5* Soft-Capping: Worth It?

firethorne

Fightmastermpq wrote:

broll wrote:

Fightmastermpq wrote:

Friends don't let friends softcap.

You say that a lot, but do you have a reason or you just like the tagline?

Softcapping is counter to the spirit and integrity of the game, and done to abuse scaling/MMR mechanics that only exist because the devs admittedly don't understand 5* play. If you softcap your 5*s you are bad and you should feel bad.

Fightmastermpq wrote:

I guess my point is that cupcakes are "normal play" because they are a byproduct of all the current game mechanics:

- Points/Progression/Competition: Progression rewards, player ranks, and alliance ranks make high scores desirable, so people want to score high.
- ELO mechanic/shields: Because you lose more points to losses from people that are much lower than you, the higher you climb the more incentive you have to protect those points....with shields.
- Coordination/truces: Since the desire to score high is universal, and points can be injected into the slice through shields, higher scores can be had if players agree to band together in groups and only attack group members when shielded to boost scores.
- Speed/shield hopping: Since you can't be friendly with everyone and there are competitive players out there fighting for top placement rank (see first bullet) it becomes crucial to minimize the amount of time you remain unshielded with a high score, and minimize the amount of points non-friendly players can take from you and so you shield hop.
- Cupcakes: Since speed is so important the best way to maximize your shield hops is to be able to fight several teams very quickly. Since you are coordinating with a group you can all bake cupcakes for each other to all get larger hops and boost all scores.

There is nothing abnormal or exploitive about it, it's just the optimization of the current mechanics.

Softcapping is in no way more exploitative than cupcakes were. As you said, it is just the optimization of the current mechanics.

Vhailorx

Fightmastermpq wrote:

broll wrote:

Fightmastermpq wrote:

Friends don't let friends softcap.

You say that a lot, but do you have a reason or you just like the tagline?

Softcapping is counter to the spirit and integrity of the game, and done to abuse scaling/MMR mechanics that only exist because the devs admittedly don't understand 5* play. If you softcap your 5*s you are bad and you should feel bad.

Please! Softcapping is just making a conscious decision to maximize your performance/enjoyment of the game given the existing systems of the game. It's no different purposefully sniping people in pvp or hoarding LTs until there is a group of 3 new 5*s that you really want to cover. Whether it is the "spirit" of the game or not, it is permitted by the game and is an acceptable form of play. (Note that i am not a fan of targeted sniping, but i wouldn't argue that anyone who does it is cheating or playing wrong. They are just choosing to be a bit of troll.)

I think it makes a ton of sense to softcap the next tier up (and beyond) relative to your roster until you uave several characters all ready to oevel up at the same time. So if you are a 2* player, cap your 3*s (and 4*s and 5*s) untill you have 3-5 good 3*s ready to level up all at once. Imi that is the smartest way to deploy resources.

Other people can and will enjoy playing the game differently and they shouldn't feel badly about it.

broll

Fightmastermpq wrote:

broll wrote:

This would be like an NFL coach trying persuade other coaches not to use the challenge flag because video review of ref calls is 'counter to the spirit and integrity of the game'

No, more it's like coaching your players to fake a flop to get a call. Sure it's within the bounds of the game (except in the NHL which has diving/embellishment penalties), but that doesn't mean you aren't a piece of tinykitty if you do it.

So leveling your characters to a usable level is equal in your eyes to faking an injury? I would say being completely unwilling to use a character until it's championed would be closer to faking an injury. "Coach can I go back in the game I feel fine." "Nope sorry, until you're the faster person on the team I'm not satisfied you're fully healed. Go sit on the bench and let's keep wasting the money we're spending on your salary"

broll

Fightmastermpq wrote:

I'm not talking about ISO or cover shortages, I'm talking about people that have fully covered (or close to fully covered) 5*s on their roster THAT THEY USE, but are intentionally keeping under-leveled to gain an advantage over others.

Then how is your advice related to the OPs question? He stated that he's a 4* transitioner with 1 4*. It's statistically preposterous that he has only 1 4* champ but full covered 5*. You're just back peddling now...

Fightmastermpq

firethorne wrote:

Softcapping is in no way more exploitative than cupcakes were. As you said, it is just the optimization of the current mechanics.

I understand that, but that post was before the devs changed the game mechanics to drive the meta closer to the spirit of play that they want to have. They have said that they are looking in to scaling, and IMO it's largely because softcappers have an unfair, unintended advantage over others.

Wjohnson992

Fightmastermpq wrote:

broll wrote:

Fightmastermpq wrote:

Friends don't let friends softcap.

You say that a lot, but do you have a reason or you just like the tagline?

Softcapping is counter to the spirit and integrity of the game, and done to abuse scaling/MMR mechanics that only exist because the devs admittedly don't understand 5* play. If you softcap your 5*s you are bad and you should feel bad.

Or you should just enjoy playing pve if you dont want to be spending a holy **** tonne of gold on shields.

If you play pve you are not bad and you shouldn't feel bad.

Fightmastermpq

Wjohnson992 wrote:

[Or you should just enjoy playing pve if you dont want to be spending a holy tinykitty tonne of gold on shields.

If you play pve you are not bad and you shouldn't feel bad.

If you level your 5s you won't need to spend as much "gold" on shields.

Wjohnson992

Fightmastermpq wrote:

Wjohnson992 wrote:

[Or you should just enjoy playing pve if you dont want to be spending a holy tinykitty tonne of gold on shields.

If you play pve you are not bad and you shouldn't feel bad.

If you level your 5s you won't need to spend as much "gold" on shields.

Erm wink indeed, other people have leveled and champed 5*'s, if you dont shield you can forget any kind of placement. Alliance mates have lost 200pts after forgetting a shield. You should know this.

firethorne

Fightmastermpq wrote:

firethorne wrote:

Softcapping is in no way more exploitative than cupcakes were. As you said, it is just the optimization of the current mechanics.

I understand that, but that post was before the devs changed the game mechanics to drive the meta closer to the spirit of play that they want to have. They have said that they are looking in to scaling, and IMO it's largely because softcappers have an unfair, unintended advantage over others.

But, that still doesn't mean that this "spirit of play" that they want is any good. We all know that what the devs lay out and what is actually enjoyable can be miles apart. If the benefit to leveling 5*s is questionable, if the people that don't level have such an advantage, then it should be on the dev's to rectify that, not for people to intentionally handicap themselves in some sort of act of feigned nobility. In fact, accepting a broken system and playing into it gives the dev's less of a reason to fix a clearly broken system. The more people that abstain from their broken system, the more they have to admit it is broken.

mohio

Wjohnson992 wrote:

Fightmastermpq wrote:

Wjohnson992 wrote:

[Or you should just enjoy playing pve if you dont want to be spending a holy tinykitty tonne of gold on shields.

If you play pve you are not bad and you shouldn't feel bad.

If you level your 5s you won't need to spend as much "gold" on shields.

Erm wink indeed, other people have leveled and champed 5*'s, if you dont shield you can forget any kind of placement. Alliance mates have lost 200pts after forgetting a shield. You should know this.

cmon now - you're just straw-manning all over the place now. I can easily refute this in two different ways...

1) He said "as much 'gold'" - all he's saying is you won't need to shield hop as much since you can climb higher and hop longer with less risk.

2) Nothing is stopping you with your champion 5* from joining late and climbing until the end. You can often place pretty well doing that and you could either not shield at all or use just one single shield. If your 5s are smaller than other late climber's 5s you may find it hard, but that's the risk you take when you decide to be a late climber.

astrp3

Fightmastermpq wrote:

I believe the devs have said that they don't like softcapping and the champ feature was designed in many ways to try to encourage people not toe softcap. They also removed cupcakes because they didn't like those either, so you can get a good feel for what they think the spirit of the game is.

It mostly applies to 5*s as 5* scaling/MMR is the most broken, and it is gaming the system specifically to gain a PvE advantage. When I talk about softcapping, I'm not talking about ISO or cover shortages, I'm talking about people that have fully covered (or close to fully covered) 5*s on their roster THAT THEY USE, but are intentionally keeping under-leveled to gain an advantage over others.

But do the devs not like softcapping because they feel it is unfair to other players or because it's unfair that a player who gets covers for a 5* feels they can't use them? I would guess that a number of players who softcap don't like doing it either, but feel they have to in order to progress.

I just rostered my first 5*s this weekend because I am now at a point where I usually have three boosted 3*s so adding a 5* won't affect my scaling. Before that, I sold off about a dozen 5*s and didn't like the fact that I had to do so at all. When you pull a 5* from an LT and immediately say "Oh tinykitty, another 5*," it seems like something is rotten in the state of MPQ. I don't plan on using my 5*s until I get them adequately covered, but I'd still rather not have had to sell them off.

Then again, I don't like scaling period, no matter how it's done. I first encountered it in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and hated it. I've played lots of RPGs over the years (starting with Wizardry I - yes, I'm that old), and always enjoyed leveling up and building my characters almost as much as I enjoyed completing the story. With scaling, I felt there was no point in leveling them up at all. For RPGs, I preferred the old-school method, where leveling up characters meant you could either beat up on the easy sections of the game (though the rewards wouldn't be worth it) or proceed to the harder areas of the game that weren't open to you before.

Of course, MPQ is a competitive game, so removing scaling entirely would be more difficult. I think there are ways they could do it, but it's kind of a moot point since I don't think it's ever going to happen.

As for grilling/cupcakes etc. (I'm not up on the lingo as I have never used a Line room), one could argue (and I'm not saying I agree) it isn't in the spirit of the game to benefit from anything besides your own roster strength and skill, other than when the developers intended that you do so. Alliance events are designed specifically for alliances to cooperate but I'd guess that the devs never intended for people to do so for individual awards in PvP. But as you say, that's probably another thread.

Wjohnson992

mohio wrote:

Wjohnson992 wrote:

Fightmastermpq wrote:

Wjohnson992 wrote:

[Or you should just enjoy playing pve if you dont want to be spending a holy tinykitty tonne of gold on shields.

If you play pve you are not bad and you shouldn't feel bad.

If you level your 5s you won't need to spend as much "gold" on shields.

Erm wink indeed, other people have leveled and champed 5*'s, if you dont shield you can forget any kind of placement. Alliance mates have lost 200pts after forgetting a shield. You should know this.

cmon now - you're just straw-manning all over the place now. I can easily refute this in two different ways...

1) He said "as much 'gold'" - all he's saying is you won't need to shield hop as much since you can climb higher and hop longer with less risk.

2) Nothing is stopping you with your champion 5* from joining late and climbing until the end. You can often place pretty well doing that and you could either not shield at all or use just one single shield. If your 5s are smaller than other late climber's 5s you may find it hard, but that's the risk you take when you decide to be a late climber.

I dont have champion 5*'s. I'm just showing a basic understanding of game mechanics. Joining late would be a solution I guess but there will be much less xp and iso gained that way I imagine.

mohio

Wjohnson992 wrote:

I dont have champion 5*'s. I'm just showing a basic understanding of game mechanics. Joining late would be a solution I guess but there will be much less xp and iso gained that way I imagine.

Sorry, didn't mean YOU individually, more the collective you, as in anyone reading this (who has max covered 5*). As for the xp/iso, it's probably not too different depending on your normal strategy. If you join right away and climb to float immediately, or maybe even do a drop grill kind of thing for a day and a half, then yeah you will make much less iso. If your normal play is to join 18-24 hours out, climb to shield and then shield hop, you're not really doing that many fewer matches by being a late climber. You'll hit more 65+ point matches, so you may do 7 or 8 fewer matches, but that's not a large amount compared to what you can get in PvE or LRs.

Fightmastermpq

astrp3 wrote:

But do the devs not like softcapping because they feel it is unfair to other players or because it's unfair that a player who gets covers for a 5* feels they can't use them? I would guess that a number of players who softcap don't like doing it either, but feel they have to in order to progress.

I just rostered my first 5*s this weekend because I am now at a point where I usually have three boosted 3*s so adding a 5* won't affect my scaling. Before that, I sold off about a dozen 5*s and didn't like the fact that I had to do so at all. When you pull a 5* from an LT and immediately say "Oh tinykitty, another 5*," it seems like something is rotten in the state of MPQ. I don't plan on using my 5*s until I get them adequately covered, but I'd still rather not have had to sell them off.

Then again, I don't like scaling period, no matter how it's done. I first encountered it in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and hated it. I've played lots of RPGs over the years (starting with Wizardry I - yes, I'm that old), and always enjoyed leveling up and building my characters almost as much as I enjoyed completing the story. With scaling, I felt there was no point in leveling them up at all. For RPGs, I preferred the old-school method, where leveling up characters meant you could either beat up on the easy sections of the game (though the rewards wouldn't be worth it) or proceed to the harder areas of the game that weren't open to you before.

Of course, MPQ is a competitive game, so removing scaling entirely would be more difficult. I think there are ways they could do it, but it's kind of a moot point since I don't think it's ever going to happen.

As for grilling/cupcakes etc. (I'm not up on the lingo as I have never used a Line room), one could argue (and I'm not saying I agree) it isn't in the spirit of the game to benefit from anything besides your own roster strength and skill, other than when the developers intended that you do so. Alliance events are designed specifically for alliances to cooperate but I'd guess that the devs never intended for people to do so for individual awards in PvP. But as you say, that's probably another thread.

If they didn't want alliances to work together in PvP then IMO they wouldn't have alliance rewards there.

astrp3

Fightmastermpq wrote:

If they didn't want alliances to work together in PvP then IMO they wouldn't have alliance rewards there.

Yes, they intend for alliances to work together for alliance rewards, but I am not sure they want them working together for individual rewards - at least not using the methods that some people use. I may well be wrong, but my guess is that they intended for people to succeed in PvP and gain individual rewards based on individual effort and individual skill/rosters and to gain alliance rewards by combining such individual success, and not hby collusion. I.e. the alliances that did best would be those that had the best individual players in them, not the ones that colluded the most. I'm mostly OK with softcapping and with collusion, but the latter seems much more like gaming the system to me than the former (though I don't fault people for doing either). I seriously doubt that the devs had enforcers in mind when they came up with alliance rewards. And whether they wanted people to work together with people outside of their alliance is another question.

One area where they clearly did want alliances to work together for individual rewards is team-ups, but they also put limits on them to keep them from being abused.

tgibbs40

Fightmastermpq wrote:

If they didn't want alliances to work together in PvP then IMO they wouldn't have alliance rewards there.

If they wanted "alliances" of more than 20 they'd open up the limitations on that too...

Wjohnson992

Fightmastermpq wrote:

astrp3 wrote:

But do the devs not like softcapping because they feel it is unfair to other players or because it's unfair that a player who gets covers for a 5* feels they can't use them? I would guess that a number of players who softcap don't like doing it either, but feel they have to in order to progress.

I just rostered my first 5*s this weekend because I am now at a point where I usually have three boosted 3*s so adding a 5* won't affect my scaling. Before that, I sold off about a dozen 5*s and didn't like the fact that I had to do so at all. When you pull a 5* from an LT and immediately say "Oh tinykitty, another 5*," it seems like something is rotten in the state of MPQ. I don't plan on using my 5*s until I get them adequately covered, but I'd still rather not have had to sell them off.

Then again, I don't like scaling period, no matter how it's done. I first encountered it in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and hated it. I've played lots of RPGs over the years (starting with Wizardry I - yes, I'm that old), and always enjoyed leveling up and building my characters almost as much as I enjoyed completing the story. With scaling, I felt there was no point in leveling them up at all. For RPGs, I preferred the old-school method, where leveling up characters meant you could either beat up on the easy sections of the game (though the rewards wouldn't be worth it) or proceed to the harder areas of the game that weren't open to you before.

Of course, MPQ is a competitive game, so removing scaling entirely would be more difficult. I think there are ways they could do it, but it's kind of a moot point since I don't think it's ever going to happen.

As for grilling/cupcakes etc. (I'm not up on the lingo as I have never used a Line room), one could argue (and I'm not saying I agree) it isn't in the spirit of the game to benefit from anything besides your own roster strength and skill, other than when the developers intended that you do so. Alliance events are designed specifically for alliances to cooperate but I'd guess that the devs never intended for people to do so for individual awards in PvP. But as you say, that's probably another thread.

If they didn't want alliances to work together in PvP then IMO they wouldn't have alliance rewards there.

Do you think the devs planned on shield check rooms on LINE? Softcapping for PVE you are just making a decision and utilising the MPQ application. For PVP alliance working together you need to utilise a completely different application. I strongly doubt the devs wanted pvp to rely so heavily on LINE/Messenger etc. Surely if you only care about the devs then surely you would be more disgusted with using additional apps to progress in MPQ?

bbigler

Sure, I'll add to this dogpile......softcapping is simply another strategy of gameplay. Get over it fightmastermpq. It's a game, which means that you're supposed to figure out the best strategy to play it. This has happened in every game ever invented.

Is it wrong to softcap ProfX so that you can play Charlie's Angel's anytime (purple being strongest color)? - No.
Is it wrong to farm 2*s? - No.
Is it wrong to skip teams in PvP until you find an easy one? - No.
Is it wrong to shield hop? - No.
Is it wrong to join a LR early so that you fight the seed teams? - No.
Is it wrong to send a teamup of 1* Widow which only has her Blue power? - No.
Is it wrong to join a buy club? - No.
Is it wrong to softcap Elektra or any other undesirable 4*? - Heck No.
Is it wrong to hoard LL tokens in order to max cover 3 x 5*s? - No.
Is it wrong to softcap 5*s to avoid PvE scaling and get better PvP MMR? - No.

Is it wrong to belligerently force your opinion on other people? - Yes.

huktonfonix

Lots of community bickering on this, but honestly this all goes back to poor game design and should be addressed as such. A very successful game designer (Mark Rosewater, Magic the Gathering) has stated repeatedly that one of the tenets of good game design is to incentivize players to do things that lead to fun game play. If the best ways to succeed at the game involve strategies that are counter intuitive and unfun, players will learn and follow those strategies, but they'll resent the game and eventually quit.

There are examples of counter intuitive, unfun strategies being beneficial in most games, but they're extremely rare in a well-designed game. To carry the football analogies further, think of Brian Westbrook taking a knee on the one yard-line against Dallas instead of scoring, or teams playing their backup QB after clinching the conference. Most of the time it is obviously best to field your strongest team and score as many points as possible, and the times when teams have incentive not to do so tend to cause controversy if not outrage.

Now let's look at a few examples from MPQ:

- (Not) rostering stronger characters - early on in the game I had to sell several 5* characters, because I lucked into them before I had a single complete 3* character and rostering them made the game uplayable for me. Opening a 5* should be a huge boost to a new player and a real feel good moment, but in reality it wrecks the game for them.

- (Not) leveling your strongest characters - the topic of this post. I completed 3* Hulk long before any of my other 3* were finished and shortly after champing was introduced. With an extra cover from the Hulk pve event that I didn't want to waste, and against advice I received in-game and on this forum, I champed him. My shiny new 3* champion, rather than making the game easier for me, punished me severely for prematurely champing a sub-par 3* with my top tier characters weeks or months away. When I had several 4* characters at 13 covers I learned my lesson and didn't start with someone like Elektra, selling covers instead and waiting until I could champion top-tier characters like Cyclops before making that leap. Now I'm forced (?) to do the same with my 13 cover Natasha until I can luck into at least one more covered 5* to pair with her.

- PVP Shields (paying not to play) - A frequent topic of frustration on these forums. The post generally goes something like this: "I had an afternoon free and some spare health packs, and I really wanted reward X, so I decided to PVP for a few hours. I got to (100 points short of reward X), and then I played a match, and I came out down 150 points. So I played another, and came out down another 150 points. I played like that for 3 hours and ended up 200 points below where I started. I hate PVP." This is immediately followed, inevitably, by kindhearted explanations of float points and shield hopping, which is obviously the correct strategy as the game is designed. However, from a logic and fun standpoint, the idea that the best way to succeed in a game is to pay in-game (and possibly real) currency for shields so that you can no longer play for a few hours is ludicrous. There's a reason this comes up again and again, despite the sound advice dished out on these forums every time. Playing less in order to score higher makes no sense. I'm not interested in arguing the many (often very bad) proposed solutions to this, just pointing out that the base design is silly.

- PVE refresh timers (punished for playing more) - similar to the above, the optimal PVE strategy after 4 clears is to wait almost 24 hours before playing again. This has been debated and discussed endlessly, and there have been some attempts to mitigate (24 hour refresh versus 8) that are at best half measures and at worst a step in the wrong direction. Regardless of your feelings on this, it is counter intuitive and causes players to be locked into unfun strategies for playing if they want top placement.

TL;DR - we can argue with each other about the right way to play the game, but it is ultimately the responsibility of the game designers to craft a game that properly rewards the style of play that they want and that is fun for the players. This game is littered with countless examples of failures to meet that responsibility, and instead coasts on its addictive nature (pokemon syndrome), popular license, and robust community.

acescracked

bbigler wrote:

. It's a game, which means that you're supposed to figure out the best strategy to play it.
...
Is it wrong to belligerently force your opinion on other people? - Yes.

Sweet, honesty time!

Is it ok to use Line to coordinate PvP shield hops?

Is it ok to set easier defensive teams for other players (cupcakes, grills)?

Is it ok to softcap, then post that PvP is broken because a players underleveled team is an easy target?