What is considered as cheating?

[Someone]

Hello, I'm new here and I have some questions about some moments that I think may mark me as cheater:

• Using game bugs, glitches, etc. (e.g. In Portal you can place portals behind walls and shorten your way)
  
• Configuration editing (Changing .ini or .cfg files)
  
• Launching dedicated server to farm a10s as admin
  
• Using community made modes (e.g. a10s maps for CS:GO)
  
• Unlocking different a10s in one moments (in some games a10s doesn't unlock immediately)
  
• Farming a10s with friends in team based games (e.g. TF2)
  
• Changing PC date and time (for The Stanley Parable Commitment)
  
• Using third side software (e.g. in Stanley Parable Demo achievement will disappear if you don't use Task Manager to terminate it
  
• Playing while not playing (e.g. in Darksiders when you are sitting on horse you can bind two controller sticks to each other and leave and horse will make circles)

Thanks for answers.

[twitch.tv/Hikikomori523]

We default to what astats uses to determine cheating.

Sam, file editing, dll hooking, trainers, bios cheat, save filing, same timestamps, and more.

We could not list all the methods of cheating as they are infinitely expanding. Each game has its own unique variables, based on how the game is coded, how achievements are triggered and other variables.

We also don't want to teach people how these cheats are being done if we went into detail about what is or isn't allowed..

We do make users aware of what is allowed and not allowed in a general sense when they ask. If it feels like cheating, it might be cheating, so come ask us in chat or on the forums. Be careful as threads like these are ripe for flamebait.

[Someone]

Got it, changed my list to what I used or want to use myself.

[Arveragus]

In reality what this group has is more of an honour system, because as far as I know the rules aren't actually enforced. It would of course be almost impossible even if you wanted to do so. Rather, this is just an informal group for people who are looking for info or help with achievements. Since this group doesn't have a leaderboard or anything like that you are quite literally only cheating yourself anyway.

This sets this group apart from Astats which does have rankings (the whole point of the site really) and actually enforces its rules about cheating, even employing a system of rewards for informers. I for one wouldn't like the 100% group to turn into something like that.

[Someone]

Originally posted by Arveragus:

In reality what this group has is more of an honour system, because as far as I know the rules aren't actually enforced. It would of course be almost impossible even if you wanted to do so. Rather, this is just an informal group for people who are looking for info or help with achievements. Since this group doesn't have a leaderboard or anything like that you are quite literally only cheating yourself anyway.

This sets this group apart from Astats which does have rankings (the whole point of the site really) and actually enforces its rules about cheating, even employing a system of rewards for informers. I for one wouldn't like the 100% group to turn into something like that.

Oh, I thought this group related to Astats cause they point to Astats every time. And Cos even blocks cheaters on Astats so (s)he is somehow related to Astats staff. My bad.

[Arveragus]

Well, obviously this group IS related to Astats in the sense that all the group administrators are active on that site as well. So it's fairly natural that they would refer to Astats standards when asked about rules. The actual Astats Steam group however (http://steamcommunity.com/groups/AStats) is separate and somewhat smaller. Astats obviously needs rules for their leaderboard and the like and a mechanism to punish offenders to keep these fair. The 100% group doesn't have this competitive element and therefore no need of a policing mechanism.

And for the record I'm merely a member of this group so I don't make policy, I was just pointing out that though I enjoy achievement hunting I'm not a part of Astats because I don't like the competitive nature of that site.

[BlueDaNewb]

Personally, I'm all for modding tools within games, but as far as 100%ing games goes I won't use any mods or save editors in order to achieve this. For example, I'm currently trying to 100% Borderlands 2 and when I do, then I'll feel like I've earned the ability to use the save editor I have found online to make a more enjoyable experience and not damage the 'integrity' (if you can call it that) of the 100%ed game that I have :) Although, I also disagree with the usage of Steam Achievements Manager...

[TairikuOkami[SK]]

AStats has recently removed Stanley Parable - Go Outside - achievement.

I have abandoned my AStats account, not because of that, but in order to fix it, that actually suggest to use SAM, in order to remove the achievement. No comment ... . :/

[Cos]

Not exactly. I don't like that people are using that to relock it, but if they choose to do so, then it's up to them and the site will allow that, and entirely the user's responsibility.

Letting the invalidation stay is a perfectly valid option.

This solution has been suggested, please take a look: http://www.astats.nl/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=930

[TairikuOkami[SK]]

Originally posted by Cos:

Letting the invalidation stay is a perfectly valid option.

Indeed, leave the whole game invalid, rather then sugesting using SAM, even for a "good" reason.

[Cos]

Currently the whole game, but again what do you think of this? http://www.astats.nl/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=930

Not many have responded to that thread but I'd like more people to look at it as if this system were developed it might be the best course of action now.

[TairikuOkami[SK]]

Well that function would be interesting, but then again it would be like saying, you can cheat and we will invalid just one of the achievements, keeping the rest. Too easy for cheaters. But it all comes back, what is considered cheating, it is basically what someone at AStats decides, just like for this game, it was fine until recently. It should be really decided per game. Stanley Parabel wants you to cheat, anyone who played the game knows, that when a narrator says something, you are actually meant to do otherwise, the same goes for the developer, who toys with players, obviously no sane developer would even suggest to buyers not to play his game for 5 years. :P

[Cos]

The single-achievement invalidation would only be used in certain cases like this one, which has created a lot of debate in the community and even amongst moderators of the site.

I don't think it was specifically allowed to cheat this achievement, but because moderation for it had been neglected up until now people may have felt it was fair game and did it because everyone else was doing it.

The developer of Stanley has stated that he didn't like people were changing the clock to get the achievement, and he says he intends to delete it and add it again after 5 years since the game was released have passed in order to clear all unwarranted unlocks for it.

[Vader]

I was just going to say something about this new policy about The Stanley Parable on Astats.

How is changing the PC time considered cheating, but manipulating game files in case of the "Impossible" achievement is not? It is even suggested in the Astats guide, I guess there is not even any other way to get it (I got it this way as well), but who says this is the intended solution and changing the clock is not? In this case the developers may have said something about the time, but what about the Impossible achievement? Maybe it's really meant to be impossible, would not be the first time. And lasty why would it even matter? There are many cases of glitches and strategies making achievements much easier than intended, but that doesn't make it cheating. If we go for the "what feels like cheating" rule, then bosting with friends would also be cheating.
I think it really does depend on the game and with a "thinking out of the box" game like the Stanley Parable the rules can't be applied that strictly.
My personal opinion is that anything that follows the official steam rules should be fair game. If a developer really wanted to prevent certain ways of "cheating", they could. Also I would not consider the task manager as a "third party program", it's a built in feature of the operating system, just like the computer time.


Edi: Also what about holiday achievements? Is changing the time for these a no go as well? What if there is no other way, like the CS:S 2011 Christmas Achievement? (Assuming it would work, which it does not, but I think it does in Day of Defeat). Or the TF2 Halloween Achievements, if you think it breaks the rule, what about custom Halloween servers? Would that not be the exact same thing?
(These are serious questions btw, I'm just curious)

[Mytharox]

The impossible achievement was also part of the discussion. Trouble with it is that the developer didn’t say much about it after it was found out how you could unlock it. Only that he would change it again. After that it’s kind of unknown if it’s even possible to unlock anymore. So we could either make it ‘unavailable/broken’ or if it can still be unlocked normally we could leave it be, but still we wouldn’t have a clue who unlocked it fair in the past or who used the bind key trick so it would be near impossible to enforce or check who got it valid or not and we don’t even know if the developer meant it to be used or not. What is clear is that the dev really didn’t care much about it after it was discovered.

Saying that if a dev could always could prevent cheating and if they did not it would be fair game to cheat is not the way I see it. It’s always peoples own responsibility and if people really want to cheat they would always find a way. Finally there are many things part of the operating system including zip and notepad and some other handy tools, but still if you would use these to edit save games and give yourself achievement unlocks that way it would also not be fair.

So in the end it’s up to the users to do what they want or not. At AStats we just determine on basis of what we think can be enforceable and fair rules that please most of the players, what we allow for the ranking system there. And it’s always open to new suggestions so you can all feel free to post them and discuss with us on the forum there.

[Vader]

Originally posted by Mytharox:

Finally there are many things part of the operating system including zip and notepad and some other handy tools, but still if you would use these to edit save games and give yourself achievement unlocks that way it would also not be fair.

That's true, maybe I'm not up to date with all of the possibilities there. I thought that it should at least be resonably easy to prevent players from cheating without breaking the steam rules with third party programs (e.g. by disabling achievements in offline mode), but maybe I'm mistaken.

In regard to the Stanley Parable though I still think that changing the computer time is a minor thing and only fits the games concept. Besides I don't even know that many games where this does anything, beside this one, Universe Sandbox and this new AdVenture Capitalist game (where I did not use it though, just to be clear! ^^). But then again, having my Stanley Parable Achievements not count is also not the biggest deal, as long as grey area achievemetns like these don't lead to complete banning.