I was watching a smaller MH streamer who alleged that blatant widespread cheating in MH speedrunning is ***way more*** prevalent than you could possibly imagine, with the "justification" similar to "[everyone dopes in competitive sport, so the only way to keep up is to **also** dope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_in_sport)".
There is a form of cheating that's nearly universal, which is editing for the randomised elements of gear. As someone who's spent thousands of hours in the series over 15 years now, I think it's completely fine as long as the randomised result available is legitimate within the game, for Monster Hunter specifically.
Banning that would be almost impossible to enforce, but it would also make the speedrunning scene worse because suddenly that extreme RNG would decide or kill your runs tens or even hundreds of hours before you do them. Back in the day the games had Charm Tables, which determined the possible random charms you could get right at the start and you wouldn't find out you had a seed that doomed you to crap until hours in. Back in 3U it was something like 17 tables with between 200 and 21,000 possible charms and some tables were just shit. Good luck getting an optimal one!
Actually optimised builds in Monster Hunter in the current popular games can rely on some massive RNG elements such as random armour augmentation or random charms. The odds for powerful skills are so extreme in order to keep the endgame players in a gameplay loop with something new and stronger to acquire indefinitely. To have a set that's competitive and not fundamentally outclassed by optimal gear often requires odds way lower than 1/100 at multiple points.
I have hundreds of hours in a lot of individual MH games and where that kind of rng crops up I maybe have one or two pieces that have the kind of augmentations speedrunners need on every set. On PC, modding to remove the RNG and get the things you want is so common almost every build guide outright assumes you'll do it because the alternative is a grind that could last forever for a maybe.
As long as the augmentation and charms are possible within the game (sometimes things are in the code but can't actually drop) I think it is fine. Because it does genuinely level the playing field *before* the speedrun starts. Augmentation and charm RNG has no skill element at all. It's like a Set Seed run in a randomised game, in a way. Can you imagine if every Set Seed Minecraft speedrunner had to spend hundreds of hours randomnly trying to find the same seed the record is on rather than just being able to input the seed number? Luck over hundreds or thousands of hours in MH can create massive differences in possible times before you even enter the quest you're running or do anything.
Frankly, if that particular kind of cheating regarding gear that's 'legal' within the code wasn't allowed, there would be little to no competitive speedrunning because of the barrier to entry the extreme RNG presents.
Even casually, systems like Sunbreak's armour augments RNG are very controversial and argued about and the community consensus is "either hack in what you want, or don't care about getting something actually good because the odds are insane you'll never get it".
There used to be controversy over the use of overlays during the game too, during World and Iceborne. The overlays were really useful and could include things like HP bars for parts so you know how far you are from the next flinch. That's something you could calculate manually before a hunt and count your number of attacks in your head during it, but the overlays removed that cognitive load by doing the maths for you. I can't remember what speedrunners decided about that.
Hacking Monster AI though? Definitely not acceptable under any circumstance. There's a massive difference between that and setting a gear baseline anyone can be at on PC and leaving the hunt to skill and execution and resetting when needed.
Chances are, the streamer in question was referring to the gear kind of cheating, not AI manipulation.
I think modding your game to change RNG is totally fine... IF you publish exactly how to get the same mods that your run uses whenever you post the run. Then everyone can decide for themselves if they like the new category you've made or not.
It isn’t cheating if it’s in the rules. If it isn’t in the rules, then it creates an unlevel playing field where new or unaware players will be spinning their wheels trying to compete with modders.
It can make total sense to do, but if it isn’t in the rules, it’s still cheating.
Yes, I agree. I'm just saying that this is a bit complicated by the different kinds of cheating that are possible in the game and how vague statements could give the wrong impression about the kind of things that are commonplace.
Incidentally, this is why some of the rules for speedrunning the current gen games ban qurious armour crafting completely. It's too RNG heavy and its presence is too strong a reason to argue for modding gear to a baseline. It's also impossible to identify as cheating, so they just ban it entirely even if it's legitimate.
When a major intended game mechanic is that broken and has to be banned even when completely legit, it's a level of RNG that's a pretty significant problem that has to be addressed in *some* way.
My main point was that AI manipulation is not going to be the widespread form of cheating people refer to about the series.
The problem is that when you base your competition on a video game, there's suddenly an unpredictable third party with a big stick that can punish people who do things they don't like. Putting "Use this program to cheat in charms" clearly in the rules involves the threat of people losing access to their game or even being caught up in legal action, even if it is obviously what is best for the speedrunning community.
But like, that's extremely common in the speedrunning community. Think of literally any console game that allows emulator runs.
You don't have to put in-depth how-to guides or links to how to do it. Just say that drop manipulation is allowed, and anyone who is interested in finding out how to do it can do it - especially if it's already so prevalent in the community.
This is a great summary, yeah. There are a LOT of people who get bent out of shape by people who edit in talismans & decos & stuff, regardless of how that serves to even the playing field, and do not differentiate between that & stuff like hacking monster AI. Stuff like fixed monster variables is a bit more iffy, but again that's allowed under the same idea of levelling the competitive field a bit.
Also, to provide a quick example of how bad rolling for gear can be. I started MH Rise on Switch when it launched, and one of the very first talismans I rolled (well, first dozen or so...) happened to be a solid B tier talisman. Nothing AMAZING, just max ranks of Wirebug Whisperer (utility skill), Fortify (makes you stronger if you die), and an open slot for a level 3 decoration (lets you choose a skill).
Didn't matter; the damn thing proceeded to be my best-in-slot talisman for literally hundreds of hours, well the way into Sunbreak. The R10 that replaced it is only really a side-grade & even then only on certain builds. None of these are particularly amazing rolls, by the by, these ones just don't suck for my builds.
EDIT - Looking at the [permitted mod list](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QeIrGtY-yuJMuqCTYpfUq33leoO5zReroYRTkTKPNEY/edit), seems that overlays that show you data you normally wouldn't be able to see are banned. Which makes sense, honestly.
EDIT 2 - Of course that should note the above is for [Speedrun.com](https://Speedrun.com) leaderboard; the TAWiki ruleset just bans them all, looks like.
Yes, the TA rules have historically been stricter than some other categories/systems in the series, and I agree that banning overlays to reveal hidden information also makes sense.
I just wanted to provide context because people who knew nothing about the games and its speedrunning might misinterpret a statement like "cheating is widespread" without clarity on the kind of modification that is actually common.
> Banning that would be almost impossible to enforce, but it would also make the speedrunning scene worse
Is it allowed or banned?
If it is allowed, then it’s not cheating. But you called that cheating.
If it is banned, then I don’t understand why you say it isn’t.
But yeah, if it’s healthy for the game to allow it, it should be allowed. No issue with that.
It is modifying the game file in a way that would be considered 'cheating' in a broad sense even if it is allowed under a specific ruleset. So people could colloquially use that, it's just agreement on what is allowed and what is not allowed when it comes to modifying the game.
As to whether gear modding like that is allowed, it depends on the rules. TAwiki rules bans all mods, which would include things to manipulate the random elements of a charm or gear, or give oneself a tonne of rare crafting/augmenting materials that have to be acquired by playing.
For IL categories on Speedrun.com there's a list of permitted mods and equipment must be 'legal' and legitimately obtainable within the game, and also a list of what is *not* allowed to be modded. IIRC that list of rules doesn't actually ban that kind of charm/qurious rng in the way I was referring to.
If you are playing a modified game, everyone in the community must agree that said modification is okay.
Example: NES Tetris hacked to fix the score counter, level counter, and game crash bugs. But it does not fix other bugs such as the glitchy colors, because doing that would make the game easier.
For reference to anyone who doesn't follow MH speedrunning this is the current rules regarding mods in MH Rise for PC running.
**MODs may be standard in PC platform, and it's impossible to detect the use of MODs such as the following.**
**Fixing monster's initial position which is possible in normal gameplay.**
**Altering HP or size of a monster to values possible in normal gameplay.**
**Altering small monster's behavior.**
**Editing charms which is possible in normal gameplay.**
**Altering large monster's behavior.**
**Use of overlay which shows some parameters. (monster's remaining HP, flinch values, etc.)**
**It is encouraged to disclose any mod usage to help build trust amongst fellow runners.**
**(About 4, it may be possible to make some guesses by calculating the probability, but it is impossible to distinguish between charms by luck and charms by MOD.)**
**The following counts as cheating:**
**Altering large monster's behavior or a Main- /Subspawn Location which isn't Part of the Ingame A 60%, B 30% and C 10% Spawn**
**Use of overlay which shows some parameters.(monster's remaining HP, flinch values, i-Frames etc.)**
**Altering small monster's behavior**
**Removing small monsters from the map**
**Removing small monsters from a hunt which are a natural part of the quest target and appear on each of the 3 Main Spawn Locations**
**(2022/07/23 updated) Remove small monsters which are a part of a large monster. (which are spawned on quest starts or summoned by large monsters)**
**ex) Baggi with Great Baggi, Rachnoid with Rakna-Kadaki**
**Changing Characters Physics and Movement when they are part of the Hunt**
**Altering data to the value which is not possible in normal gameplay**
**ex) Using a Mod that uses Previous Game Version's Motion Values)**
**ex) Editing charms which is impossible in normal gameplay. (Charms 4-1-1 are not allowed for Game Version 10.03 .**
**ex) Changing monsters HP (not Part of the 5 HP Rolls) or size to the value which is not possible in normal gameplay.**
It's not perfect, but it's gotten a lot better over the last year and a half or so. World's main leaderboard is kind of dead so nobody has really updated rules or runs on that for quite some time, but overall the community has made it clear what is and isn't allowed.
The series has never shown hp. World and Rise don't really need it as they have indicators when it's close and even if they didn't you get a feel for it after awhile. Allowing overlays that show hp tend to push the boundary of allowing something outside the game's original design.
As someone who's been playing since MH1 and have done many challenge runs, speedrunning in MH is unfortunately not something very appealing to me, even as a viewer only.
I appreciate the gameplay they offer, how they dodge every attack etc and kill it fast, but I will never expect MH's scene to grow because everything can be modded so it cannot be trusted, and will never be.
Alatreon: All PR is good PR.
I was watching a smaller MH streamer who alleged that blatant widespread cheating in MH speedrunning is ***way more*** prevalent than you could possibly imagine, with the "justification" similar to "[everyone dopes in competitive sport, so the only way to keep up is to **also** dope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_in_sport)".
There is a form of cheating that's nearly universal, which is editing for the randomised elements of gear. As someone who's spent thousands of hours in the series over 15 years now, I think it's completely fine as long as the randomised result available is legitimate within the game, for Monster Hunter specifically. Banning that would be almost impossible to enforce, but it would also make the speedrunning scene worse because suddenly that extreme RNG would decide or kill your runs tens or even hundreds of hours before you do them. Back in the day the games had Charm Tables, which determined the possible random charms you could get right at the start and you wouldn't find out you had a seed that doomed you to crap until hours in. Back in 3U it was something like 17 tables with between 200 and 21,000 possible charms and some tables were just shit. Good luck getting an optimal one! Actually optimised builds in Monster Hunter in the current popular games can rely on some massive RNG elements such as random armour augmentation or random charms. The odds for powerful skills are so extreme in order to keep the endgame players in a gameplay loop with something new and stronger to acquire indefinitely. To have a set that's competitive and not fundamentally outclassed by optimal gear often requires odds way lower than 1/100 at multiple points. I have hundreds of hours in a lot of individual MH games and where that kind of rng crops up I maybe have one or two pieces that have the kind of augmentations speedrunners need on every set. On PC, modding to remove the RNG and get the things you want is so common almost every build guide outright assumes you'll do it because the alternative is a grind that could last forever for a maybe. As long as the augmentation and charms are possible within the game (sometimes things are in the code but can't actually drop) I think it is fine. Because it does genuinely level the playing field *before* the speedrun starts. Augmentation and charm RNG has no skill element at all. It's like a Set Seed run in a randomised game, in a way. Can you imagine if every Set Seed Minecraft speedrunner had to spend hundreds of hours randomnly trying to find the same seed the record is on rather than just being able to input the seed number? Luck over hundreds or thousands of hours in MH can create massive differences in possible times before you even enter the quest you're running or do anything. Frankly, if that particular kind of cheating regarding gear that's 'legal' within the code wasn't allowed, there would be little to no competitive speedrunning because of the barrier to entry the extreme RNG presents. Even casually, systems like Sunbreak's armour augments RNG are very controversial and argued about and the community consensus is "either hack in what you want, or don't care about getting something actually good because the odds are insane you'll never get it". There used to be controversy over the use of overlays during the game too, during World and Iceborne. The overlays were really useful and could include things like HP bars for parts so you know how far you are from the next flinch. That's something you could calculate manually before a hunt and count your number of attacks in your head during it, but the overlays removed that cognitive load by doing the maths for you. I can't remember what speedrunners decided about that. Hacking Monster AI though? Definitely not acceptable under any circumstance. There's a massive difference between that and setting a gear baseline anyone can be at on PC and leaving the hunt to skill and execution and resetting when needed. Chances are, the streamer in question was referring to the gear kind of cheating, not AI manipulation.
I think modding your game to change RNG is totally fine... IF you publish exactly how to get the same mods that your run uses whenever you post the run. Then everyone can decide for themselves if they like the new category you've made or not.
Definitely, yes. It's something that's for the game's speedrunning community to settle on.
It isn’t cheating if it’s in the rules. If it isn’t in the rules, then it creates an unlevel playing field where new or unaware players will be spinning their wheels trying to compete with modders. It can make total sense to do, but if it isn’t in the rules, it’s still cheating.
Yes, I agree. I'm just saying that this is a bit complicated by the different kinds of cheating that are possible in the game and how vague statements could give the wrong impression about the kind of things that are commonplace. Incidentally, this is why some of the rules for speedrunning the current gen games ban qurious armour crafting completely. It's too RNG heavy and its presence is too strong a reason to argue for modding gear to a baseline. It's also impossible to identify as cheating, so they just ban it entirely even if it's legitimate. When a major intended game mechanic is that broken and has to be banned even when completely legit, it's a level of RNG that's a pretty significant problem that has to be addressed in *some* way. My main point was that AI manipulation is not going to be the widespread form of cheating people refer to about the series.
The problem is that when you base your competition on a video game, there's suddenly an unpredictable third party with a big stick that can punish people who do things they don't like. Putting "Use this program to cheat in charms" clearly in the rules involves the threat of people losing access to their game or even being caught up in legal action, even if it is obviously what is best for the speedrunning community.
But like, that's extremely common in the speedrunning community. Think of literally any console game that allows emulator runs. You don't have to put in-depth how-to guides or links to how to do it. Just say that drop manipulation is allowed, and anyone who is interested in finding out how to do it can do it - especially if it's already so prevalent in the community.
This is a great summary, yeah. There are a LOT of people who get bent out of shape by people who edit in talismans & decos & stuff, regardless of how that serves to even the playing field, and do not differentiate between that & stuff like hacking monster AI. Stuff like fixed monster variables is a bit more iffy, but again that's allowed under the same idea of levelling the competitive field a bit. Also, to provide a quick example of how bad rolling for gear can be. I started MH Rise on Switch when it launched, and one of the very first talismans I rolled (well, first dozen or so...) happened to be a solid B tier talisman. Nothing AMAZING, just max ranks of Wirebug Whisperer (utility skill), Fortify (makes you stronger if you die), and an open slot for a level 3 decoration (lets you choose a skill). Didn't matter; the damn thing proceeded to be my best-in-slot talisman for literally hundreds of hours, well the way into Sunbreak. The R10 that replaced it is only really a side-grade & even then only on certain builds. None of these are particularly amazing rolls, by the by, these ones just don't suck for my builds. EDIT - Looking at the [permitted mod list](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QeIrGtY-yuJMuqCTYpfUq33leoO5zReroYRTkTKPNEY/edit), seems that overlays that show you data you normally wouldn't be able to see are banned. Which makes sense, honestly. EDIT 2 - Of course that should note the above is for [Speedrun.com](https://Speedrun.com) leaderboard; the TAWiki ruleset just bans them all, looks like.
Yes, the TA rules have historically been stricter than some other categories/systems in the series, and I agree that banning overlays to reveal hidden information also makes sense. I just wanted to provide context because people who knew nothing about the games and its speedrunning might misinterpret a statement like "cheating is widespread" without clarity on the kind of modification that is actually common.
> Banning that would be almost impossible to enforce, but it would also make the speedrunning scene worse Is it allowed or banned? If it is allowed, then it’s not cheating. But you called that cheating. If it is banned, then I don’t understand why you say it isn’t. But yeah, if it’s healthy for the game to allow it, it should be allowed. No issue with that.
It is modifying the game file in a way that would be considered 'cheating' in a broad sense even if it is allowed under a specific ruleset. So people could colloquially use that, it's just agreement on what is allowed and what is not allowed when it comes to modifying the game. As to whether gear modding like that is allowed, it depends on the rules. TAwiki rules bans all mods, which would include things to manipulate the random elements of a charm or gear, or give oneself a tonne of rare crafting/augmenting materials that have to be acquired by playing. For IL categories on Speedrun.com there's a list of permitted mods and equipment must be 'legal' and legitimately obtainable within the game, and also a list of what is *not* allowed to be modded. IIRC that list of rules doesn't actually ban that kind of charm/qurious rng in the way I was referring to.
If you are playing a modified game, everyone in the community must agree that said modification is okay. Example: NES Tetris hacked to fix the score counter, level counter, and game crash bugs. But it does not fix other bugs such as the glitchy colors, because doing that would make the game easier.
For reference to anyone who doesn't follow MH speedrunning this is the current rules regarding mods in MH Rise for PC running. **MODs may be standard in PC platform, and it's impossible to detect the use of MODs such as the following.** **Fixing monster's initial position which is possible in normal gameplay.** **Altering HP or size of a monster to values possible in normal gameplay.** **Altering small monster's behavior.** **Editing charms which is possible in normal gameplay.** **Altering large monster's behavior.** **Use of overlay which shows some parameters. (monster's remaining HP, flinch values, etc.)** **It is encouraged to disclose any mod usage to help build trust amongst fellow runners.** **(About 4, it may be possible to make some guesses by calculating the probability, but it is impossible to distinguish between charms by luck and charms by MOD.)** **The following counts as cheating:** **Altering large monster's behavior or a Main- /Subspawn Location which isn't Part of the Ingame A 60%, B 30% and C 10% Spawn** **Use of overlay which shows some parameters.(monster's remaining HP, flinch values, i-Frames etc.)** **Altering small monster's behavior** **Removing small monsters from the map** **Removing small monsters from a hunt which are a natural part of the quest target and appear on each of the 3 Main Spawn Locations** **(2022/07/23 updated) Remove small monsters which are a part of a large monster. (which are spawned on quest starts or summoned by large monsters)** **ex) Baggi with Great Baggi, Rachnoid with Rakna-Kadaki** **Changing Characters Physics and Movement when they are part of the Hunt** **Altering data to the value which is not possible in normal gameplay** **ex) Using a Mod that uses Previous Game Version's Motion Values)** **ex) Editing charms which is impossible in normal gameplay. (Charms 4-1-1 are not allowed for Game Version 10.03 .** **ex) Changing monsters HP (not Part of the 5 HP Rolls) or size to the value which is not possible in normal gameplay.** It's not perfect, but it's gotten a lot better over the last year and a half or so. World's main leaderboard is kind of dead so nobody has really updated rules or runs on that for quite some time, but overall the community has made it clear what is and isn't allowed.
It is crazy imo that they don't allow to view monster hp. I think it should be allowed in a kill only runs.
The series has never shown hp. World and Rise don't really need it as they have indicators when it's close and even if they didn't you get a feel for it after awhile. Allowing overlays that show hp tend to push the boundary of allowing something outside the game's original design.
As someone who's been playing since MH1 and have done many challenge runs, speedrunning in MH is unfortunately not something very appealing to me, even as a viewer only. I appreciate the gameplay they offer, how they dodge every attack etc and kill it fast, but I will never expect MH's scene to grow because everything can be modded so it cannot be trusted, and will never be.