Let's talk about drones!

GreenVamGreenVam ✭✭✭✭✭
edited June 2022 in General

Ingress has turned from a serious game into a casual project in which there is no integrity. Let's look at each game mechanic individually and how it can be improved. And yes, sorry for my English, it's not my native language.


Drones that go beyond the concept of "walk with your feet and do everything yourself, interacting through a scanner." Let's take a closer look at this gameplay element, which turned out to be useless for the vast majority of agents after the end of the covid epidemic. Here is Drone. He can fly from portal to portal and hack one portal. All items that the drone receives, in some incomprehensible way, fall into our inventory. At the same time, it is not mentioned anywhere that the drone has a teleport for instantaneous movement of things. The plot of the drone is not described at all, and it has no modifications. Many agents believe (like me, too) that a drone moving separately from an agent is a violation of the main principle of the game.

Now imagine that the drone is an agent's multi-tool that helps him perform various tasks. For example, a drone cannot fly by itself, without an agent. It should be so. But the drone can act as a companion helping to protect the portal, reduce the impact on the agent when attacking an enemy portal, the drone can have its own inventory, which will be an extension of the player's main inventory. Or instead of an inventory, it will be possible to install in drone, another slot for a modifier, which will be activated when the drone is launched at a specific portal. There are many possibilities. Lots of strategies and tactics! Drone exogenous technology blueprints can be obtained by hacking portals or in the store. Drone module blueprints can be made for example common for +100 inventory, +150 inventory for rare, +170 for epic, 200 for legendary... and you can combine different modules: A little bit of inventory + 3 slots for modifiers + a small auxiliary attack module. And you can make a fully attacking version of the drone that will give +50 to the player’s attack, or, for example, a drone for hacking + 15% to the chance to get very rare items ... Well, of course, drone customization can be done visually. And you can make not 1 drone, but up to 3, for example, multi-purpose drones that will strengthen the agent by constantly flying behind him. Each agent will then become unique. One has enhanced weapons, the other has enhanced modifiers, the third has an expanded inventory, and the fourth can drop not 1 key, but as many as 3!

Let's say that drones can be modified on the fly - by adding or removing modules. I would introduce reloading, or pairing with a new configuration of modules, for example, 1-2 hours, or even a day, so that agents think strategically and do not redo configurations for each individual portal. If there is an agent upgrade and levels, then why not introduce a level system for drones and their modifiers?

Believe me, this system only diversifies the drawing of triangles, but does not violate it in any way. And the old players will be satisfied, and the new generation will have at least some kind of upgrade to the already rather boring monotonous business.

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Comments

  • KarM3LKarM3L ✭✭✭✭

    Tldr - they done there dash and drones should be deleted????

  • PkmnTrainerJPkmnTrainerJ ✭✭✭✭✭

    Drones? I like them. Good idea, and helped during the worst of the pandemic and I have no problem with them staying.

    A few more drone badges would be good. Maybe a Drone Destroyer one for sending back Drones?

  • BreenzyBreenzy ✭✭✭✭

    I would like a different short cool down drone specifically to hunt other drones. You load it up with say maximum 10 ultra strikes, could then also have a new stat medal "Drones Destroyed".

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Just say no to drones. Esp now pandemic lockdowns are basically done.

  • PkmnTrainerJPkmnTrainerJ ✭✭✭✭✭

    I don’t know that I’d want a different drone but maybe different skins you could equip for it to perform other actions but it’s still the same drone.

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Drone glyphing shouldn't be possible.

    And I like glyphing.


    The Drones had so much potential for additional gameplay that it just seems silly to me to be just a way to remotely hack stuff.

    Where I'd normally walk like 100m to get my Sojourner hack, now I just do that at home/work. Making remembering to hack twice a day the hardest thing to keep Sojourner going

  • Two features would be nice

    1. unique drone visits visible in drone layer (or at least on the intel map)
    2. distance of drone from starting portal in NOW stats
  • I would also like to see the possibility to launch the drone from any key in the agent's inventory. For example, when I visit another city, I could give a key to a local agent, and he/she could explore my city with his/her drone. Or when I return from a trip, I could give keys to agents in my home town.

    Moreover, if a drone gets force-returned in the middle of a long-distance run, there would be no need to drive to the starting portal (which may be tens of kilometers away), provided that the agent hacked a key during his/her first visit to the starting portal.

  • The Drones had so much potential for additional gameplay that it just seems silly to me to be just a way to remotely hack stuff.

    This is the problem though. The Drones undermine the core of the game. Being there in person. An hourly hack, meh. Recharging from home, meh.

    Adding additional gameplay that encourages people to not actually leave the house is antithetical to the whole premise of the game. Spoofing is hated not because it's successful but because it's successful because removes the core elements of the game that provide challenge.

    Out performing your opponent in things like hiking, or coordination etc is undermined when someone can immediately act with impunity without requring any sort of effort. Adding "additional gameplay" to drones would extend the legitimacy of spoofing, because it would continue to blur the line further than the drones already do.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Agree. Just get out there.


  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Not necessarily, depends what game mechanics would be put in place, which would make getting out and rebuilding the lost links to achieve the goal, whatever it may be

  • edited June 2022

    If you can destroy someone's work with a drone, it's no better than spoofing. That's the whole point. Legitimizing spoofing will destroy the game.

    Where I'd normally walk like 100m to get my Sojourner hack, now I just do that at home/work. 

    This very statement is the problem with the situation.

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    Not like the game is being destroyed within. I would be more worried about other things than drones.

    They haven't been touched in about a year?

  • The topic is drones, so gonna discuss drones.

  • Jo0LzJo0Lz ✭✭✭✭✭

    Don’t have couch portal, so I like my drone.

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    drones probably aint gonna evolve much, not that they need really.. but some customization would be cool.. guess just low prio for niantic.

  • AkakunAkakun ✭✭✭

    Maybe a medal for "largest drone distance achieved" before sent back to the agent? I thought about it some times. Or an event where you need to get exclusive media by hacking certain portals with a drone for an upcoming anomaly...

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Not like that, the other way, when you physically go out, to undo someone's or teams work.

    For example move drones to a target portal, undo those jumps by capturing the portals the drones are at, so that they don't count towards the goal.

    This example is basically the shard game, but with drones.

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