Cupcakes,for or against?

firethorne

simonsez wrote:

firethorne wrote:

As for the rest, should a team that can afford a better car have an advantage at the Indy 500?

You're implying that the best rosters aren't still winning PvP. You're wrong.

No, simply making an analogy as to why I'm not against people buying covers with in game currency. Max 5* teams obviously have a huge advantage, and it shows. That is obvious. The post is only to say I don't consider using in game currency to buy a good roster be a problem equal to exploiting the system with thrown fights. I don't see using the game's store as designed as a problem.

xidragonxi

I haven't seen this mentioned yet, so I will. I believe (could be wrong), that cupcakes were 'invented' because shield hopping is too dangerous. You simply can't be at a high score and stay unshielded for very long before you start getting hammered down, regardless of what team you're floating with. So someone said "how can I make my shield hops faster?" and the answer was cupcakes. It takes just a few seconds to take down a cupcake team (a little longer now with these higher-boosted loaner chars), as opposed to the few minutes it would take to down a regular "A-team". Therefore your shield is only down for a minute or two and you're less likely to get hit and lose progress.

To me, it seems the solution is to fix the penalty for getting hit somehow, OR create some system where you can't get hit by several people at once. If timing/speed was at the heart of the issue, you wouldn't see cupcakes, you'd just see regular a-teams. People could still coordinate when they were shielding/unshielding, and climbing would happen that way.

mpqr7

No one should feel pressure to bake if they don't want to. I don't think that's being selfish. It's your game, so you should play it how you want to. If your alliance has a problem with that, then switch alliances. Once you have a good enough roster, you can pretty much be on any alliance you choose.

udonomefoo

I don't have a strong opinion either way, I'm just here to note that the arguments I'm seeing here about seed teams and cupcakes being the same thing are the stupidest thing I will read all day. Guaranteed.

Bravo. Well done. Please don't make me come back and explain how stupid this is. Just think about it for a couple seconds.

mgallop

I am completely fine with using CCs to get to 1300. Thats the "gaming a broken system" that people are talking about. The problem is that it doesn't stop there.

With CCs, the only thing that determines score is how much HP you will spend, and how willing you are to spend all the time checking Line for Qs, your roster doesn't effect your ability to score until you have fully covered 5s.

Also, being opposed to cupcakes does not mean you shouldn't eat them, as thats just self imposed suffering, you should eat them while they're hot! You get to double and get more points, and you discourage baking!

Bossblack

udonomefoo wrote:

I don't have a strong opinion either way, I'm just here to note that the arguments I'm seeing here about seed teams and cupcakes being the same thing are the stupidest thing I will read all day. Guaranteed.

Bravo. Well done. Please don't make me come back and explain how stupid this is. Just think about it for a couple seconds.

So instead of express your opinion and say something constructive you just make a comment to whine about other people's opinion? Well done. Please don't come back to explain, no please, don't bother.

PeterGibbons316

Jamie Madrox wrote:

This should start something.

I'm against cupcakes. They're the MPQ equivalent of up up down down left right left right B A Start. Sure you're "beating the game", but you're not really playing it or challenging yourself. You're using a defect in the game to play it in a way not intended by the developers.

That said, cupcakes are just another example of the the players working around a broken system that needs an overhaul. Characters being released too quickly, ISO being in too short of supply to level characters, 5* characters being unevenly awarded to players and then so overpowered that they've broken the game. All of these are reasons why cupcakes (and shield hopping) exist.

Some of you will say I'm a hypocrite. Sure. I was a prolific baker for a few seasons (Villains Inc Season XXIII Master Baker), but I only started doing it in the first place because I felt pressured to do so by the other players in the alliances I was in. Baking is so ingrained in the psyche of the top alliances now that if you frontrun and don't bake you're ridiculed by the other players. "Eat 3 bake 1" was a phrase I saw more than once early on when I wasn't yet cupcaking a lot. Players that climb late on cupcakes and don't bake or only bake a few times are publically and privately decried for not being team players. Floating for too long and eating cakes because you have a strong 5* team is also met with negative feedback.

So now I play differently. I don't cupcake. I don't do coordinated shield hopping anymore. I rarely # check someone or skip a high value target even if I recognize their name. Cupcakes get eaten immediately and multiple times if I can find them again. I'm playing the closest to PVP that this game allows and it's been liberating.

The real takeaway from all of this discussion is that PVP needs a drastic overhaul. Specifically, we need:

1. Leagues - Tiered events with limited (by rarity) rosters and rewards that match.
   • Novice - Use only 1* or 2* characters. Rewards are 3* characters (top placement) and 2* for rest.
   • Expert - Use only 2* or 3* characters. Rewards are 4* characters (top placement) and 3* for rest.
   • Master - Use only 3* or 4* characters. Rewards are 5* characters (top placement) and 4* for rest.
   • Elite - Buy-in events with HP. Use only 5* characters. Rewards are 5* characters and increased ISO/HP/Covers/etc.
2. More ISO - Double to triple the current ISO rewards across the board.
3. Lightning Rounds - Make them 24/7 and rotate through all characters.

By no means is this a perfect fix for the issues we face as players, but it's a good start that would ensure the long-term viability of the game and player retention.

I completely understand this thinking, but don't exactly agree. The problem is that we assume that because it is called "Versus" and we call it Player vs. Player that it should be structured in a manner that pits each player against one another, and the player with a combination of the strongest roster, the most skill, and most time dedicated to the event should be the player that comes out on top. If that is your belief then yeah, cupcakes completely break that.....but so do alliances, and so do shields. The issue is that the devs have created the cupcake meta by the way they have structured the event, and the rewards. The quickest, most cost effective way to earn all the rewards that they offer is to collaborate with others and cupcakes are just the optimization of that collaboration.

madsalad

TxMoose wrote:

count me a 'for'.

I see them as a playerbase discovering a method to assist in the broken progression system that the devs have implemented. as long as I'm t50 I could care less about placement usually. I'm never fighting for t5 and rarely have a shot at t10, but it happens. and the diff between t50 and t25 is negligible, so, for me, placement is not even a concern. all I care about is getting over 1300 and I shoot for something around 1500 to put me around the middle of the alliance and my routine works for that. I've made 1300 the 'old fashioned' way before against real teams. BoP for example (got lucky timing my push with probably the only group that pushed high that one). some of my weekend slice 1s are difficult to find ccs, so I hop on real teams. but the cc system is so much easier and is available to all to take advantage of. for those fighting between 50th and 51st and those fighting for/within the t10 it matters more, but I'm not in that group. baked twice in grocket in a slice my alliance isn't even in.

to me its mainly a screw you to the system they have in place, while still working completely within the rules.

These are all the things I was logging in to say on this topic. Until D3 changes things about progression and makes different roads for different levels of people, how people get hit multiple times for 200+ points while trying to take down a 50pt battle, etc... the player base had to play within the confines of this system in order to make progress.

The old adage, A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats, comes to mind.

It only helps others when ccs are baked and eaten, raising the overall top level scores, allowing for lower folks to get battles for higher scores, etc.. etc...

Here are two recent scenarios for me: Colossus PVP; my Colossus is only lvl 20 but I was able to break 1.3K for the first time due to the battles I was hitting were 60 and 70 points because the top score in my slice was like 2.8K. I hit and baked a few ccs along the way. Compare this to R&G PVP where the slice I was in had no ccs and the top score at the end was 1.1K. (This was the 1am et slice). Because there were no ccs, no one could boost scores, leaving those with lesser rosters probably placing the same place they would if there were ccs, but not hitting the progression rewards they would hit if the top end scores were higher.

tl;dr cupcakes are a means to an end that can play within the system as it exists now.

SnowcaTT

I've been well recorded here saying MMR should not find your team-mate...and should leave everyone name-less.

Cupcakes might exist (in-alliance would be easiest), but the system that exists today would be much, much more difficult. This would solve all sorts of other issues as well - harder to snipe, harder to hold grudges or place blame, harder to "hunt" specific players or "retaliate" against entire alliances....

Long ago D3 (probably Ice) said they don't want to make out-of-game communication essential. The last Line update bumped me off the system on PC (thanks for mandating two step verification Line, unlike any other site/app that I've ever found). Before I was hitting 1300 with ease. Now I stop at 1000 - in part to not annoy anyone, but in larger part because I'd have to get lucky when I do 1300 "the hard way" every time. I saw someone mention the other day that 1300 becomes "trivial" with Line, and I will absolutely agree. I've seen no cupcakes this entire season, impossible to do it without the out-of-game communication.

The -idea- of cupcakes I don't mind, and actually wish there were more...in the sense that I wish there was no MMR bracketing in PVP, and anyone should be able to find the 2* rosters that are punching above their weight.

Bulls

Tbh Im totally neutral toward cupcakes. I really don't care if they're here or not. This season is 3rd in a row where so far I've scored every 1.3k reward on and offseason except she-hulk event that just gave me cancer and I've stoped just at 1k. I have four 4* champed (imhb, jg, cyc and carnage - belive me or not, that's how I lucked with covers - I've spent hps just on 3 of those covers - 2 imhb and 1 jg) and with that I see no difficulties in scoring 1.3k (sometimes I get a cake or two on my way but most likely I do that fighting "legit" teams). Most of the time I finish in t25, sometimes it's t10 and I think that twice I was in t5.
My point is that if someone wan't to get to a certain point it's doable without any "shortcuts", just requires dedication. From time to time I help my brother playing with his 3* rooster to get 1k reward I know that's it's managable as well.

GrumpySmurf1002

SnowcaTT wrote:

I've been well recorded here saying MMR should not find your team-mate...and should leave everyone name-less.

Cupcakes might exist (in-alliance would be easiest), but the system that exists today would be much, much more difficult. This would solve all sorts of other issues as well - harder to snipe, harder to hold grudges or place blame, harder to "hunt" specific players or "retaliate" against entire alliances....

Long ago D3 (probably Ice) said they don't want to make out-of-game communication essential. The last Line update bumped me off the system on PC (thanks for mandating two step verification Line, unlike any other site/app that I've ever found). Before I was hitting 1300 with ease. Now I stop at 1000 - in part to not annoy anyone, but in larger part because I'd have to get lucky when I do 1300 "the hard way" every time. I saw someone mention the other day that 1300 becomes "trivial" with Line, and I will absolutely agree. I've seen no cupcakes this entire season, impossible to do it without the out-of-game communication.

The -idea- of cupcakes I don't mind, and actually wish there were more...in the sense that I wish there was no MMR bracketing in PVP, and anyone should be able to find the 2* rosters that are punching above their weight.

Couple things here:

-Cupcakes would absolutely still exist, coordination would just happen across alliances. MegaAlliance1 would cake for MegaAlliance2, etc.. Players would shuffle constantly to get around the 'no teammates' issue. That's not a fix.

-If you're not finding cakes without communication, you're not trying. I'm in a check for one slice but I bounce around (because I agree checking every event is tedious), and I have no problem finding the cakes in other slices. The benefit of Line (that I've found) is considerably less about finding good or easy targets and considerably more about avoiding point loss.

udonomefoo

Bossblack wrote:

udonomefoo wrote:

I don't have a strong opinion either way, I'm just here to note that the arguments I'm seeing here about seed teams and cupcakes being the same thing are the stupidest thing I will read all day. Guaranteed.

Bravo. Well done. Please don't make me come back and explain how stupid this is. Just think about it for a couple seconds.

So instead of express your opinion and say something constructive you just make a comment to whine about other people's opinion? Well done. Please don't come back to explain, no please, don't bother.

Not sure how my post could be construed as "whining" and I actually did give an opinion. My opinion is that people who argue that seed teams and cupcakes are the same thing are letting their fingers run off before their brain has had a chance to do any work. Since you need more "constructive" input, let me tell you why you're wrong.

1. Seed teams are available to EVERYONE. You don't have to reach a certain point level to find them. You don't have to get lucky in skips to find them.

2. Seed teams were put into the event BY THE DEVS. This cannot be considered an "exploit" if it is built into the game by the people who make the game.

3. Seed teams diminish in value as your score increases. If you were given a new set of seeds at 1k they would each be worth 1 point.

Did I miss anything? Let me know.

TxMoose

not sure what they can do about it other than the tiering system. but in that main tier second from the top (3*/4* group), I can still bake with the same ones I did last night and this morning - 120 vision/120 mostorm. they made eating ccs a little harder by raising the loaner level, but it still works. in shulk, the biggest big boys (the level 400+ guys) were actually baking with boosted fist/cage/loaner shulk. something's messed up when fist/cage in the 250s is a 'cake'. that show how broken the system is.

carrion_pigeons

Cupcakes are not the illness. Cupcakes are a symptom.

The PvP game has always been subject to being gamed because it's always been easy to disconnect a player's score from their difficulty as an opponent. But that isn't the problem. Every competitive game requires certain behaviors in order to sit at the top. The difference between a good competitive game and a bad competitive game is whether or not those behaviors lead to an engaging experience or not.

And therein lies the problem with MPQ PvP: the biggest barrier to success is a faceless zombie horde of players who are bent on devouring you and gnawing on your bones, and you have no recourse for dealing with them in an engaging way. The only means of handling them at all is the inherently unsportsmanlike tactic of holding yourself aloof from any competition at all. Of *course* people are going to try to figure out ways to optimize shielding! It's a feature without any design advantages at all! Shielding doesn't help you play the game in a more fun way. At a fundamental level, shielding requires you to *not play the game*. It shouldn't be surprising that people are going to look at that feature and figure out ways to get some actual gaming out of it. The people who play MPQ are gamers. It isn't reasonable to give them a game, tell them "the only way to win is not to play" and expect them to just sit back and relax. That's not what gamers do. When exploits are the only way to make the game engaging, then of course exploits are going to become part of the strategy of the game.

We need a better design than shields and zero-sum rewards structures. There are tons of viable design directions the designers could take, but they would all have the simple basic requirement of letting people compete by actually playing the game.

Bossblack

udonomefoo wrote:

Bossblack wrote:

udonomefoo wrote:

I don't have a strong opinion either way, I'm just here to note that the arguments I'm seeing here about seed teams and cupcakes being the same thing are the stupidest thing I will read all day. Guaranteed.

Bravo. Well done. Please don't make me come back and explain how stupid this is. Just think about it for a couple seconds.

So instead of express your opinion and say something constructive you just make a comment to whine about other people's opinion? Well done. Please don't come back to explain, no please, don't bother.

Not sure how my post could be construed as "whining" and I actually did give an opinion. My opinion is that people who argue that seed teams and cupcakes are the same thing are letting their fingers run off before their brain has had a chance to do any work. Since you need more "constructive" input, let me tell you why you're wrong.

1. Seed teams are available to EVERYONE. You don't have to reach a certain point level to find them. You don't have to get lucky in skips to find them.

2. Seed teams were put into the event BY THE DEVS. This cannot be considered an "exploit" if it is built into the game by the people who make the game.

3. Seed teams diminish in value as your score increases. If you were given a new set of seeds at 1k they would each be worth 1 point.

Did I miss anything? Let me know.

You did come back... why didn't you just post this in the first place? Everyone is entitled to their opinion but calling anyone's opinion is stupid without giving a reason or explanation...probably not the best way to communicate.

I respect your opinion, it doesn't matter if I think it's right or wrong. You are entitled to it.

I still support CCs. For those who don't they can simply skip the cake when they see one. The cake is out there, and as long as we have the freedom to choose which character we bring into the fight, I don't think there is a way to stop baking.

Daiches

Cupcakes aren't intended for placement. The best rosters still get the best placement.

Cupcakes are meant to help people reach progression, which is as we all know is where the value is in PVP.

TxMoose

Bossblack wrote:

... and as long as we have the freedom to choose which character we bring into the fight, I don't think there is a way to stop baking.

baking can happen at any tier even with restricted rosters - 3*s that we've left at 120 (that's what I've been using over my max level 144 2*s) can be used for that level and level 70-94 undercovered 4*s can be used for that level (that might take longer depending on covers). I really can't envision any reasonable rule that would prevent it.

babinro

Tons of great points in this thread and I can't help but agree with arguments on both sides.

It's clear that cupcakes make a mockery of the intended function of pvp and that they allow players to score much higher than they normally would have otherwise. It's also clear that MPQ is designed as a team game giving out alliance rewards and so tactics that help bring improve your alliance standings will always exist in pvp.

What causes me to lean on the side of being 'for' cupcakes is the fact that people as a whole find them to be fun. I've seen first hand plenty of alliance mates enjoying pvp more as they get on board the cc meta. It's great to earn more progression rewards and have your roster improve at a faster pace than before. People are happier and it doesn't appear to negatively impact sales or buy clubs either. Those with competitive rosters are still able to earn their top placements by pushing beyond the dependency of cc's so the competitive element of pvp still exists .

CC's feels like a win for everyone involved if you ask me.

firethorne

Daiches wrote:

Cupcakes aren't intended for placement. The best rosters still get the best placement.

Cupcakes are meant to help people reach progression, which is as we all know is where the value is in PVP.

Understood, but then why is it that the devs don't just give all placement rewards simply for participating? This still gives a long term advantage of growing that better roster to the people exploiting the system. Is this really the behavior the devs want to encourage?

PorkBelly