Does cheating in games make you feel guilty?
So tonight to my surprise, I beat Neverwinter Nights 2. I locked into it hardcore earlier this week and almost 25 hours later in this week alone, I got through it. That I put that much time into gaming in a week at all much less one title is very unusual for me. But here's the thing: I had to cheat. I feel good for beating the game in that I spent almost 50 hours on it and it's a great game that presented a great experience but I feel far less jazzed about it because I cheated through the last part. Here's what happened:
I had a party that was as well equipped and spelled up as they could be. The last dungeon is long, has several large groups of high level enemies and you can't rest during any of it. You then have to fight a large boss battle before you can rest, another even bigger boss battle, then another massive three stage boss battle before the game ends. Up until this point, the game had its challenges but was for the most part, not difficult. But because of how this last 2% was structured, you could end up having to do more than one boss battle over again because one may tax your too much to beat the next one. It actually really pissed me off that out of a 50 hour game, you could have to spend another number of hours trying the same few battles over and over again until you figure out the "magic formula" to get it right. I honestly found that kind of insulting and I'll probably mention it on the official forums just for feedback's sake. After several tries, I was fuming and just went "f*ck it, gimme' the God code." I was happy with the ending of the game and can't wait for the forthcoming expansion but it's been bugging me all evening that I finished it that way. I can still reload the save and beat it "legit" and I may try to but I doubt I will succeed.
I normally hate cheating in games I paid for because I feel it cheapens the experience but much like Certis said a while back, the last part of this game is insane and it just had stopped being fun at that point. Does it bug you when you cheat in games, either out of necessity or just because you felt like it? In either case, why do you think that's so? I'm sure opinion is all over the place on this.
"Just because something's popular, that sure doesn't make it right." -Penn Gilette
"You can't fix stupid." -Ron White
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I dropped the original NWN for the same exact reason. I was sailing along just fine, not super easy, there were challenges and some close scrapes, but I got along okay. Then came some battle versus 2 dragons. I have no idea how many hours I'd put into the game at this point, but it was quite a lot and apparently I'd either not built my character properly or I didn't have a very good party with me but I didn't stand a chance against these dragons. I had been everywhere and done everything else in the game up to that part so there was no where for me to go to level up my character further and basically I was forced to fight the dragons. After trying about 15 times with various tactics and not even coming close to beating the things I just said f*ck it and never played again.
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Sometimes it's fun to cheat so that you can get all the fun weapons early on in the game.
Most of the time, though, I only cheat if I'm having serious issues getting past a certain part of the game.
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If you want to cheat, cheat. That's the way I feel. It's your money, your time and your effort. You don't earn a nerdcore patch for your denim jacket by toughing it out.
Joking aside, there's games I like to play for the challenge, and then there's games I play for the story. On games I play for the challenge, I don't cheat because it removes the reason I play in the first place. I have no qualms about using codes, FAQs, maps or any other net-bound assistants to get me through so I can finish the story. If I get hung up, frustrated and about to walk away, should I A) Bang my head against the wall in some vain hope that my concussion will also create a near religious experience allowing me to decipher what a game developer thought would be a "fun, yet challenging" puzzle, or should I B) Go to gamefaqs, get what I need and hope I don't hit another wall later on? I go for B. I bought the game because it interested me. If part of the game becomes a large obstacle to further enjoying the game, and repeated attempts don't get me through that part, cheating is the answer for me.
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Strangely, I didn't have any issues with NWN1 until the last boss which I did manage to beat after a few tries. There is a battle with a dragon in NWN2 but it's optional and doesn't impact the story.
"Just because something's popular, that sure doesn't make it right." -Penn Gilette
"You can't fix stupid." -Ron White
blog.digital-lifeline.ca
It really upsets me when the game becomes that much harder in sort of an arbitrary way toward the end. I'm pretty much with you on this.
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Same here. If the game is challenging but passable up until the last level and then it just punishes you over and over again if you don't do exactly what the developers want I'm all for cheating.
Another good example of this is Far Cry (PC version... not the Xbox/360 one). It got stupid during the last stages. That's one I did eventually slog through with an insane number of quicksaves and loads, but I wish to this day I'd just cheated after I died for the fifth time and gotten it over with.
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Far Cry got ridiculous once the mutant monkeys showed up. I actually did manage to beat that without cheating but for a couple of those boss encounters, I almost wore the print off whatever key quickloaded.
The thing that grinds me about NWN2 is that it's clear Obsidian put a phenomenal amount of effort into the final sequences and didn't make them hard just so they could make them short while appearing long. They took a hit with players because LucasArts forced them to release KoTOR2 before it was done and the ending sucked. The ending here is excellent and one of the better ones I've seen recently. The final dungeon of NWN2 and especially the complexity and scope of the final boss battles is a very impressive use of the new toolset they created and they are amazing battles to watch. I don't mind if they are challenging and require strategy but when artificial limits are placed on your ability to remain combat effective (i.e. crippling the power to rest the party) and the enemies you are fighting are more powerful on their own than the last five bosses you fought put together, I just think that's cheap. The endings of Baldur's 1 & 2, Icewind Dale 1 & 2 and NWN1 weren't easy but I was able to beat them eventually. Here, I spent over an hour trying before giving up and barely made a dent, much less came close to victory.
The sad part is that I wonder how many other people reached this point, got just as frustrated and just said "screw this" rather than figure out how to cheat (the God mode thing isn't an easy as it sounds because of how this game uses it.) Those people are missing some spectacular sequences and will likely feel cheated enough by the time that it will sour their opinion of the game, Obsidian and may influence them negatively when they are deciding whether to purchase the expansion.
"Just because something's popular, that sure doesn't make it right." -Penn Gilette
"You can't fix stupid." -Ron White
blog.digital-lifeline.ca
The only games I ever really cheated on were GTAs and that was just to get all the weapons and cash so I wouldn't have to sludge through the beginning of the game beating hobos with a baseball bat to get some change. I'll probably end up doing the same for Mercenaries and Stranglehold cause I'm dying for some good ol' fashioned RPG mayhem!
Lag used to be a lot worse back in the day. Hell, it took Jesus 3 days to respawn.
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The only time cheating bothers me is in multiplayer games. As long as it's just me against the computer, I don't care in the least, nor do I feel guilty.
I don't feel guilty. Example: when a previously impossible (character of various itirations (sic)) meets a violent death, and I scream at the TV "I cheated to kill you, but you STILL f*ckING DIED!" Then I piss my pants.
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I only cheat if I have to. And if I have to, that means I exhausted all other options and had no choice. If I had no choice but to cheat, I don't feel guilty having done so.
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It all depends on why I'm playing the game. If I'm playing for the challenge of getting through it, I'll only cheat if I stop having fun with it. I don't play a game to feel like I'm working. Or if I just want to see the next part of the story, I might cheat to make whatever I'm doing at the moment go by faster.
Typically though, I'll go back and try to complete those challenges without cheating when I'm more in the mood to do so.
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I'm actually a rampant cheater: I actually cheat first when running through an FPS to enjoy the story and familiarize myself with the game, then go back and try it without cheating. I find this formula to be particularly satifying, like having my cake and eating it too.
It's your entertainment, so you can play the game anyway you want. This is like a universal law or something.
When I get stuck in a spot in a game, it's is more satisfying to figure it out without help, but if I find myself getting pissed off or bored by the effort it's time to hit the internet and find a game guide or cheat code.
I feel guilty unless I had to use a walkthrough or cheat to bypass what amounts to a design flaw.
The very first time I cheated, I used a hex editor to break open Neuromancer on the Commodore 64 so I could read some of the plain-text computer passwords. I considered that to be in keeping with the spirit of the subject matter.
RIP ChronicNecrosis
I don't mind cheating in some games, but I try to avoid it in RPGs. That doesn't mean I won't "exploit" something like a rapid spawn high xp creature, or the like. Usually I wait to stumble across them myself though instead of looking online for such things. But I almost never use cheat codes or trainers unless I hit a dead end or get utterly frustrated.
If using a walkthrough is cheating, then I cheat a lot. I resort to it when it either costs me a lot of time to get through a certain obstacle or when I forget the story/game mechanics because I haven't played the game for so long. Otherwise, no cheats, trainers, savegame edits and such, I do try to solve puzzles and problems by myself.
You can't take the sky from me.
I paid for the game so I feel the need to finish it, but if I reach the point where I'm bored and the game has nothing left to offer, then it's God mode time. id games are perfect examples of this. I've never finished one without cheating. I'll play the majority cheat free, but once I tire of running down hallways blasting dumb monsters over and over, I can't reach for the tilde key fast enough.
I always like learning that people had the same experience as me. There are two earlier posts in this thread that played the end of Far Cry just like me. Lots of F5s and F9s.
If it makes you feel any better you got full xp for a tough fight that you spent mostly bleeding to death. -KingMob
JUST PUZZLED YOUR ASS UP, SON! -Mr Crinkle
And one after you. Those monsters with the rocket launcher arms stole my faith in the basic goodness of humanity.
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-Bernard
I never feel guilty about cheating, but I've often regretted it after the fact - you know, when you've finished the game in 10hrs with no challenge and basically realize you ruined the experience for yourself.
Then there's Serious Sam - which I love to seriously cheat with, on seriously Serious difficulty for some seriously serious carnage
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Wait, that isn't the fun part?
The democratization of the web ... has installed an illusion of a digital first amendment that protects speech no matter how poorly spelled or stupid. - Elysium
Wordsmythe is my hero. - rabbit
XBL: E Munnie
That was exactly my experience with Quake 4.
Also, I'm with you guys on Far Cry. Why do you hate us CryTek, WHY?!?
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Basically, everything you said here holds true for me.
I used to value my nerdcore cred, claims to fame over stupid/ridiculous games I beat "without cheating!", but anymore, it depends on what I'm playing the game for. If it's specifically for the challenge, then no, I don't "cheat" on it. If I'm playing for other reasons, and some stupidly arbitrary "challenge" appears, I'll give it a few tries until I'm just irritated, then get past it by whatever means necessary.
I had much the same experience a few days ago with the end of fallout (the 3 trailer inspired me to replay). My character was used to solving problems in the "nonviolent" way, and whether because I never leveled enough or some other reason, two of the grunts the end boss would spawn ended up killing me in a minimum of 3 hits. At this point I had played through the entire game cheat and walkthrough free, and just felt horribly cheated by the fact that the end was so maddeningly hard. In short, I got impatient (I wanted to load up Fallout 2, which I never played) and downloaded a trainer to get past the last squeeze.
How do I feel about it? I feel like I played a great game the whole way through. I don't feel like I cheated at the end, I feel like the developers did.
Occasionally
I get the urge to write out
a stupid haiku
I'm pretty much the same. Though instead of resorting to cheating i usually just drop the game. Like PurEvil said, if you feel like you're working then there's no point.
I have used walkthroughs (rarely - and i prefer these to using actual cheats) but i don't consider them cheating since it still requires my skill to get through the game.
And this is how HL2 made me feel on Hard without cheating... i felt robbed of any challenge when playing that game.
Of - power - insessantly
Plagued - by - malefisense
Doomed - to - insidious -
Death - is - he - who - breaks
this - monument - i - prophesy
Parallax: You're wrong, you can rest in the final area. However, in each room/section of it, your rest will be interrupted 2 or 3 times by spawning shades, vampires, and wraiths. Defeat them all and you'll be able to finally rest. At least, this is how it worked in the difficulty setting I played at.
As to the topic, I don't know if "guilt" is the word I'd use. Let's see, I recently finished the flash game "Bloxorz" and I consulted YouTube walkthroughs for 3 of the end levels. I was disappointed that I wasn't able to figure them out. Guilt suggests that I feel I did something wrong or immoral. In this case, it was more frustration with myself that I wasn't more patient or insightful.
I don't like to cheat in games because it affects my sense of accomplishment. I want a challenge. I feel that singleplayer games are a battle of wits between myself and the developer. When developers cheat or make a broken game, then the sense of challenge evaporates and though I only cheat as an absolute last resort, in these cases I don't feel the same sense of disappointment.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
hmm was only 50% through NWN2 before i uninstalled it. Just got fed up with the camera and interface. The first one was a cake walk and MUCH easier to move around in.
I dont like cheating on games. I just go back to games later on and more often than not what i found frustrating or too hard before i end up finding what i was missing the first time around and it's not so bad.
Gamer Tag: Rantyr
If the game is being unfair to me then I say return the favor. Other than that, yes I feel bad if I cheat (which is why I never do unless I've beat the game already and just want to screw around).
Yet even then we ran like the wind,
whilst our laughter echoed under cerulean skies...
I don't like to cheat because it feels like I can't claim the victory. It brings up a serious conflict in the sense of achievement I have from completing something.
Much like some other players in a particular sport lately and the questionable tactics and the achievements those tactics result in, it just feels like it cheapens the game and the player at the same time.
If a game gets to the point that I can't complete it, either the game is broken, or I'm not good enough. Most of the time I'm pretty sure it's the game.
Either way that is the stopping point for me. It sucks but it's just how things happen sometimes. You can't be good at everything.
Letters to the Internet
I sometimes give myself an extra cow or wheatfield near my starting city in Civ. Occasionally I cross the line and add the odd metal or stone too. I'd probably feel bad about it if weren't supposed to be going about crushing the planet's population 'neath my iron boot.
-a triumph of lowbrow consistency