Legal Vs. Ethical in HC

I'm really disappointed how many players in HC/Beyond play the game to win "at any cost." There are many who use all manner of cheats to gain advantages over legit players. If it was a single-player game it wouldn't matter, but in a competitive game those advantages are difficult to overcome.

I used to be in a guild with a guy who had an uncanny ability to find his way on Lunaris 3 on the way to Piety. Once I found out he was using a zoom map hack i promptly quit his guild and quit playing with him. I wasn't afraid of being banned for his behaviour, but if i'm going to play with someone who cheats what does that say about me? You are the company you keep.

Then there are the gray areas. Those other cheats which haven't been specifically banned by GGG yet still give those players a distinct advantage over everyone else. I've noticed this is very prevalent among the various PoE Twitch streamers.

Streamer 1 for example readily admits that people he groups with use a well-known PoE hack, yet he continues to play with them. Moreover, he points out that it's a distinct advantage for him to do so. He used to spam trade chat with a trade macro and never thought there was anything wrong with it. While the rest of us had to manually change trade channels and advertise our stuff he seemed perfectly content with automating the entire thing. Of course it never occurs to someone like him what would happen if everyone used a trade macro. Of course the trade channels would be so full of spam to be useless.

Then there are the auto-logout macros. This one is especially bothersome in HC. Various well-known streamers use the auto pot/logout macro. This macro activates their health pots AND logs out them of the game with a single mouse or button click.

Their defense is that since it isn't specifically banned by GGG that they are happy to use it. They only look at where it's legal to use said macros, but ignore the larger question of whether it is ethical to use them. Streamer 2 further defends his use of an auto potter/logout macro by stating that he got it from streamer 1 and since streamer 1 uses it, he can use it. Such circular logic confuses me.

On a recent state of exile podcast they asked the participants how they felt about cheats that would watch for your health to drop below a certain percentage and then without any interaction by the player auto pot and log you out.

Streamer 3 in particular said those players should be banned, and in the same breath tried to defend his use of macros. He fails to see that someone fully automating a auto potter/logout sequence vs. someone who has macro'd it into a single mouse click is merely a degree of difference. For the rest of us we have to actually click on our health pots, hit escape, and click on exit. Someone automating the process from 3 actions to 1 in his view is perfectly fine, but automating one more step is ban worthy. His logic totally escapes me.

I think streamer 4 is a nice guy, but his use of multi-accounting to farm dominus really bothers me. When I farm dominus I get about 2 or 3 yellows per run. Now that's not good enough for streamer 4, so he created another free account and leveled a culler character to play along side his main character.

The culler could not survive on its own outside of town. No regular player would actually play it because they would have to sit in town while the rest of the party played only to TP into the instance to last hit the bosses. This is the 'cost' of being a culler.

Streamer 4 though has bypassed this cost by playing on two accounts concurrently. He runs to dominus on his main, then TPs in his current when summoning dominus to get 2-person loot drops. He then ports the culler back to town and gets dominus in his 2nd phase down to <10% health. He then ports out with his main and ports back in with his culler to 1-hit cull dominus. Since he has 400%+ rarity on his culler the screen is literally filled with yellow items. It's almost funny when he bemoans not getting a legendary every run.

There is almost zero risk losing the culler character using this system. Doing this grants him a huge advantage in item drops over the rest of the player base. Sure this behavior isn't specifically banned by GGG. Again it comes down to something being legal vs. being ethical.

The only way for me to keep up on their level is to download a macro and to create multiple accounts. I don't really want to go that route just to be competitive in HC/Beyond.

I know it's not just streamers who do this, but they are the ones in the public eye flaunting this stuff.

/rant

Curse both of you for your logic!

However true it is.

@charan,
I changed the names to generic streamer tags as per your suggestion. Sorry I might have played a different ARPG where they called them legendary :(

10/10, well written and very true.

What's even worse is that this is cause for a distorted viewpoint of the game, both for the streamer and the people watching them stream.

That guy with the 400% culler will go on the forums to say : no man the loot is just fine wtf you talking about or simply troll people for complaining about the loot system for example.

It's a loss/loss situation for all party's imo, preventing the game from evolving in certain area's just to serve the competition (or lack there-off).

Abuses like this cripple the legitimacy of the competition.

But i raised these points already a year ago and i was laughed at and ignored. Nothing has changed since then, even more so, it has become the norm and if you don't conform to it your "doing it wrong".

Simply put, i stopped competing in PoE and it has become a theory-crafters game for me instead of a game i enjoy competing in :).

Peace,

-Boem-

+1 OP.

Autopot/autologout isn't allowed by GGG, so it doesn't fall in any of your categories.

I'd say as long as it's legal, do it. I have no problem with this *shrug*

ToS enforcement in this game is a huge joke the guy who used hacks got a demi top 5 player using potionscripts even admitting where they downloaded nothing happens one of the 0815 semi famous nolifer admits live on stream he used illegal crosstrading to get his exalt back after a rip nothing happened to him

there are tons of high profile player on jsp

this game has no fair competition chris showed on reddit that he has no clue how the most popular hack for poe works

Even if they somehow removed everything you said above if you don't have a group of people to run maps with you wont be able to compete with them. If you don't have a group of followers to donate/lend/give you "bro deals", you wont be able to compete with them. If you dont have know someone who will possibly surrender their position on the ladder to be your aura bitch, you wont be able to compete with them. If you don't have 18 hours of free time every day, you wont be able to compete with them. Even though the ladder names people one at a time the competition in the temp leagues is more like a (sponsored) team sport like NASCAR or the tour de france.

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nice post. Id say too good for general discussion

you know, people lie, cheat, scam, doing whatever to gain advantage, be it in RL, or in a game.. Im affraid, no matter what devs do, people will allways find ways..

Im playing for fun only thus I wouldnt need to care too much, but I can immagine how frustrating being an "ethical" competetive player can be

"

Ludvator wrote:

nice post. Id say too good for general discussion

you know, people lie, cheat, scam, doing whatever to gain advantage, be it in RL, or in a game.. Im affraid, no matter what devs do, people will allways find ways..

Im playing for fun only thus I wouldnt need to care too much, but I can immagine how frustrating being an "ethical" competetive player can be

This is exactly the truth, and why I dont try to compete.
I am running a build right now that would never even be in the top 10000 let alone top 100.

I decided to make a build around .

Its hilarious, I run around with like 150% move speed and get some +300% increased damage. Its not actually anything worthwhile though since all my nodes are +evasion and I have low life and don't want to bother with spending 1000000 ex on mirror worthy gear to make the build op (and even then its not a bow or dagger build... or even crit)