Do you save and reload? If so, why?

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Poison
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by Poison »

beetlenaut wrote:
Poison wrote:I think there should be an indicator for this (if there isn't one already).
I remember being confused by this myself. There is no indicator, but there is an easy rule.
Fighting a unit earns you experience points equal to the enemy unit's level. (Which means you get nothing for fighting level-0 enemies.)
Killing a unit gets you XP equal to the enemy's level times 8, except for level-0 units which are worth 4XP to kill.
So it's just (0),1,2,3(4?),(5?) xp (fighting) and (4),8,16,24,(32?),(40?) xp (killing)? I've never paid attention, I thought it would variate depending on hits and enemy hp etc. Btw who fights level 0 units (except the damned bats, oh how I hate them).
mattsc wrote:Maybe I misunderstood the question,
Yes you did, I know that my unit still needs 12 xp to advance, it's right there, I just didn't know how many points the enemy unit is going to give me.
beetlenaut clarified it for me.
Inky wrote:There's actually another easy way to tell, which I use - look at the damage calculation graph (the button at the bottom of the attack dialog), and look at the chance of your unit ending up with 100% HP. If your unit is wounded then this equals the chance that your unit will level from this attack, so you can plan accordingly.
Thanks for this, I haven't noticed that too, I knew it would be somewhere in damage calculation though :) It would be nice if it has it's own phrase like possibility of being unscathed (and possibility of dying should go up there too).
Inky wrote:(Though if you have a dying unit on the verge of leveling, I would definitely recommend trying to retreat and heal it and level it later when you can guarantee its survival, instead of doing a risky attack which might end up killing it.)
It's usually a no-retaliation attack or an attack that my unit could miss once (risky stuff) or twice (pretty safe) (there have been failures I'll admit - I have even had units killed after they have advanced even though they had full health because they were in unfavourable terrain. I remember in one campaign I have saveloaded and changed my shaman's advancement from druid to sorceress so it would have those little extra hp allowing it to survive - a leveled unit not with the role you intented for is better than no unit at all :annoyed: . Who has time for village healing :P
Last edited by Poison on October 13th, 2017, 9:35 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Ferrariz
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by Ferrariz »

I try not to reload unless either something happens that makes it near-impossible to win the scenario.
blue_ocean
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by blue_ocean »

I just came back to playing Wesnoth after years of not playing it. At first, I didn't save (at all) and would only reload to the beginning of a scenario if things went very bad. But as the campaign got more difficult, I got increasingly tempted to create saves before each roll & in middle of turns and reload repetitively in order to maximize good outcomes.

This temptation turned out being very hard for me to resist.

What I think would be great for players (like myself) who aren't good at self-restraint is if Wesnoth had an option offered when starting a campaign that, if enabled, would allow two things at once:

1. Disable all manual saving and create only autosaves (checkpoints) at the beginning of each scenario
2. Allow loading (for any of the checkpoints) at any time during the campaign

That option would make Wesnoth much more thrilling/realistic and, like a semi-hardcore mode, remove the ever present temptation of "save scumming" for players like myself who would rather not have the temptation. At the same time (if option isn't enabled), other players could stay with the default of saving/loading at ANY time if they wish to.

I do not understand why such a simple option hasn't been added.
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Ravana
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by Ravana »

There is something similar done with Forgiving Hardcore Mod
This add-on turns wesnoth into a terrifying and brutal adventure. One of your heroes die and you try to reload... nevermind, you can't bring back the dead, you have to replay from the beginning of the scenario!

If you ever wanted to get rid of the temptation to reload, this is the tool for you. If a unit of yours dies, it will stay dead even if you reload, unless you start from the beginning of the scenario. This is a more forgiving version of the Unforfiving Hardcore Mod, with the difference that you can get your units back by restarting the scenario.
blue_ocean
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by blue_ocean »

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, Ravana.
Shiki
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by Shiki »

blue_ocean wrote:...
This temptation is horrible. As for the two points
- you can disable automatic saves, in the options, just set the slider in for the number of autosaves to zero.
- you can remove the hotkey for loading a save
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lujo
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by lujo »

It really depends on the campaign. Some campaigns resemble regular gameplay enough that cheezing them never occurs to me. Some campaigns, or even just maps, at higher difficulty are basically an excercise in whether you can do it no matter how much you reload. Also, sometimes so much hinges on a single move that going on instead of realoading is just a waste of time. I enjoy campaigns best if they don't push me towards reloading, and a lot of it is scenario design.
blue_ocean
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by blue_ocean »

Update: I installed the Forgiving Hardcore Mod. I'm playing a recently installed Wesnoth 1.12.6 with no other add-ons/mods installed.

I tested that mod out by starting up Wesnoth then trying a newly created classic campaign (Heir to the Throne). Created various saves on Turn 1 and Turn 2. Was able to reload to both. Tried other campaigns with same result. The Forgiving Hardcore Mod doesn't appear to work. What can I do to fix it?
Last edited by blue_ocean on September 17th, 2017, 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
blue_ocean
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by blue_ocean »

Shiki, will disabling automatic saves still allow autosaving at the beginning of each scenario? I'm interested in playing this game semi-hardcore (loading "with everything restored" allowed only for beginning of scenarios if things go very bad) rather than full hardcore (no loading allowed).

lujo, yep. It depends on campaign. That's one reason I think autosaves of beginning of scenarios are important, so you can always go back to a specific scenario that may have messed up the rest of the campaign. Except that you can't save during a scenario. I think having an option for that, when starting a campaign, which then is locked in for the entire campaign, would be a good idea.
Shiki
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by Shiki »

The start of scenario saves will still be created. They are treated a bit different than normal saves, e.g. you can change the difficulty there and the WML for the next scenario is loaded from the scenario file, not the save. I don't know if unforgiving hardcore mod affects them.
Edit: apparently it does, in difference to forgiving hardcore mod.
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The_Gnat
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by The_Gnat »

When i play SP i usually save it if i get to a tough part and then will reload if something bad happens (sometimes i try to save my heroes, usually though i just reload when i have accidentally done something stupid that will cost me the scenario). :)

(Though I avoid debug mode when playing campaigns because then i am not really playing the campaign anymore, but i do occassionally edit campaigns to suit me slightly better :) )

I personally thinking saving/loading is a fine thing (since your playing with yourself ;) ) and so don't worry that i am cheating. I believe that everyone should play the game in the way they have fun, and i think wesnoth is awesome because it has such great opportunities and possibilities so everyone can enjoy it. :D
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wingsfalcon
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by wingsfalcon »

i will reload save the game if game on hard level :eng:
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ForestDragon
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by ForestDragon »

my opinion is basically the same as The_Gnat's, but I also often play campaigns in debug mode just to see the dialog.
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The_Gnat
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by The_Gnat »

ForestDragon wrote:my opinion is basically the same as The_Gnat's, but I also often play campaigns in debug mode just to see the dialog.
Yeah, i do that sometimes when the story is interesting and i want to know what happens, but i usually just read through the scenario cfg files rather than using debug.
Drainserker
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Re: Do you save and reload? If so, why?

Post by Drainserker »

Well if your getting rid of the challenge anyways... debug unit hitpoints = 1000
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