Cheating?
Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 9:08 am
I'm starting this thread in order to keep from hijacking another one. I'm not looking to start a huge fight or flaming fest, I was just curious on what other's take was on cheating and whether or not you do it.
Topics of cheating:
1) DaleKeeper
2) Squatting
3) Muling
4) Weidu's mods
5) Other
With any game, I think there are things that get skipped, left out, etc. I am always on the outlook for patches and mods for most of my games. I guess ideally, cheating in a game would be doing anything outside of what the developers intended, altering the game in a manner to exercise something within the game to your benefit beyond what was intended by the developers.
1)With IWD 2, the biggest tool that comes to mind is DaleKeeperII. I've used, but I don't abuse it. I've used it to alter stats (moving skill points from one skill to another where both were allowable by the classes of my character). In my current game, I use DaleKeeper to take some of my levels that I have squatted. My level 9 Monk at the end of chapter 2 had 13 levels squatted. Realistically, if I took all 13 levels at once, I probably wouldn't see another xp from a monster until chapter 4 or 5. But I felt I need some help, so I used it to advance three levels and resume my game w/ the xp that I left chapter 2 with.
2) Level squatting could very easily be considered cheating, because by doing so, you are consuming more xp per kill than you should be (once you're average party level is 7 or higher). This to me is an abuse of the game, it's doing something that wasn't originally intended. But to counteract, I feel that not taking the level ups when they occur means you are fighting a lower level than you should be. However, IMO, this differs when you are using less than 4 characters because now when the game would decide how much xp you should gain, you are deciding. Yes, your character is lower than he/she should be, but more than likely you are more powerful than you would be if your character was a member of a party of 6.
3) Muling pretty much falls into the same category as level squatting. I think there is also two types of muling. One is active and the other is inactive. The active method is where someone adds a character that they are going to eventually promote and use. Inactive is adding a character just to bring down your party's average level. IMO, active muling is not so much as cheating. You can even justify it from a rp perspective by saying you picked up so and so in a tavern and they wanted to come along. Inactive muling is a more blantant abuse of the system because ideally you are adding a character that has no purpose other than to increase the amount of xp you gain from a fight. These characters are typically not ones that you continue on with throughout the game. I believe they come and go. But is it in different than squatting? I can't really say. I am not sure how I feel about the different levels of cheating.
4) Weidu's mods. Again, I feel this is another gray area. Yes, it's easy to consider them cheats, because you do receive benefits from them, but you get decide which benefits you want to use. In my solo Monk game, I have the bottomless container mod, infinite stacking, deep gnome fix, collector's edition stuff mod and additional merchant mod. I justify using these because I'm using a solo Deep Gnome. Using a solo character, you get a lot of stuff and I like to make as much money as I can b/c w/ the additional merchant mod, the guy in Targos has some good, but very expensive stuff (I'm looking at HOF mode). The deep gnome fix seems almost like a common sense. All of the other races start out 1000 xp shy of level 2 except for the deep gnome. Why on earth did the developers do that? Is it not enough that they are ECL +3? Yes the deep gnomes get some great benefits and their xp table is a representive of an offset to the benefits, but a typical solo character only ends up at level 5 by the time you level Targos. If you're deep gnome needs 6000 xp to get to level 2, I can see Targos being somewhat of a struggle. So IMO, I feel the deep gnome mod is only something to fix what the developers missed.
5) I put this on here because I know there are probably some things I missed but wanted to address as a whole. The thing that comes to mind for me is fighting the beetles outside of Oswald's ship in the start of chapter 2. From what I can tell, the fight could be endless. I ended up killing over 25 of these beetles only because I couldn't kill them fast enough. So it makes wonder how long I could have continued if I didn't attack the nest. My monk was high enough that he very rarely got hit and I had an over abudance of healing potions if it got down to it. Another part that is not as obivious as this is outside of the Goblin Fortress where you have the Sharman's beating the drums. Ideally, once you killed off all of their couterparts, you could stand next to the Sharman and just take out the Wrog Riders that get generated. This also seems like it would be endless, although it did seem to take a lot longer for the Wrog Riders to appear than the beetles in Chapter 2.
So in the end, do I cheat? Yes, I do, but in my mind, I try to keep at a minimum so that it doesn't take away from the game. I squat levels because I like getting as much xp as I can. I use DaleKeeper to take some of the levels that I have experienced, but I don't feel I abuse it. The temptation is there to bump up a few stats here and there, but then I know I didn't earn it and the game would be come less fun walking about with a solo Monk who had 255 STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS and CHA. As far as Weidu's mods, I use some because I don't like to leave anything behind and any oppertunity that I can get to shop at a merchant for some cool stuff, I'll take it. Although this could easily turn the tide, I'm watching what I buy. I definitely don't want my solo Monk to become an ubber Monk just because of some weapon he bought. Ideally, I would only like to use what I find from dead bodies and chests, but sometimes you don't find much that you can use. The rest will be sold for potions since I can't cast spells (outside of Mirror Image, Blur and Invisibility).
Topics of cheating:
1) DaleKeeper
2) Squatting
3) Muling
4) Weidu's mods
5) Other
With any game, I think there are things that get skipped, left out, etc. I am always on the outlook for patches and mods for most of my games. I guess ideally, cheating in a game would be doing anything outside of what the developers intended, altering the game in a manner to exercise something within the game to your benefit beyond what was intended by the developers.
1)With IWD 2, the biggest tool that comes to mind is DaleKeeperII. I've used, but I don't abuse it. I've used it to alter stats (moving skill points from one skill to another where both were allowable by the classes of my character). In my current game, I use DaleKeeper to take some of my levels that I have squatted. My level 9 Monk at the end of chapter 2 had 13 levels squatted. Realistically, if I took all 13 levels at once, I probably wouldn't see another xp from a monster until chapter 4 or 5. But I felt I need some help, so I used it to advance three levels and resume my game w/ the xp that I left chapter 2 with.
2) Level squatting could very easily be considered cheating, because by doing so, you are consuming more xp per kill than you should be (once you're average party level is 7 or higher). This to me is an abuse of the game, it's doing something that wasn't originally intended. But to counteract, I feel that not taking the level ups when they occur means you are fighting a lower level than you should be. However, IMO, this differs when you are using less than 4 characters because now when the game would decide how much xp you should gain, you are deciding. Yes, your character is lower than he/she should be, but more than likely you are more powerful than you would be if your character was a member of a party of 6.
3) Muling pretty much falls into the same category as level squatting. I think there is also two types of muling. One is active and the other is inactive. The active method is where someone adds a character that they are going to eventually promote and use. Inactive is adding a character just to bring down your party's average level. IMO, active muling is not so much as cheating. You can even justify it from a rp perspective by saying you picked up so and so in a tavern and they wanted to come along. Inactive muling is a more blantant abuse of the system because ideally you are adding a character that has no purpose other than to increase the amount of xp you gain from a fight. These characters are typically not ones that you continue on with throughout the game. I believe they come and go. But is it in different than squatting? I can't really say. I am not sure how I feel about the different levels of cheating.
4) Weidu's mods. Again, I feel this is another gray area. Yes, it's easy to consider them cheats, because you do receive benefits from them, but you get decide which benefits you want to use. In my solo Monk game, I have the bottomless container mod, infinite stacking, deep gnome fix, collector's edition stuff mod and additional merchant mod. I justify using these because I'm using a solo Deep Gnome. Using a solo character, you get a lot of stuff and I like to make as much money as I can b/c w/ the additional merchant mod, the guy in Targos has some good, but very expensive stuff (I'm looking at HOF mode). The deep gnome fix seems almost like a common sense. All of the other races start out 1000 xp shy of level 2 except for the deep gnome. Why on earth did the developers do that? Is it not enough that they are ECL +3? Yes the deep gnomes get some great benefits and their xp table is a representive of an offset to the benefits, but a typical solo character only ends up at level 5 by the time you level Targos. If you're deep gnome needs 6000 xp to get to level 2, I can see Targos being somewhat of a struggle. So IMO, I feel the deep gnome mod is only something to fix what the developers missed.
5) I put this on here because I know there are probably some things I missed but wanted to address as a whole. The thing that comes to mind for me is fighting the beetles outside of Oswald's ship in the start of chapter 2. From what I can tell, the fight could be endless. I ended up killing over 25 of these beetles only because I couldn't kill them fast enough. So it makes wonder how long I could have continued if I didn't attack the nest. My monk was high enough that he very rarely got hit and I had an over abudance of healing potions if it got down to it. Another part that is not as obivious as this is outside of the Goblin Fortress where you have the Sharman's beating the drums. Ideally, once you killed off all of their couterparts, you could stand next to the Sharman and just take out the Wrog Riders that get generated. This also seems like it would be endless, although it did seem to take a lot longer for the Wrog Riders to appear than the beetles in Chapter 2.
So in the end, do I cheat? Yes, I do, but in my mind, I try to keep at a minimum so that it doesn't take away from the game. I squat levels because I like getting as much xp as I can. I use DaleKeeper to take some of the levels that I have experienced, but I don't feel I abuse it. The temptation is there to bump up a few stats here and there, but then I know I didn't earn it and the game would be come less fun walking about with a solo Monk who had 255 STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS and CHA. As far as Weidu's mods, I use some because I don't like to leave anything behind and any oppertunity that I can get to shop at a merchant for some cool stuff, I'll take it. Although this could easily turn the tide, I'm watching what I buy. I definitely don't want my solo Monk to become an ubber Monk just because of some weapon he bought. Ideally, I would only like to use what I find from dead bodies and chests, but sometimes you don't find much that you can use. The rest will be sold for potions since I can't cast spells (outside of Mirror Image, Blur and Invisibility).
