The ethics of using overlays

It's pretty simple.

(1.) The use of overlays provides a tangible gameplay benefit i.e. you can feel it easier to aim when you switch it on.

(1a) Gun Aim and knowing the center of the screen

• Half of aiming in computer games is knowing where the center of the screen is. The rest is making the center of the screen track enemies (tracking aim) or intercept the enemies head when firing high damage weapons (intercepting aim).

(1b) Game design and faint hipfire crosshairs - Edit2: hipfire/ADS is a game mechanic that is broken by overlays in the same way ESP hacks break line of sight (and both have a similar likelihood of action being taken as anti-cheat currently stands)

It's is a standard design practice to have no or faint markers of the center of the screen to introduce a bump in skill ceiling using hipfire. Edit4: Note: In considering whether overlays provide a benefit, it should be kept in mind that it's the benefit to hipfire that is relevant. There is a enhancement to ADS. Feedback on wheher overlays make a difference may well be about ADS, a lot of players use ADS even when using SMGs especially at range or going for headshots and also prefer ADS out of habit.

• The compensation for for not having the center of the screen marked in hipfire include the movement speed and avoiding the ADS delay which negates some of the hipfire CoF penalties.

• This is a clinical design decision and not a design accident specific to PS2.

• It is the most trivial thing in the world for DGC to change this and mark the center of the screen. PS2 UI is done in LUA, even stuff like 3d cockipts IIRC, a game designer could do it in under a couple of hours no doubt.

• Entire commercial products/features and peoples livelihoods depend on exploiting this common game design principle via hardware. e.g. HipShotDot , the ASUS GamePlus monitor feature

(2.) Almost all of the opposition you face (at a guess least 99.9% (or 1 in a 1k) considering most kills are new-ish players) on Live have not heard about overlays or think such a thing is even possible, frequent communities and media via overlays are discussed, lack the technical skills to mess around and create a photoshop overlay or find the proccess a strain, and as a result certainly don't have overlays installed.

• These enemies make up essentially all of what ever stat you care about - whether it be KPM/SPM, Accuracy/HSR, KDR.

• Finding out about possible 3rd party modifications and advantages, frequenting places and people who know about them, and researching the legality and consequences of such things (especially when, on a first view, many will think their mere existence is ethically unsound) is not part of the Planetside to skill set - i.e. your success and stats should not depend on it.

Ethics of overlays in Inter-server competitions like Farmers League

Point 2 does not apply as players will know about overlays and their advantages. Edit5: By this I mean it's fine, there is no ethical issue with players not knowing being subject to a technical skill barrier they won't overcome.

It's probably a bit more marginal for server wide competitions such as Briggs Farmers league as there are (comparatively) newer players and outfits who might not be prepared to put in a lot of work into configuring and testing which shapes/colours worked best for them (It might be fine if it was declared and guides made available, meh.)

The separation between Ethics and Law&Enforcement

Ethics is the philosophy of what is right and wrong. Law is a separate thing created by governing institutions and enforcement is what governing bodies do when ethics and law are insufficient (enforcement is almost never 100% but the existence of Law, and a few examples will reduce breakage to negligible levels).

Edit1: To elaborate on this point, in case of overlays, having the law will deter people, terminating PS2 when the hipfire overlays are detected, or even sending a few temp bans will act to make people getting around the hipfire game mechanic pretty negligible. Very few people actually go to the trouble of sticking things to their monitor, or purchasing dry erase marking pens. Just stating the law and threatening action should make overlay use less than ESP use.

Edit3: PrefersToUseUMP45 made a good point further down:

just a noteworthy point: other games using PB ban for crosshair overlays, and good luck trying blutak/dryerase at a LAN

Note: This post is mainly about Ethics and character. Law and enforcement bits are added on.

Some people are unethical in issues like cheating but often refrain from behaviour due to the repercussions of actions. Others haven't thought about it or shied away from thinking about it because they had a gut feeling about what the outcomes would be.

DGC on the rules 3rd party client modifications and cheating

This thread used to give DGCs official policy on game modifications and what constitutes cheating (written by a dev not a GM): https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/important-client-modifications.54265/. Unfortunately it's gotten lost during the forum restructure.

This Eurogamer news article has a copy.

The most simple guidance here is do not use third party programs which change the PlanetSide 2 gameplay in any way unless it has been specifically cleared by SOE.

Simple and entirely consistent with the ethics.

TL:DR

Ask:

• Do overlays provide a tangible benefit?
• Does almost the entire opposition on Live, about whom success and stats like KDR/KPM/HSR/SPM are entirely made from, use overlays or even know about them?
• Is the Planetside 2 skill set about researching and configuring 3rd party tools as well as researching consequences?

Pretty black and white when you look at it from this angle.

Heads up to u/Radar_X also.