Poll: The line between cheating and playing really, really well.

[Maximum Bert]

Yeah I am going to say not cheating at all annoying as hell sure but not cheating. I remember being accused of cheating in Super Street fighter 2 turbo apparently I kept using the same moves and was ruining the game I guess they never thought of blocking but then I think he had the scrub mentality i.e when he wins the other person is a noob and should learn how to play and when they lose the other person is cheap and should learn how to play.

 

[Little Gray]

It is my opinion they were cheating as there was no possible way a random grouping of people could coordinate against them. It would be a legit (and expected tactic) in an MLG match, but against a simple social, unranked match?

Anyway, what do you think? Were they cheating because they had such a distinct advantage? Or am I just being a baby?

You are just being a baby.

Just because they are in a simply social match does not mean that they are not allowed to use tactics and practice. Besides somebody being better then you does not make them a cheater, it makes them better then you.

 

[Phlakes]

It is my opinion they were cheating as there was no possible way a random grouping of people could coordinate against them. It would be a legit (and expected tactic) in an MLG match, but against a simple social, unranked match?

Anyway, what do you think? Were they cheating because they had such a distinct advantage? Or am I just being a baby?

You are just being a baby.

Just because they are in a simply social match does not mean that they are not allowed to use tactics and practice. Besides somebody being better then you does not make them a cheater, it makes them better then you.

There's more to it than that.

Regular, non-MLG multiplayer is still about everyone enjoying it. If that team wants to play for nothing but competition then they should stick with other people who play the same way.

Going into an average lobby against people who just want to have fun, knowing that they won't have a chance, is a massive dick move.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

It isn't cheating by any stretch.

In a first person shooter, by and large people tend to consider the game from the perspective of an individual test of skill. In most iterations of the game, this is exactly the correct way to view the game as there is little you can do to control your fate beyond improving your precision and reaction time and trying to mitigate risk by proper understanding of where a person is going to approach from.

A small alteration of the FPS formula can change this. With proper map design, the introduction of strategic goals on the map (single or multiple flag CTF, king of the hill, single point domination style and all derivatives, etc) introduces the idea of map control meaning a team can gain a distinct advantage by denying the other team key areas of the map.

What the other team effectively did is use 50% of their team to ensure map control while the other 50% exploited that control to quickly win the game. Defeating this tactic fundamentally requires nothing more than dedicating a better effort (achieved through superior numbers or superior individual skill) than the other team to map control. If you present an exactly equal effort to map control then the game returns to a contest of individual skill between the members of the team who are pursuing the game objectives.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

[quote="Jacco" post="9.401767.16560539"
I'm not saying they're cheating because they were good. As I explained in another post, they were essentially exploiting a flaw in the game (non-ranking) to constantly steamroll the other team. What their motivations were I have no idea. So I guess "cheating" wasn't necessarily what I was looking for. "Cheap" would be a better word I suppose.

Also, we did try to back out and kept getting put back in the same lobby as them.[/quote]

The failure of the game to produce a fair match does not, by any stretch, mean they are cheating. If the game is capable of producing a fair match and they find a way around this system, then and only then could the action be called cheating.

This latter mechanism is relatively common. The F2P status of League of Legends for example means a player can simply create a new account where they will consistently be paired with low level players.

 

[spartandude]

It is my opinion they were cheating as there was no possible way a random grouping of people could coordinate against them. It would be a legit (and expected tactic) in an MLG match, but against a simple social, unranked match?

Anyway, what do you think? Were they cheating because they had such a distinct advantage? Or am I just being a baby?

You are just being a baby.

essentially this

heres the thing they didnt abuse the game or find an exploit or glitch they just played very well and communicated. you have those abilities aswell (well i guess not). the fact is you decided to play it hoping you wouldnt come across a coordinated group and you did

 

[axlryder]

I came into this thread expecting an interesting scenario that really blurred the lines between cheating and fair play.


I was sorely disappointed.

Also, no.

 

[Jacco]

I came into this thread expecting an interesting scenario that really blurred the lines between cheating and fair play.


I was sorely disappointed.

Also, no.

You're welcome to come up with one and I'll put it in the OP.

 

[Blunderboy]

So having a good strategy is considered cheating now?
Interesting.

 

[axlryder]

I came into this thread expecting an interesting scenario that really blurred the lines between cheating and fair play.


I was sorely disappointed.

Also, no.

You're welcome to come up with one and I'll put it in the OP.

Let's come up with one together

Seriously though, I'd think something along the lines of exploiting poorly thought out game mechanics that clearly grant an unintended, unbalanced advantage to one team would be something closer "debatable cheating". Sort of like how certain characters are ultimately banned from fighting game tournaments for being broken. Even then, many people would say "well it's in the game so it's not cheating, it's just scrubs whining", but you'd probably get some disagreement happening.

 

[miketehmage]

No they were not. They were using a tactic that has proven to work very well. You were unable to counter this tactic either through lack of skill or lack of game balance. Either way, what they did was not cheating, at most you could call it cheap.

 

[Robot Number V]

So you're saying they were cheating just because they played a videogame as a coordinated group, and your team didn't?

Yeah, you're being a massive baby.

 

[Little Gray]

There's more to it than that.

Regular, non-MLG multiplayer is still about everyone enjoying it. If that team wants to play for nothing but competition then they should stick with other people who play the same way.

Going into an average lobby against people who just want to have fun, knowing that they won't have a chance, is a massive dick move.

So what you are saying is that even if you just want to relax and have fun playing against somebody worse then you is a dick move? Is working as a team in a team based multiplayer mode a dick move?


We dont know if there is more to it then that because we only have one side of the story which is from somebody who appears to be butt-hurt because he got stomped a few times. Those guys could have been playing for fun or just wanted to stomp people we dont know. Also its not like Halo 4 is dead or anything. If you keep getting put against the same people then you just wait five minutes and then try and join a game.


I will give you a similar example but from another perspective. Me and some of my friends rather enjoy CoD and some of them are insanely good. We normally play in private matches because the competition is far better but often want to play some less intensive games for fun. Is it a dick move for us to go into public matches which are for fun and stomp everybody?

A couple of weeks ago four of us got together for more then a few beers and played public games for far to long. We played for probably five or six hours while drinking and didnt loose a single game. Is it a dick move for us to do this even though we are just playing for fun and not really caring is we win or lose?

 

[DSK-]

Well, I've not play Halo 4 or any other Halo for that matter online so I don't understand the points that relate to that; however what I can say is that all team-based gamemodes in games like Quake, UT, Warsow etc require a hell of a lot of communication, co-ordination, co-operation, map knowledge and experience. Or at least they do, if you want to actually be good at them.

We've all had experiences of being completely curb stomped in games, and in all honesty I find that people are too quick to assume their opponents are cheating.

[Added]

I don't quite understand why people are so upset at others who take the time to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the game they are playing and consider it something to be labelled as a "dick move", or even going so far as to consider it a form of cheating.

 

[Jamieson 90]

I have experience with this from the other side as I was in a league 1 competitive clan whilst playing Quake Wars for the PC. Our team was made up of four people, and we for the most part tried to play on promod with other competitive players of a similar or better skill level, unfortunately you can't always organize a scrim/clan war, so sometimes we'd go on pub against unorganized players, and for want of a better word we'd rip through them, and quite often be accused of cheating by other players, players might I add who had only played for 10-20 hours, when each of us had racked up over 2000 hours ourselves, with a 1000 hours at least working together.

We were all incredibly close having suffered heavy losses before and brought back nail biting games at the last minute, so our level of teamwork and coordination along with our friendship was great, allowing us to play extremely well together; we worked extremely hard and devoted hours upon hours every day to be THE BEST. That means hours going over tactics and strats, hours tweaking configs to improve performance. Simply put if you want to be the best then you have to work for it, so don't accuse competitive level players of cheating, they just want it more than you, otherwise you'd be at their level too.

 

[Pulse]

Cheap, but not cheating.

I wouldn't find being on either side in that game fun.

 

[CriticalMiss]

It's not cheating.

It's just evidence that the game wasn't designed very well.

My thoughts exactly. An easy way to fix it would have been having multiple spawn points for the object in question, keep them distant from one another and then you won't get someone camping the spawn point, unless it's a big team of course. I don't see how this is even remotely cheating. They aren't abusing an exploit, just poor design. If anything you could learn from these guys and use the same strategy against other players to win a few matches.

In the past I've been up against some fairly well coordinated teams in various games. Yes, it sucks to lose but you can at least acknowledge that they won through skill even if it is being skilled at knowing how to play the system a bit.

 

[Evil Smurf]

This reminds me of all the "OMG NERF THE ENGINEER1!!" threads on the valve forums. A good strategy is not a cheat. You should have all jumped on skype/google hangout and talked to each other about tactics during the game. That's what I do when I play TF2.

 

[thesilentman]

Playing well is just that, playing really, really well.

Cheating is when some guy decides to modify the game and its rules itself in order to win.

That's my take on this issue.