Are Mods Cheating? The REAL answer from CAPCOM, and a few that imho are decent ones

[Jonatom]

Hi, going to post a few mods which, in my opinion are rather useful when playing. Before I do this though I figure I would answer a few questions and put to bed any concerns and misconceptions about Mods being cheating.

Let’s start with CAPCOM’s official response to modding (found on the Reddit post here https://www.reddit.com/r/MonsterHunterWorld/comments/99lbph/modding_response_from_capcom_usa/): You can read it for yourself, but most people will take it out of context to suit their person opinions and arguments, so I will put the one parts here which answers two questions, does CAPCOM think modding is cheating, and will you get banned if you use mods. To quote CAPCOM USA:

“The act of modding Monster Hunter: World and use of modded content is not officially warranted or supported by CAPCOM, and we are unable to provide support in the event of any issues that occur as a result of using a mod.”

Key points, first, this is one sentence, you can’t take any portion of this singularly to suit an argument, it is then “out of context” and then say “see they said you can’t use mods”, which CAPCOM didn’t say, what CAPCOM USA said was (in broad and vague legalese, that is on purpose), they do not officially endorse (synonym for warrant, meaning it’s not from CAPCOM so roll the dice if it works or not) or support (technically) mods, and if it breaks your game or corrupts your save, well that’s on you we will not provide (nor are we liable to) any support (technical or customer) to fix either.

Let’s look at the last sentence:

“CAPCOM is unable to comment on the use of particular mods with the game, however our team does actively monitor content used in the game.”

This is key, first they are saying, we aren’t going to tell you what you can or can’t use or say this one is great, but this one is bad, but we are watching.

So, is using a mod cheating? No (in most cases, by definition, see below). From the mouth of CAPCOM, and it doesn’t matter what any player says, it’s all their personal opinions at this point. I say, play how you want, you paid for the game, if you want to mod it, feel free, it doesn’t make you a better or worse player than anyone else playing, nor will it detract from your game experience, unless you allow it.

Now, I will say, there are trainers and cheating tools out there which will provide you things like 1 shot kills, 1 shot break parts, damage multipliers etc., which by pure definition of what a cheat is (act of dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage especially in a game or examination) fit that criteria exactly.

Now, the use of say, a DPS meter, an HP bar on a monster, displaying the elemental weakness on the monsters picture or the use of lightbeams to see loot on the ground, are all not cheats by definition, because they do not give the player any discernible advantage in game (nor do they impact other players, or monster damage output) that they do not already have (by some other means). Mostly it’s just visual display or HUD changes. Some may argue that DPS meters will impact their “immersion”, I would say that’s not a valid argument, when, people spam the stickers all the time, Palicos look like Megaman and Nekkars, and Hunters can look like Ciri, Geralt and Dante, immersion in MHW isn’t something tangible at this point, it’s a hallow argument.

Will you get banned for using a mod? Maybe. This can happen only when the player uses what is called a transmog (a mod that changes appearance) that gives them something they didn’t pay for. That’s the key point, didn’t PAY for, example would be the Astral set in IB, when you only own the base game, that would be bannable, and I know of players who have had that happen. So, be careful when using transmog’s, they are the things which can get you banned, not the other mods.

Since we have cleared all that up, let’s get onto the mods. They can be found here:

Nexus MHW Mods (https://www.nexusmods.com/monsterhunterworld)

First one is called Souvenir’s Light Pillar (https://www.nexusmods.com/monsterhunterworld/mods/112?tab=description), which simply puts a light pillar on all loot on the ground and colors it to what kind of loot it is for (slinger, selling, monster parts). Pretty handy.

Second one is SmartHunter (https://www.nexusmods.com/monsterhunterworld/mods/793?tab=description), it has a lot of things going on. Some notable things are a widget for the monster, your team and yourself. Each widget is customizable to what information is displayed (so if you don’t want Monster HP, build-up, or DPS meters you can edit the .json to exclude those things, instructions on how to do that are included) to make it more tailored to your playing preference.

Third is Monster 3 Star Weakness Icon (https://www.nexusmods.com/monsterhunterworld/mods/258?tab=description), this just puts a handy icon on each Monsters portrait that lets you know what their elemental weakness is, so you don’t have to always go into your Hunters Notebook and look it up.

There are a few other notable mentions, like the quest mod, which allows for the player to always have up all the event quests, but there are some weird quirks with that one, like KT will crash if launched from Events and not from the Hub KT, and is dependent on another mod (needs 2 to work) but that will be noted in the description, and its only for MH/HR hunts. The other notable is called an overlay that shows lots of stuff, and it literally shows EVERYTHING (with name plates) in the game as you venture around, it is also customizable via its .json.

Again, I will stress, modding is NOT cheating (unless it fits the litteral definition of it, not someone's opinion on how MHW “should” or “is” supposed to be or played), in 95% of cases will not get you banned unless you are transmogging to get items you didn’t pay for, despite what people will say or post here.

Play how you want! Don't worry about these players who say anything about how mods are bad or are cheating or that you don’t belong here, they are just upset because their secret is out, fact is, you can play any way you want, especially when CAPCOM has already said the same thing. I am willing to bet, in most cases they are probably using them as well and are hypocrites (I have ran into a few already on the forums who say Mods are cheating and are bad in one breath, then in the next say I use them as well), or the other players who believe they are better than everyone else because they don’t use mods (at least they say they don’t, but how do we truly know?), but are they really? Really?! I don’t think so, because the mods I talk about do not give any player any advantage over another, everyone is still on an equal playing field, each still has to deal the same amount of damage, dodge, evade and heal as much as the other, so still no ascertainable advantage outside of ones perceived opinion.

I hope this helps. Happy Hunting.

Edit: when the post first was put up, all the links worked, now apparently they are all "potentially malicious" and will not open, so I just took them out of the url formatting and open pasted them into the post, you can copy paste them into the browser. Nexus Mod isn't a dangerous site, nor are the mods, whoever reported them as such, that's a pretty shallow move, and just re-enforces freedom of modding and game play in MHW, down with censorship!

[Talon]

If I want to look beautiful I shall, nothing wrong with cosmetic mods as long as not giving us DLC/paid items

[mewlynx]

That's a lot of words for a topic that's already been discussed to death here.

[Seamus]

This thread isn't going to end well.

Might want to just delete before the fighting starts, OP

[Ifrit1332]

Long story short:. They do NOT take responsibility of something happening to your save, game files or even your PC if something happens AND you were using mods 'cause CAPCOM doesn't "officially" support the use of mods, like Bethesda for example. So if you want to use mods, go wild dude, you paid for the game and you can do whatever, just try to not "force" others on your shenanigans alright?

[CourtesyFlush09]

Originally posted by Jonatom:

Play how you want! Don't worry about these players who say anything about how mods are bad or are cheating or that you don’t belong here

I agree, but do NOT come on here and try to justify or convince people that you're blatant cheat mod isn't a blatant cheat mod. That is how problems start.

Also, the part where Capcom says "...and we are unable to provide support in the event of any issues that occur as a result of using a mod” is very interesting. IMO, they could be implying that they're not liable to fix people's CPU and other performance issues (introduced after IB) since technically these problems COULD be a result of prior mod/cheat usage.

[Narcoleptic Marshmallow]

Cool blogpost.

[Penril]

ah ♥♥♥♥ here we go again

[Hare+Guu!]

Sounds like more cheater propaganda. The game' endgame literally involves farming guiding lands to farm layered armor. If you're adding them in any other way, you are cheating.

[Flip_Light]

Originally posted by Hare+Guu!:

Sounds like more cheater propaganda. The game' endgame literally involves farming guiding lands to farm layered armor. If you're adding them in any other way, you are cheating.

Honestly if people want to be stupid and ruin their play experience who cares. Most modders have this "holier then thou" attitude about how "they can play the game however they want and you're not going to stop them."

It's funny that the purists somehow seem less toxic then the people who want to mod/cheat/break the game - and I say this as someone who regularly modded base world.

OP seems to have this preconceived notion that all mods aren't cheats as well. For example, things like dps mods, status buildup %, decoration-dropping increase, etc are all blatant cheats and not just cosmetic. OP would probably call these "QOL mods" when they're objectively not - they're cheats/info the player is not supposed to have.

"Again, I will stress, modding is NOT cheating (unless it fits the litteral definition of it, not someone's opinion on how MHW “should” or “is” supposed to be or played), in 95% of cases will not get you banned unless you are transmogging to get items you didn’t pay for, despite what people will say or post here."

This is also the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dumbest statement I think I've EVER seen on these forums. This part in particular: "not someone's opinion on how MHW “should” or “is” supposed to be or played."

No - that is called GAME DESIGN. Then the game is designed around specific attributes and you mod those attributes out, you're going against the core of the game. When capcom itself literally designs the game one way and you use mods that fundamentally go against that, then you ARE cheating. Do I care? Not particularly, but don't beat around the bush and act like you're not cheating lmfao

Edit: Also the light pillar mod is basically irrelevant now as all drops now have sparkles floating into the air above it.

[Kuradoberry]

Originally posted by Hare+Guu!:

Sounds like more cheater propaganda. The game' endgame literally involves farming guiding lands to farm layered armor. If you're adding them in any other way, you are cheating.

Yeah maybe I would buy that argument if half the transmogs I see were even remotely available to us officially.

No, and even with the layered in console version it takes minimal effort to unlock the layered for HR gear; hell in most cases people already have what they need. Farming for layered? Maybe for specific event stuff, but for everything else, ha!

[Flip_Light]

Originally posted by Akaru:

Originally posted by Hare+Guu!:

Sounds like more cheater propaganda. The game' endgame literally involves farming guiding lands to farm layered armor. If you're adding them in any other way, you are cheating.

Yeah maybe I would buy that argument if half the transmogs I see were even remotely available to us officially.

No, and even with the layered in console version it takes minimal effort to unlock the layered for HR gear; hell in most cases people already have what they need. Farming for layered? Maybe for specific event stuff, but for everything else, ha!

"Yeah maybe I would buy that argument if half the transmogs I see were even remotely available to us officially."

...isn't adding stuff in that we're not even supposed to have yet literally cheating lmao. Just playing devil's advocate here as like I said idrc about cosmetic stuff, but come on.

[GamingWithSilvertail]

Originally posted by Akaru:

Originally posted by Hare+Guu!:

Sounds like more cheater propaganda. The game' endgame literally involves farming guiding lands to farm layered armor. If you're adding them in any other way, you are cheating.

Yeah maybe I would buy that argument if half the transmogs I see were even remotely available to us officially.

No, and even with the layered in console version it takes minimal effort to unlock the layered for HR gear; hell in most cases people already have what they need. Farming for layered? Maybe for specific event stuff, but for everything else, ha!

You have no reason to use smog after the 6th.

[Seamus]

Originally posted by NaliWarcow:

Originally posted by Akaru:

Yeah maybe I would buy that argument if half the transmogs I see were even remotely available to us officially.

No, and even with the layered in console version it takes minimal effort to unlock the layered for HR gear; hell in most cases people already have what they need. Farming for layered? Maybe for specific event stuff, but for everything else, ha!

You have no reason to use smog after the 6th.

Yes you do. Only low rank armor is coming on the 6th.

[Waffles]

I'm all for cheating if it doesn't affect online play, BUT DPS/health mods are a cancer upon the community.

[Kuradoberry]

Originally posted by Flip_Light:

Originally posted by Akaru:

Yeah maybe I would buy that argument if half the transmogs I see were even remotely available to us officially.

No, and even with the layered in console version it takes minimal effort to unlock the layered for HR gear; hell in most cases people already have what they need. Farming for layered? Maybe for specific event stuff, but for everything else, ha!

"Yeah maybe I would buy that argument if half the transmogs I see were even remotely available to us officially."

...isn't adding stuff in that we're not even supposed to have yet literally cheating lmao. Just playing devil's advocate here as like I said idrc about cosmetic stuff, but come on.

No, we have the armor available to us it just isn't layered. If I wanted to I could throw on my aesthetically mixed set straight from the smithy, but then my stats are ♥♥♥♥. If anything it's a convenience and nothing more.

If you think 'looking good' SOMEHOW gives an advantage over other players, well then you have your own problems that I can't be bothered to help you with. I will say that you should pay for what you need to pay for as OP says. Don't transmog MR armor when you haven't even bought iceborne, you need to have forked over the cash to even have access to that stuff so don't do that.