JA Rules: To Sway or Not to Sway?

This information is dupilcated from the 09Apr2015 Gaming Update to provide a location for discussion:

This past week the GM, DGM, P:Fist and I engaged some long standing members of the club who are avid JA players in discussions on Swaying and if it truly belongs as part of the ROC. The intent of those conversations was to get an initial burst of data before opening this up as a public discussion.

We’ve talked on the news page before about what Swaying is, if people know how to recognize it, and if its even something that could be proved. Members who are more hard core competitive JA players have insisted that swaying is a mouse movement technique and not really any different than strafing or side stepping when it comes down to gameplay.

So I’m opening a Forum Thread for this particular discussion. Something I think that everyone who comments on that thread should read, before writing their comment, is this link to JK Hub and Mouse Movement Techniques (which I stole out of a DB Gaming Log where Artorias linked it when explaining about swaying).

Please hop on over to the Forums and discuss your thoughts on this topic. While the end result will most likely not make everyone happy (when does that ever happen?) I can promise that the discussion will impact the ROC.

There seems to be this idea in the DB that, not simply “fair play” is to be held, but almost “chivalrous, honorable, pleasant play” is enforced. When I was SHW, I remember having discussions with some of the gamers from Taldryan, Arcona, Tarentum and more, about reaching out to other gaming Clans to increase participants in the ICTE and such. I was told there was no way such a thing could occur, simply because of the rules we enforce in these games. We enforce some form of “bow” on match start, no hitting while down, no immediate attacks on match start, no attacking until “ready” announcement, no swaying, no camping spawns, and so on (which happened in a LOT of gaming Clans in JO/JA then). The reality is, we put so much into taking out any kind of “cheat,” that not only do we (rightly) ban hacks, we ban things (like swaying) that are accomplished by in-game components that are otherwise “legal.”

When I switched from purely fiction to gaming as well, guys from Taldryan (like Shadow, Flechette, Shaithis, Mord, Swiper and others), guys from Arcona (like Dagger and Khobai), guys from Tarentum (like Blade/Cannabisia, Frosty and Dox Romanae, Smoke20 and others), and others I can’t remember now, took me under their wing. Without exception, each and every last one of them, when I asked about swaying, said people made use of it in other gaming clans, but that the real/talented gamers could see it coming and defeat it. Without exception, any of those guys I tried it on kicked my dick in the dirt when I did so, and showed me how to play, instead of how to sway.

At some point, we have to evaluate what we’re asking of our gamers. Are we eliminating “cheating,” or are we pandering to people who bitch and complain about getting their asses kicked by people who don’t want to “be honorable,” to bow, to let people stand up (when, in a real fight, if you knock someone down, you jump on their ass and smash their face), and so on. “You’re a bad guy, but you have to be nice, and give up any possible advantage over an opponent and beat them with class and a smile on your face, followed by a GG:)!!!ONE every time.”

What’s the right answer? Honestly, there isn’t one. This has been a debate for literally years and years. We need to have a clear picture of what actual “cheating” is, and stop trying to lump “that’s not nice” in with it.

We can’t hit people when they’re down?

As for swaying and other such things, I never understood exactly what it was, the link did help, but it also made me wonder even more why we decided it was against the rules in the first place, the game allows it so it’s hardly a cheat, and banning it doesn’t seem like it’ll actually impair anyone but the players who are already good at JA since it looks like you need to be decently talented at the game to make use of the moves in the first place.

If it’s a question of it being an “instant kill” move or whatever then what about twin- or quadlinking lasers in the X-Wing series? Those are things the game lets you do and quadlinking generally destroys a T/I in one hit.

In the end I don’t see the reason or need for swaying, or other such techniques, to be against the rules in the DB, especially when everyone outside the DB treat them as part of the game.

Just going to basically second Mal’s comments. I never really understood the “swaying” argument and why it was disallowed. It’s not a “hack” to the game, and outside of our little club it was never something banned from the greater JA community. A lot of the rules we put into our games, in this club, were designed to give everyone a “fair chance” as it were. Essentially, we hamper the better players so that those of us who are crap don’t get beat up quite as badly. I’ve never agreed with that stance, and I’m all for abolishing those types of rules. If a game, without any modifications, allows you to do something? Then allow it.

Yes, the moves could instakill and so if my opponent wiggles I’d have to wiggle to win. What’s stopping me from jerking the mouse like crazy all the time? What’s stopping me from spamming 720 Death from Above spins? It would detract from the realism of the duel and it will turn into a Tendinitis fest.

Aiming is OK in my book but poking and spinning not so much.

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Alright. I got very
little sleep last night, or the last few, I just woke up, and I am a
bit irritated. Please do bear with me.

I will attempt to
respond to everyone in this thread, as well as to the question in
general.

Mouse Movement
Techniques, commonly called Exploits by the Social/Role-Playing/JA+
Part of the community(Incorrect terminology, but oh well), are not
cheating. They are a natural part of how the game itself works on the
lowest, coding levels. Velocity = Damage. They are however not game
breakers. The only thing “Broken” in this game is the blocking,
though I have yet to find someone in the DJB that can actually block
properly. (Its more than just looking at a person/JA+ Autoblock).

Now, for your
viewing pleasure, a few videos of competitive play. The community you
see is dead, by the way.

Now then, I would
like you to understand something else as well. It is possible to kill
someone with two proper, Yellow swings(Not 4-5), understanding the
base game mechanics. It is possible to kill a person with just 1 Red
Swing, understanding game mechanics. So Poking/Wiggiling/Etc, are
honestly not super duper overpowered super damaged things. Moving on,
it is possible to easily kill someone without them.

In regards to them
being “Broken”, we have the vast majority of the competitive
gaming community having used such things for the past ten years,
particularly in the ESL, or Electronic Sports League. We have had
players, one in particular called Masta, who for a long time, a
player who never used any of the Poking/Wiggiling/Spinning, in a
community of people who used such things, and held the number one
first spot. We have had people who have used such things be number
one as well. Such things should be used as Extensions of ones basics.
For those players who cannot win against MMT’s without using them in
turn, its not skill. Its a game of luck your playing, and you should
work on your basics, re-evalulate, re-think. Adapt, change, break
things down. Watch the animations, figure out what does what.

Moving on, for
reference, http://jkhub.org/wiki/index.php?title=Competitive_Play.

Now then, I will
explain a bit of basic general Saber theory. The saber has three
phases. Preparatory, Mid swing, and Ending phase. In this game,
Velocity equals damage. V = D. In the first phase, the Saber gathers
speed. In the mid, when you hear the swoosh, it is at maximum damage
output. When it hits the ending phase, you are vulnerable. Now then,
for those who are spinning/Poking wildly, its a simple matter to hit
them in the end phase/Prep phase. You will receive little to no
damage if you hit during those phases, no matter how much they are
spinning around. You simply need to be precise. Most people as a
sidenote are scared of getting hit. Do not be afraid of being cut. Be
willingly to be close. Staying far away/Wiggiling(Or just cutting),
and then jumping far away is a bit, depending on just getting lucky.
It will get punished. Anywhose, the part of the saber that does the
most damage is the top/Tip, due to it traveling the most distance.

Moving on further, I
will try to address the points made in this thread.

Sith:

Well, the “Chivalry”
thing actually comes from the major old JA+ Social clans. Most of
those are high member, active organizations that, sort of use the
game as a chatroom. It also comes a bit from the Role-Playing
community, where people can only walk(Not Run), cannot hit while
down, saber down, or anything of the sort. I count genuine Honour as
good sportsmanship, good character, not silly little rules such as
these. Some people do not adapt to others using exploits, and fine
tune their timing/Distance/Blocking/Footwork. Some do not want to
figure out how to not get knocked down. So, we come up with these
rules, or things to make the game look/feel more “Star Warzy”,
but it takes away from the game as a whole. This is a game using the
Quake engine, and it is just as every bit as competitive as Quake.

The thing is, actual
genuine cheating, such as aimbots, wallhacks, map exploits, etc, the
DJB as far as I See has no way to stop such things. You are not
required to record demos of your games, or anything of the sort,
which is a bit of a requirement in the ESL most of the game, and
using outdated mods not maintained for 5-7 years/etc.

In response to
the talented part, that is partially true. Its a bit hard to judge
skilled players at a game in a whole in one community, unless said
players play on a larger, grand scale. I.E most skilled in one area.
Proper mouse movement techniques with training/precision/control, are
quite deadly and or efficient. Respectable. People who use these as
extensions of their basics are Respectable. People who are by nature
predictable, using MTT’s as their base, i.e just a one trick pony,
are quite easy to kill.

Honestly, the vast
majority of people I have been dueling, practically refuse to duel me
now days, to the point I can no longer really game at all in the DJB.
I have been told that I unless I help//Train people, I am a crappy
person/Player/etc. I have had people blame everything on Ping, when
its not that bad/Requires adjusting stuff to 3-5 seconds before or
after, depending on ping. Call me a cheater. Tell me “So you think
MTT’s are okay, well, thats just the kind of person you are.”, and
the sort. Not altogether friendly. A lot of people enjoy whining, and
actually tell me not to do this or that, as its making it to hard for
them.

Eliminating real
cheating is removing Aimbots, wallhacks, no Map exploits during Team
Deathmatches, no Ultra Utility Tracking. Real sportsmanship is like I
said, of good character and genuine common sense/decency. Now then, I
feel as if I am ranting here.

I view the right
answer as, its just a extension of gameplay. If you want to be a one
trick pony, well, have fun, but you’ll die. If you want to just have
casual fun, thats fine, just don’t complain. If you want help, just
be nice and ask.

Clear cheating is
simply using a Aimbot for better Aim, a Wallhack(See through walls),
Lagging yourself/ map exploits(Parts of some maps you can see through
if you crouch/Do certain things, or this or that, less than a
Wallhack, but meh), Ultra Utilities ability to track people, and the
like. Actually being able to stop such things involves active Server
management, not using a 7+ Outdated mod that uses Engine Memory hacks
to do its stuff, and or using OpenjK(Community open source maintained
version of the game. Fixing all bugs/exploits, porting native to
mac/linux, improving game performance, and keeping gameplay the
same.)

Anywhose. I have not
seen a person in the Dark Jedi Brotherhood as of yet use any of the
above methods. I have seen people try really, really, really horrible
tricks/Play extremely passively as to make one duel last over a hour,
which besides being a tad annoying, its not much of a game if you
refuse all contact with an enemy. A few people here prefer that kind
of play, though its not altogether exciting, and its just them
staying halfway across the map not dueling me. ESL made a few rules
against playing too passively if I recall.

Anywhose. I would
say your generally pandering to a more casual, “Honour” based
field descendent of the major JA+ Social clans. Or, to put it more
bluntly, from what I have seen so far in the Brotherhood, Whining
brats who just don’t want to actually learn how to play the game.

To Malik.

Generally, generally
certain people just don’t seem to like it. Some people just seem to
think its wrong, cheating, and its fine if they don’t want to use
such techniques. Respectable even, I myself am avoiding them right
now as a matter of habit, and for some fine tuning. Though, it rather
gets irritating when said most people are just social chatters, and
or have to repeatedly tell me I am a cheater/Suck/I refuse to duel
you. A few even refuse to duel me if i do not use them and kill them.
But hey. People.

Well, any properly
timed strike can be a insta or near insta kill. It is generally
possible to kill a person with just two yellow strikes, or even just
one red swing, hence a person should get their basics in order before
using Extensions. And, if you want to think of it as a Lightsaber, a
thing that is sort of a one kill weapon. Oh well ;P. MTT’s can
increase damage and the like, but if a person actually decides to
watch, adapt, change, hit during the end phase/ Prep phase and not
just run at you and swing wildly, hoping to kill you, or goes into
the “I will wiggle and hope I get a kill), and said person can
actually adapt, you are rather dead. Fast.

To Halcyon.

The reason the
argument is here is, its honestly just that silly. Some people feel
as if we should “Bow” before and after a duel, treat it as a
spar, say Good Spar or Good Game after it, and simulate a “Jedi”
feeling. I could point at the fact of Sith/Dark jedi or w/e, or the
fact that I believe Respect is earned/is of Character, not of
artifical things, but hey, people.

Mouse Movement
Techniques have never once been banned in any competitive play. That
itself should say something. The things that have been banned, such
as modified sabers, wallhacks/aimbots, Scripting(Its more of a matter
of trying to foster a more competitive environment, and help people
rather than this is a way to get easy kills, as its horrible, i.e
scripting moves/Mouse movement extensions), CL_Timenudge (Adjusting
the packets sent to/for the Server)…I do not see in the Rules list.
Nor Ultra Utilities tracker(Track where a person is at precise
position), plus having JA+'s special moves that are not in the base
vanilla game that are quite random/knocks you down/weird/Glitchy. Its
sort of funny that people have focused more on those, rather than on
other stuff.

For your reference,
http://jkhub.org/wiki/index.php?title=.sab.

Now, I am all fine
and good with everyone having a fair playing field. No Aimbots,
WallHacks, scripting, and encouraging competitive play(Though if
people don’t want to adapt, they can just learn to die, and decide to
adapt, quit, or just have fun. )

Frosty:

If a person is
wiggiling, and the only way to kill them is to Wiggle back, your
depending on being lucky. Getting a hit in. Not actually paying
attention to the Animations/Saber theory I outlined above, learning
how to actually block(Not JA+'s insane higher block ratio, but how
the game actually blocks, and knowing how to cause Blocks to get
closer/Etc), and what not. Its not a matter of just twitching your
mouse wildly around and getting kills.

Its a matter of
multi-tasking. Where am I? Opponent? Saber? What phase is the saber
in? What patterns /Me/Opponent are in? What height is my opponent
looking at(Crosshairs up/down?) -Does my opponent use mouse movement
techniques? Any habits they have? Multi-tasking, and a bit of this
can be found out in the first ten seconds of a duel. Spamming 720
death from above? Thats sort of cute ;P. Though, Realism? This is a
competitive Quake game with a physics system that is about, nearly
10-15 years old. If people want to poke, let them. Spin? Let them.
Its still rather easy to kill them. Just because the saber is their
does not mean it will do damage. It depends on the phase, what is
going on, and that sort of thing.

Its hardly some sort of overpowered, MMORPG Action button that will grant success. Perhaps you’ll get lucky against other people. Try a few competitive Base Servers, and see what happens ;).

General response:

In general(Apologies
to people for this rant, and apologies for sending that massive rant
to the Fist in Email, Tired/Ranty, will you forgive me :)? ), It is
not cheating. Speed Saber up? Increase Damage? Well, if your being
realistic, any hit should be “You Dead”. If you want to look at
it from a gaming perspective, any properly done, none “MTT” hit
should be able to one hit you, or two hits, your dead. Red/Yellow.
Staff, thats a super duper fast death with fanning, as well as with
Duals. Banning Mouse Movement Techniques will not foster competitve
play, or anything of the sort. Telling people they cannot hit a
opponent that they knocked down to do their skill/Opponents mistake
and not being willingly to punish said person so they adapt and not
get knocked down, is silly. Telling people that they cannot use the
basics of how the game engine itself works, sounds silly. Not having
rules on the things that are actually bad, and which have been banned
by the larger Competitive community, organized for nearly ten plus
years with feedback from hundreds to thousands of dedicated, hardcore
JKA fans who actually trained competitively to be better at this
game/Examined the Game Code, is interesting.

I always rather
disliked the notion that using MTT’s means you are unskilled. Now
granted, the vast majority of the JKA community that uses them are
rather unskilled, yet I have noticed said players getting a lot of
kills, more due to the fact of the other players lack of
adapting/etc, than the inherent skill of the “One Trick Pony”,
who by consequence usually avoids Base/Competitive Servers, and
haunts the Social chatroom Servers.

This is a rather,
strange game community wise. Though with a Quake Engine, which was
one of the first FPS/Super popular, and it has genuine, real Quake
competitive gameplay in CTF, as well as a few other things…A
Honour community of bowing to each other, bowing before you enter a
room, not attacking a person in X situation, has sprung up instead.
The competitive community and the “Social” community, primarily
JA+ Servers to be honest and blunt, have been quite separated.

What bothers me, so
far though, is that I was a avid dueler in the Brotherhood. Granted,
Centos 7, Need to compile JKA to work on my system and get SDL2
working, that is irritating…But I actually was unable to find any
duels. The people I dueled quit playing JKA, blaming Ping, or saying
that unless I help them, I’m a bad person/Elitist, and like all the
others. And that I have to help them and have to help make them
better. So far, I have gotten quite a bit of disrespect, and when I
have mentioned MTT’s, though I have as of not yet used them, I have
been told, interesting things regarding my character ;P. I would
honestly like to see a more competitive environment where people
challenge each other, to improve, adapt, break the gamae down, share
ideas, have fun. Maybe just some random fun things(Giant Playable
Piano in JKA, Tie Fighters vs X Wings in jKA, and what not), Team
Death Match, Kyle Ball(Soccer, sort of), FFA’s. Heck, we have a new
modern graphics engine coming out for the game in a year plus or so,
and a community fixed patched version of the game with its bugs and
all. JKA is a game with excellent gameplay, and is still being
actively maintained and developed. This wave should be ridden. Get
some of JKAS custom Quake Video recording/Editing software, record
competitive matches. Make recruitment videos for youtube. Encourage
people to play at a higher level. Some random old what the hell sort
of fun. Create the competitive environment for competitive play to
exist.

Just a few things to
throw out their. Its just a matter of some people, honestly, refuse
to adapt/Change. They refuse to Flow with what is. It is fine,
completely fine in the end, except when you decide to
moan/Whine/Accuse me of cheating/What not. Which is why I stopped
dueling for a bit. Too much time, and too little fun.

Be great to see
competitive JKA play flourish in the Brotherhood.

The only thing that
is sort of broken in this game is honestly the Blocking, and a few
other things.

Now, I just woke up,
I am tired, haven’t slept for the past couple of days. I hope this
rant is not that horrible :P/.

One of the first times I ever played JA I was accused of swaying. I don’t know what I was doing, but it happened sporadically over the course of the next few times I played. Nobody ever charged me with anything, but it was odd because as far as I know I was just playing the game as I did any other FPS.

I’m of the mind it shouldn’t be in the RoCs.

Which is a bit of the issue here. Players naturally try to figure things out. What you did may of been the above to a lesser degree, or them just, the general attitude of things.

All is good though :P.

The point is, there are a bunch of people who adjust the yaw speed because that’s how they play, how they’re used to playing. Swaying and such on the RoCs shouldn’t be there. We need to define what actual cheating is (hacks and such), and xhalk the rest up to habit, skill, experience, and realize that we can’t keep neutering our gamers just to “make the field more fair.” Yes, we want to encourage gaming, but it doesn’t do so when we try to make it so “anyone can play anyone.” We used to know, “if I play Shaithis, or Mord, or Dagger, I’m getting my ass kicked.” And we were ok with that. Neutering people doesn’t make it so “people get beat less,” or that matches last longer, and are more “fun” to people, or otherwise.

I do have a few adjusted settings myself. M_Yaw at 0.055 instead of the default 0.025, and sensitivity at eight, as well as my PC Sens upped up. It makes the game feel more smooth, though with higher sensitivity, comes less precision. Which is quite important.

Cheating:
Aimbots(Program/Tool that will aim for you.) I know a few in particular. Most comes with Trojans and the like, and are a bit meh at a high, high level of competitive play, but are generally annoying. Especially in fun little Sniper games.
Scripting: Using custom scripts (CFG files) binded to a key that will do a move for you. Such as going into the air and going wildly around. Most of them can be done naturally, but its a bit irritating if people can just script gameplay to certain degrees.
wallhacks: Programs/Modification that allows you to see through walls.
Modified sabers: Modified Sabers put server side to have sabers that increase damage, length, width, speed by any amount to give an advantage.
Etc Cheating, such as model Hacks, or the like.

Generally, JA++(Coded by a professional coder), is the only mod so far that has the most security and maintained. Using the community open source version of the game also helps. Generally, other things that helps is/are checking logs. Often. Keeping the game updated. Not running outdated/unmaintained modifications. That sort of thing.

http://www.esl.eu/eu/jkja/1on1saber/duelmastersweekly_2/rules/global
http://www.esl.eu/eu/jkja/tdm/tdm_weekend2/rules/

The competitive rules of the ESL, which for JKA, has been around for ages.

Essentially, the best way to prevent cheating is for people to take screenshots and record the game. The game has a inbuilt recording system that not tax invasive on the game at all. Uploading them to a basic public directory for all to download and review, and recording is quite light on filesize. This is the most failsafe and decent way to detect cheating, following logs, screenshots, etc.

I have very little experience as far as JA and JO are concerned, so the following may or may not be completely off base.

This has nothing to do with damage output or effective damage areas but in JK it was posible to influence your latency (how much you lagged by having your mouse set at high sensitivity and jiggling it around a lot during duels. When this tactic was first used in the early days of the game it was considered outright cheating. If you won a lot of tourneys people were quick to call you a “tweaker”. As the tactic became common knowledge more people started using it. If you can’t beat them join them, right? After a short time - well what do you know- because more people started using it everyone became accustomed to it. Because people grew a better understanding of the tactics and the general working of the game it became easier to cope with the latency burst and tactics, moves and patterns were quickly developed to counter it. After a while tweaking and all the counters developed against it were just considered an extra option in ones array.

Tldr; just accept that it’s there and learn to deal with it.

Artorias, I’ve been playing this game for a long time. I’ve played on competitive servers and I’ve played in the ESL (multiple games). Some matches in the ESL were frustrating, people trying anything just to win basically. I could still beat wigglers and pokers without doing it so doesn’t matter that much for me. I see most of the people are for allowing it. So why not test this for a few months or during event and see how it goes? I’m up for some variety.

Your off, Mr.TalonDrear.

Your latency will not be affected by your sensitivity. What certain people do when trying to jiggle it around are to just increase damage. It’s more or less luck placed play. They are just jiggiling around hoping for damage. Of course, a decent amount of people really are no better and just run into it, but oh well.

Now then, I recall quite a bit of the insults back in the day. I recall Tweaker being used for people who turned they graphics settings down to make the game less detailed, like Quake ;3. Oh, silly people.

Well, certain people developed proper tactics. Quite a few people in competitive play fight in large lines/Super passive, instead of being able to fight super up close, like in the videos I showed. By Patterns, people broke down the most common and efficient patterns. For example, the L Pattern, a basis of quite a bit else.

These days, latency and the like is prettymuch not as much of a problem as it was back then due to our more stable Internet Connections. More of it these days is just having a good connection to the Server. Mhm. Below 80 ping. Anything above will require adaption(As things happen seconds before/After and you must adapt).

Now, I have seen certain people intentionally lag themselves out/Higher and make their ping jump around. Really, really, really silly.

Perfect Server location…Iceland -?

I’m not off, you’re just misreading me. I was talking about JK, not JA or JO.

Increasing mouse sensitivity and jiggling your mouse in that game caused extra latency. As did setting higher values in the tick rate options of the game settings.

Lots of good feedback here folks. Keep it coming.

I’m a big fan of Frosty’s proposal of a JA Competition with the swaying rule removed. I know we have a Tourney running already. I will definitely be setting up a “Sway Friendly” Tournament shortly after its completion.

Maybe even add in some bonus reward for participants who are willing to give a thorough writeup on their experiences during and changes (or lack of change) in their thoughts on swaying once the Tournament is finished.

At least ensure its on a Base or JA++ Base Server with OpenJK >_>. I got tired of the JA+'s servers weird hitboxes, horrible latency, and random special moves that are not in the base game.

As a sidenote, since we have a small amount of European Players with, higher pings, a East Coast Server would be recommended. Not the West Coast/Central Servers. Due to higher pings, and this sort of falls in the “Make Fair/Balanced” category.

Anywhose!

I really don’t know about the whole swaying thing, however I guess my issue more lies in the whole competitive vs social aspect of JA. When I play a match with someone, and they beat me, I try to be a good loser, but it’s very tiresome to spend an hour playing all the matches and come out with nothing. I’m not very good at adapting, but meh. I guess I can continue to be a good loser and hope constant practice will eventually drill into my playing some basics.

But what I really dislike, is the competitive people who want to do ANYTHING to win, and this is reflected in their behavior more than anything else. If I so much as beat them in one match out of 12, they get all sorts of depressed and “meh.” I’m ecstastic that I showed any progress at all, and that attitude really takes it away from me when even the competitive people can’t be a good loser 1 out of 12 matches. Also the “lag” complaint if I beat them 1 out of 12 matches, given my ping is about 200 and their’s tends to be more like 50-100.

This argument, to me, is one of the biggest endorsements of dropping the JA Rule about swaying. Swaying is largely an unknown except to people who play the game a lot, and it’s still a constant source of complaints in the Brotherhood. People will cry foul just because gasp they lost a game, all the while knowing that proving such a thing is ridiculously hard. I’ve seen people refuse to play other people because they’re “swayers”, when there’s no proof of them being such a thing.

imho, I don’t think this “rule” belongs on our books at all.

Doing “anything” to win, versus right out cheating, are vastly different. I think there are those people who have been gaming forever who could come up with a list of definite cheating. Yacks, TalonDrear, Frosrty, others who have been old school gamers, or new school gamers could all say, “in this game, these things are actual cheats, these are tactics.” We want a fair, fun game, but we can’t eliminate various tactics just to try and even the field, or adjust the length of a match, or otherwise. Some people are good, some are not. Maybe, instead of ruling out different tactics, we need to find a better way to reward good losers and great attitudes.

Hear Hear. I would love to duel you anytime. I used to play in the JA clans and I miss its spirit of constantly learning more about the game.