It's not like he's aimbotting in Crucible or afking in strikes. He's not actively hurting anyone, in fact he's in an instanced zone even.

This isn't really cheating.

It doesn't impact any other players, and he's not guaranteed to gain anything (other than XP) thanks to the randomness of how Destiny works.

Distasteful? Yeah, mostly, depending on one's personal preference.

But it's not cheating.

This is one of those "Why are you doing this?" questions that can be answered with "Because I can".

Destiny is like a giant lottery.

All he did was create a way to scratch tickets when he is asleep. It's not like he's raking in Hawkmoons and Mythoclasts left and right.

Just like the loot cave before this, this is just a means to an end. It's not the IDEAL way to play, but it is a WAY to play.

Is he cheating if he sat up all night tapping the melee button? What if he got someone else to help him do it? What if his roommate played his character and leveled it up by only playing that sequence? Is that cheating? Does a actual person sitting there tapping a button make it count?

I don't understand your hateboner for this guy.

I will bet he had more fun designing, and building that than he would have leveling up another character.

Dude, I'd take a whole world of horrible people like this. Have fun making robots to play games and give everyone a good laugh? Heck yes.

Or... different people find different things frustrating. Some people like progressively building their characters. Others hate it and they find ways around it. Fair play. We're all shaped in different ways and we will react differently to various stimuli.

I just recently built up a third character and I had a blast getting it to level 31. There was a real challenge as I played the game on difficulties just outside of my range with abilities that were lacking. It forced me to be innovative, and when I finally reached the stage where I could crush those enemies easily, I had fun doing that too.

I also don't begrudge someone building a robot. They clearly enjoy other parts of the game more. It would only be a problem if it created some sort of imbalance in the world. As such, it does not.

I am the type of player that loves to feel progress. I never grinded in this fashion. I just played the game in a way I thought was fun. I think this is the crux of the issue. Different people want different things out of the game. Clearly there is something you find enjoyable about the game, but it is buried in mechanics that you don't enjoy. Other people, well, they do enjoy them. Just because a skinner box exists doesn't mean it is at the cost of fun.

You contribute a lot to the community and you have a sharp mind. At the same time, you tend to universalize your experience of the world. As much as you may think you know what is best for people, you are limited because your brain neurons are wired in ways that are totally different from others. The stimuli that hits you as fun is going to be different than that which triggers the "fun" in others. People often say that you should try to see things from the other person's point of view. This is laudable, but it is also impossible. The best we can do it reach approximations of what we think that person may be experiencing.

I'm not sure I have a succinct point. I just think you'd get farther if you stopped assuming you knew the best way to get everyone the most fun they could get. You don't know how to do that, and in fact, it is impossible for you to know it.

I like you more and more.

Or... different people find different things frustrating. Some people like progressively building their characters. Others hate it and they find ways around it. Fair play. We're all shaped in different ways and we will react differently to various stimuli.

I don't think anyone would hate progressively building their characters if:

1. The requirement for progression is fun.
2. The requirement for progression is not random.
3. The progression makes the player make interesting choices about their progression.

I know I keep going back to deus Ex, but it has done this better than any game ever, and I don't know why people use shitty progression systems when Deus Ex had a superior one 15 years ago.

If you don't know, there are two ways to progress your character in Deus Ex: skills and augmentations. Skills are advanced with exp, and augmentations are acquired with specific augmentation canisters, and advanced with an augmentation advancement item.

You get exp just by completing the challenges in the game. You also get exp by exploring, solving problems in alternate ways, and by doing sidequests. There is a set amount you can get; you cannot grind exp and max everything out. This is great because it encourages exploration, alternative problem solving, and forces you to make important choices about your character because you only get a set amount.

Augmentation canisters are found by exploring the world and doing side quests. Many are only accessible if you are skilled in certain areas, such as lockpicking, hacking etc, or else are just easier to get that way. Augmentation canisters give you one of two augmentations, so they are mutually exclusive and you have to make a choice. Again, you cannot deck your character out with all the augmentations.

There is a feedback system, because your skills help you do things to get augmentation canisters, and your augmentations can help you take routes or do side quests which net you exp.

This only works because the game is so wonderfully designed to allow for a wide variety of skill and aug choices to be fun to play. Every area of the game has numerous ways to complete it, many of which require creative use of skills and augs. Thus there really isn't a BEST choice, because most combinations and focuses offer unique experiences.

Which goes back to your point of everybody being different, and so you can play the game how you want.

It's beautiful, and makes Destiny's progression and character skill choice system look like a snap together model, as opposed to Deus Ex which is a workshop full of raw materials.

The worst progression systems are primarily about power. The best, are about variety.

You contribute a lot to the community and you have a sharp mind. At the same time, you tend to universalize your experience of the world. As much as you may think you know what is best for people, you are limited because your brain neurons are wired in ways that are totally different from others. The stimuli that hits you as fun is going to be different than that which triggers the "fun" in others. People often say that you should try to see things from the other person's point of view. This is laudable, but it is also impossible. The best we can do it reach approximations of what we think that person may be experiencing.

You say I don't, but I fully realize that there are different tastes… when someone honestly says "I find X activity fun", they are not wrong. They CAN'T be wrong. They find it fun. True statement.

Thus when constructing a theory of fun or whatever you are talking about, you have to account for that. I can perfectly well explain why some people find dumb activities fun. It doesn't make the activity less dumb however!

Pixel Poppers has an old article that's very good regarding this.

It turns out there are two different ways people respond to challenges. Some people see them as opportunities to perform - to demonstrate their talent or intellect. Others see them as opportunities to master - to improve their skill or knowledge.

Say you take a person with a performance orientation ("Paul") and a person with a mastery orientation ("Matt"). Give them each an easy puzzle, and they will both do well. Paul will complete it quickly and smile proudly at how well he performed. Matt will complete it quickly and be satisfied that he has mastered the skill involved.

Now give them each a difficult puzzle. Paul will jump in gamely, but it will soon become clear he cannot overcome it as impressively as he did the last one. The opportunity to show off has disappeared, and Paul will lose interest and give up. Matt, on the other hand, when stymied, will push harder. His early failure means there's still something to be learned here, and he will persevere until he does so and solves the puzzle.

While a performance orientation improves motivation for easy challenges, it drastically reduces it for difficult ones. And since most work worth doing is difficult, it is the mastery orientation that is correlated with academic and professional success, as well as self-esteem and long-term happiness.

It's easy to see why someone with performance orientation will be drawn to games where success is primarily defined by putting in time with easy repetitive activities. If they were however taught to shift their thinking to mastery orientation, they would shun such games and see them for what they really are: lame. Even though they were actually having fun playing them.

1. Destiny's progression/reward system is so frustratingly slow/broken that ^THIS^ is a preferable alternative for some.

Let's change that 'some' to 'one', okay? He's the first guy any of us has heard of doing this. With a 10 million player userbase, that's... hmm...

.00001% of the players (so far).

(I'm just saying - please don't try and draw any general conclusions from this. Which is what you just did. :) )

Yes, he's the first we've heard of building a servo-bot like this, but he's not the first to think of ways around the "standard" pathway, and he's definitely not the first one to be frustrated by the slow progression of alt-characters. He's just the first to think, literally, outside the (X)box. Just because we haven't heard of anyone else building bots doesn't mean we can't deduce that this might be a preferable method for more than just ONE in 10-million.

Maybe I should've said "might be" or "could be" instead of "IS", but I think that's a bit hair-splitting. From what I know of you, I'm fairly certain you're not worried I speak for you, so I'm now more curious why my statement bothered you so.... ?

It's less about WHAT he did, as WHY he did it. You drew a conclusion that the reason to do this is because the system is frustratingly broken, I can think of a LOT of reasons to do it that DON'T involve holding that opinion. (Some people do cool things because they can.)

Sure, other people have found ways around the normal game progression, and sure, some of them have said they've done this because they find the progression frustrating or boring. I didn't really like seeing this guy classed in with them, is all. It's not the same at all.

Not to mention how fun it might be actually building the damn thing

Some people are forgetting that aspect of what he did here. Maybe he's programmed servos or RaspberryPi's before (or whatever he used) or maybe this was his first thing; either way he probably learned something about robotics and programming, and in all seriousness these kinds of "toy hacks" are very often stepping stones to larger more meaningful breakthroughs later on. This is lateral thinking in fine form, and that's awesome.

- No text -

anyone know a frikin genius who could make me a bot?

Hardware is the problem here, isn't it?

It should be relatively simple to set a consistent start point (rammed into a corner, looking down), then set your control scheme up the same way as a macro recording from someone who can do the trick.

The problem is just capturing and playing back that sequence of inputs. Modifications which - I'm pretty sure - go against the TOU/TOS.

Didn't Nintendo have a feature on some of their games a few years back where you could pick up playing from someone's replay?