[Suggestion] Offsite Hexathlon Participation Medal
Perringaiden
XM Ambassadors › ✭✭✭✭✭
In the 2020 Event Schedule post it was said:
We plan to release the February Perpetua Hexathlon cities next week. All of these events will have free onsite and offsite participation tickets with medals awarded for ticketed participants.
With the details posted, we don't see that option for offsite participation. However, this is my idea on how you could implement a simple offsite "participation option" for future events.
1. Offsite Ticket
Offsite participants could have a paid ticket for the event, say $5 (adjusted for local prices, use the Big Mac Index), which grants them access to the offsite participation.
2. Offsite Medal
Like the Elite medal is a higher tier of the normal Perpetua medal, offsite participants would get a "lower" tier of the medal for offsite participation. For example, the Perpetua medal could be all white with black trace lines. It would be clearly not the onsite medal itself, but would be something that can still be displayed.
3. Minimum Requirements
Instead of actually competing for elite badges etc, the offsite participation could just be a set of minimum requirements to complete within the 2 hours like:
- Hack 50 unique portals
- Gain 100 glyph points
- Make 40 links
- Make 20 fields
4. Global Leaderboard
Probably only updated once at the end, but you could provide a global leaderboard for all participating Agents (on- and off- site) that ranks everyone who paid for a ticket.
The Hexathlons can still have central "event locations" but given the comments of many who don't consider it worth attending for the event, having an offsite participation medal would provide a far more tangible and monetized way of allowing more inclusion for players.
Comments
Sounds reasonable - but at this point the types of events are kind of bleeding into each other.
We've already got global challenges with tiered medals that happen periodically (for instance Umbra Deploy challenge). We've got iFS that happens monthly if locations apply, and also has a medal for attendance, and now Hex, which happens at an unknown frequency and has tiered badge based on performance. Just as it doesn't quite make sense for iFS to have remote participation, I'm not sure it makes sense for hex either.
One of the main drives for remote participation is that there is only one anomaly site through May, and there is limited ability to participate. If you consider the hex as a replacement for anomalies, remote participation makes sense. But they really aren't - individual competition and team competition are so different. Instead, hex is more like a step up from iFS: individual competitions surrounding specific stats. We just really would like more anomaly style events.
So I would rather NOT see remote participation for Hex, and see more team based competition. Anomalies or no anomalies, the team-based struggle is one of the more unique aspects of Ingress. Working out new ways of encouraging team play events seems like a better use of resources.
Working out new ways of encouraging team play events seems like a better use of resources.
While I want more anomalies, we've been told time and time again that these are "not replacements for anomalies", they just happen to be in the places we'd normally see anomalies.
Niantic is pushing this format because the scale of anomalies they want to have, they have no money to provide. So rather than wanting something we won't get, while missing out participation in events for 8 months (longer if you don't live in Europe or happen to be rich), this idea provides an option to feel part of the global events that are happening.
I would flip this proposal around.
Make the basic medal available to everyone, everywhere, for the same in-game requirements, for the same ticketing fee or lack thereof. As far as gameplay and Niantic's level of involvement go, Hexathlons are fundamentally individual events. Any agent, anywhere in the world, could perform all the required tasks, with or without anyone they please for company. There is no real reason here to discriminate by location.
Designate specific locations where participants can compete for the Elite medal, and charge a nominal entrance fee. With money on the line, everyone competing will be giving it their best. There is value in (potentially) being able to meet your competition face-to-face. Geographic proximity is a reasonable way to limit each pool of competitors.
I'd be happy with that. However, specifically charging for the event is part of the need for Niantic to actually make some revenue from events. $5 really isn't that much given how much we freely choose to spend on the game that never sees Niantic gain.