I don’t find shame in cheating in video games. It was a stigma to hear about growing up, that cheating in video games meant you prefer the shortcuts in life or that you didn’t know what earning anything was. When, that was all just bullshit talk.
I cheat in video games, when available to on some games, to give me a little kick of fun. Sometimes I don’t have the patience to tediously go through the standard way. Other times, I feel I’ve earned it anyways, because of having undergone the stresses and frustrations or the time I’ve played of certain games to go through the normal way.
Like in Terraria, it’s a game I’ve clocked in upwards of 900 hours. I felt like I had done everything in the game prior to the content that added the Moon Lord and many other things. At that time, it was 850 hours.
So the point of the matter is, yeah I don’t find it that big of a deal to cheat in video games. If I cared to and want to, I’m decent enough to handle games without cheats, given enough time.
Multiplayer of course I never cheat in those.
The one and only time I “cheated” at Elden Ring was to spawn in some DLC weapons (hand-to-hand arts and perfume bottles) for a brand new character. Not because they were overpowered but because I hadn’t used them on any of my previous characters and they looked fun so I wanted to use them for a full playthrough. And they were quite fun. Better than I expected too, but certainly not top tier weapons.
Of course I could have just asked a friend to drop them for me instead but it was easier to just “cheat” them in :)
Yeah, I completely understand that. Sometimes you’re not trying to bust your ass for some cool items, just easier to do that (idk if this is how weapons in Elden Ring work, haven’t played it yet). I used to allow myself to lower the difficulty significantly in Fallen Order for one specific boss, which, imo, is fucking awful, even on medium (Knight) difficulty. I replayed the game about a week ago on the highest difficulty, and while some sections were harder than others, I only got hit once and beat it on my first try. It felt good to beat everything in the supposed hardest possible way that was intended. Having fun is the only thing that really matters, and I think that a decent amount of people have seemed to forget about that.