My idea to fix Machina gameplay
I belive that Machina was added to encourage players to visit some new places. However the outcome is a bit different, many agents started to rage quit due to red links appearing everywhere, ignoring existing links, and staying undead on 5% ruining gameplay especially in more rural areas.
My point is that agents are forced to deal with machina in order to continue their usual gameplay. Today instead of only complaining I would like to discuss possible changes in machina mechanics.
Let's start with changing machina from "black mist ruination corruption virus" into something similar to pokemon raids. What if machina spawn rate would be significantly reduced, but the red portals harder to ****. Red portals could have some passive shield making them a bit stronger.
Then change loot from trash mods and resonators into something more valuable, I am talking about pink mods. I would more likely travel to pop some reds knowing that I am not forced to go there to free myself from red cage, but encouraged by a valuable drop.
Next point I would change the way it spreads in addition to slowing growth, it should corrupt the closest neutral portal instead of random portal 4km away. This way we will have actual machina nests instead of random red links piercing cities ruining gameplay. Nowadays the most annoying thing machina is doing are red undead "flowers", one p8 portal and ~12 links to red portals in 4km radius. Red portals should be more grouped, not every agent has car and infinite supply of time and fuel to drive araound entire town in order to clear them.
Then what if we add new very rare portal mod called inhibitor, stoping machina spread in 1% of linking radius of portal where inhibitor is deployed. Only way to acuire said mod is to pick it up from popped machina portal.
And at last, what if machina started following rules of linking and stopped making links crossing already existing blue and green links.
Let's sum up. My idea is to change machina from forced feature that agents have to deal with in order to play to optional treasure hunt which will not affect nor ruin gameplay of agents not so interested in PvE.
Ps. Maybe a little medal or two for dealing with machina, just saying.
Comments
Not in any case. Let Niantic fix the red portal breeding algorithm and let them start spreading more evenly, and not so that in one city red portals capture everything, in another they appear and hang idle for several weeks. But in general, let the machine remain a strong threat. Admin, I know you read me, pass the information to anyone who needs it. Your company have an uneven distribution of red portals across cities. In some cities, clusters hang and do not grow. Now in my city and in many others portals are discharged faster than they multiply. And in general in many cities clusters have always developed very slowly.
I agree spread and growth should be more evenly spread. Some complain of too much Machina and I am actively trying to get an infection started in my area of play.
And keep the link crossing ability even if link length is adjusted downward. It's the only way the new addition will not be relegated to link fenced red piñata farms.
Sounds like a good idea. But i dont know if they can handle it very quick..
Hope in future they will think about it 👍
I have a somewhat opposite opinion. I would however be fascinated to know how much data Niantic is collecting around agent interaction and whether they see Machina as a net benefit or loss.
Personally, I've enjoyed having the redness to contend with, it has so far taken me out of my normal play area more than I would have. I would like to see greater spawn rates, with perhaps lower chances of making a link.
I agree on the portals that get infected, it would make more sense it being the closest first, that would possibly also limit some of the complaints. It feels an unpopular opinion to have reading the various threads, but I relish seeing large numbers of red portals and links.
It depends. Crossing blue/green is imperative otherwise status quo remains. The goal was to wake up and shake up the status quo.
I know places where Red is a problem, but that is an indictment against the player base , or lack thereof.
Machina should stay but not grow so heavily and crosslinking like it did the last months, thats way too long. But for a weekend (machina event) is OK (except the crosslinking part)
Limit Machina to 500m links. This way it can take over a park, but not another park 5km away and then a college campus 5 km away from that and then a closed off seasonal area 5 km away from that. I can live with the cross linking if a limit was put on link length. It's the high level Machina portals that throw long links in every direction that make it tedious and take the fun out of interacting with it.
They are almost all gone now. Maybe it was just a short term event?
I would love to see the Machina die quickly, but if it has to stay permanently (sigh), your ideas would absolutely make it much, much more tolerable. I have just given up (rural player). Down to just a few drone hacks a day, that's pretty much it.
Make sure Machina can't cross links, so that it can be controlled.
This seemed to have changed with the latest wave apparently, Machina doesn't seem to cross agent links or Machina links anymore
And it is dropping bursters instead of mods. Hard to imagine a way to make it more of a non addition to the game.
I wonder if they coded machina like an actual player in the game now. You can now see when machina makes links in the scanner.