Is it Cheating?

PC General Discussion
1

I ran across a couple of YouTube videos regarding the Pokemon VGC (the Pokemon Video Game Championship) and I was honestly surprised seeing what the community considered cheating. To be put things in perspective, I am NOT a Pokemon VCG player, and I haven’t touched a Pokemon video game since the original Silver, but it came to my notice after someone linked me the video when discussing the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG and Master Duel, which I am a part of…

As such, the topic of cheating in the Pokemon community is very strange to an outsider like myself. Apparently, using a 3rd party hack or program to maximize your Pokemon’s stats and rarities are NOT considered cheating by the majority of the Pokemon VGC community. As an outsider, I would consider it cheating because part of the game is actually catching and training your Pokemon yourself, rather than instantly boosting them to maximum power. But reading the comments in the YouTube videos, as well as watching literal World Champions discuss how they don’t consider it cheating really opened my eyes a bit.

The argument about it not being cheating is that it saves time, especially for players that have full-time jobs and lives outside of Pokemon. They also argue that it’s not cheating because you aren’t giving yourself an unfair advantage because the stats of the hacked Pokemon can be legit given enough time training, etc. Perhaps more importantly, it evens the playing field, and even gives top end players more opportunity to test with team comps or Pokemon that they wouldn’t have time for if they raised them through training.

As I said, this was very eye-opening. I would have always considered such things cheating because I always felt like you should try to earn your own achievements for yourself, but they do bring up some points. And the most eye-opening part of it was the sheer amount of support and agreement the Pokemon VGC community was over it. YouTube videos that stated it was cheating would get down voted to oblivion, while videos discussing the positives of it would be extremely well-liked.

To bring this back to Diablo 4, is the community also majority in support of “time-savers” that are normally against the rules but because Blizzard cannot or do not enforce it, the community consider it as NOT cheating? For example, buying items from 3rd party sites are technically time-savers since you are literally saving hundreds if not thousands of hours that you may not have if you work a full-time job and have a life outside of Diablo. They don’t give you an unfair advantage because the items are legit themselves, just like the maxed out Pokemon can be acquired via legit means.

And couldn’t the same argument be made for people playing on other player’s accounts to boost up their progress/levels, complete quests, etc.? It only saves time?

Thoughts?

EDIT: Watch the YouTube video titled: “Controversy at the Pokemon World Championships”

3 Likes
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There is no comparison it’s apples and oranges.
It’s not cheating because it’s not the purpose of that thing. The purpose is to build your team for 1v1 duels. Playing the single player game for ages just to start doing the thing you actually want to do is completely different from d4 where the journey is the purpose.
If you could push a button and magically have a perfectly geared character than what? You don’t have anything you can do with that character.

The equivalent of cheating in pokemon would be pushing a button that instantly kills your opponent. That would be cheating because it circumvents the purpose of playing.

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I get where you’re going with this, but at the end of the day, the definition of cheating really depends on the community. There’s no universal agreement.

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I disagree with that. What does Diablo 4 have after you “finish” gearing up your character?

You have PvP in Diablo 4 with the Fields of Hatred. There used to be, and might still be, PvP tournaments.

You have the Pit climb to try to get to the highest floor of Pit. Maxroll even has a Pit Leader-board to compete in. People have been asking ever since release for an official Pit Leader-board too.

You have the Gauntlet too, which is an official Leader-board.

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Please don’t make me laugh, I am just getting over a very bad lung infection. :rofl:

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The only “cheating” I care about in d4 is duping. Because it messes with the market and makes trading almost impossible for the average player. Beyond that I don’t care at all. And if somebody dupes but never trades, I don’t care. I don’t play the gauntlet.

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Go look up Kelfka Gaming. He has a video titled Diablo 4 Season 4 PVP TOURNAMENT July 18th COME Sign UP!

Don’t get me wrong, I think Diablo 4’s PvP is a joke too, but there are people that still do it.

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  1. Cheating: Create, use, offer, promote, advertise, make available and/or distribute the following or assist therein:
  2. cheats; i.e. methods not expressly authorized by Blizzard (whether accomplished using hardware, software, a combination thereof, or otherwise), influencing and/or facilitating gameplay, including exploits of any in-game bugs, and thereby granting you and/or any other user an advantage over other players not using such methods;
  3. bots; i.e. any code and/or software, not expressly authorized by Blizzard, that allows the automated control of a Game, or any other feature of the Platform, e.g. the automated control of a character in a Game;
  4. hacks; i.e. accessing or modifying the software of the Platform in any manner not expressly authorized by Blizzard; and/or
  5. any code and/or software, not expressly authorized by Blizzard, that can be used in connection with the Platform and/or any component or feature thereof which changes and/or facilitates the gameplay or other functionality;
  6. Prohibited Commercial Uses: Exploit, in its entirety or individual components, the Platform for any purpose not expressly authorized by Blizzard, including, without limitation (i) playing the Game(s) at commercial establishments (subject to Section 1.B.v.3.); (ii) gathering in-game currency, items, or resources for sale outside of the Platform or the Game(s); (iii) performing in-game services including, without limitation, account boosting or power-leveling, in exchange for payment; (iv) communicating or facilitating (by text, live audio communications, or otherwise) any commercial advertisement, solicitation or offer through or within the Platform; or (v) organizing, promoting, facilitating, or participating in any event involving wagering on the outcome, or any other aspect of, Blizzard’s Games, whether or not such conduct constitutes gambling under the laws of any applicable jurisdiction, without authorization.
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Having a stronger character than other players is half of the competition. In PvP you basically measure who is the strongest, but of course there is also some skill involved. If you buy your items with real money you are cheating.

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10

What’s very interesting is what I said about using modified Pokemon is also against the rules of Pokemon VGC tournaments.

4.3. Illegally Manipulated Pokémon
The use of external devices, such as a mobile app, to modify or create items or Pokémon in a
player’s Battle Team is expressly forbidden. Players found to have Pokémon or items that
have been tampered with may receive a Disqualification, regardless of whether the Pokémon
or items belong to that player or were traded for

This is from the “Play Pokemon: Video Game Rules, Formats, & Penalty Guidelines”.

Still, the Pokemon VGC community does NOT consider that cheating, which I thought that eye-opening.

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it doesnt matter what an individual considers cheating or against tos. the makers of the game or the entity that holds the tournament makes those decisions.

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I love to use “timesavers” in single player games. Because time is precious.

I would not use it for example here as long as it not accepted as in your pokemon-example.

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If you aren’t competing in the Gauntlet or a leader-board, then why does it matter if you obtain items from a 3rd party site because you value your time? If it doesn’t impact anyone else, how is buying gold or buying items to save time a problem?

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likely becasue (especially made easy in latest games) getting the perfect pokemon is extremely easy (can do it in a day if you know what you are doing) so when its not hard speeding it up isnt an issue as you arent really getting an advantage over anyone as its 100% do-able by anyone. (only issue is if you cheat in stuff cant have like in old days of the literally god spiritomb who could be given stuff to make it unkillable at all by only taking dmg by weakness and prior to fairy it had no weakness)

its still got a massive disagreement behind it & to nintendo its 100% cheating.

issue between pkmn editing & buying diablo items comes down to…are you paying in game gold or actual real $?

Trading has been core part of the game since Diablo 1.

Nobody hated it until later in D2 lifecycle when it became effectively pay 2 win by involving real profit off of it.

yup. most (assumption) players would probably agree if the game allows soemthing its not cheating…so abusing bugs/glitches is fair as game allows it even if unintentional…yet devs and stuff all consider it unfair cheating.

and single player is usually w/e as not impacting anyone but if your action can impact others thats when issue arrises)

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That’s how mobile games and F2P games make their money.

They have time wasting systems inplace and then they sell you ways to speed it up.

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I don’t personally care if other people RMT gear in video games, but I would never do it myself. The chase is the game. Once I have full BIS gear, I quickly get bored. So buying gear would just hasten the process of quitting to play something else and rob me of the joy that I find in building my character.

I don’t think people who disagree with me are cheaters. If anything, they’re only cheating themselves IMO.

The only exception to this is games where PvP is the primary focus. If you gain an unfair advantage in a PvP game with RMT, that’s not cool.

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Also a feature in the game, i.e. trade. Based on recent interviews, they sanction 3rd party trade intermediaries for one reason: they didn’t know trade would be that important to the player base, but NOW they do, and (subtext) they’re working to improve in-game trading in order to obviate 3rd party trade.

You do your own trade (in theory). Someone trades you items, but you’re taking direct part in the activity. It’s not subtle or ambiguous. Someone else playing your character is not you doing the activity.

That said, it’s not the type of thing they’re likely to “enforce”… I suspect they poo-poo the practice, but don’t go out of their way to crack down unless it become egregious. (Disclaimer: This is not legal advice.)

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I hope this will also open your eyes: Cheating is only cheating if it goes against the rules.
And the rules are defined by “the house”.

If “the house” is owned by players (such as a tournament organized by players), then these players decide what is cheating and what is not.

If “the house” is a server, the rules are defined by the owner of the server.

Diablo 4 has only one server, the official one, so it is Blizzard that decides the rules.

And one of the rules is not to use third-party programs, while another is not to modify game files.

If you do, Blizzard CAN enforce the rules, because you have signed a contract that clearly says that if you break these rules, you can be banned.

If blizzard decides that buying items with real money is against the rules, then they will ban anyone they detect doing so.

In other words: The rules are the rules… The player’s opinion has no voice in this regard.

Obviously you can try to make them change the rules, but as long as they don’t change, you shouldn’t go against them.

The rules are usually shaped by the community, but the final decision will always depend on the “homeowner”.

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The World Champion in the Pokemon video argued that it’s NOT an unfair advantage because what you obtain is legit-stats-wise. If someone spends $1,000 on d2jsp or a third party site, the argument is that it’s not unfair because those are real items and anyone can obtain them given enough time, luck, effort, etc. They just obtained it via a time-saving method instead.