saved game cheating
Matthew Scholtz
I know it's cheating and bad karma and all that, but is there anything
in the code to discourage or prevent saving the game, copying the save
file to another directory, and then continuing? I've done this a few
times and it works, although it SEEMS that the monsters get harder after
pulling out the spare save file. This could just be my imagination or
the RNG.
If there is nothing to truly discourage this, what's to stop a player
from committing suicide in order to identify all items and attributes,
and then continuing on? I mean, other than scruples, of course.
Thanks.
Matt
Raisse the Thaumaturge
> I know it's cheating and bad karma and all that, but is there anything
> in the code to discourage or prevent saving the game, copying the save
> file to another directory, and then continuing?
The only thing that prevents cheating is your conscience.
> I've done this a few
> times and it works, although it SEEMS that the monsters get harder after
> pulling out the spare save file. This could just be my imagination or
> the RNG.
That's just your guilty conscience. See? It works.
> If there is nothing to truly discourage this, what's to stop a player
> from committing suicide in order to identify all items and attributes,
> and then continuing on? I mean, other than scruples, of course.
Scruples. And the fact that you'll be flamed to Gehennom and back if
you post about a cheating ascension. It's perfectly possible to
ascend without cheating; I've done it a dozen times, and other people
have even challenged themselves more by going without amenities that
are not cheating at all.
Raisse, killed by a troll
--
@ a human or elf (peaceful thaumaturge called Raisse)
-----------< Ascended (3.3.0): W, trying: PVA >------------
ir...@valdyas.org (myself) http://www.valdyas.org/irina
Chi.
There may be mild spoilers ahead... I've tried not to be too straight to the
point though...
> I know it's cheating and bad karma and all that, but is there anything
> in the code to discourage or prevent saving the game, copying the save
> file to another directory, and then continuing? I've done this a few
> times and it works, although it SEEMS that the monsters get harder after
> pulling out the spare save file. This could just be my imagination or
> the RNG.
Its just your imagination. NH doesn't know the difference between your save
file backup and the original. Save files do have a legitimite use as well,
chiefly to keep a backup in case of an unrecoverable error.
The procedure you have outlined is affectionally known as save-scumming in
this group, and is *generally* frowned upon, but most people live and let
live, and if thats what you want to do, so be it. Just don't expect us to
congratulate your ascensions oif they are obtained by this method thats all.
I think many people have dabbled with it a few times when they are a
beginner, but it really encourages bad habits like dying just to identify
your possessions. Hell, I know this, as the first time I got to the VoD was
with a save-scummed valkyrie, but I simply got bored and deleted her there
(and proceeded afterwards to lose hat seemed like half a million characters
before minetown - I think the RNG was trying to teach me that save scumming
is Bad and Wrong). You see, from my point of view when you know you can't
die, the game becomes rather pointless (which is why I don't play in explore
mode either). But the flipside is that when I started playing properly, I
got two very sucessful characters in near sucession: First a Wiz who was
drowned on a certain watery level guarded by a greek mythical monster (I
won't spoil it to much for you), and then a few days after that my first
(and only) ascension! Yay!
(Speaking of Explore mode: I take it you know that pressing "X" at any time
or starting nethack with the switch "-X" will put you in explore mode, which
doesn't clutter up your record file with false high scores (as you will get
a new high score every time you die-and-restore-from-backup), and also gives
you a choice of whether or not you want to really die, or instead be
resurrected each time you die.)
I then proceeded to spend two months dying around Mihnetown again, and
discovering how horrid certain coloured "q"'s are, which I'm sure you will
similarly discover when you stop save-file cheating :-) and now have a very
promising (albeit starving) Priest sitting in Gehennom, waiting for me to
finish my exams and unzip my NH directory to resume! If this Priest makes
it, it will be a very interesting YAAP as I had many disastrous accidents
getting thusfar...
> If there is nothing to truly discourage this, what's to stop a player
> from committing suicide in order to identify all items and attributes,
> and then continuing on? I mean, other than scruples, of course.
No, there is nothing to stop you. Similarly there is nothing to stop you
from manually editing the logfile and record, or making some drastic changes
to the freely available source code and recompiling. Or simply lying when
you write a YAAP. But what is the point?
As I've said, I played about with save-scumming with my first Valkyrie, and
I would say it damaged my playing style and made me too overconfident, and
even now I pay the price for it. Its also somewhat akin to the time I won
Civilisation by saving every turn there was an important battle to ensure I
won - at the end its just completely unrewarding and ultimately pointless.
But thats all IMHO of course.
The choice is of course yours my child, but I implore you: please don't be
tempted by the Dark Side... once you start its very difficult to stop... you
will be forever tempted when you have a strong character to "just make one
more backup"...
Regards,
Chris.
Wingnut
>Quick question for a newbie:
>
>I know it's cheating and bad karma and all that, but is there anything
>in the code to discourage or prevent saving the game, copying the save
>file to another directory, and then continuing? I've done this a few
>times and it works, although it SEEMS that the monsters get harder after
>pulling out the spare save file. This could just be my imagination or
>the RNG.
>
Nope, Nethack can't tell you're cheating.
>If there is nothing to truly discourage this, what's to stop a player
>from committing suicide in order to identify all items and attributes,
>and then continuing on? I mean, other than scruples, of course.
>
If you're not the only Nethack user on the system, there's a chance the other
users will beat the gehennom out of you for your misconduct.
And don't you dare post a cheating YAAP here.
Wingnut
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Kimmo Kasila
"Chi." wrote:
> Save files do have a legitimite use as well,
> chiefly to keep a backup in case of an unrecoverable error.
Yes. I've ascended 3 times, and have created emergency save-files
during all those games. Luckily I've never needed them, though. But
I am sure that if I had been forced to use them, the ascension would
not have felt 'real', even if there was nothing I could do to prevent
the crash. I mean, it is possible that you play on for hours without
making an emergency save, and then suffer a crash. Restoring such a
game from a save-file sure would feel like cheating. But this is a
difficult question, and I suppose I would restore the game anyway. Guess
it would be appropriate to mention this in a YAAP post, though.
> Explore mode:
Explore mode is the same as save-scumming, just a bit easier for the
player.
But for some strange reason, many save-scummers don't want to use X
mode.
Perhaps they want to go through the trouble of restoring saved files to
make
it feel a bit more "acceptable". But the result is the same. (And no
score
entries - a reminder that this is not actual nethacking)
> I won Civilisation by saving every turn there was an important battle to ensure I
> won - at the end its just completely unrewarding and ultimately pointless.
This also makes the games very annoying. If you are losing the game, but
struggle
on using save-game to win all battles, you need to restore your game all
the time. Guess the same works for nethack. If you happen to play a
really badly
generated dungeon, and have somehow screwed your game by wearing lots of
cursed
items, corroding all your weapons, teleportis without control, no food,
aggravate
monster instrict etc, you'll need those save-files so often that you'll
get bored soon.
> once you start its very difficult to stop... you
> will be forever tempted when you have a strong character to "just make one
But you will feel surprisingly good after deleting such files. It is
like
a proper burial for the good character :)
-KK
David Damerell
>the crash. I mean, it is possible that you play on for hours without
>making an emergency save, and then suffer a crash. Restoring such a
>game from a save-file sure would feel like cheating. But this is a
On platforms that are unstable enough to demand savefile backups against
crashes, I ensure I take them very frequently, so that if I do restore
from one I don't play a significant chunk of the game twice; in
particular, I make one after any important revelation (bSoID does the
entire pack, say), so that I don't have to restart with information I
shouldn't have.
--
| |
| pig |
| |
| pig |
gnohm...@my-deja.com
> in the code to discourage or prevent saving the game, ...
There is, in the nethackers' code of conduct. Plus, it teaches bad habits.
Save cheating isn't bad to do once or twice, but don't make a habit of it
because of the bad habits. Explore mode is better because you can't identify
by suicide -- how to identify is one of the things you need to learn!
Of course, you wouldn't post a YAAP if you cheated. You knew that, right?
Sometimes I like to cheat at computer games even if I can win without
cheating. Nethack is an exception. It takes so long to play a game that it's
a really bad idea to play a cheating game; other games, you can play a
cheating game, get a situation you could never have in a normal game, play
for a few hours, and it's over -- but playing hours and hours of a cheating
game in nethack, that really would get boring.
If you must cheat in nethack, savefile cheating is the least interesting way.
Edit the source, and compile, you can make your characters start with +15
GDSM, you can make it easier to find a WoW, anything you want. Later on, your
experience with the source might turn you into a Contributor!
For plain old cheating, well, either wizbones or level fudging are more
interesting than savefile cheating; but of course, not interesting enough to
spend the time on to go all the way to the endgame. For a quick ascension,
start up in Wizard mode and see if you can win in 2 turns....
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