What is considered cheating?

[natolars]

Hi!

I have a few questions about cheating:

1. You can level Conjuration in less than half an hour by casting "Soul Trap" on a dead body. Is this considered cheating, or is it considered "exploiting"? I used to do it before, but it left "a bad taste in my mouth", so I stopped doing it.

2. Is it considered cheating or exploiting to spend a few hours in the Whiterun marketplace casting "Detect Life" so that you can level Alteration?

2. I've got quite a few mods; including Perkus Maximus, Complete Crafting Overhaul, and the Apocalypse spell package. I can melt just about anything at a smelter, and with the spell "Deep Storage" carry weight doesn't matter anymore. I can store all the loot I come across without worrying about carry weight at all. This means I can level smithing pretty quickly, get the best gear, and earn a lot of septims along the way. This also helps when I start enchanting stuff; I've got tons of weapons and jewelry. Without the spell "Deep Storage" my game would become incredibly harder, because enchanted armor and weapons are kind of essential in Skyrim. Especially after I installed Deadly Dragons, ASIS, and OBIS. What do you guys think? Am I cheating or merely using available spells ("Detect Life" and "Deep Storage") in a perfectly legit way?

Thanks in advance for replying.

[Nord85]

Well, I don't think there's an exact definition which is which. So this is strictly my personal opinion.

When cheating, one uses some outside-of-gameplay tool to gain advantage. For example, giving oneself one million septims or 1000 health with a console command. Basically, if one uses the console or cheat codes in games as an "I win"-button, that's cheating.

Exploiting, on the other hand, is using a game mechanic in an unbalanced way to gain unbalanced advantage. Achemy-enchanting loop is one example. I think it's a matter of degree if something is an exploit or not. For instance, if you really spend hours at a time just grinding Detect Life to a high level, that's exploiting. If you would just do that sometimes, for instance to gain that one skill point needed to be able to unlock some useful perk, it wouldn't be an exploit.

As for those modded spells, things like Deep Storage sound pretty exploity. On the other hand, I don't know how early you can get it or how much magicka it costs, so maybe it isn't. The way you use the combination of those mods sounds like exploiting the crafting systems, since things like carry weight and unsmeltable items are the few restrictions put on them to balance them in vanilla (and even there not that effective).

But what does it matter, anyway? It's single player game. You aren't gaining an unfair advantage over any other player. So if you like the game the way you play it, there's no problem whatsoever.

[Evil-i]

The only person who can answer this is you.

It's not like you'll get an iron-clad consensus on topics like this. And even if you did, what would it matter?

[caralampio]

Skyrim won't penalize you for cheating. It won't even prevent you from getting achievements. The point is, how do you want to play and what makes you feel good. I self-restrain in matters like those in the OP, but I do cheat on other things, for example to resurrect citizens killed by dragons or vampires (the game would become too boring without them, all the streets empty...) But that's me.

[natolars]

Thanks for replying.

The way I want to play the game is to make it hard to survive, but not frustratingly hard. I always end up with an overpowered Dragonborn; even before I started using mods. Where is the fun in that? I never used the "Fortifi Alchemy / Enchanting" loophole in the vanilla game. Where is the fun in 100 000 fire damage? I did, however, use the "Fortify Alchemy / Smithing" loophole. Alchemy was, in my opinion, overpowered in the vanilla game. Crafting potions that were worth over 3000 Septims was ridiculous.

I installed SkyRe about a year ago and that made things harder. No Fortify Alchemy/Smitning/Enchanting anymore and enemies with better AI. Since then I've installed more and more mods; not just the ones I mentioned in my OP.

Some mods make the game easier; others make the game harder. The last mod I installed was "Complete Crafting Overhaul". In that mod the weight of a bear pelt was quadrupled from its original weight. The weight of ores, ingots, Dwemer scrap metal, and Septims were also increased pretty heavily. In that respect "Deep Storage" may not be as ridiculous as it may seem at first glance (You can get it at Level 1 and its magicka cost is 108). But still, it has infinte storage space... "Perkus Maximus" has some perks that make things "lighter" and easier to carry. I the future I will restrain from using "Deep Storage", and invest in those perks instead. Since I use "Amazing Follower Tweaks" I can make my followers carry stuff. (But then again, they have 1000 carry weight each). Carry weight is maybe more important to me than the average player, because I never use "fast travel". I can't just fast travel from Forelhost to my home in Whiterun, store my loot there, and go back to Forelhost to get the rest of the ebony weapons that I could't carry. But I can of course purchase homes in all holds, use "safe containers" (like the Dwarwen store room in Mzulft), and store loot there.

ASIS and OBIS increased enemy spawns, which have made things alot harder. Without followers and decent armor you don't survive when you get attacked by six vampires or four ice wolves and two snow bears. Even after I lowered the difficulty level from "Master" to "Adept". The same goes for "Deadly Dragons". If you don't have a substantial amount of Magic Resistance you would get absolutely raped by some of the dragons in that mod (I use the not-very-lore-friendly version). Therefore enchanting is a "must". I'll go back to the lore friendly version, because that makes the odds of survival a little better. I prefer lore friendly stuff anyway, and never install player homes that look like some 21st century home, with only the Xbox missing, and NPC's that look like people from Jersey Shore.

I guess I have to find a "balance" here; maybe do some tweaks in the Uncapper. Like I said; I don't want an overpowered Dragonborn, but not a dies-every-two minutes Dragonborn, either.

Chaotic post, I know...

[Gandoril Spellbinder]

You've probably made your decision by now anyway, but I just thought that I would offer my two cents worth:

IMO, cheating is anything that makes a game easier (and go in one's favour for card-games); so, if you have mods that make the game harder, then that's not cheating at all; rather, it's the direct opposite of cheating altogether, whatever that may be. That said, I wouldn't consider a spell that allows for extra (or 'infinite', as you put it) carry-weight to be cheating; that's just the nature of magic, especially certain Alteration spells (such as Feather, which I could never understand why it was removed in Skyrim): to make adventuring easier by allowing for extra 'armour', greater capacity to store items, etc.

[Yaije]

You've probably made your decision by now anyway, but I just thought that I would offer my two cents worth:

IMO, cheating is anything that makes a game easier (and go in one's favour for card-games); so, if you have mods that make the game harder, then that's not cheating at all; rather, it's the direct opposite of cheating altogether,.

I wouldn't say that exactly. You're still circumventing the games normal rule set for a desired effect. Stacking the deck is still stacking the deck regardless of whether or not it's for your direct benefit.

But in a single player setting it really doesn't matter.

OP:

Like I stated above, 'cheating' doesn't really matter in a single player activity really and an exact definition will vary from player to player. Some might argue that the perk overhaul mods are cheats as many of the new perks might not actually be available to enemies you face, or hell capping various defensive skills or accessing fortify health equipment to boost your health to silly levels as these are things the game typically doesn't do for npc's you run into.

[Gandoril Spellbinder]

You've probably made your decision by now anyway, but I just thought that I would offer my two cents worth:

IMO, cheating is anything that makes a game easier (and go in one's favour for card-games); so, if you have mods that make the game harder, then that's not cheating at all; rather, it's the direct opposite of cheating altogether,.

I wouldn't say that exactly. You're still circumventing the games normal rule set for a desired effect. Stacking the deck is still stacking the deck regardless of whether or not it's for your direct benefit.

That was really just rambling more than anything else regarding card-games (I'm autistic and proud of it. To Oblivion with science!); I'm honestly quite terrible even at the Card Pairs minigame in Fable (I suck under time constraints, unless I don't have to finish 100%, for example on the ACT. I would've been eligible for York University (that's in Toronto) if mathematics wasn't required (I scored 23, need 24). Thank the Divines that science wasn't required! I do love magic . . . though I do enjoy astronomy, paleontology, archaeology, and all forms of chemistry, heh-heh-heh . . .)

See? It's automatic! I have absolutely no way nor desire to discern importance. Every detail matters . . .

At any rate, back on track, no, cheating doesn't really matter in single-player games, that is correct, though I myself try to play by a game's established rules as much as possible. However, like all beings in this universe, I make mistakes, and have been known to make a few of my own minor mods (e.g. boosting racial stats by ten points in Morrowind just so it seems slightly more like I'm playing Oblivion, changing some spell-effect stats to match what I feel makes a certain effect a weak or a powerful one, etc.). I will also admit that I'd love to try some of the Better Bodies mods, but NexusMods gave one of my computers a virus . . .

[WillieMakeit]

My theory, you can't cheat in Skyrim. Unless you're actually role playing of course. Technically, using one of the merchant chests, using the fortify resto glitch, etc. would count, but aside from that, just play how you want.

[SairiRM]

I've used the Speechcraft Rebalance Mod in Morrowind and at first glimpse I thought it was cheating. I mean 50% of the time I was always increasing the disposition of NPCs, however when comparing it to the vanilla Speechcraft I realised how goddamnly right the mod was, I mean, in the vanilla Morrowind Speechcraft wouldn't increase without successful bribery or admire, which was unimaginably hard, you'd just spend hundreds of gold in bribes only to have 7 or 8 successful ones, which wouldn't make a difference in the skill increase too.

So, to say what I think, mods that are used to rebalance the game are not considered cheating, also finding helpful items early on shouldn't be considered cheating too, as you're just exploring and playing the game as it is, and also I assure you, you'll always find someone that will beat you anyway (I'm talking about Morrowind), unless you've completed the main quest and most of the important quests, the game will always find a game to punish you. I actually felt like this too, at first, but when I realised the game was made to be moderately exploited, I played like a free soul.

[Red Guardian]

Console commands, Bug/Glitch abuse. But who cares anyway? It's a single-player game. You're not hurting the fun of anyone.

[Tor Eden]

I have a small rule I use if my character uses one of the merchant chests and that's if I take an item from the chest I'll replace it with a item or items from my own inventory equal to the cost of the item taken.

[Believe]

I don't believe you can really "cheat" in Skyrim, as it's solely a singleplayer game, however I suppose that using the console to give yourself "God mode" or 1 million million gold would count as cheating still..


Basically, I guess it just comes down to whether you actually want to use exploits, or "cheats" or whatever.

Sure, you can use certain glitches to make your character a God... But then what's the point?

If you enjoy it though, don't let anyone tell you off for it.. It doesn't affect them. (I'm partial to spamming Calm in cities myself. It's much easier than trying to Frenzy every single goddam enemy in the game... But even then, it's not like I spend 6 hours standing in Falkreath for that sole purpose.. I go in for whatever reason, spam-Calm everybody in sight, do whatever it is I'm doing there, and then leave..)

Some people would call that exploiting, and they would have a certain point. But I don't care. It doesn't ruin the game for me, so it's fine.

So really what I was saying, before rambling off, was if you want to do something, do it. If it ruins things for you, just don't do it again.

[Mattbott]

yes i agree, this is a computer application designed to give you fun. You aren't getting any edges over other humans by using any exploit

If you want to spend hours zapping npcs with a spell to level it up, then that's how you want to play the game - I think Skyrim has bent over backwards to let people do whatever they want - you can re choose birthsigns, re spec your perks and level several skills up in a quite 'ambient' way, so the intention is there to let us do what we want

of course it is possible to spoil things for yourself, but that's your own lookout