Your Opinion On "Cheaters"

[Emrye]

Personally, I don't care. Just don't trade me any. And if you think RNG abuse is cheating, you're crazy! You're just setting a flippin' clock!

 

[TeraDyne]

Personally, I don't care. Just don't trade me any. And if you think RNG abuse is cheating, you're crazy! You're just setting a flippin' clock!

I can honestly see why some people don't like RNG abuse, as it's technically abusing a feature of the game in a way that the game designers never intended. However, compared to outright using cheat devices, it's very tame. You actually have to do some work with RNG abuse, unlike with PokeSav and the like.

 

[We'reBlastinOffAgain]

I personally have never used PokeSav, Gameshark, or Action Replay, but people who use it don't really bother me, just as long as they admit to cheating. It does piss me off if they have like, a whole team of shinies that all have amazing stats and perfect natures and are all at level 100 that are obviously hacked and they say that they're legit. Or if they take a Spiritomb or Sableye and hack it so that it has the Wonder Guard ability. But other than that I'm okay with it.

And as for RNG abuse, I wouldn't really consider it cheating, becuase you didn't use any sort of cheating device, the Pokemon was caught legit in the wild, it's just a way of manipulating the game to get the Pokemon you want. I sort of have to congratulate the RNG abusers, because for me, it's hard to understand how to do it, so if you have the knowledge of how to do it, you must be pretty clever, because any dumbass can pick up an action replay and hack their game

 

[Affinity]

I do not mind the so called 'cheaters' who 'Sav or 'Gen their Pokemon when it comes to battling as long as they're doing it to save time. As long as it is possible, let them be. I use Pokegen to create Pokemon so I can get the Hidden Power type I want because I know without Pokegen I would never be able to get some sets I want. However, I believe this should have a limit.

For trading/shiny huntint though, I do not think cheating is an acceptable way. It ruins all the purpose of those two. I will never trade a hacked Pokemon without the knowledge of the other party.

 

[Orion]

I Don't mind cheaters, as long as they don't abuse their power.

 

[Signas]

I use PokeGen for all my Pokemon, because I'm not going to dick around for a week getting Pokemon with bad IVs and having to hatch more eggs.

 

[Five-Gate Omega]

I have mixed feelings about this issue at hand here. You see i used to try and work hard and be a breeder trying to get some legit competition ready pokemons for battling other users. Even when i found out the darkest secret tied to the majority of the competitive battling community in which most battlers hack and or rng legit competitive pokemon for perfect stats, eg:all 31 IVs across the board in stats they can use such as Scizor with 31/31/31/x/31/31 IVs. For a while i was blatantly against this, and for a while i continued being the breeder i was and refusing to rng or hack due to the fact it was harder for me to understand how to do so and because i would hope one day the community would come to thier senses and realize thier moral failings, but as humans we cave in to such shortcuts and unorthodox methods of achieving what we desire. The real reason however why i didn't do it was because there wasn't much of a need to do so because of no random matchup feature in 4th gen games allowing those who want to cheat to play against cheaters and those who breed or do it regular and versus those that do the same. Now people will hack or rng to compete on random matches and i know beacuse my singles record on random matches took a steep dive beacuse people could make sets i could not afford to even counter i only raised a few legitly and even then they had a slight disadvantage against hack and shiny mons.

This made it hard for me to even the playing field and although the fact that my opponents used hacks or rnged mons against me did only made little difference in the plummeting of my random matchup singles record in the long run it was still the contributing factor as to why the paying field wasn't evened out much. so in conclusion i could only imagine how hacks that are legit enough for random matchups could affect other peoples experience on there. It was then i realized that the majority of active competitive battlers would hack or rng there pokemon for online play. For us humans, temptation is the gateway to such sweet sin. Eventually i caved in, realizing that nothing could stop dishonest players from rnging or worse hack legit looking pokemons for the sake of competition. Now i hack legit/legal stats pokemon for randoms as i know that 9 out of every 10 i face in random matchups will do the same. However in a desperate attempt to cling to my discarded ideals i have drawn a line that i will not cross when doing so. My personal commandments for not abusing the dishonest ways are as follows:

-Thou shalt not hack illegal stats, moves, or abilities on pokemons.
-Thou shalt make pokemon look as legit as you possibly can.
-Thou shalt not abuse thy dishonest method to attain mass of legit shiny pokemon. (eg:no having teams of more than 2 shiny pokemon at most)
-Thou shalt not knowingly bring legit hacks against those who are oblivious or disdained to the dishonest method without their consent.
-All pokemon must have all stats, moves, movesets 100% legal to obtain using the honest method.
-You must never promote the dishonest way in an open manner, even if you partake in the dishonest method.
-Furthermore, thou must admit thy faults of using the dishonest method and claim no rightful glory from doing so.
-Thou must resist the tempation of VGC glory when using the dishonest method and always use the dishonest method only for the enjoyment of lesser competition.

Those are my eight personal commandments on the matter. As for why i now do it, it saves time because now i can no longer breed endlessly, and breeding just gets more tedious the more i do it. And this is my final opinion on the matter. For me i don't mind who does legit hacking as long as it's just for legit stats, movesets, hidden power, etc.

 

[xyzman]

I can honestly see why some people don't like RNG abuse, as it's technically abusing a feature of the game in a way that the game designers never intended. However, compared to outright using cheat devices, it's very tame. You actually have to do some work with RNG abuse, unlike with PokeSav and the like.

If RNG abuse is cheating, then resetting after failing to catch a legendary pokemon is one as well. Or selecting the best egg from a hundred one during breeding the same couple of pokemon. You need to have brains and patience for both "fair" breeding and RNG abuse; understanding seeds, delay and other stuff is not rocket science, but it still requires skill. Using Pokesav on retail carts isn't an easy chore either - you have to build an infrastructure to extract and write save files, thus spending time, effort and money as well.

Once again, I believe, that if no one cheated, we'd never have so much knowledge about game internals. RNG abuse is the best thing ever happened to Pokemon series, but before that there were some really fun challenges in deciphering structures containing pokemon data in a save file or memory (as well as structure of save files themselves). Different people have different kinds of fun when playing the game, and if they spent time to make a 31 IV Scisor by RNGing it, and use this pokemon for VGC, so be it. Perfect stats is a good aid for victory, but it is mostly strategy that wins 6vs6 matches.

 

[TeraDyne]

If RNG abuse is cheating, then resetting after failing to catch a legendary pokemon is one as well. Or selecting the best egg from a hundred one during breeding the same couple of pokemon. You need to have brains and patience for both "fair" breeding and RNG abuse; understanding seeds, delay and other stuff is not rocket science, but it still requires skill. Using Pokesav on retail carts isn't an easy chore either - you have to build an infrastructure to extract and write save files, thus spending time, effort and money as well.

Once again, I believe, that if no one cheated, we'd never have so much knowledge about game internals. RNG abuse is the best thing ever happened to Pokemon series, but before that there were some really fun challenges in deciphering structures containing pokemon data in a save file or memory (as well as structure of save files themselves). Different people have different kinds of fun when playing the game, and if they spent time to make a 31 IV Scisor by RNGing it, and use this pokemon for VGC, so be it. Perfect stats is a good aid for victory, but it is mostly strategy that wins 6vs6 matches.

As someone who helped to hack Pokemon Crystal to heck and back, I came to understand a lot of why many of the internals were hidden at first. The randomness was made to act as a pseudo-balance, allowing even Pokemon with low base stats to have a fighting chance against something with a high base stats. The hidden nature of both EVs and IVs took the "security through obscurity" ideals and applied them to game mechanics. It wasn't until players reverse-engineered the game engine and hacked it to bits that any of that information was brought into the spotlight. Although it's just speculation, I believe that GameFreak was relying on that obscurity to allow low-powered Pokemon to be used in fair fights. However, it's evident that they finally gave up when they realized that short of pulling an EA and locking the game down with heavy DRM, they'd never get away with that tactic again, especially with an American/European community that evangelizes hardcore competitive battling and would gladly spend days without sleep just to break through any locks they put in. I honestly believe GameFreak had a great balance until hackers (admittedly, like myself) got into the core engine and decided they didn't do enough, then went and tried to "fix" it instead of rebuilding it.

Pokemon uses a casually-competitive game engine based on 50% skill and 50% luck (in other words, designed as a casual game with a pseudo-competitive twist), but Smogon is forcing it to conform to strict competitive gameplay based on 100% skill. In doing so, it's actually broken to the point that it would only work in the way the fan-based competitive community wants it to work. This why much of Smogon's balance doesn't actually work unless the player uses cheating devices or abuses flaws within the game's engine. The "metagame" is designed for simulators, and tryign to transition it into the actual game just doesn't work.

Why do I think this? Well, look at three important core elements that most NTSC-UC and PAL region players seem to try and take out or alter due to their reliance on luck, despite GameFreak leaving them in (in some cases, even tweaking them): Random IVs, Critical Hits, and Evasion.

- Evasion is a hidden stat that most competitive players absolutely hate, yet GameFreak seem to provide more chances to both use and counter it with every game. Despite only two moves giving guaranteed Evasion increases (one of which can be learned by many Pokemon), there are four moves that guarantee the ability to lower or reset Evasion (Haze, Sweet Scent, Defog, Clear Smog), two moves that reset it by forcing a switch (Roar and Whirlwind), and at least eight moves that outright ignore the stat (Faint Attack, Aerial Ace, Shadow Punch, Magnet Bomb, Swift, Magical Leaf, Shock Wave and Aura Sphere). On top of this, the chance to succesfuly set up evasion moves has been drastically reduced in Single Battles, and is still difficult in Double Battles. (I can't give personal experience for Triple or Rotation Battles).

- Likewise, Accuracy remains one of two ways in which powerful moves are balanced so that battles aren't decided too quickly (the other being Power Points). Strong moves often have to contend with both a less-than-100 accuracy as well as the base evasion stat of any given foe, making the ability to connect with them less than reliable. This was done so that such moves aren't utterly abused, much in the same way the "Hyper Beam"-like moves leave the user open for a turn. It's something that give a very delicate balance to the game, and you REALLY have to understand more than competitive gaming to see why it's so important.

- Critical hits, being heavily luck-based, were designed as a "surprise" element that could randomly give a player the edge. Sure, your luck can be altered to make them more common, but you can't force them to appear more often even in this way. They appear when a player is lucky, and provide that sort of "OOOOH!" moment in a friendly battle. On top of that, they help to make sure that every battle has the chance to go in either player's favor.

- Random IVs... This was explained above. If need be, I'll go into why IVs are randomized (or pseudo-randomized, if you will) for balance, why they were hidden, and why cheating breaks this balance, but it would be a long explination.

I base my information partly on experience and research with how game development actually works, and partially on battles I've had with others who don't care about EVs or IVs. I've seen a Linoone tear apart a Garchomp, and my own Lucario was destroyed by an Assist-wielding Delcatty after it pulled off a Fire Blast. These were friendly matches, and they showed just how insanely chaotic and fun a match can become.

In the end, the game wasn't made for the competitive battling we all know, and that's why things like RNG abuse and cheat devices are pretty much required for using such a metagame within the game cards. This comes from a former competitive battler and former hacker of the games.

I think I've derailed the topic long enough, though I'd like to think I was keeping to the topic of my opinion on cheat devices. Said opinion is based on findings like those above, so I feel more that I'm clarifying my stance than anything.

 

[Twinmold]

As long as you're not using hacked Pokemon against others without their knowledge or consent, I'm cool with it.

I don't cheat, personally. It's just how I am. If I use cheats to get a little thing, then I start to use cheats for a not-so-little thing and before long I'm hacking a shiny perfect-IV Level 100 Rayquaza into my game.

 

[Vraell]

I don't really mind cheats too much depending. In Gen IV, I would use the AR for all the TMs as it's near unfeasible to get a reliable supply of certain ones, in addition, I also use cheats to obtain event items, and finally, a friend traded me an Arcanine (one of my fav Pokemon) that is as good as the game legitimately allows (perfect IV's + EVs) though I rarely use it in any battle, and never online.

 

[mwetwe]

People who glitch and cheat, I can live with as long as it doesnt affect others (e.g. online). I dont like hackers though, nothing personal but I just dont like hackers. I define hackers by using systems the are not provided by nintendo and are used to provide gamers to get items and pokemon they are not supposed to.

Reading here I see some people use these, so like I said, nothing personal

 

[Frenzy Plant]

I don't do it. I don't take any issue with anyone who does, or the act of 'cheating' itself. At the end of the day, we play the game how we want to and should be free to do so without petty prejudice.

To those who do attack those who 'cheat': it is simply how that person likes to play this particular video game. If you don't like doing it, then you don't have to. Nothing changes for you, you are unaffected.

 

[TeraDyne]

I don't do it. I don't take any issue with anyone who does, or the act of 'cheating' itself. At the end of the day, we play the game how we want to and should be free to do so without petty prejudice.

To those who do attack those who 'cheat': it is simply how that person likes to play this particular video game. If you don't like doing it, then you don't have to. Nothing changes for you, you are unaffected.

How are people "unaffected" by others cheating to get perfect teams to use in Wi-Fi battles, and especially in the official RANKED competitive system (GBU)?

 

[Scarftail]

I don't do it. I don't take any issue with anyone who does, or the act of 'cheating' itself. At the end of the day, we play the game how we want to and should be free to do so without petty prejudice.

To those who do attack those who 'cheat': it is simply how that person likes to play this particular video game. If you don't like doing it, then you don't have to. Nothing changes for you, you are unaffected.

......We're not complaining about people using GameShark or Action Replay to get 999 of each item. We're complaining about losing 15-20 matches on Random Match due to people who hack the game to perfect their Pokemon's stats. And don't go saying that we just suck at battling. It's the perfected stats that tear us apart and force B/W to have no post-game content whatsoever. I know you likely understand this already but I just felt like clarifying.

 

[Five-Gate Omega]

I don't do it. I don't take any issue with anyone who does, or the act of 'cheating' itself. At the end of the day, we play the game how we want to and should be free to do so without petty prejudice.

To those who do attack those who 'cheat': it is simply how that person likes to play this particular video game. If you don't like doing it, then you don't have to. Nothing changes for you, you are unaffected.

......We're not complaining about people using GameShark or Action Replay to get 999 of each item. We're complaining about losing 15-20 matches on Random Match due to people who hack the game to perfect their Pokemon's stats. And don't go saying that we just suck at battling. It's the perfected stats that tear us apart and force B/W to have no post-game content whatsoever. I know you likely understand this already but I just felt like clarifying.

Hmm, yes what i don't like about people who hack and or rng abuse is that most who do use it in Random Wifi and forces those that don't to resort to said methods or stay away from Random Matches. Exactly why I do it for Random Matches is because 9/10 people you encounter will have perfect IV hacked teams. In a FC Wifi battle i would let my Oppenent know beforehand that i have hacked perfect IV's on my teams and ask if he is ok with me using them in our battle, if he says no then i will seek another battle, if he doesn't mind then its all good. If only hacking the game was impossible, I believe our competitive battle community could even be friendlier and more united than we are now. Alas, cheating by hacking perfect stats will never be impossible at this rate.

 

[Scarftail]

Alas, cheating by hacking perfect stats will never be impossible at this rate.

The funny thing about that is...if what you say is true, then Game Freak pretty much has no choice but to remove the randomized IV system and just automatically give every Pokemon constant IV's, whether it be none, 10, 15, or 31 (in future games, of course).

 

[Five-Gate Omega]

I believe I have a theory on how the stat system could be somewhat fixed. For starters, the IV total should be limited to a certain minimum and certain maxium amount that any given Pokemon could acquire, this could be done to somewhat rebalance IVs and I'll give an example. Say a pokemon has 31 IV's in HP,SpAtk,and Speed, then this new system would ensure that the other three stats have an IV of only 16, which is the minimum allowed IVs on any given stat equaling a maximum IV Total of 141 while only 3 of any given IVs should have a maximum equal 92 which would make it so all other IVs equal to 16 and if this value of the the combined total is less than 92 then all remaining points could indeed be randomly allocated to all other stats which would add to the IV which are a minumum of 16. Also Pokemon would at least have one statwith 31 IVs in it while having roughly 50% chance to have two stats 31 IVs and a 20% or so chance of having 3 stats with 31 IVs with the determined stats being randomly chosen for them. Btw the Minimum allowed IV total in this system should be around 126 or at least 115, I would say 126 though. This is to make it so even the most Inferior Pokemon in terms of IVs aren't left behind. Say a pokemon has the minimum of 126 IVs with only one stat with 31 IVs. A sweeper could have IVs like this:21/24/17/16/17/31 in order of HP/Atk/Def/SpAtk/SpDef/Speed and and still do well against Sweepers with 31/31/16/16/16/31 which have reached the maxium IV Limit. Also when three stats have reached a maximum of 92 points all remaining IV stats will not randomize and instead be set at 16 each thus giving a Pokemon any variation of a 31/31/31/16/16/16 IV spread.

Now for EVs plain and Simple, I believe that if the EV system from RBY and GSC(not sure what it is really called) is brought back then just about any pokemon that is caught in the wild could reach near max potential especially if the IV system i mentioned earlier was somehow implemented. The reason for this is so that IVs will play a much lesser role in battle. In RBY not many would hack perfect stats on their team because of the EV system in there and in GSC, people would only hack for perfect Hidden Powers of a desired type, at least that is the way I saw it. It may be a bit moe tedious that it is now, but I truly believe hacking rates will be reduced and people will still be able to EV train a team, it just takes longer. Now as for how they could improve upon the EV system, make it so you get more EV from pokemon which makes grinding for EVs a little less time consuming, and make it so that obtaining EVs use the same methods as the current EV system we have now. I believe this puts emphasis on training your pokemon to be at thier maximum potential and with this hacking and possibly RNGing could decrease by an esitmate of at least 88% according to my hindsight at least.

Concerning Hidden Power, I believe that the only reason people would possibly want to hack a Pokemon while these stat systems are in place is to get a desired type and BP of the move Hidden Power. To remedy this I say that only Type should change with IVs and that Hidden Power be at a constant BP of 70. As for the determination of Hidden Power, maybe an advanced algorithm is used to determine its type based on the total amount of IVs or something of that nature. In any case, if these mechanics are changed to match the examples I had given then maybe we could see a day when hacking and RNGing will be a thing of the past or at the very least be able to give those who use the honest method a valid chance at beating someone who hacks or RNGs his/her pokemon, even moreso than now.

Alas, I believe due to limits in game engines and programming technology as well as the fact that GameFreak would more than likely not want to implement such an idea or anything related to a fix in IVs/EVs/Hidden Power, etc. Hacking may not be deterred unfortunately and we will continue to be divided as a competitive battling community. I believe that my theory on how to fix these flawed systems will never be tested due to the system/mechanic changes i listed above may as well have a 0% chance of happening.

Short Version:If the IV/EV/Hidden Power mechanics are not fixed or changed then Cheating to get perfects stats and hidden power will undoutebly continue.

 

[Frenzy Plant]

I actually didn't take people using it to get an unfair advantage in official tournaments into consideration, I apologise. I had a random quixotic moment, it seems.

 

[Mythicalzoe]

EV training is a waste of time
spending hours in the grass for the a freaking feebas is a waste of time
natural lving up is BIG waste of time

AR makes all that happen in minutes
Also i only give my mons perfect EVs in the stats required