I don’t find shame in cheating in video games. It was a stigma to hear about growing up, that cheating in video games meant you prefer the shortcuts in life or that you didn’t know what earning anything was. When, that was all just bullshit talk.
I cheat in video games, when available to on some games, to give me a little kick of fun. Sometimes I don’t have the patience to tediously go through the standard way. Other times, I feel I’ve earned it anyways, because of having undergone the stresses and frustrations or the time I’ve played of certain games to go through the normal way.
Like in Terraria, it’s a game I’ve clocked in upwards of 900 hours. I felt like I had done everything in the game prior to the content that added the Moon Lord and many other things. At that time, it was 850 hours.
So the point of the matter is, yeah I don’t find it that big of a deal to cheat in video games. If I cared to and want to, I’m decent enough to handle games without cheats, given enough time.
Multiplayer of course I never cheat in those.
In single player yes, who cares, mods are fun too. In co-op, fine, as long as everyone is on board with the change. In PvP, never, thanks for fucking ruining the fun.
I don’t get it in multiplayer games. Why ruin it for everyone and why cheat? Your not actually that good. I just don’t get it.
And then what is cheering is watching/reading a walk through cheating? Single player so what you want.
Back in the day my friend couldn’t get through the MOH level with snow. It would just freeze and crash. So I showed him how to cheat and bypass the level.
If it’s single player then do whatever you want. It only affects you.
I wrote a scripts that automates artillery for me in Hell Let Loose. It uses a webste that does the calculation. Providing degree and elevation. I input the target on the website, then scrape that data and use computer vision to auto adjust the gun to that position, load then fire. I can saturate an area, or just fire shots on target. It works about 60% of the time because the OCR (Optical character recognition) isn’t super reliable. So it often is worse and slower than had I not. I did it last week so until then I had never cheated. Tomorrow they are releasing an updated that overhauls artillery, so I’ll have more work todo. I’ll probably just let it die xD
I do not, as a rule, play games where my enjoyment affects others. When I do, no, I don’t cheat. The rest of the time? I’m not above taking a shortcut if it brings me more enjoyment if the product I paid for. I occasionally cheat at Animal Crossing. Look up treasure islands. I don’t abuse them but I definitely make use of them.
I used to back in the late 90s-early 2000s in StarCraft: BroodWar when I was a kid. Mainly because I was absolute trash and was trying to compete.
My favorite hacks were map hacks (removes fog of war) and stack hacks (construct buildings on top of each other to fit more in your base). I also used a no-CD crack (glad those days are over), and a disconnect hack so that I would never have a loss on my record.
Even with these hacks I was still trash at StarCraft, and always will be. Gave up on RTS games a long time ago. Hacks can’t save you from poor resource management and low APM.
Haven’t hacked in a game since. I heard that they cost money these days. I couldn’t possibly imagine paying real money to cheat. The closest I get to cheating in games today is playing mobile shooters in an Android emulator on PC. That way I can take advantage of mouse & keyboard + playing on a larger 4K HFR screen for smoother framerates and better visibility over a phone screen. But that’s allowed (Tencent even has an official emulator for this very thing), and many mobile shooters will detect M&KB input and try to only match you with other players using the same input method, so I’m not sure if you can really call that cheating.
It does give me an advantage, though.
I play games to have fun, which is the reason I don’t play multiplayer games (unless local). I also have a very limited amount of time to play games after work.
I cheat with WeMod on openSUSE Tumbleweed for every game I can. I’ve just recently beaten Resident Evil 2+3 and am currently on 4 right now, and am having a blast getting to play these games!
The number one reason I am having a blast is BECAUSE of the cheats. Every game is different for me, so I only use the cheats that will minimize the amount of time I have to do silly shit like collect X amount of this material or whatever other stupid grindy stuff they come up with that doesn’t respect my time as a player. Using the RE games as an example, I don’t turn on every single cheat. I don’t want to worry about inventory management (not fun to me, personally), so I turn on No Reload. This means my weapons will never need to be reloaded, which means more space in the inventory for the story important items. Win/Win for me. What I don’t do, for these games in particular, is use the infinite/god mode cheats. I still want to get damaged and try to recover if it happens, so I leave that one off.
People get… really fuckin’ weird when you talk about how much fun you have using cheats in a video game. “You can’t be having that much fun, or else you wouldn’t cheat!”, “You shouldn’t cheat on video games because it takes the fun away!”, “WOW, YOU NEED TO GET GUD SCRUB. ONLY LITTLE BABIES CHEAT IN VIDEO GAMES!!!111!!”. And here I am just having fun and completing game after game after game to get through my monumental Steam library. :P
Cheating to get around parts that aren’t fun for you is just valuing your time. I’ll cheat any way that improves the fun of the game. Sometimes, that’s extra ammo or money or materials I don’t want to grind for.
That said, my favorite games are still Souls games and the only “cheats” I like there are ones that make the game harder.
I had a game genie for my nes. Highly recommended. But for modern games? Na. I’ll look up a boss if I’m having a hard time, but I don’t really feel the need to cheat, outside of carry limit on stalker.
Cheating in multiplayer games is lame and defeats one of the main reasons people play games with each other.
There is nothing you can do to cheat in a single player game. You decide how you play single player.
Yes if the game is more frustrating than fun without it. The most notable example is probably Elden Ring, which I cheated the whole way through.
Singleplayer do whatever you like, multiplayer do not cheat.
Multiplayer, don’t cheat - join or start lobbies playing the way you want to play.
The only correct answer.
Except on 2b2t.
Context: that’s an “anarchy” server where modifying the client is explicitly allowed.
I wouldn’t count that as cheating.
In the original halo on PC I modded the game so the rifle was shoot out banshees instead of bullets. I also made the warthog fly. I guess now that I’m typing this is was not really cheating as it was a 1v1 match and we got to screw around with the mods is did.
The hex editor was a blast. I made the pistol shoot 100 bullets at once.
Haha, that never occurred to me. That’s a cool one.
I wanted to make it shoot plasma grenades, but at first it just blew up in my face, then it lobbed plasma grenades in front of me.
Eventually I changed the impact of the bullet on each object in the game so it would explode like a plasma grenade instead of giving off the impact animation.
Took forever.
I wonder if I can still install that old version anywhere and mess with the hex codes.
Pretty sure I kept crashing my PC back in the day by trying that lmao
I remember I was playing vs a friend, and I was hosting. The assault rifle was default on mine, but I knew my friend has his set to shoot rockets. He got the drop on me once so I sprayed the ground in front of him, then killed him when he lagged because of the dozens of explosions on his end.
Bungie had a whole semi official mod for Halo 1 on PC called Custom Edition. Chaos Gultch, anyone? Completely insane fun online.
Honestly, I don’t even like using the word “cheat” to describe customizing a single-player gaming experience in a way not blessed by the developers. Terrafirmacraft (and maybe even just Gregtech) isn’t cheating at Minecraft; certainly the experience isn’t “easier”.
So, yes, I will play the game is whatever way makes for the most fun for me, whether that’s “cheating” or not to you.
For experiences that aren’t single-player, including (e.g.) anything with a global leaderboard (even at third-party one), I can understand why someone might choose to cheat, but I think I could deny myself those temptations. But, I’ve never been a “simple” cheat away from the top of a leaderboard or any other sort of acclaim or reward.
I was getting ready to rant until you mentioned Terraria. Then I read the last line of your post.
Shoot, if I’m playing against the computer I use the game the way I want. It’s not cheating if your opponent is non-sentient.
I especially feel that way in games where ridiculous stuff happens at random (e.g. Rimworld). If I’m 2h into building a new colony and somehow get wiped out by 1 rabid squirrel, I curse, laugh my ass off for a minute, then load an autosave.
I don’t, because I find that as soon as I do, the game feels permanently pointless. It’s like grinding to get some random chance item, and then someone gives you a magic menu enabling you to just put any items you want in your inventory whenever you want. Items mentally become zero value. And then any game mechanics built around scarcity and the intended emotional impact of that scarcity become permanently meaningless too.
It’s pulling back the curtain. You can’t unsee what’s going on back there. Any further interaction with the game just leaves me feeling “this is just a video game, the rules are pointless and with that menu I can get it to do whatever”. Even partial cheats, like infinite ammo with no reloading needed, break the illusion for me permanently and leave further gameplay even without cheats feeling unsatisfying and pointless.
For me, it’s rare that a game can survive its mechanics or overall gameplay loop being destroyed by cheats when those are what make games…games. You’re left with either a creative mode sandbox, or a movie, neither of which I care for in a video game format.
Not in the typical sense, but I do use mods that may alter the vanilla experience to be less grindy.
For example in Sacred 2 remaster I use mod that doubles the quantity of enemies making it more challenging but also more challenging.
In Incredible adventures of Van Helsing I made set and godlike items drop from special mobs with 1/10th of chance of epic items or something as without mods you’d have to grind for keys to open offline lootboxes.
I do also like exploits that may trivialize the game. Especially in rpgs where they may allow mevto create ridiculously powerful builds.
