Ingress: Locking Down Your Player Profile

Take a look at your scanner. Down the bottom, in the right-hand corner, is a button marked COMMS. Open it up. Now, see how the agent names are kind of in bold with a line under them? Press on one. Keep pressing until two options appear on your screen: View Player Profile, or Send Message. Touch View Player Profile. Now, you can see that player’s badges, their mission badges, and their stats. Wait! Can’t see their stats? They must have their profile locked down.

Why would they do  that?

Well, I keep mine locked down, too, and I have done since choosing the portal I was hoping to get to black guardian with, but there are a number of reasons.

1. To Keep it Private. Some players like to work quietly towards their goals. They don’t like the stress of comparisons and competition, or they’re just very private people. Locking down their profiles means only the basics of their progress can be tracked, and not every little detail. I’ve kept mine locked down, because I like it quiet.
2. To Protect their Guardian: It has been noticed that, when certain members of the opposing team can see the days for a player’s guardian continuing to climb, then that guardian is often lost before it reaches black. This could be just coincidence, but it has also been noted that player’s whose guardian progress isn’t public tend to keep their guardians longer. That, too, could be coincidence. I decided not to take any chances with my last one, but I also chose a better located portal for the attempt, and I lucked out when some friendly player from my team decided to upgrade its resonaters and add more defences – for which I am very grateful. So, I can’t be sure a private profile is what helped to get it through – although I can be sure bigger resonators and more defences did.

Look at these two profiles. One is locked, and one is not. (I have blacked out the players' names and badges, and the AP and other data is now out of date, but this is what you'll see.)

See the difference?

Right, no progression data under the medals of the locked profile. Now, if you touch one of the achievement medals, another difference appears:

See it, again?

Correct - no progress indicated under the medal of the locked profile. This is how to keep your progress private.

HOW do you lock your profile?

Well, you go into your OPS tab (which is in the top right-hand corner of the main scanner screen), then you scroll all the way across to the end until you see the DEVICE tab. Tap on that, and then scroll down until you see the Agent Profile section, and then touch the little square so that a small, blue tick appears next to “Make agent stats private”.

Do I have to lock my agent profile?

No, you do not. You might like to play out in the open, and that’s fine, too.

Whichever way you choose to play, have fun. It’s time to move.