Starcraft 2, or why cheating can cause problems

[Traab]

Heh, I just reinstalled the game on my second computer out of a random urge to play the storyline again. I started from scratch with jim raynor. Anyways, I had been using a single cheat, takethredpill to get rid of the fog of war. I was doing the zeratul quests and was on the first one, running through the underground area to read the prophecy. I had to restart at least three times. Why? Because with no fog of war, I was able to see shortcuts I wasnt supposed to. The first time I accidentally skipped past the area where you learn to use that lockdown ability on spore colonies and other stealth breaking units. So I never got to learn it. Second restart I accidentally skipped from the first third of the prophecy to the exit, bypassing the other two chunks of the prophecy, and the enjoyable chase scene and major battle with the protoss forces. Well, thats all the restarts I had with accidentally blinking too places I shouldnt have, though I DID skip to the second chunk of the prophecy once, missing the first. Just thought I would share an amusing anecdote on why cheating can be a pita sometimes. :smalltongue:

[Krade]

I remember one mission in the Zerg Campaign in Brood War where the game ends as soon as you hit 10,000 minerals. If you use the money cheat, the mission ends immediately. It was disappointing because it was during the period of my life when it was still fun to win with cheat codes and If I'd wanted to skip the whole level I would've used the level skip code.

Glad I grew out of that phase. Cheat codes kinda defeat the purpose of playing for me now.

Edit: Oh and in a few places in StarCraft 1, if you have the invincibility cheat on, any scripted action that takes place in-mission can't complete because the invincibility cheat doesn't make you invincible so much as it makes everyone else's attack do 0 damage.

[Rodin]

A classic one is Age of Empires I. I turned the "build instantly" cheat on so I could churn out units and curbstomp some AIs.

I immediately got rushed by massive armies from all the AI opponents. See, it turns out the cheat affects all players, and the AIs are much better at spamming units than my measly human brain.

Using the cheat to get you super units that fire laser beams and then using the build instantly cheat, however....

[Traab]

I try to avoid using the bigger cheats on games, for example, I might use the resources cheat depending on just how much it gives you in the game. A quick boost at the start is fine, but enough cash that you never ever run out is not. I like the map revealer codes because there are always interesting bits in the game you wouldnt normally ever notice without it. If I use the bigger codes like god modes or fast builds, its usually after I have beaten it a few times and want to play around with it. For an example, in the warcraft 3 game, I was doing the mission as the undead summoning archimonde. There are three big enemy camps that constantly attack you. Its easy enough to hold them off, but I wanted to explore the map. I found tons of random treasure chests and monster spawns and such, it was pretty amusing. Plus, some missions are just an annoying pita. In starcraft2, any mission where you have to race the computer to gather resources is a pain. The therazine gas deposits tosh wants, the bio mass you need to feed the ancient one, etc. So a bit of cheating is fun there. With the gas, I dont even bother harvesting it. I basically build up an army and wipe out the protoss. You auto win when you destroy everything. And yes, I have managed to do that without cheating, it just goes faster when you do.

Oh, one interesting development. Speaking of killing all protoss, you know the dig site mission where you control the giant laser? If you disable the fog of war, you can manually target and destroy the entire protoss bases and once again auto win. That is another mission I have managed to pull off without cheats, but prefer to use. Without the cheat what I would do is create a single hercules drop ship, and SLOWLY inch my way into visible range of the base and laser everything I reveal. Then inch forward a bit and do it some more. The AI doesnt rebuild anything afaik. If you want to do it the hard (fun) way, you can use the laser to break the bottleneck defenses at the base entrances, and storm them with your units. Blow up the photons, target the couple archons and those giant robot walker things, and you can force your way into the base easier and still have a really tough fight.

[007_ctrl_room]

A classic one is Age of Empires I. I turned the "build instantly" cheat on so I could churn out units and curbstomp some AIs.

I immediately got rushed by massive armies from all the AI opponents. See, it turns out the cheat affects all players, and the AIs are much better at spamming units than my measly human brain.

Using the cheat to get you super units that fire laser beams and then using the build instantly cheat, however....

lol that is pretty hilarious. i don't think i've used cheat codes on any game since my early childhood days of the Contra code and gameshark - i just get more satisfaction out of games without them, although when you're talking about an absurdly hard game like Contra, then it's okay. :)