A season after cupcakes were killed - yeah or nay?

BlackSheep101

snlf25 wrote:

I have 8 4* champs and all of the 3*s champed except for Strange of course. I find it significantly harder to get to 900 now. Not that the matches are harder, it's just that there is a lot less points. I used to average 37 points approaching 900 now it's down to 27. That's a lot more exposure and I don't shield hop. I'll use a couple here or there but I don't have that kind of HP. The most aggravating part is that we were lied to and it never did what it intended unless they really meant to make it harder for non whales to compete for the scant worthwhile placement prizes? Then kudos if that's the case, job well done.

Wait, people actually hit fights worth less than 40 points? What slice is this?

Phumade

From a 5* roster perspective: 3 champed 5, 35 4* champs, all 3* champs (and I've been playing since before the dawn of alliances) and I consider myself a Top 1000 player globally.

From a social perspective, its really really dampened and taken out the fun for alot of people and you can tell because alliance and check room chatter is down significantly. There is a real premium for top shelf players who know how to manage and protect their points and don't require a ton of hand holding.

From a game perspective its actually made placement incredibly easy. There is a clear line of demarcation between players who can hit 1200 and those that can only make 900. With 12 hrs left, its really obivious who's going to keep pushing to 1200 and T5 placement. In turn that eases the pressure on players to have to defend a placement slot. Several times I dropped my first shield at 1210 and know with complete confidence that I've locked up T5 with 8hrs to go and no need to hop again.

From a individual match perspective, it hasn't really changed that much. At the 5* tier, a grill is the same as a CC and the only real threat is other 5* players

Overall, the change has just locked in the relative divide between the haves and have nots. In the past, motivated mid-tier rosters could work hard and make up relative progress against the 5* class. 5* players had to keep spending resources to maintain their placements against motivated 3*/4* players. Now 5* players don't have to spend as hard to protect their points and positions.

I feel really bad for those 3*/4* players who want to try and improve their roster relative to the global population. Now the only real way for players to advance is to wait for 5* players to either sell their account or basically give up the game.

Specifically, CCs gave 3*/4* rosters a tool to score way above their normal scoring ability and force a higher tier roster to make a decision between standing pat or also pushing their score. Without that pressure, a large class of elite rosters no longer has to worry about lower tier rosters outworking them for a top 10 or top 5 slot.

I find it ironic that that the call to ban CCs came from mid tier rosters, but its actually established rosters that benefit the most from the change.

Dragon_Nexus

I don't really want to put an opinion in the poll because my goal is 900 points, not the final CP. I get to 900 and I'm happy. That at least hasn't gotten much harder.
I only missed 2 this season due to it being a week where I had none of the weekly boosted 4*s champed so had to rely on Red Hulk or Thor and IM40...which makes you an easy target. Couldn't get much further than 850 without being hit for more than I'd won.

Otherwise things were about the same for me.

The rockett

Hated it. Absolutely hate this. The reason I personally enjoyed cupcakes was the fact, I and other players like me, where able to help lower roster players. Now, yea I get better placement but can't help out the lower level players. Also, the fun is dead. Pvp is work. It's a grind. Almost like pve. I have cut back spending and my playing time. There are so many people that have quit the game or cut back drastically. My team has been top 10 the past 6-7 seasons and we were again this season with less pushing, but there is NO FUN IN THE GAME ANYMORE. That's the point. Hate it or love the cupcakes, it brought so much excitement to the game it isn't funny. My god we had a blast. Now, hell I don't care anymore and a lot of player like me feel the exact same way. So they were taken away and now we use different teams. This is the game that fewpeople wanted and this is the game they got. Me personally, I am cutting back even more. There is no joy or fun in this game except for my alliance and the friends I made. Without them, the little MPQ icon would be doing a little dance before it would disappear forever.

AtlasAxe

It's not as simple as "better or worse" for me.

On the plus side:
I cruise to 900 fairly easily, even without boosted 4*
Much less spent shielding
Placements are easier

On the minus side:
I can do 1200, but it's costly
Social aspect is reduced
My ability to help others severely reduced. When I have grilled, I've gotten the snot knocked out of me. I am mostly interested at this point in not hitting people I've been friendly with over the last couple of years.

Overall, meh. I think the 10cp is a bigger change, and MMR seems to have gradually improved also, which is bigger. With my lvl 390 BSSM, I'm not seeing champed 5* out of the gate anymore, and that has had more impact than the removal of cupcakes.

Also, rewards in PVE have ramped so far, that PVP is now low value. No XP, lower rewards (in comparison), harder to hit progression? Yeah, PVP is just not getting my attention as much.

Hendross

As a former consumer of cakes and occasional baker, it's been terrible.

On the plus side; I cruise to top 25, and spend only 1 3hr. shield per event between 900-1000pts.

On the negative side; I miss, final progression, 15 CP since I can't hop fast enough, nor can I win against steaks, this is offset by mid-progress PvE, so CP is about a wash. The 5-star rosters are grilling, widening the gap between established 4-star players and those with 5-stars. The removal of cakes have benefited advanced rosters, and slowed progress of 4-star (unlucky) transitionsers.

Moreover it's just not as fun, I use to cabitz in FoX and KaT now they're purely truce rooms.

TL;DR
More negative then positive.

Tony_Foot

It's no different. The excuse for CC killing was because of increased score gap between the top players. It's still huge, the only difference now is I can't get a 4 star cover. So I drop down to CL 5 or 6 and I can't get those rewards or place well either because players who already have the 4* covered drop down Clearance levels and mop up there too. So now you are seeing huge gaps in lower levels too. That needs to be either changed to a banding system or you can only queue people in your level. That would help immensely.

dsds

Tony Foot wrote:

It's no different. The excuse for CC killing was because of increased score gap between the top players. It's still huge, the only difference now is I can't get a 4 star cover. So I drop down to CL 5 or 6 and I can't get those rewards or place well either because players who already have the 4* covered drop down Clearance levels and mop up there too. So now you are seeing huge gaps in lower levels too. That needs to be either changed to a banding system or you can only queue people in your level. That would help immensely.

For PVP, you never want to drop down in SCL. Yes you may rank better, but you lose out on way more rewards. Not only are the equivalent rank rewards less, but so is your progression ones. Also it doesn't change who's in your slice. Other SCL players that are higher will be in your time slice, it depends more on when you join and which end time slice you are in. MMR or the people who you fight will not lower in level.

BlackSheep101

I dunno, I dropped down to get two Strang3 covers instead of one plus SL, and was pretty happy with that.

dsds

BlackSheep101 wrote:

I dunno, I dropped down to get two Strang3 covers instead of one plus SL, and was pretty happy with that.

I got three Doctor Strange3 covers in SCL7. And got a 4* and the 3* cover in progression.

If I dropped a level, I still wouldn't get the top 4* price for rank. And my progression rewards wouldn't be as nice too!

Fightmastermpq

The rockett wrote:

Hated it. Absolutely hate this. The reason I personally enjoyed cupcakes was the fact, I and other players like me, where able to help lower roster players. Now, yea I get better placement but can't help out the lower level players. Also, the fun is dead. Pvp is work. It's a grind. Almost like pve. I have cut back spending and my playing time. There are so many people that have quit the game or cut back drastically. My team has been top 10 the past 6-7 seasons and we were again this season with less pushing, but there is NO FUN IN THE GAME ANYMORE. That's the point. Hate it or love the cupcakes, it brought so much excitement to the game it isn't funny. My god we had a blast. Now, hell I don't care anymore and a lot of player like me feel the exact same way. So they were taken away and now we use different teams. This is the game that fewpeople wanted and this is the game they got. Me personally, I am cutting back even more. There is no joy or fun in this game except for my alliance and the friends I made. Without them, the little MPQ icon would be doing a little dance before it would disappear forever.

I'm getting this feeling from some other top alliances as well. The first 800 or so points have always been my OML/PHX against every other OML/PHX out there, but then to continue you would find some high value 4* teams out there and often times hit 1300 pretty quickly. Now the only high value teams I can find are even more 5* duos, or I can hit some 3* teams for less than 20 points or sometimes even lower. So even though max progression has been lowered by 100 points, it actually takes longer to get there because the points are dry and the matches take longer. The chat is also far more dull, filled more often than not with "q my a-team, im going to shield soon" because a grill isn't that much faster than two 5*s for most of the guys in there and so most (myself included) don't even bother to bake every hop like we used to. Used to be able to play whenever and find several 70+ point cakes whenever you were ready to hop. Now if I shield at 1200 and want three 50 pt queues I have to sit in chat for a long time waiting for what might very well be the only 3 people in the BC high enough to get me those queues so that I can hit their a-teams for another 140 pts, maybe grill off one of their a-teams if I am feeling generous, and then hope I don't get hit on my 12 minute hop.

Cupcakes added some much needed variety to top tier play, and with that variety gone I'm seeing a lot more 5* players go casual.

Fightmastermpq

BlackSheep101 wrote:

I dunno, I dropped down to get two Strang3 covers instead of one plus SL, and was pretty happy with that.

With the first brand new 3* in forever this event was the exception, not the rule.

I stayed in CL7 and took the extra Thing cover for 1st since I have him champed, as well as the SL cover who I just champed today.

mohio

The rockett wrote:

Hated it. Absolutely hate this. The reason I personally enjoyed cupcakes was the fact, I and other players like me, where able to help lower roster players. Now, yea I get better placement but can't help out the lower level players. Also, the fun is dead. Pvp is work. It's a grind. Almost like pve. I have cut back spending and my playing time. There are so many people that have quit the game or cut back drastically. My team has been top 10 the past 6-7 seasons and we were again this season with less pushing, but there is NO FUN IN THE GAME ANYMORE. That's the point. Hate it or love the cupcakes, it brought so much excitement to the game it isn't funny. My god we had a blast. Now, hell I don't care anymore and a lot of player like me feel the exact same way. So they were taken away and now we use different teams. This is the game that fewpeople wanted and this is the game they got. Me personally, I am cutting back even more. There is no joy or fun in this game except for my alliance and the friends I made. Without them, the little MPQ icon would be doing a little dance before it would disappear forever.

This describes my feelings on this topic so well I'm just quoting it and not really adding anything here. It was too good to only upvote. As for me - I stopped playing entirely for 3 weeks but then started doing a little here and there. The last 2 weeks I've done most of the DDQs, but only really played 3-4 PvPs and no PvE.

snlf25

BlackSheep101 wrote:

snlf25 wrote:

I have 8 4* champs and all of the 3*s champed except for Strange of course. I find it significantly harder to get to 900 now. Not that the matches are harder, it's just that there is a lot less points. I used to average 37 points approaching 900 now it's down to 27. That's a lot more exposure and I don't shield hop. I'll use a couple here or there but I don't have that kind of HP. The most aggravating part is that we were lied to and it never did what it intended unless they really meant to make it harder for non whales to compete for the scant worthwhile placement prizes? Then kudos if that's the case, job well done.

Wait, people actually hit fights worth less than 40 points? What slice is this?

I go back and forth between 1 4 and 5 trying like hell to find points. When Peggy was the 2k simulator prize I had to win several fights for less than 10 points. I came in 111th with 450 points in the Doctor Strange event. I stopped playing at about 810 points because his cover was all I really cared about. I was top 10 with that with 5 hours to go. I couldn't spend the hp to shield because I was trying to roster my 1st Drax. So it was a slaughter. MMR sucks for me and the devs have no idea in hell how to bracket me. My point dearth suuuuuuuuuuucks!

SirLanik

Needs an option for "I have no clue what the heck you mean by cupcakes, and still don't understand even after reading every post in this entire thread"

That said, PVP seems largely the same for me. I get up to about 500 points, then all my opponents are all 100+ levels higher than my best characters. Sometimes I can get to 650. But when I have to skip 10 times to find one team I can beat, and even then I only get 10 points, it's a struggle.

amusingfoo1

I said it's the same, and that's largely true, but it's a fair bit more annoying. It takes more health packs and hops take longer.

For context, though, I'm in 5* land. I know it has led to drastic changes in the lower tiers.

And I'm not in favor, generally.

Rhycar

The game is much less fun now. Part of what made the cake game so great was the social coordination aspect. Bouncing ideas off one another, timing hops, racing as quickly as possible to avoid -75 hits...it was simply a better game. I know it wasn't the game that the devs intended, but it was far more exhilarating and enjoyable. Now, it's an individualistic game. Sure, there's some coordination at the top, but it feels more forced. Grind, rinse, repeat. There's no nuance, no strategy, no other way to drive scoring. It is flat and boring, with the added bonus of longer and tougher hops. Fast, coordinated play beats monotonous grinds every time.

El Satanno

I voted "more of the same," but I'm with Rockett and Mohio and others. The death of cakes has taken a whole lot of the fun out of the game. Several of my alliance and alliance family's most active players have gone casual or stopped altogether. A few different reasons mark them, but the death of cake is the root cause.

I do enjoy the irony of weaker roster players complaining about runaway scoring and untouchable alliances winning everything. Nothing has changed, you knuckleheads, except now you can't punch above your weight class to get better progress rewards. Bravo.

atomzed

wow, i didn't expect to see 3 pages of response after a day!

thanks to all those who responded to the poll! i know the poll is not perfect, but to me the poll is a stepping stone for quality discussion. and so far i have been enjoying the discussion from different people.

A few points i like to comment (not going to multi quote; hard to do so on mobile)

- Defintion of cupcakes. Cupcakes are super weak teams that are put out deliberately, so that your teammates will win it easily. at high levels, it's common to see a team of 1* worth 75 points. The experts will take turns putting up cupcakes and shield up before they get attacked. Through this method, the 'bakers' can generate a lot of points to the system. Cupcakes makes it so easy such that a 3* team can get up to 1300.

- SCL and bracketing. Someone mentioned that the SCL bracketing may have cause the drop in points for placement. it may have an impact but i don't think it's the main causal factor. SCL still pits up against the same opponents in the slice. If the points are there, it would still trickle down to the various SCL.

- 10 CP at 575 Many people mentioned that they love this progression (even though this is not the cupcake killer but part of the package). I agree that it soften the impact with the loss of cupcakes. For those who 3* and 4* players who have been hitting 1.3 with cupcakes, the loss of cupcakes represent a loss of 15 CP. But overall, the large majority of the 3* and 4* players, who don't shield hop nor joined BC, these people now have a certain way of getting 10 CP. So i suspect that for the broader MPQ population, this has injected a lot of CP into the population.

- Losing the fun in baking and cupcake. I fully agree with this. The bakers had a lot of fun injecting points to their alliance, which in term benefit the MPQ players who know how to hunt down the cupcakes. I remember fondly the days which the bakers uses Bagman to bake.... it's really funny. And it encourages cooperation within the alliances and between the alliances. While the loss of cupcakes means that the competition is more "clean", we lost huge aspect of the fun in MPQ.

atomzed

Phumade post was really a good post, and i agree with most of his points except for one point.

"The middle tier players who complained about it are the one who loses the most " (or something along that line).

While that's true for the middle tier players who participate in BC, it is simply not true for other players.

For example, i am not an active shield hop player. i am in a truce but i don't try very hard to shield hop. And i was always amused when the person who has 2 workable 5* (me) loses out to a 4* player by 200-300 points.

I am not angry at them because i am not beating them. i am just amused because it shows how important the BCs and cupcakes were to the game.

I do miss the cupcakes, but at the same time, like what Pylgrim said, we will survive and adapt.