Savescumming abolished?

[_Ln_]

I always found roguelike community position on savescumming a bit overhyped. Sure, unlike most other in-game scumming techniques, savescumming is an outright cheat - you go against a core feature of the genre. And it's a reasonable "bad word" if it's applied to someone who promotes this way of playing and compares savescummed victory to a normal one.

However, I believe that when you don't ask for any opinion and don't force your view on other people, you can do whatever you wish.
When I started ADOM, I was very bad at it even despite reading spoilers, but I never savescummed - because I was too bored to actually do it - you have to perform some external action, not an in-game action.
In any other game I will easily abuse saving to skip some hard parts. Just because the game offers me this feature, I will use it. Since ADOM implies that every death is final, well, I simply went along with this rule.

I admit, however, that used consistently, savescumming can make a damn annoying habit. When I've played Battle for Wesnoth, I completed the main campaign and several others with reloading when my leveled guys died (in case someone doesn't know what BfW is - http://wesnoth.org/ ; it's an open-source tactical fantasy game and damn good). Then I forced myself to change the settings to almost disable reloading for another equally interesting experience (tactics and no reloads are actually primary concepts of the game with which I now agree so much).

Anyway, to keep it simple - everyone has to make a decision for yourself. But he should remember that often it's equally interesting to rise to the challenge above the comfort level.

[Stingray1]

Ok. So in BfW you savescummed because some parts was too hard. So what you are saying is that people that savescum do it because the game is too hard, but they still want to show progress in the game itself, because it is a great game, but not necessarily their own skill?

Edit - In ADOM you never savescummed, because the game didn't provide it. How long did you play ADOM before your first victory?

[_Ln_]

Ok. So in BfW you savescummed because some parts was too hard. So what you are saying is that people that savescum do it because the game is too hard, but they still want to show progress in the game itself, because it is a great game, but not necessarily their own skill?

No, the entire premise of BfW is that you have an objective which you need to complete. And you, as a general, can make a decision to sacrifice your valuable units (say, a warrior who leveled to max level during previous missions). I simply found this different from my tastes and played it like an RPG where your entire team bests more numerous opponents without taking casualties. Which is admittedly not how you do it. This is what made it hard (although the game is actually hard, especially on hard difficulty )

The answer to your question - yeah, I suppose. For instance, I'm normally interested in the story (or just playing game progress) at the expense of diffculty. And if there is a save-reload mechanism, I can use it to save myself trouble. Every now and again, however, I set myself a target and try not to stray from the path despite that it takes multiple tries. Sometimes I give up and lower the scale, sometimes I succeed at high difficulty. But in the majority of the cases, I do not seek tough challenges.

Edit - In ADOM you never savescummed, because the game didn't provide it. How long did you play ADOM before your first victory?

I'm not guaranteeing that the following timeline is correct:

I've learned about ADOM from my game who said it was damn impossible. I played a number of chars for a couple of months, but it was not successful. Then I've lost interest for a while (I'd say that savescumming wouldn't have helped to keep the interest, but who knows). A bit later I've returned to ADOM, but was mainly reading the forum and browsing the guidebook (sometimes I like to read about the game more than actually play it, I don't mind spoilers _at all_). Instead of playing, I wanted instant success. I've downloaded an ancient gamma version compatible with wADOMF (this thing came before AdomBot) and cheated a paladin to level 50, gave him everything there is in ADOM, went directly to D:50 and closed the gate. The experience was like - "these places do exist and people can get there without cheating. maaaan".

However, I was satisfied for a moment and haven't played for a while. Then again one day I fired up ADOM and started rolling chars. In a couple of weeks I reached ToEF and died to Wyrm (full-scale spoilers instantly take you to reasonable level of the game). I needed just some luck to roll over the ToEF and I got it with a priest. The guy went on to win the game. The feeling was incredible. And after that claiming other wins was easy.

Anyway, cutting out the time when I simply haven't played ADOM at all (for prolonged periods of time), I'd say I've achieved a legitimate victory in under half a year (2-3-4 months?). From first char to first win may be a year. It's really hard to calculate - I wish ADOM had a global counter for the number of rolled PCs who survived >100 turns or so. I'm not sure actual time matters - it's not like you come home every day and spend all the time killing chars.

[Stingray1]

Yeah, time is important here as I'm trying to calculate what effect savescumming has on skills-gain. If we can get a big enough pool we can maybe get an idea.
Is it being so unsuccessful in the beginning that made you lose interest in ADOM?

After I had my victory, I was still very interested in playing and did. You see, I had this lawful win and the game sort of forces your characters in the lawful direction. So all my games up to that point was lawful(or converting towards lawful) characters. I really wanted to do the exact opposite so I continued playing, trying to find the chaotic way of finishing the game. Then things happened in my life that took me away from the game.

Ok, so the spoilers definitely helped you. I can say with confidence that the things I was spoiled on in the past year has definitely made my ADOM games easier(especially the 90 day thing), but I must say I miss that flood of discovering new things constantly when starting out. At least there is still some things I don't know yet.

[LFk]

Why did you scum nethack and not ADOM? Sorry, for these questions LFk. It's just me being curious as to how these things work.

Well I played NetHack about 3 years before discovering ADOM, so that would be around '96. That would put me at 9 years old. Modems were 14.4kbps, the internet was not quite so prevalent, and I don't think I knew what savescumming was, or cared. There was just an slightly annoying process to stop my characters from going away when i died.

I think you might be thinking into it too much, the "whole following the design of ADOM".

Like it said, it's alright to proud of your achievements and be happy with the route you took to get there. I just wouldn't assume it's the more entertaining for everyone. People will discover things organically, and challenge themselves if they choose. I'm not certain a 9 year old version of myself would have stuck with NetHack if savescumming were difficult or impossible, and probably wouldn't have led to discovering ADOM years later. I'm also not saying everyone starting out in ADOM is 9, but it's a definite example of how save loading, and possibly later, a casual friendly save-game function in a steam version of ADOM may be a good thing for retaining and attracting new players.

I've played roguelikes on and off for the better part of 2 decades now, and ADOM is my favorite. There's 3-4 year gaps in between when I play the mainstream stuff like Guild Wars2 or DOTA, but I always do enjoy coming back. I always find it refreshing that discussing achievements within the community does rely on a sense of honestly and honor. I trust that the people posting their victories did not cheat. There's nothing to gain or lose by it anyway - the best part is that these games are only as challenging as you want them to be, no more no less. It's not that I disagree with the spirit of what you're saying. I enjoy the thrill of making important, irreversible decisions. I just think it's best to let people find what they like best about ADOM their own.

If someone comes to the forum asking for a spoily answer, I'll tell them.
If they want help but are still save scumming, I'll still help them get that win.
As long as they're having fun, it's good for ADOM.

[Stingray1]

I don't know the validity of what I just read while googling, "why do people cheat in games". According to the article, according to psychologists it is healthy for the integrity of a game community to punish cheaters.

You must try to understand that I'm trying to satisfy my curiosity as to why people cheat in games. This has always been an odd thing for me and it is just that I would like to understand why they do.

[gut]

playing a game is fun for a while, then you move on to modifying the way the game works.
You can call it mean or cheating or whatever. They say the same thing about people who overclock their computers
and modify their cars. "You aren't SUPPOSED to have that!" is what they say, but that isn't what they are truly thinking.

[RCtg]

I disagree with cheating in a multiplayer game where it affects other peoples playing. In a game such as this I don't see the harm.
There is enough stress and frustration in real life, those are things I prefer not to have in games. I play games to relax. This game is too difficult for me to enjoy in its native hardcore fashion (yet it has many excellent features that I love), so I choose to modify the experience to my liking by savescumming. It makes me happy, I don't see why it needs to make anyone unhappy. I did not intend to start a heated debate but I thought it might happen.

[StViers]

No, the entire premise of BfW is that you have an objective which you need to complete. And you, as a general, can make a decision to sacrifice your valuable units (say, a warrior who leveled to max level during previous missions). I simply found this different from my tastes and played it like an RPG where your entire team bests more numerous opponents without taking casualties. Which is admittedly not how you do it. This is what made it hard (although the game is actually hard, especially on hard difficulty )

The answer to your question - yeah, I suppose. For instance, I'm normally interested in the story (or just playing game progress) at the expense of diffculty. And if there is a save-reload mechanism, I can use it to save myself trouble. Every now and again, however, I set myself a target and try not to stray from the path despite that it takes multiple tries. Sometimes I give up and lower the scale, sometimes I succeed at high difficulty. But in the majority of the cases, I do not seek tough challenges.

Basically, in Wesnoth your units have a percent chance to hit or to be hit, so many newer players (in campaigns) choose to reload the turn if something unfortunate happens (a unit that had a very low chance of dying gets hit 4 times outta 4 when only 30% chance to get hit), or reload if they made a big positional mistake that just gets either their leader killed (which just loses you the game) or like _Ln_ kills a unit you have emotional investment in. Glad to see another player of the game (*tooting my own horn* I'm in the credits).

[Stingray1]

I'm very thankful that you did RCtg, it has taken a lot of stress of my shoulders. I understand a lot better now. I am happy that you are happy.