Scripting, cheating or not?

[Evilsod]

Just something i thought i'd ask after the 'cheating, would you?' thread appeared.

Do you think scripts are cheating or not? You know the type i mean. Looking at Left 4 Dead.

Pistol Scripts that allow you to fire faster than you could possibly pull the trigger at the touch of a button so you can easily maintain accuracy.
Reload Scripts, auto-reload at every possible opportunity, common excuse is 'so i don't have to keep reloading', cheating because you'd never forget in the heat of battle because its done for you.
360 Melee Scripts where whenever you melee with a weapon you do a very quick 360 spin to hit off everything around you.

Personally i think they're cheating, plain and simple. Can't be bothered to reload your shotgun? Use a Script. Can't be bothered to aim? Use an aimbot. The only difference is semantics.

 

[Evilsod]

Yeah the Steam Console is great for it unfortunately...

 

[Evilsod]

Very poor and inaccurate comparison. If the obect and winner of the game was to reload as much as is possible then you might have a point but it isnt and you dont.

Come up with a better example if you are convinced scripting is just as bad as reverse-engineering game code and thereby breaking the game licence t&cs.

Just lol... that sounds like the rationalisations of a scripter trying to claim what he does is legit to me.

Because infact, the game CAN be decided by whether or not you could reload as much as possible. In the heat of an infected attack in L4D its very easy to forget to reload because your too busy with other things. On the 1 team the player is auto-reload scripting, it was done for him, he has 1 more shell in his shotgun and unloading on a Hunter that 1 extra shell kills it. The legit player runs out and is huntered.

Contrived sure, but still possible.

@aln, yeah i wasn't meaning a script that alters volume, i meant something that directly affects gameplay like the nade script you mentioned. I know therse an auto-pounce script for the Hunter which makes you crouch and pounce in the shortest time possible, thats borderline though.

However i think its possible to glitch out the Jockey by simply turning incredibly fast while holding forwards, making you change direction faster than the Jockey can control you so you can't be moved. I may of understood wrongly but this is what i thought it meant when i saw it mentioned on the Steam forum. So you could easily script that too and render Jockeys useless.

 

[Evilsod]

As i understand it, Valves stance on scripting is that its absolutely impossible to police it so theres no point in trying.

Pink you are just ignorant. Yes its not hard to reload frequently as you should do when using a shotgun. But if you can't see how its possible to FORGET or be too BUSY to reload you are just plain stupid instead. Having infected coming at you from all sides while your trying to get out of Spitter Goo at the same time as deal with a Hunter on an ally, are you still telling me you wouldn't 'maybe' forget to press R or be too busy trying to do other things? If you are your talking bull**** frankly.

 

[Evilsod]

Then you are apparently a god amongst men and should be spending your time healing the sick, curing all diseases and the like.

Anyone who claims they reload all the time and never, ever, ever, forget is talking out there arse.

 

[Evilsod]

Jesus apparently you 2 just don't get it. I'm not talking about walking between 2 fights not having reloaded, that would be moronic. I'm talking about sticking 1 extra shell in at times between shooting because you were busy doing something else done because the script makes you reload instantly the moment you can.

 

[Evilsod]

Forget it, you apparently think your gods gift to gaming, or are completely ignorant of what is being said...

 

[Evilsod]

Well i'm definatly not the first or second and i'm pretty sure i've explained myself more than enough. The fault is at your end.

Btw, you can reload while melee'ing... i'm surprised you didn't know that tbh, given how you reload so often without fail.

 

[Evilsod]

Definatly not cheating, I used to make loads for rtcw but alwayss used to share them.

'Sharing them' isn't a justification for why they're not cheating...

 

[Evilsod]

Scripts are not cheating, they are still confined by the same set of rules as everything else in the game.

Now if you where to call in a exploit you may have a case, as I'm sure the designers didn't intend for you to be able to unload your pistol in 1/2 second.

Being confined by the rules and using scripts to automate yourself at the very edge of those rules are different things entirely. You can't make yourself do a 360 degree spin every single time you melee and end up in exactly the same position. You can try but you'd never even get close to a perfect spin or do it regularly without losing concentration. Yes its within the rules but its still an unfair advantage over regular players that has absolutely nothing to do with how good you are. Just because everyone can do it doesn't mean its legit, everyone could get aimbots that are undetectable by anti-cheat programs, imagine how fun that would be.

Pink you clearly don't have as much experience with Left 4 Dead as you claim to have. You don't reload automatically by pressing R any time during meleeing. You reload while meleeing if you started doing so before it. The script would make damn sure you never missed that opportunity, in the heat of action you can quite easily miss the opportunity to slip an extra shell or 2 in.

 

[Evilsod]

Sorry from now on I shall write my posts as a step by step clearly saying I know to press the Reload key just before each melee hit etc.
I know full well you press the reload key just before pressing the melee key, wasn't expecting to have to reiterate this in my posts.

Considering your last post claimed you coudln't reload while melee'ing at all (even if you claim it was an error) i see no reason why i shouldn't be skeptical tbh.

 

[Evilsod]

-snip-

Very well put.

never knew scripts were that rampant in valve games

It depends where you look. Its just the source engine is very open and lets you do things like that easily. The worst is what someone said about forcing 3rd person view so you could see round corners (never heard of that 1 before), the problem is this is probably 1 you can't even see while speccing unless they make very odd movements, but you'd struggle to prove it.

I trust most people that play on the OcUK servers don't do this stuff, but i know of quite a few people who do. Its just beyond irritating when someone on a friends only game turns round with Dual Pistols and unloads both clips in about 3 seconds using a script, just abusing the fact they have unlimited ammo. Or when you spec someone and can clearly see them using a perfect 360 melee script to bash off the entire horde.

 

[Evilsod]

I've been lucky in most games I've played that I haven't really noticed it, but there have been occasions in the past where scripting HAS exploited aspects of the games (Im thinking mainly Source games as that's what my experience has mainly been with) that aren't intended.

Like for example a script that would automatically change to a different weapon and back again after firing a shot with the Sniper rifle in TF2. Before they fixed it this bypassed the reload animation meaning anyone who did it could shoot faster than someone who let the gun reload properly. That is a bonafide unfair advantage right there and you can't view that as "convenience" since the whole intention of it was to circumvent an intended game mechanic designed to reduce your possible damage output (the reload animation).

Likewise auto pistol scripts - whilst people will whine about how it's possible to do the same manually in reality it just isn't, they know it isn't, because if it was they wouldn't need to use a script at all. If it conferred no advantage to them then it would be useless, and they wouldn't use it. The whole "convenience" crap is a smokescreen.

I think there may be scripts for that in Killing Floor too. I don't remember now if they fixed it or not... the Crossbow, Hunting Shotgun and M79 Nade Launcher are all 1 shot weapons which you could bypass reload animation for in the past. At least with this its not a versus format though.

Yeah i've seen numerous people try to claim its possible to fire that fast in reality. Its not, maybe you can get that fast briefly but your accuracy goes down the pan and you lose all control of your mouse through clicking that fast.

I feel strongly enough about it that I won't play with people when I notice they do stuff like this. If they can't play properly instead of being a cyborg then I've got no time for them.

Indeed, i try not to. The thing is 1 of them who does this sorta thing we know use to have a paid multihack since he eventually admitted it when we confronted him about it (he'd denied it before even though it was fairly obvious so we took to recording it). You can't be sure he doesn't still hack unfortunately but i know he's still scripting.

 

[Evilsod]

I do, force of habit

You can try but there will always be times when you don't that the script would make sure you did. Its possible to get very, very close to it, but you'll never manage to do it all the time in those brief moments between shooting and melee'ing or things like that. Even if you do, the script will do it the instant its possible and those milliseconds can easily be the difference between a shell and no shell when your taking a moment to aim.

 

[Evilsod]

The one thing I will mention whilst I'm here, and I haven't looked for any material to back this up, but I do remember valve did crack down on this issue in L4D1 pronouncing scripts such as the infinte melee script and classed it as cheating. Mostly because people were altering the game in ways in which it was not meant to be played to gain an advantage, which is why I'm fairly sure they added a cool off period into L4D2.

If your talking about what i think you are, then that wasn't really scripting, that was pure exploiting. True you could script it too but the basis behind it was an exploit. I guess what you mean is the Melee Exploit where you could just hammer melee while using mouse scroll to change weapons. I always thought it was hilarious seeing people use this (then better yet, using it to exploit the Door in NM3) and simply turned around and said 'its in the game so Valve must've intended it', some people would rather believe anything than admit that they just suck.

On a side note i did find 1 video of it amusing where the guy takes on a horde of zombies using Bruce Lee sound effects then punches the last 1 in the face with a bottle of Pills.

 

[Evilsod]

*youtubes Hostage Jumping*

>< I think i missed it You could do something similar in L4D with the Minigun though.

 

[Evilsod]

It seems like a lot of the accepted ones don't give inhuman advantages though. Changing HUD settings could depend but it sounds more like major functionality for a long term unpatched game. The teamplay message reports sounds more like something that should just be automated by the game.

Though i wasn't saying all scripts are cheats, merely ones like the Advanced Rocketjump script you mentioned.

 

[Evilsod]

Well it is to some extent, the latest releases of ezQuake (the most modern client) include examples of such aliases so that players can bind them. But they are probably more advanced that you might expect, I mean they are the sort of thing that I've not seen in other games, and crucially are completely customisable, so clans can get their messages looking exactly like they want.

As an example, you might have a script that reports your status but adds or removes bits based on what location you are at. So if you are near the lightning gun area and don't have a good weapon you might want the report to say how many cells (the ammo for that weapon) you have, so that teammates will leave it for you to pickup. Whereas elsewhere on the map that information would be superfluous, so it is removed.

Pretty in-depth then. Sounds closer to a utility than a script in practice. I mean you couldn't class it as cheating because the benefit of it is essentially what your team makes of it, if your clan is no good it doesn't matter how well scripted it is, it won't make your team leave the Lightning Gun.