Egress
published
Ingress was a fun game, for a bit. Now it’s not, at least for me. I’m just shy of reaching level 8, but I don’t think I’m going to bother crossing that line. The game simply doesn’t offer me anything in exchange for my time and effort.
The game encourages team work by restricting the number of high-level resonators that can be deployed on any portal by a single player. A level 7 player can only deploy one level 7 resonator, for example. So in order to get a portal completely stocked with level 7 resonators, seven unique accounts are required to each deploy one level 7 resonator.
All games are going to have griefers. It’s a fact of life. Whether they’re violating the terms of service by using multiple accounts, or they’re actively cheating by spoofing their GPS coordinates, there are a lot of ways to abuse Ingress. Folks like me who play by the rules are the losers. We don’t level as quickly. We don’t have as much access to inventory items.
I have a full-time job, and a family with which I enjoy spending time. I don’t have the free time to constantly farm friendly portals for enough items to then make it possible for me to harass the opposition. There are a number of players on the opposing team who seem to have enormous amounts of free time. Ingress rewards them, and punishes me.
The lack of strategy means that all players are essentially equal. There’s no specialization. Perhaps the game dynamic might be more interesting if different styles of play were rewarded. If there was some long-term in-game benefit to maintaining a control field, or recharging resonators, or something.
I don’t know how long I’ll remain in touch with the other players once I cease my involvement in the game. Participation in the larger community doesn’t make much sense if I’m not playing the game. See also the bit above where I enumerate the restrictions on my free time: these restrictions also make it hard to attend team meetups.
And for folks who still enjoy playing Ingress: good on yer! Keep playing. If this is the kind of game you enjoy, that’s awesome. Getting out, learning about your town, and meeting new people are all awesome ancillary benefits that go along with Ingress.
It’s just not the game for me.