"Cheating" - Walkthroughs on Solo Game vs MMOs

[ADVSS]

Foreknowledge is not cheating.

Exploits like Ungarmax outside of squadrons and spinning bosses to prevent them from doing mechanics definitely are, though.

I too remember when people were able to get titan to walk off his map and die

[LineageRazor]

In a single-player game, cheating is whatever you decide it is. If you believe that using a walkthrough spoils the game for you, then that's fine. If you prefer to speed through, pick up all the secrets on the first try, and so on, using a walkthrough is fine. Basically, unless you're bragging about your "quick win" on the forums, or whatever, what other people tihnk about using guides is totally irrelevant. it's a one-player game. You can play it however you want to, and get your money's worth however you like.

In a multi-player game, however, where you are cooperating with seven other people, all of whom may have different expectations than yourself. you need to take THEIR opinions into consideration. It's not all about you, and your own personal choices. If they're hoping to clear difficult content, and have done the homework, and then one person walks in blind and spoils the run, that one person has wasted the time of seven others, all for their own gratification. When prepping for difficult content that requires the cooperation of other people, you should prepare yourself in such a way that your performance will satisfy any of them. That means doing your homework.

If you PREFER to learn the fight from the ground up, that IS an option as well - but you don't have to spring that option on seven unsuspecting victims. Use Party Finder to tailor your group as you like. If you want to go into the run blind, that's fine - make a party finder group, and make it clear that it's a blind run. It will take longer to fill, to be sure, but once it does fill, you can friend the others that joined your run, make a linkshell and invite them. Chances are they are folks who ALSO like running old content blind, who don't care about a quick win and are satisfied to take the hard road.

I don't think there's many adult gamers that consider using guides to be "cheating", whether for single- or multi-player games, but the important thing is to realize that when you play a multi-player game, it's not all about you. It's about you, on a team with seven others - and those seven other expect you to be on top of your game.

[Gothicshark]

... people just expect others to read guides and videos...

Internet Social game, it's normal for people to at least take an interest in doing content successfully, you don't need to know 100% of everything, but you should at least learn the Raids and significant group content ie trials.

Why is it considered cheating...

It has never been considered Cheating to use a guide/strategy guide/wiki/or videos to successfully clear content in a video game. Some high ego types try and make it sound like "I'm so hardcore I did X solo without any aid." This stuff has always been an ego boost/brag issue. There have been a lot of video games over the years which you couldn't clear 100% unless you used a tip from a strategy guide that they made profit on. Prima Guides use to work with Dev teams to make their guides, and the developers use to make hidden things you could only find if you used the guide. At the same time, Braggards would claim to do 100% clears without the guide, odds are they were lying.

But on this game,...

Well, they are echidna and terrible humans, if someone asks before a fight I usually try and give them a 1 or 2 line quick explanation, most good players will, as it's in everyone's interest that you should perform with a minimal amount of competency.

Is that not cheating also? ...

Not cheating never was either. Honestly, you should always use any aid or tool to make the game work best for you. Not to say I encourage people to break the TOS and use 3rd party addons, but using the wiki's and there are a couple of good ones, and a ton of good videos, a few of which I recommend subscribing to the content creators on. Learning a major fight before doing it makes you a better gamer, and it is not and never has been cheating.Now going in changing game files and cracking the code, is cheating and bannable on all Social Games.

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

Reading a guide, watching a video is not cheating, and a normal part of the learning process, you still have to do the content yourself. The only valid issue about using guides ad videos esp on a first playthrough, and it's also why I avoid using videos on a first playthrough when it's MSQ related are

spoilers

. I still ask for a basic rundown of what I need to know in Chat. (ie: /P /A "1st time here, what's new and different, what is important that I need to know?" )

[Gemina]

For Ffxiv, no it's not cheating to look at a guide prior to entering the encounter. It's kind of like how sports coordinators will review film of the team they are playing prior to actually playing them, and they are allowed to do this.

Fact of the matter is, when you go into an encounter blind, the chances of you failing mechanics are very high. Looking at a guide may help with this, so at least when you die, you know what the hell did you in.

As another example plenty of guides still left me scratching my noggin when the mechanic is explained. Sharp Turn from the second boss in Puppets Bunker is a great example. None of the guides helped me figure out if the formation is on the outside or inside. If I dodged it, it was because I followed everyone (which also resulted in getting hit by it), or just got lucky. I didn't fully understand it until I recorded the encounter and figured it out for myself.

Even looking at guides for single player games requires that you execute the playtips. This will take practice, and some players can't figure out certain things on their own.

Cheating to me involves using things that give you an edge that is clearly not the intention of how to handle the encounter. An old school gameshark, cheat codes, or some of the third party tools players use for this game easily qualify. Another thing I highly consider cheating is cheese. Sure, some type of edge has been exploited, so all is fair in love and war, yes? Yeah right. Take your No-skill cheesehead arse to another arcade.

[linayar]

As someone who used gamefaq walkthroughs a lot on single player games, no I don't consider using those cheating.

Cheating is gaining an illegal advantage at the cost of another party. So, first of all, anything that is not illegal is not cheating. Second, anything that does not affect another party is also not cheating.

PVE is about multiplayer cooperation against the game environment, so it cannot negatively affect another player (world first race is not part of the game, so it's irrelevant whether something can help you beat a fight faster than other players). So the only thing that is relevant is whether something is legal. Watching a guide is legal, using addon is not. Addons can be considered cheating if they help you gain an advantage in combat because the official stance of the game dev is that you're not supposed to use it, but if the devs were to say yes on addons, it will not be cheating, it's as simple as that.