Niantic announced an update to Ingress Prime which includes some interesting changes, as well as quite a few bug fixes. Before you read the changes, remember that they are listening to feedback, so don’t just freak out. Voice your concerns. I’ll discuss on the next show why I think these are actually good changes. Below is the full post from the announcement.
Update #1: Andrew Krug, Niantic Community Manager responded to a post on Reddit:
XQlusioN: The point is to actually make them VERY RARE… As the name implies…
soloredcup (Andrew): This.
When half your inventory is VR items, they aren’t Very Rare.
Also, it reads like we are removing items from the game. We aren’t. In the future you’ll have to use your VR items more strategically or choose to use your rare items more. Do you use the VRMH to get 12 extra hacks or the RMH you can duplicate for 8 extra?
Update #2:
soloredcup: VRLA were never intended to be an every day item or for people to have capsules with hundreds of them. They were never hackable except in rare cases once as a reward. But even then it’s was a dozen or so Portals and the output was extremely limited. Aegis Shields, while hackable, have become part of the default loadout requirement for Anomaly attendees. When each player is bringing capsules full, they are no longer very rare items.
Update #3:
I will cede for the sake of brevity the point that sure this rebalancing may have some positive effect in the long run, but I have to ask why Niantic would possibly think that now, in the middle of a difficult client transition was the time to effect these specific changes, and not to explain anything about the direction or intent, just drop them in patch notes.
Fireside chat us, give us some mix of good news and bad news, but c’mon, it’s like a near weekly event that you announce something and I’m talking players out of walking away.
Great question. My personal opinion is that with the Prime launch and bringing in new players it was a more ideal time to rebalance things then six months from now and bring more balance in the long-term.
People universally complain that while leveling up their XMPs are near useless. So we boosted them a tiny bit. Another common complaint is defense is easier than offense, particularly at Anomalies where most Portals have 4 Aegis Shields on them. The team with less people has a near impossible time being competitive. So we tweaked the stickiness of Aegis Shields. As stated throughout this thread, people tend to use VR items as everyday items because they’ve duplicated so many. Which basically renders them Common and not Very Rare.
Original Announcement Text:
Agents,
You will soon receive an update to the Ingress Prime Scanner. Most Agents should be able to upgrade their scanner by Monday, December 3, 2018.
Note: it is still under active development and we rely upon your help to make it better, together. Proceed with caution and care…remember: Ingress is not a game and the world around you is not what it seems.
WHAT’S NEW IN 2.13?
Items: Reduced Transmuter hackability.
Items: Increased maximum damage for low level XMPs.
Items: Quantum Capsules will no longer duplicate Very Rare items.
Items: Increased the probability that an Aegis Shield will be destroyed when struck by a critical hit.
Bug: Fixed Recursion timestamp issues.
Bug: Fixed issues related to quitting on-boarding early and faction selection.
Bug: Fixed an issue with non-Gmail accounts logging in and other email related problems.
Bug: Resolved several issues related to firing XMPs.
Bug: Fixed issues related to Fields and Links not being displayed.
Bug: Resolved miscellaneous issues causing user interface to become non-responsive or cause errors.
Bug: Fixed various COMM issues such as not opening to any tab from main menu.
Bug: Fixed the notification not displaying on start.
Bug: Fixed issues related to selecting a single Resonator for recharging.
Bug: Fixed an issue with deploying Resonators.
Bug: Fixed an issue with Resonator slots being unselectable.
Bug: Resolved an issue preventing Resonators from being clickable at range with or without a key.
Bug: Resolved an issue preventing long links from being created. Now functions the same way as Scanner [REDACTED].
Bug: Fixed hack failed message during on-boarding.
Bug: Fixed an issue where resonators don’t disappear fast enough when they’ve been destroyed by somebody other than the Agent.
Bug: Fixed Resonators deploying twice during on-boarding.
Bug: Fixed Agent names not being clickable in Deploy/Recharge screens.
Bug: Fixed an issue with Glyph hacking not starting right away.
Performance: Implemented performance improvements across a variety of user actions.
Performance: Removed unneeded camera transitions when opening the Power Cube menu from the Deploy menu.
Performance: Made the carousel less sensitive when determining whether to advance to the next element at the end of a swipe.
Performance: Removed unnecessary assets from app.
Text: Edited the description for Quantum Capsule and Key Capsules.
Text: Made edits to various error messages and text strings.
Audio: Updated Link sound effects.
User Interface: Made portal key background a darker color rather than white when it loads and various graphical interface changes for usability issues.
User Interface: Moved avatar down and raised save and cancel buttons up
User Experience: Added vibration options to Settings menu
WHAT ARE WE WORKING ON NEXT?
Portal Submissions
Continued Bug Fixes
Continued Feature Parity
:: KNOWN ISSUES ::
To see a list of known issues go here: http://bit.ly/IngressPrimeKnownIssues