Solo Bellower Questions

[Raven Darkholme]

1 hour ago, Haplok said:

I was one of the most vocal and first criticizers of this Strand of Favor exploit. I still frown upon it, but as others have said, its a single player game, so everyone can do whatever floats their boat.

Provide this information, sure. Maybe it will be useful to some. But I would appreciate it if you include a disclaimer that is is a bug exploit, so one should use it at their own discretion.

The way you initially provided that information sounded to me like it was perfectly normal to use it - or even intended.

And there is a VERY clear line between a bug exploit and mechanical exploit - for me. Both may reek of aged cheese, but the difference - for me - is fundamental. Of course, I don't mind putting a "mechanical exploit" disclaimer in information about the other "broken" mechanics also. In fact I do consider it good practice.

Someone either needs to put their reading glasses on or just has an interesting way to interpret what others type.

I'll quote myself from the post in question:

  

On 4/3/2021 at 11:23 AM, Raven Darkholme said:

If you aren't above using cheese bloodmage isn't necessary, you can get permanent brilliant (and many other things) with Strand of Favour cheese.

 

Maybe the repetiition of the word cheese and the "if you aren't above" wasn't enough?

Edited April 12, 2021 by Raven Darkholme

[Not So Clever Hound]

[Haplok]

Well, cheese is not the same as a bug exploit, at least for me.

Plenty of cheese to be found in various combos/abilities in Deadfire - and I'm not above using some of it. In fact, finding overpowered item/class/ability combos is a little hobby of mine.

Equalizing exploiting a bug with using cheesy tactics rubbed me the wrong way, I guess.

Lets leave it at that. Everyone can enjoy the game the way they like.

 

Edited April 12, 2021 by Haplok

[Raven Darkholme]

definition of cheese:

"cheesing (v.): defeating an enemy in ways not intended by the developer, including glitching, or using unintended mechanics or manipulating the enemy into positions in which they do not behave, or cannot respond as intended."

 

As far as I know cheese is always either related to AI or bug exploits.

But as you said lets leave it at that this has been discussed to death now.

 

edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_video_game_terms

Also has a definition for both cheesing and cheating:

cheese (or cheesing)Cheese(ing) refers to a tactic in a video game that may be considered cheap, unfair, or overly easy, requiring no skill by others as to otherwise complete a difficult task. What may account as cheese depends on the type of game. Its origin traces back to players of Street Fighter II who would frequently use the same combo move over and over against to defeat their opponent. In multiplayer games like MOBAs or hero shooters, certain team compositions of heroes are considered cheese compositions for how easy they can defeat most other team compositions. In other games, cheese can refer to exploiting glitches and other bugs to make difficult gameplay sections easy

cheat A game code that allows the player to beat the game or acquire benefits without earning them. Cheats are used by designers to test the game during development and are often left in the release version.[14]See god mode, aimbot, ESP cheats, noclip mode, wallhack, and Konami Code.

cheating To play the game unfairly; giving an unfair advantage via illegitimate means.

Edited April 12, 2021 by Raven Darkholme

[Haplok]

Thank you for the definitions. Basing on those, I'd say that the term "cheese" is a little overused on this forum. I for one will try not to use it to describe stuff like SoT / Wall of Draining mechanics any more (kinda cheap, but not unintended). I will classify Strand of Favor and permanent Draining Touch as such, though.

Still, everyone can decide what is fair and what isn't in their game.

Edited April 13, 2021 by Haplok

[Boeroer]

Definitions of blurry made-up terms aside: I think most players who don't want to use some tactics that make the game too easy will say that it "feels cheesy" for them - even if it's intended behavior. Or they will say "it feels like cheating" even if they are not actually using cheats.  

Imo players can call it whatever they like - as long as they don't judge people for using it in their single player game.

 

[Raven Darkholme]

4 hours ago, Haplok said:

Thank you for the definitions. Basing on those, I'd say that the term "cheese" is a little overused on this forum. I for one will try not to use it to describe stuff like SoT / Wall of Draining mechanics any more (kinda cheap, but not unintended). I will classify Strand of Favor and permanent Draining Touch as such, though.

Still, everyone can decide what is fair and what isn't in their game.

Well the term originated in spamming certain blockstrings on SF2 which back then people didn't always know how to counter.

So the term cheese can be used far wider range than the term cheating and also applied to Wall of Draining, SoT, etc.

I also somewhat doubt the developers intended for those to make you immortal, ofc I don't know that for sure.

(Especially Wall of draining can be used exactly the same way as Strand of favour, all it needs is a fight with enough enemies, like Belranga or if you wanna be silly move around while having Eddie Brock on you. Your durations will shoot up so fast that its even arguably easier or at least less tedious to extend them for the rest of the game than Strand, the main difference is you need high enough level for wall of draining., while SOF can be gotten right after maje)

But I totally agree that anyone can call anything what they like, even I often say "this feels like cheating".

But there is no real point in asking another person why they would "cheat" in their single player game, especially if they are "just" exploiting.

[Kaylon]

For me there are three different things:

1. cheese/cheap - easy way (unfair for the enemy), but perfectly legit
2. exploits - using bugs, loopholes or unintended behaviors in the game to gain an unfair advantage
3. cheating - using external means to alter the game and gain an unfair advantage

Using 2 and 3 in MMOs is, of course, bannable. In the case of SoT/WoD, using them during the encounter in a normal way can be considered cheap, but it's of course perfectly legit. On the other hand, exploiting the AI and buffing before fights or even carrying those buffs from a fight to another is obviously an exploit (it gives clearly an unfair advantage never intended by the devs). 

[Helz]

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Definitions of blurry made-up terms aside

What's that? An argument about semantics? Yeah, I can't resist

2 hours ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Well the term originated in spamming certain blockstrings on SF2 which back then people didn't always know how to counter.

The word had that meaning long before SF2. "Cheesy: Meaning 'cheap, inferior' is attested from 1896, in U.S. student slang (https://www.etymonline.com/word/cheesy)". I guarantee it was used a lot for games in the 80s.

Exploit is easy, the definition is in the name. Some exploits require extra skill to pull off while others require zero skill whatsoever. That's the line between a fair exploit and a bad one to me.

Some good exploits that come to mind: The hunter behavior for wall climbing and wall bouncing in Left4Dead required an insane amount of skill and I really doubt that it was intended by the developers, but it lead to some amazing gameplay. Faxmonkey's "Stupid Mage Tricks" videos for early World of Warcraft were inspiring, full of Line of Sight and pathfinding exploits and mad skills.

I think most of the popular PoE2 exploits are the other kind. It took mastery to discover them, but then new players think that's how to play, start the game on PoTD, and do the same move over and over until they're bored to death.

edit: removed some acronyms

Edited April 13, 2021 by Helz

[Raven Darkholme]

32 minutes ago, Helz said:

What's that? An argument about semantics? Yeah, I can't resist

The word had that meaning long before SF2. "Cheesy: Meaning 'cheap, inferior' is attested from 1896, in U.S. student slang (https://www.etymonline.com/word/cheesy)". I guarantee it was used a lot for games in the 80s.

Exploit is easy, the definition is in the name. Some exploits require extra skill to pull off while others require zero skill whatsoever. That's the line between a fair exploit and a bad one to me.

Some good exploits that come to mind: The hunter behavior for wall climbing and wall bouncing in Left4Dead required an insane amount of skill and I really doubt that it was intended by the developers, but it lead to some amazing gameplay. Faxmonkey's "Stupid Mage Tricks" videos for early World of Warcraft were inspiring, full of Line of Sight and pathfinding exploits and mad skills.

I think most of the popular PoE2 exploits are the other kind. It took mastery to discover them, but then new players think that's how to play, start the game on PoTD, and do the same move over and over until they're bored to death.

edit: removed some acronyms

I have read that origin for the use of cheesy quite a bit as well but imo  it's a completely different meaning than using it for cheese in game.

Maybe my english is just not good enough since I'm not a native speaker, but the 1896 usage of the word seems to be mostly used for something of lower quality than advertised.

Most speedrun exploits require quite a bit of mechanical practice/skill but idk if I ever would call those cheese, I don't think any exploit has to be automatically cheese, but as we already saw in this discussion everyone seems to ahve their own personal usage of the word.

Also I highly doubt many new players use exploits in Deadfire, it is mostly solo potd/TOI or even Ultimate players who look for those.

There is no sane reason to use SoF with a party if I can set simple AI scripts that make my party more powerful than a solo char will ever be.

 

[Not So Clever Hound]

I really like the constructive and friendly turn that this discussion unexpectedly took . Everybody is bringing up really interesting and thoughtful arguments. If I was being somewhat sarcastic (which I'm not) I'd see a bunch of hardcore gamers suddenly wearing Entonia's Signet Ring with all skill points spent in Diplomacy! #cute.  

What is striking to me personally is how I love Infinity and Unity Engines both for being somewhat rigid but very rewarding when you "get it" while offering many unexpected loopholes (yet another way to say cheese/exploits but not cheating actions ) that are fun to use for the experienced player. Now, of course Unity games are a lot more advanced than Infinity games but you will probably get what I'm trying to say if you've played both.

That being said, games like the Original Sins series or even better the Dishonored series (while clearly off-genre) have this sandbox / co-creation approach that feels almost cheese-proof because the premise is that you can do whatever you want but the game has already figured out a higher order of boundaries for you. As far as I know (and I may be very wrong!) those games are in a way cheese/abuse/whatever-free, because stretching the ruleset is part of the experience.

To be clear, my perspective is that of a player, not a developer so you might rightfully laugh at what I'm saying. Also, I love all those games for different reasons and I am definitely not trying to start a stupid debate on which direction is "better" because there isn't. I enjoy Unity enough that I have stopped looking into the hours I spent either playing or thinking about PoE 1 or PoE 2 builds .

Anyway, if you've got a strong opinion about any part of my blurb I'd be curious to hear it out. Now, I'll go back to one-shotting Amelissan with hundreds of pre-cast Skull Traps at her spawning point... sorry I meant Belranga with WoD/PotFS/Cloak of Death.

Edited April 13, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Raven Darkholme]

28 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

 

That being said, games like the Original Sins series or even better the Dishonored series (while clearly off-genre) have this sandbox / co-creation approach that feels almost cheese-proof because the premise is that you can do whatever you want but the game has already figured out a higher order of boundaries for you. As far as I know (and I may be very wrong!) those games are in a way cheese/abuse/whatever-free, because stretching the ruleset is part of the experience.

 

I think Original Sins 1 and 2 are the cheesiest games in the universe, so this made me smile

They just don't have many "exploits" as even the cheese is intended and most unintended interactions (mostly those ignoring the turn based mechanics) have been removed.

The most cheese thing in both games is to just fill a little bag with the heaviest objects and oneshot everything.

It takes 0 skill but somehow still gives you this weird feeling of ... accomplishment the first time you do it, but ofc it gets old very quickly like very ripe cheddar.

[Not So Clever Hound]

4 minutes ago, Raven Darkholme said:

I think Original Sins 1 and 2 are the cheesiest games in the universe, so this made me smile

I do agree they have a lot of funny features including this one but go on a Lone Wolf completionist run on Tactician difficulty with just the bag/chest trick  without going insane. I feel like for how funny/broken certain things are, there is always a sense of balance. But again, I may be very wrong!

[Raven Darkholme]

2 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I do agree they have a lot of funny features including this one but go on a Lone Wolf completionist run on Tactician difficulty with just the bag/chest trick  without going insane. I feel like for how funny/broken certain things are, there is always a sense of balance. But again, I may be very wrong!

I only ever played solo lone wolf (so no 2nd companion) and in my first runs I never even used the bag trick.

That being said bag trick is super useful for skipping thru Act 1 because in Act 2 you get all the broken source skills and it is just much more fun to not use bag.