Sure it is. The enchantments are a set part of the game mechanics. Improving a weapon to do 2K damage is not.

As do I. I see utilizing a glitch in a different light than making use of an exploit. Saving up 1,000 soulgems and going form 15 to 100 Enchanting in a single sitting is an exploit. It isn't cheating, unlike using a glitch.

... form my viewpoint, anyway.

you continue to intrigue me (in a complimentary manner), so now it's become an issue of developer intent vs. player perception, i hate to keep going back to WoW standards but in that game epics were defined as "purples" and legendaries were defined as "oranges" and oranges were truly deserving of their namesake, but epics were purple no matter what, only i the past few years were item leels integrated nto the default UI and a sort of of caste system was implemented, getting to your magic comments though, i hate that gear can only be enchanted to reduce cast costs and regen rates, while other classes get to enjoy ridiculous dasmage increases

The only way any of those can be called cheats, is when you cheat yourself by gimping your character. Or break immersion because the player needs to be uber whatever. What's the rush all the time?

I see this everywhere..... How does it " break " role-playing?? Pc has the uncapper mod which is a better way of handling it BUT the lagendary system is just as good. The fact that skill A drops to 15 really doesn't " break " role-play or immersion any more then the uncapper mod. What " breaks " immersion or the role-play is you ( the player ) concentrating on the fact that your skill is now at 15. If you simply turn a blind eye to that the Rp value is unscathed. Your simply bettering that skill, try thinking of it as your at level 115 working towards bettering that skill.

OT....

Cheating in a game like Skyrim is an iffy subject, first off your only " cheating yourself " seeing how it's a single player game. Secondly what I count as cheating may not be the same as the other guy. It really boils down to what the individual thinks is cheating, me for example. I DON'T think it's cheating to use the invisible chests owned by the Khajiit caravaner's. IMO you found a chest with an invisibility enchantment on it which should have been hidden better, using the OI a million times to Lv up off of a bookshelf isn't cheating just means you found a way to screw Hermaeus mora over.

My views on cheating are along the same as you OP, if you can pull it off without the game stopping you then it's not cheating. A little bit of exploitation going on but not out right cheating.

Creating a weapon that's doing 1,000,000,000 damage is cheating, I see that in the same light as cheating your way into unlimited ammo in a FPS game.

That topic has been done to death. Go beat a different dead horse.

The fact that you are trying to justify a metagame stat with RP is outright silliness. Not to mention the legendary skill reset is not intended as an RP element.

Plus, a skill being dropped to 15 doesnt really change much. I dropped my 1handed skill and was still able to do just as well then when it was at 100 and perked.

not only do i completely love your response but it also has opened my eyes, Old Herma-Mora has been screwing over people and hoarding knowledge for centuries upon centuries, the OI cheat gives him a tase of his own medicine. a fitting end to an ES chapter that ultimately ends with the daedric prince of fate...from an RP/Karmic point of view it makes total sense!

At least you defined correctly. That is / was an obvious glitch an ill intent of the developers.

But sadly Beth has removed the ability to " stick it to the man ".

That I can kind of agree with, the only true " cheat " that was in game was the OI exploit. But even then I don't really see it as a real cheat, simply an exploitation of the developers neglect. To me creating a " god weapon " is cheating, creating supper armor is cheating, your creating stuff that has no counter to it. I think of that as an invincible cheat from a FPS game, your doing something in-game that has no counter.

Where as if you use the OI exploit your reaching Lv.81 ( if you choose to ) but that doesn't mean that you won't die, because you can still die. But to make a set of armor that's doing a million points of AR with enchantments that boost your health to a million and other stats is cheating, there's absolutely nothing in-game that can counter this. So your essentially creating an invincible cheat in-game when you "super smith " your equipment. But as I said this is all personal opinion.

I can't call it an exploit, by my definition. To me it is clearly a glitch and capitalizing on glitches demands I reload a previous save and take a bath in tomato juice.

For you green horns, that is the remedy to counteract the bodily secretion sprayed by a pole cat (skunk).

All the best answers have already been said. It's a single-player game, and one that is very open-ended. Cheating is mostly defined by the player, I'd say.

Even Cinco's viewpoint can become a grey area, especially if roleplaying is involved, and we happen to see our characters as seperate from us. If I go on UESP to figure out something, I might personally see this as a cheat, but what if I'm roleplaying a character who's got knowledge on certain subjects that goes beyond mine?

For example, I've got a Crusader who's supposed to be an expert on Aedra and Daedra. I personally don't know much about these, so sometimes if I get stuck on a question (regarding a quest, and related to knowledge of daedra and aedra) I will have a look at UESP. I learn something in the process, and as long as I don't read about the entire questline I'm doing, I don't feel it's a cheat if the knowledge I gain from UESP happens to help me solve a portion of the questline.

Personally I feel that sitting there and reading an entire quest (giving yourself a myriad of answers) is cheating, especially if the gamer blows through entire quests this way, and then comes HERE boasting about how "easy" or dumbed-down the quest is. Same thing goes for non DiD gamers who complain about how easy the game is, as they attack the same enemy over and over because they keep dying.

I also never touch the difficulty slider, especially during combat, as I personally feel this is cheating. I have bumped the slider to the right, though (making the game more difficult).

Cool thread. It's good to see folks discussing these matters in a civil manner, too.

Am I said that they removed the OI exploit? No not really. I enjoy the game the same either way. But I don't view the OI glitch as a cheat, just taking advantage of a broken game mechanic, just like those people in FPS games that find invisible ridges to climb up to where they normally would be able to. Your exploiting a game mechanic to your advantage, which can still be countered. There will still be things on the map that can kill you at Lv.81, I can still shoot that person down from that invisible ridge. There's a fine line between exploiting and cheating and it's a hard thing to define really, it's a matter of personal opinion. Just as you consider the OI exploit as a cheat where as I consider it to be more of an exploit.

i will agree all day long that the OI cheat & resto looping is a clear-cut case of cheating & developer neglect. that is why i try to push the boundaries and expand the perception of fair-play for Rpers and power players alike, but if i use my knowledge of the game to gain the aetherium crown buff, ancient knowledge buff, well rested buff to get the +65% smithing bonus before i even start leveling smithing, that is not cheating IMO, that is intelligent buff-stacking. and like i said in my OP, i dont RP at all, but i do believe in fair play and that's why i try to find ways to excell within those confines.

Lol I as well view changing the difficulty slider during combat as " cheating " as well. I put it on Legendary and it stays there the entire game.

very good point, shortly after 1.9 went live for consoles i used cheats to push my character up to level 252 just so i could be completely perked in every tree and it STILL wasn't a picnic, dragons and bandits alike were just as tough as they were at level 76.

Precisely.

Is it cheating when I cast 3-4 different spells, drink 6 different potions, eat a stew or two and use a shout all before I change into a werewolf to boost my wolves stats? IMO no. To me that's playing smart, your stacking effects to create a " god " for a certain length of time, was this took into consideration by developers? Maybe not, they can't plan for all situations. But that doesn't mean that I'm " cheating " all I'm doing is thinking outside the box using knowledge I have on the game. Same thing goes for mages who use enchantments to negate magic cost by using the right enchantment combos, are they cheating? Not IMO, they are thinking outside the box and using in-game knowledge to do so.

If you figure out a way of gaining skills more quickly, I don't see that as cheating as long as it doesn't overpower you. Taking advantage of game defect inbalances, to me that is a game-play role-play cheat, I avoid using what I call undeserved advantages, like I can go away and sleep to full recovey, come back and easily finish off a stil-half-dead enemy. I hate that.

If you where to combine that with god-like weapons and armor then IMO you would be cheating, there would be nothing in-game that could counter you. At least if you don't " super smith " NPC's still have a chance to kill you.

the concept of "overkill" barely exists in my mind and is pretty irrelevant as far as this game is concerned considering the world levels up with you no matter what. as far as i'm concerned there are only 2 extremes; underkill in which you fail to kill your enemy, and "enough kill" where you do kill your enemy. as long as i'm not hacking the game in any way, or refusing to upgrade patches it's all considered fair play in my mind.

I feel that it is impossible to cheat in a single player game because all you are doing is tailoring the game to fit your enjoyment.

For example when I played Civ II I instantly built the Wonders of the World because I hated that part of the game.

lemme tell ya dude, even with necromage super smithing, i fought a blood dragon on legendary difficulty at level 252 with the breton racial ability and i STILL had to utilize cover and heal up periodicqally take that svcker down, it's not as overpowered as people might think.