Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater!

[andyhdz]

Curious to see where we stand on this issue that is rarely mentioned...

[dbqs]

I mean, it's such a flexible game and it's really up to you what you want to get out of it so I don't know if I even consider most things "cheating"... but that said the randomness and occasional outright failure is half the fun of it for me at least, so unless it's a completely unrealistic/inexplicable failure on my part I pretty much just let the game do its thing. (One example I can think of was a year I was simming through and realized I forgot to sign any of my draft picks by the deadline... so I re-loaded the game at an earlier point and re-did that whole month or so. I just figured that wasn't really something that would normally happen.)

[Matt Arnold]

I only cheat by changing the code. Not sure that counts, though...

[stealofhome]

I selected c but I can only remember editing players when a top prospect decided to retire early. I have also forced trades through if the algorithm won't quite push it over the edge to accept.

[progen]

Ages ago, I used to click on "can't be fired" as I enjoy taking over an expansion team, and several times, I would have two to three seasons of 70 wins or less as I built my team up for the long haul. I wanted to spend as many seasons as I could until I won the World Series.

But over the last few years, I don't do that when taking over an expansion team, or playing any other way. What happens, happens.

[absurddoctor]

I typically don't 'cheat', not out of any moral objection to it, but because I mostly enjoy the 'whatever happens, happens' approach more. In general if I were to start tinkering to fix things, I would end up quickly growing bored and want to restart the league.

I realized after making my selection that I do occasionally edit player ratings, but only when I'm adding a new fictional or 'based-on-real-life-person-I-know' player to the league. Those almost always end up being SuperMen of some sort (even when that isn't my intention going in). However, I always stick them in the draft, and if I want them I either hope I can get luck and draft them (which never happens) or pull off a trade (which happens sometimes but not always).

[gemini615]

I've reordered the amateur draft a couple times after trading away draft picks or losing draft picks as compensation. For the most part I'll let the game do what it wants and enjoy the randomness of the ride.

[ThePelvicWoo]

I only rage quit when one of my stars has a career ending injury

[Bluenoser]

First - define cheating - because everyone's idea of what that constitutes will differ.

[andyhdz]

How about the most simplest definition. Any change to a player or outcome of a game that a real life manager or GM can't do is considered cheating.

[MisterTidster]

I guess if I didn’t have the possibility of spending my whole Saturday afternoon as GM simming a season only to have my top four players go down to injury from August on, blowing a 10 game lead in the division and ending up a wildcard team that gets bounced 2-1 in extra innings when my bullpen is tops in the league, there wouldn’t be enough risk to make it exciting.

[LloydLungs]

My only "cheat" is to peek at coach/manager actual ratings in the editor instead of just going on reputation alone. I think the game gives you so little to go on where that is concerned, and I think in real life, GMs have a good bit more information when hiring. So I don't really see it completely as a cheat.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by andyhdz

How about the most simplest definition. Any change to a player or outcome of a game that a real life manager or GM can't do is considered cheating.

So I start a league with Shoeless Joe and Satchel Paige both imported at an early age because I want to see what they would do over a full career.

Jackson has a CEI at age 27 and I un-injure him and bring him back.

So now I'm cheating am I?

As OOTP Developments says, it's your game, play it your way.

[BBGiovanni]

c, but usually only editing real-life MLB players so their ratings match their actual stats or adding a logical position to AI-generated players (like an OF with 20.speed that has no CF rating). And changing names, regenerating pics, or birthplace for story reasons, which I'd hope people do whenever they feel like it.

I don't even know how to change game results, that's a Rubicon I don't cross. No judgment though, once you buy your game do what you want.

[ohms_law]

I never understood why it's the game's place to referee "cheating". If some 14 year old (or 34 year old, for that matter) wants to go 164-0 with the Marlins, I don't see what difference that makes to the rest of us.

Online leagues are obviously different. That's a completely different discussion.

[zappa1]

Dad always taught me that if you cheat, you're only cheating yourself.

I was playing solitaire.

[Déjà Bru]

Very rarely I will force a trade but only if I feel that the game itself cheated or I made a dumb mistake and regret it. But that was not one of the choices, so I went with "never" because I don't do any of the rest. What zappa1 just said pertains, if you think about it.

[The Yurpman]

Only thing that is "cheating" that I do is click the "never get fired" box. I just want to play with my Red Sox and that's it.

[kingtut313]

I will edit player ratings, usually at the start of the game, but never anything egregious. For example, Blaine Hardy was converted to a starting pitcher this year but in the game his stamina is terrible. I just upped his stamina in line with an avg starter.

There really needs to be a way you can "stretch out" a pitcher so he can be a starter. I just drafted a kid who has 4 plus pitches but his stamina is something awful like 30/75. Even if the ratings on the pitches go down, I should have the option of turning him into a starter, especially at 19/20 years old.

[BirdWatcher]

Although I chose the first option above as it seemed to most accurately describe the way I play given the options available, the reality is that I do mostly play with the can't be fired option on. I have a particular team I want to play with and to me this isn't so much a cheat as a guarantee that I will be able to follow-through the game as long as I wish. But, of course, it isn't an option that a GM/manager would have in real life, so in that sense I can see where a total purist might view that as cheating.

Also, in my Rockies historical project (taking over at the beginning of their inaugural season) I did edit up fan interest going into the 1995 season as I felt that was a better reflection of real-life (the Rockies having led the majors in attendance their first two seasons and moving into brand-new Coors Field, which surely did increase fan interest). Call that cheating if you will but I will always maintain that it was simply correcting an inaccuracy.