The Controversy That Put Everyone in a "Bind"

FyDollarBill

Many of you probably faced the most difficult and significant dilemma in your lifetime while playing CSGO: "should I bind in order to improve/complete speedrun times in a video game?". Over the years I've talked to many people (mostly randoms on public servers) and learned that they were pretty split on this whole deal surrounding binds. I've talked to people who said that only nulls were binds, but not -forward or cj. I've talked to people who said that only binded runs counted as cheats, but not binded jumpstats. I've even talked to someone who said that no binds count as cheats ever because they don't give an appreciable, if any, advantage, which is so far the only person I've heard that from. The poll I put in allows me to see how the gokz forum views this issue. To clarify, I'm treating the term "cheats" as if binding should be a bannable offense. Additionally, when I talk about binds I'm talking about the "main" ones: nulls and -forward (and cj for jumpstats).

You'll probably notice that there are some options that aren't available, for example, "YES (only -forward count as cheats and only for runs)". I have never talked to someone who said such a thing which is why I don't have it included as an answer for the poll. I've only included ideas that I've heard of at least once. Choose "Other" if you don't see the answer you want. If you're in a situation where you're actually conflicted between 2 choices, just choose the option you think is best for you.

Nuke

Hello all in the kz community. I know this may come as a surprise to you all but I have something to admit. Over the last two months or so I have been cheating in kz. I've always been dedicated to being a clean player in whatever I do and trying to become one of the best without aid of any bind or scripts. But it's time to come clean. I have been using the most famous cheat in kz at the moment, that is right, the infamous crouch jump bind. That's right I am a level 2 binder now and I feel like a disgrace. I'm sorry for all the people I've let down saying I would never use it. This cheat improved my lj by 8 units up to 284, and I was considered one of the worst strafers in kz. I feel I needed this cheat in my arsenal to compete with the others and I wish it was never discovered. I will vanish from the kz community if wished or I will ask for forgiveness if you will give it.

zer0kz

I have a few points regarding binds:

Binding (of any kind) definitely gives you a significant advantage, especially with the height boost. You basically jump higher and go further distances with a single keypress and no effort, manual crouch jumping with perfect -forward release requires perfect timing to the 1/128 second of two other keypresses which is more difficult than your usual frame perfect skip in other games (usually ran in 30/60 fps).
Binding is really overpowered in vanilla because you can make gaps that are common but very hard without bind (eg. 250 blocks). Along with the fact that every tick of early airstrafe is valuable because how strafing works, the perfect -forward is more valuable than ever.
Even the jumpbug bind can give you a decent advantage (you only need the perfect timing of one keypress instead of one keypress AND 40/50% chance of actually hitting the perf).
Whoever said that binding or nulling doesn't give any advantage is delusional. The only disavantage of CJ bind is the duck stamina is slashed in half on every jump which is problematic in combo maps, but this only matters in vanilla or competitive CS because KZT and SKZ limits how much duck stamina you can lose (you barely lose any), while using bind in competitive CS is not the smartest move as duck stamina will mess you up some day and the extra height doesn't help that much.
In KZT, binding for height with the purpose of jumpstatting doesn't make any sense. You get non realistic distance that is not achievable in actual runs. As you can't hit that in the actual kz settings where heights are nerfed, along with the fact that KZTimer doesn't even calculate the distance properly, all the 290+ are basically arbitrary numbers.
Binding (and nulling) gives you an advantage, but that feels like the essence of speedrunning in general: to use everything available to achieve the fastest time. Other games do it all the time, exploiting the engine to get to places that aren't normally accessible.
If everyone binds, there is a possibility that mappers will just increase the difficulty of their maps to match with that, especially if binding gives extra height. Now the status quo would be "if you don't bind, you will be at a considerable disadvantage". For someone who don't bind, I sure as hell don't want that. But it seems like that happened anyway, seeing people putting near tick-perfect 65/66s everywhere nowadays.
Binding messes with jumpstat tiers, this only matters much in vanilla. 250 LJ nobind is a feat, 250 with bind... not so much. But that's a minor issue. I am just ever so slightly disappointed when I saw an ownage stat with 57.0 height.

I don't bind because in KZT/SKZ it's more of a inconvenient than advantage to me because I can only jump with scroll, and in VNL I want to stay true to the vanilla experience (with the biggest hypocrisy of binding mwheel to duck/jump).

Overall I have mixed feeling on the topic, but in my mind it would be best if binds and nulls never existed in the first place, everyone can have equal chance to go fast at without opening console and install nullbinds. KZ for me isn't just pure speedrunning and "go fast via any means legal and possible", having to execute movement scripts isn't fun for me. I still swing the server ban hammer on anyone who nulls though, because it's fun.

LLNuke

zer0kz ye I agree on most points and it's extremely overpowered for VNL. However I rarely use LJ binds when in a shorter map run that requires more micro, noduck jumps, or just overall routing. The only time I really use it is on hard maps. The best example I can give would be kz_kzra_bars. I doubt anyone could even do that map nobind because of a few of the jumps. The speed paired with the height on some of those jumps just makes it seem near impossible to nobind. This goes for a few other maps but only a select few. Also walking bhops is another story with bind which is also op asf but I won't get into that at all. For statting I agree that 250 LJ is broken with a bind. The tiers, (i'm pretty sure), were made for nobind in mind and the same goes for bhop too. Bhop 1tick binds make it way easier to hit 240+ giving you a height advantage of like 1-2 units. 250 LJ is still not super easy to bind but 100x's easier than nobind. I myself have yet to even hit a 250 nobind (249.5 pb D : ), while my bind pb is 252.7. As for the JB bind you talked about that shit is broken. Overall tho bind is broken but nulling not too much from a VNL perspective. In KZT/SKZ it makes sense for nulling to be more overpowered. Nulling is not so much op in VNL tho. Only a few top tier statters do it to gain a little advantage but it does not help that much. Personally I do not null ever because it messes up my stats way too hard. Also shoutout 1tick bind for making some more maps possible because of pixelsurfs like on kz_adv_cursedjourney and kz_magus : D

zeus

everyone has access to binds therefor its not an advantage

if it was a cheat then valve wouldnt give people access to it

zer0kz

zeus if it was a cheat then valve wouldnt give people access to it

Even if it was a cheat, Valve wouldn't give a fuck. If it doesn't break competitive CS on a significant degree or it doesn't receive enough outrage, they don't care.

Do you know how long it took for Valve to finally fix the coach bug? The silent crouch thing that BIG abused? Those are much, much bigger "cheat" that people abused, and it took forever with a massive community outrage for them to be gone.

zeus

zer0kz coach bug was not intended, binds are

fact of the matter is, people hate binds because it makes kz easier. i think the real issue is whether the person who made the kz plugin intended for binds to be used or not, and since there isnt an accurate anticheat that can detect the use of nulls, they cant ban it.

nulls and binds are not banned so that means its not a cheat. if global kz banned nulls, THEN it would be considered a cheat within the kz community. if i were to start nulling on a nonull server, that would be cheating because i am breaking the server rules and gaining an advantage over others. however if i started nulling on a server that allows nulling, that is not cheating because we all have an equal opportunity.

tldr binds/nulls are not cheats until its against the rules lol

zer0kz

LLNuke you don't need a bind to do 48 height jumps, hence I have a time on magus

_max

zeus

if global kz banned nulls, THEN it would be considered a cheat within the kz community.

Sorry, didn't realize my opinion was dictated by some random rules for a tiny gamemode in an online game.

zer0kz

zeus coach bug was not intended, binds are

CJ bind is the side effect of source engine allowing new kind of alias (compared to GoldSrc) and the spaghetti code that prevent normal jumping from having the same height as a crouch jump. The leaked code suggested that every jump should have 57.0(66.0) height, but they added in half a tick of gravity upon jumping without crouching/being fully crouched to fix an animation issue.
So no, Valve didn't think of forcing the player to use alias in order to be consistent at jumping high.

zeus

_max

i was saying its not considered cheats within the kz community because it isnt against the rules. they can only say what is and isnt considered cheats within kz, reread what i said. literally the entire thread is about binds on kz lol.

zer0kz the topic is about kz. also valve doesnt ban for binds but banned a ton of people for the coach bug sooooooooo technically binding is a feature, just like edgebugs, bhopping, and jumpboosts

I think some people are forgetting that kz is a group of COMMUNITY SERVERS that make their OWN rules. you can have whatever opinions you want about binds, but until its against the rules then its not cheating. its up to you if you want to disadvantage yourself for no reason when playing kz ¯_(ツ)_/¯

zer0kz

zeus They banned people because they are directly involved in the competitive scene with a big amount of money, who gives a fuck about an arbitrary jumping game mode hosted by some...

zeus COMMUNITY SERVERS

zeus technically binding is a feature

Sure, it can be a feature. Intended feature? lmao, the only remotely intended feature among crouch jumping, edgebug, bhop and jumpboosts is bhop. If you really think "wow this Valve team went out of their way to give alias a massive advantage in a small movement community" then you are an idiot.

I don't mind people binding or whatever, but saying "it's not a cheat because Valve specifically designed this as a feature" is stupid.

GameChaos

Dmitryunforgiven

Aliases do be like poopoo