Exploitation of game mechanics: Boon or Bane?

[Wolf Kanno]

Just a thought I was playing around with in my head, but when you find a cheat or a highly exploitable mechanic you can use to win the game, is it something that is praise worthy or is it simply the devs failing to check the games better. I mean we talk about how broken some mechanics are in FF like the Junction System, FFT Ninjas, and characters like Sabin and Cloud, but is their use in a game good or bad for the enjoyment of the game?

If a game has a customization system that is poorly balanced and makes victory easy, is it a bad thing? How about a tough boss who can be defeated by exploiting their algorithm or killed prematurely? In Dark Souls 1's DLC, you can kill the ultimate hard boss of it all without ever entering his boss room. Is that a cheat or should it be a sign the player is simply making the best of the tools at their disposal. Is there a right way to play a game and all the hacks and cheats player find in-game simply just that, a cheat. Just some food for thought.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I generally like if I can exploit stuff like the junction system in VIII just because I can set the difficulty how I want it. Sometimes I like just breezing through a game.

[WarZidane]

As long as people can choose to not use the exploit, it's fine. I myself do a lot of cheesy things in games since a lot of the time (mainly in RPGs) it's just not about the challenge for me.

[Lord Golbez]

My answer is "it depends." Is gaming the system fun? Then it's probably good. Does it make the game boring instead? Probably not good. In the case of Junction syste messing around with stuff to the point you're overpowered is fun enough to me itself I think it's worth it. Vanish/Doom on the other hand? Lame. The only enemies/bosses I find that valid for are ones that vanish thenselves. It also depends on whether the game pushes you into it by being too ridiculously hard in the first place. If I feel forced, it's not very fun. And I really don't like it when the majority of abilities seem pointless because they are harder to pull off and don't offer any really benefit over spamming some cheap, easy option.