Lowering the mule account appeal
MomRex
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I Would like to suggest, that in Ingress, like in both POgo and HPWU, it should be possible to buy more cryptocurrency space (higher item-cap) for either CMU, or if better, a new currency, that is earnable only.(to avoid Rich/poor diff.)
Be it CMU, that you can also buy, or a new earnable only currency:
an Earning system, like in the other games could be with a Daily cap like in POGO, Or like with the Daily task in HPWU, where everyone has a fair chance to earn the same amount Per day.
it could also be level based, much like the amount of XM increases with level, but with the diff. That recursion does not set it back.
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I think that wouldn't stop mule accounts, but changing what is possible to put in the capsules maybe...
Imo, capsules would keep only keys. Then, Niantic would see accounts that only has keys in the inventory... or more than 50% of their capacity being full of it.
that would however also make the Whole capsule / organising your Stuff system obsolete completely. And it would make you unable to help eachother AS a team.
Someone suggested that item storage should be level based to a point just like all the items are. Level 1 players do not need 2000 item storage but a level 8+ player does. Heck I'd argue that I never once came close to the item capacity ceiling until I was around L10.
The logic is that someone using a mule account would have to level up the account in order to get an actual benefit to it instead of creating an account and being able to dump 2000 storage into it. It might not be an ideal fix, but it can at least deter people to a point.
Lv8 is really easy to get for a experienced player.
You are correct. But this thread is about lowering the appeal of mule accounts. Which I believe this does lower the appeal of mule accounts. We can suggest increasing the level cap for 2000 storage to be at L10 too since this is barred by medals.
A lot about the game is easy for experienced players, yes, but this still might be a good deterrent for mule accounts.
Keep in mind that using more than one account per player is against TOS, but good luck proving who has alt accounts.
Proving that someone has a dozen mule accounts is difficult, at least in part because mule accounts have 2,000 storage space but DO NOT need to interact with the game. Your main source for suspicion would be a player who can seem to attack, deploy, and link forever.
A mule account doesn't need to resonate, mod, link, field, or attack, so they may never show in comms. A player with a mule account just needs a few minutes in privacy to transfer goods between accounts.
With item limits on new accounts, players who want mules are more limited. A 1,000 item limit isn't going to hurt any L1 player, but now the player who wants to use miles needs twice as many accounts for the same number of items. A 500 item limit means they need 4 L1 accounts. A 100 item limit would mean they need 20 accounts to hold the same number of items.
Sure, cheaters will always cheat, but if they need more accounts to hold the same amount of items, things get harder to do, and easier to notice.
Get your mule account to L8? Sure. That can be done, but now your account has been interacting with the game: deploying mods puts your name on portal pages. resonating and linking puts your name in comms, along with a place and a time stamp. Attacking does the same thing, but it also sends notifications to at least one enemy agent.
Players who actively use alternate accounts are more likely to get caught and punished, are they not?
Or is it easy to get an alternate account up to lvl8 by hacking and recharging alone?