Save States, Reloading, and the Art of Save-Scumming

[Skyblade]

* You have goals beyond the scope of the game. In Fire Emblem I set a goal to beat the game without losing a party member. When someone dies, I consider it a Game Over. I think this is fine. I consider each battle a mini-game. Same for X-Com.

That is my view on every game I play. So... Yeah. I basically never save scum for "cheating" or "getting past difficult challenges". Always just because any little thing can screw up my idea of how my game should go. I'll reset if I miss a conversation with a random NPC (such as by triggering a cutscene early accidently).

Question: Does the existence of Ironman Mode in X-Com give you implicit permission to save-scum when you aren't playing Ironman? I think it kind of does.

Yep. Even the developers admit to doing this. Heck, that's part of why they made Ironman. If you don't want to save-scum, play Ironman. Otherwise, everything's free game.

Now, save-scumming during an Ironman match, that would be cheating. And you can do it, technically, since there is a tiny bit of leeway due to the way the saves are handled. It won't necessarily save everything that's happened, but automatically up to the turn. It also saves the RNG order, so if you do the same thing, the same results happen. But if you tweak it, you can change the results (such as by taking a higher accuracy or higher critical shot), which will mean that you get different results (for example, you take a 40% shot and miss, but you reloaded and took a shot with a 90% accuracy, which hit, and then took the 40% shot, and it hit).

That is the only way I think you can cheat in XCOM (well, apart from value editing). But I don't do that. Instead, I just work myself into a nervous wreck over it.

[Pike]

I guess I got so used to not save-scumming in the original X-Com that doing it too much in the new one feels weird.

X-Com is supposed to be a game where everyone dies! That's the point!

[Old Manus]

It's horrifying, but if you are already seven seasons in, you just go back to the fifth season and carry on (after huddling in the corner of your shower and crying for a good half hour).

[The Man]

I use savestate on emulators so much to the point where I can't play console games anymore.

This, just about. I still do play console games occasionally but my gamer OCD just ends up making me want to tear my hair out, so it's no longer an enjoyable experience. I save-state so much I am sometimes tempted to start making tool-assisted speedruns, but I know that would be a pit from which I would never escape.

[blackmage_nuke]

In the past I'd usually make a save state at important moments that I might want to play through again but otherwise only saved when it was allowed in the game.

These days I dont really have time to play through a game more than once so if theres a multiple ending system of sorts I'll savescum to get the perfect ending first time

[Del Murder]

I usually only play a game once and I want the experience to be perfect, so I will reload saves often if I don't like how my actions are playing out. This is especially the case for games like Fire Emblem where characters die permanently. I also sometimes like to see how the different options pan out before I decide what my final choice will be.

[qwertysaur]

[Jiro]

I save scum like a mothersmurfer the first time, no matter what, 'cause I gotta do that "perfect-or-close-enough" run. Then I stop, because sometimes smurfing up creates a glorious alternate story. XCOM in particular is great for showing how crushing the odds are and creating a different kind of meta narrative there.