Ingress – Play thoughts after a month

“In the heart. In the head. I won’t stay dead. Next time I’ll do the same to you. I’ll kill you. And it goes on, the good old game of war, pawn against pawn! Stopping the bad guys! While somewhere, something sits back and laughs, and starts it all over again!” — James Kirk, “Day of the Dove”

I’ve been playing Ingress for a month now.* It’s been fun, even exciting. It’s gotten me walking even more on my lunch hours, helped me learn more about downtown Denver (and some of the ‘burbs), and introduced me to a new set of online comrades.

But, even as the game slowly makes its way through Google’s Beta process, I can see a problem, summed up, perhaps inadvertently, by one of the lead players in the Denver “Enlightened” community:  “This game wasn’t designed to have a winner, just a constant ongoing battle.”

Yeah, that never ends well.

Because it never ends.

“[W]e’re a doomed ship, travelling forever between galaxies, filled with eternal bloodlust, eternal warfare.” — James Kirk, “Day of the Dove”

Granted, most MMOs, for example, never end. The world sometimes changes, but neither Horde nor the Alliance will ever triumph in World of Warcraft. And even if they did, there are plenty of other challenges and challengers out there.

But in WoW, the gameplay changes. Characters advance. New alts get brought on. Different races get played. Different mission tracks get followed.

But aside from a very basic leveling mechanism (that treats everyone the same), and the slow entry of additional portals into the game … there’s no real change going on in Ingress.** And that’s a problem.

Interminable wars with neither side able to win are, ultimately, meaningless and/or boring (cf. trench warfare of WWI, repeated taking/losing/retaking of hilltops in Korea, and ST:TOS eps “A Taste of Armageddon” and “Day of the Dove”). I can see that as, in not too long a time frame, a problem Ingress will face as it currently stands. How will Google/Niantic address that over time?

• They could shake things up by having the rules/conditions change at various times, making the strategies and tactics necessary for success evolve to keep up. That might help a bit.
• A bigger change might be new factions; a rumor has been circulating of an iOS version of the app, but that Apple players would be a separate set of factions (yellow and red?) competing against each other and the existing two factions.  That would complicate the dynamic, some.
• A third NPC faction would be a fine addition to the game at some point. By being a computer-based faction, Google could change behaviors to keep folks on their toes.

“Be a pawn, be a toy, be a good soldier that never questions orders.” — James Kirk, “Day of the Dove”

Another direction to explore might be some other method that (a) changes the dynamic between Enlightened and Resistance and (b) provides some milestone “success”/achievement/reward beyond incremental AP increases. The excitement — the value add — in current game mechanics really stops when portals are linked and a Control Field (CF) between three portals is created. At that point, besides adding more links from the same portal (often with more difficulty but no greater payoff) there’s no advantage to maintaining what’s there aside from “Yee-haw, look at all that Green/Blue on the map.” Nothing changes in the world if the Resistance takes back my portal, except, once it happens the hundredth time I just shrug and, yes, “Well, there’s something I can hack for some AP.” (Yes, the game as it stands actually incents the other side taking your portal, so that you can get credit when you take it back in turn.)***

So, yes, there could be some benefit to rewarding maintenance and preservation of things (maybe an incremental boost to AP each day for each portal, based on level, a person still has in place), as well as some actual in-game effects from having links and CFs built and maintained (perhaps increasing a portal’s strength when it’s linked to another portal, or when a CF is in place, or extra XM creation under a CF).

Or maybe you make it (more dangerously to player satisfaction) a negative — you forfeit (reduced over time) some of the AP you got from putting up a CF or link (or even a portal) when it gets taken down. Or maybe that zorches some of the XP you’re carrying (which might be trivial if you’re on the road, or might be a real bummer if you’re actually in the field trying to hack).

And whatever advantages (or costs), the game makers need to be sure that they also maintain a balance for players of all levels.  Right now we have everything running around from L1s to L8s. It seems far too easy for newcomers to the game to feel like there’s little they can do — no portals they can possibly budge, but can only hack at slowly over time for the AP that activity gives. It feels — at least at the moment — like it’s far more expensive to tear down than to build up, given normal drop rates from hacks.

On one level, that’s the way it should be (it’s futile to build if it gets immediately destroyed), but it also creates a barrier to beginners, or even continue-ers (it’s futile to try to destroy if you’re too weak to do so).

“Out! We need no urging to hate humans. But for the present, only a fool fights in a burning house. Out!” — Kang, “Day of the Dove”

Now, to be sure, Google’s point with Ingress is not to make the perfect game, by any means. They have some very pragmatic reasons for the game. But if they want that to be more than a short-duration series of data points, they will need to do something to keep people engaged and interested.

*That was actually a week and change ago. I’ve been pondering this post for a while.

**Yes, it’s beta. I know. I can only judge things by where they are right now. In beta.

***In some ways, it feels more like one of those Cold War / “Great Game” types of films, where the Station Chiefs for the opposing sides contest against each other, but with the understanding it that it should be kept gentlemanly and not put either side too far out of shape.

UPDATE: (Told you I’ve been pondering this for a while.)  A few other thoughts:

1. The game needs to be both solo- and team-friendly. Right now there seems to be much more effectiveness in teams of players, in terms of resources (blasters, resonators, keys) available. That’s fine — for some. For others (cough), teaming is less likely because of other restrictions. That can make the growth curve a lot more difficult.

2. 

   That having been said, right now team play is rather crude.  The person who does X gets all the credit for X.  If Google wants to encourage team play, there should be some sort of bonus for it.  E.g., anyone within the 30m sensor range of a portal gets some fraction of AP credit for events that occur regarding that portal (destroying things, deploying things, linking things), or perhaps only if they’ve done something against/with that portal (other than hacking) so far. That would encourage people to team up, and would also make it easier for higher level folks to mentor newbies.

3. Google continues to change some of the game parameters to meet what it thinks is competitive play. In the time I’ve been playing, we’ve seen a drastic reduction in key drops, a couple of trial changes in how XMP bursters do damage, and (since I stated this post) a reduction in burster range. In general, it’s made the game more difficult, in terms of taking over stuff — which might fit into some play balance problems elsewhere, but which I, in general, have found to make things less fun.
4. One could argue that the “variety” in the game comes from the metastory — all the clues and websites and this and that about what the portals really are and Niantic and Enlightened and Resistance and puzzles and all that.  And … one would be wrong. Because, as far as the game is concerned, that’s all flavor text. Some folks are into the story and the puzzles. Some aren’t. I think Google wants both groups.

5. 

   The biggest challenge seems to be when one side or the other gets a lock on territory — the majority or near totality of portals in an area.  This is often accompanied by high-level portals being established as anchors, and “portal farms” that are milked for drops. The result is that attempts by the other side to take anything back tend to be short-lived — the majority group has the resources and a small number of targets to apply to them.  The result is one side feeling completely outgunned, and the other side — well, frankly, getting bored (and thus doing counter-intuitive things like letting their portals decay so they can take them back again). This imbalance can change slowly (if people decide to switch sides — though they can do so only once), and can also be changed by broad changes in strategy by the “out” side, but it still seems to be something that could easily unbalance the game. (This is another area where a third faction — esp. an NPC faction that tended to go after the majority, would be of some advantage to the game.)

I am still having fun. But I can also see this, right now, very easily as a game that one day you just suddenly say, “Y’know the heck with it,” and either greatly cut back on playing or quit. And I don’t think that’s the model that Google is looking for.