I don't really get cheating in games, especially single player and coop games. If the person is trying for clout in multiplayer, then its for a reason at least. But to play single or coop games and cheat makes no sense, to me anyway.
I'll use exploits, don't get me wrong, lol.
So Many games, back in the day.
StarCraft
StarCraft Brood Wars
WarCraft II
WarCraft II Tides of darkness
The whole Pools of Radiance game series
I remember, my friends and I were having a competition. The games were single player, which we would play throughout the week, but we would take turns hosting game nights on the weekends, where all the guys would bring their computers over to one persons place, and we would compare our progress within the group. And I was always mocked by the guys that got me to play a game they had had for months/years, and couldn't get past hard points.
One weekend, it was my turn to host, and the guys came over and started in mocking my progress, and I said, how are you getting all the areas you are exploring fully mapped, so fast? It takes me forever just to map the starter areas. They asked what I was talking about, and I pulled out my trusty pad of grid paper, and showed them.
I had hand drawn every square, of every area, that my digital dudes had explored. Once I started asking them questions about areas that they had missed, and knew nothing about, they started asking questions, and I showed them on my maps, and in game both, and all of a sudden, they all wanted copies of my maps, lol.
I remember cheating in System Shock 2 back in like 2000 or something, and I did feel bad about it. I was stuck, and I mean stuck, I had a massive mech with rocket launchers coming at me and I could not get around it, so I spawned a boatload of ammo for my assault rifle with a cheat code. That was it. But I am also guilty of a few times that I took advantage of exploits in games back in the day. I found a place in the game Morrowind that had a huge armory and found a place in the store where the guard could not get to me and shot arrows at them till they were gone. I know cheating is cheating, so no real excuse there.
I remember fighting my way through the quests in WarCraft II" Tides of Darkness, and one cast iron sun-of-a-gun of a mission, was driving me bonkers, until I discovered an exploit. My friends came over and caught me during a replay, where I was trying to get my best result, and they were like, how did you get there? How did you get past the blocking forces all along the way? You're cheating!
Then I demonstrated the one way that allowed me to expand, grab vast treasures/resources, and build up a maximum size force, and proceeded to crush the AI enemy, all in one play session, with notes on what to do (and what NOT to do), to achieve the best playthrough.
I also hate to use walkthroughs to find a way around puzzles, until I am pulling my hair out. It just makes me feel dumb to not be able figure out the puzzles in a game myself, but sometimes they are so ridiculous, you have to look for the answer to continue the game. This can be said about a lot of 80s and 90s (although mainly 80s) RPG games, their puzzles seemed to cater only to really, really intelligent people, not dumb guys like me.
Yeah, I found out that for some of the games, the other guys were using cheat codes in order to make it through tough missions, and they never did figure out how to beat those missions on their own.
I don't like cheat mode, and won't waste my time playing in a game where that is going on. What really get me cranked up, is when they cheat, and then try to lie about it.
7dtd is, for me at least, a survivor game, not a kill all zombies, at any difficulty level game, using cheated weapons/ammo.
Nothing is better than starting off with next to nothing, and having to gather/build your way up.