On "dealing with" cupcakes

Pylgrim

Recently David Hi-Fi posted this in the now closed thread for cupcakes:

"Cupcaking" is not intended gameplay and we're working on some ways in which we can take care of the issue in the near future.

While I understand the reasoning for saying this and I'm not intending to reopen the discussion on the legitimacy of cupcakes (because it will lock the thread immediately), I just want to request one thing: Instead of looking at cupcaking as an evil issue that needs to, ominously, "be taken care of", can you please pass the message that it needs to be seen as a symptom of a more insidious, larger issue which is the one that needs to be addressed?

The fact is that after certain amount of points players of a given tier start seeing /only/ players one or even two tiers above, making advance both nearly impossible and foolish, as in the meantime they'll be exposing themselves to climbing players of those higher tiers which can make short work out of their teams in literal seconds. And the real problem with this is that it prevents players from reaching the progression rewards that will help them advance (i.e. the 3* cover at 800 points, the 4* cover at 1k, or the 25 CP at 1.3k) to the next tier.

If you find ways to remove cupcaking without fixing this issue, one of two possible things will follow: 1) Necessity being the mother of ingenuity will have the players seeking and finding new ways to exploit the system if they want to progress. 2) Progress will grind to a halt (for non-whaling players) which will make the game (more) stagnant and hopeless for transitioning players. I'm sure you agree that that's something that neither the players nor you, the creators want.

jobob

Cupcakes are a fun little side game that keeps things interesting for a lot of vets, and helps a lot of newcomers progress... I don't know that it's something the developers really want to go after.

jffdougan

I wonder whether the forthcoming Clearance Levels are the intended solution for this issue.

jredd

coordinating with an alliance and having several guys line up cupcakes to get ahead is one thing.

for those of us who struggle to get to 1000, (seems like a struggle to get to 800 these days...) finding the odd cupcake here or there is the difference between a 4 star cover and basically nothing.

don't see the harm in that.

GrumpySmurf1002

Is a player with two 500 level 5* putting out a 400+ RHulk with a 200+ Switch considered to be cupcaking? How about 266 Hood-300+ boosted other 3* character

In the chat lexicon, no, they have a different name, but I would think they'd fall under the same umbrella or 'unintended'. Wiith the scaling already so brutal for those type players, limiting/removing their option to use a lesser character runs counter culture to a game that through essentials and boosting has promoted having a diverse roster.

There's yet to be a version of this PvP system that the vets haven't found a work around to in under 5 seconds. Maybe clearance levels will change that, but somehow I have my doubts.

Pylgrim

jobob wrote:

Cupcakes are a fun little side game that keeps things interesting for a lot of vets, and helps a lot of newcomers progress... I don't know that it's something the developers really want to go after.

As you can see in the quote I posted, it's definitely something undesirable in their eyes, no matter how good we think it is. THe fact that it also has vocal detractors doesn't help.

notamutant

They could easily deal with it with clearance levels. Let's say you now have two different PvPs, one that offers better rewards but requires a higher clearance level and can only use 4*+. No cupcakes possible anymore, short of weak 4 stars.

Phumade

notamutant wrote:

No cupcakes possible anymore, short of weak 4 stars.

trust me. the overwheling majority of rosters will have a surplus of weak level 70 4*.

hahahahaha

fight4thedream

Locking thread. Hi-Fi has stated clearly that cupcaking and the like are an unintended quirk in the game's design and while I understand the OP's attempt to steer the conversation toward looking at a larger issue, his point has been made and the conversation inevitably returns to those scandalous, scrumptious sweets.

Your friendly neighborhood fight4thedream ﾞ☆⌒o(*^ｰﾟ)ｖ

fight4thedream

After discussing the matter with Vhailorx in PM and out of respect for Pylgrim, I am unlocking this topic in the hopes that it can generate an active discussion regarding the current PvP structure. Please keep discussion respectful, constructive and on topic. Thank you!

liminal_lad

I remember being outraged when I first learned about Line -- I had no idea there was a whole side game where I could be targeted for "sniping" or that oddly high value but weak teams were there for a reason. At first I thought it was immoral, and then I thought "If I can't beat them I should join them," downloaded Line on my laptop, got an invite to the chatrooms, saw the insane volume of messages, and... could not be bothered to put in the effort.

I would be thrilled if D3 would kill the cupcake and and introduce a gluten-free era of MPQ. I think my opinion is in the minority on the forums, but would probably be in the majority in the outside world of less obsessed / internet savvy players. I don't think it's cheating in the way most people would define it, but it is a meta game that rewards a very small # of highly invested fans. What D3 wants to do with that is anyone's guess, but I'd be happy for the ability to opt out, even if it meant lesser rewards.

[edit/addendum] I basically just don't play PVP and stick to PVE partly because of this. The game is still fun for me, even if this means more grinding and probably much smaller rewards.

mpqr7

Yeah Line Chats drive me a bit nutz. Especially the BCs and even the BCCs. It's helpful if you're really into the game, but otherwise it's just a massive amount of noise and takes up all your phone's storage with messages that are basically:

Player1 un#800 target1 target2 target3
Player1 #1000

Or some similar format.

I liked it at first, and I salute those who participate; many of them have scores of 2000 to 3000+, so it really works.

But it's just a huge pain and made the game into more work than fun. With such limited targets in MMR, and then most of them are in your alliance family, there's basically no one to hit.. or else the only available targets are 100+ levels above you.

I'm not even upset when former alliance family mates hit me, as long as they preferably don't hit me multiple times in the same run (ie within a few minutes).

TxMoose

mpqr7 wrote:

basically:

Player1 un#800 target1 target2 target3
Player1 #1000

reading between the lines, its the "qqqq" that's important there.

mohio

This is perhaps sideways to the main ideas in this thread but in response to the above comment I would say that the MPQ LINE communities and the relationships I've made through them are really the only reasons I continue to play this game. Sure the gameplay is still pretty fun and the art is nice for the most part and there are plenty of other positive things about the game, but chatting on line and coordinating to do fun things in the game is the biggest draw at this point. As mentioned upthread, I would seriously hesitate to attempt to remove a big aspect of it if I were the developers.

mpqr7

mohio wrote:

This is perhaps sideways to the main ideas in this thread but in response to the above comment I would say that the MPQ LINE communities and the relationships I've made through them are really the only reasons I continue to play this game. Sure the gameplay is still pretty fun and the art is nice for the most part and there are plenty of other positive things about the game, but chatting on line and coordinating to do fun things in the game is the biggest draw at this point. As mentioned upthread, I would seriously hesitate to attempt to remove a big aspect of it if I were the developers.

I agree that Line conversations (outside of the BCs) can be very fun and entertaining. I am still in some groups of former alliances, and it's fun to share our love of the game and other topics.

I do it all... line groups, fb groups, this msg board.. yep I'm obsessed But I try to mostly skim and not read it all too much.

carrion_pigeons

What would constitute a solution that people would be okay with, do you think?

The main thing that makes CCs possible (from an execution point of view) is the fact that if you get hit by a comparatively easy team, you can hold that team in a node for an extended period of time, right? If this is prevented, then baking a cupcake becomes a huge gamble where you deliberately take a weak team against a stronger team and hope you don't get unlucky. So it seems that by far the simplest thing that would kill this tactic (at least dead enough to not be a main strategy element) is to just make it so all retals overwrite the retals currently on your nodes.

This absolutely is a "fix" that fails to address the OP's concerns, though. So what would be a fix that does address them?

I think the most popular solution on the forums is splitting PvPs into tier brackets. So you'd have to choose between playing a 2* Pvp or a 3* PvP or a 4* PvP or a 5* PvP (or maybe do what they do in Pokemon and divide it by frequency of use? or even just by level?) with a varying quality of rewards to incentivize moving to a higher bracket. This doesn't precisely solve the CC meta but it does make it much less plausible that it would be a major issue, given the right implementation.

Another possibility I like is tying rewards to your actual MMR. This would require restructuring the rewards model in PvP in general, but you could set it up so that placement rewards strictly covers, and then you get an amount of Iso/HP/CP proportional to your MMR score rewarded to you at the end of an event. This would disincentivize playing to lose at a fundamental level, and would have the effect of spreading out MMR scores much more, which would make matchmaking better in general.

I don't have much against CCs, personally, but given that they are trying to kill them, I hope they find a way to do it that doesn't make everyone hate the game (more than they already do).

DarthDeVo

liminal_lad wrote:

I had no idea there was a whole side game where I could be targeted for "sniping" or that oddly high value but weak teams were there for a reason.

I had no idea any of this existed until I came to the forums. I know there were a few times before coming here I would be playing PvP and be around the 400 or 500 point mark and all the sudden see a team worth 75 points consisting of the loaner 3* and two level one 1*. Basically, I thought it was a fluke on the part of the game and it was re-offering me a seed team at an outrageous point value. Who would say no to that? So, I was an unintentional sniper and looking back on it, probably got hammered in retaliation. Just for trying to play the game and being clueless about baking, cupcakes, trapcakes, sniping, retaliation, kill lists and the whole nine yards.

liminal_lad wrote:

I would be thrilled if D3 would kill the cupcake and and introduce a gluten-free era of MPQ. I think my opinion is in the minority on the forums, but would probably be in the majority in the outside world of less obsessed / internet savvy players. I don't think it's cheating in the way most people would define it, but it is a meta game that rewards a very small # of highly invested fans. What D3 wants to do with that is anyone's guess, but I'd be happy for the ability to opt out, even if it meant lesser rewards.

[edit/addendum] I basically just don't play PVP and stick to PVE partly because of this. The game is still fun for me, even if this means more grinding and probably much smaller rewards.

I would second that. PvP should just be: 1. Open match. 2. Look at battles and point totals being offered in each node. 3. Don't like the ones available? Skip until you find one you do. 3. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I shouldn't have to check someone's roster to see if it's a cupcake/trapcake or worry about the threat of mass retaliation if I accidentally hit someone before they can get their shields up.

Does cupcaking increase the total number of points in a given slice, thus making it easier for everyone to hit progression? Maybe, I guess you could make that argument. All I know is I just play the game, without coordinating or baking or anything like that and maybe once I've hit the 800 point mark to get the 3* cover. Usually I'm doing good if I can get to 650 before being hammered back down, and at that point it's usually one step forward and two steps back. I'll win a battle for say, 30 points, but while I'm playing said battle I'll get hit twice, losing 50 or more points total (usually a lot more than that). Usually the retaliation isn't worth the effort because the battle is worth only a few points (typically less than 10 points) or the person who attacked me is so insanely OP compared to my team I would lose the retaliation match, costing me more points. Or if it's someone entering the event in the final hours and grinding all at once, both. Then, MMR seems to offer me a grand total of seven or eight different fights, no matter how much I skip, none of them usually very favorable.

I just don't have the luxury of being able to buy shields right now, and I readily acknowledge that's my own issue, but it's hard to make progress when you can't hit that 800 mark for even one cover. I've also had no luck recently with being able to place T100, so even placement awards seem like a pipe dream these days. It's pretty much limited my serious play to PvE as well, because I can usually at least get full progression there and at least some placement rewards, depending on the required characters.

I will say I've had some luck recently joining a slice in the final few hours and going as far as I can as fast as I can. I usually get somewhere around the 700 mark (JUST shy of the 725 50 HP reward) before I get pounded back down to the 400 or 500 mark, which is where I usually end up staying, which is typically good for 110-120 overall. Before, I would join a slice beforehand and start playing as soon as I could against the seed teams, which got me to about the 300 mark before I got beat down. But then it was hard to even get to the 500 mark, so I was missing out on HP and ISO.

I would actually be OK with the system if I could just consistently hit the 800 level and maybe place T100 for now. But it seems the only feasible way to do that right now is invest a ton of time coordinating everything behind the scenes and spending HP I don't have on shields. It's just a slog and I would rather play PvE.

The Bob The

The coordination makes this game more fun. Full stop. I use line to coordinate hops, yes (I've gone over 1400 maybe five times), but far more frequently to discuss strategy, coordinate for boss fights (this is possibly the most fun part), and chatter about inconsequential ****. It has added a level I would not have expected to a mobile match-3 game and has kept me playing. I don't think my enjoyment at this level is hurting others - in fact I sincerely hope it is not - but I would be sad if interacting on that level was punished.

firethorne

I agree that it feeds points into the system, at all levels. Ive come to realize getting rid of it would end up hurting even people that don't even participate. Just look at points in off season events. It does help a lot of people out. But, at the same time, I am really hesitant to say that the whole cupcake practice is a display of a game working properly. People are essentially promoting throwing fights as a legitimate strategy on the dev's own forums, have been for ages. Despite the popularity, I'd still argue cupcakes are a symptom of a very unhealthy game.

That said, I'm not mad at the people doing it in the least. I used to be a bit, but that's when I had more faith in the dev team. At this point, I'm far more mad a the devs for letting this very broken PvP system to continue to hobble along than I am at exploiting the system, taking one of few opportunities to progress. The game is very unfriendly to the player, and I understand taking any chance you have to advance. So, I completely understand anyone baking, and will happily queue up if I happen to come by one, because I don't have faith that the devs can come up with a system that actually works anymore. They should have done so long ago, but didn’t.

Hi-Fi is now on record saying it is not intended gameplay and they're working on some ways to take care of the issue in the near future. Still, it sells shields, so I get the vibe they're willing to look the other way for as long as possible so long as there is money in it.

Despite how broken it is, they have to be incredibly cautious approaching this one. They've let it exist for long enough that it is a de facto part of the game now, for better or worse. They can't simply get rid of it without making many players very unhappy. I foresee a firestorm of "You're supposed lose" magnitude on the horizon. If they're going to approach this one, they have to first make promises that progression, rewards, and the PvP points system as a whole will be greatly improved, and be far more friendly to player advancement. Then, they need to not only keep those promises, but overdeliver.

Piro_plock

I have a suggestion that might solve both cupcake problem and stronger rosters picking on weaker players... Factor relative team strength into the points you get from a PVP match.
Example:
Player A uses a level 166 3* team to beat player's B level 166 team and gets 1.0x points calculated by Elo formula.
If A would use champed 4*s, he gets less points (let's say 0.5x)
If A would use a team of boosted champed 4* or 5* at about level 350-400, he would get even less points (e.g. 0.3x)
Using full champ 5* team would give A only a small fraction of estimated points (0.1x?)

And vice versa, beating a stronger team with weaker characters should give you more points.

This solution would promote more diverse PVP teams and strategy ("do I use a stronger team and get less points or run a weaker one, risking more hits?"). There are details that need some thought (how will teamups or 3* Deadpool's Whales influence the points? Will all events look like Balance of Power?), but I think that might be something to make Versus more interesting.

MarvelMan

mohio wrote:

This is perhaps sideways to the main ideas in this thread but in response to the above comment I would say that the MPQ LINE communities and the relationships I've made through them are really the only reasons I continue to play this game. Sure the gameplay is still pretty fun and the art is nice for the most part and there are plenty of other positive things about the game, but chatting on line and coordinating to do fun things in the game is the biggest draw at this point. As mentioned upthread, I would seriously hesitate to attempt to remove a big aspect of it if I were the developers.

I have to say, the offseason alphabet hunt we played a couple seasons ago was by FAR the most fun Ive had in this game. I dont even know if I hit 1.3, but I played much, much more than any other PVP prior or since. And I thank the relationships I made via Line with players outside my alliance for that.

Speaking of....isnt the offseason soon? (when will then be now?)