[drdaeman]

> Cheating is a social issue

This is very true.

Highly unpopular opinion: cheating is a social issue and the only future-proof long-term solution is… acceptance and adaptation.

Technology is here to stay. A machine will always outperform unaided humans at some tasks. Don’t make that the point of the competition. The genie is out of the bottle, and save for an apocalyptic event, it won’t ever go back.

Do the contrary. Give every player a state-of-art machine copilot, and let them bring their own improvements to it. This is the only way to make the field truly level again. If your game mechanics is ruined… I’m sorry, but then that - probably - wasn’t a sustainable idea.

People who are called “cheaters” are different. Some exploit bugs and just want to watch the world burn - no sympathy for those folks, fuck them. Some want to trample on everyone without doing anything - no competition here, I don’t get those people (can’t say “fuck them” though - maybe it’s some kind of a trauma they have, so they need that feeling of fake “victory”?). But some want to win, but feel that cannot do so with their bare hands and eyes. So they do what humanity always did - improve by using technology. If they genuinely want to become better - how about we just don’t hate them for this? Heck, the desire to improve through tech is the very foundation of this civilization. (Yes, even if one just buys a cheat program - it still makes sense in any society that had invented money.)

Just rank such players accordingly to their machine-assisted skill. Here, problem solved, and as a bonus you’ll get your next OpenAI Five paper in no time.

I know it’s very controversial. I know some game genres won’t survive (not complex games like LoL or Dota, though). Most likely a lot of MMOs (and most mobile casino junk) will suffer, as a lot of their mechanics is based on boring grind (that’s how they earn money, hah). I know the industry is doing the exact opposite, trying to shove the issue under the rug with bans and memeing super hard that “cheaters” (a derogatory term) are vile scum. And I can see why people are buying it - if the developers say it’s against the rules, no surprise a slightest trace of automation (like a programmable mouse) feels unfair. Reading some Reddit threads I sometimes wonder how those people don’t say that wearing glasses is cheating too. I see that as a conservative approach, and - as anything that merely tries to uphold the status quo - I honestly believe it’s not gonna work in the long term.

No trolling, I honestly believe in what I wrote. And, no, I don’t “cheat” (although I’ve experimented with some basic game hacking, of course - because reverse engineering is fun)

And, uh, yes, I think the same should apply to non-e-sports. The logic is a bit different, of course. But the value of medical breakthroughs drastically overweights the fictional “purity” in my perception of values. I don’t really care if some athlete can do something (doubly so because I don’t have a nationality I can root for; personal achievements are cool but there’s zero benefit for me or society besides the economic value of the competition event), but if some athlete can do twice as much because of some tech (drug or implant), that may be beneficial for me as well. And yes, I’ve seen that standup/meme about dope Olympics - it’s fun but it doesn’t really invalidate my views.

[NoPicklez]

This is a very far fetched tin foil kind of response here

If I am playing a game with other humans and one of those humans doesn't feel like improving or cannot stand being beaten and decides to use technology that is not allowed to win at the expense of others. That's not a game people are going to want to play.

There is room for people that want to experiment with cheating and using technology in game to aid themselves and that's in a completely separate game that encourages that behavior.

If they genuinely want to become better, they need to apply concepts that allow them to improve which is training what you're not good at and accepting you won't always or ever be the best. Not using an aid that goes against the rules of the game and gives them an unfair advantage.

It's a similar principle I would apply from the world of sport and doping. Just because it might be partially a social problem, the solution isn't just to let it happen.

[drdaeman]

It’s not about not being able to stand being beaten and not being the best. I’m truly sorry that a lot of people who cheat are also toxic.

I’m not advocating for unfairness by just letting people use automation to trample upon those who don’t. Like I’ve said, a machine will always win an unaided human in some tasks - so there is no competition here. Rather, I propose to accept automation and start giving it to everyone, so games will be fair for everyone. If some mechanic relies on imperfect mechanical skills - that’s a bad mechanics that never will be fair despite any wishes to make it so.

Technology is the greatest equalizer. Don’t automatically blindly hate people who want to make bots or copilots. That was the whole point.

[NoPicklez]

Firstly, the decision needs to be made whether we allow people to use automation and these games have already said no, which is the agreed upon consensus for players. We don't want to allow cheats or people to automate their gameplay.

We want the developers to provide the constraints so that there is a fair playground, they do this via the game mechanics and preventing outside automation. We just want to play games using the mechanics provided to us, we don't want to focus on building automation to outsmart the competition, we want to outsmart the competition by being a better player when everything is considered equal.

I am automatically against people who make bots or copilots in games that explicitly say you can't use them, in games where the players don't want them and don't want to up against them. That is the whole point.

These anti-cheat solutions are combatting people making or using copilots in games where people don't want them and where the rules say you can't use them. That is the whole point.

[add-sub-mul-div]

So all competitive action games (for example) should go away and be replaced by competitive coding or scripting of action-game-playing bots?

I'm hearing that cheating is a social issue and we're dumb for using technology to address it. But the social need to compete, here's a whole masturbatory fantasy of how coding is the last battlefield we'll ever need for that. The cunning and slandered cheaters have shown us a better way.

Let's rewrite the whole activity of gaming so that people who are bad at aiming guns but do know how to install a script can get a trophy.

[drdaeman]

Your comment was dead for some reason. I’ve vouched for it.

I believe that games that are purely competition of reflexes are inherently unfair. Bots are merely exposing this unfairness because they can reliably beat all kind of animals, but it exists in humans as well.

But here’s the thing - I don’t understand cheating in this kind of games (besides people being willingly toxic). It’s no fun at all, you just win and that’s it. There is zero competition. So, yea, you’re right it doesn’t make sense to give bot copilots in such games. Their time will come to an end when humans will learn to enhance their reflexes, until they they’ll be probably the last kind of games to keep the “no bots” flame alive.

Please notice a difference between toxic people who want to trump everyone, and normal people who want to improve their lives by using technology because they have skills for that (money is a tricky thing - I need to think about it more). Today they’re all pushed into the same ostracized group, called “cheaters”.

> Let’s rewrite the whole activity of gaming

Yes - why not rewrite? Humanity had rewritten various principles quite a number of times, and continues to do so. The time for games will come soon (not exactly yet, but it’s rapidly approaching and we can see the first signs).

A bot is just a machine (we don’t have GAI and it’s still an unanswered question if we will anytime soon). If the game is truly complex in a good way (LoL surely is not too bad in this regard) - it won’t auto-win it for a human, it will merely remove the routine and grind, exposing the true mechanics, exposing the ultimate meta.

[Cloudef]

The thing with community curated servers is that there very well can be a server which encourages cheating. And I'm not opposed to giving cheaters a place to be in. Even some games that do not have community servers, do not actually ban the cheaters but instead move them to their own server where they will be playing with other cheaters.