Is using a turbo controller in modern Shmups cheating?

[Dragonrough43]

Just played my first Shmup, Sine Mora. I really enjoyed playing the game on lower difficulties but on the highest difficulty, I can never mash the 360 controller fast enough to make much progress and certain bosses require insane mashing to not run out of time (or high firepower which requires a lot of luck early on). Some friends recommended a turbo controller like the Real Arcade Pro VX SA used in these videos (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FkEedPd5xzQ&t=67s and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nBr4xoBw8Z0) to help with the difficulty. These inputs seem almost inhuman but I don’t know if it’s possible to beat the game on this difficulty without it so do you think that this is cheating, a gray area, totally acceptable, or some combination of those in this case?

Sidenote, I saw there was already a poll on this topic (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=56282&start=30) but most of the games mentioned in that poll were classic shmups. Does the same apply for shmup games that were released within the past decade?

[Sturmvogel Prime]

I don't think its cheating. For instance in Darius Gaiden you can button mash to have a more intense fire rate and that really helps during boss fights, at expense of injuring your fingers of course.

[Jonpachi]

Hell no it's not. I'm not destroying my hand to hammer the fire button for 40 minutes straight. Yes, it gives you an advantage over a person playing in an arcade, but I think it's fair game for the long-term health of your hands.

[BulletMagnet]

Sometimes high score competitions differentiate between "autofire" and "no autofire" entries because the latter gives such a big advantage, but for the most part nobody's going to give you grief over it.

[Dragonrough43]

Should of clarified this, I meant just to like beat the game on a certain difficulty (in this case the highest), without worrying about score. There is a leaderboard in the game though for each mode and difficulty.

[Wittischism]

No, I don't think so. Like other have said, the health of my hands long term is way more important.

[MathU]

I don't think its cheating. For instance in Darius Gaiden you can button mash to have a more intense fire rate and that really helps during boss fights, at expense of injuring your fingers of course.

There's really only one boss in the game (Great Thing) where said mashing is necessary, and even that may be debatable. The solution to long battles in this game is to learn how to aim your more powerful rockets, rather than rely on rapidfire cheats as a crutch.

[Dragonrough43]

Just as a reference point, both videos in my original post are using the max speed of the controller, which is 20 shots per second.

[o.pwuaioc]

Whom would one be cheating if they used autofire? It's only cheating if you attempt to pass yourself off as having done it without when you actually have.

Apply this to other aspects of your life. Looking up information during an exam is cheating, but doing it on your own time is not only ok, it's what you should do! Shooters aren't tests. Go with autofire if you want.

[To Far Away Times]

For what its worth, Japanese arcades often have autofire circuits added to the cabinets to enable autofire on older shmups. Shmup enthusiasts have generally decided autofire is okay, as mashing your finger into a bloody stump is bad game design. I know there are a handful of older shmups I wouldn't play if autofire wasn't available. Newer games that don't have autofire usually require very slow tap speeds for max firepower but I'll still turn on autofire as holding down a button is more comfortable than tapping.

[Dragonrough43]

That is an interesting way of looking at it but the complicated part with modern shmups is they usually have achievements/trophies for beating the game or beating the game on a hard difficulty. If you beat the game with autofire as practice and unlock an achievement/trophy does that mean you technically cheated to get that achievement/trophy?

This particular game does have an autofire but you won’t be able to destroy anything with it on higher difficulties because the fire rate is so slow. This is a problem because you need to constantly destroy things in order to not run out of time (time is in place of a health meter). Judging by what people are saying this conundrum is a design flaw and not an intended challenge (as I previously thought).

[trap15]

Autofire is never cheating.

[o.pwuaioc]

That is an interesting way of looking at it but the complicated part with modern shmups is they usually have achievements/trophies for beating the game or beating the game on a hard difficulty. If you beat the game with autofire as practice and unlock an achievement/trophy does that mean you technically cheated to get that achievement/trophy?

Dude, it's a digital sticker, and nothing more. You're not gaining something at someone else's expense, which is what cheating is all about. You get no unfair advantage because trophies are 100% meaningless.

[pegboy]

Autofire is never cheating.

Does that apply to all games or just shmups? Also does that apply to just "firing" buttons or is autofire/turbo ok for any button in any game? I'm not arguing against your point BTW I'm just curious what you (and others) think about this in a more general sense than just shmups.

Anyone familiar with NES Tetris? There is a huge advantage to "hyper tapping" in moving your pieces left or right which is basically tapping the d-pad really fast. Doing this you can move them faster than just holding down left or right and it lets you do things that just aren't possible without it. In Tetris I'm sure players would call it cheating to use autofire for the d-pad, but I'm not so sure.

In general I think pretty much all rapid tapping "mechanics" in games are complete trash and in many cases game ruining.

[Dragonrough43]

That is an interesting way of looking at it but the complicated part with modern shmups is they usually have achievements/trophies for beating the game or beating the game on a hard difficulty. If you beat the game with autofire as practice and unlock an achievement/trophy does that mean you technically cheated to get that achievement/trophy?

Dude, it's a digital sticker, and nothing more. You're not gaining something at someone else's expense, which is what cheating is all about. You get no unfair advantage because trophies are 100% meaningless.

I can totally see that perspective especially because nobody really plays Shmups to earn achievements/trophies but a lot of people would disagree with you on that.

[trap15]

In general I think pretty much all rapid tapping "mechanics" in games are complete trash and in many cases game ruining.

That's pretty much my thought. If you like tapping, more power to you (some games I'm still this way about, tapping can be its own fun if it's done well), but I think it's unreasonable to require.

Does that apply to all games or just shmups? Also does that apply to just "firing" buttons or is autofire/turbo ok for any button in any game? I'm not arguing against your point BTW I'm just curious what you (and others) think about this in a more general sense than just shmups.

IMO... yeah, applies to everything. If a game can be broken with rapid fire, it's probably breakable by a sufficiently skilled human. So, I think making the high level play available to players that don't have the dexterity to press buttons so quickly is a positive.

I also think macro buttons and such are also valid, but obviously it's a bit more controversial. In general I think input difficulty isn't something worth keeping if it's not necessary; I think the advantage of being able to play anywhere on any setup is enough of a benefit to players who can play without special buttons.

[copy-paster]

Yes. Autofire is cheating and should be banned anywhere, if you use that thing you'd rather quit playing shmups and gtfo. Same as using stage select or save state as a practice tool, it ruined the game and doesn't what the developers intended. Always play from stage 1 and do full runs even just for practice difficult section, if you can't do that then stop playing games anymore and cry like a baby.





/s for that real talk, autofire is for winners and go for it, fuck mashing

[Kiken]

Just played my first Shmup, Sine Mora. I really enjoyed playing the game on lower difficulties but on the highest difficulty, I can never mash the 360 controller fast enough to make much progress and certain bosses require insane mashing to not run out of time (or high firepower which requires a lot of luck early on). Some friends recommended a turbo controller like the Real Arcade Pro VX SA used in these videos (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FkEedPd5xzQ&t=67s and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nBr4xoBw8Z0) to help with the difficulty. These inputs seem almost inhuman but I don’t know if it’s possible to beat the game on this difficulty without it so do you think that this is cheating, a gray area, totally acceptable, or some combination of those in this case?

Sidenote, I saw there was already a poll on this topic (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=56282&start=30) but most of the games mentioned in that poll were classic shmups. Does the same apply for shmup games that were released within the past decade?

Sine Mora is beatable with the default auto-fire rate (just holding down the shot button), however, given that the game has some broken damage boxes on enemies and that the rank system is tied into your rate of fire, using auto-fire is beneficial. That said, with any game, if you use any sort of unlocked or assisted auto-fire to achieve a clear, be sure to note that when you post a score or put up a video. It is no less of an achievement but should be clarified.

[Dragonrough43]

Yes. Autofire is cheating and should be banned anywhere, if you use that thing you'd rather quit playing shmups and gtfo. Same as using stage select or save state as a practice tool, it ruined the game and doesn't what the developers intended. Always play from stage 1 and do full runs even just for practice difficult section, if you can't do that then stop playing games anymore and cry like a baby.





/s for that real talk, autofire is for winners and go for it, fuck mashing

I used stage select so much by this point, no idea anyone considered it even remotely a cheat lol

Sine Mora is beatable with the default auto-fire rate (just holding down the shot button), however, given that the game has some broken damage boxes on enemies and that the rank system is tied into your rate of fire, using auto-fire is beneficial. That said, with any game, if you use any sort of unlocked or assisted auto-fire to achieve a clear, be sure to note that when you post a score or put up a video. It is no less of an achievement but should be clarified.

Yes, the game is beatable with in-game autofire on normal and challenging but it’s a stretch to do so on hard and impossible to do so on insane IMO. I consistently die right around the first 3 or 6 enemies and have never really gotten past that point by holding the fire button but maybe that’s just me. I have definitely noticed the broken damage boxes but sometimes even my hitbox surprises me. I am just trying to beat the game on the highest difficulty, I don’t care about score, although it will be fairly high since you need to pretty much destroy everything in order to survive. Besides, the in-game leaderboards (which upload your score automatically), I won’t be uploading my score or posting a video anywhere. That being said, I would love to see a video of someone else beating arcade on insane.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Button mashing is not a cool mechanic in shmups. Autofire is something that should be on by default for shmups, especially since it's perfectly normal for planes to have machine guns and not semi-auto cannons! Autofire is only cheating or game-breaking in games that frankly are poorly designed, where a sufficiently fast tap speed can be game breaking. Sine Mora is an example of this; it technically has autofire, but it also has no upper limit or cap on how fast you can mash, so it can be broken with autofire. If you find it too easy, set the autofire rate to something above the default, but not so high as to make it trivial. For games where autofire can potentially make it too easy, just set it to a reasonable speed and note what setting you used if you submit a score. If Sine Mora wanted its low default speed to be the norm, it should have capped it so that pressing the button faster doesn't increase the shots fired beyond a certain speed.

Many games have a firing rate cap where each press of the button fires a stream of bullets, and where mashing quickly does not give you any kind of bonus damage (Giga Wing, Progear, Dodonpachi, Strikers, Gunbird, ChoRenSha 68K, etc). These are games where using autofire is unquestionably OK, since the only advantage is not injuring your finger from mashing (and some of those have in-game autofire buttons you can enable).

[MathU]

While I'm happy people around here have stopped referencing carpel tunnel syndrome (a hereditary condition exacerbated by a very different form of hand activity from button mashing), I still remain quite skeptical of the idea of widespread hand injury resulting from button mashing. What evidence do we actually have for this? You would think there'd have been some sort of famous class-action lawsuits against arcades or manufacturers over the decades if this was a real problem.

(... ChoRenSha 68K, etc).

I mean, seriously now, the maximum shot rate in Cho Ren Sha 68K is trivial to achieve. Nobody is going to hurt their fingers from that one. Don't you think that example is a little hyperbolic?

[Jonpachi]

While I'm happy people around here have stopped referencing carpel tunnel syndrome (a hereditary condition exacerbated by a very different form of hand activity from button mashing), I still remain quite skeptical of the idea of widespread hand injury resulting from button mashing. What evidence do we actually have for this? You would think there'd have been some sort of famous class-action lawsuits against arcades or manufacturers over the decades if this was a real problem.

The actual condition is called De Quervain's tenosynovitis. I used to be in console game QA and eventually had to have surgery on both of my hands due to this condition.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I mean, seriously now, the maximum shot rate in Cho Ren Sha 68K is trivial to achieve. Nobody is going to hurt their fingers from that one. Don't you think that example is a little hyperbolic?

Not in the slightest. The speed you have to tap at to max it out is more brisk than the relatively tame Giga Wing, and the speed is variable, requiring faster tapping at low shot power. It doesn't matter if it's a relatively gentle tap speed either; a long multi-loop game like ChoRenSha 68k encourages tapping at the maximum speed 99% of the time you're playing. Why risk a repetitive stress injury when it plays better with rapid fire setup anyways? It's also an unnecessary strain for someone with arthritis or such, that doesn't add anything to the game. The best part of games like Dodonpachi is the satisfaction of shooting and dodging through bullet patterns, not the unnecessary button mashing element that goes into the shooting. There's a reason basically all modern shmups have moved to implementing full autofire except for special charge shot type weapons.

[MathU]

There's still a few shooters around that don't have what amount to hold-this-button-forever mechanics because, as the Cho Ren Sha 68K developer understood, there is a certain loss of player engagement when you merely hold a button down. While I play and enjoy plenty of bullet hell shooters with automatic death rays myself, I think there is some definite merit to this. The shooting aspect is way more engaging in games like Galaga and Darius (with their small on-screen projectile limits that discourage autofire) for instance than Dodonpachi. In fact I wish there were more shooters out there that focused on that kind of precision shooting; it's a very different and satisfying kind of skill to hone. Metal Black also had a cool take on addressing the loss-of-engagement with autofire. It has a form of autofire that starts off as a steady stream and then cools down the longer the shot button is held down, keeping the player engaged with weapon firing.

basically all modern shmups

Like Sine Mora?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

My apologies, I meant to say all competently made modern shmups. High-budget kusoges do not count. I'm exaggerating how bad it is, but it really is disappointingly rife with issues.

I don't see why the dodging and maneuvering can't be as enjoyable if not moreso than any visceral element you get from mashing the same button repeatedly. By removing some of the focus on mashing you can arguably focus on and get more enjoyment out of the maneuvering.

[Elixir]

bi-yearly "is autofire cheating" thread

[FRO]

Hell no it's not. I'm not destroying my hand to hammer the fire button for 40 minutes straight. Yes, it gives you an advantage over a person playing in an arcade, but I think it's fair game for the long-term health of your hands.

THIS. I'm 43 now, and am not going to speed up my eventual descent into carpal tunnel by not using turbo where it's not offered. If that's "cheating" then I guess I'm a cheater.

[Jeneki]

Is using a turbo controller in modern Shmups cheating?

Here's a rule of thumb you can use for this question, and every day life in general:

Did you do something? Legit!

Did someone else do it, but in a slightly different way? Doesn't count.

Did someone else do it, the same way but better? Basement dweller with no life, doesn't matter.

[Firehawke]

I used to be very anti-turbo, but around twenty years ago I started to develop what I thought at the time was arthritis but ended up being severe progressive nerve damage. I can mash for short periods of time on regular controllers but arcade buttons tend to be problematic due to the difference in how your hand rests over it.

I've come to realize that it's really pointless to discriminate against those with medical issues that actually do cause issues. I used to be a regular 1LC on Gradius III SNES Arcade difficulty, but can't even do that consistently anymore-- should I stop playing because I'm losing my ability to do things "by the book"? Nah. I'm not dropping something I enjoy just because I can't live up to community expectations. If that means using autofire to avoid doing further damage to my body, so be it. I won't call that cheating anymore.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

It's also worth remembering that many quality game centers in Japan actually setup autofire for games on their cabs that benefit it for the convenience of players. It's about being able to play a game in a way that presents it to players in the best possible light, by removing a mechanic that doesn't add anything really enjoyable to the game so the other, better aspects of the game can shine through at their best.