Double Deploy - Should it be Normalized?

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  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭
  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    The content is eerily relevant now. Especially the language of this post:

    Just the idea of a "new normal"

  • My experiences with this during the pandemic have actually reinforced my view. Without double deploy right now, it would be impossible to make 8s. Given a declining population under other circumstances, double deploy would seem like the the way to provide a continuing gameplay without confining everyone to X5s and X6s.

    I'd love to see Ingress return to the population we had even in early 2018. However, with both the Prime client still failing to live up to expectations, and the pandemic making more and more people stop playing and find other things to do, I think we're already at a point where we have to assess whether the Ingress population will ever recover.

    And if not, then double deploy is the new normal, and we need to stop thinking in terms of "gear suppression" etc. It's far easier to balance a game when you only need 4 people on one team to make an 8, because you only need 4 people on the other team too. Finding 8 people to come together when there's only 5 players in a region isn't just difficult, it's insurmountable.

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭

    Double deploy should be gone. As well as the other covid bonuses which made the game totally boring.

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    they can keep the recharge for sojourner but pls turn off the double r8 and slow decay... zzzzzz

  • I'd be a fan of removing the slow decay. By now, anything not recharged is going to be dead anyway and everyone has their remote hacking.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    There is now dozens of l8 portals of my rival faction over my city and I have zero interest in going after destroing it anymore. It will just be a waste of time for me and a little annoyance for them since it will be easily rebuilt with no effort.

    The gameplay and rivalry is basically **** here now. Lv8 farm isn't an rare thing, and knowing that the opponent have a full inventory of xmp8 also doesn't matter at all too, there's nothing to do left but farming for translator badge.

    Lots of new players started after this and think this is standard and can't even imagine how this is pia, or get really bored because the delay.

    It almost 6 months of bonus already... I wonder what we are get as bonuses in anniversary week this year... 4 r8 deploy?

  • My area used to get smashed three times daily for making 7s. The problem isn't creating a level 8 portal, (which isn't much more difficult to smash than a properly modded level 7, imo) the problem is that too many people have lost the competitive instinct. There used to be more people playing. Portal turn over was more frequent. There was excitement on working together against our opponents to tear down their farms. Double deploy isn't hurting that. The fact that we aren't recruiting new players and the player base has been dramatically reduced are the obstacles.

  • GreenVamGreenVam ✭✭✭✭✭


    Farm owners complain that every player now has a farm.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    And they are right. Farms are part of the game and should be a rare thing.

    Unless the plan is to completely **** the current meta and make a new one, the current bonus is just damaging the system. They could just remove xmp levels, making it one item, obtainable at any portal level, and the attacking power be based of agent level+charging and xm consumption. Everything will be simpler and everyone will have the same opportunity of getting need gear, and will reduce the desire of multiaccount in order to built up lv8 farms.

    The way way it currently is everybody already have tons of lv7 and lv8 xmp, the only challenge is moving to the location. The xmp farming and firing are just waste of time now.

  • edited August 2020

     Farms are part of the game and should be a rare thing.

    No offense, but they used to be quite common and regular. Farm ownership is now a rare thing specifically because of the lack of players.

    Back in the heyday of Ingress, my old city used to have upwards of 500 P8s, across 4 major farms (3 green, 1 blue). We'd smash each other, we'd rebuild. Everyone would have gear to destroy the enemy and rebuild their own stuff.

    Having gear flow to both sides is a benefit to the game. Gear suppression never works long term, it just stops one side from playing and makes the other side bored.

    To be honest, the style of game you're advocating is a part of why we're losing players every day.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    You might be right, but your examples are about a whole community engaged in that playstyle, and not because "everything is free now".

  • not because "everything is free now".

    No idea what you're referring to here.

    My examples were when there was a community rather than a lot of individual players.

    Years ago, there was a "Rural vs Urban" split that mean that urban players had plenty of gear access, and rural players had to either travel or live on lower level gear. This was the 'height' of the game, and rural players regularly lamented the fact that they couldn't find 8 people in the region let alone 8 to come together. Back then rural players would regularly ask for things such as being able to buy R8s from the (then brand new) store, and double deploy which happened occasionally back then but far less than it does now.

    In some places, this is still somewhat true, but in most part, the game has reduced such that the community experience of rural players is what urban players now have, and rural players are basically alone. Double deploy wouldn't even help many rural players because 4 players now is as out of reach as 8 players was then. However, 2 players making a P7 would still be a big change.

    When I wrote this, Covid wasn't even on the radar outside of one small part of china. It was based on the experience of the recent double deploys period invigorating the game and encouraging people to get out and play, primarily because they were flush with R8s and didn't feel like they had to ration them.

    With the pandemic, the Ingress playerbase has dropped even further and I very much doubt that it will suddenly recover even to the late 2019 levels when all this disappears.

    In that situation, double deploy would give the game a new life, and perhaps, could revive the game. I would be happy to see the double deploy reverted if we came back to high levels of play in many areas again, but I doubt that this alone would make that change.

    When they reduce the existing changes back to 'normal' levels, the game will become far quieter and far smaller, simply because gear starvation will not be a factor of one team or the other, but simply because of the lack of players. When gear starvation is not something that you can compete against by organizing, but rather because there simply aren't people to organize, it becomes a problem not a mechanic.

    And at that point, the balance must be adjusted to make the game viable again.

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    I'd like to see double deploy of R7s become permanent, not R8s.

    Popup P8s by 4 players kinda ruins the experience. Whereas P7s add little and x7s are still fairly usable for 90%of the time

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    I agree with this.

    2x r7 will allow single players to build lv6 farms (that can provide l7 and l8 gear) and two players can made lv7 farms.

  • reason why farms were gone for long is glyph hacking. before glyph hacking was buffed so much, and medal was added for it (and frackers), walking farms, and driving farms were much more common. and they were creating natural P8 farms. nowadays people only build up few frackerfarms and thats it.

    but P8 balance is not only thing. current setup makes possible for standalone player to build P6 portal and restock R7 and R8 that they are missing (and running out of them). and 2 players can make P7

    also gear denial is strategy that is toxic. and reason why competition is dying. but most players dont see it, as they were not able to see how toxic guardian hunting was.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Ditto on dbl 7s. No on dbl 8s.

  • grendelwulfgrendelwulf ✭✭✭✭✭

    A VR Force Amp that allows double deploy would be nice.

  • Farms are part of the game and should be a rare thing.

    Yet you're advocating to remove the entire point of farms as an alternative?

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    It is just a draft, I'm sorry if you didn't understand it all. On the 4th paragraph I stated about farms and how it will still be a thing.

  • I stated about farms and how it will still be a thing.

    You made a relatively pointless claim that doesn't pan out, but sure.

  • None of this matters when agents like @TRAMATIZER can flip 23 L8portals in one playing session using his mule @TRAMATIZER4. On top of that when I caught him red handed, he thought it was funny. He joked about it in comms. Now, did he buy all of his Jarvis viruses or bake them the old fashioned way. He’s considered an OG, playing since the early days. He hasn’t reached L16! The point, let us non cheating agents have a chance against these OGs! Keep the double deploy! They buy their gear anyway! L16 agents should have the advantage, not the cheaters!!

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭

    Double debloy should be gone. L8 portals should be special, not ubiquitous.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yeah, whatever you think. I just bringed up a concept idea there, if you want to discuss it go to that link and post your personal opinions there, not here. In this discussion we're talking about real things that are currently affecting the game, not about dreams and ideas.

    Lets go back and discuss this discussion's topic here?

  • Lets go back and discuss this discussion's topic here?

    It is the topic.

    Your position is that farms should be rare, otherwise people could make long links.

    If your argument is not that X8s should be harder to obtain, which indicating by the other post you don't consider to be an issue, then you shouldn't be arguing against double deploy, because unless you're making trans-continental links, a single player with nothing more than R6s and lower, can make a 500km link. That's longer than any single player can reliably use which defeats any real need to limit the number of P8s in the game.

    You had an argument here when you wanted to limit X8s, but you undermined it by presenting ideas on how to make an X1 as powerful as an X8.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Im sorry you couldn't understand my point of the other discussion, maybe it was my bad writing.

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2020

    same with farms u dont even have to go far to find one, see a p7 or p8 ? just stand there and hack it 16 times no matter what mods are on lol, now every portal is like a modded portal with crazy hack output before burnout and low cooldown between hacks... this isnt balanced to have 6 months and counting...

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