Crying "cheese" is the latest Boy Who Cried Wolf. If you are being exploited for your inability to play a game, that's your fault. If the GAME is being exploited because of a hole in the AI or whatever, that's cheese. Losing to Dallas because they only threw the ball isn't cheese. Losing to the Michael Vick-era Falcons because all the guy does is scramble around and exploit holes in the defensive AI is.

"Cheese" is a huge deterent to playing most sports games online. Rather then spend time enjoying the game I end up spending time devising strategies to beat the "cheesey" tactic. There's nothing I enjoy more then completely taking away a Cheesers only option and forcing him to quit or watch the score pile up. I've found that patients and solid game play will tend to wear these guys down. They're used to scoreing quickly and easily. If you control the ball on offense and force them to play some real D then take away the only play they have on offense you'll be happy with the result.

Hopefully the new Madden and NCAA A.I. will remove the biggest Cheese tactic: sprinting out of the pocket with a fast QB every play and throwing a crossing route. Granted Rollouts are a part of the game but I think you all know what I mean. The new pursuit angles and improved DL/OL play should correct for this. Combined with the toned down animation speed I hope we're all set.

what you described is not cheese. cheese is using glitches and money plays

I'm glad someone finally had the gall to write this. Even when a person cheeses, there is a counter (sometimes). People suck at a game, and then they cry cheese whenever they get their face pounded in.

I counter with: What if the only counter for some of the cheese and glitches that you do face is more cheese? Aren't you contributing to the detriment of a community in that case?

I say yes you are. If people are cheesing (legitimately, not just sucking at the game) and you can only cheese back, then it legitimizes the cheesing of the original opponent and just sets off a chain.

Plain and simple: "cheese" is in-game glitches that are exploited. If a dude keeps scoring on in an embarassing way, more than twice, then you need to adjust strategy. This is what separates boys from men.

Dynamite,

That would just be using strategy to outwit your opponent. My main point above is that cheese is a crutch people are leaning on to say why they get beat soundly by some players in games. Granted, developers right now need to step up to the plate to ensure a more balanced gameplay experience, but it seems so far, we have never had an online sports game without those imbalances in some form or fashion.

JWill,

Great saying right there.

blocknose,

Many would argue with you that if something is too effective but it still has a counter, it is still cheese. My basic argument is that cheese is being used as a crutch for simply not being good at some games. I fully understand the frustration with glitches, but I'm here to say that glitches are real problems and 'cheese' is simply one man's way of not wanting to play a game the way it was made to be played. We are dealing with imperfect sims of sports, so there is absolutely no way, without dumbing down the gameplay experience and limiting your options, that you will achieve a perfect sim. I think that's a fact of life in these days right now, hopefully a company steps up to the plate.

I don't look at passing or running every down as cheese. I look at dropping back 20-25 yards to mess up the AI, rocket catching or FB dives every play as cheesing on NCAA/Madden.

I don't fell the examples u gave are cheese thats just somebody needing to step up their game. I feel that "cheese" is using plays that get the same result no matter what team u are using or are plaing against, therefore taking the attributes out of the game ( QB sneak on Madden). Plays that can't be stop no matter what play u call or what people are on the field. I also consider "cheese" exploiting a breakdown in the AI that happen all the time ( like scrambling one side and throwing it backside cuz the safety is out of pos). And to me its only "cheese" if u keep using those plays over and over in a game or certain situations everytime (3rd/4th Down to get 1st) b/c u know no matter what ur gonna get the same result no matter what players are on the field.

It's kinda like when a receiver drops a perfectly thrown lob pass and complains that the DB interfered, when he was actually wide open.

But some will complain that too much realism takes away from the fun that is usually enjoyed in video games in general. MMChrisS, how do you combat this point?

Yeah, and I understand that you're making a point about those who claim cheese when they lose, but what I'm saying is: There's a difference obviously between actually being cheesed, and just saying it.

Stepping your game up doesn't account for the cheese, because there's some cheese that requires you to use the same tactics to combat it. The more people that we have doing that, the worse the community is. So to just say "step your game up" is to ignore that there are actually cheesers out there, and in a roundabout way, encourage cheesing and counter-cheesing to the detriment of our online community.

Cheese is most often an excuse. People completely misuse the idea. I think some just see other people complaining about things and they think "well if they can complain so can I". The fact is many don't even understand the difference between a programming exploit and them just getting beat by something they probably didn't approve of. If I run the football EVERY single time and beat you, is that cheese? NO! Stop the run you wuss!

Human nature: People like to think their logic is perfect and that nobody can ever beat them straight up. If they lost it *must* be cheese...

I like the phrase "exploit abuse" for real gameplay issues, not cheese. Blocking FG's when it shouldn't be possible, or the WR direct snap. These things are real problems and game ruining, not cheese... exploits.

For all my All-Pro vets: remember when the created Gold tier players got popular?

For example of how bad it got, people would create giant (6 foot 7 inch and taller) running backs and give them the Walter Payton Scissor Step move, which allowed them to cover an absurd amount of ground in a small amount of time. In the minds of some, this is just gamesmanship, and that the rest of the community needs to step up their strategy to make a game out of it. That is clearly taking advantage of a programming oversight and thus, is cheese.

Something that goes ignored more often than not as well is the moves/plays that are impossibly successful. For a while, All-Pro as an example again, the stretch play was pretty much an unstoppable play without a gold DE+gold LB combo on the play side. You could run a stretch to the strong side, to the weak side, no matter what hashmark you're on, it was a killer. Eventually that was toned down some how, I don't remember how, but my point is: sometimes Cheese is Cheese.