What is cheese?
demented
Member Posts: 388
There's a lot on this site and others about using cheesy tactics but what constitutes cheese? Is it just exploiting the system or does it include using any strategy that makes a difficult battle easy? Such as using Balduran's Shield against Beholders or defeating a dragon by using traps. These are both legitimate actions that aren't against the rules of the game.
What about when enemy A.I. cheats . Is it fair to fight cheese with cheese?
What about when enemy A.I. cheats . Is it fair to fight cheese with cheese?
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Fake talk-attack strategy, drowning Sarevok in summons from a fully charged wand, spamming cloud kill wand from a safe distance to kill Firkraag, closing doors on enemies, pickpocketing Kangaxx, setting maximum number of traps and skull traps/delayed blast fireballs to a place where a tough enemy will spawn (Demogorgon hates that), employing multiple Project Images via Chain contingency, summoning multiple Planetars via Project Image, using high lvl scrolls via Project Image, endless spells with Spelltrap+Project Image tricks, etc. Are all cheese.
Enemy AI can use a limited amount of cheese, in my opinion, as long as it is not very blatant or 'in your face'. If it's behind the scenes and player does not notice it immediately it is good. Computer AI is very limited when compared to player intelligence, because a player can learn and develop new tactics. To be relevant, game AI should be allowed to do a few things player can not normally do. Like some mages have those 'tatoo of powers' or weird contingencies a player can not have. You can assume that, those liches/high level mages had years to study their art and master spells to a degree a player can not learn. A mage pc or npc rises in levels quite fast, in 1-2 years of time a mage pc will rise from lvl 1 to 31 in ToB, that's an amazingly rapid advancement. So a few tricks of the trade may not be available to them. That's what I like to think.
I don't think finding one weapon or tactic the renders one type of fight easy necessarily constitutes cheese. I mean, making a joke of an intimidating opponent IS a device used in good story-telling, on occasion. Think of Indiana Jones shooting the swordsman. In classical mythology such moments are not uncommon; Perseus, Jason and Bellerophon famously defeated intimidating monsters just by knowing a trick that made them less dangerous.
In BG there are critters, like Basilisks and Beholders, that are terrifying to face if you don't know what you're doing. But they are actually quite easy once you know the trick.
I think the best measure of cheese is more as Lunar was saying; exploits that were never intended by the game designers. If all the fights, or all the big climactic fights are made easy, you're probably using cheese!
Cheese: Taking advantage of something that is arguably working as intended, but when used in a certain way can make a battle completely one sided, often by effectively removing an enemy's ability to fight back. Spamming the Wand of Monster Summoning would qualify in my mind. I think using the Shield of Balduran against beholders, or using a Scroll of Protection from Undead against Kangaxx, would too (I've never tried that with Kangaxx, but I think I remember reading that he can't fight back in any way against someone protected by the scroll).
Exploit: Taking advantage of a bug, broken AI, etc. Things like trapping Drizzt on the other side of the lake and killing him with ranged weapons in vanilla BG, exporting and importing a character with a familiar to stack the bonus HP, and other things like that.
Cheat: Using the CLUA console, Shadowkeeper, etc.
In BG there are critters, like Basilisks and Beholders, that are terrifying to face if you don't know what you're doing. But they are actually quite easy once you know the trick.
I think the best measure of cheese is more as Lunar was saying; exploits that were never intended by the game designers. If all the fights, or all the big climactic fights are made easy, you're probably using cheese!
I would definitely read that book.
"The hero was in a perilous situation. He had faced mind flayers before but against such numbers, he knew his chances were slim. So he spawned several skeleton warriors and picked some daisies while they hacked the illithid to death."
"The hero was in a perilous situation. He had faced mind flayers before but against such numbers, he knew his chances were slim. So he spawned several skeleton warriors and picked some daisies while they hacked the illithid to death."
Actually, a book like that would be better than most fantasy novels. Ever made the mistake reading the Tribe of One trilogy? Actually managed to make the grittiest (figuratively as in rough, and literally because of it being a desert world) soft. The range of issues I have with that trilogy were only narrowly exceeded by the downright unreadable moonshae trilogy. I literally tossed the box aside in disgust when it exceeded suspension of disbelief, even for someone reading a fantasy novel. Kinda like the manual yammering about the smith in beregost fighting with a 12 foot(!) iron staff. Seriously? Did nobody bother to work out that not only is that going to be inanely heavy (32lbs for a 1/2" rod ffs... And you'd bend that to useless in exactly 1 swing), to say nothing of awkwardly long, and lacking a point, yeah, you should use a generic spear. Even an 18/00 human wouldn't be able to fight with such a silly weapon, ie someone that could bench press 400 lbs. why can't people TRY using a heavy weapon, like a sledgehammer before spewing silliness like someone fighting with a 40lb hammer? Let alone 1 handed.
I think the problem here isn't in the Balduran shield, but in the writing style (no offense). J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a really classic fantasy novel where the main character had a totally game breaking magic item. The ring conveyed total invisibility that wasn't dispelled by attacking. That fight scene in the old forest against the spiders, Bilbo had 100% superiority and a game breaking magical effect. Yet the story still read very well.
The Elric series is again a situation where 'Stormbringer Wins!' Every time!!! Yet still the story is written in such a way that the drama and suspense is there.
Point is, just because a magic item changes the condition of the test, doesn't make it cheese. Just ask Jim Kirk on that one. He got a commendation for original thinking for his cheese.
It is not cheese to kill Drizzt as an 8ft tall gnoll swashbuckler feeling significantly insulted by the gruesome proposal to aid a foul drow in slaughtering your own kin. And it certainly is not cheese you roast that evening with your gnoll comrades.
It would also a answer a question which has haunted mankind. Beholder versus kitten; who would win?
That said, I like your haunting question.
And I think the analogy that you are trying to translate doesn't come into play in 'The Hobbit'. Certainly Bilbo benefits significantly without any real moral dilemma in The Hobbit and in fact couldn't have survived without it. Admittedly that is one of the themes in 'The Lord of the Rings', but what was being discussed was how to write a good narrative around an excessively overpowered (which I don't think the Shield of Balduran is due to it's -STR and it's otherwise limited use effectiveness) item. The Hobbit does that quite well.
If you want to compare the one ring's ability against the Balduran shield, which you seem to think is game breaking (based on your quoted dialogue), the shield gives the player a -1 to STR that even detracts from other STR applying magic. it also only defends against Beholders, so against dragons or trolls, it is merely a +3 shield. It is EXTREMELY limited use. If you aren't fighting beholders there are much better shields in the game which aren't being considered game breaking. It's a one trick pony with a limitation. And you can only use it if you can use a shield.
You are right in that the ring might make one single dungeon simply point and click, almost. You still have to contend with how to deal with opponents once the invisibility is broken by your first attack. The one ring would turn the whole game into idiot's work because you could literally stay invisible for the entire game. No one could attack you with any level of consistency. No one could target you with single target spells like hold or command or finger of death. It is orders of magnitude more powerful than the Ugoth's beard ring.
Yet still a very compelling story was written about it.
What about when enemy A.I. cheats . Is it fair to fight cheese with cheese?
Yes if it's a developer's addition; if included by a mod my strategy is to uninstall the offending thing from my game. I used to get pretty outraged, now I'm a bit more analytical - coming across a mod in any game that just outright obliterates your party because you don't know the exact winning formula beforehand. Breaking the game rules, creating content/abilities never seen... It's like a little kid playing parent and turning the player over their knee spanking away while reprimanding "This is MY GAME! MY GAME!" *Spank* *Spank* *Spank*
...Yes I just got my ass kicked by a hardcore mod addition in FF7... Highly recommend the Bootleg series of graphical mods though. Amazing. But have also seen this example with BG mods.