Event Idea : AI Infection
Perringaiden
XM Ambassadors › ✭✭✭✭✭
I have a suggestion for a cooperative event without cross faction work:
Concept:
A third AI Faction (Red) is infecting the network, attempting to cut humans off from XM.
Infection is caused by one of two methods, depending on whether an infection already exists in the cell:
- Every hour, if no portals are infected in a cell (or smaller S2 area), 1% of all deployed portals, and 5% of all grey portals in the cell will randomly become Red faction. Grey portals will become L1 red portals fully deployed with R1s.
or
- Every hour, if there are infected portals, they create a number of links based on their level (1 per level for example) to the nearest portals, which become infected too. Link range can be unlimited, but the closest portals should be infected first. Obviously links can't cross other links, but a given portal should be able to make as many outgoing links as uninfected portals exist around it and are linkable.
- Any existing links will automatically be a path to infection, every hour, starting from the hour after a portal is infected.
When a portal is infected, it cannot be hacked, upgraded, linked to or deployed on.
Additionally there are a number of ways to protect portals from infection.
- Portals with a field attached to them gain a 25% immunity, per field, up to 100% at 4 fields.
- Green or Blue P8 portals are immune.
Scoring:
- For each red portal killed the scoreboard grants a faction 1 point.
- For each red link killed the scoreboard grants 2 points.
- ADA and Jarvis flipcards can be used to make a portal that color again, but no points are gained.
Winning team is the one with the most points.
Goal:
- The goal is to encourage people to play in whatever way they want to be beneficial.
- Destroyers can chase after the infected portals.
- Builders can field their area to protect it.
- Explorers can search out grey portals and deploy on them to reduce the infection rate.
- Teams can build P8s in larger numbers to protect portals, or ring infections off with a barrier of P8s linked around an infection site.
Notes/Logic:
- By making links worth more, people have the "Do we take it down now, or wait for a bigger point score after it spreads" choice. And the opposite faction may take out the portals if you wait
- Grey portals should be infected at a faster rate, to encourage people to deploy the grey portals and remove 4% of the infection.
- By 100% providing protection to portals with 4 or more fields hanging off them, it encourages people to field their area up with lots of little fields. Instead of fielding over a city and stopping all play.
- Cells with no deployed portals (all grey) can be ignored because no-one plays there, as can cells with no portals, reducing it to about ~7000 active cells which shouldn't be too heavy of a processing load.
- This will likely require the upgraded servers and Prime only, but we're fast approaching that point.
What do people think? Are there other elements that could encourage general play as a way to improve the team's success?
Tagged:
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Comments
I like the root of this... A third, fully-autonomous faction competing against both existing factions.
Make it able to field. Make it able to win. Make it have lasting effects on the region-local portal network.
Give both player reactions a reason to win and a reason to not lose.
That could be a lot of fun. Something dynamic, but still competitive. Something that's still faction on faction.
Bonus points if you can find a way to _portal kombat_ this third faction outside the scope of portals - random encounters with a presence you can XMP down that might drop a couple items and some XM.
Bonus points if you can find a way to _portal kombat_ this third faction outside the scope of portals - random encounters with a presence you can XMP down that might drop a couple items and some XM.
I honestly don't like the concept of introducing non-portal POIs into Ingress. I feel like it would break the abstraction from PVP where everything we do is through the portal, not targeted at another entity.
Kinda sounds like Team Rocket in PoGo. Would be a good way to shake things up, especially in places that are stagnant.
I had to go and look at what Team Rocket was in PoGo 😂 but yeah, like that.
I like it!
I was just thinking about an AI Red Faction fielding contest. Similar concepts — I imagined picking three fairly remote portals in a cell and over the course of the next 24 hours, killing blockers and setting up to close the field. If not stopped, you get a Red Faction field and Nemesis scores points.
It’d exercise our ability to detect impending fields, guess the lanes, and execute well on blockers. Cross-faction cooperation wouldn’t be required but it’d be helpful.
I like your idea too!
Like the idea as well. My two cents on that:
Nemesis can only capture neutral portals. They should not be able to infect and take down deployed portals as there will be drama if an anchor portal (and with that a BAF) gets taken down.
But Nemesis could infect a deployed portal in a different way - in sort of a Field Test way. The good part on Raids and Fortresses in other NIA games is that you have something to do in your area even if there are no other agents around. So, Nemesis is going to trigger a Leak (or whatever you want to call it). The portal will tell you what you have to do:
Both factions can link to those portals during the time of the leak and the portal can't be taken down during this preiod. All factions can add resonators if the portal is not fully deployed. The resonators are immediately taken over by Nemesis and lose the color of their actual faction. The portal will return to its previous state as soon as the leaking ends. Any links or additional resonators are removed. Involved agents are rewarded accordingly (depending on the amount or length of links, glyph points or returned medias etc.). There might be additional reward based on the involved factions.
Now we need some rewards for that PvE element of the game. It might get a bit tricky here. You might not want to award the agent PvP items directly as it might affect the PvP gameplay. And you might want to sell some Leak starting items via marcotransactions (as seen with Raid passes and thos Fortress stones in other NIA games). So we need other consumable incentives.
I'd suggest items called Bleeds (or a way fancier name as English is not my native language and my vocabulary limited). Agents can collect Bleed as Wizards can collect ingredients in HPWU (so you have something to do even if your portals are already captured and linked). Bleed comes in 13 variations (according to the Archetypes, so we have like white, black, red, gold, and so on coloured Bleed). It can be used to craft PvP items. And o/c Bleed can't be purchased in the item shop. Everyone has one slot in their scanner to craft stuff. Agents might even have to decipher a Bleed in a glyph-like game, except those are not Shaper glyphs but N'Zeer glyphs - and they work a bit different. (No idea about that yet.) To craft a shield you need another combination of Bleed than to craft a buster. The rarity of the item is influended on how well you have deciphered the various Bleed used in the crafting process.
Additionaly special encrypted items can be awarded for PvE events that have to be encrypted by walking around as seen in other NIA games.
Besides all that players can be awarded with capsule dye, short-living beacons, beacons and special tags that can be sprayed on a field or on the map and are visible for like 4 hours.
Yeah, i know, those are just wild ideas.
@Jarekk82 Interesting idea on how to handle already deployed portals. My original thought on why it would affect deployed portals is so that people actively make more P8s or hang multiple fields off it, but I see what you mean about long distance anchors being affected.
Alternatively, maybe there can be a limit on which portals can be infected, such that there have to be X portals within Y kms, or its immune.
I like a lot of these ideas, except that a red portal couldn't be hacked. In a small rural area, distant from a larger city in a given cell, it is possible to see virtually the whole area turn red. Imagine a new player hearing about the game, or casual player turning the game back on after a month and a half away. Everything is red, and they don't have much gear to take it down. Now they can't hack for gear either. I don't think that's a great mechanic. Other than the unhackable part, this sounds pretty intriguing. It will allow blue and green to work together, or allow them to work against each other if that is the local flavor.
As for the limit on which portals can be infected, I like that. Something like 9 or 13 or 17 portals within a 2k radius?
I dont like see new red faction in Ingress Prime.
That's nice, but given your discussion in the IUENG channel, I'm guessing you didn't actually understand that this is not a red faction, in the way you keep complaining about it.
Why not?
Posted an updated version of this here: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/7781/redfection-the-xm-parasite/