i'd like to see some limited scan(old model of scanning) to make overclock and scan again available for the masses. it wont happen.
i'd like to see some antispoofer measures,like more agressive proactive defence to stop kamikazi attacks and also some option to request CAL,or smth else. it won't happen too,just like with multiaccount players.
i'd like not to see flipcards in store each month,but it wont happen too.
so i don't think i will see any stunning changes in next year.
I dont think anything major new will happen next year, i guess just less events and anomalies for some reason and i dont see the games userbase growing or what niantic is doing to increase that like ads etc..
Literally vote with your wallets. If you're paying core, stop. If you're buying swag from the niantic store, stop. If you're ever scanning in any way, stop.
@joecain So... guarantee that Ingress dies because it has no revenue? That sounds like an awesome plan.
I want Ingress to thrive, so much so that when CORE came out I asked if I could create a second account that never did anything but subscribe to CORE. Technically the TOS specifies that you can't play on two accounts so it didn't seem like a TOS violation to me, but Brian told me no.
If scanning is the future of Ingress then I'm not sure anyone will stick around. It has nothing to do with the game. I'm not even sure what over clocking even is, I can't figure it out. Making triangles used to be fun but it's not the focus anymore. I'm just left confused. It feels like we are being pushed to get data for their next game and Ingress no longer matters to them. We are simply pawns.
It's a tough balance I think. Part of me says vote with your wallet and the other part says, we'll never get anything new and exciting unless they're making money. The problem is, CORE is what, 3 years old now and most of the dev time seems to be focused on parts of the game that generate data for Niantic. Wayfarer and scanning. We have less worldwide events than I think we've ever had, even holiday medals seem to be forgotten. I get Niantic needs to make money and work on other endeavors, but we need balance and I think that unless they meet us in the middle on some of these asks, they're going to see more and more people who aren't willing to pay for anything but something resembling balance.
I don't think overclock is going to be used that way. I think it's simply to build other games. If I have to do a 2fa to interact with a portal then I'm done. Scanning isn't Ingress and neither is overclocking. Scanning portals does nothing for fields. And I thought that was the point of the game. Maybe it's not anymore and I'm disillusioned.
@Grogyan As far as I can tell, task systems are basically ways to make uninteresting games interesting. I still play PoGo but 99% of the time I open it, do the three daily things, and then close it again because throwing cartoon balls at the same cartoon monsters over and over again just isn't interesting on its own. Sure, every now and then a new critter shows up and generates excitement but after that it's just repetitive collecting without any sense of accomplishment.
Ingress is all about competition and controlling the playfield, and while it takes a bit of initiative the accomplishments on the playfield are their own rewards. "I'm going to do a ten-layer field over downtown today." "I'm going to take down the long links my opponent threw." "I'm going to clear out an area that's been overrun by my opponents."
As for scanning, I don't think that's necessarily the future of Ingress. Rather, Niantic wants to move gaming more toward AR with real-world interactions and they are using Ingress as a tool to get the data that they need. Right now one big problem is that phones can't really handle AR for long periods of time because the camera is voracious when it comes to battery and phones often overheat and bog down. I have maybe 15 minutes of Peridot gameplay on my flagship phone before it gets sluggish, and my Pixel 6 Pro was more like 5-10. Also, I can't think of any game I've played on my phone that made me wish that I could see the game in my real-world environment.
@Hosette a task system paves the way for new players to get their feet wet, allows for automation of events.
This is common across ALL modern mobile games.
Muggle players I've talked to have stated clearly that they aren't interested in Ingress because it doesn't have a task system, despite convincing them otherwise.
We players need to put our egos and opinions aside for a moment. Look at the bigger picture.
Does a AR scan prove you're at the Wayspot?
Server VPS side, the server and client realise that the item you're scanning is where you are. In fact computer vision (CV) has been around for a very long time and constantly evolving.
A single AR scan of 15 seconds can mean that you prove you're there.
However, scanning is not fun!
This is where Overclock comes in, please watch this while video
To ensure that there is good gameplay and doesn't impede players' effectiveness, Overclock taking about 30 seconds gives you tonnes of gear.
But, at the same time, you are using CV for MFLA.
Whether you agree or not is irrelevant. If you care about stopping cheaters, here is the tool.
To go further, Overclock to work as MFLA, best to have a large amount of data of players using the feature even if you personally do not.
We have the Chronos event.
The Ingress team are using OC for the event as are players, this has enabled an unbelievable amount of data for the Ingress team in the new year to go through to understand OC as MFLA.
How the Ingress team plans to fully utilize this to stop cheating should be immediately implemented, if it both stops cheating and does NOT impede on players.
Agree about the tasks. I know that people go “oh no, but it’s like Pokémon GO then”, so I wonder if they’ve ever played another mobile game. Anyways, here’s a few non-Niantic examples. (bonus points if you can name all the games?)
It’s very common now in mobile games and then if you tap the buttons it will tell you how to do it and explain more.
I think your example is great @Hosette that a player can set their own goals but that only works if they know what they’re doing. I could say “today I’m going to clear 50 Machina Portals”.
However if I’m a brand new player, I’d have no idea what one of those is, or how I clear it. If there’s a daily task that explains what it is when I tap it and notifies me where the nearest one is, then that’s great. Gets me playing the game and finding out more.
@Grogyan There's one flaw in your argument about authentication via scanning...
Portals that have lots of scans are pretty much by definition the ones where authentication doesn't matter. Nobody cares about authenticating my location if I'm in the middle of a big city because there aren't any high-value portals there. OTOH, when I'm on the top of a mountain that maybe three Ingress players visit in a year then scanning isn't going to be useful for location authentication because Niantic won't have enough data for authentication.
It's also likely that the signal at a durable portal may be too weak to successfully scan. I seem to recall someone saying one scan is 80-200MB? When you're barely at the edge of cell service you'll never get a scan uploaded without it timing out. BGAN data rates peak at less than 500kb/second, so even if you could achieve peak throughput that would be 3+ minutes and more likely twice that. Plus, at $5/MB an 80M scan would cost $160.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that you haven't spent much time in the middle of nowhere with a cell booster trying to get enough of a whiff of signal to clear a blocker or throw a critical link.
@Hosette you're mistaken in suggesting that I have not been in the middle of nowhere and not had to use a BGAN or other signal equipment.
Because I have. Many times.
Never stated about uploading a scan on a BGAN, because, that is silly and expensive.
The data that is sent is miniscule enough for the server to know that you're "potentially there"
Uploading the scan(s) at a hotel or at home etc, the server will then confirm that you were there when it checks your scan data against the database.
However I don't think you quite understand how CV works, which is fair, it is quite the field in computer sciences. And I cannot express in a little forum like ours about what CV is, how it works, and how it has made everyone's lives better, how it behaves in FSD, or video games.
You're also mistaken about the assumption about nobody caring about cheating on urban portals.
Cheaters do not care!
They will cheat!
They will use any means to cheat, even hiding the fact in an urban centre!
They do make the lives of ingress players worse off!
The Ingress team and Niantic are constantly annoyed with bad actors
Niantic is not going to waste time verifying location with portals because by default portals aren't always magically at the correct location. I have already scanned portals where to activate OC, you have to go away from their actual location to initiate them. Scanning only requires to be in the action radius of 40 meters while overclock requires 20 meters.
If you want to stop spoofing using Scans and OC, I would like to know how you solve the following issues:
- Devices not capable of doing one or the other: are you going to restrict the game to only devices who can?
- Determining what is the "truth": Niantic's portal database is littered with bad data (misplaced, fake, removed,...), if you want to use this to verify a users location, you first need to know what you are using to verify against is correct.
@Grogyan I'm a software engineer with decades of experience. While I'm far from an expert I have some understanding of how CV works.
I'm not sure how confirming someone's location well after the fact is helpful. A while ago I threw a biggish field from a BGAN portal. While I was on my way back to civilization (i.e. somewhere with cell service) the spine of the field started getting attacked, but Niantic automatically detected the spoof and banned the account quickly so the spoofer only got two layers down before they were thwarted. If it takes hours to do the location verification then the damage will already be done.
As for urban vs. durable, the damage done by spoofers in the middle of a city is somewhat less impactful than the damage done to durable portals.
Machina 1.0 did too good a job of taking advantage when red could cross links. That meant people couldn't link at all without resetting entire neighborhoods. That was most definitely using Machina to advantage.
"6. Niantic when Machina made its debut that factions could “use Machina to their advantage”."
its going to be the year of the dragon, how about a dragon badge to commemorate it? 🐉 theres already a tiger badge and although rabbit was skipped.. perhaps it just wasnt cool enough unlike dragons and tigers😀
Scan Moar! Moar events based on a metric that many people can't do. Ummm...what else? Sell MOAR hackable gear in the store, because we don't want to unbalance the game. Hmm...oh yeah, do an anomaly in a town, where a huge convention is already set at during that weekend, and where hotel prices are already crazy high, ensuring many agent won't attend.
Did I miss anything?
Maybe some more new agent tutorial stuffs or something else that doesn't benefit 99% of those playing.
1. You have to get NEW people in the door all the time. Niantic doesn't seem to understand that.
2. Since Quantum Capsules have been erased, go after keys next. If no one has keys, and people have to reacquire, that you'll see what truly is being played and what is spoofer poop.
3. Are people stuck in what was? Time to move again, particularly when the weather gets reasonable again.
Comments
Be able to activate Overclock in-game, instead of having to use a completely different app, one that’s completely broken right now!
i'd like to see some limited scan(old model of scanning) to make overclock and scan again available for the masses. it wont happen.
i'd like to see some antispoofer measures,like more agressive proactive defence to stop kamikazi attacks and also some option to request CAL,or smth else. it won't happen too,just like with multiaccount players.
i'd like not to see flipcards in store each month,but it wont happen too.
so i don't think i will see any stunning changes in next year.
I dont think anything major new will happen next year, i guess just less events and anomalies for some reason and i dont see the games userbase growing or what niantic is doing to increase that like ads etc..
Literally vote with your wallets. If you're paying core, stop. If you're buying swag from the niantic store, stop. If you're ever scanning in any way, stop.
@joecain So... guarantee that Ingress dies because it has no revenue? That sounds like an awesome plan.
I want Ingress to thrive, so much so that when CORE came out I asked if I could create a second account that never did anything but subscribe to CORE. Technically the TOS specifies that you can't play on two accounts so it didn't seem like a TOS violation to me, but Brian told me no.
If scanning is the future of Ingress then I'm not sure anyone will stick around. It has nothing to do with the game. I'm not even sure what over clocking even is, I can't figure it out. Making triangles used to be fun but it's not the focus anymore. I'm just left confused. It feels like we are being pushed to get data for their next game and Ingress no longer matters to them. We are simply pawns.
It's a tough balance I think. Part of me says vote with your wallet and the other part says, we'll never get anything new and exciting unless they're making money. The problem is, CORE is what, 3 years old now and most of the dev time seems to be focused on parts of the game that generate data for Niantic. Wayfarer and scanning. We have less worldwide events than I think we've ever had, even holiday medals seem to be forgotten. I get Niantic needs to make money and work on other endeavors, but we need balance and I think that unless they meet us in the middle on some of these asks, they're going to see more and more people who aren't willing to pay for anything but something resembling balance.
yes, game has shifted from teamplay and tactics to scanning and overclocking which is just a solo thing do on your own ignore teammates.. meh...
Ingress is more advanced in many areas than other Niantic Games.
Although it needs to modernise the game structure to what gamers expect from games, ie a task system.
As for AR, people are missing a bigger picture. Scanning and Overclock are forms of multi factor location authentication.
If you think this isn't important, then please look up the the thousands of threads of people complaining about spo ofing, the heuristics don't work.
Working a 2FLA or MFLA aspect into actual gameplay is difficult, and although Overclock isn't great, it is a step in the right direction.
I don't think overclock is going to be used that way. I think it's simply to build other games. If I have to do a 2fa to interact with a portal then I'm done. Scanning isn't Ingress and neither is overclocking. Scanning portals does nothing for fields. And I thought that was the point of the game. Maybe it's not anymore and I'm disillusioned.
@Grogyan As far as I can tell, task systems are basically ways to make uninteresting games interesting. I still play PoGo but 99% of the time I open it, do the three daily things, and then close it again because throwing cartoon balls at the same cartoon monsters over and over again just isn't interesting on its own. Sure, every now and then a new critter shows up and generates excitement but after that it's just repetitive collecting without any sense of accomplishment.
Ingress is all about competition and controlling the playfield, and while it takes a bit of initiative the accomplishments on the playfield are their own rewards. "I'm going to do a ten-layer field over downtown today." "I'm going to take down the long links my opponent threw." "I'm going to clear out an area that's been overrun by my opponents."
As for scanning, I don't think that's necessarily the future of Ingress. Rather, Niantic wants to move gaming more toward AR with real-world interactions and they are using Ingress as a tool to get the data that they need. Right now one big problem is that phones can't really handle AR for long periods of time because the camera is voracious when it comes to battery and phones often overheat and bog down. I have maybe 15 minutes of Peridot gameplay on my flagship phone before it gets sluggish, and my Pixel 6 Pro was more like 5-10. Also, I can't think of any game I've played on my phone that made me wish that I could see the game in my real-world environment.
I’ve said before that I enjoy task based systems as it gives me a reason to play the game daily & then do more than the minimum.
@Hosette a task system paves the way for new players to get their feet wet, allows for automation of events.
This is common across ALL modern mobile games.
Muggle players I've talked to have stated clearly that they aren't interested in Ingress because it doesn't have a task system, despite convincing them otherwise.
@VenomousToad
We players need to put our egos and opinions aside for a moment. Look at the bigger picture.
Does a AR scan prove you're at the Wayspot?
Server VPS side, the server and client realise that the item you're scanning is where you are. In fact computer vision (CV) has been around for a very long time and constantly evolving.
A single AR scan of 15 seconds can mean that you prove you're there.
However, scanning is not fun!
This is where Overclock comes in, please watch this while video
To ensure that there is good gameplay and doesn't impede players' effectiveness, Overclock taking about 30 seconds gives you tonnes of gear.
But, at the same time, you are using CV for MFLA.
Whether you agree or not is irrelevant. If you care about stopping cheaters, here is the tool.
To go further, Overclock to work as MFLA, best to have a large amount of data of players using the feature even if you personally do not.
We have the Chronos event.
The Ingress team are using OC for the event as are players, this has enabled an unbelievable amount of data for the Ingress team in the new year to go through to understand OC as MFLA.
How the Ingress team plans to fully utilize this to stop cheating should be immediately implemented, if it both stops cheating and does NOT impede on players.
Agree about the tasks. I know that people go “oh no, but it’s like Pokémon GO then”, so I wonder if they’ve ever played another mobile game. Anyways, here’s a few non-Niantic examples. (bonus points if you can name all the games?)
It’s very common now in mobile games and then if you tap the buttons it will tell you how to do it and explain more.
I think your example is great @Hosette that a player can set their own goals but that only works if they know what they’re doing. I could say “today I’m going to clear 50 Machina Portals”.
However if I’m a brand new player, I’d have no idea what one of those is, or how I clear it. If there’s a daily task that explains what it is when I tap it and notifies me where the nearest one is, then that’s great. Gets me playing the game and finding out more.
@Grogyan There's one flaw in your argument about authentication via scanning...
Portals that have lots of scans are pretty much by definition the ones where authentication doesn't matter. Nobody cares about authenticating my location if I'm in the middle of a big city because there aren't any high-value portals there. OTOH, when I'm on the top of a mountain that maybe three Ingress players visit in a year then scanning isn't going to be useful for location authentication because Niantic won't have enough data for authentication.
It's also likely that the signal at a durable portal may be too weak to successfully scan. I seem to recall someone saying one scan is 80-200MB? When you're barely at the edge of cell service you'll never get a scan uploaded without it timing out. BGAN data rates peak at less than 500kb/second, so even if you could achieve peak throughput that would be 3+ minutes and more likely twice that. Plus, at $5/MB an 80M scan would cost $160.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that you haven't spent much time in the middle of nowhere with a cell booster trying to get enough of a whiff of signal to clear a blocker or throw a critical link.
@Hosette you're mistaken in suggesting that I have not been in the middle of nowhere and not had to use a BGAN or other signal equipment.
Because I have. Many times.
Never stated about uploading a scan on a BGAN, because, that is silly and expensive.
The data that is sent is miniscule enough for the server to know that you're "potentially there"
Uploading the scan(s) at a hotel or at home etc, the server will then confirm that you were there when it checks your scan data against the database.
However I don't think you quite understand how CV works, which is fair, it is quite the field in computer sciences. And I cannot express in a little forum like ours about what CV is, how it works, and how it has made everyone's lives better, how it behaves in FSD, or video games.
You're also mistaken about the assumption about nobody caring about cheating on urban portals.
Cheaters do not care!
They will cheat!
They will use any means to cheat, even hiding the fact in an urban centre!
They do make the lives of ingress players worse off!
The Ingress team and Niantic are constantly annoyed with bad actors
not sure why agent ops takes forever to do when other games have it they can just look at the code
Niantic is not going to waste time verifying location with portals because by default portals aren't always magically at the correct location. I have already scanned portals where to activate OC, you have to go away from their actual location to initiate them. Scanning only requires to be in the action radius of 40 meters while overclock requires 20 meters.
If you want to stop spoofing using Scans and OC, I would like to know how you solve the following issues:
- Devices not capable of doing one or the other: are you going to restrict the game to only devices who can?
- Determining what is the "truth": Niantic's portal database is littered with bad data (misplaced, fake, removed,...), if you want to use this to verify a users location, you first need to know what you are using to verify against is correct.
@Grogyan I'm a software engineer with decades of experience. While I'm far from an expert I have some understanding of how CV works.
I'm not sure how confirming someone's location well after the fact is helpful. A while ago I threw a biggish field from a BGAN portal. While I was on my way back to civilization (i.e. somewhere with cell service) the spine of the field started getting attacked, but Niantic automatically detected the spoof and banned the account quickly so the spoofer only got two layers down before they were thwarted. If it takes hours to do the location verification then the damage will already be done.
As for urban vs. durable, the damage done by spoofers in the middle of a city is somewhat less impactful than the damage done to durable portals.
It stops 90% of players from playing as designed as no one has phones that can do what you want.
6.
Machina 1.0 did too good a job of taking advantage when red could cross links. That meant people couldn't link at all without resetting entire neighborhoods. That was most definitely using Machina to advantage.
"6. Niantic when Machina made its debut that factions could “use Machina to their advantage”."
its going to be the year of the dragon, how about a dragon badge to commemorate it? 🐉 theres already a tiger badge and although rabbit was skipped.. perhaps it just wasnt cool enough unlike dragons and tigers😀
1H/Q1/2024 roadmap when? What is niantic's long term plan for ingress? What features should we expect this year?
They had a task system, then removed it. In the meantime why don't yall scan more to build out lightship.
AR loot boxes when? At what point does scanning benefit ingress AT ALL.
Scan Moar! Moar events based on a metric that many people can't do. Ummm...what else? Sell MOAR hackable gear in the store, because we don't want to unbalance the game. Hmm...oh yeah, do an anomaly in a town, where a huge convention is already set at during that weekend, and where hotel prices are already crazy high, ensuring many agent won't attend.
Did I miss anything?
Maybe some more new agent tutorial stuffs or something else that doesn't benefit 99% of those playing.
1. You have to get NEW people in the door all the time. Niantic doesn't seem to understand that.
2. Since Quantum Capsules have been erased, go after keys next. If no one has keys, and people have to reacquire, that you'll see what truly is being played and what is spoofer poop.
3. Are people stuck in what was? Time to move again, particularly when the weather gets reasonable again.
When is agent ops coming, in q3 earliest or ever ?
I’d love if we got it before then, but it’s looking less and less likely
Already stated multiple times how, not repeating the same things over and over and over again.
Sorry