New player frustrations

I started playing Ingress recently as a fun reason to take my dog on longer walks. I joined the green team and immediately noticed that eveything around me was blue. I found a few small patches of neutral portals and had fun taking them over. I tried attacking a couple of the "weaker" blue portals to no avail. With the small field I managed to establish I was able to get to level 5 rather quickly. I also noticed another patch of green in another area. I started looking into the profiles of the other players in the area and the other green player was about my level and the blue fields were controlled by 3 players all level 16. One night I got started getting messages about the other green player's portals under attack (since I'd put some resonaters in their portals). I watched the map as the blue players wiped them completely off the map in a matter of minutes. The next night, my field was gone. I moved further out to a new patch of neutral portals and set up a nice little field to try and grind levels. Within an hour it was completely blue. I'm seriously thinking this game isn't new player friendly since any new players can just get completely cruched underfoot by high level players without them even thinking about it. Is it just me? Since I'm only playing while taking my dog for a walk I can't keep moving further and further out and since almost all the portals around me are on average level 7 and bristling with shields, what am I supposed to do?

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Comments

  • ArkFangArkFang ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2021

    Welcome to the game! Hopefully you're enjoying it for the most part!


    Secondly, welcome to the game. It's just how things are. The game is about teamwork and leveling up quickly (among capturing territory). Reach out to your fellow Enlightened members, and level up as quickly as you can. Lower-level Resonators (and therefor Portals) are weaker by design. You may be at a disadvantage now, but once you're level 8+ you'll have access to the highest-level Resonators and weapons. Also, when it comes to Shields, use the Ultrastrike weapons to pop them off, by standing on the portal's center (when possible). All Ultrastrikes have the same odds of knocking off Shields and other Mods, it's just the higher-levels have more firepower when hitting Resonators.


    Check out the Ingress YouTube channel for info on the various Weapons, Mods, strategies, and more. https://www.youtube.com/c/Ingress


    It's not just you who goes through this, all new agents do. And then when Agents recurse (reach level 16 and then 'reset' to level 1) they have to do the same thing again, they just have more experience and know the strategies to level up faster. Just remember that this is all a game (or is it?).

  • ArkFangArkFang ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2021

    Also, if you feel comfortable with it, I'm on Telegram with the same handle as here. I am Enlightened as well.

    If you want some tips or if you let me know whereabouts you play I can try to connect you with the Agents in your area to see if they'd be willing to try and help knock down some Blue, as well as give you some tips and tricks for leveling up effectively. ((I'm willing to help any agent get in contact with their local community, not just Enlightened, btw!))

  • Keep playing, have fun and keep playing, this is the mechanic of ingress, capture, attack, field, repeat. ☺️

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Also - please remember, there is not much difference, other than learned techniques, between a level 16 player and a level 8 player.

    Level 8 is reachable fairly quickly.

    It's also basically impossible to hold an area an enemy agent lives in. Persistence, is key. And please don't go to the dark side and create extra accounts to combat this. The blue players WILL notice and probably hit you harder.

  • Otrera35Otrera35 ✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2021

    Below is a better guide to help you level up faster. Two important reminders that I want to tell you are (1) to be careful and choose your community wisely; and (2) to be situationally aware of your privacy and safety. Good luck, Agent.

    https://www.lavasurfer.com/info/ingress.html

    Post edited by Otrera35 on
  • It's all about the community. Reaching mine was a challenge, with a lot of hoops to jump through but that was in the days of Google+ and probably not pertinent today. Community and my Enl teammates have been what keeps me going and having fun. The game would definitely be less enjoyable, though, without an opposing team presenting challenges. Enjoy!!

  • Finding the right community is key. I tried to play Ingress in 2016. I didn't know what I was doing and never realized there was a community so I deleted the game. Fast forward to 2020, after trying the game again, I eventually found out there's a great community of players out there.

    I chose RES, so I am not as great of a help with finding your local ENL community, but one suggestion that I have seen others mention would be to look into doing a First Saturday (FS) close to your area. They are currently remote, so easy enough to do from home if you have the time. Those can be found in the events area of the forum (https://community.ingress.com/en/categories/events)

  • EvilSuperHerosEvilSuperHeros ✭✭✭✭✭

    I personally like https://smurf.help/ Nice guide with pictures. I send both factions to the same guide.

  • MorganzaMorganza ✭✭✭✭✭

    At lower levels anything you do can be wiped out by level 8+ players without much effort. That's part of the game. Just concentrate on getting to level 8 -- the difference between level 7 and 8 is far more important than the difference between 8 and 16, which only gets a bigger XM bar.

  • starwortstarwort ✭✭✭✭✭

    You can still hack the blue portals to get kit and AP - do glyph-hack them if you can.

    Once you have a few hundred XMP bursters you can take down a shielded L7 portal with L5 bursters. If you stand dead centre on the portal and start firing, eventually the shields will pop off. (You can also use ultra strikes which work even better, but you'll have somewhat fewer of these.) Once the shields are off, the portal should come down with repeated firing unless your opponents are recharging it. If that's the case then you'll get better purchase if you stand on top of each resonator individually and fire off a volley of shots.

    Some areas are just like this, unfortunately. When I started out, the entire city here was green so it was difficult to find any AP for a new green player; conversely, another player (whom I've known since pre-Ingress days) who started out blue complained that every time she went out she could only do so much and then a whole army of frogs would descend and turn it back green again. A couple of years later the city flipped to mostly-blue, and now it's mostly-green again but with frequent smurf visitors from out of town (very tenacious ones at that).

  • EvilSuperHerosEvilSuperHeros ✭✭✭✭✭

    Hmm open browser and type in Smurf dot help and the site loads for me.

  • Think of the map as a giant Etch-a-Sketch. Its' SUPPOSED to be shaken up and re-drawn.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Dropping ultrastrikes on individual resonators once shields are popped is always fun.

  • Otrera35Otrera35 ✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2021

    It still states "Site cannot be Reached." It is probably because I am using a Safe Browser. Anyway, with the link to the training resource above which is the https://www.lavasurfer.com/info/ingress.html. Scroll down to the left lower corner of the webpage and there are additional helpful links such as Ingress Help, Tadpole Training Guide (which comes with illustrations), etc. Others find this learning format straightforward and it actually summarizes the basic and unique pointers of the game for new players just in case they will be on their own.

    Post edited by Otrera35 on
  • EvilSuperHerosEvilSuperHeros ✭✭✭✭✭

    Not sure what "safe browser" is. Works just fine in Chrome, Firefox, & MS Edge. smurf.help auto redirects to where the site is hosted at. It currently redirects to smurfling.guide

  • Otrera35Otrera35 ✭✭✭✭

    To clarify further, it's a secure browser. Saw the smurfling guide one time; it is good, but the information is rudimentary.

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