I savescum in Wesnoth

[Buuh]

I do! Do you?

[Konrad2]

No.

[GreyEminence]

Not often but my bad luck strikes at the worst of times...

[Kyezoar]

Unfortunately, in the current campaign I'm doing my computer has to take a long time to load every time I load up a save file which I don't know if it's my fault or the campaign's

[Shadowfang]

im not sure even save scumming can save my bad luck

[Xobra]

I do more often the further I am in a Campaign. Mostly because I forgot or didn't see an enemy unit, and that unit then kills my wounded lvl 3 unit with a 0.7 chance
Other times, when my Red Mage misses all 4 hits and then dies next round
I try less, and in "skirmish" multiplayers you can't save scum, so that's a way to forcefully Git Gud

[Mineswee]

I do, sadly to the point that at the last campaign level I run out of funds before running out of lvl 3 recruits
having 3 hp needing to dodge 5 attacks with 30% dodge chance scenarios is more common than I would like to admit but on the other hand my dwarven thunderer's have amazing accuracy

[shde2e]

Always.
It's a permadeath campaign with heavy RNG and a reliance on levelling. Not saving is a recipe for frustration for me.

[That One Guy]

I hate reloading saves, but if I have to due to losing the scenario, I'll reload to my last encounter, to see if it was because of RNG, if I lose the encounter twice in a row, I restart the campaign.

There's just something about reloading an unfavorable encounter that I just hate, but this game sometimes necessitates it with the 80% miss, miss, miss, enemy 30% hit hit hit.

[That One Guy]

Another thought... I wonder how many times the average player has to reload a save to beat a campaign. I feel that unless it's on easy, it has to be more than once.

[Jonlissla]

I used to until I installed the XP Bank mod. Makes losing units a lot more lenient.

[vaxquis]

Regardless of what some BfW fans/devs say, my stance is that a scenario has to be actually played at least 3 times in order to be winnable on "hard" (or equivalent) difficulty - once, to even see the fog-of-warred terrain, get the graps of the hardcoded events, triggers and hidden conditions, second time, to find all the trivia, bonuses and bugs and to tweak the strategy, and third time, to actually be able to win with minimal losses - and that's assuming you have the proper recall pool for the scenario, so you need to always prepare it beforehand.

Alternatively, you can just read the scenario cfg or spoilers for a scenario :}

My question would be, how is any that more reasonable or "fun" than just going save-load? I mean, most of the scenarios in the campaigns are sluggish and require you to do boardgame-style shuffles of dozens of units across dozens of turns... after more than 20 years of playing BfW (started with the early betas) I really don't find it enjoyable to have to shuffle basically the same units over basically the same terrain with a cookie-cutter "story" for an hour or two or ten just to find out that the scenario author decided to e.g. kill some units via hardcoded trigger without even mentioning it earlier.

BTW, the "new" biased RNG _does_ help a little here, it makes the effing streaks of bad luck resulting in hero deaths etc. near impossible (yes, I've had streaks occurring that had statistical chance to happen below 0.001% resulting in a hero death; law of large numbers says that if you play BfW long enough, you're going to eventually see e.g. a single enemy Mage killing half of your army and advancing to Great Mage just to kill your hero then), but still try playing e.g. highest diff UtBS _without_ knowing all the scenario conditions and triggers beforehand... I'd say that winning this without a single reload is impossible even for a BfW expert (mostly because some of the condition changes are outright brutal, basically decimating your army if you're not aware of them beforehand).

[vaxquis]

Originally posted by That One Guy:

Another thought... I wonder how many times the average player has to reload a save to beat a campaign. I feel that unless it's on easy, it has to be more than once.

so, basically, this. When I look at https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/commit/862e482895c405808b8ab9f77e6a2509c57948c7 , i.e. the "Random numbers are part of Wesnoth, attacks can fail and units can die due to bad luck. This is an expected part of the game, and one of the aims of the game is that a sufficiently skilled player should be able to complete all of the mainline campaigns, on hard, without needing to save-load.", the only thing I see is a demented person who hasn't actually done what he's describing. "A sufficiently skilled player" would just stop playing BfW at all, because completing basically _any_ campaign on Hard is a boring grind, with the win being just tricking the retarded AI into suicide attacks and exploiting prior knowledge about the scenarios.

I tried playing this way (i.e. on hard, without loading saves at all) multiple time throughout the years. It wasn't a game, it wasn't fun, it was a f-cking chore, like memorizing chess openings before trying competitive chess. I sincerely wonder if those people are aware that world outside of BfW even exists, and that in those 20 years said world moved on?

Couldn't they, well, just an idea, make the scenarios more fun, stop with the hidden scenario conditions/bonuses etc., improve the AI, and skip on the "don't load the game!" bullsh-t instead? :} (hint: no, impossible, since people are always trying to reinforce their worldview instead of contesting it)

But more seriously: a lot of the players/devs actually agree with me, see e.g. https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/issues/4280 , https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=18640 ; this guy basically nailed it:

TBH I think all scenarios in all campaigns on hard depend on meta-game knowledge, especially if you are trying to do a no-reload run.

That's why I used biased RNG; it makes save-load mostly ineffective to e.g. change the outcome of fights themselves, so no more save-scumming to get all of those 30% attacks to connect - but at the same time it allows loading to just realign your strategy easily _without having to replay the scenario n times to get all the metagame knowledge beforehand and to execute every effing move of every single unit perfectly_. Even then, you'll probably need to restart from scratch a couple of times to get the initial few turns more effective later on, but at least you won't have to write a detailed turn-by-turn walkthroughs for youself :D

[That One Guy]

Originally posted by vaxquis:

Originally posted by That One Guy:

Another thought... I wonder how many times the average player has to reload a save to beat a campaign. I feel that unless it's on easy, it has to be more than once.

so, basically, this. When I look at https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/commit/862e482895c405808b8ab9f77e6a2509c57948c7 , i.e. the "Random numbers are part of Wesnoth, attacks can fail and units can die due to bad luck. This is an expected part of the game, and one of the aims of the game is that a sufficiently skilled player should be able to complete all of the mainline campaigns, on hard, without needing to save-load.", the only thing I see is a demented person who hasn't actually done what he's describing. "A sufficiently skilled player" would just stop playing BfW at all, because completing basically _any_ campaign on Hard is a boring grind, with the win being just tricking the retarded AI into suicide attacks and exploiting prior knowledge about the scenarios.

I tried playing this way (i.e. on hard, without loading saves at all) multiple time throughout the years. It wasn't a game, it wasn't fun, it was a f-cking chore, like memorizing chess openings before trying competitive chess. I sincerely wonder if those people are aware that world outside of BfW even exists, and that in those 20 years said world moved on?

This, and your previous post make sense and kinda confirm my thoughts (2+ years later, lol)

It seems the same as trying XCOM on Classic or Impossible without immediately before, first doing a run-through of the game on Normal to understand the levels/structure (even a veteran strategy player needs to know the nuances of a game and its specific rules).

One of the Wesnoth missions, I think it was Heir to the Throne, has a cave complex with a time limit (so, slower movement), and about halfway through, I realized I sent most/too many of my troops down a tunnel that ended in a sort of dead end. Or maybe there was another scenario where the actual exit changes locations, so if you budget your time like I did, then you have insufficient time to reach the next/real exit.

I'm fine with making mistakes via strategy or even some bad luck (I still get upset when I lose to a 0.1% chance or less). But I easily get annoyed when the complete scope of the mission changes on the fly and I have to restart as a result of it (and hard modes give less turns in Wesnoth).

Originally posted by vaxquis:

Couldn't they, well, just an idea, make the scenarios more fun, stop with the hidden scenario conditions/bonuses etc., improve the AI, and skip on the "don't load the game!" bullsh-t instead? :} (hint: no, impossible, since people are always trying to reinforce their worldview instead of contesting it)

So, I guess the above is my thoughts on this.

Moreso though, humans like their core beliefs, and will not readily deviate from them. Providing a mountain of logic can yield little to no result, as it's an emotional response to a conflict in ideas.
More on this here, if that's your sort of thing:
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

About a 10 minute read, if, like me, you're still getting "happy new year" messages while you try and read it. The Oatmeal makes some great articles. With pictures.

Wesnoth and games like this have taught me a lot about risk though. I think that having an approximate idea of risk associated in life choices makes life a bit more manageable.

[vaxquis]

Originally posted by That One Guy:

It seems the same as trying XCOM on Classic or Impossible without immediately before, first doing a run-through of the game on Normal to understand the levels/structure (even a veteran strategy player needs to know the nuances of a game and its specific rules).

I'll tell you one thing about XCOM 1 (especially without Long War): it's just not a fun game _once you understand how to play it_. You basically have to rush satellites and go with a bunch of snipers and cheese all the aliens into gettings your reaction shots. You spam healing from Supports, and you abuse Heavies AoE attacks. First and foremost though, you just wait.

That's why they added time limits in XCOM 2 - because in XCOM 1 the core gameplay was broken... due to basically the same reason and with basically the same end result as in BfW. (too heavy impact of RNG and snowballing effects)

And yeah, I completed "regular" Impossible and Classic Ironman. First it was a chore as a learning experience, then it was just boring. That's my biggest gripe here.

I'm fine with making mistakes via strategy or even some bad luck (I still get upset when I lose to a 0.1% chance or less). But I easily get annoyed when the complete scope of the mission changes on the fly and I have to restart as a result of it (and hard modes give less turns in Wesnoth).

Try going with UtBS... it's insane. You need to know each and every event's how/what/where in order for the scenarios to even be winnable _at all_ - and you get a recruitment cost increase later in the campaign if you fare too poorly, so you can basically get softlocked in the middle of campaign as well as on the last scenario :D

Wesnoth and games like this have taught me a lot about risk though. I think that having an approximate idea of risk associated in life choices makes life a bit more manageable.

I traded crypto, I traded stocks, I bought and sold estate. I divorced, I moved to a different country, I changed my place of living on average once a year in the last 15 years, and I changed my job about 10 times in that time frame. I'd say that's enough "risk management" for me. I'm not young enough to play games solely for the challenge. I appreciate having some fun along the way as well :D

That comic strip is cool, although TBH I already knew most of it, so my cognitive dissonance wasn't big enough. However, what if I told you that the pyramids were built by intelligent velociraptors which survived the dinomageddon by acting like human shamans and priests?

Even wondered why Ammit and Sebek have reptile heads? :D

[Konrad2]

Originally posted by vaxquis:

Try going with UtBS... it's insane. You need to know each and every event's how/what/where in order for the scenarios to even be winnable _at all_ - and you get a recruitment cost increase later in the campaign if you fare too poorly, so you can basically get softlocked in the middle of campaign as well as on the last scenario :D

To be fair, UtBS explicitly tells the player that objectives are going to change and encourages them to save often. So picked the one campaign where your argument hardly applies, or at least the one campaign that is self aware about these things.

Another thing, you sound like you misunderstood 'savescumming'. Save scumming is reloading for one fight that went wrong, doing that until it went right, and probably doing that for multiple fights per turn, maybe more, maybe less.
Reloading is part of the game, and I doubt you'll find someone debating you on that.
And I don't think I've seen anyone claim before that you should be able to beat hard campaigns (especially not on hard difficulty) without any knowledge about the map.
That's what the easy difficulty is for. (I totally agree with your 'playing 3 times', at least with the idea of it. Although sometimes one goes with a strategy that's just good enough. :D)

TL;DR: Playing without reloads at all is just for challenges, noone claims it's how the game is supposed to be played. (At least I hope noone does.) Some people (me included) suggest not to be save scum, because it feels excessive, obsessive, and like cheating. (Also kinda sounds like burnout soonish.) And to instead play an easier campaign or on an easier difficulty.
+ if hard is not the way you want to play the campaign, that's fair and okay.