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Comment by _the_inflator | Hacker News Reader

I side with you.

Also being a pro-gamer in RTS years ago, I can relate. There are many small steps between n00b level and mastery and a lot has to come together to be at expert level in gaming. Usually experts can play in variable settings, cheaters only in one particular. Experts can adapt, while cheaters usually not. Usually real talk about how you handled and interpreted a certain situation will show the difference. Cheaters usually are not the most talkative.

However sometimes there is a make or break in a certain game. While cheaters are usually spotted in the long run, it spoils almost every time the fun in the short run.

Missed opportunities to tourney advancement, frustration etc. can make or break players. Are we talking about the true winner, Carl Lewis, in the 100m finals in Seoul in 1988 or Ben Johnson?

I saw some guys with really good potential leaving out of frustration and that is really sad.

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> There are many small steps between n00b level and mastery and a lot has to come together to be at expert level in gaming...

Absolutely. One thing that I may not have made clear enough to people who have never played competitive online games is that it takes so much practice to master these games that your progression can't possibly go unnoticed, even in a large community. If you're good enough to take games off well-known good players, people will know you.

Cheating in video games is nothing like steroids. The people using steroids are equally as skilled as their opponents. Steroids aren't magic and don't miraculously give the user abilities they didn't have prior.

Both Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis were on steroids, fwiw. "True winner" is a joke.

> The people using steroids are equally as skilled as their opponents.

Sure, because they were also doping. Seriously though, I wouldn't say steroids make you _more skilled_, but they absolutely give a physical advantage over natural athletes. Which is why there aren't any top level natural athletes anymore except in very dedicated natural-only circles.

I'm not sure what point you're making. My point is that steroids don't turn average people into elite athletes, which is much closer to what auto aim or wall hacking tools in FPS games do. Average people appear elite because their tools make them perform that way. This is not what steroids do.

You're agreeing with me, I think, but in the form of an argument.

A better comparison to cheating wouuld be, if one of the runners would have taken a car instead of running.

Or a motor hidden in a bike frame: https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/sports/a19219/pro...

Sort of. A regular person on steroids could never compete with a skilled athlete who isn't, certainly. But in virtually all sports a skilled natural athlete also can't realistically compete with a skilled "enhanced" athlete.

It's not really cheating anymore, since everyone does it now, but the point I'm trying to make is that it's not nothing either.

If my genetics aren’t as good as another athlete. I’m at a disadvantage. Why is this considered not just acceptable but even good? The genetically gifted person didn’t do anything to receive praise society gives out for said genetics.

That’s just life. There are many genetic advantages and disadvantages people have beyond just athletic ability, not to mention non genetic advantages like opportunities due to wealth, gender, race, birth place, influential peers, etc.

If you follow your logic and some how eliminate all outside advantage, then you may come to the conclusion that athletic competition is meaningless.

Why are you and downvotes/others possibly able to extend my logic into a wild conclusion. Yet, I assume you would find me taking your logic down a wild path as preposterous.

Following your logic of that’slife and genetics are part of natural life while steroids are so wrong, we should heavily focus on making sure advantages from consumption are curbed. No supplements, no high protein low calorie food. Limit medications and so on.

As genetics are a part of life, something I never disagreed with, and we all agree they are not equal in fairness, why are steroids of almost any kind frowned upon so strongly? But other life advantages or disadvantages are hand waved away?

Because having good genetics isn't enough to actually achieve anything, and there are a myriad of reasons someone with excellent genetics won't achieve as much as someone with lesser genetics.

Outside sports that are only about strength (if there are any), steroid usage isn’t enough to actually achieve anything in athletics. There are many reasons why two people taking some assortment of steroids will have one achieve much more than the other. Even when the achiever uses less steroids.

Additionally there is doping in video games too - a lot of pro gamers in rts and moba take adderall to focuse more and have better reaction times.

People with a lot of skill in video games also cheat, BTW. They're not all zero skill relying on the hacks to compete at all.

Kinda depends. It's quite rare in modern FPS games to cheat and also be competitive in legitimate pro tournaments. Cheating online in ladder isn't really the same.

Not really on topic, but it has been "interesting" to watch the cheating progression unfold in fitness games (Zwift, etc.) where it essentially IS digital steroids. Although often done in a very analog way, like attaching drill motors to $10k carbon bike frames to get that pro-level rush of achieving 5w/Kg for hours at a time. A Movistar contract, no doubt, arriving shortly...

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