Is using Equalizers Cheating? Hens vs Ayrun debate

I would personally argue that there should be some degree of options ingame to balance the audio (at least a bit better than it is by default) as it can be an accessibility issue, but there are layers of design that rely on auditory masking.

I would like to believe if there were LAN tournaments EQ and filters would be forbidden but even if they were universally considered cheating I do not think a ban is enforceable online so the discussion is kind of pointless.

3rd party sofware, not intended because not in the game. Easy. Cheating.

It is as this is third party, but I'd say hearing elitism in gaming is stupid and should be removed anyway

But ultimately, what is the difference between using "gaming optimized" headphone with speaker biased toward specific sound and simply emulating that through software? I don't see one really

• Game uses sounds for balancing
• It's third party software not everyone has access to that can give an advantage based on the description

For DBD where sound is used for balancing yes it's blatantly cheating. It's almost comparable to stretched res where people said it was just for looks but it affected gameplay.

No it just sounds better

While I'd say it gives an advantage and is therefore kind of cheating, I don't think it's a real cheat. It's like crossairs for huntress and slinger just a programm making it easier that everyone could use without problem, because it's so easy to get.

It was the same with stretched resolution for me: yes it gives an advantage, BUT everyone could easily use it if they wanted to.

So i'm on the side from hens: It's not cheating.

If the question is "Is using software to modify the audio mix of the game (when it's not possible to do so by normal/supported means) cheating?"

Then my answer is absolutely yes. I don't see how that's different than modifying the game to make traps more visible for example.

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Definitely yes.

If you have to use a 3rd party program that makes some kind of change that gives you a competitive advantage, it is cheating, pure and simple.

If filters weren't giving you a competitive advantage, then why does every comp player use it? If EQs didn't give a competitive advantage, then why does every comp player use it?

I mean on one hand it is a third party software andyou absolutly get an advantage from it that is the definition of creating.

On the other hand the same technically goes for Swf using voice chat. Yeah teamspeak is allowed thats the difference but on paper it's the same.

In the end I believe it's impossible for bhvr to even do anything about it. I don't think they can just controll what other programms are running on your computer and that's what they would need to do since the program isn't interacting with dbd like an aim bot or wall hack would.

The whole thing is super difficult to deal with and i gues it will only become worse in the next few years. I don't remember when I saw it but I once saw a guy working on a ai program that was able to identify your enemy and highlight them.

I'm not dismissing anything, I'm just stating my opinion, I don't think using sound design so atrocious for balancing is good or healthy, and gaming industry in general should stop doing that kind of game design

That's totally fair, and in an ideal world it wouldn't be the way it is (and as someone with a hearing deficit I feel the impact of that design element more than most), but it is. And that being the case, some folks picking and choosing what sounds are prominent or vice versa is clearly not fair play, which is the question being posed here.

It's like people who listen to music but complain when they struggle because they make that choice; the game is what it is, and we have to account for it. But trying to change how it works in the player end isn't they way.

BHVR's general use of sound design is obviously an issue, but also a more high level discussion.

The problem with deciding if this is cheating is that the devs haven't weighed in, and there are enough exceptions to their stated rules (comms and crosshairs) that we can't really read their minds on this one.

Also, non-software EQs exist (so this is not PC-only, nor is it "using third party software" in all cases), and different headphones already have different frequency response so you could make the argument that choosing one set of headphones over another is "cheating" because it has a more advantageous frequency response for DBD. Some headphones and earbuds will also do dynamic range compression in hardware, which can help surface quieter sounds — is using these peripherals also cheating?

This is substantially more nuanced than "it's third party." So are visual filters, so are your monitor's contrast settings, and so on. There is a monumental difference between programs that take the signals output by DBD and modify them in some way (adding crosshairs, adjusting contrast, edge highlighting, audio EQ) and programs that peek into DBD's memory to read out the locations of players and draw them (wall-hacks). I believe the developers generally intend "third-party software" here to cover the latter case, but their public policies must necessarily be broad so that they can be sure that they cover the things they want to cover. Many environments even include system-wide audio EQs (I play on Linux and it's pretty much standard there) so you can't really even argue that you have to go out of your way to set this stuff up — it can come with the environment and be just as easy as tweaking your monitor settings.

I lean towards "not cheating" on this one, but acknowledging that the developers may have a different opinion and we should defer to theirs if they choose to express it (which I think they should).

It's absolutely cheating, but BHVR has a long track record of condoning cheating so long as it doesn't bypass EAC.