{"id":2739,"date":"2013-02-04T20:03:16","date_gmt":"2013-02-05T03:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/?p=2739"},"modified":"2024-01-10T21:19:38","modified_gmt":"2024-01-11T04:19:38","slug":"ingress-so-whats-worse-than-an-endless-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/2013\/02\/ingress-so-whats-worse-than-an-endless-war.html","title":{"rendered":"Ingress: So, what&#8217;s worse than an endless war?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Screen-Shot-2012-11-20-at-2.42.46-PM1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-2708\" title=\"Ingress logo\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Screen-Shot-2012-11-20-at-2.42.46-PM1-150x150.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>So here&#8217;s the biggest complaint I have about Ingress at the moment &#8212; and it&#8217;s a complaint I see all over the boards, too.<\/p>\n<p>One side&#8217;s won.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a different side depending on what city you&#8217;re in. But in way too many cities, the give and take of war and raids and sniping and attacks and retreats and fighting another day has turned into a monochrome. Take, for example, Denver (click to embiggen).<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2740\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2740\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2-4-2013-6-09-42-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2740 size-large\" title=\"2-4-2013 6-09-42 PM\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2-4-2013-6-09-42-PM-650x384.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2-4-2013-6-09-42-PM-650x384.png 650w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2-4-2013-6-09-42-PM-300x177.png 300w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2-4-2013-6-09-42-PM.png 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2740\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oh, I&#8217;m bluuuuuueee &#8230;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">That&#8217;s a lot of blue.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The current gameplay in Ingress seems to have a tipping point that turns into a death spiral for game competition.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Let&#8217;s look at the Pros and Cons of being a city majority, and how that prevents the other side from turning the tide.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">THE MAJORITY SIDE<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Pros:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Because friendly portals give big drops of kit, everywhere is a farm for you. Resonators, Bursters, Shields for all!<\/li>\n<li>Lots of portals means lots of links means lots of CF means lots of AP means lots of leveling.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Cons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Large networks of portals decay over time. It&#8217;s difficult to keep them up. (But, then, why do you need to? It just provides additional stuff to do later.)<\/li>\n<li>Large networks of portals are subject to attack anywhere. It&#8217;s difficult to defend every portal. (But, then, why do you need to? See below.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>THE MINORITY SIDE<\/p>\n<p>Pros:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;A target-rich environment.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Hacking nets you 100 AP per portal &#8230; \u00a0great for L1 (climbing from 0-10,000), not so useful for L6 (climbing from 300,000 to 600,000).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Cons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Enemy portals bite back when hacked, draining XM.<\/li>\n<li>Enemy portals give nothing or very little in the way of kit drops.<\/li>\n<li>Taking a portal and building anything is largely an effort in putting a big target on the map for folks wanting the AP of taking something down.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2744\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2744\" style=\"width: 289px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/birthmark1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2744\" title=\"Bummer of a birthmark, Hal\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/birthmark1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"289\" height=\"256\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2744\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The problem with liberating a portal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The last &#8220;Con&#8221; is probably the biggest thing. The Majority Side is always looking for things to attack, because taking portals is a big part of what nets you AP. \u00a0And, of course, they have very few opportunities to do so, because they have the majority of portals already. And, of course, all those friendly portals have given them massive arsenals to attack with and equipment to build with.<\/p>\n<p>Result: build a Minority-color portal, and everyone on the Majority-color side is on it like scavengers on the Serengeti. If you build it, they will come.<\/p>\n<p>Which means, of course, that the Minority side can never build up items, or links, or Control Fields. Which means they can&#8217;t really get the big AP rewards. Which means they can&#8217;t advance enough to take on the Majority side, take back enough of the portals to counter the advantages of the Majority side.<\/p>\n<p>(Note, &#8220;The Majority Side&#8221; can be either Resistance or Enlightenment. In Denver, the Resistance &#8212; blue &#8212; has the unshakable upper hand. The Enlightenment &#8212; green &#8212; has the upper hand in other cities.)<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2743\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2743\" style=\"width: 393px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/STguys1.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2743 size-full\" title=\"Bele and Lokai\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/STguys1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"393\" height=\"286\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/STguys1.gif 393w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/STguys1-300x218.gif 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 393px) 85vw, 393px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2743\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ingress is balanced to the extent that it can be highly imbalanced in either direction<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Why is this bad?<\/p>\n<p>For the Majority side it&#8217;s bad because there&#8217;s little challenge. Going all piranha on the few Minority portals that pop up is all well and good, and the completionists will enjoy building a Tholian Web of links and CFs across the metro area. But there&#8217;s not a lot of interesting stuff there, except for OCD types and bullies.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2741\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2741\" style=\"width: 497px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/TholianWeb1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2741 size-full\" title=\"Tholian Web\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/TholianWeb1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"497\" height=\"375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/TholianWeb1.jpg 497w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/TholianWeb1-300x226.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 497px) 85vw, 497px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2741\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">All Your Mind Units Are Belong To Us<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Worse, as the Majority side continues to level, the number of portals that are accessible to low-level types (on either side, but let&#8217;s focus on the Minority side) become miniscule. Which means you&#8217;ve erected a barrier to new players entering the game (especially, but not solely, on the Minority side).<\/p>\n<p>Now if you complain about this on the boards, you get some people coming up with the following suggestions, none of which resolve the problem for most players:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>&#8220;If you are willing to get in a care and drive, you can find low-level portals out in the hinterlands to take over and level with.&#8221;<\/strong> \u00a0Which assumes that any player worth their salt is going to get in a car and drive around to play the game. \u00a0Which means disposable income, a lack of regard for the environment, and lots of free time. Oh, and dedication, beyond what a casual player is going to have.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;If you team up with higher level players, you can all cooperate to take things down.&#8221;<\/strong> This assumes that players of the game are all gregarious types who are going to join boards, participate in planning raids, and do all that kind of social stuff. (Or, if you&#8217;re not, it assumes you should quit.) It also assumes that there are higher level players around. (Which is where you get into the <strong>&#8220;Invite some higher level players to drive to your city and help clear things out&#8221;<\/strong> suggestion. Which can do a short, initial number on the Majority side, but is unlikely to change things around based on stockpiles, and is also not something you can or should count on as a fundamental game process).<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Wait until the Majority side gets bored and leaves the game. Then you can take back over.&#8221;<\/strong> Assuming that will actually ever happen, it&#8217;s a rather ugly meta way to succeed. And while you&#8217;re doing whole waiting thing, the Minority side is probably going to get bored and leave the game, too.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2745\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2745\" style=\"width: 646px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Solutions1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2745 size-full\" title=\"Solutions\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Solutions1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"646\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Solutions1.jpg 646w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Solutions1-300x185.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2745\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Or maybe we could just have a table of eager young professionals, and one seasoned, mature executive, figure out an answer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Which brings this all around to another major point: while Ingress as a whole is a positive experience for some of the Majority (OCD and Bullies) and some players as a whole (people who are willing to team, willing to dedicate lots of time to the game, willing to drive around a lot) &#8212; that&#8217;s not a recipe for a broadly successful game. It&#8217;s possible that&#8217;s enough to do whatever data farming Niantic and\/or Google are looking to do, but it&#8217;s a recipe for Ingress never much leaving beta (or, upon leaving beta, not surviving over six months). And somehow, I think the Powers That Be want something a bit more robust.<\/p>\n<p>So, what should Niantic do?<\/p>\n<p>Well, there are any number of suggestions that have been made, many of them contradictory. \u00a0A few of the biggies that appeal to me:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Change the Build\/Destroy balance<\/strong>. Right now it&#8217;s a lot easier to build than to destroy. If it were easier to tear down portals, that would impact the Majority most.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Give some advantage (or less disadvantage) to the Minority<\/strong>. It&#8217;s been suggested, for example, that Enemy portals should drop more Bursters (offensive weapons) when hacked, or at least should drop at the same rate as Friendly portals.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Give some disadvantage (or less advantage) to the Majority<\/strong>: \u00a0An NPC third faction, which tends to attack the Majority more often, is an obvious suggestion. Increasing drops to the Minority (or decreasing them for the Majority) is another. Having friendly portals actually suck XM away from you is another.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Of course, all of this has to be done with some care. You don&#8217;t want people to <em>not<\/em> want to succeed for fear of drawing major disadvantages. \u00a0And ideally you want a system that oscillates between different factions being in the lead, rather than\u00a0deteriorating\u00a0to a Steady State \/ Trench Warfare. \u00a0And you don&#8217;t want people to feel railroaded or too manipulated by the game masters.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2746\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2746\" style=\"width: 627px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/dont-have-all-the-answers-jesus-religion-13558986621.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2746 size-large\" title=\"I don't have all the answers\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/dont-have-all-the-answers-jesus-religion-13558986621-627x650.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"627\" height=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/dont-have-all-the-answers-jesus-religion-13558986621-627x650.jpg 627w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/dont-have-all-the-answers-jesus-religion-13558986621-289x300.jpg 289w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/dont-have-all-the-answers-jesus-religion-13558986621.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2746\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wait, Google&#8217;s the one we&#8217;re trying to correct here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But you (and by &#8220;you&#8221; I mean &#8220;Niantic&#8221;) need to do something. \u00a0I&#8217;m seeing more and more folks on the boards sounding discouraged or frustrated at being stuck in a permanent Minority, at having anything they capture or build be immediately seized back. I&#8217;m currently playing guerrilla warfare &#8212; tackling only portals I can take with relative ease that also happen to have a large number of links and CFs hanging off of them, maximizing AP gained as well as visual impact on the Resistance. \u00a0But that&#8217;s not something that everyone can do, and, at best, it&#8217;s a way of advancing <em>me<\/em> but not the overall Enlightenment cause. And, frankly, I don&#8217;t know how sustainable it is.<\/p>\n<p>(Oh, yeah &#8212; I am doing the &#8220;team up with a newbie to help them advance&#8221; thing &#8230; but only because the newbie sleeps with me &#8230;)<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2742\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2742\" style=\"width: 473px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/william-haefeli-if-we-re-going-to-be-friends-with-benefits-i-want-health-and-dental-new-yorker-cartoon1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2742 size-full\" title=\"William Haefeli - Friends With Benefits\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/william-haefeli-if-we-re-going-to-be-friends-with-benefits-i-want-health-and-dental-new-yorker-cartoon1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"473\" height=\"473\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/william-haefeli-if-we-re-going-to-be-friends-with-benefits-i-want-health-and-dental-new-yorker-cartoon1.jpg 473w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/william-haefeli-if-we-re-going-to-be-friends-with-benefits-i-want-health-and-dental-new-yorker-cartoon1-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/william-haefeli-if-we-re-going-to-be-friends-with-benefits-i-want-health-and-dental-new-yorker-cartoon1-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 473px) 85vw, 473px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2742\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;Oh, and PL MEH PLZ.&#8221;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>(My wife, that is.)<\/p>\n<p>(Ironically, viz the cartoon, I use my wife&#8217;s health and dental benefits. But I digress.)<\/p>\n<p>I want Ingress to be a success. \u00a0Truly. I would say, at the moment, this situation is the biggest challenge to it being so. If Niantic and Google can&#8217;t come up with a game with a robust variation in situation (one side winning, then the other, and back and forth)\u00a0<em>and<\/em> keep it from becoming an endless stalemate &#8230; then Ingress will fail. At least as a game.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An endless guerrilla war &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gameplay","category-ingress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2739"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3372,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2739\/revisions\/3372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}