Did you include in your data the accounts that got leveled up until level 10 or even 12 and than got sold to players so they can submit portals and review them?
Tbh I know more players that had first their badges for leveling up than the AP. And AP you only can get by playing.
@NianticBrian Analysing data, identifying a problem, finding the cause of a problem and offering a solution is a great way to improve the game. But there is the risk of offering a solution for an imaginary cause. In this case we can all easily agree that the shrinking community is a problem. The reality check if the identified cause for agents leaving after lvl 10 is correct, is easiest done with the ingress community, since we contact agents when they appear on the comm. If you are not convinced yet by the comments above, please do this realitycheck with a poll or comparable.
I am not at all worried about making leveling easier. The challenge is more about the difficult badges than lvls anyway. What does worry me is that an error in data analyses and conclusions drawn, is defended by you. Instead of questioning if you may have missed a turn somewhere. I hope this won't happen with data/cause/problem analyses where the solution put forward has a much bigger impact on gameplay or the community.
@NianticBrian your cherry picking her original post. Yes, part of it was talking about giving players an easy medal to use with leveling up. the other part was keeping this game separate from PoGo and HPWU. Those games are painfully simple and have little to no challenge. Ingress is different and always has been. If you played with any consistency, you would be able to see that. You have multiple VGs and the community telling you that badge locking is not a thing anymore and I can personally tell you that back when I first started, I never saw that as an issue. If you are getting reports of it, its from new players that refuse to learn the game mechanics or were just here to level up so they could submit portals in hopes they would become stops or gyms. Maybe you should start listening to the "loud agents" who actually play this game and want it to continue to succeed, rather than the new players who refused to be challenged.
Innovator still makes me feel like I was cheated out of 16. I was only 20,000 hacks from it using the pre-2015 badges, and hit Level 15 with 43 million AP. Back then I was definitely badgelocked but it was a challenge.
However, I have to agree with @NianticBrian regarding player burnout. While getting to say 10 is easy, there's a sharp ramp between 10 and 13 that's entirely controlled by gold badges. I know of a number of people unrelated to PoGo who stalled in the next few levels, with 12 and 13 requiring 6 and 7 gold badges respectively. These events allow people to push to the highest end of the tiers in a compact period of time, and it helps revitalize them to get the other badges they need. And it's not like these happen every week. We've had 8 of them in the entire life of Ingress so far, and I don't think the first one even offered a Gold badge.
This latest event has had people coming out of the woodwork who had largely quit, because they found out there was something special happening, and a time limited badge. Many will probably disappear again afterwards, but some will be excited to keep playing and getting a gold badge gets them reinvested.
For those of us who are all rounders, with thousands of hours under our belt, and no need for badges since 2014, it seems like a simple task to get the gold for those tiers. However, when I recursed, I tracked my stats from a reset point, and while I don't play anywhere near as hard as I did the first time around, I'm definitely finding myself having to tailor my play for gold badges in order to get what I need. "Just playing" will get there eventually, but it's a far slower grind than we old farts think (or remember). (Personally I'm not counting the event badges in my 're-levelling', but still.)
Also, for all the moaning and groaning about PoGo... they have submissions now. The people willing to put in the time to get to level 12 or even level 10, have probably got half a dozen level 40 accounts already, and have no more need to do this sort of thing. Maybe we'll see a change in the future where the stats don't show people burning out around 10 any more, and that claim will be justified, but I remember it happening long before submissions returned, or PoGo even existed.
@NianticBrian you are L15 and have been playing for 7 years, so nice try. Being a higher level agent only means you played and got AP. If you actually participated in ops, watched them get killed or blocked by spoofers, while you reported them to no avail, i would give you more credibility. if you had to watch as spoofers ran rampant unless you were able to get a hold of TR and if you were lucky, they could get the spoofer banned, then I would give you more credibility. As it stands, you need to sit back and see how things are now and learn from both sides rather than assuming it was the same as when you left. You alone wont be its savior so stop acting like only you can fix it. Listen the VGs and the player base, not your ego.
I think that's baiting him, since you've had an account for 7 years and you are level 15.
I don't think anyone would doubt that you play Ingress and are again a visible part of the game. Your Twitter is full of posts about Ingress, your recent play, and sharing others' love of the game. It's great to see that engagement and promotion. I do wonder if you actively played Ingress after you stepped away 4 years ago, only because the game and communities have shifted significantly since then. I don't think having an account for 7 years or being level 15 is about credibility or lack of it. Every player deserves a voice becacuse every player will have a different experience. Having an account for 7 years and not being a recursed level 16 tells many that maybe you don't play for the sheer enjoyment, but then again I know several sub level 14 players that have spent thousands of hours on anomaly prep and know the game far better than many level 16 recursed players who don't because they have experienced far more facets of the game. But unless you are backlogging 4 years of history WRT chats, anomalies, dynamics, issues, spoofing impact, TBG, DF, portal resets, etc, I think it's going to be difficult to have the pulse of the game without listening to the players, even if they are Resistance. Thank you for taking the time to engage us. Please listen to us, even if it's counter to what your experiences have been. Ingress, at Niantic or in game, is about a team effort. That is where the magic is. We are vocal and opinionated because we love the game.
This latest event has had people coming out of the woodwork who had largely quit, because they found out there was something special happening, and a time limited badge. Many will probably disappear again afterwards, but some will be excited to keep playing and getting a gold badge gets them reinvested.
It only takes knowing or knowing of one person who doesn't extend play to get the badges to say it's a thing. It's level locked, not badge locked. and usually out of choice, not lack of. I don't doubt there are a few people who needed that gold for lack of regional portals. But the fact that is a leveling gold is the kind of attention I'd like to see on bigger issues, versus ones that playing can achieve without offering levels. The ease of leveling in other games doesn't mean Ingress needs to hand out levels as well. That is not what Ingress has ever been about. Once you get to level 8, you have as much firepower as a 16. At 10 you can submit, and 12 you can evaluate.
I also think you mischaracterise the badge. People didn't come out because it got them a gold. They came out because people love shiny badges. They always have. They always will. It wasn't because it offered a leveling gold. It's becaues it existed as a badge. It gets people out playing and engaging and that alone is the drive needed for people to continue working towards badges. And as I have said for several years, small weekly challenges or tasks will do this far better. Instead of a spike in play once every 3 months, it's a more uniform play which leads to, you guessed it, higher levels, without reducing the value.
It only takes knowing or knowing of one person who doesn't extend play to get the badges to say it's a thing. It's level locked, not badge locked. and usually out of choice, not lack of.
The only time I used the term badgelocked, was referring to my 2014 experience when I hit level 15 with more AP than was required for 16. If you're fixated on that concept, you didn't read what I said.
I also think you mischaracterise the badge. People didn't come out because it got them a gold. They came out because people love shiny badges. They always have. They always will.
People are unique individuals with multiple motivations. And now it's really clear that you didn't read my post. I said that people came out because it was a special event and a time limited badge. What you failed to process, was that I said people will continue to play because they got a gold badge that put them back on the advancement path. I never said people came for the badge. I said that in this and previous events, people will stay because they got it.
Small weekly challenges have some benefits, but become repetitive. These large events which bring people out because of a shiny badge, capture some of that enthusiasm to make people stay and continue playing. If an event occurs every week, it's not going to bring someone out of retirement, because they can simply say "they happen all the time". We need these "spikes" because these spikes are what reinvigorate both retired and existing players.
The world is wide and varied, and so are people's motivations. Pidgeonholing people into having to my way is the only way does nothing to increase the diverse player base. Little regular challenges would help, and maybe its something they can also try, but that doesn't mean this type of global challenge isn't was worthwhile, or more so, to reactivate retired players.
This latest event has had people coming out of the woodwork who had largely quit, because they found out there was something special happening, and a time limited badge. Many will probably disappear again afterwards, but some will be excited to keep playing and getting a gold badge gets them reinvested.
I read it. I should have quoted with you and agreed. Apologies. I quoted the part that was of issue only,
The world is wide and varied, and so are people's motivations. Pidgeonholing people into having to my way is the only way does nothing to increase the diverse player base. Little regular challenges would help, and maybe its something they can also try, but that doesn't mean this type of global challenge isn't was worthwhile, or more so, to reactivate retired players.
I agree except about the pidgeonholing. If it's a problem now, it should have been a visible issue 2, 3, 4 years ago. It has not been a significant issue. So the issue stands that it isn't about leveling. The badge should be able engagement. I 'm 100% full force on board with global challenges. I have been since they introduced them and have been vocal about their importance. The ONLY thing I am not in agreement on is that these challenges are leveling badges. Literally, it's been years of begging for more engagement and challenges. That leads to leveling on it's own without the need to introduce unnecessary gold badges. That is my ONLY issue with it. That's it.
If it's a problem now, it should have been a visible issue 2, 3, 4 years ago.
No offence, but it was. There are two key points when players need to be motivated above and beyond just normal play. Level 6, when they realise that everything they've done, they need to repeat 3 more times just to get to level 8. And level 10 or 11, when they realise that they have to change their play-style and do the other things they generally don't both with, so that they can get past level 13.
This has not changed in 6 years, since they added the higher levels. It always has been, and even adding new badges along the way, will continue to be. Is it easier than it once was? Yes, definitely. Is the player base as fired up and large as it was, no way. A big part of team motivation has always been the sense of community and the group dynamic. As our teams shrink in every corner of the world we do need to expand our repertoire of recruiting and retention methods. And more of these global challenges are one good way to do it.
And honestly, why are you up in arms about someone else having an easier time leveling than you did. Does it impact you personally? Because it certainly doesn't hurt the motivations of those people who do need those badges.
“Understanding” “Ingress” does not come from having played for X years or having Y lifetime AP. It comes from breadth of experience, either lived directly or vicariously through the stories of others. I will be the first to say that my own five year journey and 254 million AP says only that I’ve become very good at mashing buttons, not that I’ve experienced or understood all the myriad ways of “playing” “Ingress” and what it has to offer.
5 years ago, yes. It is not now, at least not to the extent we need to have extra badges.
And honestly, why are you up in arms about someone else having an easier time leveling than you did
It's not about having an easier time. It's about experiencing the full amazingness of Ingress. If we are going to make it easy to level without any sort of effort, then why do we have levels. Just make everyone L8 to start and then do badges from there. If there is not value in having to work for something, then let's just level the board now and be done with it. I'll get my sticker book ready!
why are you up in arms
Points to copious chat comments about the COLOUR of a badge
This is going to be a long winded response, so the short answer is badge locked? Pffft. Please. Work on another badge.
Badge locking is only a thing for a small subset of players that are usually from other games, who don't want to WORK for their badges (and many won't be bothered to collaborate with their teammates or even join local communities, despite numerous attempts to get them to join the local communities). Yes, I see agents that are badge locked, but they play the same exact way day in and day out, without doing anything different. They will need to either change their game, or grind for a very long time to get a high enough badge to level up. Ingress isn't about participation badges. We like to work for our badges. I remember working for my last 2 platinum badges for Level 16 back in 2014. Pioneer and Hacker. Back when you had to drop gear one by one, no easy peasy badges to level up with.
There are many accounts I keep seeing level up to 10 or 12, then quit leveling, and only appear on the map when a new portal goes live and they capture it. usually something not very surprising or delighting, like an apartment complex pool, or pool 2, or north pool, or south pool.
I remember trying so hard back in 2013 & 2014 to get new portals in areas, but constantly being denied. Being told about how we needed quality portals. Now, basically any structure, sports ball court/pitch/field/ect, damn near any sign anywhere can be a portal. Anything that promotes exercise (which can be defined as just about any movement) can be a portal? ugh. We worked so damn hard to submit cool stuff, now it's all getting drowned out in the every sign or whatever that is so uninteresting that can become a portal or whatever. It feels like it's against the overall Spirit of Ingress. We don't want to go explore every single shelter in a park. We want to find cool stuff that we might actually not see when we go out and about our local or non-local areas. We have super awesome local works of art like the painted floodwall down in Cape Girardeau, MO or the other cool painted floodwall in Paducah, KY. I learned a bit about the FreeMasonary history when I visited a few different cemeteries along with what the different seats mean (which also started me looking into the history of Freemasons more) Heck, I even kept a key from this church, when I went to Louisville, KY over the 4th of July weekend in 2014 just to go get uniques & see a town I've never been to before. there is actually a mural in Louisville, KY (not sure if it's still there or not, but I have a key for it, so portal is) but a mural that is named Joe Philly Portal. I'm sure you remember that guy, right? Ever visited the Chattanooga Choo-Choo ? I have. Because of Ingress. It was on the way to Jacksonville, FL Mission Day. And so many more places.
Not to mention all the cool people I've met when traveling, or being local, going to anomalies, being part of small or large ops, or even playing a local travel guide to agents from all over the country, and all over the world. 😎
I picked up my Level 16 waaaaay back in September of 2014. I'm still here. I'm still playing. I like the challenge. I like to travel and see new interesting places. Lately that travel has been much less, mainly due to in game issues (unable to successfully load all portals in scanner on 4g LTE, intel map continuously not loading all portals (hard to make plans, when you can't see portals!, and getting tired of seeing all the "junk" portals that are so very common and lead to "cheapen" the game in my own opinion. If I'm on a trail, I really don't need a mile marker sign to be a portal. Show me something cool. A plaque at a great viewpoint, a summit of a mountain (or in MO a tall hill), something worth seeing.
@Hosette I for one, am glad I got to Level 16 before Innovator came out and cheapened the L16 experience. Glad to be part of one of the original #IngressHardCore groups. I'm still at awe of some of us who got their Onyx Mind Controller or Connector badges long before glyphing or glyphing for more keys was even a thing. It was a hardcore badge to be earned via lots of work, but also a learning experience on how to potentially create an AP generator and help other agents level up too. Though I'm still in the micro fielding bandwagon. More creative, more fun!
End long winded post. You don't have to like it. You can even hit that little disagree button at the bottom, but heck, I sure wanted to say it. 😀
Oh, and @NianticBrian@ace I'd be more than happy if these Challenge based badges only counted as bronze, just like all the character badges. Just give us the ability, if we wanted to, to you know, go the distance and earn that top Onyx tinted badge, even if it only counts as a bronze badge.
It's about experiencing the full amazingness of Ingress. If we are going to make it easy to level without any sort of effort, then why do we have levels. Just make everyone L8 to start and then do badges from there. If there is not value in having to work for something, then let's just level the board now and be done with it. I'll get my sticker book ready!
In my day we had to walk uphill both ways, in the snow, and we liked it.
Perhaps I misunderstand you, but I disagree with your characterization of what makes Ingress unique. I played Pokémon GO actively and fairly recently, so I will use that as a point of comparison:
Community: Everything you said here applied to my Pokémon GO experience.
Exploration: Pokémon GO is built on the same database of Wayspots. In some ways, it is actually easier to discover new things about my neighborhood because new Wayspots that I have not yet visited are highlighted.
Personal narratives: Pokémon GO trainers make and share heroic tales out chasing down rare spawns, taking out Tier 5 raid bosses with only two of them, and so many other things in the game.
What actually makes Ingress unique is the nature of its community and its gameplay. I think this recent AMA question and answer gets at what I’m trying to say rather neatly (it’s certainly not the only way, but I’m well on way to a wall of text as it is 😛):
Q: In comparison to Pokémon GO and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, what do you think are the defining characteristics of Ingress? What sets the gameplay and experiences of Ingress apart and makes it special?
A: I’ve talked about this a lot but happy to repeat myself on this topic. What I believe makes Ingress special is the core mechanic that requires people to get together in order to gather the high level resources. Not just one, two, or three people… but eight people. This forces a collaboration and shared experience for a daily (or near daily) mechanic of the core game loop of resource gathering that is unique to Ingress to quite a large extent. While multiple Trainers can place a Pokémon in a Gym, they can then walk away and to a large extent their experience is complete. There is something unique in having to build out a Portal together and at the same time if you want to hack that Portal to get the rewards immediately. There can also be strategy in where you deploy a Resonator on a Portal, what mods you use, how you link it. If you’ve ever built a L8 Farm and deployed a Common Shield or L8 Resonator you know what I’m talking about. There is more strategy and collaboration involved with Ingress in my opinion.
Level 8 portals are only one facet of Ingress, but they capture a meaningful slice of the game, and I would posit that one meaningful (but incomplete) measure of the activity level and health of Ingress in an area is:
How often Level 8 portals arise, and in what density; and
How long those Level 8 portals survive before decaying or being destroyed by the opposing faction.
When my faction builds dense clusters of Level 8 portals with regularity, it feels like we are a well-oiled machine ready to take on the world. When the other faction destroys those clusters within hours, we know we have an adversary that is not to be taken lightly. When the other faction lets my faction’s dense clusters of L8 portals survive for days or weeks, it feels like they’ve given up. When my faction fails to muster the people to build L8 portals with regularity, it feels like we’ve given up. Et cetera. I don’t think I need to enumerate all the possible scenarios.
The “healthy” comings and goings of groups of Level 8 portals reflects an intentional, continued collaboration of groups of players, i.e., communities that have come together in a more lasting, meaningful way than the transactional, somewhat impersonal interactions that characterize Pokémon GO’s gameplay. That is the kind of community that makes Ingress unique.
So, let’s bring this back to global challenges and medals for leveling up and growing the player base and increasing player retention: @NianticBrian, suppose your hypothesis is validated. How do you see this coming back to “community” and “collaboration,” especially as indicated above?
@Toxoplasmolly I appreciate you bringing it back to the global challenges. My hypothesis is that if we bring global challenges back on a regular cadence, and include bronze, silver, and gold medals, then over time we will get more active players. With more active players, then there's a larger pool of people who can participate in the communities and collaborate with others.
I don't think anyone here is debating the difficulty of each global challenge; we all grok that these can be tuned so that some months are more difficult than others. I understood the key argument as yes we should do global challenges, but no the medals earned should only be vanity medals that do not count towards leveling. I hear that, but I also think there are also players who do want bronze, silver, and gold medals.
In this thread, I've been told how I should play our game, and told to only listen to the loud voices. I haven't yet come to appreciate that advice. Instead, I'm going to take what I feel is a more balanced viewpoint, and I'll listen to both the loud voices and also the quiet ones.
@NianticBrian No one is telling you how to play the game, just that it has changed since you left Niantic 4 years ago. What will be helpful, and what you said you will do, is actually listening to the player base and going from there. Niantic hasn't appeared to do that lately and that is why Ingress is where it is. I hope you will try to make good on your promise to listen to the players. Doing so will allow Ingress to thrive.
@NianticBrian I don’t think monthly challenges will bring back the same activity in ingress that we had three years ago.
People stopped playing because they don’t like prime, they are annoyed by decisions made by Niantic, their city is in full control of a spoofer-ring and they can not get ride of them or simply they changed their focus in life. There are various reasons why people stop playing. I can not recall one person even from the more rural living players i know that someone stopped because of a missing badge. They saw the missing badge usually as the goal to reach and they went for it.
If you wanna stick to monthly challenges there will be always a peak of activity because people like to get shiny badges. But the other days of the months most of them are going to be causal playing again. From my point of view, there are other things that needs to get fixed and taken care of in ingress, then maybe players will come back or stick with the game.
In this thread, I've been told how I should play our game, and told to only listen to the loud voices. I haven't yet come to appreciate that advice. Instead, I'm going to take what I feel is a more balanced viewpoint, and I'll listen to both the loud voices and also the quiet ones.
Whoa. So if someone replies to you, that's a loud voice? You aren't taking on board any opinions other than ENL. If you want a balanced opinion, then you have to take on more than your own opinion or ENL friends views. Because as I've said before, we love this game. Not everyone has the guts to post on the forum, so please stop being dismissive of those that do. We want Ingress to succeed even more than you do. We don't do it as a job. We do it for free, because we love the game.
Every new event what I a see is a massive number of new accounts, obvious spoofers and multiaccounts showing up. While regular players keep their normal routine. Know some good agents who didn't reach gold, some got bronze without even know what was happening, some not even tried.
If you want to help players to lv up with gold badges, change the lv requirements. Lower the amount of medal necessary or maybe create a new standard medal. During ingress life, there's been removed at least 3 standard medal of the rooster (2 not counting the multiaccount influencer).
6 gold could been easier back then, but now there's a lack of 2 normal gameplay medals. Lv up should be a challenge not a barrier, and shouldn't take special events to get it. I don't mind the event ones being gold too, but you shouldn't make the events with the clear intention of giving away easy medal.
Just so you can read through some of my sarcasm, totally joking about outlawing Blue and Green badges. There’s some valid points out here and maybe I should just let the community know something.
I left PoGo because it was boring, there was no mystery to it (maybe that’s where Nemesis comes from, the PoGo node and the shapers have a thing for Pokémon)...
When it came down to Ingress, I knew nothing. No history, no lore, no intel... nothing. I was watching videos that friends sent me of the IncredibleHulk. Learned the hard way to level 8.
For badge locking, here’s a tip from me, don’t change a thing, or make it harder! Gaining 2 Onyx, 4 Platinum and 7 Golds was my goal when I was Level 7. Currently, not doing too badly. These solo events are actually fun but the best fun is FS and MD (Haven’t done an anomaly or Hexathlon yet, but I am).
When I found out this was global, blew my mind. The insane amounts of glyphing I’ve done in the past month, recharging, whatever it’s worth it. The decoding challenges, everything... It’s great.
This “game” as everyone wants to call it, isn’t a game. Look at us, we go find portals, we go travel to places, we’ve all made friends. This is more that just a “game” it’s a way of thought/life. I can see why people yell at the top of their lungs. Why the L8 portal is an accomplishment. I can see that, I’ve been a part of that.
The only thing I ask of Niantic, please let us get tickets for the future events... I still see nothing there.
I have been thinking about this thread for a couple of days, and there's an underlying assumption that I don't think anyone has questioned. Are badges, levels, and personal stats the primary drivers of Ingress players?
For me, they rarely are/were. Sometimes a badge or a level would motivate me, usually when I was close to something or had a particular whim[1][2], but in general personal stats were secondary to other goals. For me the primary motivation for playing Ingress is to have an impact on the playfield, to shift control. Sometimes it's short-term, like a field. Sometimes it's longer-term, like wresting control of an opponent-dominated area away from them. Sometimes it's denying my opponents something they want. Sometimes it was just leaving a trail of destruction wherever I happened to be. And sometimes [redacted] or [redacted] or [redacted]. (-: I played for the community. I played to maintain a farm. I played to take down standing farms. I played to help newcomers level.
I threw fields regularly before there was an illuminator badge. Sometimes they were just some layered fields over my neighborhood. Sometimes they were bigger. I'd solo field midsized cities like Reno because it looked like fun, not because I was trying to get a badge or bump a stat. The intel map always looks like opportunity for shenanigans.
Uniques-based badges were the big exception, because I love to travel and they provided an excuse to do so. I never would have toured the George W **** presidential library if it hadn't made it my 30,000th unique visit.
In short, I played and still play for the sheer joy of it, to accomplish things on the map, and rarely for pixels on my profile. And reading this thread makes me feel like I'm the only one. Are badges and levels the primary drivers of people's Ingress play?
[1] One case of this: I wanted to race platinum explorer vs a ticking platinum guardian. In order to do this I had to get around 5000 uniques in a month. I'm pretty sure explorer won.
[2] And then there was the time that I decided I wanted to get onyx purifier before platinum builder, which required 150K destroys before I got 21K deploys. That was fun! Purifier won by months.
Comments
@NianticBrian I agree with @VanJeffery and @Azhreia
Did you include in your data the accounts that got leveled up until level 10 or even 12 and than got sold to players so they can submit portals and review them?
Tbh I know more players that had first their badges for leveling up than the AP. And AP you only can get by playing.
@NianticBrian Analysing data, identifying a problem, finding the cause of a problem and offering a solution is a great way to improve the game. But there is the risk of offering a solution for an imaginary cause. In this case we can all easily agree that the shrinking community is a problem. The reality check if the identified cause for agents leaving after lvl 10 is correct, is easiest done with the ingress community, since we contact agents when they appear on the comm. If you are not convinced yet by the comments above, please do this realitycheck with a poll or comparable.
I am not at all worried about making leveling easier. The challenge is more about the difficult badges than lvls anyway. What does worry me is that an error in data analyses and conclusions drawn, is defended by you. Instead of questioning if you may have missed a turn somewhere. I hope this won't happen with data/cause/problem analyses where the solution put forward has a much bigger impact on gameplay or the community.
@NianticBrian your cherry picking her original post. Yes, part of it was talking about giving players an easy medal to use with leveling up. the other part was keeping this game separate from PoGo and HPWU. Those games are painfully simple and have little to no challenge. Ingress is different and always has been. If you played with any consistency, you would be able to see that. You have multiple VGs and the community telling you that badge locking is not a thing anymore and I can personally tell you that back when I first started, I never saw that as an issue. If you are getting reports of it, its from new players that refuse to learn the game mechanics or were just here to level up so they could submit portals in hopes they would become stops or gyms. Maybe you should start listening to the "loud agents" who actually play this game and want it to continue to succeed, rather than the new players who refused to be challenged.
If you played with any consistency, you would be able to see that.
@hawklet00 if I played Ingress for seven years, or if I were Level 15, do you feel that would give me more credibility or understanding of Ingress?
Innovator still makes me feel like I was cheated out of 16. I was only 20,000 hacks from it using the pre-2015 badges, and hit Level 15 with 43 million AP. Back then I was definitely badgelocked but it was a challenge.
However, I have to agree with @NianticBrian regarding player burnout. While getting to say 10 is easy, there's a sharp ramp between 10 and 13 that's entirely controlled by gold badges. I know of a number of people unrelated to PoGo who stalled in the next few levels, with 12 and 13 requiring 6 and 7 gold badges respectively. These events allow people to push to the highest end of the tiers in a compact period of time, and it helps revitalize them to get the other badges they need. And it's not like these happen every week. We've had 8 of them in the entire life of Ingress so far, and I don't think the first one even offered a Gold badge.
This latest event has had people coming out of the woodwork who had largely quit, because they found out there was something special happening, and a time limited badge. Many will probably disappear again afterwards, but some will be excited to keep playing and getting a gold badge gets them reinvested.
For those of us who are all rounders, with thousands of hours under our belt, and no need for badges since 2014, it seems like a simple task to get the gold for those tiers. However, when I recursed, I tracked my stats from a reset point, and while I don't play anywhere near as hard as I did the first time around, I'm definitely finding myself having to tailor my play for gold badges in order to get what I need. "Just playing" will get there eventually, but it's a far slower grind than we old farts think (or remember). (Personally I'm not counting the event badges in my 're-levelling', but still.)
Also, for all the moaning and groaning about PoGo... they have submissions now. The people willing to put in the time to get to level 12 or even level 10, have probably got half a dozen level 40 accounts already, and have no more need to do this sort of thing. Maybe we'll see a change in the future where the stats don't show people burning out around 10 any more, and that claim will be justified, but I remember it happening long before submissions returned, or PoGo even existed.
@NianticBrian you are L15 and have been playing for 7 years, so nice try. Being a higher level agent only means you played and got AP. If you actually participated in ops, watched them get killed or blocked by spoofers, while you reported them to no avail, i would give you more credibility. if you had to watch as spoofers ran rampant unless you were able to get a hold of TR and if you were lucky, they could get the spoofer banned, then I would give you more credibility. As it stands, you need to sit back and see how things are now and learn from both sides rather than assuming it was the same as when you left. You alone wont be its savior so stop acting like only you can fix it. Listen the VGs and the player base, not your ego.
I think that's baiting him, since you've had an account for 7 years and you are level 15.
I don't think anyone would doubt that you play Ingress and are again a visible part of the game. Your Twitter is full of posts about Ingress, your recent play, and sharing others' love of the game. It's great to see that engagement and promotion. I do wonder if you actively played Ingress after you stepped away 4 years ago, only because the game and communities have shifted significantly since then. I don't think having an account for 7 years or being level 15 is about credibility or lack of it. Every player deserves a voice becacuse every player will have a different experience. Having an account for 7 years and not being a recursed level 16 tells many that maybe you don't play for the sheer enjoyment, but then again I know several sub level 14 players that have spent thousands of hours on anomaly prep and know the game far better than many level 16 recursed players who don't because they have experienced far more facets of the game. But unless you are backlogging 4 years of history WRT chats, anomalies, dynamics, issues, spoofing impact, TBG, DF, portal resets, etc, I think it's going to be difficult to have the pulse of the game without listening to the players, even if they are Resistance. Thank you for taking the time to engage us. Please listen to us, even if it's counter to what your experiences have been. Ingress, at Niantic or in game, is about a team effort. That is where the magic is. We are vocal and opinionated because we love the game.
This latest event has had people coming out of the woodwork who had largely quit, because they found out there was something special happening, and a time limited badge. Many will probably disappear again afterwards, but some will be excited to keep playing and getting a gold badge gets them reinvested.
It only takes knowing or knowing of one person who doesn't extend play to get the badges to say it's a thing. It's level locked, not badge locked. and usually out of choice, not lack of. I don't doubt there are a few people who needed that gold for lack of regional portals. But the fact that is a leveling gold is the kind of attention I'd like to see on bigger issues, versus ones that playing can achieve without offering levels. The ease of leveling in other games doesn't mean Ingress needs to hand out levels as well. That is not what Ingress has ever been about. Once you get to level 8, you have as much firepower as a 16. At 10 you can submit, and 12 you can evaluate.
I also think you mischaracterise the badge. People didn't come out because it got them a gold. They came out because people love shiny badges. They always have. They always will. It wasn't because it offered a leveling gold. It's becaues it existed as a badge. It gets people out playing and engaging and that alone is the drive needed for people to continue working towards badges. And as I have said for several years, small weekly challenges or tasks will do this far better. Instead of a spike in play once every 3 months, it's a more uniform play which leads to, you guessed it, higher levels, without reducing the value.
@VanJeffery
It only takes knowing or knowing of one person who doesn't extend play to get the badges to say it's a thing. It's level locked, not badge locked. and usually out of choice, not lack of.
The only time I used the term badgelocked, was referring to my 2014 experience when I hit level 15 with more AP than was required for 16. If you're fixated on that concept, you didn't read what I said.
I also think you mischaracterise the badge. People didn't come out because it got them a gold. They came out because people love shiny badges. They always have. They always will.
People are unique individuals with multiple motivations. And now it's really clear that you didn't read my post. I said that people came out because it was a special event and a time limited badge. What you failed to process, was that I said people will continue to play because they got a gold badge that put them back on the advancement path. I never said people came for the badge. I said that in this and previous events, people will stay because they got it.
Small weekly challenges have some benefits, but become repetitive. These large events which bring people out because of a shiny badge, capture some of that enthusiasm to make people stay and continue playing. If an event occurs every week, it's not going to bring someone out of retirement, because they can simply say "they happen all the time". We need these "spikes" because these spikes are what reinvigorate both retired and existing players.
The world is wide and varied, and so are people's motivations. Pidgeonholing people into having to my way is the only way does nothing to increase the diverse player base. Little regular challenges would help, and maybe its something they can also try, but that doesn't mean this type of global challenge isn't was worthwhile, or more so, to reactivate retired players.
@Perringaiden
This latest event has had people coming out of the woodwork who had largely quit, because they found out there was something special happening, and a time limited badge. Many will probably disappear again afterwards, but some will be excited to keep playing and getting a gold badge gets them reinvested.
I read it. I should have quoted with you and agreed. Apologies. I quoted the part that was of issue only,
The world is wide and varied, and so are people's motivations. Pidgeonholing people into having to my way is the only way does nothing to increase the diverse player base. Little regular challenges would help, and maybe its something they can also try, but that doesn't mean this type of global challenge isn't was worthwhile, or more so, to reactivate retired players.
I agree except about the pidgeonholing. If it's a problem now, it should have been a visible issue 2, 3, 4 years ago. It has not been a significant issue. So the issue stands that it isn't about leveling. The badge should be able engagement. I 'm 100% full force on board with global challenges. I have been since they introduced them and have been vocal about their importance. The ONLY thing I am not in agreement on is that these challenges are leveling badges. Literally, it's been years of begging for more engagement and challenges. That leads to leveling on it's own without the need to introduce unnecessary gold badges. That is my ONLY issue with it. That's it.
If it's a problem now, it should have been a visible issue 2, 3, 4 years ago.
No offence, but it was. There are two key points when players need to be motivated above and beyond just normal play. Level 6, when they realise that everything they've done, they need to repeat 3 more times just to get to level 8. And level 10 or 11, when they realise that they have to change their play-style and do the other things they generally don't both with, so that they can get past level 13.
This has not changed in 6 years, since they added the higher levels. It always has been, and even adding new badges along the way, will continue to be. Is it easier than it once was? Yes, definitely. Is the player base as fired up and large as it was, no way. A big part of team motivation has always been the sense of community and the group dynamic. As our teams shrink in every corner of the world we do need to expand our repertoire of recruiting and retention methods. And more of these global challenges are one good way to do it.
And honestly, why are you up in arms about someone else having an easier time leveling than you did. Does it impact you personally? Because it certainly doesn't hurt the motivations of those people who do need those badges.
“Understanding” “Ingress” does not come from having played for X years or having Y lifetime AP. It comes from breadth of experience, either lived directly or vicariously through the stories of others. I will be the first to say that my own five year journey and 254 million AP says only that I’ve become very good at mashing buttons, not that I’ve experienced or understood all the myriad ways of “playing” “Ingress” and what it has to offer.
No offence, but it was
5 years ago, yes. It is not now, at least not to the extent we need to have extra badges.
And honestly, why are you up in arms about someone else having an easier time leveling than you did
It's not about having an easier time. It's about experiencing the full amazingness of Ingress. If we are going to make it easy to level without any sort of effort, then why do we have levels. Just make everyone L8 to start and then do badges from there. If there is not value in having to work for something, then let's just level the board now and be done with it. I'll get my sticker book ready!
why are you up in arms
Points to copious chat comments about the COLOUR of a badge
This is going to be a long winded response, so the short answer is badge locked? Pffft. Please. Work on another badge.
Badge locking is only a thing for a small subset of players that are usually from other games, who don't want to WORK for their badges (and many won't be bothered to collaborate with their teammates or even join local communities, despite numerous attempts to get them to join the local communities). Yes, I see agents that are badge locked, but they play the same exact way day in and day out, without doing anything different. They will need to either change their game, or grind for a very long time to get a high enough badge to level up. Ingress isn't about participation badges. We like to work for our badges. I remember working for my last 2 platinum badges for Level 16 back in 2014. Pioneer and Hacker. Back when you had to drop gear one by one, no easy peasy badges to level up with.
There are many accounts I keep seeing level up to 10 or 12, then quit leveling, and only appear on the map when a new portal goes live and they capture it. usually something not very surprising or delighting, like an apartment complex pool, or pool 2, or north pool, or south pool.
I remember trying so hard back in 2013 & 2014 to get new portals in areas, but constantly being denied. Being told about how we needed quality portals. Now, basically any structure, sports ball court/pitch/field/ect, damn near any sign anywhere can be a portal. Anything that promotes exercise (which can be defined as just about any movement) can be a portal? ugh. We worked so damn hard to submit cool stuff, now it's all getting drowned out in the every sign or whatever that is so uninteresting that can become a portal or whatever. It feels like it's against the overall Spirit of Ingress. We don't want to go explore every single shelter in a park. We want to find cool stuff that we might actually not see when we go out and about our local or non-local areas. We have super awesome local works of art like the painted floodwall down in Cape Girardeau, MO or the other cool painted floodwall in Paducah, KY. I learned a bit about the FreeMasonary history when I visited a few different cemeteries along with what the different seats mean (which also started me looking into the history of Freemasons more) Heck, I even kept a key from this church, when I went to Louisville, KY over the 4th of July weekend in 2014 just to go get uniques & see a town I've never been to before. there is actually a mural in Louisville, KY (not sure if it's still there or not, but I have a key for it, so portal is) but a mural that is named Joe Philly Portal. I'm sure you remember that guy, right? Ever visited the Chattanooga Choo-Choo ? I have. Because of Ingress. It was on the way to Jacksonville, FL Mission Day. And so many more places.
Not to mention all the cool people I've met when traveling, or being local, going to anomalies, being part of small or large ops, or even playing a local travel guide to agents from all over the country, and all over the world. 😎
I picked up my Level 16 waaaaay back in September of 2014. I'm still here. I'm still playing. I like the challenge. I like to travel and see new interesting places. Lately that travel has been much less, mainly due to in game issues (unable to successfully load all portals in scanner on 4g LTE, intel map continuously not loading all portals (hard to make plans, when you can't see portals!, and getting tired of seeing all the "junk" portals that are so very common and lead to "cheapen" the game in my own opinion. If I'm on a trail, I really don't need a mile marker sign to be a portal. Show me something cool. A plaque at a great viewpoint, a summit of a mountain (or in MO a tall hill), something worth seeing.
@Hosette I for one, am glad I got to Level 16 before Innovator came out and cheapened the L16 experience. Glad to be part of one of the original #IngressHardCore groups. I'm still at awe of some of us who got their Onyx Mind Controller or Connector badges long before glyphing or glyphing for more keys was even a thing. It was a hardcore badge to be earned via lots of work, but also a learning experience on how to potentially create an AP generator and help other agents level up too. Though I'm still in the micro fielding bandwagon. More creative, more fun!
End long winded post. You don't have to like it. You can even hit that little disagree button at the bottom, but heck, I sure wanted to say it. 😀
Oh, and @NianticBrian @ace I'd be more than happy if these Challenge based badges only counted as bronze, just like all the character badges. Just give us the ability, if we wanted to, to you know, go the distance and earn that top Onyx tinted badge, even if it only counts as a bronze badge.
It's about experiencing the full amazingness of Ingress. If we are going to make it easy to level without any sort of effort, then why do we have levels. Just make everyone L8 to start and then do badges from there. If there is not value in having to work for something, then let's just level the board now and be done with it. I'll get my sticker book ready!
In my day we had to walk uphill both ways, in the snow, and we liked it.
Perhaps I misunderstand you, but I disagree with your characterization of what makes Ingress unique. I played Pokémon GO actively and fairly recently, so I will use that as a point of comparison:
What actually makes Ingress unique is the nature of its community and its gameplay. I think this recent AMA question and answer gets at what I’m trying to say rather neatly (it’s certainly not the only way, but I’m well on way to a wall of text as it is 😛):
Q: In comparison to Pokémon GO and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, what do you think are the defining characteristics of Ingress? What sets the gameplay and experiences of Ingress apart and makes it special?
A: I’ve talked about this a lot but happy to repeat myself on this topic. What I believe makes Ingress special is the core mechanic that requires people to get together in order to gather the high level resources. Not just one, two, or three people… but eight people. This forces a collaboration and shared experience for a daily (or near daily) mechanic of the core game loop of resource gathering that is unique to Ingress to quite a large extent. While multiple Trainers can place a Pokémon in a Gym, they can then walk away and to a large extent their experience is complete. There is something unique in having to build out a Portal together and at the same time if you want to hack that Portal to get the rewards immediately. There can also be strategy in where you deploy a Resonator on a Portal, what mods you use, how you link it. If you’ve ever built a L8 Farm and deployed a Common Shield or L8 Resonator you know what I’m talking about. There is more strategy and collaboration involved with Ingress in my opinion.
Level 8 portals are only one facet of Ingress, but they capture a meaningful slice of the game, and I would posit that one meaningful (but incomplete) measure of the activity level and health of Ingress in an area is:
When my faction builds dense clusters of Level 8 portals with regularity, it feels like we are a well-oiled machine ready to take on the world. When the other faction destroys those clusters within hours, we know we have an adversary that is not to be taken lightly. When the other faction lets my faction’s dense clusters of L8 portals survive for days or weeks, it feels like they’ve given up. When my faction fails to muster the people to build L8 portals with regularity, it feels like we’ve given up. Et cetera. I don’t think I need to enumerate all the possible scenarios.
The “healthy” comings and goings of groups of Level 8 portals reflects an intentional, continued collaboration of groups of players, i.e., communities that have come together in a more lasting, meaningful way than the transactional, somewhat impersonal interactions that characterize Pokémon GO’s gameplay. That is the kind of community that makes Ingress unique.
So, let’s bring this back to global challenges and medals for leveling up and growing the player base and increasing player retention: @NianticBrian, suppose your hypothesis is validated. How do you see this coming back to “community” and “collaboration,” especially as indicated above?
@Toxoplasmolly I appreciate you bringing it back to the global challenges. My hypothesis is that if we bring global challenges back on a regular cadence, and include bronze, silver, and gold medals, then over time we will get more active players. With more active players, then there's a larger pool of people who can participate in the communities and collaborate with others.
I don't think anyone here is debating the difficulty of each global challenge; we all grok that these can be tuned so that some months are more difficult than others. I understood the key argument as yes we should do global challenges, but no the medals earned should only be vanity medals that do not count towards leveling. I hear that, but I also think there are also players who do want bronze, silver, and gold medals.
In this thread, I've been told how I should play our game, and told to only listen to the loud voices. I haven't yet come to appreciate that advice. Instead, I'm going to take what I feel is a more balanced viewpoint, and I'll listen to both the loud voices and also the quiet ones.
@NianticBrian No one is telling you how to play the game, just that it has changed since you left Niantic 4 years ago. What will be helpful, and what you said you will do, is actually listening to the player base and going from there. Niantic hasn't appeared to do that lately and that is why Ingress is where it is. I hope you will try to make good on your promise to listen to the players. Doing so will allow Ingress to thrive.
@NianticBrian I don’t think monthly challenges will bring back the same activity in ingress that we had three years ago.
People stopped playing because they don’t like prime, they are annoyed by decisions made by Niantic, their city is in full control of a spoofer-ring and they can not get ride of them or simply they changed their focus in life. There are various reasons why people stop playing. I can not recall one person even from the more rural living players i know that someone stopped because of a missing badge. They saw the missing badge usually as the goal to reach and they went for it.
If you wanna stick to monthly challenges there will be always a peak of activity because people like to get shiny badges. But the other days of the months most of them are going to be causal playing again. From my point of view, there are other things that needs to get fixed and taken care of in ingress, then maybe players will come back or stick with the game.
@NianticBrian
In this thread, I've been told how I should play our game, and told to only listen to the loud voices. I haven't yet come to appreciate that advice. Instead, I'm going to take what I feel is a more balanced viewpoint, and I'll listen to both the loud voices and also the quiet ones.
Whoa. So if someone replies to you, that's a loud voice? You aren't taking on board any opinions other than ENL. If you want a balanced opinion, then you have to take on more than your own opinion or ENL friends views. Because as I've said before, we love this game. Not everyone has the guts to post on the forum, so please stop being dismissive of those that do. We want Ingress to succeed even more than you do. We don't do it as a job. We do it for free, because we love the game.
I'm enl and he ignores me too.
100% agreed.
Every new event what I a see is a massive number of new accounts, obvious spoofers and multiaccounts showing up. While regular players keep their normal routine. Know some good agents who didn't reach gold, some got bronze without even know what was happening, some not even tried.
If you want to help players to lv up with gold badges, change the lv requirements. Lower the amount of medal necessary or maybe create a new standard medal. During ingress life, there's been removed at least 3 standard medal of the rooster (2 not counting the multiaccount influencer).
6 gold could been easier back then, but now there's a lack of 2 normal gameplay medals. Lv up should be a challenge not a barrier, and shouldn't take special events to get it. I don't mind the event ones being gold too, but you shouldn't make the events with the clear intention of giving away easy medal.
@NianticBrian
Just so you can read through some of my sarcasm, totally joking about outlawing Blue and Green badges. There’s some valid points out here and maybe I should just let the community know something.
I left PoGo because it was boring, there was no mystery to it (maybe that’s where Nemesis comes from, the PoGo node and the shapers have a thing for Pokémon)...
When it came down to Ingress, I knew nothing. No history, no lore, no intel... nothing. I was watching videos that friends sent me of the IncredibleHulk. Learned the hard way to level 8.
For badge locking, here’s a tip from me, don’t change a thing, or make it harder! Gaining 2 Onyx, 4 Platinum and 7 Golds was my goal when I was Level 7. Currently, not doing too badly. These solo events are actually fun but the best fun is FS and MD (Haven’t done an anomaly or Hexathlon yet, but I am).
When I found out this was global, blew my mind. The insane amounts of glyphing I’ve done in the past month, recharging, whatever it’s worth it. The decoding challenges, everything... It’s great.
This “game” as everyone wants to call it, isn’t a game. Look at us, we go find portals, we go travel to places, we’ve all made friends. This is more that just a “game” it’s a way of thought/life. I can see why people yell at the top of their lungs. Why the L8 portal is an accomplishment. I can see that, I’ve been a part of that.
The only thing I ask of Niantic, please let us get tickets for the future events... I still see nothing there.
I have been thinking about this thread for a couple of days, and there's an underlying assumption that I don't think anyone has questioned. Are badges, levels, and personal stats the primary drivers of Ingress players?
For me, they rarely are/were. Sometimes a badge or a level would motivate me, usually when I was close to something or had a particular whim[1][2], but in general personal stats were secondary to other goals. For me the primary motivation for playing Ingress is to have an impact on the playfield, to shift control. Sometimes it's short-term, like a field. Sometimes it's longer-term, like wresting control of an opponent-dominated area away from them. Sometimes it's denying my opponents something they want. Sometimes it was just leaving a trail of destruction wherever I happened to be. And sometimes [redacted] or [redacted] or [redacted]. (-: I played for the community. I played to maintain a farm. I played to take down standing farms. I played to help newcomers level.
I threw fields regularly before there was an illuminator badge. Sometimes they were just some layered fields over my neighborhood. Sometimes they were bigger. I'd solo field midsized cities like Reno because it looked like fun, not because I was trying to get a badge or bump a stat. The intel map always looks like opportunity for shenanigans.
Uniques-based badges were the big exception, because I love to travel and they provided an excuse to do so. I never would have toured the George W **** presidential library if it hadn't made it my 30,000th unique visit.
In short, I played and still play for the sheer joy of it, to accomplish things on the map, and rarely for pixels on my profile. And reading this thread makes me feel like I'm the only one. Are badges and levels the primary drivers of people's Ingress play?
[1] One case of this: I wanted to race platinum explorer vs a ticking platinum guardian. In order to do this I had to get around 5000 uniques in a month. I'm pretty sure explorer won.
[2] And then there was the time that I decided I wanted to get onyx purifier before platinum builder, which required 150K destroys before I got 21K deploys. That was fun! Purifier won by months.