Who uses cheats?

[Geoff_B]

Funny thing about "poweroverwhelming". In Brood War it worked against you. I'm not sure exactly how it works but in the scripted events that ended missions, if one character had to kill another and the cheat was on then the character would never die. So all these attacks would pour onto the hapless victim who would just stand there taking it all. Took me a couple of minutes to realise it was cos I still had the cheat on.

In other news coming up to the halfway mark in Heart of the Swarm and haven't had to cheat yet. Yay me.

[phlip]

Yeah, what "poweroverwhelming" did was make it so computer players did no damage, rather than making you invincible. You could see this in free-for-all custom games, when the computers are battling each other with big armies, and neither side is doing any damage...

[DeltaStrata]

Funny thing about "poweroverwhelming". In Brood War it worked against you. I'm not sure exactly how it works but in the scripted events that ended missions, if one character had to kill another and the cheat was on then the character would never die. So all these attacks would pour onto the hapless victim who would just stand there taking it all. Took me a couple of minutes to realise it was cos I still had the cheat on.

I thinke it even happened in the first campaign, actually, though I couldn't say when specifically. But yeah, Aldaris' death at Kerrigan's handes (claws, tentacle-wings, whatever) couldn't proceed while god mode was on, and I thinke there were a few others as well.

[Geoff_B]

So much for trying to avoid spoilers But I think it was only in Brood war because of the reliance on scripted events to progress the story.

Anyway here's an interesting article on why someone plays on Easy mode which pretty much reflects my own views.

[Milo_Xaben]

After reading through the three pages and 54 posts, I have to say this - the only reasons I'm not purchasing this game yet is because A) people in person have complained that the escort-style-game of running around with the girl is a pain sometimes regardless of her looting items, and B) the price.

[Geoff_B]

A) It's not an escort mission. She never gets attacked, injured or killed. It was one of the development decisions.

B) Fair point.

[Amake]

I do like games to challenge me, but I also have absolutely no respect for the designers' ability to predict how challenged I want to be. I'll play games on my own terms. You might call that cheating, but I call it taking responsibility for my own entertainment.

For example I like to play Diablo 2 with a mod that makes the game considerably harder, or use Cheat Engine in Binding of Isaac to make a run more fun - sometimes massively overpowered. Good times abound.

I also flip back to earlier pages when I read books.

[Darkobra]

I only cheat in a game I have completed thoroughly and usually only as a means to speed things up. Or more likely, doing the fun cheats like adding secret characters that can't be obtained any other way.

In Skyrim, I spawn a lot of ingots so I can get my 100 smithing. I completed the game thoroughly, DLC came out and that DLC corrupted my save. So I started again from scratch, used the console command to get my ingots to make my smithing 100 (since you don't get the direct bonuses due to a bug from just making it 100 smithing purely through console) and got to the end again. Once again, new patch, new corrupted save. So that battle kept going on! Lost a level 70 warrior and a level 60 mage!

Getting 100 smithing, alchemy and enchanting the first time was so tedious I will never do it again. I have already passed the test.

In other games like Virtua Fighter, I use the Durel cheat to play as him sometimes as it's the only way to get him. You can't just beat the game with every character and unlock him. I tried! Worst part is, cheats like that don't exist anymore. You know why? DLC! Why press a few buttons for free when you can press a few buttons to activate your bank card and pay for it?

[Valkyrie-Lemons]

I was looking for material for my essay and I found [This] book.

I just found it and haven't read it, but just in case anyone wanted a book to read...

[empath]

...okay. Seems like an interesting read; I perused the first few pages and the opening engages me, without pushing an agenda.

Thanks!

[Bebop Man]

To be perfectly honest I don't remember the last game I played that had cheat codes for it. Do walkthroughs count as cheating, though? Usually I consult them at the beginning of a game, to see if there's a way I can accidentally trigger a bad ending or forever miss a collectible.

[Professor Steve]

I think the last game I played with cheats was The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The game wasn't particularly difficult for me, but it was one of those games I played just to explore the world, I had no need for such petty nuisances as death. It took me well over 5 years to actually get around to beating the game, and my primary motivator was that I was not allowed to play Skyrim until I did so. Oblivion, for me was more a game that I would play to break. The story was great, but the world was so fun to mess around in. (doubly so with mods)
For what it's worth, I did beat Skyrim without cheats.

[Drecon]

Wait... Elder Scroll games have cheats? I actually never knew that.

[Professor Steve]

They do if you play on PC

[Drecon]

I play on PC but I've never felt the need to cheat in one of these games (although I've never played Oblivion, I've heard some things about that game that might have changed my mind)

[Darkobra]

Oblivion was actually my favourite in the series. Some say Morrowind was. And some, for some strange reason, say Skyrim.

[Professor Steve]

I play on PC but I've never felt the need to cheat in one of these games (although I've never played Oblivion, I've heard some things about that game that might have changed my mind)

It's not that I needed to cheat. It's just something I kind of did

[Bebop Man]

I did it in AoE all the time. Pepperoni Pizza, Lumberjack, Coinage, Quarry, Big Daddy, Photon Man, E=mc2, No Fog...

[Genghis Ares]

If there are fun cheats, I'll play around with them at times. If they block something in the game, like achievements/trophies or access to other stuff, I don't.

I'll use glitches and exploits from time to time if I want to go about beating something a little easier that is frustrating me or to just make my own fun.

[ex-Lurker]

In "normal" play I do it to fix glitches (e.g. falling through the map) and design decisions that cause me to have significantly less fun (although it takes a lot to trigger this one).

[vazhkatsi]

the starcraft era I used to use money cheats because I didnt really understand how to play efficiently

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I use console commands in games if there's a pointless restriction.
Like Skyrim if I've already got like 5 saved files with max Blacksmithing. Or if I want to change my race.
Or respecc in Torchlight 2.

[TimeLoss]

As many have already said I think it depends on both the game and the person.

With Morrowind I occasionally have to use the console's "fixme" command to unstuck myself from some object in a cell I stupidly jumped into. I am certain anyone who has played Morrowind long enough has had a similar experience.

To me there comes a time with any Elder Scrolls game where you have to resort to the console or some exploit, particularly if mods are involved. Even most veterans of Daggerfall know well the "void" and how to both enter and leave it.

[Antitonic]

I do when it's reasonable in my mind to do so. For something that's basically new, a FAQ is about as far as I'll go. For something with a bit of age on it, I'll load up cheats. For example, watching Kathleen's stream has enticed me to pick up FF12 again. Now, I do this because I'm bad at games, but I still want to experience the story they have to tell. Whatever skill I had when I was younger has disappeared so quickly, you'd swear I was in an industrial accident and lost both hands or something.*

So yes, I'll quite happily turn on infinite health and things like that (not like Max Stats, Instant Win, or others in a similar vein), because it's not the gameplay I'm really after. Maybe movies just need to be better?


*With apologies to all the handless gamers out there.

[AdmiralMemo]

Reading Antitonic's post, I think I've figured out something...

When game-play interferes with the story or progression in some way (you're not skilled enough, the game is badly-made, or various other reasons), using cheats becomes acceptable.
When game-play complements the story (or there is no story), using cheats is only cheating yourself.
If you're just screwing around to see what you can do (like Garry's Mod-style play, with games like GTA and SimCity as good examples of games that this becomes an option), cheating also becomes acceptable.
In competitive multi-player, using cheats just becomes a straight train to being a hated person.