The problem with Bonus Locations and a "Wayfarer Challenge"

Perringaiden-INGPerringaiden-ING Posts: 124 ✭✭✭
edited March 2021 in India Wayfarer Challenge

So I've done 105 reviews since the Challenge began. I live in Boston, USA, and my Hometown Location is Brisbane, Australia.

Of that 105, 9 reviews were in my Bonus location of Bhopal, India.

There needs to be a better solution than "We'll reset your bonus location, you can then set it to India and then we'll set it back later." Not only does this create a ton of work for @NianticCasey-ING, but it also fails to provide focus and enthusiasm for a Challenge.

I'm not incentivized to review during this 10 day period, by a small amount of gear in Ingress, if 90% of my reviews are for places that aren't the Challenge location and have no effect.

The result is a feeling of "Wading through muck to find gems".

While generally reviewing is good, seeing my local region over and over, given how absolutely portal dense it is, doesn't encourage me to keep going in an effort to help out a region with very few portals.

Suggestion:

@NianticCasey-ING mentioned that he was talking to the Wayfarer team about improving this sort of event, so here's my suggestion:

  1. Provide a toggle setting or option, on the front page (or a link to it on the banner) that allows a reviewer to say "Include me in the current Challenge".
  2. When enabled it has the effect of treating that reviewer's last played location as somewhere in the host country, and treats the reviewer as a "Great" rating for the purposes of portal selection.

That way the lion's share of portals will be in the challenge region, (because of last played) and cover the entire host country (because Great rating). Portals from the reviewers normal bonus area, hometown area, and even normal play region, will still come up sometimes, which I'm sure is considered a plus for the event by the Wayfarer team. All effort is useful effort etc.

But by having a majority of the portal reviews in the host country, we both have the incentive to continue, and the desired benefit of helping out a portal sparse area (which is why these countries get selected).

As it is, it feels like a tiresome slog to go through 90% of the reviews no different to when there's no Challenge, just to find the 10% of actually helpful to the Challenge reviews.

Post edited by Perringaiden-ING on

Comments

  • OrangeJuice73-PGOOrangeJuice73-PGO Posts: 16 ✭✭

    I saw a couple of people saying on fb/Reddit that the current method to change bonus location was a hassle and that they'd pass.

  • Kellerrys-INGKellerrys-ING Posts: 696 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2021

    As it is, it feels like a tiresome slog to go through 90% of the reviews no different to when there's no Challenge, just to find the 10% of actually helpful to the Challenge reviews.

    This. Also, the bonus location radius seems really small fot this kind of challenge.

    On the positive side, I actually saw one new Waypoint I had reviewed in Bhopal.

    Post edited by Kellerrys-ING on
  • ikaros02-INGikaros02-ING Posts: 54 ✭✭✭

    Yeah, it doesn't feel like I'm making a difference when 9 out of 10 nominations I have to review don't contribute to the challenge.


    Global Wayfarer Challenge where all nominations worldwide count could be a possible answer but I'm not sure if it would create more problems.

  • KetaSkooter-INGKetaSkooter-ING Posts: 177 ✭✭✭

    Agreed for folks that haven't exhausted the nominations from their current location it is a slog to get to where you're seeing majority bonus location nominations. A opt in toggle for the event would be preferred

  • Perringaiden-INGPerringaiden-ING Posts: 124 ✭✭✭

    With "USA" as my source for normal nominations, the concept of exhausting the location is... unlikely.

  • KetaSkooter-INGKetaSkooter-ING Posts: 177 ✭✭✭

    Yeah you're northeast, that does sound tough. Go spoof your ingress to india, sounds easier.

  • WheelTrekker-INGWheelTrekker-ING Posts: 3,387 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Nice idea.

    I would go even one step further: while that option is set to ON, all the nominations are from the a bonus location set for the event and wayfarers can toggle it On and Off as they desire through the duration of the event. Although that might require to upper the requirements to "participate" in the event, someone that reviews only one nomination hasn't helped at all.

  • Rodensteiner-PGORodensteiner-PGO Posts: 1,705 ✭✭✭✭✭

    and while you´re at the whole thing, maybe think it thru. i still have the feeling this is just another alpha stage of the whole idea.

  • aaronvianno-INGaaronvianno-ING Posts: 90 ✭✭✭

    To add on to this, people from India at the borders are getting more reviews from the neighboring countries than from India.

    At the same time, we're getting more edit reviews than normal. This isn't really ideal as far as the challenge goes.

  • Randomnessdude2-PGORandomnessdude2-PGO Posts: 10 ✭✭

    Im pretty new to the whole reviewing thing, having only been able to for about a month. I have come to the opinion that a lot of this wayfarer experience can be a mess lol. I don't think the rewards we get for reviewing seem to be worth it, as someone who doesn't need many upgrades. Even if we got something such as in-game items it would be much more rewarding.

    That said, the India event was exciting when I first came across it, but having done about 20 reviews so far (in the event) and only getting two from India, is sorta disappointing. I set aside lots of time to work on this but am stopping early.

  • Jeroenix-INGJeroenix-ING Posts: 431 ✭✭✭✭

    Fully agree, if Niantic really wants to lift a country out of POI-devoid areas, let them hold shorter challenges, but with way more candidates of that area shown to reviewers.

    I'd suggest having a switch on your reviewer screen: "Join current event" and have 2 consecutive days of nothing but those candidates if it's set to "join".

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