Please define what tappers are in MPQ.
A player that hits a 3/4 point pve node for HOURS you secure placement
Just to play devil’s advocate (and maybe why the OP was written) … is there a cutoff somewhere between “scumbag tapper” and “oh he just tapped for 30-60 minutes, no big deal”? Or is all tapping bad? Would this cutoff be at 1 hr? 2hrs?
I ask because I often see people say a variation of “I just mistimed my grind so I tapped for 15 minutes after I finished (or mid grind maybe), but that doesn’t really count”. No one seems to be getting villified for this, just the ones that end up with many hundreds of points more than everyone else and you just know there’s only one way they could have done that.
My thinking is there is no “scumbag” point on it. Healthy or not, dev intention or not, the game mechanics currently allow it. So if someone is willing to do it non-stop they deserve that higher placement.
No, tapping is tapping. I certainly can’t see how much time someone spends as relevant. For instance, if player A taps for 3 hours and gets 400 extra points and player B taps for 1 hour and gets 600 extra points, player B will always come out on top with less time spent tapping. I wish tapping wasn’t a thing, I liked actual competition better. But at the same time I don’t fault anyone for tapping while it’s a legit game mechanic. You have to tap if you want 1st or accept the fact that you won’t get 1st until it’s fixed. Simple as that.
Tapping after you finished your grind isn’t really tapping. It’s also not optimal. Hitting a node repeatedly for 4 points or less BEFORE your final grind is tapping, and if you do it you are bad and should feel bad.
The only time i ever did it in earnest was after they dropped the point values on the 5e node in SCL7, and I missed the memo that you needed to be doing more than 4X clears across each sub to get full pogression. I suddenly found myself scrambling across the last day to squeeze out just enough points to get there.
Anyone who plays beyond 4/4, 6/6, or 8/8 clears when the rewards per match end.
Intentional hardcore tappers will tap a specific node up to multiple hours prior to the optimal grinding time.
Intentional moderate tappers will start optimal grind 5-20 minutes early to leave time at end of sub to tap a node.
Unitentional tappers will mistime their optimal grind time and use left over time to try and gain a few more points with the remaining time.
I don’t think that’s really the case, certainly not the group people are up and arms about.
First 5/4 & 7/6 are part of optimal right? No idea where a node ever requires 8.
Second. Some one who does 4 clears, then 3 clears at T -4 hours left in the event, then taps for 30 minutes (or anything less than the entire rest of the time, probably not even then) won’t break the scoring of someone playing optimal so they certainly aren’t the people earning the anger of the T10 ten and up clubhouse.
Yes, 5/4, 7/6 is optimal.
For cl9, top end rosters optimal grind end time is anywhere for 22-40 minutes for most non-wave subs depending on nodes. So the moderate would go from optimal of 25 to starting at say 40 to get in an extra 15 minutes.
The hardcore will start 2 hours out and tap on one node until the 25 minute mark and then do normal grind.
In order to place top 50 (and get that coveted 100 hp) it’s almost always necessary to do 7 clears. At least that is what i’m experiencing. The reward cut-off between top 50 and 51-100 etc is so big, it warrants some extra clears, which some might consider tapping. Relying on the game for hp, im willing (and kinda forced) to go the extra mile.
In SCL7, if i do my first round of clears reasonably close to the event start time, and then my last round of clears somewhere in the vicinity of the closing time, I’m generally able to t50 outside of character release events.
…the 2nd and 3rd are kind of 2 facets of the same thing though. I start a few minutes early because I get distracted easily and I’m allowing myself room for error.
Does the “moderate” scenario actually provide an advantage? I think you need to tap quite a bit longer than 5-20 minutes to break even versus a perfectly-timed optimal grind.
Yes, they’re not too dissimilar but there are people who leave that time at end specifically for tapping, others it happens more by accident due to RL distraction or unintended mistiming.
You can look at LB and clearly tell difference between the 3 groups. Group 1 will be several hundred points ahead, group 2 will be closer to 20-50 ahead, and then group 3 all clusters together within a few points.
It does assuming you can get enough taps in during that time. If you can tap enough to add say 30 points in 10 minutes that will outweigh the point re-gen loss.
It really is a function of how fast you can clear the node issue. Some rosters can win in 2 rounds which changes the math on timing.
I didn’t understand what tapping was either. And now realize I’m definitely in a bracket with a tapper. 
Is it when I hit refresh on the forums every 30 seconds to see if Brigby has posted Civil War info yet?