Cheater!

[dos350]

hi sorry to interrupt, i think u are taking the OP the wrong way, i dont think he is wanting affirmation of anything~ i think he has proven that the knowledge is known, and it isnt cheating. online is everything,

btw imo all cheat options are loz and i havnt tried any and i won.

thats not to say i didnt google say the voice of sauron etc, ~

and thats not to say thats to say ive not cheated, but imo i havnt

thats just how it is now, ee

[ewan]

I'm with Timo, I'm afraid: wins in Vanilla, Steam, ToME and some oddities (e.g. Fury) prior to ever visiting a forum or reading any extra-game information.

The fact that I'm even here to post this is an aberration - I happened to be posting a file dump of my first character in a long time, and noticed the provocative thread title. Still, certainly add to the dataset: yes, getting information to which (by game rules) you're not entitled is cheating, and yes it is not only possible but really not that hard to win without doing so.

Is cheating in your manner _bad_? Don't see why - makes you happy, doesn't harm anyone. But trying to claim that everyone else must have done what you did is somewhere between naive, luicrous, and insulting.

[Philip]

I can't make the claim, but it's not that hard. Just as Timo mentioned. I learnt a lot in O, without knowing anything about the forums, although I looked at the artifact spoiler because ID was not *ID*. Now in current V there would be no reason to cheat, and indeed I haven't yet used the spoiler or anything.

[Philip]

ewan, I have to disagree on that last point. He is not saying that everyone should use it, just that you can not win without it.

[Derakon]

My first wins were with frog-knows. I didn't use spoilers.

That said, I also savescummed shamelessly. Given that this was something like twenty years ago, I can't remember how many of those savescums were due to sudden death as opposed to getting greedy; presumably some of them were.

[bulian]

Active forum today. Congrats on the second win. Try a paladin or rogue next. I never used know_all option, though I thoroughly cheated in other ways when I first started playing to reduce the learning curve. Extra points and cookies for those who were patient enough to win in their own accord.

Once you feel comfortable enough, start a new character instead of relying on previous ancestor monster memory, then it will be fun trying to remember which dwarves disenchant, whether dracoliches or dracolisks breathe fire, cold, poison, or nexus, or whether that nasty W will drain your constitution or disenchant your gear. Timo's guidelines will get you through the game, though I personally use the monster XP value as a quick and dirty way to see whether a monster is easily killable.

Just remember its a single player game, so who cares how other people play.

DOS350: what does loz mean?

[dos350]

loz is short for lozer which is kind of meaning like loser, not that im calling anyone loz, it takes awhile to adopt the tru meaning of loz, as it does the meaning of ee and hoo and ~, but please, they arent badwords, im just expressing a culture yet unknown here or hidden

[bio_hazard]

I'd be happy if the option for full monster knowledge was not flagged as a cheat option. The option doesn't change game mechanics, and the information is available in online spoilers and elsewhere. It still requires proper tactical response to the monster information. I still find the game plenty challenging, but I'm not very good.

[zaimoni]

The option doesn't change game mechanics, and the information is available in online spoilers and elsewhere.

In particular, it is available by directly reading the configuration files.

For Zaiband, the change was made so that the AI wasn't cheating. [Unlike V's, it does use your hit points to estimate which spell is better, etc.]

[Roch]

IMHO, the game is fun because of the unknowns. Permanent death makes the game so fun precisely because of the danger involved in fighting largely unknown opponents. Once you know what everything does, then you can power dive and exploit the mechanics of the game to achieve efficient wins. But the most fun I've had in a win was my first, when I overcame the seemingly impossible odds of defeating powerful opponents that I barely knew, and which I learned about through fighting them. I've since played a lot and developed an extensive real life player memory, but that actually makes it less fun for me. Easier yes, but less fun. That's one reason variants rock.

On DOS350's related stairscumming debate, I am against it (especially for competitions) if only for the reason that it is too unreal. I am unable to suspend my disbelief that going up and down the same set of stairs won't put you right back in front of the same black reaver that you saw initially.

In comps, a big part of the fun for me is embracing death. Some of my best and favorite comp characters are dead ones, one of which I posted on the main reposband ladder today. I don't expect every character to beat Morgoth, and that is very liberating. If one accepts that aspect of ‘banding, I suspect they would stop arguing about stairscumming and just start competing.

[buzzkill]

I acknowledge your assertion and admire your confidence. But I'm sorely tempted to suspect that you may, in fact, be mistaken. I believe that you may have unknowingly or unwittingly used spoilers (and, thus, have cheated). That's because you read this forum.

I draw a distinction between using spoilers and participating casually in this forum. I would consider searching the forum for a particular piece of information pertinent to a character you're currently running spoilery. Simply participating in and learning from the forum in the abstract, I don't.

I never said that my wins (all 2 of 'em) were as pure as the driven snow but I feel good about the way I play. I actually occasionally ask questions here that pertain to my current characters. I feel that that's a far cry from deliberately seeking out every bit of information on every enemy in the game. That just my opinion.

You read this forum, and thus glean information about the game. Information about monsters. Information that, according to the creators of Angband, can and should only be acquired within the confines of the game.

Acknowledged.

Thus you may have gained an in-game advantage via external means. If so, then you are a cheater. Just like me.

If from your POV, I'm a cheater. Then you certainly must be a cheater.
From my POV (with sympathy for your POV), I'm a cheater? Maybe, just a little. Just like you? No.

Unless, of course, you can state with absolute certainty and clarity, that you've never -- NOT ONCE, in your entire Angband career -- acquired any new information on this forum about a monster?

Everybody knows stuff. It's good to know stuff. The more you play the more you know. Suddenly knowing everything that you don't know and have no right to know is cheating. There is an in game method for figuring this stuff out. If there wasn't I'd support your POV. While there is, I don't.

Prior to playing Angband or reading any forum I could have told you that red dragons breathe fire. Is that cheating? Is remembering things from game to game cheating? I don't think so.

How far does this reach, I wonder? You've expanded the discussion beyond just the "know full monster info" flag and into the wider realm of spoilers in general. Did you learn the entire combat system through trial and error? Did you learn the efficacy of various resistances against their appropriate damage types via experimentation? Did you discover the various breakpoints of character stats and blows and shots and what-not by building your own charts, reverse-engineering your own formula?

I know D&D, thus I know Angband to an extent, probably less than I think because I always surprised when I read about how some of the behind the scenes mechanics work.

I didn't understand how resistances worked for a long time. Trial and error and reading the forums revealed this to me. Now I know.

I still don't known of breakpoints of stats and blows. It doesn't interest me as it's all irreverent if you survive long enough. I think focusing on tweak stuff detracts from the game.

Which files qualify as "spoilers" and which are merely guides? Is looking at the in-game help file on classes and races equivalent to browsing a spoiler?

To spoilering is looking up information pertinent to a specific situation in which your character is currently engaged in. Looking it up after the fact would be less spoilerly.

Greater Basilisks can breathe nexus. If you'd discovered that on your own already, and have memorized the fact, then I envy both your thoroughness and your recall. If not, then I just made you cheat. And that's just plain ridiculous.

You're playing both sides of the field here, and that's not a good way to make a point. On the one hand you want to say the having full monster memory is not sheathing, and on the other, you want to say that absorbing any bit of previously unknown information is cheating. Make up your mind.

This thread was originally focused as "does full monster memory obtained though the cheat menu constitute cheating". I say yes.

If you you want to turn in into "any information at all obtained outside of the game constitutes cheating". I say no.

I hope this holds water. I'm the coach that wants to win using knowledge obtained through years of experience.
You're the coach who wants to win by stealing the other teams playbook, precisely because you don't have the experience.

As I said earlier in this thread. If you're going to have ill-gotten full monster info, then give the monsters full player knowledge by turning on all the cheat_AI options. If both sides are cheating, then no ones cheating (not really but you get my point).

Anyhow, it's all irrelevant. Play how you want to play. Why do you care if your dump gets marked as a cheater.

[Pete Mack]

Monster knowledge 'cheat' is completely benign: you can look it up in Hugo's spoilers, look it up in monster.txt, or load an old competition character. The details don't matter: some players prefer playing with "spoilers" and some don't.

In short: congratulations on your first win!