"Cheap" tactics. Cheating or Fair Game?

[Mo-Nercy]

Sorry Mo-Nercy, but this all seems like a ruse for you to post about how much you "pwn n00bs" without anyone being any the wiser. But I'm onto you...

I could pwn them without resorting to any of the tactics that they consider cheap

Maybe.

Besides I've been telling people I'd own them in Soul Calibur ever since I had reason to.

[Madame Adequate]

If it doesn't break or go around any game mechanics, then there's nothing wrong with it. I don't care if something's cheap (Well I do, I'll yell at someone for living xD), it's not cheating.

[KentaRawr!]

Some things can be "cheap", but not really cheating. I'd make an example of my own, but you already gave the best two possible.

[Zeromus_X]

It depends. If something is so mind-numbingly broken to where the game is simple on any difficulty setting, than its as close to cheating as can be without a cheating device. It's still just cheap; not cheating.

I don't even use Holy Wars. Omega is easy without them.

KOR takes too long...god, it takes like five minutes to use. xD

[MageLuingil]

Some things can be "cheap", but not really cheating. I'd make an example of my own, but you already gave the best two possible.

I agree on this note. I don't really like the cheap moves either; I try not to use them and ... dislike it ... when other's use them on me. But yeah, cheating is Gameshark and whatnot.

[Alixsar]

In Soul Calibur 2 and 3, every stage has an edge. And if you somehow manage to manuever your opponent into a position where you can ring them out and then proceed to do so, it should NOT be considering cheating. I play at arcades frequently and my skill level is considerably higher than the regular player so I get accused of using "cheap tactics" or "cheating the game" at least once every few days. Why my opponent decided to let me push them around to the edge is beyond me. Ironically, about half of my ring outs are performed when my back is to the edge and I flip the opponent over my head. This suggests that when I move toward the edge, the opponent sees the opportunity to ring me out and tries to only to realise he's been lured into a trap. Now if an opponent has every intention of knocking me out of the ring, why would he call ME a cheater when I put him over instead? Hypocrisy at it's finest. Jackasses.

Just tell them to shut up, you have to work for ring outs and if you get one you deserve the victory.

[Mr. Graves]

I made this thread a fair while back ago, but there's a bunch of new people that hang around here that I'd like to gather the opinions of.

"Cheating" is a very harsh thing to accuse someone of. Especially if the accuser can't tell the difference between "real" cheating (eg. gameshark, secret button inputs) and the "other" kind of cheating, the cheating that really isn't. (eg. using the best character in a fig/hting game, ramming opponents off the course in racing games)

For the first kind, I'd say that using a Gameshark is definitely cheating, imo. Not that I necessarily abhor the use of such a tool, but if a game was super-hard and I wanted to see what was a head of where I die/get stuck/hit a plateau/whatever then I have no problem with it. I used to do that with the Game Genie back in the ol' NES days, for games like Battletoads. If a game has secret button codes in the games already without the use of gamesharks (Recent GTA games are a great example of this.) then I have no problem with using them. (If I feel I have to in a given situation.) I feel same way about using the best charactor or any other tactic which the designers clearly let you do in the game.

Those are my arguments. I can't really see how someone can label someone a cheater for doing something that's designed into the game for the specific purpose of bettering the user. It's like those weirdos who say Holy Wars are cheating in FF8. I say, if it's in the friggin' game, you're allowed to use it.

Holy Wars are great to use during the fight with Ultimecia or any other difficult boss in the castle on Disc 4, but it would be cheating a bit (in my eyes) if you had one early on and used it in a fight with an easy boss. These things are ok to use in certain challenging scenerios. I like to used the Knights of the Round materia to fight the Emerald and Ruby weapons, but not for any other battles. (You can easily put away Safer Sephiroth with KOTR, which I think is too cheap, imho.)

[DK]

I always use KOTR to take out Bizzaro Sephiroth in one hit and then just leave the Safer Sephiroth battle to my team. I don't know why, it's just more convenient that way.

[XxSephirothxX]

No, it's not cheating, but sometimes taking advantage of something in a game makes it less fun to play. For instance, when playing Smash Bros. Melee with a friend, we always refrain from "side-fighting," or hitting one another as we attempt to jump back onto the stage. It's an annoyingly easy opportunity to kill someone, and I'm sure all the "pros" take advantage of it, but it's much more sporting, and, ultimaitely, enjoyable, to let one another back onto the stage before commencing the pounding.

[Ouch!]

Azar, tell me that SSBM is more enjoyable without edge-gaurding when you're fighting someone who knows how to play Samus.

I think edge-guarding is a perfect example, though, and I intended to bring it up whether or not someone else did. I believe that there's certain things, such as edge-guarding, that are deemed cheap by some, but becomes absolutely necessary when you get to a certain proficiency in the game. When I played the original, if I edge-guarded at all, my friends would flip out on me telling me I was being cheap. I suppose, at that level it is cheap, but now that I play with some people who are really experienced, I'm going as far as learning how to properly edge-guard.

I suppose that brings up the point of whether or not someone should have to play down to their opponent's skill level. There's definitely gaps of skill level between players (like my friend who is trying to train me; he constantly punishes me when we play). The whole notion of things being cheap, in multiplayer games, at least, comes from these gaps in skill. Suddenly something isn't so cheap when both players are capable of it and will use it on each other when the opporunity arises.

If it's in the game, as far as I'm concerned, it's usually not cheating. There are certain glitches that are flatout unfair in games (such as that damn move that the Ice Climbers can use to freeze you in place) that I would consider cheating.

[ZeZipster]

I try to play skillfully, and if a game is geared to let the cheapest person win I'll most likely take those cheap courses to atleast stay on par. An example would be Halo 2. In Halo 2 there are many things that are exclusively considered cheap in it. Not just weapon whoring and camping like in other FPS but a variety of things such as:

1. Plasma Pistol
2. Super Jumps
3. Throwing the flag in CTF games.

I do use the plasma pistol, and I throw the flag in CTF. People get really pissed at the Plasma Pistol, because it's really a deceptive weapon that requires a lot of skill. It's not blatant skill like a sniper rifle would require in aiming, no it does most of that for you. I enjoy the plasma pistol because you can kill people using plasma pistol + melee or plasma pistol + BR or plasma pistol + magnum with out even having a full charge on the plasma pistol. Most of the time I'll deliberatly miss with the first plasma pistol and then charge for not even half a second the BR them or melee unless I'm up against a sniper rifle, rocket launcher, shotgun, or any fast killing weapon. Most of the time I'll be called a newb, because they really thought they had me. A team of people using the BR and plasma pistol can be downright devastating, anyone who's played Team Hardcore in Halo 2 on XBL knows this. Then again, a team of people just defending one sniper can be equally devastating. It comes down to skill and communication in the end.

As for throwing the flag, it's cheap as hell. In MLG (major league gaming) they will DQ you for throwing the flag in some places. But I don't play MLG, do I? I couldn't care less if it's considered cheap I've taken the time to memorize where I can conveniently throw a flag threw a window they're the one who can't communicate with their team or doesn't plan things out. As far as I'm concerned it's part of the game.

There are some characters in some games that just are overwhelmingly unbalanced I won't use though. An example being Guilty Gear in the arcades, most EX modes are way over powered but you can still use them. I don't. They're simply unbalanced compared to the non-ex characters.

[ljkkjlcm9]

There are certain cheap tactics that take no skill, and that's when I tend to complain. Namely in a FPS or a game like Gunz Online, people that just run around with the trigger down the ENTIRE time, or just keep tossing nades the entire time. It requires no skill whatsoever and gets really annoying. Of course, more than half the time I take out my revolver and pop two or three clean headshots and kill them. Then I yell "Learn to aim" or "Thanks for Spraying!"

But they really are cheap tactics.

AS for SSBM, my friends all think I'm cheap period. Because I beat every single one of them. It's funny how I have them even choose who I use, and still consistently beat them. Ah well such is life. My brothers use to get mad at me in Smash for just sitting to the side and letting them beat on eachother, then it came down to me with like, 5 lives and them with 2 and they'd get mad at me. Hey, you guys can kill eachother all you want, less work for me to have to do. And whenever one would come over to fight me, I rule at 1v1 so I typically just beat them up and they ran away haha. But I found as I get older, I get impatient with games and that tends to be my main flaw, especially in fighting games. I'll just charge the enemy even if I know it's dumb, because I want to play, not sit here and dance and wait for something to happen. Who cares if I die sometimes if I'm constantly playing, though it's annoying when they keep doing it over and over, ah well such is life.

THE JACKEL

[-N-]

While there are cheap tactics, they cannot be considered cheating. Cheating has to involve breaking the rules of the game, which can only be done via hacking tools.

Cheap tactics simply exploit the inherent weaknesses of the rules of the game. They can be frustrating to deal with, but even cheap tactics can be countered, perhaps by another cheap trick. Sometimes they can spoil the fun and challenge of the game, but gamers are fairly self-regulating on this matter anyways.

[black orb]

>>> Cheap tactics and cheating are two different things..

[Reine]

Most people refuse to play against me in a Doom DeathMatch these days, simply because im too good at it and they think its cheap..

But I do hate cheap tactics, despite often resorting to them myself.