The Ethics Of Mods In Competitive Play

Both players can is not the same as both players will. That's the problem. Your expectation is that just because you have an advantage from using a particular mod, so can another user.

But what if the other user doesn't want to train with that mod, or spend a length of time getting used to that mod? You're placing an invisible burden of knowledge on your opponent just so he or she can fight with the same tools you like using. You consider his or her refusal (for any reason) their fault, instead of your fault for forcing them to fight with those tools in order to have a fair chance.

That is the definition of unfair. Objectively.

You could claim that such an "i win" button removes the gameplay. But for the person using it, that could be the gameplay that they want. To win. You said yourself that it is subjective based on levels of tolerance. Why are you the one that gets to decide what is and isn't acceptable?

Why are your mods tolerable, but more game-changing modifications . . . not?

This again, has an element of unfairness to it.

Just as unfair as the fact that somebody refuses to play with air units will have a hard time.
I also disagree that if a person refuses to take an available advantage they're at an unfair disadvantage. Making the choice not to take an advantage is not putting you in an unfair situation. Objectively.

I am not. If there is a group of people who want to play with an "I win" button mod they're free to do so, together so everyone has that button. However for the purpose of actually playing "PA" I say that's not the point of the game. My view of what makes the game and where to put the border for what mods is fine is ofc subjective, but everyone view on that is.
Albeit my view is mainly controlled by what is technically possible. At the moment I basically say: Everything you can do via the API is okay. Exceptions will be things that 99% of all players agree on to "not be okay" and that Uber will put effort into to patch out. Like maphacks.
I'd say my view isn't arbitrary in this way, but mainly a result of realistic facts about PA.

This whole discussion still seems a bit weird to me, we're talking like the difference between mods and no mods is night and day. Reality is so far from that.

Mods do imbalance competitive play. While we slowly have to work on our apm and multitasking some people just have units automaticaly being build and scout everything in their vision on a minimap while the ecobot trows 800 bonus apm into play when the energy might be lacking. If you think this is in balance with a vanilla player then you don't sound very legit to me.

It's not just about the reality of the present, but also the potential future of an unworkable system.

However, if we want to talk about current reality it's very much night and day.

The difference between catching every single ninja air fabberin a timely fashion is huge if not entirely game winning or game losing. The difference between knowing last known positions of units or not is incredibly game changing. And the difference between not having to build +1 energy plant at the start with free energy mod is such a huge advantage I don't even know where to begin with this one.

I did my due diligence and extensively tested both free energy and uber map, and if people want to argue that they don't provide much advantage, then i'd say they don't know how to use these tools properly yet.

Sure they have their own drawbacks too as some people seem much quicker to point out. But there are many 'colin's' out there. We might have a good colin now, but what is there structurally to stop an evil colin from not only fixing these drawbacks but creating additional super mods and not ever publicly releasing them on pamm?

Who would even be wiser about it, and how can you say that it hasn't already happened? There are absolutely no controls in place.

I knew this stuff would come up as soon as I saw colon's thread on UberMap's progress. A minimap that adds certain features to the game specifically geared to increase your FoV and reduce the necessary attention to manage a solar system war. That's not going to be fair for someone who doesn't have the mod. In addition, people who need a minimap need to get good.
"But Mered! That's so mean to someone who has played for thousands of hours!"

Yeah! Why are you whining about that in the first place? If you can't manage one planet without outside aid, maybe you weren't aa good as you thought you were.

I am honored you see so much potential in my works, I don't see it myself xD

Its confirmed alrdy in the previous topic by someone who admitted it.

Tahts part of the issue here, mate. You continue to be skeptical that your mod (among others) has or will have a significant impact on the game. Just because you cannot see much benefit from these mods doesn't mean everyone else has the same experience.

This is all great and all, but this isn't enforceable so why try and dictate what should and shouldn't be allowed? so for that reason alone, i'm with cola.

This seriously wouldn't be an issue if PAMM was included in PA.

i cri

It would be a slightly less big of an issue.

I think it still would, because even if PA had a native mod manager, there'd still be no way to police installed mods for competitive games, or to check that the installed mod's hash to make sure it hasn't been tampered with. Because just the client saying i'm running these mods is not enough, who's to say for example they are not running auto factory, but have modified its name, so its reported back as just a small ui icon change.

I've been following this thread and the other one, but no one wants to talk about the huge white elephant sitting in the corner, none of whats being discussed is enforceable without big improvements/changes from uber.

So while we can debate the pro/con's till the sun dies from old age, it still doesn't change the simple fact.. this discussion is completely pointless.

Remembering to look up at the top left of the screen every few seconds rather than just spinning around the planet isn't much of a change in terms of attention, at least for me.

Have to have PAMM to enter tournaments anyway lol.

Also I'd like to point out that I use mods I haven't released, in tournaments and stuff. Mostly things like custom icons and some UI being hidden. Am I evil? Yes I am. Am I evil? I am man, yes I am. Perhaps in tournaments only being able to use publicly available mods would be a good idea. I would say "on PAMM", but some of my stuff is too shitty for that haha.

Gonna clarify my view on the matter with something that everyone should forever quote:
Do mods give a player an advantage? Yes. Is it an unfair advantage? No.

Refusing to play with a core part of the game is far different from refusing to use that enhance performance to a subjective extent. That's a terrible analogy, why did you make it? You're diverging from the original argument that mods cause imbalance. The fault is not of those who don't use mods for whatever reason. The fault is at the feet of those that chose to use mods.

You made that first choice. The fault isn't so much "fault" (that implies blame; both sides have reasonable arguments) but the reason why mods exist in competitive play is your side of the argument. Trying to shift blame onto the people who don't choose to use the optional third-party content you do is really, really poor logic.

And yes, you nailed it. The point of PA is completely subjective. But that doesn't make the person with the "i win" button any worse or better than your use of mods. You seem to think that you're somehow better than the theoretical user of the "i win button", and also better (by dint of making a beneficial choice to use mods) than the people who choose to go without mods.

How do you rationalise that?

UI mods are a core part of the game. Simple as that
And yes I say a map like ubermap is better than an "I win" button, because ... well if everyone had an "I win" button... I am sure you know why that is a bad idea.

That's probably at the core of my thoughts when I ask my self "Is a mod like that fine?"
If everyone has it, what happens?. Does it just make everyone a little better, resulting in more interesting play? Or does it mean that the game is reduced to a "who can press the button faster, with an average match length of a few seconds"?

And no I am not diverging from the original argument that mods cause imbalance. I claim they do not cause imbalance because everyone can use them. That shows balance: Everyone has the same chances.

That's the point we seem so disagree on. It's certainly a point you can have another stance than I have, but both of them are subjective.
Put together with what PA is however (objective things: It has UI modding APIs, PAMM exists, mods exist, it would be impossible to police mods, PA has a clean server/client architecture that helps differentiate between UI and gameplay) I feel my stance matches much better with the real possibilities we have.

BC don't try to triviliaze our point of view. It's a massive advantage and you know it.

It's a simple fact that the only realistic way UBER can control the use of mods on the ladder is to simply prevent them working (at all). This will effect all mods, and seriously impact the use of them as a whole- as any competative player will not be able to risk learning to use a mod that they become reliant on if they are then forced to disable it in competative matches.

Yes- there are some mods which maybe do too much, but there is a wider issue here. If we follow this path, the end result will effectively kill off UI modding in PA imo.

The people pushing for a 'fix' (@elodea) have already stated that a community managed aproach to this isn't sufficient and Uber must do something. Seriously think about what your asking for here guys. We haven't actually run into a real problem yet as far as I can tell. It's all people complaining about percieved issues and what 'new' players might think. There's an old saying that fits here- "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

If we are really that worried, then I think the community is mature enough to manage itself. I'd be quite happy for it to amount to a 'list of mods not to be used in competitive games' and leave it at that. Yes that doesn't prevent a really determined, talented modder for creating something in secret- however I think that scenario is in reality far fetched. The modders in this community are all great people and have done a hell of a lot to support this game. There *wouldn't be a 1 v 1 ladder* imo had it not been for @cola_colin's excellent work on PA:Stats. Now all of a sudden we're turning on him? Seriously wtf people?

TLR- yes *a few* mods might be an issue, but many aren't. Surely we (the community) are capable of deciding rationally what mods constitute an unfair advantage and ask players in the know not to use them. If you know about mods and PAMM then you know enough to find out which are allowable.

I mean- I know for a fact @elodea has played on the ladder using UI mods such as the 'hello kitty' commander icons and such from his streams (under his sudanim 'MrPoPo'). I don't think anyone here would attribute him winning games to the use of this mod and I really can't see how that can rationally be categorized as unfair in any way. I wan't to keep UI mods as a feature of PA in all it's formats- the key here is simply to manage what is and isn't acceptable. Most arguing against mods are soo feverish in their intent that the only outcome is going to be a blanket ban. Can we not accept that some mods are harmless and as such should be allowable?

Seing as all tournaments *require the use of mods to participate* then I think you're answer is *no*

What might happen is they could ban (request?) that players don't use a few specific mods that could be argued give an unfair advantage. Alternatively they could even specify all participants use these mods (or recommend they do at any rate) to ensure a level playing field.

And it said KABOOM, again You ofc had to publish that article the second it calmed down @Quitch It is good that this issue is discussed though.

I personally feel like I've stated my opinion by now, so ill happily try to stay in the background reading haha
Mods that give a big advantage should be banned from the competitive scene. This include for now the mods free energy and uber map. Equal base for everyone!! Let the skills and the tactics decide the winner, not a defining mod.

To extrapolate from your comment- then you *also agree* that small UI tweaks, visual preferences and all the other goodness like that (Hotbuild, custom skybox, FX mods etc) are totally legitimate to use on the ladder then?

This has been my personal issue all along- if people feel Ubermap and Free Energy specifically are issues- fine that's reasonable. The problem is the fact that most of the arguments against mods go further than that and would extent to preventing mods (of any kind) being used on the ladder. That not reasonable. That would be harmful to the game.

Now if we take your position (prevent the use of a few unfair mods but allow everything else) the real question becomes how best to achieve this. I still think it should be a community initiative rather than involving Uber as lets be honest, they have limited capacity to deal with this and aren't going to be able to implement something very complex due to cost / time constraints.

...it would be a non-issue.