Classification of "cheating" in games

[Cruduxy Pegg]

6 minutes ago, lwks said:

Category 2 is really funny, I'm not sure but I think if you ask to the speedrun community they'll tell you that "if it's in the game then it's ok" or something like that, if memory serves "no exploits" is a separate speedrun category for most games, I somewhat get it but I'm a subscriber to the "intended experience" school of thought though

Honestly it is super annoying that glitching the fuck out of games is the default category. Especially in big events where you are excited for a game and then the run is out of map bounds the entire game.

[lwks]

Totally agree, doing the thing at all costs it seems, it's similar to bodybuilding scene too, the "right way" to compete is by filling your body with weird shit and dying at 45 or some shit like that (or so I heard), really sad.

[KainXavier]

I'm pretty much of the same mindset a @ICID but there's a few things I'd like to touch on.

Anything built into the game, whether intentional or not, is not cheating so that automatically rules out categories 0 - 2 for me.  Obviously, if you're playing in a group setting and there's an agreed-upon rule-set, things change. 

 

As for category 3, a tool-assisted run is no different from a regular run unless you're actively using it to deceive others or better position yourself in a group activity.

The whole idea of shaming others into conforming to a certain play-style is ridiculous, and it breeds elitism.  Elitism is a plague.  Fun and accessibility are paramount. 

 

Gate-keeping is also heinous.  Content should not be locked behind the hardest difficulty, and players shouldn't have to spend countless hours doing something they don't enjoy just to obtain something they will.  Cheats and exploits are the natural solution to this.  People who take advantage of them are not cheating themselves, they're making better use of their time.  And yes, it may chafe you that they didn't have to struggle like you did, but you can take pride in that knowledge or you know, just get over it, Bennett Foddy.

[Major Arlene]

4 hours ago, DuckReconMajor said:

 

This reminds me of something that annoys me in some PC games, the lack of a "I'm playing around with cheats, please don't put me on any leaderboards or give me any Steam achievements" mode

funny enough, sometimes Steam will automatically disable achievements if you enable console, I honestly wish that was the default tbh.

 

edit: I'm going to smack the next person who says using saves is cheating, unless you're doing endurance runs then using a built-in feature that isn't a cheat code isn't cheating. We can argue a lot about use of jump/crouch/freelook but I think a lot of that boils down to using the wrong or a more advanced source port to achieve that.

[KainXavier]

25 minutes ago, Major Arlene said:

funny enough, sometimes Steam will automatically disable achievements if you enable console, I honestly wish that was the default tbh.

I have mixed feelings on this.  I feel like most achievements are not geared toward group activities so it really shouldn't matter.  For instance, I really want to unlock all of the achievements in the new Quake remaster.  But I really don't want to have to play through the entire campaign again, much less on Nightmare.  I'd totally do it if I could run through the game with cheats enabled, though.  (I'll probably still do it regardless, but I'd rather (re-)experience the newer / shorter content first.)

[Nikku4211]

I find it lame when people consider quicksaving 'cheating'.

 

I don't think it matters how many times you save, quicksaving isn't cheating, at least if you're not recording a demo. Quicksaving is nothing like outright using IDKFA, IDDQD or anything like that.

 

The easy temptation to jump and crouch in ZDoom is exactly why I play vanilla WADs in Chocolate Doom, limit-removing WADs in Crispy Doom, PrBoom+ WADs in PrBoom+, etc. Crispy Doom supports jumping and mouselook, but you have to explicitly enable them in the settings, rather than just having it on by default.

 

Still, quicksaving and quickloading has always been a part of Doom. The load and save options are right there in the vanilla main menu. You don't need to type some code on the keyboard to use them, all you need to do is press F6 and F9. And I am glad quicksaving and quickloading exists, because if they didn't, I wouldn't be as able to get into playing Doom WADs as I was.

[Nine Inch Heels]

30 minutes ago, Major Arlene said:

I'm going to smack the next person who says using saves is cheating, unless you're doing endurance runs then using a built-in feature that isn't a cheat code isn't cheating.

I think one thing people need to learn to tell apart is saving for the sake of not losing too much of their progress (or saves for the purpose of learning and practising), and using saves as a means by which to simulate something like a "human brute force method"... And while I'm not sure I'd call the latter cheating, I would definitely consider it to be something akin to misuse of a feature... I've seen people "save scum" their way into and out of corners multiple times on streams, and nobody who has ever been in that situation has enjoyed themselves, never mind that it doesn't make for a good viewing experience. When anything like that happens, I'd rather people used an actual cheat code if loading an earlier save is not an option instead having them go through a "save/load orgy" that lasts several minutes...

 

I don't know what it is that entices people to "brute force" with saves, but I've always been under the impression that there is some ego involved when it happens... Because save/load orgies are somehow less "ignoble" than admitting to oneself that a fight is beyond one's reach...

[Major Arlene]

Just now, Nine Inch Heels said:

I think one thing people need to learn to tell apart is saving for the sake of not losing too much of their progress (or saves for the purpose of learning and practising), and using saves as a means by which to simulate something like a "human brute force method"... And while I'm not sure I'd call the latter cheating, I would definitely consider it to be something akin to misuse of a feature... I've seen people "save scum" their way into and out of corners multiple times on streams, and nobody who has ever been in that situation has enjoyed themselves, never mind that it doesn't make for a good viewing experience. When anything like that happens, I'd rather people used an actual cheat code if loading an earlier save is not an option instead having them go through a "save/load orgy" that lasts several minutes...

 

I don't know what it is that entices people to "brute force" with saves, but I've always been under the impression that there is some ego involved when it happens... Because save/load orgies are somehow less "ignoble" than admitting to oneself that a fight is beyond one's reach...

I used to use resurrect a lot and people yelled at me for doing that, ergo...

I have found for things like Sunder, where all the challenge is in fact in combat puzzles, I would rather save (I tend to use multiple so that way if I get stuck I can load back to an earlier save and figure out what I can do different). I've had a couple instances in Sigil where I have resurrected though, the crusher puzzle being the main offender. I think its going to depend on a lot of things but mainly player patience. I know Sunder is meant to take a while and I set aside time for that purpose, Sigil, I'm a bit less patient for.

I also savescum for any type of platforming because fuck platforming lol

[Nine Inch Heels]

12 minutes ago, Major Arlene said:

I have found for things like Sunder, where all the challenge is in fact in combat puzzles, I would rather save (I tend to use multiple so that way if I get stuck I can load back to an earlier save and figure out what I can do different).

And this is pretty much how I think the save feature is used best, because rather than saving and loading to force an outcome of some sort, you can take a couple steps back, and think of something better, that will deliver more promising results... And that's not "savescumming"...

 

Savescumming is not developing any understanding of what needs to be done differently in order to produce a favourable outcome, but forcing it somehow in a mix of "save/load + trial/error fashion", and creating a lot of frustration for oneself (and the viewers in the process) <- this is the wrong way to use saves, IMO... It's not cheating in the same way as using any sort of cheat code would be, but it's an annoying process some people have engaged in, in order to get a result they were not meant to achieve with the approach they have chosen to take...

[Mr. Freeze]

5 hours ago, DuckReconMajor said:

 

This reminds me of something that annoys me in some PC games, the lack of a "I'm playing around with cheats, please don't put me on any leaderboards or give me any Steam achievements" mode

 

That's based as fuck. Cheaters shouldn't be rewarded! 

[Nikku4211]

27 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I don't know what it is that entices people to "brute force" with saves, but I've always been under the impression that there is some ego involved when it happens... Because save/load orgies are somehow less "ignoble" than admitting to oneself that a fight is beyond one's reach...

For me, it's the constant thought that I'll lose so much progress. It's the biggest reason I 'save scum', because most of the time, too much is going on in the game session for me to have enough time to properly and accurately assess how much progress I've made, so I just press F6, Y, and move on. Even within a level, some levels are long enough or have long enough fights, that if you die and have to start the whole fight over again, or whole section of a level over again, it's not really fun, at least not for me. If anything, it's more annoying than doing 'trial and error' quicksaves.

 

For me, 'trial and error' quicksaves are things that just happen. They're not really an intentional plan, as I've said before that often too much is going on for me to really have time to police my quicksaving or even plan how I save. Especially not for the sake of some elitist gatekeeper, as someone who was never really 'hardcore' to begin with. For me, playing WADs is all about the fun I have, even if some WADs are harder and longer than others.

[DuckReconMajor]

7 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

That's based as fuck. Cheaters shouldn't be rewarded! 

 

Well, I mean I don't mean it as any kind of moral thing.

Sometimes I want to play around with cheats now, but still want the achievement there to go back for later.

 

An example is when i was playing Jupiter Hell recently.

After playing it for a while I wanted to see if I could hunt down some of the memory addresses in Cheat Engine and play around with that.

It ended up being fun enough I finished the game (on the easiest skill), but it hurt a tiny bit being given the Steam achievement for it, since it's a tiny bit of motivation lost for beating the game legitimately. I probably still will, but my profile still shows I beat the game even though I didn't.

 

That's not a huge issue for me, but if I ended up on a leaderboard because I was messing around, I'd feel really bad. 

Not super likely, but as a neurotic person, it's one of the things I can pointlessly dwell on sometimes

[Nine Inch Heels]

12 minutes ago, Nikku4211 said:

For me, 'trial and error' quicksaves are things that just happen.

You realize there's a difference between something that might happen accidentally, and something people use as their "go-to method" for beating content that's well beyond their understanding..?

 

12 minutes ago, Nikku4211 said:

Especially not for the sake of some elitist gatekeeper, as someone who was never really 'hardcore' to begin with.

Ah yes, of course.... the ever so oppressive elitist gatekeepers... Sure, let's just point fingers at people... Meanwhile, why don't you try and explain to me how getting stuck in a hard fight and somehow forcing an outcome over the course of like 10 minutes is better than punching in IDDQD once and getting it over with in just 2 minutes..? When that's done, we can discuss elitist gatekeepers, and how nobody in this thread is actually acting like one...

[Murdoch]

Exploiting obvious bugs is clearly cheating.

 

Cheat codes are obviously cheating.

 

But saving mid level is cheating? No. Absolute lunacy. I am a busy guy. I don't have time to replay levels over and over due to difficult bits. If you want to play not saving mid level have at it but don't call it cheating.

[Nikku4211]

32 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

You realize there's a difference between something that might happen accidentally, and something people use as their "go-to method" for beating content that's well beyond their understanding..?

Yes, there is. But this is still something that happens enough, yet still out of my direct control enough for it to feel more like a natural part of how I play more than me deliberately trying a 'go-to method'.

 

If I want to stop doing it, I'd have to actively make an effort to police my quicksaving, which would be pretty awkward for me. That's how natural this kind of quicksaving is for me.

 

I cannot speak for other people, though, I'm just worried about myself.

32 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Ah yes, of course.... the ever so oppressive elitist gatekeepers... Sure, let's just point fingers at people... Meanwhile, why don't you try and explain to me how getting stuck in a hard fight and somehow forcing an outcome over the course of like 10 minutes is better than punching in IDDQD once and getting it over with in just 2 minutes..? When that's done, we can discuss elitist gatekeepers, and how nobody in this thread is actually acting like one...

Okay.

 

When I punch in IDDQD, it feels like cheating because I literally typed in a cheat code. When Id added in IDDQD, they clearly meant it to be a cheat code, not something you regularly use in game.

When I quicksave, sure, it takes more time than actually cheating, but at least it does feel legitimate for me to do that. Even if it does not feel legitimate for others to quicksave often.

 

Of course, whenever I quicksave and quickload, sometimes I do end up using alternative strategies, it's not constant outcome forcing. However, both are pretty likely as far as I can remember.

 

I don't really mean to accuse people within this thread of being gatekeepers or elitist or sus or anything like that. I'm just trying to speak from my general Doom community experience as someone who's actually interacted with it for 4 years now. There's still plenty for me to learn, especially since it really depends on how you spend your years(for me, I mostly spent it being a jack of multiple trades, not just Doom).

[Mayomancer]

I'd also make the distinction of:

 

Cheats that give you an advantage not intended to be in the game - like altering the attack stats of a weapon so it one-shots every boss, or getting an item at a point of the game you're not supposed to have access to it.

 

Cheats to acquire things that would otherwise require farming/grinding, but obtainable by legitimate means - Like money cheats or spawning rare drops.

 

Either could be done by in-game abuse of glitches or third party software. Sorry if i'm saying something that has been mentioned already, didn't take the time to read all of it yet.

[Aaron Blain]

7 hours ago, ICID said:

I feel this way about any singleplayer game, but especially with Classic Doom, since the strictest interpretation of "how it was intended to be played" requires you to play on 320x200 resolution on a 212 MB computer using only the keyboard

Hehehe 212? I first played Doom on my 486/25 with 8 megs of ram, though I believe it can run on 4 megs. I had the great luxury of never needing to reduce the screen size in either Doom or Wolf to keep my framerate steady.

 

I love boardgames, and I've come to find something magical about the fact that the rules are entirely enforced through the conscious will of the players. Not only does it make the mechanics come alive, but the game is also imbued with a certain 'quantum uncertainty', because there's always a shadow of doubt that somebody made a mistake somewhere and something happened slightly outside the bounds of official gameplay.

 

Avernum (and I believe many or all of Spiderweb Software's other RPG games) comes with a 'Character Editor', which seems to have been added initially as a failsafe in case of game-breaking quest bugs, but what you end up with is a game that's sort of always optionally in 'Edit Mode', and you can largely do whatever you feel like. As far as I can tell, people love messing with this. Me? I'm the sort of person who always adds extra 'House Rules' that aren't enforced by the game, because I feel that they make the game more interesting.

 

I think it's only 'cheating' if it keeps you from having fun.

[Nine Inch Heels]

42 minutes ago, Nikku4211 said:

When I punch in IDDQD, it feels like cheating because I literally typed in a cheat code. When Id added in IDDQD, they clearly meant it to be a cheat code, not something you regularly use in game.

When I quicksave, sure, it takes more time than actually cheating, but at least it does feel legitimate for me to do that. Even if it does not feel legitimate for others to quicksave often.

For me it wouldn't even be a question of legitimacy, but practicality...

 

I've seen a stream once, where somebody saved themselves into a proverbial corner, and had to punch their way out of a horde of like 30 or revenants... There were also cases where it was crystal clear that the streamer didn't know how to solve a problem, so a fight that could have taken like a few minutes dragged on and on... I suppose I get the idea that it still "feels better" when it's not as extreme, but I'm kinda baffled that people have time for that sort of thing, even under pretty extreme circumstances, because sometimes it's actually 10 minutes (or more) versus 2, or some similar ratio.... and it's the same outcome to boot, in which case, why not just IDDQD..?

 

I'm always under the impression people think using cheats is somehow "dirty"... That's why you see these mental gymnastics on page 1 here, along the lines of "cheats are in the game intentionally, therefore using them is not cheating"... As if the word cheat code fell out of the sky or whatever... Like, if somebody wants to cheat, just own it and move on with life instead of going through some sort of "grind" that proves nothing to anyone...

[Mayomancer]

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

 try and explain to me how getting stuck in a hard fight and somehow forcing an outcome over the course of like 10 minutes is better than punching in IDDQD once and getting it over with in just 2 minutes..? When that's done, we can discuss elitist gatekeepers, and how nobody in this thread is actually acting like one...

 

I mean, trial and error is a *the* way to discover what works and what doesn't in a particular encounter. Assuming the player is thinking somewhat critically about what they're doing wrong, and trying to improve the fight to overcome it instead of brute-forcing a result, i wouldn't say it's cheating at all. It's not a single-segment speedrun, after all. If the game gives the option to save at any point in a map, it's up to each players discretion to decide if they want to pistol start from the beginning if they're consistently failing only at some specially difficult encounter at a later point of the map.

 

In the other hand, typing IDDQD just removes any commitment you have to actually learning the strategy of the encounter to be able to clear it.

 

Edit: The one specific example of someone saving in a bad spot, and trying to force themselves off of a 'corner'... yeah, that's dumb. But i feel that's more of a case against the lapse of judgement on the player's part, on what the best way out of the situation is, than a case against the use of mid-map saves themselves.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Mayomancer

[Nikku4211]

7 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I'm always under the impression people think using cheats is somehow "dirty"... That's why you see these mental gymnastics on page 1 here, along the lines of "cheats are in the game intentionally, therefore using them is not cheating"... As if the word cheat code fell out of the sky or whatever... Like, if somebody wants to cheat, just own it and move on with life instead of going through some sort of "grind" that proves nothing to anyone...

Well, believe it or not, social stigmas are a factor on how fun playing a game can be, especially when you're part of a community. That's why cheating feels dirty, it can make us feel like we didn't accomplish something, versus F6-F9 rhythms.

 

Even if I primarily play games to have fun, that feeling of accomplishment is also a factor. It's not as prominent, but it's still there. This is presumably why people like me and those in page 1 train in the brain gym and get sick gains.

 

It's not a dichotomy of 'no cheating, no saving' and 'cheat all you want, save all you want', it's a bit of a spectrum.

[Nine Inch Heels]

2 minutes ago, Mayomancer said:

I mean, trial and error is a *the* way to discover what works and what doesn't in a particular encounter. Assuming the player is thinking somewhat critically about what they're doing wrong, and trying to improve the fight to overcome it instead of brute-forcing a result, i wouldn't say it's cheating at all.

2 options:

 

Either, the player just does trial and error until something clicks for some arcane reason...

 

Or, the player thinks critically about what they're supposed to be doing after having seen all the pieces to the "puzzle"...

 

It can't be both at the same time...

 

Saving prior to a fight and experimenting a bit before coming up with a plan is not what I have issues with, in fact, that's the kind of stuff I recommend to people... It's "not being able to find a solution that works, and somehow hoping the stars align when the game has been saved and loaded often enough" or stuff like that... That's just self-inflicted pain and misery... And even though some people like to make pretty hard maps, I don't think they enjoy seeing people suffer and blunder their way through like that, because it doesn't make anybody happy, really...

[Mayomancer]

1 minute ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Saving prior to a fight and experimenting a bit before coming up with a plan is not what I have issues with, in fact, that's the kind of stuff I recommend to people... It's "not being able to find a solution that works, and somehow hoping the stars align when the game has been saved and loaded often enough" or stuff like that... That's just self-inflicted pain and misery... And even though some people like to make pretty hard maps, I don't think they enjoy seeing people suffer and blunder their way through like that, because it doesn't make anybody happy, really...

We're just using different words to say the same thing, then.

 

tl;dr As any other tool, how effective it is depends on how well it's used.

[Zulk RS]

3 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

 

Savescumming is not developing any understanding of what needs to be done differently in order to produce a favourable outcome, but forcing it somehow in a mix of "save/load + trial/error fashion", and creating a lot of frustration for oneself (and the viewers in the process) <- this is the wrong way to use saves, IMO... It's not cheating in the same way as using any sort of cheat code would be, but it's an annoying process some people have engaged in, in order to get a result they were not meant to achieve with the approach they have chosen to take...

 

I mean I personally enjoy savescumming through games. I know this because I had like a month or three where I decided to not savescum and only use saves to save progress or go back and try something different. Realized I actually had more fun when savescumming. Sometimes you do get into sticky situations where you get into save/load orgies. At that point, whenever I did manage to squeeze my way out of it, it felt extremely satisfying. It was kind of like a "I managed to get into an unwinnable situation and I managed to get myself out of it". Now I've sort of developed a sense as to when it is a bad time to put a mid-combat save and when it's not.

[Capellan]

In single-player with no audience, whatever is fun for you is 100% legit.

 

In single-player with an audience (streaming, recording demos etc) as long as you are open and honest about what you do, it's still 100% legit.  e.g. it doesn't matter that a demo is tool-assisted as long as you aren't concealing that fact.

 

In multi-player, you should only do the things that all players have agreed are OK to do.

 

[Doomkid]

Good thread!

 

18 hours ago, Hisymak said:

The biggest example is save-scumming: you save your game and try to do something, and it you're not happy with the result (i.e. lost too much health, got a bad result in a RNG-driven action etc), you reload the game repeatedly until you get the best result. [...] Another example is using an item carried over from the previous level, whereas the following level was not designed to be played with that item (best example is Jetpack in Duke Nukem 3D). Theoretically, even playing continuously Doom levels which were designed specifically for pistol start can be considered in this category, but this can be very debatable.

Like several others, I'd go as far as outright saying these two in particular are not cheating. Doom's own manual and included documentation encourage you to do this. While cheat codes are semi-common in games, it's very rare to see the developer's own manual that comes with the game actively encouraging the player to do so, and very clearly framing them as features, not cheats.

 

It's similar to calling any other option readily available in the menu "cheating". Furthermore, playing Doom (or Duke) as they were released will leave you with the weapons being carried over map to map. So, the only way "not" to cheat is to use the cheatcode IDCLEV to reset the map..? Now that would be bizarre..!

 

It's funny, because with Mario games, so such debate exists: no one ever says "going in with a fireflower so you can take 3 hits rather than 1 is cheating!". I find it funny that Doomers (and Duke fans too I'd wager) love the game so much that there's debate as to whether or not the plain game, as-is, forces you to cheat by the very nature of how it plays, and that you have to enter a code to "UN-cheat" is actually the norm. lol!

 

14 hours ago, ICID said:

That freedom to play how you want is part of the joy of the game - I say embrace it! :)

Absolutely this. Unless you plan to leave a negative review or something because "the game wasn't fun" - then you really should play as close as "intended" as possible. Otherwise it's just downright rude because you're not grading the art "as is" but with alterations. This is a fringe case though, and is of course entirely subjective!

 

14 hours ago, Gregor said:

It's still cheating in that you "break" the intended challenges of map. It's like solving a chess problem by using chess program. You cheat yourself so-to-speak.

This is generally true, but there are fringe cases where "breaking" the map is a chess-like challenge in it's own right, and is even sometimes mandatory to complete games that had massive design oversights. Beating TNT map31 even though the Yellow Key is missing by "breaking" the map comes to mind. There's a strong argument to be made that the unintended path is more creative than the intended one. That's definitely the exception though, not the rule.

 

7 hours ago, Murdoch said:

Exploiting obvious bugs is clearly cheating.

SR50 is Doom is a bug, but I find myself hard pressed to consider it cheating. So again, like with anything, there will be fringe exceptions to the rule. Wallrunning is also a bug that can help you in, oh say, dodging rockets in a wide-open area. I find it hard to consider that a cheat, it's more like an "accidental feature"..

 

2 hours ago, Capellan said:

In single-player with no audience, whatever is fun for you is 100% legit.

 

In single-player with an audience (streaming, recording demos etc) as long as you are open and honest about what you do, it's still 100% legit.  e.g. it doesn't matter that a demo is tool-assisted as long as you aren't concealing that fact.

 

In multi-player, you should only do the things that all players have agreed are OK to do.

Sums up my feelings very well!

[smeghammer]

Unless you are doing multiplayer it doesn't matter what you do - it's a personal thing.

 

Like others have said, it depends on the situation. If it's a big map I've never played before, I'll sometimes use IDBEHOLDA to see where I need to go or even cycle IDDT if I can't find a key anywhere. If I like the map, I'll go back and play it 'properly' as well.

 

I don't like the frustration (to me) of running around endlessly key- or switch-hunting but I do love to play a good map properly too. Obviously depends on what you mean by 'properly' - which is the whole point of this thread after all... As I've said elsewhere, I use freelook and GZDoom almost exclusively - which I know full well is not considered 'proper' play by purists, which is of course OK - but that is the way I like to play.

 

So to answer the OP - 

1: Yes, I'll use these to let me learn maps, especially big ones.

2: Don't use or know much about these. Does straferunning count? I've just started using that recently.

3: never used any, and likely wouldn't.

[Jello]

Well, let's see what Merriam & Webster have to say about cheating: 1: to deprive of something valuable by the use of deceit or fraud.

 

If you're playing single player, and you're not going to be posting it on the internet for a speed run record or anything of the like, go hog wild, you're not hurting anyone, and as long as you're having fun, it doesn't matter if you cheated. You're not depriving anyone of anything by hitting iddqd or idkfa. If you feel bad about doing it, don't do it in the first place.

 

The only time I have an issue with cheating is when others are involved, such as multiplayer or speed runs. Then it's absolutely not okay, because you're playing against other human beings who are following the rules set forth.

 

But if you're just playing by yourself, knock yourself out. And that's where it gets muddied since Achievements were introduced. They don't mean anything, but you shouldn't be able to get them with cheats! Like when I was playing Shadow of Mordor years ago, and the FOV was ridiculously low, and I looked on the Steam forums for a way to change it. There was, I changed it to 110; but in that thread there were so many people saying that it was cheating. Because if you raise the FOV you can see more than the rest of us, and it'll be easier to get achievements. I think there was some leaderboard as well.

 

I really couldn't give less than half of a shit about achievements, I just wanted to not be stuck in FOV 65 because it was designed for consoles.

[Kinsie]

On 8/27/2021 at 11:47 PM, MFG38 said:

I'll only say this regarding the whole matter, especially as far as Category 0 is concerned: people who keep jumping/crouching always enabled in GZDoom annoy me to no end. It's so painful to watch playthroughs of Doom wads, especially my own, where whoever played the game uses the jump - sometimes very liberally - when you're specifically supposed to not be able to jump. It can absolutely break some mapsets, and even when it's supposed to be disabled, it can still be circumvented with a simple cvar change. Kinda makes me wonder what the fuck the point of having the nojump/nocrouch keywords available in (Z)MAPINFO is if they don't even enforce what they so clearly imply to their fullest extent.

Sequence-breaking is cool and good and anyone who likes Metroid and/or Castlevania agrees with me.

[Xcalibur]

Ideally, you're supposed to take on the challenge the way the devs intended, using only the tools and methods they made available to you. In practice, it's not a big deal if you use savestates sparingly, especially to avoid repetitive, tedious play (eg doing the same easy thing over and over to get to the hard part). I think there's a big difference between judicious use of savestates vs savescumming, ie using them to brute-force your way through instead of playing properly.

 

It's a matter of context and of degree. but even if you're playing by the rules so to speak, there can still be ambiguities. A great example of that is the final boss of Zelda II, Dark Link. First, you can trick the AI by standing in the corner (because they had to reduce AI to make the game fit on a cartridge). While seemingly legal, it feels like cheating because you're exploiting a weakness in the game that wasn't really intended (developer intent being an important concept). Secondly, you can use magic to give yourself extra health. while this is usually fair, in the case of Dark Link, you and him have the same HP, and the fight is intended to be mano a mano, a fight to the death between two evenly matched warriors. It only seems fair to keep the same HP, and not use magic to give yourself an advantage over your opponent, at least in that specific situation. Subverting the intended challenge, even if allowed to by the game, feels like you didn't "really win", at least to me. (and yes, I've beaten Dark Link fair and square, it's one hell of a fight).

[FireballCaco]

But, what about the no clip cheat? Isn’t that cheating?

Edited August 30, 2021 by FireballCaco