"Claim 1 Kinetic Capsule Program" is a horrible bounty
There was a lot of discussion earlier about the bounty for doing a mission being too difficult, and that bounty was removed. A single mission can often be completed in 5-10 minutes, although there are certainly variations on that based on what missions are available around you.
By comparison, the effort required for the kcap bounty is heavily dependent on whether you have a cap that is near harvest. If you've just started your cap(s) then you could have to walk up to 8km/5mi in order to complete the bounty. Based on a 2020 study the average walking speed for someone under 30 is roughly 3 mph, or about 5 km/h. By the age of 65, though, that drops to 2.1 mph, approximately 3.4 km/h. If an able-bodied young person had to complete a kcap from ground zero it would take them around 1.7 hours to do so. For an older person that would be more than 2.3 hours. Not all Ingress players are healthy and able-bodied, though, and for some it would be impossible to walk that far in one day. I understand that real-world AR games have an ableist bias to them by necessity since they require players to move around in the world. This one seems excessive, though.
The effort is also out of line with the other bounties, since everything else I've encountered can typically be completed in a couple of minutes. Niantic, please retire this bounty.
Comments
If you have extra kinetic capsules, which many agents do receive after the retirement of quantum capsules, then you can afford to always keep several completed kinetic programs ready to claim. Not only does this help in checking the bounty, but it also serves as an emergency reserve for items (such as 40 level 1 resonators) beyond the storage limit.
@holdthebeer I did for a long time but I blew through those ages ago. The only thing I use kcaps for is hypercubes because nothing else seems valuable to me. (Why would I even want 40 L1 resonators?!)
And yeah, I could create a workaround for a bad game design but expecting everyone to keep a completed kcap around just in case seems silly.
First it was missions was too hard, now k caps? You know that whole glyph thing takes to long. How about we just get bounties for opening the app?
Personally, I like the kinetic capsule bounty because it is the only one that requires a real effort, or decision-making (if I claim the KC today, I may miss out on the bounty tomorrow).
If you are lucky enough to live in a city with good public transport (and want to spend the money), you can also complete your KC on a tram or bus ride, without walking.
AFAIK, the mission bounty was not retired because it was deemed too difficult, but because of agents who strongly prefer six-mission "banners" to single missions.
Mission bounty was bad because...okay,as example,u have beautiful banner and u need to break it. It's not about time spent to complete that quest,only about beautiful picture in profile.
Kcap bounty...well,actually,ingress meant to be played on foot,to walk."It's time to move". And now we have adventure sync so we have no need to open Ingress to make kcap working.
XP bonus is nice but who cares about XP?
So it's better to ask why we have only 8km option in kcap. As example,in both PoGo and (closed) HPWU "kcaps"(eggs/portholes) are diffirent in distance.
The Kcap bounty is also very infrequent (for me). Had it once so far.
It's infrequent for me too.
I was thinking of ways to get kcaps.
@MargariteDVille I'm pretty sure I hacked a kcap a few weeks ago because I remember being really surprised by it.
It's not so much the availability of kcaps... it's the potentially disproportionate amount of time that it would take to complete the program. Sure, I could keep one completed kcap in my inventory just in case I get that bounty, but people could also have just done a single mission to get the bounty but a vocal minority complained loudly enough that it was removed. I think it's dumb that every bounty can be completed in no more than a few minutes except one that can take hours.
I agree that it's not realistic to expect any player to walk 8 km on any random day. If there were no option to keep completed programs for future claims, I would also vote for removing this bounty.
That said, finding the right balance is tricky in areas with different portal densities and player activities. For example, what's faster: claiming a kinetic program or finding several high-level portals to get glyph hack points? Moreover, should all bounties be equally easy, or should we have two easy tasks and two more difficult ones? As long as we don't have to maintain streaks of fully completed days, it's fine to leave tasks unfinished. To me, it's more important to have no FOMO from incomplete tasks than to make all tasks doable in 5 minutes.
Most people can walk 8km
If you save up your kinetics, you can often just not walk very far if at all, because over the course of a few days, you will have raked up the 8km
I'm afraid I have to disagree with the OP above. I like it, especially when our group takes long walks or hikes. Walking has many physical and mental health benefits. Having the KC bounty in this game is an additional surprise. You gotta work and not be a couch potato!
I agree with the 8km kcap bounty being unreasonable.
I think some programs should always be 4km or 2km, which would allow for a more reasonable bounty.
@Otrera35 Is anyone in your hiking group in their 60s, 70s, or 80s? Do any of them have chronic illnesses that make it difficult for them to walk long distances.
Do you get extra whining points if they fit in this group? You didn't complain about the kinetic challenge so...
Hosette, you really like to ****
I do agree with making some of the programs easier.
R1, R4, R5, X5 = 4km
Peace Beacon = 2km
Introduce X8 program for 10km (30 X7 = 20 X8)
@MoogModular Thank you for the kind words and your thoughtful and insightful contribution to the discussion.
No, I did not * about the kinetic challenge because that happened over the space of more than one day. I stand by my assertion that expecting people to walk up to five miles in one day for a bounty is out of line with the rest of the program.
I think it's dumb that every bounty can be completed in no more than a few minutes except one that can take hours.
Difficulty varies by location and faction. For instance, almost every portal within 2km of my house is the correct colour, so if I get the "destroy 2 links" task on a work-from-home day then that's going to take more than just a few minutes (might as well walk off a K-cap on my way out...).
I like that it is a mix of easy and harder tasks. Bounties as a new feature is great. It is kind of sad to see all the efforts to remove the more difficult or inconvenient ones. If this happens, bounties will be boring, open the app, do things you always do, get bounties. Boring! There are bounties I have to routinely skip because of my personal situation. That's not a reason to change the bounties. Don't dumb down the bounties, keep the bar high enough to take some effort, or just shut it down if it is just going to be a pointless handing out of gear.
The do a Mission bounty was just outside of practical for a daily bounty.
This is one reason why it was removed as a Daily.
Daily Bounties/tasks/quests should be doable in less than an hour.
This works out to be a short walk at most.
Am particularly interested in what the weekly/monthly and event Bounties will be, to push that bar higher with moderate game activity.
Obviously these will be determined by where people are, ie central city players vs rural players with limited wayspots
I would like to see at least one more harder bounty to complete to get the daylie tick. Its kinda boring getting all completed before leaving the house. Its nice to see them listening to the Community and I like the new bounty system. Don‘t remove the bounties you need to work for! <3
exactly they are usually all done at 00:01
Disagree, it's one of the ones which actually requires you to leave your house to complete
You know what we could have instead?
FitRep rewards for brewing a certain amount of KCaps or walking a certain amount within the week.
But I enjoy this one personally. I usually brew up a few whilst doing my daily walk.
Someone should create a bug report for FitRep not awarding rewards, I'm sure Niantic will be happy to see it 🤔
I’ll get right on that
They never said it was going to provide rewards. If anything, it was a maybe.
Locals tend to complete upwards of 50 a week by playing by vehicle(s) for 4+ hours per day
Those have been created in the past. They don't do anything.
Per NianticOfficial
"As previously indicated, this is not a bug - this feature has been depriortized for the time being while the team focuses on other things. Repeatedly submitting this as a bug when told it is not may result in losing your reporting privileges."
TLDR: If you keep reporting this as a bug you won't be able to report anything. We released it, now we work on new shiny thing that will bring data/value for our other products, err, something new to the game.
I think @InvestigateXM is on an any % speed run to see if they can get me kicked off the forums before Niantic decide to scrap them.