Cheese: What does it mean to cheese in gaming?

In video games, cheese refers to strategies or tactics that players consider cheap or exploitative that people use to get an advantage in titles. Most players often use cheese tactics to bypass the intended difficulty of a game. Almost every cheese tactic revolves around taking advantage of poorly built or exploitable game mechanics to play the game in a manner the developers didn't aim for players to do. 

Cheesing exists in various types of games, ranging from multiplayer games like first-person shooters to single-player games. For example, a person in a fighting game can use a cheese tactic where they repeatedly spam a single overpowered move to defeat their opponent, or players in first-person shooters can hide in a place through exploits and kill enemies without them seeing them. While these tactics aren’t cheating, most players in the community dislike their use of them, and developers discourage their use.

Was the tank meta in Overwatch considered a cheese strategy?

Before Overwatch forced players into a two-damage, two-support, and two-tank team composition, players could pick whatever character they wanted in competitive matches. During this time, there was a meta where a team would choose 4 or 5 tank characters and two support. Most players considered that a cheese strategy because every character in the team had a lot of health alongside damage output.

Again, even though this strategy isn’t exactly cheating, it was frustrating for most players because it gave the tank team a major advantage. The tank meta was one of the main reasons Blizzard ^[1]got rid of the open queue in Overwatch and moved towards role queueing so that players get fair matches instead of dealing with cheese tactics.

References

1. [1] "official Blizzard page". www.blizzard.com. Retrieved July 26, 2024