Full HUDs: Cheating or Not?

[Krom]

In anarchy I can spot the colors on the side of the ship as clearly as you could read the hud names, I rapidly memorize who is who via the color.

Same here. But the advantage comes in team games... for example Veins CTF.

In Veins CTF if there is one strong pilot on the other team flying a phoenix and three other weaker pilots also flying the phoenix I will still be able to tell them apart more or less instantly. Even so, I will deal with all the phoenixes on the other team as if they were that strong pilot, so there are no supprises. Even if I have just killed the stronger pilot I will not change how I fight the weaker three.

In general I deal with targets by range and then how close they are to my reticle. I hardly ever factor in the abilities of the pilot when selecting a target.

[Sergeant Thorne]

There's a bug in D3 where the full HUDs option gets switched off if you join a server that doesn't have full HUDs and go back to the one that does.

Most people don't remember to turn them back on and newbies probably don't even know about it at all. Because if this bug, I think full HUDs is cheating.

I'm morally against it because it gives experienced players an unfair advantage over newbies.

I don't see why that should even be counted as a bug.. unless it was supposed to be otherwise? It's just a slight inconvenience/lack of functionality. I think I learned about it pretty quickly when I was new to D3.. just something you have to deal with--f6, switch 'em back on in the full huds server.

[[TA]One]

For most people - under most circumstances - using full hud names for visibility and aiming is of no great advantage. Players camping in the shadows would be an exception. I actually find huds to be a hindrance when it comes to aiming. The true benefit of full huds is for strategy during team games. For non-team games, I shut full hud names off.

A player that needs full huds in team games to target newbies is a newbie himself. It is easy to tell newbies by how they fly. Who wants to target newbies anyway? It is harder to tell experienced pilots by how they fly, because sometimes even experienced pilots will fly like newbies. Also, if you suddenly turn a corner and you start bouncing a player off the walls with the MD, you arenâ??t going to be able to tell whether or not you are killing a newbie or an ace pilot by the way they bounce. If youâ??re killing a newbie, that can be a waste of MD rounds.

Smart players take advantage of knowing who is flying what ship in numerous team game situations and alter their strategies on the fly. Players that donâ??t think much while playing team games donâ??t realize how many situations can crop up where it is valuable to know who is who. Players that act on this information arenâ??t cheating, they are just using their ability to think. If it was possible, Iâ??m sure some players would ask server ops to ban players from thinking, too.

But the strategic advantages of knowing who is who do not only exist on servers with â??fullâ?

[Zer0Cool]

wow, that was a long drawn out detailed write up. I would have to agree with you on most parts. I use hud names just to decipher wheater or not the feeni comin @ my base is a noob or a good pilot. If it's a noob i let him go so my team can do there job. If it's a desent pilot, i try to kill them to make my teamates job easier.

[Testiculese]

Hehehe, most of the teams I've been on would fly all pyro, and no one would know who's who from the other side. Like that WP vs ROX. We all knew who Hostile and Darak were.

Good post, One, pretty accurate.

[Clayman]

Also, if you suddenly turn a corner and you start bouncing a player off the walls with the MD, you arenâ??t going to be able to tell whether or not you are killing a newbie or an ace pilot by the way they bounce.

Correct, but not quite. You can't tell by the way they bounce, but you can by the way they recover. Newbies, when hit, stay stunned for a few seconds to figure out what the hell happened. Skilled pilots recover instantaneously. Someone like Sergeant Thorne, even if I peg him 2-3 times in a row before he hits me, can recover and make me wish I'd stuck to chess.