Thank you for the open discussion on this topic. I definitely think it's needed.
I made a similarly themed thread a couple hours ago that fell by the wayside; it was asking more about the moral lines of "cheating", rather than what's to be done about it. I realize that by accepting the terms of playing the game, we give you guys the right to ban for any reason you deem worthy; my thread was more asking about what should even be considered cheating, and why. It's mainly aimed at the "cheating is bannable, end of discussion" extreme point of view. It's not unlike the PATRIOT Act, and how some would say, "Well, if you have nothing to hide, why would you care if the government probes stuff you do to make sure you're not a terrorist, huh?" It's not about having something to hide; it's about the ethics of it.
Anyway, here was my argument. Or, lack of one; I basically just typed what was on my mind without a clear direction. I was hoping to get a healthy debate going with like and unlike opinions, but instead I got... well, standard BSN stuff. Oh well.
staindgrey wrote...
So... I see "cheating" as something that does these very specific things. All of them.
- Ruins other players' experience in-game.
- Gives an unfair advantage in credits/leveling up.
- Is achieved through means outside of the game's coding (i.e. modding).
That last bullet is where I differ from other people. I think of it as a necessity because 1) the first two points are very subjective, and 2) using what's in the game itself isn't technically breaking any rules at all. Allow me to elaborate on those...
1) Subjectivity. Is it cheating if an Infiltrator abusing his TC damage buff and sniping everything I'm trying to kill? I mean, he has an unfair advantage over me since I picked the wrong class for this team, and it's ruining my experience. This is obviously not cheating, but if we limit our definition to "it kills the fun" and "it's an unfair exploit", it's not far off. Arguments can be made, as dumb as that sounds. Where the gray area comes in is the "unfair advantage". Is making the acquisition of credits easier really unfair to anyone in a co-op game? Is making your character stronger than the others through in-game exploits hurting, or is it actually helping the team as a whole? Since this isn't PvP, it isn't clear-cut. Too many variables.
What if, for instance, someone wanted to use the Missile Glitch to help a couple friends who aren't very good at the game earn some credits, get better equipment faster, and be able to do Silver more easily afterward? Basically, using an exploit isn't exclusively for malicious intentions; should it be judged as though it were? Think of it this way: Owning a gun isn't the same as using it to rob somebody. It can also be used to protect your family in case of an emergency. Or, hell, it can be for fun at a shooting range. Should we always assume that someone who owns a gun is going to rob people with it? But at the same time, there's something to be said about the public aspect of this game; you can't just carry a gun around in public, so perhaps using a glitch in a public match without others consenting to its used should be judged in a similar way...?
2) Using what's available in game. I liken this to sports:
In football (American style), coaches push rules all the time. As long as there isn't a rule against it, they're allowed to do it, even if it gives their team an unfair advantage. For instance, just a few years ago, defensive backs were allowed to pull and tug and mess with receivers as they ran, effectively messing up their routes and ruining the play. Some teams really pushed the limits on how much pushing and grabbing could be done, and gained an unfair advantage. Because of this, the rule was changed to accommodate. Now, any contact after five yards is a penalty. This was to make the game better for everyone.
However, virtual games and physical games differ. In a virtual game, we have very SPECIFIC limitations, because we can only do what's coded. In a physical game, the player can basically do whatever he wishes. If he wants to hold a receiver, or pick him up and fling him over his shoulder and run off to the locker room, nothing's physically stopping him from doing so. Thus, rules are put into place to stop it. In a virtual game, however, we can't make our character pick up another character, run to the edge of the map and jump off. The game's coding doesn't let us. Thus, having rules against what we can't do, when the game's nature natively disallows such actions already, is redundant. i.e. "You can't use infinite missiles because we programmed it so that you couldn't, but you also can't use infinite missiles via the exploit we missed because we said so."
In my mind, if an exploit is considered unfair, it's up to the Bioware team to "fix the rule" as they would in sports-- as in, change the coding to prevent it from happening. Resorting to banning, instead, brings into question things like a glitch's purpose, a player's intent, another player's response or moral obligation afterward, etc. There are a whole lot of gray areas there, and banning is an extreme step to take with so much gray. Meanwhile, unfair exploits achieved outside of the game's programmed rules, well, that's obviously cheating. Nothing gray about that.
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