Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF General Discussion => Topic started by: TychoTheDwarf on March 17, 2012, 11:20:05 pm
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As a fan of roguelikes, for me the term "savescumming" evokes levels of revulsion and disgust usually reserved for things like piles of rotting organic matter, extreme body modification and Rick Santorum. It sharply decreases the difficulty, one of the defining and endearing aspects of roguelikes.
But... in Dwarf Mode, when you have the great fortune of having a group of top-notch dwarves in an excellent embark area, do you ever think "sure would be nice if I could get embarks this nice consistently"? Do you ever find yourself pondering making a backup of the save folder, just so that if you really wanted you could start over in that area with the same crack team of dwarven settlers?
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You can just reclaim. The item scatter is a bit annoying though.
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You can tell the game to make backup saves in the init options.
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I always copy my save as soon as I finish worldgen and get a world I find interesting, and don't consider it save-scumming to do a "total world reboot". "Savescumming" is trying to take advantage of the RNG by just reloading until you get a result you like. Restarting your whole world from the initial point is not the same thing to me at all.
It's also useful for Legends Mode.
Plus, NetHack is a game that's all about the challenge. I play DF more as a game about the science. I won't hesitate to "savescum" when it comes to just trying to understand things. In fact, back when I was first learning NetHack, I would "savescum" not to win, but to try new things out, like repeatedly stepping on polymorph traps to test out how many different things I could possibly turn into, and finding out I would do things like lay eggs in my own boots if I were polymorphed into a scorpion, then transform back into a humanoid and have baby scorpions following me around.
Savescumming is only a bad thing when you are actually taking the game seriously and as a challenge to survive or something... the game's not really all that hard, though, and you have to create your own challenges when you have any clue what you're doing. Savescumming is a bad thing when it sucks the tension out of the game because you can feel safe doing stupid things without worrying about the consequences, and having a real sense of danger and that you might lose something makes games like NetHack have tension. DF, though, I play controlling every possible angle. The only surprises I have are a few careless cave-ins I've caused over the years, and I am extremely conscious of managing all pathways and "safe areas" for my dwarves. I don't really get surprised that often anymore. I play for the architecture and the creativity, not for the tension.
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I had a semi-eloquent reply in formation, but NW_Kohaku pretty much beat me to it and did it better than I could ever hope to :-\
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I always backup interesting sites, or at least the worldgen params and a screenshot of the embark site. I have so many saved up that I rarely bother generating random worlds anymore. I also savescum without the least bit of shame. My own enjoyment is the only thing worth considering, and a little self control goes a long way towards ensuring that I don't "cheat" myself into boredom.
I maintain rolling backups during the life of a fort, and that practise has allowed me to sidestep many crippling bugs that would otherwise have resulted in a premature "game over". Losing to FUN is glorious, losing to BUGS is not. NW_Kohaku's point about play styles is important too. I play DF for megaprojects and OCD micromanagement primarily, so for me the very concepts of "winning" and "losing" are just blanks waiting to be filled in.
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I don't make it a point of morality how I play my SP games. If I want to do iron man, I'll do it. If I want to create an ideal fortress, I'll savescum.
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Eh, depends on if I actually caused the reason I'm savescumming. Goblin ambush with no defenses? Well hell, my damn fault. Pack of cave ogres destroy everything while I had to step away from a moment? Well hell, I wasn't even there for that. So for me it's pretty much reserved for fort ending catastrophies that happened because I was too lazy to sit around for an hour in a 20 fps fort waiting for some walls to be built.
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I back up my saves to stop glitches/bugs destroying my save files, but if anything happens that was supposed to happen, I keep it.
I just watched four legendary miners die.
I was so distraught... But I must go on. Save scumming ruins the !FUN!
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Life's too short not to backup interesting sites.
And with world-gen taking ever longer, I'm far more likely to hang on to the really good ones.
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Meh, I don't care enough to savescum. Besides, I always find the starting considerations of fortress placement, and construction of my exterior walls and fortifications the most enjoyable part of the game. Sometimes I want to embark on a flat map to create a castle, sometimes I want to embark on a map where I can tunnel out 10+ z-levels on a cliff, attach some supports and pull the lever to cause it all to collapse, revealing the huge straight cliff, my fortifications perched on top. Sure, its sad to see good dwarves die, but that's what they're there for. There's always the next peasant to step into place, and quality might suffer as the new guy learns, but I don't care too much. Just more worthless crap to trade to the next caravan.
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I sometimes back up good sites when I start, but I never undo my mistakes. I rarely even have enough emotional attachment to the fort to want to.
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I don't make mistakes.
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Sorry, just cracked up laughing. But yeah, as Kohaku said, I don't hesitate to savescum if I encounter something interesting and want to see what is going on.