some items such as XMPS or ultra strikes. Or maybe it could charge up the scanner while giving nearby portals a boost thus making them harder to hit for a short period of time
And by a short amount of time I mean 5 seconds or less to avoid the risk of it being too OP
If we follow story we dont always have dark XM in Ingress Prime. Now it is normal XM again.
Maybe the dark XM cube could decay overtime and eventually become a normal power cube? Lore wise is dark XM unstable?
PoGo players are already used to doing this, guaranteeing 4 times the experience gain in there events.
I find it inevitable that Niantic will not introduce something like this, as the Ingress community has shrunk and is steadily increasing only with Pokemon Go players. They hoping for it and not bothering to bring ALL and any functionality from the other games even though it hurts the flow of the journey.
Why don't we closed up Ingress? That would definetely block cheaters out of the game :D
Wow great effort on the mockup! I would absolutely love this item as someone that plays this game more casually these days. :D
But I am a bit scared of pricing though.....I don't like to compare Niantic games but at PoGo you can earn lucky egg in 2 days and Niantic is not cheap with the items in the store in Ingress either but then again I get that is also because they don't want this game to become "pay to win".
Maybe 1,200 CMU would be a good price. So if you buy the smallest CMU you get 2 these DARK XM cubes.
Yes, instead of 6 hours they're gonna take only 3 hours to get lv 7, and make Niantic earn some dollars. Win-win situation.
Thank you!
I have some other ideas to show, I just need to have for image editing
I don't see how to cheat on the IFS, taking into account that the maximum AP counted for 2x during the IFS is 500k AP.
Any amount above this will not be doubled
I understand both of your points and I agree.
The fact that the Lucky Egg in PoGo is accessible is what motivated me to suggest a cheap price for this item. For the concept is the same.
Maybe 30 minutes is too long for a game like ingress? It's possible!
The 15 minute duration for 1,200 CMU still pleases me. No more than that!
If Niantic is interested in the item, make the necessary changes to adapt it to the game, and give me some cubes for thanks ****
Hmm why do you think it's too long? Because the amount of AP you can earn at once? But how often do you really can destroy something as big as "supernova" portal for example?
I think 30 minutes is more than enough to earn some extra AP and high AP/Levels aren't that much game breaking especially these days when you have a lot of portals to level up to Level 8. Or am I missing something?
30 minutes, I think good, would keep it that way. Maybe for some people it can be a lot, because the number of shares that generates AP in the ingress is bigger than in PoGo.
I believe that in urban centers with many portals, an agent who has just done the recursion can return to Level 8 in just 30 minutes using this item.
but this agent can reset your progress whenever you want, it won't disturb the game and it still serves as a challenge to yourself.
While I hate the name and tying this to a Power Cube, a double AP temporary buff is definitely something they should incorporate into the game via the store.
I thought about this yesterday. If cheaters abuse this, payment methods are trackeable from Niantic's side.
I believe it's pretty obvious that the one who pays is very well informed.
Trackable indeed but there are still other method to obtain means of paying in the game like buying PlayStore Giftcard or do the surveys for the Google and get credit like that....Unfortunately :/
Don't all these require Google account? Surveys also take too much time ;)
Creating an account already requires Google Account especially these days where Facebook DEMANDS phone number and you need to upload picture of your face to get "verified" by a person that you are a real person. Creating Google/Gmail account is easy and doesn't require phone number and face to create a one....right?
Yes they do require time but they can easily spoof their IP as well to get more surveys. Besides stuff like XMP/RES/MODS etc in Ingress store is quite pricey and not very worth the price in my opinion unless you really are in a pinch or have a lot of money to spare lol.
Google is also real good at tying one account to another and tracking it that way.
You're right but as far as I know Niantic is not part of the Google since...2015? Maybe they could do it if they still have good ties with Google....or is it Alphabet now haha.
But two things...creating an account without getting tied to is not that hard (Virtual machine/LibraryPC/WorkPC & VPN) and not to mention such banning could do quite a few false positives if there is a family/work member that also plays Niantic game and somehow they get "connected" by using the same computer or whatever. But I'm not 100% sure how such detections work....
In my opinion cheaters could be caught very easily with a simple algorithm that calculates if it's possible to go from A to B in a certain time, Of course tracking every single player could be really server intensive but maybe this thing could start upon someone reporting a player so they get tracked for a while. First two or three detection in a small time frame could be excused due to software not being perfect and other things like Rubber banding can happen to legit players sometimes but if a player gets detected CONTINUOUSLY then it's almost sure someone is teleporting and spoofing their location. But then again these things are easier said than done lol....
In my opinion cheaters could be caught very easily with a simple algorithm that calculates if it's possible to go from A to B in a certain time, Of course tracking every single player could be really server intensive but maybe this thing could start upon someone reporting a player so they get tracked for a while.
What makes you think they don't?
As you say, it's impossible to track every player this way, and calculate every movement, but once someone is on their radar, they often do end up being caught if they go too fast.
Niantic is also more cautious about false positives than players are.