Can you justify cheating in a poorly designed game?

[Novax]

Name: JR
Age: 22
Location: Kansas
Play-style: Hard(interest is dwindling again)core.
Average time spent playing: 5+hr

Windower/PL bot/Apradar is about it.

[Cahlum]

Cahlum 18
UK
Hardcore
6-10 hrs a day every day

use windower, allseeingeye have bought gil because i'm lazy.

[Kresaera]

Name: Kelby
Age: 29
Location: Ohio, USA
Play-style: casual-hardcore
Average time spent playing: 2-3 on days I work, 6-8 on my days off

What do you consider cheating in a video game? To me, Cheating and video game shouldn't be used in the same sentence. I don't know what I would consider actually 'cheating' unless there was a program that made you instantly 90 with all gear and emp weapons.
Do you think a cheater is the same as a griefer? Why or why not? No. Griefing can be done with or without 3rd party tools and it's just rude. Cheating mostly benefits yourself and doesn't normally effect others. (windower e.g.)
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? Again, I can't really think of anything that is that bad to be numbered.
RMTing as cheating, either buying or selling. RMT is considered cheating my most ppl, but isn't almost the same as paying someone 1mil or more to get your in game shit for you?

That's my 2 cents. I use windower, blinkmenot, infobar, etc. I love it and am lost when the hubby takes my PC and I have to play on the xbox. That is the only problem with all this stuff, most of it is PC only.

[Seeko]

Name: David
Age: 30
Location: Idaho
Playstyle: Casual/Hardcore
Average time spent playing: 3-4 hours on weeknights, as much as wife will let me on weekends (logged on all day, actively playing normally 5-6 hours)

What do you consider cheating in a video game:
Anything that is outside the developer's intent is cheating. Thus, all 3rd party tools are cheating. Informational sites are not, due to GM's and SE themselves directing people to "check community websites" for strategies.

Do you think a cheater is the same as a griefer? Why or why not?
As stated many times in this thread, no, they are not necessarily the same thing. A cheater can be a griefer, and a griefer a cheater, but just because you are one does not mean you are the other.

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?
0 - Playing the game as the developer intended
1 - Using GUI enhancements
2 - Using simple plugins (tparty, distance, etc)
3 - Using simple automating programs (specifically looking at Spellcast)
4 - Using programs which offer an unfair advantage (ApRadar, etc)
5 - Using programs to circumvent game mechanics (clipper programs, flee hacks, etc)
6 - Using complex automating programs (bots)

RMTing as cheating, either buying or selling.
Because it is prohibited by the ToS, yes, it is cheating. My opinion is more that it's just stupid (buying). Probably the big reason that RMT and cheating would be considered the same is because of the tactics that strictly RMT players have used, which fall on the upper end of my (and it seems most other peoples') scale of cheating severity.


My biggest problem with this entire project is the use of the term "poorly designed." Simply because the game was not built how you would have done it, or you feel that decisions which were made for gameplay are stupid, does not mean the game is poorly designed. Bugs, glitches, etc, are poor game design, not an opinion which you don't agree with.
Do I hate that I have to go the the Job Ability menu, or spam /recast to see timers? yes. Do I think not including distance was a poor move? yes. Do I think I should always be able to see party/ally tp/mp? absolutely. Do I want the ability to view an onscreen map? for sure. But all of these are things I want, and wish the developers had included. The fact that their opinion of what should be included does not agree with mine does not mean that the game is "poorly designed."
The salvage glitch, which was exploited to the profit and benefit of hundreds who were banned (and probably hundreds more who were not), was a result of poor game design. The fact that my friend lost his pandemonium key to pop ATNM Test rather than Pandemonium Warden? poor game design.

And trying to claim that "I'm not cheating because it *should* have been included!" is a poor attempt at making yourself feel better. If you're cheating, you're cheating. If you're ok with that, and the stigma with it, go for it. If not, don't.


I, myself, am a cheater. I don't like that I am, but I'm ok enough with it that I continue, and have become dependent on what I have. I was a purist for the first several years I played, and am able to get by on what is innately available in the game. But the convenience is what led me to seek out windower originally. I slowly added on the tools I use with it, primarily yarnball, recast, distance, tparty, etc. Leveling black mage convinced me to try out spellcast. My friends, while doing ENM shared ApRadar with me (version 2, I can't stand version 3), which I have become dependent on for the on-screen map (and making sure I'm in the correct area when hunting obscure trial NM's).
My personal "worst" (in my opinion) stemmed from frustration alone. Attempting to run through Eldieme on a weekday morning led to sitting at a gate for 3 hours, with no one else in zone, and no one on linkshell or FL online. So, I found a simple clipper program, and walked through the gate. I've since used it as a convenience for other doors, as well (Garliage Sky, etc), primarily when solo. If I have the option of using other people, I try to.
While I don't consider that I've ever botted, I suppose that having written a windower script which repeated the same action many times (enhancing magic skillups, yay >.>), is, actually a bot. So, by that definition, I've cheated in this game at every level. But I freely admit that I am a cheater, and if the situation arose that I were to be banned, I wouldn't try to claim no fault, because I am guilty of what I have done.

[Ezekial]

Name: John Smith
Age: 24
Location: Vancouver
Playstyle: dangerous
Average Playtimes: w/e I am not at school or work.


Lets see, I have played 100% legit from 2004 to the day before CoP came out: I quit. I came back right after WoTG game out and started a Tarutaru. First thing I did after installing the game again was get Windower. 2 days later, I bought gil so I could level without having to farm again (I have nightmares still about farming Black Tiger Fangs till afford a Gluttony Sword) and it was good.

Lets see,

I have:

Bought Gil
Used Clipper
Botted (all kinds, from PL, to nav boting)

Actually the only thing I haven't done is salvage dupes. Never bin caught, and really I don't care, most people in this game have been helped by a cheater.

I belive it's the developers fault that people cheat, people shouldn't feel a reason to cheat in a game, but then again, if they followed that rule we'd have another WoW clone.

[mallister]

i'm fishbotting now, reading this thread and lol'ing.

[Cymmina]

My biggest problem with this entire project is the use of the term "poorly designed." Simply because the game was not built how you would have done it, or you feel that decisions which were made for gameplay are stupid, does not mean the game is poorly designed. Bugs, glitches, etc, are poor game design, not an opinion which you don't agree with.
Do I hate that I have to go the the Job Ability menu, or spam /recast to see timers? yes. Do I think not including distance was a poor move? yes. Do I think I should always be able to see party/ally tp/mp? absolutely. Do I want the ability to view an onscreen map? for sure. But all of these are things I want, and wish the developers had included. The fact that their opinion of what should be included does not agree with mine does not mean that the game is "poorly designed."
The salvage glitch, which was exploited to the profit and benefit of hundreds who were banned (and probably hundreds more who were not), was a result of poor game design. The fact that my friend lost his pandemonium key to pop ATNM Test rather than Pandemonium Warden? poor game design.

Bugs have nothing to do with "design", they are simply errors in logic. Design is deliberate, things like ATNM Test were not intended (I heard they actually reimbursed the pop items?). Design has just as much to do with the UI as it does with damage formulas or the color of your subligar. If accessibility is poor on a website, we would say that it is "poorly designed", not "deal with it".

[Khamsin]

For a poorly designed game, maybe. But not for a professionally developed, established and long-lasting game like FFXI.

Sometimes, though, I play amateur games that are poorly designed and cheat to avoid certain bugs or skip some overly mundane tasks.

[Bebslave]

Name: Jeff
Age: 23
Location: BC
Style: HC (retired now)
Hours/day: 12+, 6 days a week

From the very beginning I used windower and most associated plugins. Windower is far from cheating imo, it just adds the functions that the developers failed to implement. With windower you get no more advantages than keeping your sanity over a truly poorly designed user interface. Spellcast is for me the jewel of the crown in terms of plugins and only answers as a function to a system the game natively has (very specific gear). Very few players will end up doing their job to its fullest w/o spellcast, first because there are simply not enough macro slots so this would be used for the most important functions but wont fit the secondary (e.g. a blm adapting gear for weather or magic burst), and second because even if you are super fast at changing macro pages and never get it wrong you're gonna end up being lazy at so much work for that last 5% productivity. In summary, windower and plugins are far from being a cheat, SE should be thankful to the developers because they probably kept a lot of the playerbase that would have otherwise quit to frustration lol.

Now, for the other stuff. My roommate and me fishbotted hardcore with 4 different chars for several months. We fished up trumpet shells in vunkerl then craftbotted on a 100 bonecraft mule to turn them into trumpet rings, then sold to npc. We could make around 2mil a night assuming we hit the fishing cap on all chars. Is this cheating? Definitely. Did it help us enjoy the game more? At times, I guess, when we could afford whatever we wanted with the 800mil (give or take) we made, BUT, it was a pain in the ass, even botting, to set up all that daily. I still remember having fun on an event and having to leave because we wouldn't have enough time until midnight JST to fish up the 200. So in term of pure fun, it was probably not worth it, in terms of later RMTing that money, OMG worth it. We had a simple tell alarm and simply wake up and reply if someone msged, we never got banned, jailed or even suspected of.

I retired a while ago, and I'm at the point where I look back at FF and regret playing it. It is a game where a lot of the design wastes your time for absolutely no reason, and the times I had fun were always preceded by 2 hours of wasted time setting up, "commuting", getting lucky with the teleport (Kirin anyone?). A good example is satchel, it is awesome, gives you plenty of room and so on, but why the hell won't they let you equip from it?? (I take this back if its a system/programming limitation) It doesn't preserve game difficulty, just makes you waste your time having to move your gear around with a terrible system. I can honestly think of 100 examples where ff makes you waste time and is not related to game difficulty whatsoever.

My point with all this is, cheating in FFXI is a symptom of deficiencies the system has. If fishing, for example, was a more reasonable system where you didn't need 8 hours/day to make worthwhile I can assure you less people would bot. Same with HNMs, if the system was reasonable there would be no need for bots. If crafting was more dynamic, and you could do it in batch, the animation was shorter, etc, there would be no craft bots. It is still a great game, and if there were more deficiencies than good parts of the system it would've failed long ago.

RMT is another story though. For me buyers are not so much cheating but spending in a hobby. Sellers however (and I include myself on this for the time I did it) are a completely different story. If you cheat to have more fun on the game, its ok in my books, but to adversely affect the game (market imbalances, etc) for a personal and real profit, its kinda screwed up. I know you could argue that without buyers sellers wouldn't exist, but this is basically how I feel in terms of RMT. The reason I did it that one time is simply because why pass on the cash, I mean, we put all that time on the game, might as well get something extra out of it.

To close, for me cheating is merely a personal preference and a symptom of poorly designed parts of the game (not the whole game), except when you interfere with the enjoyment of the game of other players, then and only then its not ok.

[Tiesto]

Name: Kev
Age: 23
Style HC (retired)
Hours/day: 12+, mostly 7 days a week

I used Windower since day one but never considered it cheating. This includes plugins like the TP one. These should've been features or part of an official plugin-interface provided by SE.

I wrote my own fishing bots and used them. Got the GM-window (around 2006) multiple times but never got caught. I played another char for like 6 months in 2008 and fish-botted again. In fact writing these bots was one of things that thrilled me about FFXI most.

When I couldn't find people to help me kill Carmine Dobsonfly I killed it by using a teleport hack. The only other time I used this was to solo Lord of Onzozo as Ranger.

These were the only hacks I used.

RMT-wise I sold my first account, which made up for my drivers license. Bought the second account pretty cheap and sold it for double the price 6 months later.