Hardware augmentation: Is it cheating?

[BIGGByran]

Originally Posted by Tatwi

Over on the official forums a lot of people talk about using various mice that allow them to change their DPI on the fly, some with mouse driver software that automatically adjusts based on one's movement. Others outright suggest that pressing a button on their mouse to overcome recoil is not cheating, because hey, "the software came with my mouse", so they say.

How do you feel about this?

A) Cheating IF:
- It does it for you
- Affects the game Mechanic

B) NOT Cheating IF:
- It doesn't do it for you
- Doesn't change the game Mechanic

- On the fly DPI change - This DOES NOT remove any game mechanic. Does not remove recoil, does not aim for you, doesn't do anything but make the mouse as responsive as you want it.

- Changing hardware is not the same as changing the game mechanics.

- If a hardware does the aiming for you or removing game mechanics then it is cheating, but no hardware can do that because it is only something software can do.

Originally Posted by Tatwi

As a result, I can't help but feel sorry for people who feel the need to augment their lack of skill with hardware and software crutches.

No kidding! We need to bring back the old school type writter keyboard. The one where you can ONLY push 1 key other wise you jam the keys, none of this "Anti-Ghosting" keyboards where you can push up to 18keys at the same time. Also this BS "mechanical" keyboard where it is easier to push a key, we need one where it takes 3 elephants sitting on the key to push it. (I remember the type writter days and I am not that old. Type to fast and JAM!)

Software I can agree on, 100% cheating.

EDIT:

Sometimes it is the hardware that limits the skill of the player.

[Electrofreak]

Originally Posted by Tatwi

Changing the options available in the game is within the parameter set by the developer, which is obviously not cheating.

Changing the way your hardware operates (in this case, the rate at which the mouse tracks movement) to achieve results that are not available within the game's settings is pretty much the definition of an exploit.

Hardly.

I used to play with a trackball almost exclusively; as a "marksman" player preferring medium-to-long range gameplay, I found it gave me greater precision. Does this mean I'm cheating?

With PS2, I actually switched away from the trackball. While it's great for precision, it's not good in situations where reaction time is paramount, and the much lower TTK on PS2 meant that the trackball didn't cut it anymore. Now I use a Logitech G500, which has manually adjustable DPI. This allows me to have precision when I need it, reaction speed when I don't. Anyone can buy a mouse like this and it's fully supported by SOE. Again, am I cheating?

Now, the reality is, I could just plug in a few mice that have different DPI settings, and use whichever I feel like. Would this be cheating too?

Actually, since almost everyone playing PS2 is doing so with better hardware than me (6-year old budget Intel dual-core processor, 4 GB of memory on Windows XP, and a Radeon 5770 GPU), I could argue in the same manner that their hardware advantage is unfair to me. When I fight in small battles (>30 FPS) my K/D ratio is much better.

So I think I've made my point. Better hardware helps up to a certain point, but it doesn't make the player any better at playing the game, they just allow him/her to send more accurate input to the game. Aimbots and recoil macros actually change that input to make the player perform better, and that's why they're cheating.

[Obstruction]

i'd just like to point out one thing: you can't macro for COF and COF Bloom per shot.

therefore argument null.

even if you had some way to replicate dragging the mouse against recoil, it isn't going to be the same as an aimbot that hacks collision detection.

stop being dullards please.