I don’t find shame in cheating in video games. It was a stigma to hear about growing up, that cheating in video games meant you prefer the shortcuts in life or that you didn’t know what earning anything was. When, that was all just bullshit talk.
I cheat in video games, when available to on some games, to give me a little kick of fun. Sometimes I don’t have the patience to tediously go through the standard way. Other times, I feel I’ve earned it anyways, because of having undergone the stresses and frustrations or the time I’ve played of certain games to go through the normal way.
Like in Terraria, it’s a game I’ve clocked in upwards of 900 hours. I felt like I had done everything in the game prior to the content that added the Moon Lord and many other things. At that time, it was 850 hours.
So the point of the matter is, yeah I don’t find it that big of a deal to cheat in video games. If I cared to and want to, I’m decent enough to handle games without cheats, given enough time.
Multiplayer of course I never cheat in those.
In survival crafting games I’ll almost always make it easier on myself through the world settings or something. Getting rid of item and food decay, boosting XP gain, making sure I get 100+ of each resource anytime I go mining or whatever.
Enshrouded is a massive pain in the ass on normal settings, so I make it easier to explore, gather, and fight enemies. Otherwise it’d take me at least twice as long to get to where I’m at in the game, and that already took me over 100 hours.
Palworld I do all those things and increase pal spawn rate so there’s always at least 5 pals in a group at any given time. It makes capturing them so much easier.
Idk the last time I actually “cheated” in a video game though. Maybe one of the Lego games?
Depends on the definition of cheating. Here are a couple of ways in which I “cheat”:
I didn’t have the skill to progress beyond 4BC in Dead Cells, so I downloaded someone else’s save file with all items unlocked.
If I hit a wall in Silksong to the point that it starts to put me off the game, then I look up a walkthrough to see where the nearest undiscovered bench is or where to fine the thing I’m looking for.
For any game if I end too frustrated by a boss, I’ll watch a YouTube video to learn the attack patterns and avoid repeatedly dying to learn them. This is especially true for roguelites where I may have to cross 3 levels to get to a possible chance at a boss, and then get killed.
In FTL I used to copy out the save files to allow me to save scum if I died. The game is a roguelite and doesn’t allow loading saves in case of mistakes of death…so this is a workaround to save scum.
Mostly singleplayer, when I feel like I’ve completed the most that the game would offer. Sometimes save cheesing/rng manipulation if I can’t get a certain thing to go my way, but not a lot.
On multiplayer, I did used to play anarchy minecraft servers (where cheats level the playing ground for everyone), but nothing that breaks that balance. Multiplayer is only fun when everyone has similar tools to you.
Last time I remember cheating in a game was giving myself infinite lives in Sonic Mania. The game is really fun, but I’m terrible at it and I hated having to restart from the beginning of act 1 when I was struggling with the boss. Got really bad with the final boss.
I’m single player games? Yeah.
Save editors for Mass Effect to unlock squad mates early for spoken lines that I would have never heard earlier, cheating in rare candies on emulated Pokémon games or making Pokémon shiny too.
I recall using something similar for Borderlands 2 circa 2012/2013 to get certain guns to drop with the right parts as well.
I save scum my rolls in BG3 to get desired outcomes
That is the one game I won’t save scum. It kills the spirit of DnD if everything can’t go to hell.
I use the mod that removes the inspiration point limit. That being said, some of the checks are absolutely hilarious if you fail.
Singleplayer do whatever you like, multiplayer do not cheat.
In the original halo on PC I modded the game so the rifle was shoot out banshees instead of bullets. I also made the warthog fly. I guess now that I’m typing this is was not really cheating as it was a 1v1 match and we got to screw around with the mods is did.
Multiplayer, don’t cheat - join or start lobbies playing the way you want to play.
The only correct answer.
Except on 2b2t.
Context: that’s an “anarchy” server where modifying the client is explicitly allowed.
I wouldn’t count that as cheating.
If save scumming counts as cheating, then yes. But otherwise, I’ve only ever used cheats in single player games and I really only use cheats if either the game sucks or the cheats I used didn’t effect gameplay. Some of the times I remember using cheats are:
Using the “fixme” command in Morrowind because I got stuck somewhere.
Using various cheats in the GTA games, after I had already beaten the main story, just so I can cause some mayhem.
Using the “giveall” command in Doom because I installed a weapon mod that required it.
Using the free cam that built into some emulators.
I used to use save states in old video games that didn’t have saving systems but I don’t do this anymore. I just only play them until I get to a point I can’t progress.
I think I remember using a cheat code to access unused content in at least one game, but I can’t remember what game that was.
While I haven’t played it yet, there is a PS2 (I think) game that requires using a cheat code to enable widescreen (or was it 720i, or maybe there was more than one game that did this, I can’t actually remember now).
It’s only really cheating if you cheat someone else. The point of video games is fun and entertainment. If “cheating” improves that, have at 'er.
The point of games is to have fun, “cheats” are essentially just difficulty options.
There was a game recently on a huge discount that had some great accessibility options. You could change how hard combat was, exploration, and resource scarcity. At least it would have been great if they did anything meaningful. Instead the base game was ridiculously hard, to the point that combat was nearly impossible, and even the easiest options only made it slightly possible. I guess the point was to force you into a certain stealth/no combat play style, but it was just done in a very unfun way. One of the few times I’ve actually refunded a game.
True; a lot of cheats are now found as Accessibility Options. Like a lot of action games have a god mode option in the same place you’d turn text to speech on and select colorblind modes.
Just did a second play through of Alan Wake 2, but I didn’t want to grind, just get the story, so I turned on one shot kill in accessibility. I was worth it.
Yes. You are worth it!
Finding cheat codes for Sega Genesis games was my introduction to the internet. It was so fun getting to tell other kids at school about cheat codes that you knew about for their games.
These days I don’t, mainly because they don’t seem to have them anymore, and also because if I’m not enjoying the game with its base mechanics I have plenty of other games in my backlog that I can check out instead.
Only single player games – and usually only after they become monotonous playing the intended way.
The Skyrim mod that plays Danger Zone when a dragon shows up.
Truly the very apex of human artistic expression. Frankly, we might as well just call it quits. If you grab the chairs, I’ll turn off the lights.
I have 2k hours in rimworld and I cheat like a motherfucker when my favorite pawn dies. I might go through a run having revived the same pawn 10+ times. I’ll do all kinds of weird copes like oh its fine because I will also delete this stack of 10k silver or i’ll delete another pawn as sacrific. However in multiplayer games nah no cheating, I can win fair and square. Outside of sandbox single player games nah I dont cheat either since it feels like its ruining the game for me.
It’s hard not to in 4 player GoldenEye :D
Honorless swine! Screen-looking is an offense of the highest order!
No Oddjob, no Golden Gun.
Otherwise, it’s all good.
Yup. Screen peeking isn’t cheating, it’s part of the game.
Don’t like it, tape some pizza boxes together and hang it on your TV. That’s what we did.
Yup!
Single player do whatever you like. Play your way. Example: the old DnD games like Neverwinter Nights and Baldurs Gate, I’d start a game by console commanding a Light/Lore (scholar iirc) ring and a stack of identify scrolls. Do what you like to remove the irritating part. Bag weight mods in Fallout, anyone?
Multiplayer, no, never.
You could argue that mod use is cheating, in the same sense that console commands are. That would mean almost everyone who has ever played Skyrim is a cheater alongside everyone who modded out Inquisition’s beige pajamas before BioWare added an alternative.
