Can you justify cheating in a poorly designed game?

[Renzy]

Renzy

Name: Danny
Age: 20
Location: England
Play-style: Somewhere between casual and hardcore.
Average time spent playing: about 8-12 hours a day depending on my schedule.

I started playing on Xbox and after about 2 years I installed the game on PC, and looking back I don't know how I played for that long on Xbox when there are so many tool available on PC to make the game much more tolerable and easier to accomplish goals.

I use windower with numerous plugins to make myself a better player; things like Spellcast, Distance, BlinkMeNot, etc, are almost essential if you want to be a well skilled player.
I dual box a mage with the XiClaim power level script, because I don't usually like to ask for help with things that I can do on my own and I know people have their own stuff to do. I solo'd all of my Briareus Helms for my Kannagi in a few days doing this, which is much more efficient than constantly asking for a real person to come heal me, because I could farm Briareus whenever I felt like it.

I've used NASA/Kaces/Arenz for camping HNM because it was basically forced upon me/my LS, back when HNM were big if you wanted to compete you had to have a claim bot to stand a good chance, there was nothing worse than to lose claim on a HQ King back when they mattered. I still use Arenz occasionally if I have competition on something I'm camping, Gukumatz is probably the best example of heavy competition nowadays.

My first account got banned for Flee Hacking, I didn't use it for advantageous purposes, repeatedly running around the same areas with 0-12% movement speed got really boring and annoying so I started using Mazurka or Flee to get around. In my opinion I shouldn't have been banned for simply just increasing my speed to navigate around the game, there was no way this hurt any other players. This also applies to things like JA0Wait and GMTool, if they aren't hurting other people then I don't see a problem in using them.

[SaviorSelf]

Are you trying to say flee hacking doesn't hurt others?

[Hoshiku]

Name: Hoshi
Age: 29 (T.T)
Location: GA
Play-style: somewhere between casual and hard-core.
Average time spent playing: Depends on how much I'm working. Sometimes I work 120 hour weeks and don't play much. On average I'd say 3-8 hours a day... less time lately as I'm working quite a bit.

What do you consider cheating in a video game?
I consider anything outside of the game its self to be cheating: guides, extra programs, buying gil... that's all cheating.

With that being said there's a question of who you are hurting with a cheat and why you are playing. For instance when I use a guide to get through a quest I don't feel like I'm hurting other players and I'm only hurting myself if I found it fun to figure things out on my own. Extra programs scale in severity... windower gives you an unfair advantage but there was a time when the only way to have access to your computer if you were playing FFXI was to use windower and I found the penalty of not having access to my e-mail at all times to be much worse than living with myself for using windower. There are also game mechanics which you can only know using windower (TP, HP, MP, distance etc) that are very useful to know in game. I agree with the sentiment that XI is not well designed and that most windower features should have been part of the real game. As far as activities past windower I view those as things I won't do but I'm not opposed to other people doing them. I don't buy gil because paying extra money for a game I'm already paying for doesn't sound fun. There was a time when I was strongly opposed to buying and selling of gil because I thought it ruined the economy for everyone but at this point the economy is already quite bad so I don't see the harm in it. I don't use bots because they add levels of complexity to the game I have no interest in adding. As far as taking advantage of glitches and game mechanics, I think it is the responsibility of SE to fix these problems and I find it exceedingly childish when they ban players for taking advantage of their errors... and I don't consider using a glitch to be cheating, just bad game design.

Do you think a cheater is the same as a griefer?
I think a griefer takes pleasure out of tormenting others while a cheater may torment others with their actions but that is not their intent.

If you could make a scale with one end being the worst kind of cheating, ranging to the not as bad cheating, where would you place things?
I think that bar you posted was fairly accurate for me.

[Renzy]

Are you trying to say flee hacking doesn't hurt others?

In most cases it doesn't hurt or even effect other players, but obviously there are situations where it can be used to aggravate others, like Raen's example of if someone is fleeing an NM around because they suck and can't kill it properly.

[Lovex]

Anewie
23
NJ
Hardcasual(using shads reference) did HNM long time and enjoyed it but toned down to casual
4-7hrs

ps2 player, never cheated or used cheats but my husband did use windower and ffapp for FPs/DS scanning.
Only used because competition was using/cheating. We enjoyed long spawn HNM, with or without tools. I find it fun to camp the rare monster.

The concept of a rare spawn HMM/NM is nice. It adds some mystery to the game and a bit of a rush. It made people cheat though, and other people cheated to counter it. It basically msde a cycle, id say. I approve of them adding new HNM and rare spawns but I won't lie and say I don't dislike the cycle. aS A PS2/3 PLAYER, I literally couldn't cheat and I still enjoyed camping. It was relaxing to me so sit out at tia camp and watch for pop while doing other stuff irl. Fighting them and rushing to claim Khaimaira/Cerb/Di/SW was so much fun. Someone made a good point to me that maybe the reason I enjoyed it ws because, my groups did claim often due to people in my group cheating. That is interesting point, but i enjoy the camping aspect of a rare mob. Camping NM/HNM was really all I did for years. I would goto wiki and look up zones and NM and just set out to camp them. I'd check FFXIAH to see how much the loot went for and then set out. I loved farming, as u can tell.

In short, I am glad the botting generation is over but I am also dissapointed world NMs as a whole, not just HNMs are gone. There is no NM hunting anymore aside from the 15min abys KI NMs, which is not the same thing to me. I don't want the botting generation to rise to the top again but at same time, FFXI just isn't the same without real notorious monsters. I do think the rarity of the spawn makes it more valuable and fun to see/kill but there are so many people who are willing to push others over to beat them by any means possible. I don't think a rare spawn justfies botting/cheating. Getting a rare spawn HNM everytime kinda defeats the purpose. Its a rare HNM/NM and it shouldn't be dominated by the same group of people. I think other's cheating just to win by any means possible, justifies others doing. Counter cheating is not as productive as it is nessicary to stand a chance.

I also don't think the game was poorly designed. FFXI was unlike any other MMO on the market. It was different at the time. It was very un-casual. It was a hardcore MMO, where most things took a lot of time and a minimum, small amount of focus. I believe the game was designed to be this way. FFXI appealed to the uncasual and elite players. Most other MMOs were very casual and abyssea-like. Just my 2 cents.

[msthief]

Name: Aaron
Age: 23, 16-17 when I was a "real cheater"
Location: Seattle
Play-style: Hardcore, every waking minute (did 6-8 hours a day with a full AP high school load, currently 12-14 hours/day)

I took a break off for college, but I've been playing since PC release.

Technicalities aside, I consider there to be two kinds of cheating. One cheating mainly benefits you such as windower, curebots, keybinding, spellcast, etc. The other kind of cheating is malicious, this kind of cheating includes claim botting, fish botting, anything that directly affects the person next to you and that you could NOT do on your own.

I've done every form of cheating minus claim botting, but recently I've taken up only the first 'tier'. I justify this because I have the ability to do dual box myself, maybe not as efficiently, but I could nin/war and whm my way through the game if I wanted - but having a bot do it for me is easier. As has been discussed, this is the same mentality most people use for spellcast/windower. I've recently started using keybinding numpad9 to trade stuff for forced pop nm's in abyssea and absolutely nobody can beat me (this led to a discussion on ffxiah which I have left because of their new shit rules and getting rid of any fun discussions). Sorry, had to get that out.

In the past, when I synth botted/fishbotted/speed hacked/pos hacked it was an unusual time for me. I really didn't give a shit about the game and would have been fine with my account being deleted. It was kind of an immature point in my life and if I have to blame someone else it would have to be how slow of a game it was.

Cheater/griefer? No entirely separate because especially in this game "cheating" is just a way to get more fun out of the game.

I would have no problem with someone who bought gil, but I couldn't live with myself if I paid for in-game currency. I think it lies in the "first tier" with windower and curebots. Anyone could farm themselves a million gil, but if they're at work for 8 hours it might be beneficial for them to pay $20 and not have to worry about it.

[SaviorSelf]

I appreciate everyone who has provided their input so far, thanks a bunch!

To bring up some other thins aside from cheating, what other features in the game do you find poorly designed? Examples like lack of stats in the equipment menu, distance not being included, time stamp, etc. What are some flaws you see with the systems in place, like in the UI, battle, quests, etc.

[hey]

The lack of IME support for nonjapanese clients is a pretty major one.

[Malacite]

It's a video game culture class. Believe me, when I saw the syllabus saying we didn't need to buy books and instead play Guild Wars, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and Fallout 3, I was ecstatic. Then I saw all the reading and scholarly analysis', I was not so excited anymore. It's much more than just playing games (sadly).

I'll bet, holy shit... I really want to break into game design but I just couldn't keep my shit together near the end of highschool on account of a really bad breakup :/

That, and math is not my strongsuit. I'm more into abstract stuff i.e. Writing/Drawing etc.


Name: David
Age: 25
Location: Ontario
Playstyle: Pro

I personally consider anything that violates the ToS cheating, but I don't hold it against most people for using windower. I play the game the way SE intended for better or worse (often worse LOL) and that's fine by me. Not that I've never abused glitches or anything before, but really just in offline games (and Halo 2 mostly just the reload cancel, though I soon got sick of all the BXB bullshit and I still hate people who Ninja and do trick jumps etc)

I don't mind and would even use some of the plug-ins like Blink-me-not mainly because they just fix shit that SE should have fixed in the first place, as opposed to something that actually gives a direct advantage over others i.e. bots. The distance plug-in is something they should just fucking add already in an update I mean how hard can that be?! Wouldn't mind having range values listed for Job Abilities & spells either but I digress.

The closest thing you could call cheating that I've used is the wiki I suppose, but I don't see how you can even argue that as cheating. If the culmination of combined knowledge & experience of the playerbase in a game purposely designed for interacting with others is considered "cheating" then you have a pretty warped view IMO. By that logic schools should be abolished altogether and everyone should fend for themselves lol.


tl;dr If it's not adversely affecting the community or game balance etc. etc. then what's the harm? Technically GMs can ban you for that stupid airship glitch where you go over the sides... never seen one do it but I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that it is a ToS violation which honestly, who gives a shit?

[Gun-it]

OP says no trollin.

[Cantih]

Name: Cantih
Age: 25
Location: Los Angeles
Playstyle: Hardcore-ish (Lets say using a percentile, bottom being most casual 99th being most hardcore, I'm somewhere between 75-80th. Never did 21-24 hour hnms, but did everything else besides AV and PW.)
Average playtime: Varies. I just passed one year of playtime by the in game clock, no bazaaring, no alts. Have played since the NA PS2 release, so, just over seven years. Comes out to 3h/day. But in practice, I've done 10-14 hour/day benders for a week, shelved my character with a content ID pay freeze for several months multiple times, and had periods where I'd log in for LS events and then log right back out after.

You're right in that it's a grey scale with cheating. Messing with the UI is legit in WoW, but not in FFXI, while the action is the same, the validity varies with where you do it, much like laws across the variety of nations. You're probably going to need to look into moral relativism for this thing.

As for myself, I've always played on PS2 (with a stint on PS3 until my launch system gave up the ghost), so the strictly cheating stuff has never really been an option for me. However, because I had dedicated hardware for the game, it did let me use things like Vent and Wiki without windower. If you consider that cheating, then guilty. Though, if I did play on PC, I probably would have used windower for that, and I likely would have ended up using the plugins for showing your /ja timers and enemy hp% on screen. SCH would have driven me to use enhanced macros and all the spellcast and buff/debuff timer stuff.

The shadiest thing (which most wouldn't even consider to be so) I've ever done is hard disconnecting to enter or allow others to enter salvage with below-minimum manpower, back in the day. As such, I'm essentially clean myself, especially compared to most of your responses.

I have however, tangentially benefited from others going into the grey area. Friends who used mappy for VNMs, or used plugins that are acceptable to the vast majority of the community to improve play (spellcast, blinkmenot, etc.). The most gray that ever got was draw distance in nyzul and "I have cells" in salvage. I've never been in a LS or group that allowed claim botting or stun botting, terrain locking, or allowed members to participte in RMT. That kind of stuff is what I consider dark as hell.

Though, RMT deserves a note. My dislike of it stems from the internal viewpoint of an "above-board" player. I put in the effort to get where I am, and would prefer that the people I play beside have done the same, so I can be sure they're capable. Someone who just buys their way to the top in a flash, is a bit anathema to that. However, from an external viewpoint, it's a damned game, some people just want the juice of it and be done. If you're a nihilist, anything you do with your life is meaningless, but building something up in a virtual game does kind of take the cake for meaninglessness.

Gold farmers are generally just trying to get a buck and make ends meet, I can't really begrudge them that. Most of the friction comes from when you start competing for resources, limited mobs to farm, points to harvest, items that are scarce. And of course, when you combine scarcity and demand, well...
Plus, if you're only competing with someone else who wants the thing for what the thing is, you can let go, one of you will win, but it doesn't matter because it doesn't matter. But, when you have to think about either forcing someone out of a paycheck to do your thing, or giving up your plan for the day, it's not exactly an issue you want to struggle with while playing a recreational game.

[hey]

Technically GMs can ban you for that stupid airship glitch where you go over the sides... never seen one do it but I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that it is a ToS violation which honestly, who gives a shit?

Back in 2004/5 when i used to play on a shitty 5 year $200 emachines computer, i used to fall through all kinds of areas all the time. One time i walked through the fountain in lower jeuno, and just afk'd there, after a fair amount of loling. When i came back, i was in jail, and had a gm harass me for cheating. He ended up giving me a warning not to do it again.

[Lyall]

@msthief
I was in that thread, was kind of fun. Didn't expect the sudden nukage.

@topic
Everything you mentioned that's missing that Windower offers is bad design.

Examples like lack of stats in the equipment menu, distance not being included, time stamp, etc. What are some flaws you see with the systems in place, like in the UI, battle, quests, etc.

I get it, PS2 limits. Not knowing how long buffs last? Unforgivable. Recasts being limited to a JA menu or a macro that spams a chat long? Nuh-uh. Your clock/weather vanishing if you so much as think of engaging something? I understand why these limits are there, I think, but it doesn't strike me entirely as kosher to leave them out entirely.

I don't want to penalize someone for their choice of system, trust me, but there are shittier machines out there that run XI uglier than a PS2 will, on potentially a monitor smaller than your old 15 inch television. That guy can have to turn off weather and shadows and minimum settings in all boxes... And he can still use windower to see distance, and recasts, and hp% on target. It strikes me as a remarkably forced way of utilizing a UI when these things exist and are out there but can't be implemented for... whatever reason.

[Kaisha]

I don't want to penalize someone for their choice of system, trust me, but there are shittier machines out there that run XI uglier than a PS2 will, on potentially a monitor smaller than your old 15 inch television. That guy can have to turn off weather and shadows and minimum settings in all boxes... And he can still use windower to see distance, and recasts, and hp% on target. It strikes me as a remarkably forced way of utilizing a UI when these things exist and are out there but can't be implemented for... whatever reason.

You are aware PS2 only has 32mb ram right? And name me a console game that gives you the option to dumb down the visuals so you can have more visual clutter at 480i resolution.

I don't think the SDK for the PS2 HD even allowed for virtual memory? FFXI is squeezing it enough as is, heck, it doesn't even keep more than a single macro palette in memory at a given time, where-as the entire book is always loaded in on the PC.



Anyways, I don't use any form of 3rd-party here that interacts with FFXI. If you don't like the system/the rules, don't play the game, simple as that. Continuing to pay them monthly is just rewarding them.

Spoiler: show

FLAME SHIELD, ACTIVATE!

[Cymmina]

I don't think the SDK for the PS2 HD even allowed for virtual memory? FFXI is squeezing it enough as is, heck, it doesn't even keep more than a single macro palette in memory at a given time, where-as the entire book is always loaded in on the PC.

No it isn't. Palettes save/load every time you switch on PC. A lot of people think they need to logout to save their macros in case they crash, but ctrl+up or ctrl+down is all that's necessary.

[fndragon]

Regarding poor game design, I honestly think it's not our place to design the game. We are consumers, and we can opine on whether or not design decisions are good or bad, but the design of the UI is solely in Square-Enix's hands. Using a third-party tool to redesign the game is definitely not supported by Square-Enix and definitely cheating in their eyes.

The difference has been the reception of these tools by S-E. As some people have mentioned, WoW allows UI extension, and other games such as Minecraft and any of the FPS games allow vast customization and modification to the core engine, specifically with regards to multiplayer play. Square-Enix has, in their infinite wisdom(lol), decided that the UI is sancrosanct, and players will be punished if they modify that core engine. Only after much outcry did they adhere to Microsoft design documents and allow the application to be windowed in a graceful manner. Some people think that we should cry louder for more such enhancements, but I don't see those making much difference, as the official forums can easily show.

Decreeing that the game is "poorly designed" is simply a justification, moral or immoral, for cheating. If you think the game is poorly designed, either propose a solution to SE, have it heard, approved, budgetted for, tested, and implemented; Or build your own MMO based on the new design. Unfortunately the answer more often heard is "Well, if they're not going to fix the game I'm going to fix it for them by cheating", and is only useful when you're trying to rush along to GM Jail and LM-02.

Look at it from their perspective. They've sunk countless developer, art, design, maintenance, network, usability, QA hours into designing a game, and some customers want to force their own design decisions on the process by running a third-party tool on the client side. Should you approve of this activity on an official basis? Of course not. The best thing they can do is to receive and act on feedback from their customers, which is what they have been doing, even if it has been glacially slow in coming. But in response the best thing we can do as a community is hold them accountable for their bad design decisions with our feedback, and not to circumvent their design, justified or not.

[Cymmina]

Regarding poor game design, I honestly think it's not our place to design the game. We are consumers, and we can opine on whether or not design decisions are good or bad, but the design of the UI is solely in Square-Enix's hands. Using a third-party tool to redesign the game is definitely not supported by Square-Enix and definitely cheating in their eyes.

The difference has been the reception of these tools by S-E. As some people have mentioned, WoW allows UI extension, and other games such as Minecraft and any of the FPS games allow vast customization and modification to the core engine, specifically with regards to multiplayer play. Square-Enix has, in their infinite wisdom(lol), decided that the UI is sancrosanct, and players will be punished if they modify that core engine. Only after much outcry did they adhere to Microsoft design documents and allow the application to be windowed in a graceful manner. Some people think that we should cry louder for more such enhancements, but I don't see those making much difference, as the official forums can easily show.

Decreeing that the game is "poorly designed" is simply a justification, moral or immoral, for cheating. If you think the game is poorly designed, either propose a solution to SE, have it heard, approved, budgetted for, tested, and implemented; Or build your own MMO based on the new design. Unfortunately the answer more often heard is "Well, if they're not going to fix the game I'm going to fix it for them by cheating", and is only useful when you're trying to rush along to GM Jail and LM-02.

Look at it from their perspective. They've sunk countless developer, art, design, maintenance, network, usability, QA hours into designing a game, and some customers want to force their own design decisions on the process by running a third-party tool on the client side. Should you approve of this activity on an official basis? Of course not. The best thing they can do is to receive and act on feedback from their customers, which is what they have been doing, even if it has been glacially slow in coming. But in response the best thing we can do as a community is hold them accountable for their bad design decisions with our feedback, and not to circumvent their design, justified or not.

And what about dat mods? That technically falls under the "client modification" category. Having bard songs and dice rolls all be the same color is lame, I can't stand going BRD after an update until a new icon pack is released. The file for icons is designed to allow for different artwork for every buff, it just isn't taken advantage of. People genuinely want this and would take minimal effort to make it available to everyone.

Just about everyone agrees that the Branson font is 100x more readable than the default font.

These things hurt no one, and make a significant improvement on the visual accessibility of the client.

[Squirrels]

Name: John
Age: 22
Location: Columbus, OH
Play-style: Hardcore
Average time spent playing: Started as a freshman(2003) in HS and easily averaged 8hrs+ per day. As I got further in HS it got longer and longer as I figured out which classes were surplus to requirements and what I could get away with. I got banned on my first character for POS.exe(doh!) in the summer of 2006. Iirc, came back in Nov. '06, played as a more casual player(no EGLS, still used bots/windower) from Nov. '06-May '07 when an automobile accident put me in the hospital. June '07 I get out of the hospital and realize I'm semi disabled(plates in arm, broken leg/ribs/head) for ~6months and start playing 12+hrs a day since HS was finished. Got a steady job in May '08 and continue to average 4-6hrs per weekday and anywhere from 4-12hrs+ on weekends. As I've grown older I've started to blow off FFXI more for RL instead of the other way around like when I was in HS.

Bots/Programs Used: MrArgus, POS.exe, launchpad, ffassist, Windower and most of it's plugins, FFXIApp, Iocaine, Scripts written for myself, Nasa, Tenshi(homegrown packetbot), XiClaim, Clipper, Wardrobe, GM Tool, Scanzone, bunch of generic fishbots. Generally anything I could get my hands on.

What do you consider cheating in a video game?
My views on cheating are if using said TPP or exploit is causing other people's gameplay to be negatively effected, then it is cheating. Now I know this sounds hypocritical coming from a guy that's listed all the things above. But when put into the situation of wanting x-gear from y-monster with z-linkshell using bots or having better latency to claim. Your views on what you are willing to do change. It's either you start to bot and try to gain the same competitive advantage as (most)everyone around you, or sit back and stare at Darters, Thunder Elementals and Manticores for 3-9 hours everyday.

I personally don't read guides or walkthroughs until after I have defeated the monster or beaten the game(single player) atleast one time. I then will look over other people's experiences in the fight(or game) and adjust or fix what I think may be wrong(even if it didn't result in a wipe) to result in a faster and more enjoyable fight/game.

[cdgreg]

People will cheat whether something is poorly designed or not. It's all about having an edge, being faster, acquiring items easier, whatever. Blaming the game is nothing more than placing blame elsewhere when it is really just human nature.

I use windower because it makes the game easier and more enjoyable to me
I have sold gil because $2000 vs Relic was an easy choice (and it was gil I made, not from an ls, blah blah blah)
I use apradar because I want an edge claiming so as to waste less time
I dat edit to make PH easier to locate and thus waste less time

I *would* use wait0, fishing bot, flee bot, whateverbot if I knew I wouldn't get banned for it. They would save me time, make me more gil, and thus make the game more enjoyable for me. It has nothing to do with the game being "poorly designed." It has everything to do with possibly losing something I've dedicated 6 years to for an additional slight edge.

[Katoke]

Name: Doug; In game Dejet/Jeyman
Age:22
Location:Valley Stream, NY
Play Style:Hard core/casual as my days in FFXI came to a close
Time spent: at my peak 2~6 hours 5-7 days a week

I'll see your Valley Stream and raise you a Brightwaters, NY.