POLL: WHAT'S EVERYONE's VIEWS ON CHEATING IN BG2

[Cleric]

I am a Cheater , I make some Items , becouse I don't like to search the game for one item , pleas , i pay for it , whit the shadow keeper ,and i don't like that clerics don't get an higher attack ,and weopon provnesie(Spelling!!!), but i want the , so some times if i go a level higher , i set my attck 1 higher ,I add more spells , just for fun ( I now now around the 400 spells!!)But whit my stats i don't cheat , now you think " houw he get a dex of 21 ?" , Becouse i does'nt now hou I must import a character from bg1 and my one in bg1 has and dex of 21 , becouse he is and elf , and in bg1 the skill bonusus are higher , the you can get a dex of 20 , instead of 19 , and i have found some tomes.

SORRY FOR MY SPELLING AND GRAMMAR!!!

[Jerome]

Why cheat? the game was made as it is and should be played as such.

UNLESS!

You can improve on any of the producers bugs and\or gameplay issues. I wonder why they bothered to include the druid class at all if they cant implement the right stuff for it. By creating items that balace the game out rather than just simplifing it you could be seen to be improving it, but only if it creates a better gaming experience for you.

But no , i dont cheat.

Cheating the first time round can be bad because you pretty much ruin the gaming experience.

However, after finishing the game a couple of times you end up sitting there and thinking -"What the hell!! I had a LEVEL 17 Kickass Mage who could bash in anything in Faerun, and now I'm back to LEVEL 8??!!!

So cheating for me is basically laziness, a quicker way to get the same power that I had previously WORKED SO HARD TO GAIN!!

But don't forget that cheating could not be cheating sometimes. If you have the exp remover - then you gain more THACO and spell slots that you should be getting.

Who ever heard of a mage that stops learning at level 17?!! Pretty dumb to me.

[Yorick]

I don't enjoy cheating by giving myself items or killing monsters or giving myself super stats. If I'm playing a weaker novelty character and I come accross a tough battle that I MISSED (namely the twisted rune) I have imported my favourite hero in to do the job. But then I reason it's part of his adventure as he didn't do it in the first place....

Actually in my fist game, I installed Shadowkeeper to correct a small problem I encountered. I picked a Monk. The only decent Monk photo was Yoshimo's so I unknowingly used that, and called him Han Hu after my own name (albeit a chinese version). I then encountered Montaron in Irenicus' dungeon, claiming to be a Bounty Hunter called Yoshimo. (Get it?)

This sucked, so I looked up the unread manual and found what I needed to know, and changed my portrait to a Northern European Monk - but stuck with an oriental name. I thus used shadow keeper to restore Yoshimo his proper face - I tell you it was REALLY annoying otherwise - and changed my characters name to Francis (after the Italian Monk Francis of Assisi).

These two actions were impossible without 'cheating' with shadowkeeper, and would have meant either restarting, or a compromised roleplaying experience. It allows the player a measure of flexibility, which is good as a human moderator would indeed be more flexible than a computer.

I remain a fan of beating the game 'legally' however

[Memnoch]

Here's an interesting one: What are your views on cheating in BG2?

Cheating is defined as hacking, using shadowcheater, using CLUAconsole, for whatever reason (game crashed, can't get through a quest, whatever.) to give your character an advantage not attained through actions directly relating to the game.

Before I infect you with my opinion, i'll sit back and see what you all think.

PS We're not trying to redefine cheating here (we all know what it is). we're trying to see what our collective opinion on it is when used in a computer game context. Nobody will be persecuted for their opinion!

[Zoratorak]

hmm... i never cheated on anything on bg2 ... the only time i cheated was when i look at the forum and i call that NOT CHEATING... more like askin for advice.. hehe... oh yeah... i dont consider exp remover cheating since it only hinders you in the game ... heck i didnt know my bro removed the exp cap till i was castin lvl 9 spells which confused me since i know i can only reach up to lvl 8 ... now can you call that cheatin... mine is a perfectly nomal and legit char...

is it cheatin... if you go to someone games...and get all his cool stuff (if he gives it to you) then export?? for me yes since you didnt get it fair and square right??

[Lord of Alcohol]

I havent downloaded Shadowkeeper so I cant cheat. At least not in that respect. I would be tempted to use it if I did. I'd rather play the game normally. However if you define cheating as looking on this board for some occasional help then yes I've done it. I prefer to solve things by myself but sometimes I have to look here when I get aggravated. Its either look here or throw the computer in the pool and I like the computer too much. But is it cheating when you reload after finding out you made a wrong choice in the dialouges? I've done that a few times.

[Rikard T'Aranaxz]

i found almost every tomb in bg1
but in bg1 i was a ranger
so i put the stat from those tombs to my necromancer
that is all

overall cheating isn't fun
maybe to add a item you lost or something
but i also know people making their characters level 50
that ain't fun

Cheating in an RPG to beat monsters is only cheating yourself if you are a skilled player. But to use the console to create and test characters for educational purposes is a must if you want to become an expert in all the classes and do not have 378973839 hours to do it.

The way I look at it, it's and RPG, you aren't playing against another player. You should do whatever is the most fun for you. If your idea of fun is a really powerful character with a bunch of 25s, that is your choice. But it defeats the competitive aspects of the game, so you won't be getting what "most" people will get from the game - a challenge.

The only people who may need cheat to beat monsters, etc., are people with no skills who have problems playing at the lowest difficulty levels. If this is the only way they can play this game, then I am all for it, since it is a lot of fun no matter what and I wouldn't want to deprive anyone of this excitement, so do whatever it takes.

In games like Star Craft and Total Anihilation (RTS games), cheating is abhorrant, and these people are total losers who will never make anything of their lives, so I forgive them since this is the only way they can beat anyone at anything as long as they live.

Well,Memnoch, I do have to start by redefining cheating. For instance, for me not every use of Shadowkeeper constitutes cheating. Let me explain:I have used Sk to give the improvements due to the tomes back to my party members from BG I. I felt like I had "attained those through actions related directly to the game", since for me this game is trully only the second part of BG I.
You can also see that through the fact that I have never even considered excluding anybody of the original party from my BG II party. That has limited, of course, my ability to play much with the interesting new npcs, but to give anybody of the old buddies the sack would just have ruined the game for me emotionally. When I learnt about BG II, I intentionally replayed BG I for the sole purpose to have a party, not a just a pc, well prepared for the second. So, after starting this game, I felt quite cheated on when I discovered that they had messed around with "my" npcs. Yes, I know, that is why they are called "NonPCs". I must also admit that I was hipocritical about it, insofar I happily accepted the major improvement to Jaheira's dexterity stat and the minor one to Minsc's constitution stat.

I also used Sk to change Imoen into a thief/mage that had dual-classed after level 10 instead of seven, but also deducted the 120.000 exp. points difference from her mage account, Well, "my" Imoen had been a tenth level thief at the end of ToSC. I also think,
that dual-classing before maxing out your hitpoints and getting decent thieving skills is just a major stupidity that ruins the character.

I used Sk again to put my familiar back into my inventory after he was gone after the Spellhold. I do not know whether it was because of the known bug or if I had just forgotten him. It didn't matter much that he was gone as I retained the extra hitpoints but I sure missed petting him once in a while.

Spoiler !









The last time I used Sk was to get the key to Mazzy's cell in the Shadow dungeon. I had forgotten to take it from the warden and it was gone when I came back after completing the quest.

Of all of the above I consider only the last one to be a minor case of cheating done merely for humanitarian reasons. Hey, poor little Mazzy would have starved to death otherwise. Okay, also brought me some exp. points.

In other words:in my not so humble opinion real cheating when using a program like Sk starts once you use it to gain something that is unrealistic under the rules governing
AD&D or that you could get through "honest" play but you consider it too bothersome (like equipping yourself with the HA without having killed a certain dragon).


And I am going to tell you what I consider to be one of the worst forms of cheating even so
it does not require the use of any cheating program: it is taking advantage of obvious shortcomings of the A.I. to get by an enemy.
Classic example: the everpopular tactic to kill, let's say, a certain dragon by having your thief surround it with a zillion traps which only takes like a month in-game time.
Come on, that is not clever, that is just pathetic and ridiculous ! I can only hope that within 5 to 10 years any game will have an A.I. that is improved up to a point that it will just not allow such stupidities.

But, and that is surely the worst part of this post, I have to admit that I, myself, have once cheated in a major way: it was in the fight against the very dragon I have hinted at that much in this post, when I stooped so low as to revert to the second ever so popular tactic: I had Aerie cast "Magic Resistance" at him while he was still neutral to bring his resistance down quickly.
Not quite as absurd as the first example but almost.

And who is to blame for that ? Me ? Of course
not, it is you out there on this board suggesting and promoting such lowly and outrageous tactics !

No, I know, it is true: blameshifting will not save my soul. It is my fault alone. Oh, what does that make me ? A sinner and a hypocrite for sure . Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !


Well, after rereading this post it sure sounds more and more like the confession by a devoted catholic amd I am no such thing.

Happy cheating to everyone,

Ramon