[Feature Request] MU Liberated Leaderboard (and others)

edited March 2022 in General

This concept has been raised in many threads, but I couldn't find a threat where it was the primary focus. Given that the game has very few (if any) win conditions, the MU created leaderboard has become a defacto competition list for many people. However, not everyone enjoys building. Some people love to smash fields and put quite a lot of effort into it on a weekly basis. This would also help incentivize the removal of some of the large fields as players could compete with their teammates for who has liberated the most.

Idea: Provide an additional leaderboard on the Scores screen that allows people to see which players have liberated the most enemy MU this cycle. This would ignore any same-faction destruction from flipcards, but rather, any MU of the opposite faction that a given player has removed.

Removal would count as "the player who destroyed the 3rd last resonator on a portal anchoring the field, such that the links and field dropped".

Extension A: For both the MU captured and MU liberated leaderboards, show the actual MU values so that two people competing can know how far ahead the other is etc.

Extension B: Other leaderboard types. I'm sure people have plenty of ideas for more leaderboards such as Resonators Deployed/Upgraded, Resonators Destroyed, Total Resonator Levels Destroyed, Links Created, Links Removed, XM Recharged, etc.

It would be great to recognize other activities in the game besides building fields, and acknowledge that there's no wrong way to play the game, and however people get involved is worthwhile to everyone.

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Comments

  • d0gboyd0gboy ✭✭✭

    I love fielding, but I'd also love to see people get credit for tearing down fields, particularly large ones. The only proviso is I'd want to ensure that ADA/Jarvis-ing down fields of your own faction didn't count -- it's already perverse that the best way to get to the top of the scoreboard is to use an ADA/Jarvis to rethrow the same fields.

    Another variant worth considering is to have some sort of scoreboard for hunting down 'old' fields, where there is an incentive for destroying fields which have lasted a long time. That may be too complex; you could do the fields destroyed scoreboard and it would be simple and could just be another tab under 'Score'.

    Since liberator is already taken as a name, I'd recommend 'disruptor' or something, but that's cosmetic.

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    Any leaderboard based on actions that require the opposing faction to have done something first strikes me as a terrible idea. In this case, the opposition can simply refuse to create anything that needs "liberating," thereby denying you any opportunity to compete. It's the Cassandra Neutralizer fiasco all over again.

    Moreover, for a PvP game to be meaningful, there do actually need to be wrong ways to play it — you need critical masses of players on the various sides to agree on one (or a few) shared goal or win condition. Otherwise, you end up with folk chasing too many different, non-complimentary objectives, e.g., the conflict between fielders competing for the cell score with their (perma-)BAFs versus folk who only want to microfield their corner of town for AP and stats.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    There are two things that contribute to the overall cell score: throwing fields for your faction, and destroying the fields of the other faction. It's a shame that only half of the contributions to the score have a leaderboard.

    I have repeatedly asked for an enemy MU destroyed leaderboard to reward people who contribute to the cell score that way.

  • KhatreKhatre ✭✭✭✭✭

    if they don't field anymore that's a 0 mu cycle , a win !

  • As with fielding, if no-one is doing it, then small changes still put you at the top of the leaderboard.

    However, I think the concept that "I won't build fields to prevent you from going to the top of a leaderboard for destroying" is kinda perverse, and a horrible excuse for not implementing this. Cassandra was unique in that it was a time limited badge, so a short period of personal pain could troll the other team. Essentially quitting Ingress to prevent the other team from winning one leaderboard would guarantee they could win others. You can't stop someone playing by not playing.

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    Except these people who stop fielding wouldn't be "quitting Ingress."

    You said it yourself: "It would be great to recognize other activities in the game besides building fields, and acknowledge that there's no wrong way to play the game." So, these people *are* playing Ingress; they're simply choosing from one of many objectives and play styles to be recognized by the game.

    Specifically, this hypothetical leaderboard caters to people who play only to smash things. I've seen locals play like that for years already. They make for boring opposition, and they need no further encouragement.

    The PvP aspect of the game is at its best when everyone is out *building*, when destruction is a means to an end and not an end in and of itself.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Toxoplasmolly You're basically saying that people would decline to aim for a win condition because their opponents might rack up stats and see their names in lights. If that's the case then my local frogs would never build anything because that would prevent me from getting to triple onyx purifier. Hint: That's not happening.

    It is unarguably true that there are two ways to gain ground in the septicycle competition: throw more MU, or destroy enemy MU. We agree on this, right? Why should one set of contributors get their name in lights but not the other set?

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    My local frogs already play the stats denial game, and have been doing so for years. They declined to play the cell score game years ago. Hence my remark on the various sides in the game needing to actually agree on what the objectives are. It's utterly boring when they don't, and adding yet more options isn't going to fix that.

    I'm already fine with the people who farm keys, move keys, take down blocking links, throw rails, etc. not being recognized on any sort of leaderboard. I don't see why destroying fields is any more (or less) deserving of recognition than those activities, not to speak of all the other activities that prevent fields from making a checkpoint.

    If anything, the current Agent leaderboard should at least be based on MU captured that actually made it to a CP. Then it becomes a more direct measure of who contributed to the cell score. By that same token, just because someone destroyed MU doesn't mean they contributed to the cell score in a meaningful way. What if the fields got rethrown before the next CP rolled around? How would you define something like "this MU was destroyed and it stayed destroyed until the next CP" when there are myriad ways to create MU that aren't literal rethrows of something that was destroyed?

  • You said it yourself: "It would be great to recognize other activities in the game besides building fields, and acknowledge that there's no wrong way to play the game." So, these people *are* playing Ingress; they're simply choosing from one of many objectives and play styles to be recognized by the game.

    And your response was that people would actively not play, in order to prevent others? I'm confused at this point what you're arguing against, since you're taking both sides.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    I keep thinking about this one.

    Honestly, if my local opponents decided to stop throwing fields because they didn't want me to get my name on an MU destroyed leaderboard then I would consider that a win of epic proportions. It's extraordinarily unlikely because there are some obsessively competitive opponents in my area but I'd be properly chuffed if any of them stopped making triangles because they didn't want me to get a tiny bit of glory from killing them.

  • Yep, pretty much.

    During Cassandra, I kept deploying as I destroyed, because that's what I do, and I gained a ton of AP and Liberator/Pioneer points because of it. You can't deny people the ability to play, only the ability to do one aspect or another. Because denying one allows the other.

    And you certainly can't deny people the ability to play the game, by not playing.

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I've been wanting a mu liberated medal for ages as its part of the game as muchnas mu captured, so I think having a leaderboard and a medal to go along with it would be a good addition to the game

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I mean, realistically there should be several leaderboards, for deploys, captures, links, fields, destroyed, even scans etc. The mu side isn't the only way to play and having all things be leaderboards would reward micro fielders, people who just like to capture/deploy etc.

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Plus, if they stopped making the fields, you could go makes your own and come tip of that, so it would be a win win for you

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Was saying it to the toxoplasmy person. Basically was agreeing with you

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    No, I said that people would actively choose to play the game a certain way: destroy-only.

    You seem to be calling that "not playing" while at the same advocating that all play styles be considered valid and worth recognizing. You can't have it both ways.

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    That'd be a hollow victory and hardly makes the fielding game worth playing.

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    I disagree. There should be fewer Agent leaderboards.

    The game needs to have an opinion on what players are battling for, i.e., the cell score. It does not need to have an opinion on which individual actions towards that objective are more worthy or valuable.

    It's a team effort. The teams can work out for themselves what they think is worthy of recognition. Indeed, when my cell was more competitive, no one cared about the Agent leaderboard. We talked about who put up fields, who took down fields, and with the intel map, had a rough idea of those contributions. We had to bribe people to be the throwers for BAFs because we all preferred clearing blocks. The leaderboard only started mattering when the cell score became a bore, a routine win week after week that took no effort and provided no competition.

    And now that I'm under a perma-BAF (or could be), I find the idea that an MU destruction leaderboard is going to change anything to be fanciful, at best. The BAF is a single layer, and all three anchors are easily accessible and maybe ~20 min from an Agent who can take them down. Taking the BAF down is easy. The "perma" comes from the fact that no one *builds* anything to block it and keep it down. Rethrows are trivial because the lanes remain forever clear.

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    But lone play is also a thing, several styles of play are a thing. The cell score on the grand scheme of things means nothing, same with the leaderboards, but by saying that the team way of playing should be the only metric is massively unfair to all the other play styles of the game. I know there's aps where people can put their stats on weekly to be top of ap gained, mu, links, captures etc. So why can't they just incorporate it into the game


    As for your other point about hollow victories, just out of interest, how many cells are actually hotly contested nowadays? I'm genuinely curious, because the cell I'm in is pretty much always won by enl, I put up some big fields fairly often, but I do it cause I like big fields, bit cause I expect to win, as there are simply more enl than res. Whereas the cell next to mine is more likely to be won by res for the same reason, more of them. At keast with other metrics be it liberating mu or more stuff it will reward other playstyles (well, reward is a strong word, they woukd be meaningless as the cell score is, but a sense of being top of something)

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    Sure, lone play is a thing, but leaderboards are intrinsically a PvP thing. Ingress needs to be clear on what that PvP thing is, and it needs to ensure that a critical mass of players agree on it and participate so that it's actually interesting. In its current state, by default, it's the team-based cell score battle, and it's failing utterly to do anything at all with it.

    If PvP Ingress should be about people competing each other for stats and the top spot on a leaderboard, then fine. Remove the cell score from the game and focus on that instead.

    Otherwise, players who are truly playing only for themselves have a plethora of medals to aim for.

    The ironic thing is that the more features get added, the more events that get added, the more bored I am by Ingress, because what few players are left are spread too thin chasing after too many different things, too many different play styles that, importantly, do not always complement each other.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    The problem with a leaderboard for lots of actions is that you would have to handle the case of people who choose to keep their stats private. Having a leaderboard for lots of stats would reveal or at least give strong hints about a lot of those stats. If you know that someone is #2 for mods deployed and #1 and #3 have their stats open then it's quite easy to estimate #2's mods deployed.

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Pvp isn't a team thing be, pvp is and 1 v 1 and loads others yiu can do lone style play and want to be top of the leaderboard of that style (like old arcade style machines, being top of the keaderboard of those)


    And why remove cell score? You can do both and learn to play round each other or work together with each other to achieve all goals, like seriously, why does it need to be one or the other, all can exist, might need tweaks and the usual getting used to change that seems hard for some players, but it can be done quite easily.

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Not really, I mean septicycle leaderboards, ones that reset, same as cell scoreboard. Yes maybe someone could work it out if they constantly looked at someone else's stats and toom pictures and got a rough idea, but at the same time, if the scores showed the numbers done for that week/month then they wouldn't need to go to that extent anyway

  • KhatreKhatre ✭✭✭✭✭

    i don't see it as a pb, and it would show some backpack that just mod

  • XK150XK150 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2022

    That's exactly right. A leaderboard (or worse, more medals) for the purely destructive actions seems logical at first glance, but wouldn't be good for the way Ingress is actually played, because too many rewards for destruction encourages asymetric warfare and cargressing.

    The way Ingress was designed to be played: One faction builds up an area, the other faction takes it over by destroying everything and building it up, then the first faction repeats the cycle endlessly. Building is more time-consuming than destruction, and it's the activity that drives the endless cycle of war, so rewarding that more than destruction makes game design sense.

    The agents who "need" more rewards for destruction are the "denial players" who refuse to build -- they rampage through built-up regions to get the easy AP, but refuse to do the work of building that provide opponents with the easy AP. They're the players who making everyone else do the hard work (and they're usually the players doing the most playing-while-driving, because building while driving isn't efficient). Their play style is really quite anti-social, because they're actively denying others the opportunity to play the whole game.

    So, yeah, those people don't need any more incentive to be anti-social.

    Post edited by XK150 on
  • edited March 2022

    The agents who "need" more rewards for destruction are the "denial players" who refuse to build -- they rampage through built-up regions to get the easy AP, but refuse to do the work of building that provide opponents with the easy AP. They're the players who making everyone else do the hard work (and they're usually the players doing the most playing-while-driving, because building while driving isn't efficient). Their play style is really quite anti-social, because they're actively denying others the opportunity to play the whole game.

    Pssh.

    I prefer walking, I do a lot of building and have my black Builder while I don't have my black Purifier. And I'm the one who proposed this.

    The reason for the idea is that there are plenty of people who've become "I just ignore the layered fields and play when I'm elsewhere, because they keep going up, and I get nothing out of destroying them."

    While I would have agreed with you in 2015, the "denial players" these days are the obsessive builders who intentionally field large fields over people to drive them out of the game. If a casual player has 30 minutes to play and in order to field that would take 20 minutes to destroy the fields over them, they just don't. Because they get no gains, no recognition and don't get to do the thing they want to play.

    Ingress needs more people who are eager to do the destruction, because they're no longer the "denial players", and the current system rewards and lauds those players who block others gameplay intentionally.

    Additionally, destruction isn't a "denial" activity. Destroying portals allows a builder to build again. The worst type of mindset is "Recharging is the most important thing", because they're not actually playing. They're just sitting at home. Destruction is change, and change is required to keep the game moving. People who feel like their fields must survive and are annoyed when their fields are destroyed, want to play less. Not more. When I had to wait for my fields to decay, to rebuild them, I would have loved someone aggressively destroying my fields.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2022

    @XK150 Your presumption that there is only one correct way to play is simplistic and borders on arrogance.

    Different people enjoy different aspects of the game and thus have different playstyles. Some people really love walking around and microfielding, and they don't really have any interest in smashing things except when it allows them to microfield-- I'm even aware of one player who chose a nonviolent route through Ingress, choosing to never destroy a resonator. Some people love smashing but find building less interesting. Some people are munitions factories, and some friends of mine used to farm like fiends and provide gear to other agents in the area because one of them was housebound for about half the year and this was their best way to contribute. Some people really don't care about AP or stats very much but they enjoy disrupting established territory control. Some people... well, I can think of half a dozen other entirely legitimate styles that are appealing to some number of players.

    Post edited by Hosette on
  • Neku69Neku69 ✭✭✭✭

    I don't know if this has been posted on the forum but it's a practical example of what I think we want to highlight.

    In February 9th, the Enlightened from Kiev destroyed all the fields from the Resistance during 3 checkpoints (https://t.me/IEToday/3410).

    I believe the Resistance did it as well in other places in the past, that's why we shouldn't be so narrow minded to other metrics.

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2022

    The reason for the idea is that there are plenty of people who've become "I just ignore the layered fields and play when I'm elsewhere, because they keep going up, and I get nothing out of destroying them."

    The idea addresses the wrong part of this sentiment. The act of destroying the fields is worthwhile for someone if they have some assurances that they are "improving the game board" or "making progress." The problem is that the fields keep going back up.

    Thus, what is required is incentivizing an army of builders to block and continually clog the lanes for those fields once they come down. Incentivizing their destruction alone is insufficient.

    Moreover, a MU-destruction based leaderboard has the perverse incentive that you want those layered fields to keep going back up, so that you can keep taking them down and solidify your ranking on the leaderboard. It's the reverse of someone flip carding and re-throwing their fields to solidify their ranking on the current MU-creation leaderboard, except the flip card makes it so that they don't need anyone from the opposing faction to actually do anything.

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