You know, if folks are really just interested in the mechanics of it, and not the debate about it, it’s in the FAQ. If you want more info, check there.
I’ve resisted putting anything about trapcakes up because it seems closer to an exploit (esp. when used in LRs) that might be closed by the devs if they thought it was widespread. Is this a valid concern, or should I just write it up for the FAQ to avoid confusion about them?
To be honest, this suggestion would widen the people in your queue. The reason people shield so much is because they can lose 100-200 pts in a mere 10-15 mins. Even when I had Red Hulk out boosted and winning some matches, I still lost so many points. Unless you have a max champed 5*, you will be hit really hard once you climb to 700-800pts depending on your bracket. Right now, people have to play a certain time during shield hops and there is very strict schedule on how they climb. For me I only fight late at night to avoid more attacks on me so that i can climb to 725 to get my 100 hero points. If I climbed during peak periods, I would never make it simply because points I lose once I hit 500-600pts would be more than what I gain.
If the suggestion was taken and implemented, people would be able to fight any time they want because when they are fighting, they know only one person is attacking them at the same time. So as long as they chose a target that is over 40 pts, they will still be in positive points, so they can hop slowly that way without shields.
The current pvp system is broken and the reason why it’s not fixed is purely greed. Shields cost hero points and hero points cost money. There are a few who gain more hero points than they use for shields, but that is the minority of the players out there not the majority. Someone with a 3* roster, would require multiple shields to hop. Even a 4* roster would require some shields to hop.
I never thought of this as cheating. It’s teamwork. Cheating to me means you enter the Konami code, hold down a few buttons to go invisible, or slather your opponent’s controller with icy-hot. The system, as it stands, offers a reward at 1300 points. That is impossible to achieve with standard play. Even with heavy shield use, finding targets valuable enough to mitigate the losses you take is challenging.
I’m not particularly inclined to gain from the scenario, because the meta is difficult. Switching between the game and a chat program is feasible but cumbersome. I am interested in throwing a little bit out there for the people in my bracket, though. If I make it to a satisfying point threshold and intend to shield for the remainder of the event, I think it would be nice to offer other players an easy target - especially if it can benefit my alliance. I don’t want to sacrifice my season rewards to do it, though.
Not “many people.” EVERYONE. The more people who bake & eat cupcakes, the more points everyone in the shard gets. Targets that you attack are worth more. The people with better rosters than you are targeting people with point totals much higher than you would normally achieve, allowing you to reach higher scores without getting attacked into oblivion. There’s a definite and significant trickle-down effect.
…So in the end, you are a cheater by proxy. And since that’s your own interpretation… it’s the only one that could possibly be correct.
Again: He describes a situation in other games where a tank is supported by a healer to fight an enemy and compares it with this situation, but the only common enemy of the cupcake-users is the system. It´s not a fight against someone, its the fight for easy points by abusing this broken system and by revealing himself as a cupcaketarget. My statement is, that is not comparable and this results in my statement, that my interpretation is the only possible.
In no other PVP-game I saw people to sacrifice for their ingame-enemies (!) to raise theirs points. In WoW I know there was a report-button for this matter, which resulted in bans for this behavior.
For proof of this, try to get 1300 in BOP.
Who made you the authority on what others deserve?
If they didn’t want to have coordination they wouldn’t have created alliances. Why wouldn’t an alliance member help out his weaker mates by giving them easy points, and boosting alliance scores and rosters?
Cupcakes are simply the optimization of the current PvP meta.
Has it ever occurred to you this isn’t Wow? You want a PVP example of cup caking? Fine- Magic the Gathering. I used to play PTQ level up back in the day. During tournaments your main goal was to get high enough to purposefully draw in to Top 8. How was this fair to other players? If you played it out, you or your opponent could miss top 8 and that slot would go to someone else (I fell victim to the 9th place due to draws many times). But by drawing, you’d both be in. You and your opponent were often not buds. Why would you help someone else (who is going to be an enemy in 5 mins?). Simple- to benefit you as much as him. CC’s are the same.
Edit- I’ve also straight up conceded to buddies to strengthen their points for positioning.
One of the uses of the report system in MPQ is to report cheaters. So, given the fact that your interpretation is the only one that is possible, simply use the feature to report these bakers as cheaters. D3 could not possibly interpret baking as anything otherwise (given that no other interpretation is possible), and the offenders will be banned. Points will come down. Problem solved.
So the question that begs to be asked is… why are you on the forum posting instead of in the game spamming the report button to rid MPQ of these cheaters?
Back to the original poster: find a Line chat group that plays for a specific time slice and work together with people there for baking. Be prepared to spend a long time looking through names to make sure you don’t hit anyone in the room when they are unshielded.
To the slightly off-topic discussion of whether or not baking is cheating, I think it is screwed up that people need to do this, but I wouldn’t go so far to call it cheating. It certainly does hurt other non-baking players though, as it makes higher scores easier for people that otherwise would not be able to achieve them. As a result of this, D3 left the max progression rewards at impossibly high levels to get through normal play. I have a feeling if less people were hitting max progression, they would lower the threshold for max progression, and thus it would be more achievable for those not using cupcakes. I can’t blame the people that do it, but it is a circular situation with no way out unless D3 does something. D3 has a higher score threshold, so people cupcake to get the higher reward, so D3 thinks the score is achievable and thus leaves the score high, so people continue to cupcake, etc.
I looked up the definition of cheat… none of them match your interpretation. Cupcakes do not fall under the definition of cheating.
Cupcakes do not defraud D3, there are no ill-gotten gains, there is no nefarious intent.
A valid 3 member team beats a different 3 member team for genuine points. PVP. The next time you play PVP, and you get seed teams, I expect you to skip them, because by your own definition D3 is giving you cupcakes and if you beat them for points, you are cheating. Skip those cupcakes that D3 has given you… those cheaters!
I’m just trying to figure out the state of people who lose while baking. Are they cheaters? Or are they masterfully undoing the cupcake system by trying and losing? Makes you think.
FWIW, the retreat boosting was way more of a ‘cheat,’ since you weren’t even trying to win your match. Neither was/is an actual cheat, but if we’re stretching the definition here to Mr. Fantastic levels, it’s worth mentioning.
@tizian - I realize I am just baiting the troll at this point but is there some limit where this phenomenon is acceptable at all? For instance at the end of my initial climb, just before shielding I will usually tell a bunch of friends, “q me I’m shielding after this match”. As many of them have equal or better rosters they will gladly hit me for a decent amount of points after I shield. Is that cheating? What if instead of using my high level 5* I use some championed 4* instead? I made my team intentionally weaker, but it’s still somewhat formidable. Is that okay or cheating? And 3* teams? What about the guys who climbed that high using only 3* because those are their best characters? Should I be forbidden from hitting that guy? And how is his situation somehow different from me climbing with 5* but then putting out a 3* team near the end so people can queue me and hit me after I’ve shielded?
Maybe now you can understand why the system has to be this way and players are simply taking it to it’s most extreme and most beneficial end point.
@notamutant above - while people on LINE coordinating and using cupcakes, etc. to hit max progression, do have an easier time of hitting it more often than not, they are also providing more points to the slice overall which trickles down to all the players who aren’t using LINE to coordinate and they will most likely have an easier time hitting progression because of it.
In fact, I know at least one where it was the only way to get a particular achievement. Look up Guild Wars: Prophecies and what used to be the only way to get the Defender of Ascalon title:
In short, farming bosses (letting them level up on you) was the only way to find enemies strong enough to give you experience at some point. The other ways were introduced much later (compare some earlier revisions of the second Wiki page).
No… but apparently cupcakes fall under the definition of cheating. Got to hand it to tizian… dude knows his stuff:
Seeds are the only way to get points so they are the reason others get points and so on. Seeds are no possibility to gain up to 1300+ points. So they are a legitimate piece of the game.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating
In video games, cheating can take the form of secret access codes in single-player games (such as the Konami code[14]) which unlock a bonus for the player when entered, hacks and exploits which give players an unfair advantage in online multiplayer games and single-player modes, or unfair collusion between players in online games (such as a player who spectates a match, removing limitations such as “fog of war”, and reports on enemy positions to game partners).
It´s unfair to people not using line-communities to spread easy targets which are seen mainly only to people in these communities (because only they know to search for them) and which grant many points to get easy progression to get high rewards etc.
Oh snap, well if Wikipedia says it then it must be true.
We are one comment comparing bakers to Nazis away from this officially becoming an Internet message board topic.
Is insulting the way to debate for you. We will see, if the report I made result in anything.
Why does mpq PvP have to behave or act like other games?
Line usage does not always go hand in hand with cupcakes. Played slice 1 for Cyclops PvP and wasn’t in any of the busy battlechats but found cupcakes just fine. Always waited a min or two before I hit. Then before I used my last shield for the event put out a cupcake waited 30 secs and shielded without informing anyone. Plenty found me.
Many of the people complaining in this thread have a lot of misconceptions about how PvP is played at the top level.
Btw- the op asked a simple question about cupcaking and not the merits of it. Then certain people need to come in and throw their opinions in about cupcaking to feel important.
If D3 supports me with enough Iso to make all the skips all the day to find cupcakers to report them, I´m happy to do it. Otherwise you´re only argument is, that I give not up my life to fight the crimes in the world like Don Quijote.