Sniper, No Sniping!

San Narciso

It has recently come to my attention that so called "snipers" are disrespecting the paying members of the MPQ PVP community who have personally chosen to make their goal in the game to be acquire as many points as possible. I am personally of the opinion that There Is No Wrong Way to Play MPQ.

Some just want points. They're chasing the invisible Grand Prize.
Some just want to play freely and not abide by the countless rules that "mega-teams" deem mandatory.
Some just want to piss off those mega-teams because they think it's silly they work so hard for points.
Some just want to control a certain shard and manage the points, and use various methods of doing so.
Some just want to [fill in the blank]

Entertainment can be derived from this game many ways; in fact, I personally probably get more from the LINE app and my communications with alliancemates and others on there than the actual game itself.

That all being said, I think it's important to note that spending money on HP for shields is a choice. Just as spending money on HP for health packs to repeatedly hit the shield hoppers is a choice. Some names like "Snipers" or "Point Hoarders" (can you say hoarders on the forum?) are attributed to players with certain styles, and just because they have negative connotations, it doesn't mean they're wrong. Just do your thing your way, you nasty little gem crusher.

Sure our hardwired personal perspectives and metaperspectives divide us (look at the United States right now), but just play the dang game and make the best of it. Am I right? I might not be, but maybe I am. Either way, I hope to see you on the battlefield...

--Narc

Jack0fAllGames

Unfortunately for us, the devs don't seem to share your opinion about there not being a wrong way to play the game. Otherwise the original form of cupcakes wouldn't have had to die.

Jack0fAllGames

I definitely feel like there is at least one particular "wrong" way to play the game though. There's got to be a line between not checking/skipping anyone, and intentionally targeting another player to the extent that the attacker purposely destroys their own points in order to make hits hurt more. When does that become bullying?

fmftint

Jack0fAllGames wrote:

I definitely feel like there is at least one particular "wrong" way to play the game though. There's got to be a line between not checking/skipping anyone, and intentionally targeting another player to the extent that the attacker purposely destroys their own points in order to make hits hurt more. When does that become bullying?

Yeah... enforcers really shouldn't be able to dump points

San Narciso

Jack0fAllGames wrote:

Unfortunately for us, the devs don't seem to share your opinion about there not being a wrong way to play the game. Otherwise the original form of cupcakes wouldn't have had to die.

I could see this turning into a discussion about cupcakes and whether or not the devs should have eliminated them (which I actually agree with, for what it's worth, since I appreciate the challenge and believe that skill/roster strength should be a more valuable factor in the game); however, I believe the No Wrong Way To Play statement would be innately established within the boundaries/codes constructed by said developers.

Vhailorx

I think this thread (and probably this whole forum) demonstrates that himans are really really good at rationalizing an argument that just happens to support whatever position their id prefers.

(And i include myself in that statement)

boostedseo

I agree with narc. There are really only community created rules, and opinions about who follows/breaks those rules. The game is pvp. Outside of your own team, I don't know any other pvp game that involves so much collusion. Ask an fps player when it's ok to hit him. I also understand grilling as a means to help develop smaller rosters, but within the context of a team, and up to progression. Beyond that it's pointless.

Don't want to use paragraphs, so I'll stop.

acescracked

Hahaha yeah like how the UsualSuspects play. Holy moly you guys *hate* getting hit.

Hit one of you guys in a climb and a bunch of usuals hit for 15 to 30 points. It's fine I'll take the juicy retals. I always climb last 2 hours so all of you are points ahead or one or two same points.

It appears you guys aren't any better than others who grumble about getting "sniped".

San Narciso

acescracked wrote:

Hahaha yeah like how the UsualSuspects play. Holy moly you guys *hate* getting hit.

Hit one of you guys in a climb and a bunch of usuals hit for 15 to 30 points. It's fine I'll take the juicy retals. I always climb last 2 hours so all of you are points ahead or one or two same points.

It appears you guys aren't any better than others who grumble about getting "sniped".

You kidding? We love the hits! Gives us some direction on how to play each event. It's a choose your own adventure book. And when we're off slice playing freely and farming iso, etc., hits keep our points down so we can keep hitting others without climbing. "Enforcers" are our favorite. They Save from dumping, etc. It's all fun and games.

Jarvind

In this thread: a troll trolls.

Daiches

DaBeast911

I agree with Narc. If players want to inflate their scores for some amazing unforeseen prize, I'll take the pleasure in deflating them for my unforseen prize. The game is good without cupcakes but the real fun lies in the LINE app...oh the many messages from people in different shards, complaining and whining about being hit. Snipers snipe, if you're worth 75, I'm hitting, if I don't like you, I'll do it repeatedly, over and over again, until you're worth 0 and then I'll dump all my points and repeat. It's just the way I play, my choice my, way. Some may not like it but you play the game the way you wish.

I'm in UsualSuspects and we welcome the hits, as many as you like, puts our directional compass in the right direction. No complaining or whining here, please hit me if you see me out, I welcome all hits. Cupcakes should've been dead a long time ago, if you want someone to hold your hand, go play Candy Crush....

And Daiches, I'll be visiting your shard real soon, I mean really soon....climb while you can and shield as much as possible and shield fast, really fast....

Calnexin

fmftint wrote:

Yeah... enforcers really shouldn't be able to dump points

Why not?

They hurt their personal score to do so. They take a risk in doing so, and they've accepted that role within their alliance. It's kind of what an alliance is for. Beyond raw point gain, decreasing the value of a direct competitor potentially helps the alliance to a better prize.

I'm not a fan of vengeance. Hitting someone a dozen times for a minor infraction seems a little over the line. That's intimidation. The long-term benefit is you make that player gun-shy about hitting you or anyone in your alliance, but it makes the game less fun.

JHawkInc

boostedseo wrote:

I agree with narc. There are really only community created rules, and opinions about who follows/breaks those rules. The game is pvp. Outside of your own team, I don't know any other pvp game that involves so much collusion. Ask an fps player when it's ok to hit him. I also understand grilling as a means to help develop smaller rosters, but within the context of a team, and up to progression. Beyond that it's pointless.

Don't want to use paragraphs, so I'll stop.

Emphasis mine. The collusion is the most weird and out of place thing for me in MPQs PVP. I kinda wish it had something like Hearthstone, where you don't even know your opponent until you go into the fight, focus on the win/loss ratio rather than "who has the best Line team." Let people compete based on their ability at the game, not whether or not they've magically stumbled across the out-of-game etiquette and community.

nyck1118

DaBeast911 wrote:

I agree with Narc. If players want to inflate their scores for some amazing unforeseen prize, I'll take the pleasure in deflating them for my unforseen prize. The game is good without cupcakes but the real fun lies in the LINE app...oh the many messages from people in different shards, complaining and whining about being hit. Snipers snipe, if you're worth 75, I'm hitting, if I don't like you, I'll do it repeatedly, over and over again, until you're worth 0 and then I'll dump all my points and repeat. It's just the way I play, my choice my, way. Some may not like it but you play the game the way you wish.

I'm in UsualSuspects and we welcome the hits, as many as you like, puts our directional compass in the right direction. No complaining or whining here, please hit me if you see me out, I welcome all hits. Cupcakes should've been dead a long time ago, if you want someone to hold your hand, go play Candy Crush....

And Daiches, I'll be visiting your shard real soon, I mean really soon....climb while you can and shield as much as possible and shield fast, really fast....

mohio

JHawkInc wrote:

boostedseo wrote:

I agree with narc. There are really only community created rules, and opinions about who follows/breaks those rules. The game is pvp. Outside of your own team, I don't know any other pvp game that involves so much collusion. Ask an fps player when it's ok to hit him. I also understand grilling as a means to help develop smaller rosters, but within the context of a team, and up to progression. Beyond that it's pointless.

Don't want to use paragraphs, so I'll stop.

Emphasis mine. The collusion is the most weird and out of place thing for me in MPQs PVP. I kinda wish it had something like Hearthstone, where you don't even know your opponent until you go into the fight, focus on the win/loss ratio rather than "who has the best Line team." Let people compete based on their ability at the game, not whether or not they've magically stumbled across the out-of-game etiquette and community.

So as not to completely hijack this thread I'll say this about the OP - I love Narc, he's a cool guy and all that (as are all the UsualSuspects I've "met"), but I think he's mostly just trolling here. But, every good story needs a villain, so point hoarders look at "snipers" and say those guys are bad, and indiscriminate attackers/occasional snipers think point hoarders are foolishly forcing everyone else to shield hop a million times needlessly (let's face it, they are - there are no rewards past 1200!). In the end I have to agree with his premise that there is no wrong way to play the game so long as you yourself are enjoying it.

About collusion - if you're well-versed in the history of MPQ and the rewards, it all makes perfect sense. Only recently have placement rewards even remotely been worth trying hard for, so "colluding" with a bunch of other people to get everyone the "best" reward (i.e. the 25 cp at max prog) made the most sense. If d3/demiurge see this continued "collusion" as a bad thing, the easiest way to eliminate it is to roll out higher clearance levels with even better placement rewards. You'll never be able to eliminate it completely as alliances will at the very least continue to work together, but you might not see as many 100+ member rooms where 10+ people are fighting for placement with each other. I could go on but I'll leave it at that.

SpiderKev

San Narciso wrote:

Sure our hardwired personal perspectives and metaperspectives divide us (look at the United States right now), but just play the dang game and make the best of it. Am I right? I might not be, but maybe I am. Either way, I hope to see you on the battlefield...

--Narc

I for one would like to hear more about your thoughts and hypotheses about inequalities in America.

JHawkInc

mohio wrote:

JHawkInc wrote:

boostedseo wrote:

I agree with narc. There are really only community created rules, and opinions about who follows/breaks those rules. The game is pvp. Outside of your own team, I don't know any other pvp game that involves so much collusion. Ask an fps player when it's ok to hit him. I also understand grilling as a means to help develop smaller rosters, but within the context of a team, and up to progression. Beyond that it's pointless.

Don't want to use paragraphs, so I'll stop.

Emphasis mine. The collusion is the most weird and out of place thing for me in MPQs PVP. I kinda wish it had something like Hearthstone, where you don't even know your opponent until you go into the fight, focus on the win/loss ratio rather than "who has the best Line team." Let people compete based on their ability at the game, not whether or not they've magically stumbled across the out-of-game etiquette and community.

So as not to completely hijack this thread I'll say this about the OP - I love Narc, he's a cool guy and all that (as are all the UsualSuspects I've "met"), but I think he's mostly just trolling here. But, every good story needs a villain, so point hoarders look at "snipers" and say those guys are bad, and indiscriminate attackers/occasional snipers think point hoarders are foolishly forcing everyone else to shield hop a million times needlessly (let's face it, they are - there are no rewards past 1200!). In the end I have to agree with his premise that there is no wrong way to play the game so long as you yourself are enjoying it.

About collusion - if you're well-versed in the history of MPQ and the rewards, it all makes perfect sense. Only recently have placement rewards even remotely been worth trying hard for, so "colluding" with a bunch of other people to get everyone the "best" reward (i.e. the 25 cp at max prog) made the most sense. If d3/demiurge see this continued "collusion" as a bad thing, the easiest way to eliminate it is to roll out higher clearance levels with even better placement rewards. You'll never be able to eliminate it completely as alliances will at the very least continue to work together, but you might not see as many 100+ member rooms where 10+ people are fighting for placement with each other. I could go on but I'll leave it at that.

I get where it comes from, and why. That's why I suggested a blind opponent system like Hearthstone, to remove the ability to collude entirely. Certainly not a perfect suggestion (not really a need for shields in such a system, for one, which wouldn't exactly be a solid financial move for the game, and there's no sense in trying to reate an "idealistically better" PVP system if it causes the game to end), but it would make Versus more "player vs player" and less "player and advisers vs the system" or whatever. It'd make Versus more about playing the game and less about managing a system outside the game.

But maybe MPQ is too entrenched in the current system to change. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not even something the Dev team has the ability to change (from the standpoint of not enough manpower, not a high enough priority, you know?). Maybe we'll get some better rewards and higher SCLs to help balance it out (real good time to look at rolling out SCL9, and both PVE/PVP sides of things could use rewards more in line with what the players are actually putting into the game).

I agree that there's not really a wrong way to play the game, but it would be nice if we could live in a world where the community couldn't enforce otherwise, too. Sometimes you just want to sit down and punch away at the game a little, and it'd be nice if a good streak at PVP were rewarded by the game, instead of punished by imaginary etiquette, you know?

San Narciso

I agree that there's not really a wrong way to play the game, but it would be nice if we could live in a world where the community couldn't enforce otherwise, too. Sometimes you just want to sit down and punch away at the game a little, and it'd be nice if a good streak at PVP were rewarded by the game, instead of punished by imaginary etiquette, you know?

I have a secondary game I play that is exactly what you're describing here. I love it for that mindless, let's just keep grinding and see how far I can advance, play style. But I am a fan of MPQ for the intrinsic competition in PVP with the many convoluted, revolving factors that affect it. They're both great for very different reasons.

Sm0keyJ0e

San Narciso wrote:

I agree that there's not really a wrong way to play the game, but it would be nice if we could live in a world where the community couldn't enforce otherwise, too. Sometimes you just want to sit down and punch away at the game a little, and it'd be nice if a good streak at PVP were rewarded by the game, instead of punished by imaginary etiquette, you know?

I have a secondary game I play that is exactly what you're describing here. I love it for that mindless, let's just keep grinding and see how far I can advance, play style. But I am a fan of MPQ for the intrinsic competition in PVP with the many convoluted, revolving factors that affect it. They're both great for very different reasons.

There's also a mindless mode in MPQ called "PVE".

Matt Murdock

I do think there is a "wrong" way to play. Dumping and sniping people is just a rude thing to do. Is it against the rules? No. Is it a valid way to play the game? Sure. Is it uplifting to the community? No.

To address the point being made about "imaginary rewards". Okay, there is no progression reward after 1200. So what? They may need more points to secure the placement they want. They may need the points for their season score. They may want to help their alliance place well. Likely it is all of the above, which are very real rewards. I fail to see how this is hard to grasp. On top of that, sometimes sniping happens earlier. A lot of people in my slice have been getting sniped *before* they hit 1200 (not just hit, I know they are snipes. When you see someone climb past you then drop down and lurk waiting for you to go out, you can be certain of it). So there is a very real reward you are preventing them from getting.

Im not going to tell anyone how to play the game. I have no right to do so. However, I do believe that you should not limit the game experience of others just because you have the roster to enforce your will on them. Might does not make right. As jack said, at what point does it become bullying? You want to take others' MPQ lunch money? If you want to make comparisons to real life, bullying in school would likely be stopped, even cyber-bullying is frowned upon. Intimidation in the workplace would likely not be tolerated. Why is it allowed in a game? Because it's just a game, sure. But a game that many of us have spent real money on. When you snipe me, you are not gonna stop me from having fun and enjoying the game. All it does is cause me to spend more HP on shields. Essentially, you are saying, "there's no wrong way to play the game.... but because I'm stronger than you I am going to prevent you from playing the way you want to, or basically cause you to waste money if you want to continue playing your way." You say there is no wrong way to play. I would agree, until it gets to the point that you are preventing others from playing the way they choose. At that point, to me it becomes *morally* wrong. You say "do your thing your way". Yet your way, if I understand it correctly (again I am speaking generally about certain snipers, not necessarily you narc), consists of preventing others from playing their way. You say one thing, but mean another. I cant understand what enjoyment can be got from that. I guess its just trolling at the end of the day.

In any case, if you get your kicks off of being a jerk, there is nothing I can do about that. I just want you to know that you are indeed being a jerk (speaking generally to people who purposefully dump and snipe). And maybe it makes you happy to hear that, idk. I dont really care. I just dont want to hear about how sniping is an acceptable form of play. I will put up with it. But stop asking for me to condone it and say there is nothing wrong. It is a lesser way to play. Carry on.