Do you consider it "cheating" if you use Save States just for convience?

[escobert]

Depends. I don't think using them in, say, a platformer, or an RPG, is cheating in any sense of the word. It's just a convenient save anywhere feature.

The only time it's really cheating is if you use them in a fighting game, middle of the match, so if you die you can just reload and have the same amount of energy taken away from your opponent. And yes, I've done that.

But like others have said, the whole concept of cheating in a single player game is kind of a moot point. Unless you're doing some sort of competition with other people online, or something.

At the same time I did think it was awesome when Blizzard started banning people from playing Starcraft II for cheating in the single player game.

[Mirage]

How do you define "cheating" in this case, then?

I define it as circumventing game mechanics by modifying the contents of the console's (or console emulation's) RAM.

[Depression Moon]

Are you in a competition where the rules state that you cannot use save states? That is your answer there.

[Futan]

I used save states to avoid battles in FFI last night because I was deep in a dungeon with 2 characters incapacitated, 1 was nearly and the last wouldn't have made it out. Did I cheat?

[Jiro]

I used savestates when I was doing the MegaMan challenge with Levian and Del Murder because I was trout. Had I won, I would've happily disqualified myself because it was a breach of the official rules but generally it's not "cheating" insofar as it just removes the frustration factor.

[Shauna]

I used savestates when I was going for 100% completion of Crash Bandicoot. You need to get all the boxes in a level - if you die and respawn at a checkpoint, you lose all previous boxes opened. Not dying ever is not that difficult (I managed the majority of the game), but I savestated at every checkpoint I came across just in case I died. There is nothing more frustrating than dying with the end of the level in sight and knowing that you're not gonna get the 100% level completion because your timing was very slightly off. ._.

[Aulayna]

I used savestates when I was going for 100% completion of Crash Bandicoot. You need to get all the boxes in a level - if you die and respawn at a checkpoint, you lose all previous boxes opened. Not dying ever is not that difficult (I managed the majority of the game), but I savestated at every checkpoint I came across just in case I died. There is nothing more frustrating than dying with the end of the level in sight and knowing that you're not gonna get the 100% level completion because your timing was very slightly off. ._.

Oh lordy that game caused me so much rage >>

[Shoeberto]

It's just convenient. Especially for older technology where there were no saves or save spots were a huge pain. It used to be that your options were frequently 1) spend a good chunk of time getting back to a save area or 2) leave the game on and come back later. It was a tech limitation that devs tried to make the best of that we can now circumvent. If you wanna claim you're all hardcore then you can stick with the built-in save system but it's only if you care about self-imposed challenges.

[NorthernChaosGod]

But yes it is still "cheating" - as an example say a racing driver took all his best split times and combined them all together and goes "this is my fastest time around the circuit" it's actually a lot different to the fastest time someone will actually get around the circuit first time around.

Now of course if the circuit had actual save/reload points you could say well this is my best time up to point A and this is my best time from point A to B etc etc so my best overall time is X.

With save stating you are effectively adding extra save/reload points inbetween save points A, B and C which would give you an unfair advantage as you can finetune things within that space that other people cannot.

At the end of the day save states can be used as a tool of convenience but if it's something outside of the game design itself (i.e. saving where you otherwise could not) then you are circumventing it and thus "cheating."

The real question at hand here is - why does it matter so much to you?

They're playing a FF game for the first time, I hardly think that they're going to go around bragging about anything.

[Levian]

I used savestates when I was doing the MegaMan challenge with Levian and Del Murder because I was trout. Had I won, I would've happily disqualified myself because it was a breach of the official rules but generally it's not "cheating" insofar as it just removes the frustration factor.

Oh god yes, that was terrible. I don't even remember if we gave up or finished it off.

I know I was very tempted to use save states when we raced in Sonic 2 at least. that was just terrible. Old games are so unforgiving.