"Cheating" - Walkthroughs on Solo Game vs MMOs

[Nekaru_Infitima]

So this is something that's been bothering me a while looking at the forums and how people just expect others to read guides and videos even when they're new, or fighting something for the very first time.

Why is it considered cheating by other gamers if you pick up a walkthrough in the past for say.. FF7, FF8, FF9 and used it to get everything learn everything and play?

But on this game, the moment you go into 'old content' (even if it's not old to you) you're expected to have watched a video on the fight or read the wiki. A lot of 'go read the wiki' from people?

Is that not cheating also? If one starts out this game and all they do is follow the wiki, multiplayer or not. Is that not the same as using a walkthrough or strategy guide back in the day?

I personally don't want to cheat and learn things myself. But that seems to tick people off.

[Vyrerus]

The idea behind not using walkthroughs for a single player game is so that you don't spoil the experience by reading ahead/knowing all of the twists in the plot. A lot of guides and walkthroughs aren't spoiler free. The societal idea behind that is people want you to enjoy the game more and learn to play it yourself. A lot of guides also only opt for middle of the road tactics.

These kinds of things are true for MMORPG fight guides and the like as well, but in the MMO setting you are doing content with other people. People have different priorities and concerns in regards to fights. Most people just want to win, they don't want to think. Basically, we as a player base encourage guide use in order for people to learn a way to win the fight that everyone in the group can agree on and adjust around. There's more than one way to handle a lot of the mechanics in this game, but if 1/8 person is trying to freestyle what they learned on their own vs. what the 7/8 other people are doing, it can lead to death and wipes. So it's mostly about getting sympatico with the groups you're joining, have consideration for the 7 other people and their wants and needs vs. your own. If you want to learn fights without guides, just find 7 other people with the same mentality and prog with them.

Edit: Also, as an aside. A lot of people use walkthroughs and guides with no qualms for single player games, usually due to impatience. It can be surprising to learn, but there are tons of people who've never played a game without consulting a guide.

[Nekaru_Infitima]

The idea behind not using walkthroughs for a single player game is so that you don't spoil the experience by reading ahead/knowing all of the twists in the plot. A lot of guides and walkthroughs aren't spoiler free. The societal idea behind that is people want you to enjoy the game more and learn to play it yourself. A lot of guides also only opt for middle of the road tactics.

These kinds of things are true for MMORPG fight guides and the like as well, but in the MMO setting you are doing content with other people. People have different priorities and concerns in regards to fights. Most people just want to win, they don't want to think. Basically, we as a player base encourage guide use in order for people to learn a way to win the fight that everyone in the group can agree on and adjust around. There's more than one way to handle a lot of the mechanics in this game, but if 1/8 person is trying to freestyle what they learned on their own vs. what the 7/8 other people are doing, it can lead to death and wipes. So it's mostly about getting sympatico with the groups you're joining, have consideration for the 7 other people and their wants and needs vs. your own. If you want to learn fights without guides, just find 7 other people with the same mentality and prog with them.

I get that. But the question is still. Doesn't that still count as cheating?
This game is story based. Using a wiki to find all the aethercurrents is the same as using a strategy guide to find all the hidden weapons (FF9).
Using a video/guide to know the mechanics of a fight and how to do it is the same as using a strategy guide to know the best tactic and buildup for a boss in the old FF games.

In the past you weren't considered a real gamer if you cheated and looked everything up. People would say 'git gud' and say you didn't do it yourself.

Now, if you DON'T cheat, you're not a real gamer because you died and people still say 'git gud'.

The standards have changed.

[Vyrerus]

I get that. But the question is still. Doesn't that still count as cheating?
This game is story based. Using a wiki to find all the aethercurrents is the same as using a strategy guide to find all the hidden weapons (FF9).
Using a video/guide to know the mechanics of a fight and how to do it is the same as using a strategy guide to know the best tactic and buildup for a boss in the old FF games.

In the past you weren't considered a real gamer if you cheated and looked everything up. People would say 'git gud' and say you didn't do it yourself.

Now, if you DON'T cheat, you're not a real gamer because you died and people still say 'git gud'.

The standards have changed.

No, it's just the same as in Sports when one coach watches a team they're about to face's game footage for the current and previous season. You learn most of their tricks, and then your team performs better on game day, supposedly.

As for guides being cheating, well no, they're not. They do remove some of the challenge, but they don't do so through unlawful means. There's no hard rules with video games, beyond altering/exploiting coding. Believing that there are is basically endorsing a form of Slave morality. Unless you're altering the game code to win or using tools you're not supposed to have, stuff that's specifically against the ToS for instance, then that's a form of cheating. But guides are just information. How well you absorb or use their information is up to you, and they don't win the fights for you.

Also, I'd say that the reason the mentality is different between an MMO and a single player game is that the challenges are different. In one, it's supposed to be all on you to win the game. Using a guide is using someone else. In the other, it's a team oriented affair. Your individual contribution matters greatly, but it's more important that you don't weigh the team down, rather than be clever or egotistical.

The old mentality about guides is all an ego thing.

[Jojoya]

I get that. But the question is still. Doesn't that still count as cheating?
This game is story based. Using a wiki to find all the aethercurrents is the same as using a strategy guide to find all the hidden weapons (FF9).
Using a video/guide to know the mechanics of a fight and how to do it is the same as using a strategy guide to know the best tactic and buildup for a boss in the old FF games.

In the past you weren't considered a real gamer if you cheated and looked everything up. People would say 'git gud' and say you didn't do it yourself.

Now, if you DON'T cheat, you're not a real gamer because you died and people still say 'git gud'.

The standards have changed.

It wasn't cheating in the first place. Cheating is doing something the game does not intend or allow to gain some advantage to progression. If the Terms of Use included a clause stating users cannot share information about game play with others, then it would be cheating. I don't think any game has such a provision. The closest you get are alpha/beta testing NDAs where the developer doesn't want too much information leaked in advance of the game's release.

Those who call it cheating are the hardcore gaming purists who think a player should have to figure out everything on their own. Then there's the rest of the gaming community that understands sharing knowledge is the better way to go, especially in a MMO where player interaction is a core part of game play.

You don't need to worry about it.

[Edax]

I get that. But the question is still. Doesn't that still count as cheating?.

Knowledge is knowledge.

[Gothicshark]

I get that. But the question is still. Doesn't that still count as cheating?

No never was either.

This game is story based. Using a wiki to find all the aethercurrents is the same as using a strategy guide to find all the hidden weapons (FF9).
Using a video/guide to know the mechanics of a fight and how to do it is the same as using a strategy guide to know the best tactic and buildup for a boss in the old FF games.

There are 3 aether currents you won't be able to get to with using aid from a wiki, well unless you are a really lucky person or the type whose not afraid of wall walking. Also, the dev team designs these things with the knowledge that people share information on wikis. So occasionally they intentionally make things harder to get to knowing full well you need the wiki or luck to find them.

In the past you weren't considered a real gamer if you cheated and looked everything up. People would say 'git gud' and say you didn't do it yourself.

Ego, but self-delusional ego, and most people who said it had the Prima Guide right next to the controller. I had this friend, I'll call him Mark, he would buy the guide with every game, he wouldn't buy the game if the guide wasn't there. Yet he would always brag how he never used the guides to clear the game. Trust me, I eye-rolled hard at him often. But then I was a girl, so I didn't have to brag about not using a guide, I enjoyed the game, looked up the hidden stuff in the guides, and had fun.

Now, if you DON'T cheat, you're not a real gamer because you died and people still say 'git gud'.

A: Not cheating never was
B: Are you mixing up games a bit, FFXIV players tend to be more Passive Aggressive than "Git Gud", they usually say something snarky, or like healers and their rez macros, extra saucy snark.

[VirusOnline]

This game is story based. Using a wiki to find all the aethercurrents is the same as using a strategy guide to find all the hidden weapons (FF9).

These type of things are what SE would see as not just an individual gameplay mechanic, but also as a source of community knowledge. Aethercurrents. Hunts. Fates. Party Finder. Quest locations. Treasure Hunting. General loot table information.

Using a video/guide to know the mechanics of a fight and how to do it is the same as using a strategy guide to know the best tactic and buildup for a boss in the old FF games.

In the past you weren't considered a real gamer if you cheated and looked everything up. People would say 'git gud' and say you didn't do it yourself. Now, if you DON'T cheat, you're not a real gamer because you died and people still say 'git gud'.

MMOs are a different breed

Cheating ? Or community knowledge ? Or is it simply others telling others how they should experience a game ?

In my experience with WoW for nearly 8 years since BC and now FFXIV for 5 years since HW, this mentality of git gud is incredibly rare. I've done it all from casual to savage raiding in both games. It's generally understood that there is a difference between single player games and games which at some point require you to work with other people towards a common goal. Remember, kicking someone for how they play in a group content like for leveling roulette is considered legitimate. SE has literally given us the tools to reinforce the very idea of working towards a common goal that the majority desire.

On the other hand, in single player games we the player can control everything that happens: how we want to approach fights, what paths we want to travel, how we respond in and to that world given to us. But single player games today are often linear with a "unique once run through". Knowing this, in single player games I might want to know all about the hidden or easily missed content I might miss on my one and only runthrough.

After more than a decade playing MMOs, the biggest lesson I've gleaned is that MMOs thrive on it's main gameplay element: multiplayer interaction. It is the community itself who will always desire not just for more knowledge about content in the game, but to want to share knowledge for the sake of sharing knowledge to a plethora of people with different goals. Raiders of all levels, crafters from casual to pure gil dumping pentamelds, the one guy who runs into the hunt target by accident to the server's lead Hunt Masters, the FC that just wants to have a good night treasure hunting, or me who just wants to find the perfect glam and be able to search what dungeons drop what.


The Experts

And I won't forget to mention theory crafting. It is a hobby for some, and a proud stand for the masters of those classes. If WoW or FFXIV decided to tell players how to play and their optimized rotation off the bat, you'd be cutting off an entire community who like to theorycraft. This includes the crafting, class optimizing communities, and savage fight optimizations. It can be incredibly rewarding for a gamer in any game to create a build, theme it, name it, gear it, optimize it, and present their findings. As a gamer and dev, one thing you want is your community to be able to this. Theorycraft.

You have people on the front page creating classes that don't yet exist or modify them to be better balanced/played.

StormBlood NINs and those have mastered it and wrote the guides were truly impressive people to me because NIN was jank towards the end of SB and yet they wanted to find a way to make it good. And those who were good were good. My goal was to become better and see if there was simply a better way of doing things and I simply don't have the knowledge, skill, or whatever tools they use to have been able to theorycraft a SB NIN. In retrospect, look at WoW. They have addons to tell you how to even think. How boring. I remember the days you had to read the quest text to find out how to do anything. But even then, you'd have to google because it's vague. And that's what the community is for, and the community desires to share it.


TLDR

You call it cheating ? I call it community knowledge.
Use it, or don't, but I wouldn't call it cheating for something so simple as seeking knowledge.

[Penthea]

Why is it considered cheating by other gamers if you pick up a walkthrough in the past for say.. FF7, FF8, FF9 and used it to get everything learn everything and play?

I don't consider it cheating but I do consider it as a way to experience the game the devs did not intend. If the devs intended players to have a walkthrough, then games would be constantly holding their hands and alerting them about everything.

I'm fine with people using walkthroughs. Each to their own. It doesn't affect my enjoyment of games and it is by no means making the gaming industry worse.

However people should be cautious when using walkthroughs, especially those that are fan-made. I know a couple of people who got major story spoilers because of walkthroughs.

Anyway using walkthroughs could only be considered cheating if the terms of service for the game specifically state that you are not allowed to access information from outside the game to help you.

[Absurdity]

I don't consider it cheating but I do consider it as a way to experience the game the devs did not intend.

I don't even want to imagine what it would look like if everyone only did what the devs intended...literally nothing but cure bots, 1-2-3 tanks and freestyling dps *shudders*