I'm bored...might as well play Devil's Advocate (and boy, what a devil):
Doesn't anyone else find it silly that we're innately DEFENDING a way to sidestep grind in a game here?
The cheats? There's no defending those. Hacks that flat out break the rules of the game should not be tolerated, and violations should be punished.
Exploits? Eh...depends. It's not necessarily a black-and-white issue.
The particular exploit I have for Devil's Advocate today is: "Boosting"
Fixing an overturned jeep to sidestep the combined raw DAYS worth of grind isn't really morally questionable; it's just clever. Is it "unfair" to anyone else? NO. IT IS NOT.
Everyone had the capability to do this (compared to cheats, which essentially modify the rules of the game itself). Perhaps not the knowledge, but that's part of exploring the metagame; and it's a process that's going to be present in every competitive game whether one wants it or not. Learn the tricks if you want to win.
"But it isn't fair to the people who did the work/grind!"
Before I get into that potential argument, I need to state this: Adding layers of grind into a game to artificially lengthen is innately flawed gameplay design.
Stratifying players in a game that's intended to be based on execution is a horribly flawed stance to argue from in the first place. Grind (no matter what sort of game it's found in) is a roadblock for potential and nothing more.
The only thing that "boosting" does is sidestep it; nothing more. It ultimately just saves the player time.
To argue for "fairness" would require arguing for everyone to start at the same mechanical potential. (That is, starting with all the perks/weapons/classes). Now that everyone has equal POTENTIAL, the only factor that will vary from player to player is their personal skill, and "levels" should be based off of that (strictly for matchmaking).
That said, one could argue that playing against someone who has all the high-level perks/weapons is unfair, but I can argue that even in the absence of boosting this problem is going to apply to everyone else who picks up the game later.
Low level players will get picked on by high-level players, "boosters" or not, unless matchmaking uses level as part of its function, and if it does then the boosters will only have each other to play against, which means they won't bother the 'legitimate players' for a long time.
