Do You Cheat? (What Is Considered Cheating?)

unkinhead

Just curious if anyone out there, like me, occasionally uses cheats or editing to correct user error, etc.

For example, whenever i playthrough baldurs gate, and i make a user error on proficiencies or stats or what not, i respec my character's sometimes. I go into eekeeper and - a skill/proficiency, and then + another one...Sort of like backtracking.

I also occasionally use the teleport cheat if i have already discovered the area . Just because i am to impatient to walk there. IE: Teleport from west beregost to east beregost.

Just curious, what cheats everyone else uses, if any, and what you truly consider cheating...

Too me, truly cheating is obtaining a value, item, etc that you wouldn't normally have, abusing the game for combat gain, etc. What do you guys think?

Sylph

I use teleport a fair bit if I need to get to the other end of a map I've cleared. Sometimes I console in extra items if I'm having a rough time in a certain area and don't really feel like backtracking to shop or level grind some more. Sometimes I get really frustrated and ctrl-Y things to death :P

I guess pretty much everything is still 'true' cheating, heck I've known people who insist reading FAQs or strategy guides is somehow horrible and ruins the game :P I've never had an issue with it at any level in single player games though *shrug*

Bigfish

I'm not above changing variables every now and then, but I avoid CTRL-whatevers and consoling in stuff. Mostly it's to not ruin my own fun.

But then, I refuse to reload (minus bugs), and I'm still stuck in BG1 because of it.

booinyoureyes

Boots of Speed for everyone and teleport everywhere (patience is a virtue that I do not possess). I punish myself by playing on the hardest difficulty.

Silverstar

No cheats for me. I use EEKeeper to choose hair/skin colours that for some curious reason still isn't available in character generation though. I consider use of the console as well as non-cosmetic save game editing as cheating. But what anyone else does in their games is their business.

Tresset

I sometimes "substitute" one magical treasure for another. For example: say I have no need for Varscona in a playthrough; I may decide to pretend that Greywolf dropped a throwing axe +2 instead. Most of the time this is because the item distribution in the game can be annoying sometimes... Like how the full plate +1, the best magical armor in the game, is obtained from the second to last battle. So if you decide to wear it it won't even get warm before the end of the game. What is the point of that? I want to actually USE some of the items I find for more than 2-5 battles...

Mitchfork

I admit that I CTRL+J around occasionally, but only in cities/towns. Other than that I do my best to keep my fingers out of savegame editing and all that jazz. I consider mistakes and non-ideal character planning to be integral parts of a run that are fun to overcome- weapon proficiencies that never panned out or poor HLA picks are just part of the experience. I would make an exception if an ability or spell pick was bugged or something, though.

unkinhead

Silverstar said:

No cheats for me. I use EEKeeper to choose hair/skin colours that for some curious reason still isn't available in character generation though. I consider use of the console as well as non-cosmetic save game editing as cheating. But what anyone else does in their games is their business.

Huh, i didn't even realize that, maybe i should change skin colors in EEkeeper...

However i also use EEkeeper + Console for bugs...

IE: Items disappearing (eekeeper), Certain NPC's not spawning (Console)

But i definitely respect the no cheating period view.

atcDave

I guess I cheat very little. I'll often use EE Keeper as the fastest and easiest way to match my character to a PNP character I have in mind, or change to a non-standard appearance. But once the game is under way I typically change very little. I've been considering "fixing" a couple of NPC's in BG2EE to look more like they did at the end of BG, but that's about the extent of it for me.

unkinhead

booinyoureyes said:

Boots of Speed for everyone and teleport everywhere (patience is a virtue that I do not possess). I punish myself by playing on the hardest difficulty.

lol, same here...It's one of those things that i don't mind doing alone, but if i played with a friend in multiplayer and he did it constantly, it would bug the crap out of me because its "cheating" i don't know what that is, but its weird...Still its nice to know im not the only impatient one who can't resist Ctrl-J'ing to areas...although i never do it in unexplored places.

ChildofBhaal599

mostly just fix bugs and user mistakes. if i make a user mistake but went a very long time with it I like accept it though. if I just made the mistake and didn't get to utilize what I made the mistake in then I will change it rather than reload. for example early in my MP game I moved a bow into a two weapon style after realizing the way multiclass pip progression works, but I did it barely out of the mines. then there are bugs like in the same game our sorceror luck scrolled me and I lost my pips

Silverstar

Back in the day I used to dupe additional Boots of Speed for the whole party using import/export and I also had a character named "Books" who carried all the tomes (all the ones I had found anyway). While I still like the convenience of Boots of Speed I no longer dupe them since various AC and immunity boots are much more useful and it would be a pain switching back and forth. As for the tomes I no longer have the max-max mindset thankfully ^^

Shin

I often don't roll stats but just Ctrl+8 and assign what I find suitable for the character I have in mind; usually resulting in a total between 90 and 95. I also spend a lot of time coming up with new class concepts and creating a bunch of abilities for said classes.

What constitutes cheating is an old debate and tends to depend on how "consolized" the mindset of the player is (used to console games like Final Fantasy where you would usually have to "earn" numerous items through immense repetition and had little possibility to affect the inner workings of the game; or used to pc games where you could often easily save time and effort by edit things to be the way you wanted them).

Personally I have a very liberal view of single-player game cheating: the only one you can cheat is yourself, and the way to cheating yourself is to somehow refrain from playing the game exactly the way you want to.

Mathsorcerer

For computer games, there is no such thing as "cheating"...from a certain point of view. Unlike other sorts of games which have a set of rules which are spelled out and to which all players adhere when beginning the game, there is no set of rules for a computer game beyond what is or is not possible given the limitations of the game engine. Yes, you may "cheat" yourself out of the experience of beating a certain fight or figuring out a puzzle by looking up the answer online or using some tool to set the variables to give you victory automatically, but it isn't against the rules.

Once you purchase a computer game, you may do with your characters as you see fit and you don't have to explain your choices to anyone. Thus, no cheating.

BelgarathMTH

I'll use EE Keeper to change a proficiency, but I don't like to give a greater number of pips than what the character is supposed to have. I do a lot of playing around with portraits, hair, skin, and clothing colors. I'd change my character's name sometimes, too, but I learned the hard way the one time I tried it that it wreaks havoc with the game's dialog and item labeling scripting if you try to change Charname's name.

I also use BG1 weapon proficiencies, which groups like weapons together. BG2's system doesn't make a lot of sense to me. (That's from the Tweaks mod, not Keeper, though.)

I try to be very careful what I do with Keeper, because using it more than once or twice during a game to change anything but a portrait or a color, makes it start to feel like a "dirty game", and I usually start wanting to start again with a "clean game".

The only time I ever enabled the console was in a BG2 game where Saemon Haevarian failed to spawn to trigger the next chapter, and I had to learn to console the correct version of him in, or lose weeks of play that I was very invested in.

Usually, I don't have the console enabled.

The only way to truly "cheat" that I can think of, would be if you were participating in a public no-reload or minimal-reload thread, and you either failed to inform the other posters what you had done, or lied about it, trying to get their approval when you didn't really deserve it.

Twani

I think I've cheated in a Flesh to Stone scroll or two when I was at the bottom of a dungeon with a stoned party member and I didn't feel like wandering all the way back to the surface to buy one then traveling all the way back down to the dungeon to find them and then inevitably find out that they'd gotten bugged and wouldn't rejoin my party and had to reload a save anyway. Ugh.

...Other then that, no cheating... except for CTRL+I to get banters to trigger, if I'm feeling like I need some NPC conversation in my life. And occasionally trying to see if I can get Sarevok to change his alignment already.


When I'm testing things, on the other hand, I'll CTRL+J, R, and Y as necessary to get to the spots I need to test and the like. Otherwise, testing would take forever.

jackjack

I use Ctrl-J a lot, and like to dual into kits, or use them with multis. So yes, I cheat.

nano

I use ctrl-Q to check enemy stats and take notes on their abilities and weaknesses, HP, saves, resistances, stuff like that. I like to know exactly what I'm up against but you can't right click and see enemy stats like you can in some other games.

Faydark

For some of my characters, I use an "Auto roller" to roll their stats.

I don't use the console. Haven't had the need so far, but would use it to fix a broken quest etc if I came across one.

I use shadowkeeper to change character cosmetic elements (colours, avatar style eg using mage avatar on mage multiclass etc).

I have the xp cap removed in BG1:EE, but not BG2:EE yet (just on first playthrough atm, so playing "vanilla" first go).

Xcidium

nano said:

I use ctrl-Q to check enemy stats

Didn't know that one. Can you use it to get Gaxx (or any other items that cannot otherwise be pickpocketed)?

Mrpenfold666

hmmm, I cheated experience to finish the druids circle quest-line on my last play through because i liked the idea of becoming a leader for a druid's circle and in BG1 i cheated some super magic items to see what they did and (your probably not going to believe me) i still wanted to beat the game legit so i dropped them and went on my merry way

Foggy

I use EE Keeper to re-assign any proficiency points lost when dual-classing, and to change Anomen Spear proficiency to Flail or Mace. I also use CTRL-J because I have no patience to gather my party before venturing forth.

Aigleborgne

I never cheat, no matter what. The only thing that could be considered of is that I rolled for a long time to get good stats. But I haven't played for years and now I wouldn't do it anymore.
Also, I mostly play no reload-game for more immersion and fun. And to be more difficult, I use AI mods.
I even avoid to use my knowledge when playing, although it is sometimes difficult and almost impossible.

With all this, it can take me several attempts to finish the game but I like it a lot !

Iseleth

I use EEKeeper to change NPC classes or proficiencies (only legal ones though), or to fix bugs.

I frequently use CTRL-J in places that are annoying to navigate like the thieves' maze in BG1 or in dungeons with a lot of backtracking.

CTRL-Y or CTRL-R... I sometimes use them during the last battle of ToB, because that game is almost over and I'm in a hurry to finish (and start a new one).

As for what is cheating... All of these things are cheats, yes, in the sense that they were not intended to be possible. But since this is a single-player game it doesn't really matter. Whatever makes the game more fun for the player is fine.

elminster

I only really cheat when I'm testing something

nano

Xcidium said:

nano said:

I use ctrl-Q to check enemy stats

Didn't know that one. Can you use it to get Gaxx (or any other items that cannot otherwise be pickpocketed)?

Yeah, I think so. They come with all their items so you could just take it from him. They also come with the hidden rings that the game uses to confer immunities but it's mostly a curiosity because you can't remove them and the description doesn't say what they actually do.

Thrasymachus

In general, I find cheating diminishes my long-term enjoyment of the game. A while ago I 'cheated' by importing additional items when I transferred my PC from BG to BG2 (kept boots of speed, dagger of venom, etc.). (In BG2, at the very beginning, you could 'drop' items while the screen was still black. BG2EE eliminated this loophole.) It made the subsequent game far less fun, and I eventually abandoned it.

I admit that I use EEKeeper to redistribute proficiency points (but never in a way that breaks the rules). And I feel a little guilty about doing even that! (I also use EEKeeper for cosmetic changes, NPC colours, etc., but nothing that affects the rules.)

That's about it. I don't even know how to use the Console.

(I did just use EEKeeper to fix what I believe is a minor bug with the blade's pickpocket ability, but fixing a bug is not 'cheating'.)

jackjack

Yeah, the console is where I draw my arbitrary line.

Silverstar

elminster said:

I only really cheat when I'm testing something

Why would the realms' most powerful wizard ever need to cheat? Please indulge a young man.

nano

Well, you don't become the realms' most powerful wizard by playing by the rules...

Aranthys

Tresset said:

I sometimes "substitute" one magical treasure for another. For example: say I have no need for Varscona in a playthrough; I may decide to pretend that Greywolf dropped a throwing axe +2 instead. Most of the time this is because the item distribution in the game can be annoying sometimes... Like how the full plate +1, the best magical armor in the game, is obtained from the second to last battle. So if you decide to wear it it won't even get warm before the end of the game. What is the point of that? I want to actually USE some of the items I find for more than 2-5 battles...

The best armor in the game is the regular full plate. Simply due to the fact that you can use a +2 ring with it