What is save scumming?

[plugwater]

I know what it means, but why is it "scumming?"

[Garatgh Deloi]

Well i'm not gonna say that i know this with 100% certainty.

But i believe its because you reload the same event multiple times and take the top result. Or the scum (being the preferable result) at the top of a drink (being the unliked results).

Might also have something to do with you bypassing most of the game by not dealing with the bad events (thus you only get the scum out of the game rather then the intended experience, or only getting the scum rather then the proper drink if we continue with the drink analogy).

But its speculating on my part, its one of those somewhat vague terms that catched on where the original meaning is lost in time and the current meaning can be slightly different from person to person.

[Jaasrg]

The way I got introduced to it was with roguelikes in which one of the main features of the genre is always permadeath.
So you would save&quit, copy savefile, continue playing and then when you dun goofed, you could just copypaste it back and continue playing, repeat as necessary.

[RCMidas]

Probably because it was used to derogate - YOU are the scum making use of saves when you should be letting the dice fall as they do and struggling on or failing based on that.

[Ninefinger]

Basically achievement is based on acknowledgment of overcoming a shared challenge and it is considered scummy to take credit for achieving something by bypassing the challenge.

In order for an achievement to be viewed with any value is due to the respect of overcoming a challenge recognized by others or yourself.

If you are not overcoming the challenge legitimately its legitimacy is what matters and so we say it is scummy to either yourself or others to cheat yourself out of an accomplishment which only comes from overcoming said challenge.

[The Former]

That's what I always assumed too. That it was a case of "scumming" your way through the game rather than beating it legitimately.

[plugwater]

When is it reasonable to reload saves then? I just hate it when stupid, unreasonable ♥♥♥♥ happens.

[Gnollmar]

20% chance of inspirational leader speech, damn it was uninteresting, reload! Again?? Reload! Reload, reload reload. That is save scumming. If someone has tamed multiple thrumbos, chances are high they save scummed, or used mods, but low chance of legit vanilla.

I personally reload when losing my favorite pawn in a gunfight, the others are allowed to die, but its hard to not reload. I love biotech for this reason, the machines can die and be ressurected, if only we could ressurrect pawns for a high cost of time and medicine or something like that :P

[Playzr 🐵]

Implied superiority for sticking with the poor outcome, even if it is game ending or the result of a game that is prone to having mods which break things, or default pawn behaviour would lead to something stupid happening. It's those that had their game ended abruptly and had to abandon it that are the real gamers, apparently, not those that decided to keep playing and try a different approach.

[Jaasrg]

Originally posted by Omar:

When is it reasonable to reload saves then? I just hate it when stupid, unreasonable ♥♥♥♥ happens.

Only one judging you would be yourself.
Or whoever is watching you.

[Thrax]

Originally posted by Omar:

When is it reasonable to reload saves then? I just hate it when stupid, unreasonable ♥♥♥♥ happens.

When you want to. If you are playing with saves, as long as it is fun, it's fine.
Commitment mode is there for if you want that kind of experience.

Loading can make things fun by letting you side step rough events, but I do think some of the best stories and games I have played were without loading as an option.

[Mints]

Originally posted by Omar:

I know what it means, but why is it "scumming?"

It's "scumming" because you're not dealing with the consequences of your decisions/the random challenges of the game.

Originally posted by Omar:

When is it reasonable to reload saves then? I just hate it when stupid, unreasonable ♥♥♥♥ happens.

Why bother caring what other people think? It's your business and only your business. Don't let other people tell you how to enjoy a game.

[Perro Grande]

Originally posted by Omar:

When is it reasonable to reload saves then? I just hate it when stupid, unreasonable ♥♥♥♥ happens.

Sometimes the game can be more fun when your only doctor gets 1 shotted through the brain and everyone else is heavily wounded after fighting off a raid and half die to infections :D

[Playzr 🐵]

I think there are varying levels of save scumming from none at all to being a perfectionist.

• Never save scumming even if everybody dies and it's game over.
  
• When a bug breaks something and it's definitely not your fault.
  
• When something ridiculously terrible happens that ruins the game for you or makes you not want to keep playing with such losses.
  
• Whenever any of your colonists die.
  
• Whenever a surgery goes horribly wrong and you also lose some archotect part in the process.
  
• Repeatedly loading after some random chance until you succeed, e.g. animal taming.
  
• That battle that went pretty well could've gone a bit better, somebody actually got a bruise.

[Swordmouse]

Originally posted by Thraknar: Red Skull Pilot:

Originally posted by Omar:

When is it reasonable to reload saves then? I just hate it when stupid, unreasonable ♥♥♥♥ happens.

When you want to. If you are playing with saves, as long as it is fun, it's fine.
Commitment mode is there for if you want that kind of experience.

Loading can make things fun by letting you side step rough events, but I do think some of the best stories and games I have played were without loading as an option.

Yeah pretty much this.

Gatekeeping yourself or others is pointless, because it's a highly customizable singleplayer game and it's supposed to be fun. Most everyone is modded to the gills to add content and features, and those mods almost always end up making the game easier. Drastically so, in many cases, so there really is no challenge/skill "baseline" everyone could even agree with. Funny enough, pointing out how OP X or Y mod is will have people say they're "fixing" an innate imbalance in the game, when it's really just a preference. Even with a game like Rimworld, we can't seem to just embrace playing it however we want without making excuses or subconsciously feeling guilty. Bad habit. It's only *potentially* bad when a player is robbing themselves of mechanics or having the satisfaction of actually addressing and defeating a challenge - Rimworld is a very balanced (if merciless and unpredictable), well thought-out experience at the end of the day. Factor in mods messing with balance and how frustrating it is to get brained with a single bullet from 40 tiles away, and it will only ever be a personal choice.

But anyway, with all that said, IF you can bring yourself to resist reloading when something bad happens, you just might find it makes the game more exciting and the stories more interesting. You might find you've been robbing yourself of a more intense experience, or not. There's no wrong answer. Follow your heart, Simba.

[Caz]

Originally posted by Omar:

I know what it means, but why is it "scumming?"

It got the "negative" connotation due to elitists trying to dictate how other people have fun. They think it's scummy to reload repeatedly to get a desired (or non-BS) outcome and therefore it's "bad". In other words, it's a term that started as an attempt to be insulting but was quickly embraced as just a general term.