Is Save Scumming Gear (Not Rank) Cheating?

[Award]

From the objective point of view, yes save scumming is cheating, but when you analyse it further it becomes murkier. You can refer to it as a scratch card, there are loads of wins which only give you the money back that you used to buy it with. This is essentially the same as the scumming, you buy 4 scratch cards, and all 4 give you the money you spent back, so you can go and buy more. Save scumming gives you the money back and places you at square one again, you regained what you spent, but have nothing to show for it. So you try again, hoping for a different outcome, only this time you buy the 4 scratch cards and 3 give you the money back, but one gives you a bigger win. This one is the triple roll you were going for, so you keep it and move on to try something new.

Except these scratch cards don't have wins that give you your money back. You either get a bust or a jackpot. This is more like reaching in the register and taking your money back when you lose, or just swiping a new card of the counter. The buyers unwilling to do so simply get disadvantaged compared to the players that will keep taking their money back out of the register to buy new cards with until they hit the jackpot.

However, things get even murkier when people are scumming for shiny and pure rolls, since they are not going for the brand favoured ability triple. This is where it tilts the scales onto the cheating side of it. You are resetting your money/snails until you get a 1/4492 roll in like 10 or less "real" rolls (the ones that you used on that scum). This can become unfair when people start compiling builds that are technically impossible or extremely unlikely, since they can create a playstyle and role in a match that shouldn't be possible for the weapon in question.

Then again you have to consider the chance that people get these rolls purely by chance, and just imagine now that save scumming wasn't possible at all. How would you feel if you could never get natural rolls without 50+ rerolls on a piece of gear, yet here people are who get the natural triple after buying the gear (I have had this with the Strapping Reds, White Tee and Varsity Jacket) or re-rolled a piece of gear once and got a shiny or pure (I got triple QR on the Squid Hair Clip, and triple Swim Speed on the Shirt & Tie, both in 1 reroll)? It becomes very dubious and would fragment the player base with those getting slight advantages by having organised gear whilst others are getting screwed by RNG constantly. Sure, abilities aren't everything, but having things stacked and planned out to the point of maximising your efficiency and performance with a weapon can still have a significant impact on the outcome of a match, even if only slightly.

Based on how many people scum, and how easy and accessible it is to do, save scumming is not cheating in my eyes. You have to rely on the game giving you the roll you desire, which is completely RNG-dependant and has no reflection on the skill level of the player. Yes, the dictionary definition of the word makes save scumming cheating, but when you think about the masses who do it, and how it effectively allows everyone to be on a level playing field (except the more casual players who won't really go for all slots and the like). It isn't exactly harming people, and it isn't having a major impact on the matches or tourneys, so I wouldn't bother worrying about it. I don't see the point of looking down on save scummers, unless they deliberately do it to inflate their rank past their skill level, because abilities are so trivial and so small in their impact on matches, that it isn't a big deal. People will always have differing views on this, but at the end of the day, "If you can beat them, join them", because you can't beat their gear rolls unless you get extremely lucky.

Yes, you can get the rolls by chance - very rare chance. And that can give you an advantage. But that was, in terms of design, supposed to be how it worked - very rarely some players get an RNG advantage which shakes up the play. Then again you have to keep in mind Nintendo generally frowns on "competitive for winning" play in general and designs their games pretty much INTENTIONALLY to apply an RNG factor to that to keep it unpredictable so that the player with the best skill does not necessarily win (Sakurai's own words regarding Smash.) Whether we like that mentality or not, it's the design of the game, and players who play the game honestly, utilizing the systems offered in the game without resorting to exploits via the OS (or the new hack) are effectively penalized by the scummers/hackers.

However it can be justified as "making it even" that doesn't mitigate that it was explicitly designed to NOT be "even" and that playing with the actual in-game rules and systems, playing within the rules, is penalized by the players participating in scumming. Those players have far, far, far (1/4492 for example) lower odds of having the same advantages, simply because they were playing by the rules. It's hard to justify an action that punishes the honest.


The only up-side I'm hoping for is that the latest hack actually forces them to make a big change in 2.8 that fixes the problem. They can't fix the hacked/scummed gear, but they can fix the modifiers so that stacking is useless and therefore scumming becomes useless if not harmful "oh no I got ANOTHER swim speed up - there's a wasted slot!" The hackers may finally have defeated the scummers and improved the game :)



That brings up a part 2: Some people have been justifying the browser hack as well - "oh it's just gear, so it makes it even so it's far" - how far are people willing to justify things based on an outcome they've personally determined meets their level of "acceptable." Using the OS's recovery feature to reset losing on a RNG roll is ok, but using it to reset losing in a match is not for some. Using the OS recovery feature to reset losing on an RNG roll is ok, but using a hard hack with illegal software is not to others. Yet for some using the illegal software to hack the gear IS acceptable because it affects only the gear that can be affected via RNG rolls and is therefor just a faster way to do what's in the game, but using the illegal software to modify weapons abilities is wrong. How can one justify hacking the game to change one set of data versus another when the point of both uses is to modify advantages for yourself into the game? People are developing this very weird moral relativism where they'll define their own use of a given exploit as "fair" while other's uses of it are "unfair" based on their own rationalization of their behavior. So where does one define what's acceptable and not? Whose definition is right? If you believe scumming is ok, but hacking is not, but someone else here things that scumming and hacking gear is ok, but hacking weapons is not....what if I believe hacking weapons so long as I modify them by less than double their range/damage is ok, just to make it more fair to counter the def-up scummers? Does my weapon mod browser hack suddenly become acceptable to you because I decided it should be?

So where's the one common point that can be declared universally acceptable? Stick to the in-game rules, we all have the same starting and ending points defined in the rules, and those using exploits to operate outside those rules are, correctly, labeled cheaters.

 

[SupaTim]

@Award then it IS poor game design.

If Splatoon is going to be played competitively, then the competitors should be on even playing ground. This is primarily about gear then. Nintendo might not care about supporting competitive Splatoon, but that just means that the competitive community is the one that establishes proper rules for this sort of thing. The competitive community seems to want players on even ground, so save scumming is acceptable.

Is it "cheating" in the technical sense. I suppose. But if you mostly play in private battles in tournaments, then that becomes so niche that is really doesn't affect the whole population of Splatoon. Competitive Splatoon != solo queue. In my eyes, that matters.

 

[Award]

@Award then it IS poor game design.

If Splatoon is going to be played competitively, then the competitors should be on even playing ground. This is primarily about gear then. Nintendo might not care about supporting competitive Splatoon, but that just means that the competitive community is the one that establishes proper rules for this sort of thing. The competitive community seems to want players on even ground, so save scumming is acceptable.

Is it "cheating" in the technical sense. I suppose. But if you mostly play in private battles in tournaments, then that becomes so niche that is really doesn't affect the whole population of Splatoon. Competitive Splatoon != solo queue. In my eyes, that matters.

Hur, der, you're wrong! ;) (j/k)

I can't argue my dislike for the RNG system, I'm not sure it's poor design, but a poor match for the way some players want to play, sure. But the way the game works with its internal rules does happen to be the game, and modifying that from outside the game, surely can't be considered acceptable to be fair to the many, many players that DO want to play by the rules. We might not see many of those players on forums dedicated to playing the game, but of the 4 million or so players, you can bet that less than 1/4 of them is actually scumming/hacking. So we're talking about advantaging 1/4 or less of the player base not playing by the rules over the rest.

However, you're specifically referencing competitive play - Private Battles is its own thing. Nobody cares what you do there, you're not interfering with the player base at large there. Hack away so long as the other players in your private battle know what you're doing and are ok with it that doesn't matter to anyone else. *BUT* These players do not play exclusively in private battles. They DO take their scummed/hacked gear sets into solo queue, they do push for their S+ rating in there simply to even qualify for their clans. Thus they're impacting the larger community of randoms with their gear.

If they were to choose to only use it for private battles I don't think anyone would care - it relies on an honor system, and plenty of people aren't honorable. I'd not disparage anyone for scumming gear sets for private use.

It's true that gear is not replacement for skill, but if you're the sploosh player with 3 run speed mains 2 sj subs, 1 dmg sub, 1 swim speed sub, 2 def subs, 1 ink saver sub, and 2 ink recovery subs, even at perfectly equal skill you're not going to be a match for the Jr. on the other team with 3 main and 9 sub run speeds. It's not going to happen. In competitive private battles "everyone's doing it" might be true, if very sucky (seriously, you have to use an OS exploit to compete? What kind of competition is that?) but bringing that into random solo is just wrong in every way.

The only acceptable solution to it at this point is nerf the stacking. It needs to happen. Heck if they did that last patch they wouldn't have needed to nerf chargers. They do that it fixes some weapon brokenness AND eliminates any value to scumming/hacking gear. Everyone becomes on more equal terms again.

 

[SupaTim]

Hur, der, you're wrong! ;) (j/k)

NUH UH!! :D

I guess I'm biased, as loadbout building and brewing with triples in mind is one of my favorite things in this game. And it is frustrating when I have to roll 90+ times to get a triple NATURAL roll.

Honestly, why bother have gear that naturally rolls one thing and not another in the game at all if the intention is to be randomized. I feel like they made the game grindy for the sake of getting people to play more. I honestly don't know if perfect rolls is affecting the game that much at all. I've scummed 3 or 4 pieces of gear, and it still doesn't make up for my lack of S level skill. Sure, put two people of equal skill together and the one with the better gear wins, but gear only helps so much.

The analogy that comes to mind for me, as usual, is competitive Magic the Gathering. Some formats allow really old and rare cards that most players don't have. Some unsanctioned tournaments allow, and encourage, using "playtest cards" (aka proxy cards). It makes it easier for those formats to be played. Is it "cheating?", well, technically if you used "playtest cards" on the pro-tour, yes, it would be cheating. But in anything from kitchen table casual to high level unsanctioned tournaments those cards are allowed. It helps the game. To me this is similar to save scumming. Did you spend the time to get to 9 million coins so that you could roll all your gear? No, but that doesn't mean you should (in the moralistic sense) be restricted to randomized gear. Not everyone can/should have to grind until they can afford gear. If it helps you enjoy the game then I think it's ok.*

*With the understanding that gear only helps so much and will not get you over the skill hump. It doesn't negatively affect the average player.

 

[Award]

NUH UH!! :D

I guess I'm biased, as loadbout building and brewing with triples in mind is one of my favorite things in this game. And it is frustrating when I have to roll 90+ times to get a triple NATURAL roll.

Honestly, why bother have gear that naturally rolls one thing and not another in the game at all if the intention is to be randomized. I feel like they made the game grindy for the sake of getting people to play more. I honestly don't know if perfect rolls is affecting the game that much at all. I've scummed 3 or 4 pieces of gear, and it still doesn't make up for my lack of S level skill. Sure, put two people of equal skill together and the one with the better gear wins, but gear only helps so much.

The analogy that comes to mind for me, as usual, is competitive Magic the Gathering. Some formats allow really old and rare cards that most players don't have. Some unsanctioned tournaments allow, and encourage, using "playtest cards" (aka proxy cards). It makes it easier for those formats to be played. Is it "cheating?", well, technically if you used "playtest cards" on the pro-tour, yes, it would be cheating. But in anything from kitchen table casual to high level unsanctioned tournaments those cards are allowed. It helps the game. To me this is similar to save scumming. Did you spend the time to get to 9 million coins so that you could roll all your gear? No, but that doesn't mean you should (in the moralistic sense) be restricted to randomized gear. Not everyone can/should have to grind until they can afford gear. If it helps you enjoy the game then I think it's ok.*

*With the understanding that gear only helps so much and will not get you over the skill hump. It doesn't negatively affect the average player.

Yeah, but is it that much less frustrating scumming for it? Scumming doesn't remove much frustration it just makes the unlikely more possible (which is what makes it less fair for others in general.) You still have to roll your 90 times, you just get unlimited gold/snails with which to do it while the players not scumming don't get that luxury of unlimited resources. Frustration abounds with both situations :P

They likely did make it grindy just to get people playing more, or more to the point their viewpoint of making it kind of addictive and unpredictable to keep it exciting and give a reason for playing 1000 hours. Kind of like the extended far fetched uber difficicult bosses in Xenoblade after you beat the story. It's not NEEDED for the game, but it gives players that want to play more SOME goal to aim for still to keep it fun and not feel empty and pointless without having to start a new save. And Nintendo loves their RNGs (See also the Ziplash roulette wheel...which basically includes the scumming of the wheel in the game rules in terms of buying tiles.)

But I think it was also about game balance. They almost certainly factored in percentages of how many peieces of gear could provide how much benefit to which areas and based the probability system around establishing a certain percentage of "main equivalents" of a given ability within the population. That is, until scumming broke the balance.

To me, I think the fact that it was clearly based on a balancing of the game is what makes it broken, and the Magic example along with private battles, I think are outside situations. It's the affect in solo queue that makes it problematic. But also the fact that it can't be filtered. EG the Magic example - it's either allowed in the tournament or it isn't. But in Splatoon, it can't be banned, the scummers simply arrive scummed - the tournament can't control it in the rules. Essentially mandating that everyone scums for competitive play, and making solo a mess.

Of course in this game, with the team matching, you'll grind for your millions of snails whether you scum or not ;)

True about it not making up for skill, but it's that situation where equal skilled players are squared off that it becomes troublesome - the dishonest get the advantage. And certain weapons it flat out breaks. Splooshes with 9 run speed subs. Good luck taking them down. Fully def-up builds, walk around almost invincible. Full stacked QR, there's no point killing them. it breaks some things quite badly.

Fingers crossed they kill stacking. The diminishing returns was supposed to have that effect anyway. But not enough. Hard cap it and watch the debate vanish. Instead of rolling/scumming for same everythings, everyone will be scumming variety :P It'll be more fun with less "super fast" players etc with clear advantages. Builds will be personal playstyle rather than "meta for map/mode" again. Scumming will still exist to get full "main equiv" slots so you'll till see triple triple triple, at least to 2 or 3 mains worth of an ability. But if they make it so it's advantageous to diversify instead of stack, it would really shake up the whole min/max otakuism.

 

[SupaTim]

I'm just one guy, but I get significantly less frustrated when I know that I can keep rolling, even if I have to roll 90 times.

Just curious, does gear really give so much of advantage that scumming is that big of a deal?

 

[Posso]

I'm just one guy, but I get significantly less frustrated when I know that I can keep rolling, even if I have to roll 90 times.

Just curious, does gear really give so much of advantage that scumming is that big of a deal?

Unless you have cold blooded as a sub so that you can have another main of damage up, it doesn't put others at a disdvantage.

 

[Award]

I'm just one guy, but I get significantly less frustrated when I know that I can keep rolling, even if I have to roll 90 times.

Just curious, does gear really give so much of advantage that scumming is that big of a deal?

It somewhat depends what gear, and, naturally, scumming/hacking is often for the most advantageous gear. The biggest problems are when you see 6 main equivalents of one stat, or 3/3 run/swim (so a squid simply moves faster in all aspects than they should.) For a game where predictive aiming is so important due to speed, that really messes up aim, and means they don't move reliably while swimming OR running. Full stacked def, full stacked def - full stacked ink saver or half/main half/sub so that it's almost infinite shots etc. Some combinations are just plain broken particularly when paired with certain weapons. By defeating the game's intended probability where 1 in 40,000 squids will get that unfair advantage by sheer luck, it means some squids have clear advantages that weren't intended by the game any more than an ohko Jet Squelcher. Of course without the skill to pull it off, it won't help that much, but among skilled players that's the player that will generally be the strongest. Could they be very strong without the gear? Yes, but they got the gear specifically because they knew they could exploit its advantages well.

All that said, I'd prefer a different system, as I said earlier, where you can really customize your gear. I think a "rental fee" or something (think of Ravio's hut in Link Between Worlds) would have made an interesting system here.

 

[SupaTim]

Question: what is the practical difference between someone who grinded for a bunch of money and snails and rolled three pieces of gear until they got their pures and someone who save scummed?

 

[Award]

Question: what is the practical difference between someone who grinded for a bunch of money and snails and rolled three pieces of gear until they got their pures and someone who save scummed?

Individually? Nothing. Server-wide? Percentage of user base with those abilities. It's not that it creates an individual imbalance. It's that it contributes the the larger problems where by probability only at most 10 players, IF THAT, on the entire Splatoon server should have, say, a swim speed up with 3 swim speed subs. Meaning most players should never actually encounter the set - ever. Instead you see it in just about every S+ lobby. Why? Scummers/hackers. Whether you rolled that combination by luck and grinding or by scumming doesn't change how it affects you personally. But the fact that 1000 people instead of 10 have it at ALL creates an overall balance problem for the honest players. It was designed as sort of winning a raffle if you get it - not something you're really supposed to be trying to "buy". It wasn't supposed to affect the balance of matches because it was more or less not supposed to exist. And arguably there were supposed to be more C's than S's in the game so random lucky gear sets were to provide fun for those C players who can for example "go super fast now" with that set above, rather than really using it for competitive edge. And if the player data were server-side, that's how it would still be.

 

[mm201]

Competitive-minded players want to both play ideally and face ideal opponents, so, to them, it's not about giving themselves an "unfair advantage" over other players, since they actually prefer that their opponents are using perfect gear too! They would prefer that choice of gear abilities be a strategic choice, not a technical limitation.

How can one justify hacking the game to change one set of data versus another when the point of both uses is to modify advantages for yourself into the game? People are developing this very weird moral relativism where they'll define their own use of a given exploit as "fair" while other's uses of it are "unfair" based on their own rationalization of their behavior.

This is why I make a point (despite criticism) of saying that savescumming rank isn't cheating either. A **** move, yes, absolutely, but not cheating. Just like with orderscumming, you're using built-in tools on a jailed platform, so at best you can call it an exploit. (Note that we can't objectively call any programmed functionality an exploit for the same moral relativism reason you described in the quote.) The reason rankscumming is wrong has nothing to do with cheating; it's because you're ruining the game for others by entering rooms you don't belong in. You're either too skilled so you carry your team, or not skilled enough and hold them back. It's not unlike throwing a match or deliberately DCing.

And as with every exploit, the burden is on the developers to fix it, not the players to stop using it. And I'd like to think the developers had more in mind that players would slowly grind for better gear, to increase replay value, not that they seriously wanted some players to have random, PERMANENT, advantages over others for no valid reason. But alas, I can't read their minds, nor can anyone else in this thread.

 

[AbsentPlayer]

@Award. So far I've just been sitting back seeing how this would play out an little did I know how much of a debate I have caused. You seem to be the person with the most to say. First lets talk about something you said not too long ago. You stated that splatoon is a very prediction heavy game and yes, that is true and as someone who plays a lot of chargers and long-ranged weapons on general I cannot dress enough the importance of that. But the problem I have with what you said is that high speed is easy to counter if you have a keen eye and good aim; as stated before I am someone who plays chargers quite a lot however I am mostly quite accurate with my shots and while that is mostly because of practice and a bit of lag in my favour, however it can be hard to hit a speedy opponent. The remedy of this is to notice patterns in play and to learn how they position themselves, if you notice a zinc mini strafing from left to right or a Luna who keeps jumping predict where they will be and fire, it is not gear helping you do that it your own skill allowing you to land these shots

Another thing you brought up is how scummers are forcing 'honest' players to scum in order to keep up. That is completely wrong! Until I manage to find a good USB I am, by your definition, an honest player. If you have seen me online (I doubt it), I'm ST>>absence btw, you may have seen that my gear is for the most part quite optimal. I'm generally getting the best KD in the lobbys I'm in and while I KDs aren't everything it means quite a lot for an E-Litre. That was when I was in A+, I'm in S rank now and have been since yesterday and I have for the most part quite consistent and I've been doing this without savescumming at all.

I will admit that when I get a good USB I will be scumming my gear (never my rank) but so far. I did try save scumming but I was doing it wrong and my USB was faulty so I achieved nothing.

 

[NotAPerso]

In the middle of a match having perfect or otherwise desirable gear is not and never will be cheating as the game is designed with this being possible to obtain through legitimate means.

If we're going along with the trading card game analogy then it's closer to the equivalent of purchasing specific cards and trading for your deck rather than only building a deck from booster packs. When two decks face off it does not matter how each individual card was obtained as each player both have the same opportunity to get the cards they want. The player who purchased better cards isn't a cheater as during a card battle they are on equal ground regardless.

Off-topic: tl;dr don't feed the moral trolls.

threads like this are horrible as they only invite flaming and moral trolls. Best case is moral trolls hinder themselves by intentionally not participating in a popular exploit, worst case is they go out of their way to tell others how "morally clean" they "honestly" play while putting down those who choose to participate in something widely used and available. In general moral trolls aren't good at a game and are just looking for something to blame.

The entire "game designers didn't intend this" is completely moot as it completely assumes a third party's position on the matter as if the third party's word is God and the only way something can work. Once a work is released publicly it is up to the consumer how it is viewed, played, and manipulated.
We are at a point where if the consumer finds something entirely problematic that the creators can act through patching and banning. If neither happens then why would it be assumed that the creators care about some moral trolls' problem with an exploit being used?

 

[mm201]

moral trolls

https://sirlin.squarespace.com/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

 

[SupaTim]

@NotAPerso
Why is your text black?! I can barely read it....

In defense of @Award, I don't think he's condemning any of us for save scumming, or calling us names, or claiming moral superiority, or saying we're ruining the game individually. He's quite good at the game, S rank, and as far as I can tell, quite happy with the game (apart from matchmaking, amirite?). I think calling him a scrub is a bit unfair.

 

[mm201]

That was directed at @NotAPerso 's "moral trolls" bit. I'd also suggest reading the article. It's a classic but deals with a recurring problem in gaming communities. (The issue is way older than Splatoon.)

 

[SupaTim]

That was directed at @NotAPerso 's "moral trolls" bit. I'd also suggest reading the article. It's a classic but deals with a recurring problem in gaming communities. (The issue is way older than Splatoon.)

Ok, I must have misread the situation a bit.

In any event, an excellent article. I've seen it before on here and on some M:tG boards I frequent.

 

[NotAPerso]

https://sirlin.squarespace.com/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

Bookmarking that. Good read and I appreciate you linking to it.

@NotAPerso
Why is your text black?! I can barely read it....

In defense of @Award, I don't think he's condemning any of us for save scumming, or calling us names, or claiming moral superiority, or saying we're ruining the game individually. He's quite good at the game, S rank, and as far as I can tell, quite happy with the game (apart from matchmaking, amirite?). I think calling him a scrub is a bit unfair.

Sorry the text color and such was unintentional so I fixed it.

Though I'm unclear how claiming users of save scumming and/or browser hack to obtain perfect gear sets are "correctly, labeled cheaters" as well as implying those players are dishonest while also pushing himself as part of a group of "honest" players isn't "condemning, calling names, or claiming moral superiority". The only thing is no specific names were called out so there's just an implied "you're part of the problem".
Being decent enough at the game holds no weight in this issue.

In any case I do not intend to continue further as I've clarified my view on the issue at hand.

Edit: to further clarify, I don't hate anyone but I do find long-winded posts about nothing and unwillingness to concede on a point very irritating. I've seen techniques worse than simple rng manipulation in several other online games that were accepted by the communities (snaking in mkds, shadow freezing in Metroid Prime hunters, wavedashing in melee, etc) which is why I find "thorough debates" ("I'm right you're wrong and you should feel bad") of "is x cheating" so annoying as they do nothing to advance the enjoyment of a game.

 

[SupaTim]

In any case I do not intend to continue further as I've clarified my view on the issue at hand.

Fair enough. Just a few points of clarification on my end then:
I talk to Award frequently on discord and there is no bitterness about scumming on his end (that I can detect). So I didn't want to have his opinion unfairly viewed. Perhaps I failed in this attempt, but oh well.

Secondly, his decency at the game is relevant in the "scrub" context, as the scrub will fail at the game because of self-imposed rules. Award doesn't fail at the game. That is all.

 

[Award]

@Award. So far I've just been sitting back seeing how this would play out an little did I know how much of a debate I have caused. You seem to be the person with the most to say. First lets talk about something you said not too long ago. You stated that splatoon is a very prediction heavy game and yes, that is true and as someone who plays a lot of chargers and long-ranged weapons on general I cannot dress enough the importance of that. But the problem I have with what you said is that high speed is easy to counter if you have a keen eye and good aim; as stated before I am someone who plays chargers quite a lot however I am mostly quite accurate with my shots and while that is mostly because of practice and a bit of lag in my favour, however it can be hard to hit a speedy opponent. The remedy of this is to notice patterns in play and to learn how they position themselves, if you notice a zinc mini strafing from left to right or a Luna who keeps jumping predict where they will be and fire, it is not gear helping you do that it your own skill allowing you to land these shots

Another thing you brought up is how scummers are forcing 'honest' players to scum in order to keep up. That is completely wrong! Until I manage to find a good USB I am, by your definition, an honest player. If you have seen me online (I doubt it), I'm ST>>absence btw, you may have seen that my gear is for the most part quite optimal. I'm generally getting the best KD in the lobbys I'm in and while I KDs aren't everything it means quite a lot for an E-Litre. That was when I was in A+, I'm in S rank now and have been since yesterday and I have for the most part quite consistent and I've been doing this without savescumming at all.

I will admit that when I get a good USB I will be scumming my gear (never my rank) but so far. I did try save scumming but I was doing it wrong and my USB was faulty so I achieved nothing.

Oh absolutely one can learn to predict and aim the swim speeds etc, though the full stacks of swim speed are so out of rhythm with the game that it really gets questionable. Regarding the scummers forcing honest players to scum to keep up, that seems to be more applicable in S/S+ - I haven't seen much in the way of scummed stacks in the A's (yet), but the S+'s it's becoming, especially after the browser hack, extremely common up there for full stacks of gear with very low probability of achieving it in the game. In a lobby where most players have "unlikely perfect" gear sets, the player without is definitely at a significant disadvantage with less ink or lower speeds, or less defense, etc. Like I said to Tim, skill still trumps gear - but it's down to when you get players of equal skill, which, the higher up the ranks you go, theoretically, the more equalized everyone (should) become, the more those gear differences might matter. But the full stacks of 6 main equivalents, really are broken. the odds of rolling those are so close to zero that anyone using them really is running a fully artificial build of which in-game there really is no reasonable expectation of EVER seeing that combination. Not with a player base of "only" 4 million. 3 off-brand triple rolls would be, what 1:7mil or so? You'd have better luck hitting jackpot at the Vegas slots. If more than one exists in the game, it's a hack, through and through.

Bookmarking that. Good read and I appreciate you linking to it.


Sorry the text color and such was unintentional so I fixed it.

Though I'm unclear how claiming users of save scumming and/or browser hack to obtain perfect gear sets are "correctly, labeled cheaters" as well as implying those players are dishonest while also pushing himself as part of a group of "honest" players isn't "condemning, calling names, or claiming moral superiority". The only thing is no specific names were called out so there's just an implied "you're part of the problem".
Being decent enough at the game holds no weight in this issue.

In any case I do not intend to continue further as I've clarified my view on the issue at hand.

My response to mm201 below elaborates a little on why, especially if you're defending the browser hack, I would stand by calling it cheating. By "honest" players I mean players who are playing the game as designed, presented, and instructed. I'm not explicitly calling anyone dishonest, if I felt scummers were "bad people" or dishonest cheaters by rote, I wouldn't play with SupaTim and others. I understand they do scum and I'm not judging them for that fact, however, I'll also still make the case for why it's not not a good thing. The debate between Tim and myself are between people who play fairly regularly together (or at least on the occasions when we're around at the same time) and discuss tips and such in private conversation - you're seeing an argument where there is none, it's a debate on the merits/cons of the matter from two different positions in a friendly public space to invite other viewpoints, not an argument between hating factions of Splatoon players!

Ultimately, "scumming" is not instructed in the tutorial. It does not appear in the manual. There is no in game system for scumming. It is not present on Nintendo's website. It's a system that does not exist within the game, and "honest" players who are not trawling the internet for every last piece of Splatoon information on Squidboards, Youtube, and /r/Splatoon will have zero idea the possibility even exists. That is why it's cheating - it's "special" knowledge of a modification to the game data from outside the game itself that is known only to the tight-knit internet circles who discuss it among themselves and is therefore not truly available for all players. Back in the day Nintendo Power subscribers might learn of shortcuts and codes to gain powers or access areas by bypassing areas in single player games. These were called "cheats" as well, even though Nintendo was selling you the secret of the cheat directly. It was still special information for the select few who paid for it and the word of mouth they spread it to.

I can accept as "honest cheating" where people could cite that because so many people do it, they do it too because they feel they need to to remain competitive against those that do. That would be a condemnation upon Nintendo for not addressing the exploit, but it would be an understandable position with a valid numeric point behind it. The attempt to defend "there's nothing wrong with using a browser hack to edit my game state because the game provides a 1:40000 chance of getting any one of the 3 combinations I've edited myself anyway so it's all perfectly above board!" starts crossing a line into genuinely dishonest. It is what it is, without trying to convince people it's something it isn't. If the character data were stored server side and the same hack were to allow you to edit the very same data stored on Nintendo's server's, would that also be equally acceptable? Are we drawing arbitrary lines between "it's acceptable because I'm not breaking into a foreign host network to do it because they foolishly left the data on my remote client?" A lot of bank hacks could be defended by THAT logic!

One doesn't have to be a "moral troll" to call hacking unlimited currency into a game because you don't like the way the game allocates currency "cheating." the fact that the way the game handles in game currency is less than desirable makes "cheating" almost acceptable until/unless Nintendo fixes the ability or reasons for doing so, but we can at least be honest about WHAT it is even if we can justify and validate reasons why it might be "ok" to do it.

https://sirlin.squarespace.com/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

That's a good article and would be applicable to an earlier debate I had with NotAPerso regarding spawncamping in TW. For that it's on point with "made up mental rules" But this issue isn't involving that article. We're not talking about mental limitations of not using your burst bombs a certain way in the game because it's "cheap" despite being part of the games allowable features. We're talking about modifying the game data from OUTSIDE THE GAME to advantage yourself with infinite in-game currency and/or directly adjusting your in-game stats without using the in-game methods of achieving them. These aren't mental rule limitations, these are deflated footballs, weighted baseball bats, etc. There's valid argument there if we're talking about not using the systems allowed by the game. But scumming/browser-hacking is precisely not that. The whole point is modification of your game state from outside the game and its rules. It's like taking 10 strokes at a par 4 hole and editing the score card to show you made it in 4. Though I have this sinking feeling someone (no, NotAPerso I'm not calling you out here :) ) would argue that if nobody saw you edit it, the judge can't know, therefore if the card shows 4, you used the rules of the game since the judge can only know what's on the card...

In the middle of a match having perfect or otherwise desirable gear is not and never will be cheating as the game is designed with this being possible to obtain through legitimate means.

If we're going along with the trading card game analogy then it's closer to the equivalent of purchasing specific cards and trading for your deck rather than only building a deck from booster packs. When two decks face off it does not matter how each individual card was obtained as each player both have the same opportunity to get the cards they want. The player who purchased better cards isn't a cheater as during a card battle they are on equal ground regardless.

Off-topic: tl;dr don't feed the moral trolls.

threads like this are horrible as they only invite flaming and moral trolls. Best case is moral trolls hinder themselves by intentionally not participating in a popular exploit, worst case is they go out of their way to tell others how "morally clean" they "honestly" play while putting down those who choose to participate in something widely used and available. In general moral trolls aren't good at a game and are just looking for something to blame.

The entire "game designers didn't intend this" is completely moot as it completely assumes a third party's position on the matter as if the third party's word is God and the only way something can work. Once a work is released publicly it is up to the consumer how it is viewed, played, and manipulated.
We are at a point where if the consumer finds something entirely problematic that the creators can act through patching and banning. If neither happens then why would it be assumed that the creators care about some moral trolls' problem with an exploit being used?

IS it really possible through legitimate means though? The 6x same ability stacks? It's ALSO possible to win the Vegas slots through legitimate means. So hacking the system to refund your money every pull is perfectly ok, right? ;) I mean you won with the right number of pulls as defined by the system. You even put money in for every pull. I mean who can say you weren't SUPPOSED to win it - you can't speak for the 3rd party that made the machine after all.

If you try that one, we might have to have a Squidboards fundraiser to post NotAPerso's bail ;)