New Agent Tutorial updates, including removing L1-L3 XMPs from Portal and Drone Hacks to show new Agents how to play different parts of Ingress as they level up.
Fields affect decay rate of friendly Portals under the Field.
Replace 4 Apex with 2 Rare Kinetic Capsules, 20 XMPs, and 20 Resonators in C.O.R.E. subscription Loadout Kits.
Discussing here and there, I changed my mind on the CORE experiment. Replacing right away the Apex is unfair and, as already pointed out, likely illegal. With this move, the loadout's value will lose 3500 CMU. As suggested by @Hosette, the best move is to give people a choice among different kind of loadouts.
I doubt it's illegal because they are still telling us ahead of time of the next month's subscription which is the 9th for the earliest.
Also checking the sign up screen:
Apex is never explicitly stated. Brian has mentioned about different apex bonuses (boni) in the past when he introduced the item. If this allows for perhaps varieties of apex that can be hacked, it could perhaps benefit.
It is explicitly mentioned here: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/13500/now-available-c-o-r-e-subscription#latest
What they are doing is devaluing the subscription while it is running...
Not sure how I can find the laws about that but I'm pretty sure that isn't allowed in the EU.
My parents still use a plan from their internet provider that was discontinued 10 years ago just because it's better value for them and they can't be forced to switch.
Re: cooldown time. For many of us against the change, it's not about gear. It's about quicker key farming for people who like to field. My fielding productivity more than doubled during 90s cooldown (4,000 avg fields per year vs. 10,000 avg fields per year).
Basically they are telling us fielders and farm maintainers, especially those who gather keys or recharge farms for days or more for decent results, to die in a fire. I like capturing and destroying and building, but the fact that it takes more than two actual people to legitimately compete (regardless of which faction that is 'winning' locally) is what makes it unique and fun.
If the decay rate for same-faction portals under a field increases, then expect people to stop playing at all, because there is little incentive to keep portals charged because who knows when those will be fielded over (especially by multiaccounts using their wintrading alt, or even people who don't even participate in the local faction channels) and ruin the decay rate. The lesson on changing the decay rate negatively was learned years ago, so apparently that has to be relearned. This possibility also ruins the idea of scoring as it is set up, with no replacement scoring method mentioned. Discuss scoring changes first, test those, then change how players play the mechanics to lean that way (not the opposite direction).
Yes, @montitcha, I agree that they seem to be making the game less community/group play and more individual, which means more money for Niantic because why do things in groups like create farms when all you need is a debit/credit card for everything... 😒
Somehow they have mixed up their priorities once they started doing additional games, since the other games were more individual-oriented games with group aspects added in later. Pokemon, for example, is mostly a game that can be played alone and it should be more focused on that than getting people together for simple things like Dex additions (through raids).
That was never the intent of Ingress from beta. If you want individual based gameplay, feel free to move to something else like the upcoming NBA-branded game, Pokemon Go or any number of games on console or PC. STOP making this game lose its community aspect. That includes removing satellite and remote recharging from the anomaly setup, and ruining the hard work people do getting things set up like layered field ops and farms.
And yes, fight the insane amount of spoofing, account sharing, and multi accounting happening all over. This should have been number one from the beginning and even more so when Prime was being worked on. Given the amount of data you get being close to what every carrier gets on a regular basis, possibly more so, surely Niantic can fix this in the anti-cheat algorithm. The blatant cheating caused many people to leave pre-Prime, and still is a major factor post-Prime, and this could have easily been worked on over the last two years while things were in a lull from the pandemic.
This is a direction that I saw coming with the hexathalons, then recently the linking under fields 'test' that came to be permanent (which makes simple linking and fielding lag unbearable now), and adding high level resonators and weapons into the store. This is a very r-word direction being taken by Niantic for a game that used to be THE best example of an Augmented Reality game.
Hopefully Niantic gets an 'Epiphany' after this series when they realize people will stop paying for CORE when it changes to junk items and stop giving them valuable data by not playing or moving to a game that actually provides better anti-cheat algorithms and more community upkeep. Either that or sell the IP and game servers to someone who will bring it back to it's true core.
Yeah that is weird they dont mention anything about halloween they will just throw something out of the blue as a surprise why not let people know in advance there will be something ?, strange logic from their pr department to not highlight that for some reason as it looks in october there will only be first saturday and a second sunday and nothing more ??.... 🤨
I hope they have something else planned for the 10 year besides the november bonus which look standard even this year, i mean 10 years is a long time for a mobile game, i hope its not the usual x2 ap on everything and some daily codes...
I guess I'm cancelling my core sub once the apex stuff is removed. i see absolutely no value in kinetic caps, and i say that as someone who walks an average of 10km daily thus completing one cap. last two days i was on holiday in a new place, and out of ~300 upc/upvs i got something like 5 kinecaps from just hacking. they're completely common and not worth a money subscription.
tldr don't remove apex from core unless you want people to unsubscribe in droves. well it sounds like most NIA business decisions actually want exactly that to happen.
This one does note a Hallowe’en event and even stretches into January noting a New Year event.
I expected that these would keep going throughout the years as people will buy the cosmetic badges and perhaps do a small challenge like the recharge one, or like Peace Week.
no but there was last years so why would they hide it this year? i dont get that.. same with december shows nothing except for the epihphany dawn event.
I am surprised that global BB’s are not announced, considering they are a money maker for Ingress. With only a primary site and no satellite locations, participation is limited, to only those that travel to those select places. I suppose a compromise to a full global deploy, would be Nia BB’s and/or agent deployed at selected cities determined by Nia, that could earn the Anomaly badge and generate agent participation outside of just the primary LA or Yokohama locations, just a thought
I msg'd Thia on twitter the other day about the Halloween thing for Ingress.
Not great. It wouldn't take much, just some art.
This is what happens when players are not spending money on the game, can't even afford to employ someone to integrate holidays and festivals into Ingress :-(
yeah u saw the tweet, i dont get it they dont have time change a few lines code to give us a small event? 🤨 would be nice with 4 mods deploy sell a badge like last year.... december look empty too on events.
So players that dont play often will think the only event for rest of year is the double ap in november as usual.
Comments
The experiment paragraph has been updated.
New Agent Tutorial updates, including removing L1-L3 XMPs from Portal and Drone Hacks to show new Agents how to play different parts of Ingress as they level up.
Fields affect decay rate of friendly Portals under the Field.
Replace 4 Apex with 2 Rare Kinetic Capsules, 20 XMPs, and 20 Resonators in C.O.R.E. subscription Loadout Kits.
Discussing here and there, I changed my mind on the CORE experiment. Replacing right away the Apex is unfair and, as already pointed out, likely illegal. With this move, the loadout's value will lose 3500 CMU. As suggested by @Hosette, the best move is to give people a choice among different kind of loadouts.
Agreed. People play differently and have signed up for CORE on the basis that they will get certain content.
So it’s abrupt to change it without a lot of notice.
I’m still so surprised that October is so empty.
Pikmin Bloom even has special Hallowe’en mushrooms coming up.
There’s always a Pokémon GO Hallowe’en event and there has been one previously in Ingress.
Seems like it was just a rushed job to get out some of the schedule.
I doubt it's illegal because they are still telling us ahead of time of the next month's subscription which is the 9th for the earliest.
Also checking the sign up screen:
Apex is never explicitly stated. Brian has mentioned about different apex bonuses (boni) in the past when he introduced the item. If this allows for perhaps varieties of apex that can be hacked, it could perhaps benefit.
It is explicitly mentioned here: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/13500/now-available-c-o-r-e-subscription#latest
What they are doing is devaluing the subscription while it is running...
Not sure how I can find the laws about that but I'm pretty sure that isn't allowed in the EU.
My parents still use a plan from their internet provider that was discontinued 10 years ago just because it's better value for them and they can't be forced to switch.
Re: cooldown time. For many of us against the change, it's not about gear. It's about quicker key farming for people who like to field. My fielding productivity more than doubled during 90s cooldown (4,000 avg fields per year vs. 10,000 avg fields per year).
Basically they are telling us fielders and farm maintainers, especially those who gather keys or recharge farms for days or more for decent results, to die in a fire. I like capturing and destroying and building, but the fact that it takes more than two actual people to legitimately compete (regardless of which faction that is 'winning' locally) is what makes it unique and fun.
If the decay rate for same-faction portals under a field increases, then expect people to stop playing at all, because there is little incentive to keep portals charged because who knows when those will be fielded over (especially by multiaccounts using their wintrading alt, or even people who don't even participate in the local faction channels) and ruin the decay rate. The lesson on changing the decay rate negatively was learned years ago, so apparently that has to be relearned. This possibility also ruins the idea of scoring as it is set up, with no replacement scoring method mentioned. Discuss scoring changes first, test those, then change how players play the mechanics to lean that way (not the opposite direction).
Yes, @montitcha, I agree that they seem to be making the game less community/group play and more individual, which means more money for Niantic because why do things in groups like create farms when all you need is a debit/credit card for everything... 😒
Somehow they have mixed up their priorities once they started doing additional games, since the other games were more individual-oriented games with group aspects added in later. Pokemon, for example, is mostly a game that can be played alone and it should be more focused on that than getting people together for simple things like Dex additions (through raids).
That was never the intent of Ingress from beta. If you want individual based gameplay, feel free to move to something else like the upcoming NBA-branded game, Pokemon Go or any number of games on console or PC. STOP making this game lose its community aspect. That includes removing satellite and remote recharging from the anomaly setup, and ruining the hard work people do getting things set up like layered field ops and farms.
And yes, fight the insane amount of spoofing, account sharing, and multi accounting happening all over. This should have been number one from the beginning and even more so when Prime was being worked on. Given the amount of data you get being close to what every carrier gets on a regular basis, possibly more so, surely Niantic can fix this in the anti-cheat algorithm. The blatant cheating caused many people to leave pre-Prime, and still is a major factor post-Prime, and this could have easily been worked on over the last two years while things were in a lull from the pandemic.
This is a direction that I saw coming with the hexathalons, then recently the linking under fields 'test' that came to be permanent (which makes simple linking and fielding lag unbearable now), and adding high level resonators and weapons into the store. This is a very r-word direction being taken by Niantic for a game that used to be THE best example of an Augmented Reality game.
Hopefully Niantic gets an 'Epiphany' after this series when they realize people will stop paying for CORE when it changes to junk items and stop giving them valuable data by not playing or moving to a game that actually provides better anti-cheat algorithms and more community upkeep. Either that or sell the IP and game servers to someone who will bring it back to it's true core.
Yeah that is weird they dont mention anything about halloween they will just throw something out of the blue as a surprise why not let people know in advance there will be something ?, strange logic from their pr department to not highlight that for some reason as it looks in october there will only be first saturday and a second sunday and nothing more ??.... 🤨
I hope they have something else planned for the 10 year besides the november bonus which look standard even this year, i mean 10 years is a long time for a mobile game, i hope its not the usual x2 ap on everything and some daily codes...
BAD DECISION
Don't do that pleaaaaseeeeee
i have the feeling that ingress is now like a late party where the dj starts to play the bad music so that the people finally leave :D
I guess I'm cancelling my core sub once the apex stuff is removed. i see absolutely no value in kinetic caps, and i say that as someone who walks an average of 10km daily thus completing one cap. last two days i was on holiday in a new place, and out of ~300 upc/upvs i got something like 5 kinecaps from just hacking. they're completely common and not worth a money subscription.
tldr don't remove apex from core unless you want people to unsubscribe in droves. well it sounds like most NIA business decisions actually want exactly that to happen.
Just comparing to last year when we were still in tiered lockdowns (at least in the UK) due to COVID.
This one does note a Hallowe’en event and even stretches into January noting a New Year event.
I expected that these would keep going throughout the years as people will buy the cosmetic badges and perhaps do a small challenge like the recharge one, or like Peace Week.
Its weird they dont mention halloween or anything in december for events ? not sure i understand whats going on.
Even last year we had events in october and december and nothing for this year? Or niantic has a big surprise for us for 10 years anniversary ?
there also wasn't a Halloween event for the previous 7 years...
no but there was last years so why would they hide it this year? i dont get that.. same with december shows nothing except for the epihphany dawn event.
That could be because, you know, they don't have anything planned.
That's too logical!
Just to clarify, what we get for the CORE Subscriptions is valued at 3 times what it is. By far we are getting a massive bargain.
Though myself I don't care about Kinetic Capsules, Apex's are slightly more useful.
Perhaps 1 of each?
What about a couple of Frackers?
For just 500 more inventory space, our subscriptions are cheap
Tier 2 can be the same kit again, but an Apex instead of KC.
Tier 3 an additional kit of the Tier 1.
Tier 4 an additional kit of the Tier 2.
And then I can have my 4000 inventory spots. 😁
or they dont want throw in something before a surprise for year 10 anniversary maybe...
This is actually a good idea. I like it.
I am surprised that global BB’s are not announced, considering they are a money maker for Ingress. With only a primary site and no satellite locations, participation is limited, to only those that travel to those select places. I suppose a compromise to a full global deploy, would be Nia BB’s and/or agent deployed at selected cities determined by Nia, that could earn the Anomaly badge and generate agent participation outside of just the primary LA or Yokohama locations, just a thought
Ooh, we have the Pikmin Bloom Hallowe’en event announced. Can’t wait for the Ingress one…
or maybe there's not one
really odd if no halloween event this year... december looks empty too except foe the epiphany and the usual
maybe they plan something extra for november and 10 year 🤔🤯
If it meant they were working on lag fixes and permanent features, I'd drop all the seasonal events for a year.
I msg'd Thia on twitter the other day about the Halloween thing for Ingress.
Not great. It wouldn't take much, just some art.
This is what happens when players are not spending money on the game, can't even afford to employ someone to integrate holidays and festivals into Ingress :-(
yeah u saw the tweet, i dont get it they dont have time change a few lines code to give us a small event? 🤨 would be nice with 4 mods deploy sell a badge like last year.... december look empty too on events.
So players that dont play often will think the only event for rest of year is the double ap in november as usual.