Topic: World Championship NES cheaters

Why are Nintendo allowing people to cheat and exploit glitches in the games?

The best time on Donkey Long barrel roll for the second world championship contest obtained that time by using a glitch to climb up ladders that weren’t even there. Surely they should be disqualified?

I mean once every game has a fast time obtained by exploits and cheats, there really is no point anyone else playing because it is impossible for anyone to get a time that fast playing the games as intended, it ruins the spirit of the game and competition.

Anyone else agree?

I have been enjoying this game but now feel like the cheat times have ruined it for me, I could cheat but that wouldn’t be fun.

The fact they’ve allowed a cheat time to go through and become the top fastest time makes me not want to play it because there’s no fair contest.

Bizarrely enough, I encountered this in the Megaman Legacy Collection leaderboards as well, where you can watch footage of the run as proof, and I was shocked to see glitches I’ve never even heard about. While it’s a part of the game, it can really muddy the competition when it’s an unintended exploit not everyone knows how to recreate, potentially giving you an unreasonable advantage. @maxrpg

It's an interesting observation (I haven't seen the cheats, yet) - I wonder if Nintendo is aware of the glitch? I do like that the games run exactly as they did on the NES, and I'm assuming these glitches were there? Had they known, they could have made them an auto-rewind, like trying to take the warp pipe in 1:1.

It's fundamentally a speed-run game and the nes glitches have long been part of speed strats for some of these games. For certain glitches (at least one of the smb-1 ones) they actually rewind you if you do it. So it feels like Nintendo consciously decided to block some glitches but allow others. Of course part of that may have simply been how easy they are to block.

Interestingly, since they block some but not all smb-1 glitches, the in-game records for that challenge won't be able to do as well as the standard speedrun records.

@FishyS
What’s odd is that even other strategies that aren’t glitches aren’t allowed either such as grabbing the warp whistle in the first castle instead of fighting the boss.

It has just ruined the whole game. The main part of the game is to compete in the weekly World Championship challenges, but if people are allowed to cheat to get the best time then there's no point even trying.

Someone is always going to cheat and get a time that is impossible for any other player to achieve by not cheating, making it an unfair contest. Tens of thousands of players have been competing, putting in time and effort to achieve the faster time they can get, but all that effort is futile because there's always going to be someone who cheats and gets a time that is impossible to beat, only the cheaters will ever win the top spot.

I was excited playing the game when I got it, and took part in World Championship #2 and thought I got a great time on Donkey Kong barrel roll, I kept going, climbing the ladders, never stopped moving forward and got a fast time of 20-21 seconds, which is the fastest time you can do it in, it can't be done any faster and thousands of others got the same time as me, but then we were all knocked down the time list by this player who cheated and completed the stage in 15 seconds, which is an impossible time without cheating.

It has just ruined the whole game for me now. I feel like what is the point in trying to win when you know you will never win... because of cheaters.

Nintendo need to review the top times each week and disqualify anyone who cheated.

This really sucks because I was enjoying the game.

I'm probably just going to sell it now because it's a waste of time playing.

I'd say, if it's a genuine glitch in the game then it's fair game. Welcome to the world of speed running. It's not for everyone and it's not particularly for me either, but it's not cheating.

@gcunit I understand what you're saying, however, if this was a live in-person event, Nintendo would never allow you to use such exploits in the contest, you'd be disqualified, so they need to remove the exploits from the home game in order for it to be a "fair" game.

In WC #1 I saw a replay of someone beating one of the Zelda challenges in about 2-seconds, using a cool move where they defeated 4 enemies with just 2 sword blasts. This to me is acceptable because it was part of the mechanics of the game. But in WC #2 on the Donkey Kong challenge someone used ladders that weren't even there, that is darn right cheating and unacceptable.

@maxrpg I don't know about in-person events, not something I've ever got into, but any competition should have a pre-published set of rules. If players are going to be disqualified for x, y, z then it should be clear in the rules.

But as far as I'm aware, while the game may be called 'Nintendo World Championships', it's not actually a competition. There's no pre-published rules or prizes etc, just leader boards, and I'm not aware that Nintendo has said anything about glitches.

So as long as no-one is cheating via hacking/custom firmware etc, I think in a speed running context we have to be realistic - if the game code allows for exploits to be exploited, some speed runners will exploit. And unless their performance directly impacts your performance, in a speed running game hopefully you can still find enjoyment from improving your own non-glitched performance and topping the (imaginary) ranks of non-glitchers.

For games that old there are a lot of things that are unclear whether you would consider them glitches or not. Corner boosts for example — why should jumping just under a block speed you up? I wouldn't call it a glitch but it likely was not specifically programmed intended behavior and it's not something a player would think should happen unless they are looking up speed strats. Fundamentally if you don't look up speed strats in a game like this you have no real chance of getting first. If you do look up speed strats that will include glitches so I don't really see the difference. Since 'ladder skip' for example is a long-known glitch listed on speedrun wikis, it is just as easy to find as obscure speed strats that one might not technically consider glitches. And, importantly, since these games are decades old, all this information is available equally to everyone, although people with a history of speedrunnining will of course already know them.

If the game allows it, it’s not cheating. Just advanced techniques.

I know that I will never reach a top time, I'm just having fun going through the challenges and attempting to S rank as many as possible. If people exploit the challenges, it's fine. I may learn a new tactic. I had no idea that you could use Luigi to jump across the enemies in the first week's challenge... not a "cheat" but an opportunity to learn. As for the Donkey Kong portion, if it's a part of the game and Nintendo doesn't "rewind" you - fair game.

I don't get why you would let other people ruin it for you tbh. Just set your own times and have fun and don't be taking it so seriously.

@RygelXVIII More generally, it makes me sad they didn't do more with the multiplayer and competition in this game. Mario 35 was an excellent example of a really interactive race-ified retro game and world championship seems like a bit of a step backwards in some ways.

They never bothered to fix Scarlet/Violet. Did people seriously think that Nintendo were going to fix ~40 year old ROMs?

But I agree that the rewind function should have kicked in for any use of known exploits.

I detest the use of unintended exploits and glitches in speed runs as it ruins the spirit of it. Plus, I want to see how quickly one can make it to the end with sheer speed/skill.

@RygelXVIII : Nintendo simply jumped on the "let's do what Sony/Microsoft are doing" bandwagon by charging for online (even in instances where players connect P2P) rather than establishing a point of difference in the industry as they would have in the past. I don't particularly enjoy online gaming anyway, nor do I like the idea of renting decades-old games, so, as long as they continue with this absurd business model, they won't be seeing any money from me on that end, and it's only a matter of time before they start trying to charge money for other features that were previously free or included with a game purchase. No thanks.

And I abhor the idea of "cloud" saves. Let us back-up our own data, damn it.

Ok, so, when I was going for the Top 20% pin (which I got on the Icarus challenge last week - woot!), I got pretty mad when I saw the top result for Donkey Kong using that invisible ladder cheat.

I was mad for awhile. And then I sat back and thought about it.

All games have exploits and cheats and stuff. When you actually speedrun, they have categories for what's allowed and what isn't. When it comes to this game, you're basically relying on what the developers allowed through and what they didn't.

So, for those above saying Nintendo should have implemented the rewind for people committing some of these exploits, they actually have. There are some great Youtube videos out there showing some of the exploits the developers disallowed in the game - I mean, these games are wicked old, and it seems the devs did their homework.

There are some things they let through, obviously, like the Donkey Kong ladder glitch. It's extremely hard to pull off, and I think Nintendo just made the judgment call to let it through - most people aren't capable of pulling it off consistently enough to game the weekly competition.

So, yea - if you're going for the Top 20% pin, I see how it can be frustrating to post a really awesome run only to be outdone by cheaters. But as harsh as it is to say, that's just the way it is with these old games.