SO... Have you cheated yet?

[Muhahaha]

I somehow managed to ruin a perfectly good Beoghite by turning on wizard mode unintentionally. I used wizmode to "cheat" twice. Recently, after clearing Zot 4 for the first time ever with a powerful character I decided to wiz another character through Zot 5 just to get the feel for it before my legitimate attempt (Alas,The legitimate character still died).

Last October I had a character doomed with a terrible mutation set who found a Zig entrance on d10. I turned on wizmode to give him enough gold to send him in to his death. (Got through 2 floors)

Spoilers... yeah I use them. I had read every page in the wiki, and the entire learn DB long before finding my first rune.

[galehar]

I don't think we should try to provide any relative information. Some monsters are much more dangerous to some builds than to others, it would be impossible to give an accurate threat level. Or maybe just give a warning for OOD monsters, but I can't think of anything good.

Hmm... how does Ashenzari's danger estimation work? The general impression seems to be that it works rather well.

Good point. There's only 4 levels but that would already be quite helpful for newbies. Here is how kilobyte has described them in the source:

Trivial: Conjurators use melee to conserve mana, MDFis switch plates...
Easy: An easy fight but not ignorable.
Tough: Hard but reasonable.
Nasty: Check all wands/jewels several times, wear brown pants...

Now, how to integrate this information smoothly in the interface? A line in the description? Colour monster's name (console)? An icon like demon tiers (tiles)?

[erisdiscordia]

I think too much information can be more harmful than not enough. The only one of those categories I'd bother with is "brown-pants." There's currently some condition under which monster descriptions state "you feel a lump in the pit of your stomach," maybe that could be shown in a better-exposed place for brown-pants monsters -- IF there's a desire to hand out that much information in the first place. (Yeah, I'm a meanie.)

[absolutego]

Now, how to integrate this information smoothly in the interface? A line in the description? Colour monster's name (console)? An icon like demon tiers (tiles)?

colouring the monster's name (say green, white, yellow, red, using ash's thingy) sounds quite alright, actually. it may be somewhat intrusive, but it might work well.

[7hm]

I've used wizmode, of course, but not for cheating, just playtesting vaults and the portal I'm working on.

I also used it to see what a zig looked like. That being said, what I saw from using wizmode did not in any way translate to helping me on my one and only actual zig experience (as a HaBe of chei). In fact, I'd say that while reading spoilers has helped, that's not really what it's about. I read spoilers because the game interests me and I want to do / read about things that are interesting to me. Half the time the spoilers (or the hints / tips rather) are garbage or don't work for my playstyle, and I've only realized that after extensive playing.

I believe it would be possible to win crawl unspoiled, but I don't see the point. This isn't a game of IF or an rpg filled with static quests (or nethack, or adom). There isn't a single walkthrough that can handle the various situations you'll deal with. Nikola might be incredibly dangerous to most characters, but if I have a build that can demolish him easily, it's to my detriment to pay attention to the "spoiler" without taking my own situation into account. Being able to recognize when I can demolish him, and when I should run, is something that comes through time and experience, a spoiler won't help me with that.

Edit: and savescumming is fine, but it's just like freaky shit you do in the bedroom. I don't care, just don't tell me about it - in other words, don't ever talk about savescumming, or post your "wins" as legitimate efforts. If you do, you missed the point.

[dpeg]

The question of whether the game can be won unspoiled is, while silly, still of some relevance: we use it as a rough yardstick for handing out information: There are players who want absolutely transparent mechanics but we won't give it to them (I think I am most adamant about this, but I am definitely not alone). The reason is that showing all kinds of these numbers will make new players think they have to digest this all and use it to play well. And that's not true. You actually need very little to keep crawling. So we have to decide what information is necessary. It's a subtle issue, and it could be sliced in several ways, but we opted to show all monster resistances, but not to show health or damage (the latter two are randomised anyway).
(Making all mechanics transparent would force us to address all those little effects that clutter gameplay while being marginal. Think of old GDR, or the to-hit enchantment of weapons. But we are aware of these problems and try to tackle them without throwing out the baby with the water.)

In the statement "Crawl can be won unspoiled, but cannot be won every time even when fully spoiled", then both parts are important. (And we could live up to them much better, no question about that.)

[LunarHarp]

I cheated once or twice when I first started. It almost always was a case of... "well this character is dead because I have wandered into a situation that there is no escape from so lets turn on wizard mode to keep playing for 30 or so minutes so I am not bored starting a new character." Every time this happened I ended up doing something ridiculous like going down the slime pits with my troll beserker to take on the royal jelly with my claws. The second time I dived down into hell at level 12 or something like that. But I agree with the sentiment the game is no fun if it doesn't matter how many times you die. This did let me know what was down in these branches before I had spoilers of them so I suppose cheating can be useful.

As for spoilers, since I have been playing crawl each version seems to be getting more transparent about the mechanics of the game. In 0.7 you can see your weapon speed with @, and in trunk you don't have to keep going to the ?% menu to see what the aptitudes are. We already have no-spoiler needed chunks. There are other things that are nice about the interface coming with trunk too. I like this trend. The devs have been making some good calls on what is good to be clear to the player and what should be arcane. (On a side note, I don't think it says anywhere in the game what each of the +'s to weapons mean. That was the first thing I spoiled. That one number is for accuracy and one number is for damage). Of course I am also horribly spoiled at this point and have looked through the source to see in general how things work, but I don't think being this spoiled has made me better as a player as much as just playing over and over again. Because of this I am also glad that many of the mechanics are not transparent. It would discourage the kind of experimentation that makes one a better player.

Most things you can get by trial and error. How does MR really work? Who cares, all I need to know is that right now enemies that are "quite" resistant are hard to hex, and I shouldn't bother with enemies with harder. Later in the game it shifts a bit with more power.

[eharper256]

Personally, I go with the idea of Mario World like 'Checkpoints', using the following rules:

• No checkpoints prior to Temple being found. The difficulty of the start is sacred; and if you can't even make it even that far, chances are this character might well be a bust anyway. This takes out alot of chars alone (about 50% perhaps).
• After that, a Checkpoint is only allowed {AFTER} entering a new even numbered floor. The after stipulation is prevent temptation to scum the generation of a new, more friendly floor. If the RNG dropped you in the shit, you still have to deal with it! I burst out laughing having to make a backup following this rule once: the situation was a grim one of enemies on all sides and a unique.
• A checkpoint is allowed just after entering a branch for the first time (including Temple, which is your first checkpoint).
• And that's it. At these points, and these points only, I go into the save folder and make a copy. This backup replaces the old backup as well, so there's also no 'oh bugger, in retrospect I made a bad developmental choice; lets go back to an earlier time' either.
• I also go with a final mandate of 'three strikes and you're out'. With the third restore, the backup is deleted, and its your last chance to salvage it before I shrug and agree with the permanent death offered.

It's like a compromise between outright brutality and retarded save scumming. I consider it taking out an insurance policy, rather than cheating, since its terms are very restrictive; and its main purpose is to not lose characters you've grown really fond of, since I can't take the emotional strain of that sometimes. (I know, I shouldn't be emotionally invested in my characters, but hey, that's just me ). You still learn all the things a player doing it right would, because there is still the potential for some significant progress to be lost (up to two floors) and a limited set of lives encouraging you not to make seriously stupid errors.

I suppose if you wanted a hardercore version, returning to the backup could also be a 'cut & paste', rather than a copy. So you have to win next time or else there's no more backup!

Interestingly though, I must be getting better, since I've not had to revert to checkpoints at all in the last two weeks. Perhaps they're becoming ceremonial, and I will ditch them entirely in time as I become of a higher skill. For the meantime, at least, however, when I'm thrown in the deep end, at least its not headfirst in a blazing pool of lava without Rf+++ equipped.

Even so, I can entirely understand the joy one can get from dulling the edges of a game sometimes. Everyone plays differently; and for some, the end justifies the means, even if that means was scumming to avoid 45612 deaths. What's not on is doing this and then pretending you did it right.

[ClawlessVictory]

I never cheat, doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose of playing a game? I imagine once I master this game, I might dig into wizard mode just to explore and test various things, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

[ClawlessVictory]

I cheated by playing as a Felid.

haha yeah I felt the same way when I tried out a Felid for the first time. Got to level 18 (highest previous record was like 12 for me), admittedly with the help of Nemelex. This is the reason I really have no desire to pick Felids now, seems like it makes the game too easy.

[RFHolloway]

Perhaps a simple line on the monsters description of either
"this monster seems particularly fearsome/strong/unusual"
"other monsters tread cautiously/are impressed by/seem to follow this monster"
for OOD monsters.

The alternative would be something like "These monsters are typically seen at depths of around X" but this feels too mechanical and off flavour

Of course most of us would still die as we never bother to check the monsters information. but it may provide some caution when meeting a new monster (this is about right for this level - approach with caution - this is an OOD - RUN)

[galehar]

Perhaps a simple line on the monsters description of either
"this monster seems particularly fearsome/strong/unusual"
"other monsters tread cautiously/are impressed by/seem to follow this monster"
for OOD monsters.

The alternative would be something like "These monsters are typically seen at depths of around X" but this feels too mechanical and off flavour

Of course most of us would still die as we never bother to check the monsters information. but it may provide some caution when meeting a new monster (this is about right for this level - approach with caution - this is an OOD - RUN)

I think I've already commented on that, but OOD isn't a good indicator of dangerousness. I've opened a new thread to discuss this.

[moekitten]

i have never cheated in crawl i.e. i have never savescummed/startscummed but i abused unbalanced trunk features :3 and used wizmode for testing (i tried it first time when i had like 6 wins though). i startsavescummed in adom for a starsign which you cannot choose directly before i found a mod which allows you to select starsigns.

haha yeah I felt the same way when I tried out a Felid for the first time. Got to level 18 (highest previous record was like 12 for me), admittedly with the help of Nemelex. This is the reason I really have no desire to pick Felids now, seems like it makes the game too easy.

i wouldn't say felids make the game too easy. it is not a hard race of course and febe are simple to play (they are berserkers after all) but they, especially felid casters, really lack hp, ac/sh and even resists in late game when many things can one- or twoshot them on bad rolls. they were disigned to lose their lives and almost no felids won without losing at least one life even in trunk when they were quite stronger.

also i wonder if you had reached level 18 with kobe or something would you have decided kobolds make the game too easy or not

[Timbermaw]

All the characters i've cheated with end up dying repeteadly after that first death, so i don't even bother anymore :3

I suppose that has to do with reduced fear of dying and playing carelessly... things you get when you cheat.

[blami]

Since I am a newbie I don't even know what wizardmode is.

Yes, I have savescummed (or how you call it) but it made it indeed boring and I play on the online server now, where I can't do that. That savescumming once has helped me though to explore places I otherwise wouldn't have reached at all. Having a "highlevel" (for me that is 18+) character can be boring even if I don't savescum, because I might become scared to go to certain places and have no idea how or where to continue. When I am in this situation I usually stop to play for half a year and play again when my boyfriend tells me the new version is out.

I read the wiki (spoiler) sometimes and I am very happy it exists and would like to thank those that work on it. I agree with those, that say, you have to read spoilers, but I really wouldn't want to know all. I hate maths, I'm lazy.

I got the orb only once. I was annoyed by dying with "highlevel" characters so I read spoilers and checked on the statistics what kind of character got the best chance at that version to get the freaking orb and what spells/abilities I would definitely need. It was some kind of merfolk spellcaster something with lots of teleport/blink items and apportation. It took ages but it worked. Where's the line of cheating? Am I only a worthy player if I chose the most difficult character and know every formula of weapons/spells/outfits/monsters by heart? If that's so, then I prefer by far not to be worthy.

[KoboldLord]

Where's the line of cheating? Am I only a worthy player if I chose the most difficult character and know every formula of weapons/spells/outfits/monsters by heart? If that's so, then I prefer by far not to be worthy.

Worthy players are not determined by their success at the game, or their memory for trivia. Worthy players are the ones that don't intentionally abuse unintended bugs or vulnerabilities to bypass playing the actual game. There is little in gaming that is sadder than cheating at solitaire. It's not really a matter of ethics; you can savescum all you like and you won't necessarily be a bad person. Those actions are just the kind of behavior that inspires deep welling of pity from other players.

Nobody who matters will consider you less worthy if you've never won, or never gotten a Rune, or never made it to Lair.

[Happy Corner]

No cheating for me. I'll admit that back in the day, I did savescum (or used in-game cheating options) with a couple other roguelikes I played, but it really does take all the fun out of it in the long run, and I outgrew it by the time I graduated to Crawl. Despite their turn-based nature, a great roguelike (such as Crawl!) can be among the most intense video games there are, and the threat of permadeath is a big part of that. It's also what makes beating them such a thrill - and even an accomplishment.

KoboldLord is right, cheating at Crawl doesn't make you an evil scumbag or anything, and of course you're free to enjoy your game any way you like. But I can't help wondering why you don't just play any of the zillions of games that DO allow you to reload as often as you want...

[Bim]

I have to second that Crawl is pretty much impossible without spoilers or extensive re-play. Either that, or you have a ridiculously lucky char. I remember one of the first games I played when I started out I got a +5 plate mail and a +2 +3 broad axe of flaming realllllly early on. I also got a ring of strength and a ring of slaying. I got past lair and hive, but then completely underestimated a unique (I can't remember which) and they killed me in a few turns, even though I though 'oh it's just a man with a weapon, it's not a demon or anything'. That annoyed me, as I had no idea how to gauge the uniques difficulty, but I've never, ever save scummed or use Wmode for anything other than testing vaults and the odd 'would this work?'.

For me, one of the most fun things in crawl is finding something 'new' in the dungeon and finding it missing on the wiki and updating it/adding to it. Everyone has different reasons why they love Crawl so much, but I do think people cheapen the experience with save scumming and wizard mode plays.

[Shade]

I have to second that Crawl is pretty much impossible without spoilers or extensive re-play.

I'll grant you the 'extensive replay' is needed to win, but I don't really think you need spoilers for a basic 3 runer. I seldom touch the knowledge bots (They're great for micro details, but I'm more interested in the macro level stuff), will only use wizard more for science (not to peek ahead), only read the wiki when I'm between characters, I won't savescum, I won't delete my morgue files, and I can regularly produce high level (if not winning) characters. It took well over a year to get my first 3 runer, but from the POV of the roguelike genera, this game is fairly fair though far from perfect. I'd love to see something like an ingame 'comparinator' that that could clearly explain the virtues of that artifact demon whip vs. my artifact mace in clear language. (Or to be able to compare any two things of a given type.) The biggest rule for the unspoiled player should be this: "If you haven't seen it before: 1) read the description, 2) assume it can kill you, 3) Try to get it alone and use your best non-consumable buffs to try to kill it while having a clear path of escape. Once you have that down, and do it consistently, then you're building knowledge and moving toward your first ascension.

[absolutego]

I have to second that Crawl is pretty much impossible without spoilers or extensive re-play.

I'll grant you the 'extensive replay' is needed to win, but I don't really think you need spoilers for a basic 3 runer.

you do, unless you replay extensively!

[galehar]

I don't think anyone is saying you need spoilers to win. Just that you need spoilers to play effectively. The game is very similar to NetHack in that regard (also, most other roguelikes).

Winning NH without spoilers is extremely hard, requires years of dedicated play and has been accomplished by only a handful of players. Winning it with spoilers is quite easy.
Crawl is easier with spoilers, but the difference is much much less pronounced than with NH. The games are extremely different in that regard.

[OdiumTheologicum]

Everyone should feel free to use wizard mode or "cheat" as they please.

Sure, anyone can play the game as they like. But most players who try to save scum quickly realise that it makes the game less fun, not more. And that you're not really improving your playing skills as much when you can revert any mistake.

This. I had found some nice stuff for a character and backed up the save. When he died. I replaced it. Started the game up. Loaded it. And went and got the character killed under the realization that it just killed the buzz for me. Hopefully, there's not two ghosts now. > .>

[Mychaelh]

I play Crawl since ancient (Linley's), never cheated, played always pure random and tried to avoid spoilers. I also stop to read threads here in the tavern when I see it goes about things I have not reached yet. In the last months I have started to take it 'seriously'. Just experimenting with different builds and the new skill training in the moment...

[Shade]

Crawl may be a bit less spoiler-reliant but it makes up for it by being harder in general.

Yeah, but you can actually learn your way though hard (usually with a seemingly unending stream of deaths).

[whispers]

People who still propose checkpoints and reloading despite the "won't implement" statement, do not realize that with saving DCSS becomes not just easy, but quite trivial to the point of being dull and boring. It's not because crawl is worse then games that have save system. It's different. Permadeath is the essential element of the design. Risk management, threat assessment are the vital elements of the gameplay. Traditional save system effectively removes them. So there's no point in cheating, really. Of course wizard mode isn't cheating, it's testing.

To add save system into the mix, you have to actually design a different game from the ground up basically.

[Jk]

As someone who has never won a game - despite reading plenty of spoilers - I can tell you that losing is more fun than "cheating" (and it's only cheating yourself). The fact that my completely unstoppable Demonspawn Crusader stepped on a zot trap on the square literally next to the zot rune, was banished to the abyss, got bored of searching for the exit, cast flight/swiftness to speed things up, then fell into a pool of magma ... that was quite upsetting. Quite, quite upsetting. For a day. And then for the 4 months since then, it's been a hilarious story. If I save scummed, that would be just one win among a hundred, and I wouldn't give a fig about any of them.

Or maybe it's because I come from Dwarf Fortress land. Losing really IS fun!

[Blade]

The day I savescummed in NetHack was the day I stopped playing NetHack. I therefore will never, ever scum or use wizmode to save characters,'despite looking back on could-have-been incredible characters with regret. It's that regret, and the desire to avoid it next time, that keeps me playing and having fun.

I use wizmode to test things all the time, though. Because random insanity is also fun.

[AtT]

I suppose I've read spoilers before. I never try to look up the easiest builds to win. I just enjoy looking at the forum and asking for advice. I've gotten quite far before on some of the "easier" builds, MDFi,KoBe,VpEn,SpBe, etc. I do prefer more interesting builds and I die at them a lot. I've always been annoyed at the ease of savescumming in games that allow it as part of their programming (as in not roguelikes) and I enjoy rls specifically because of permadeath. I want more games to have it, I'd like to see a PvPMMORPG with permadeath (or HUGE death penalties at least.) I think this would be fun.

Of course I've never won before. I got my first rune today though (MuSu) and I think I will get at least a 3runer eventually. After that I'll try extended game.

[partial]

I've savescummed so I can experience some of the later branches/enemies, but I find the game to be heinously boring and tedious if there's nothing at stake.

I still haven't earned my first rune without scumming, but I'll get there soon enough

[Jabberwocky]

Sort of.
I use wizmode to check out new features, if I don't have the patience to get a character to that stage fairly. I do make one backup a local game, which is when I'm standing on the stairs out, with the orb and runes in my bag, so that I can check out some detail I can't find in the morgue. This save would be deleted if I died while heading up the steps to the surface.
Edit, I only save-scummed once, and that was for a very noble cause.

[arcanist]

I savescummed a lot in the beginning. I decided that first I need to win this game AT LEAST WITH saves and then try the same build without saves.
I am considering saves as an importatnt part of my learning process - but after you managed to win the game with saves you ahve another target to achieve

[khalil]

1) Have you used wizard mode yet?
Yes, but for a good reason. I managed to teleport myself into the back of a temple to sif muna. More specificly, the ones with two enimies, three squares of floor space, and a moat preventing you from getting back to the rest of the level. It was use wizmode to teleport away, or starve to death.

2) Have you gone to the saves folder under the crawl game folder and copied your character out, gotten killed, and placed your character back?
Did you write little batch files to save and restore characters in this fashion?
Nope. I consider it sometimes though. I really hate it when a good charicter gets banished to the abyss or something and has no chance of survival.

[varsovie]

I used wizard to test, never in a "real" game.
I save scummed one to have a feel of the mutation roulette with a corpse. (I know the % in the code give you this info, but I find it easier to just try)

[sgrunt]

1) Have you used wizard mode yet?

Yes. Hard to develop without it

2) Have you gone to the saves folder under the crawl game folder and copied your character out, gotten killed, and placed your character back?

No.

[daggaz]

Nope, never save scummed. But once? I did look in my morgue. Did I really die _that_ many times??

-snip- Or maybe it's because I come from Dwarf Fortress land. Losing really IS !fun!

fixd that for you. nothing like micromanaging a hundred drunken idiots who will give it all up in a second for a sock.

[IronJelly]

Personally, I go with the idea of Mario World like 'Checkpoints', using the following rules:

• No checkpoints prior to Temple being found. The difficulty of the start is sacred; and if you can't even make it even that far, chances are this character might well be a bust anyway. This takes out alot of chars alone (about 50% perhaps).
• After that, a Checkpoint is only allowed {AFTER} entering a new even numbered floor. The after stipulation is prevent temptation to scum the generation of a new, more friendly floor. If the RNG dropped you in the shit, you still have to deal with it! I burst out laughing having to make a backup following this rule once: the situation was a grim one of enemies on all sides and a unique.
• A checkpoint is allowed just after entering a branch for the first time (including Temple, which is your first checkpoint).
• And that's it. At these points, and these points only, I go into the save folder and make a copy. This backup replaces the old backup as well, so there's also no 'oh bugger, in retrospect I made a bad developmental choice; lets go back to an earlier time' either.
• I also go with a final mandate of 'three strikes and you're out'. With the third restore, the backup is deleted, and its your last chance to salvage it before I shrug and agree with the permanent death offered.

It's like a compromise between outright brutality and retarded save scumming. I consider it taking out an insurance policy, rather than cheating, since its terms are very restrictive; and its main purpose is to not lose characters you've grown really fond of, since I can't take the emotional strain of that sometimes. (I know, I shouldn't be emotionally invested in my characters, but hey, that's just me ). You still learn all the things a player doing it right would, because there is still the potential for some significant progress to be lost (up to two floors) and a limited set of lives encouraging you not to make seriously stupid errors.

I suppose if you wanted a hardercore version, returning to the backup could also be a 'cut & paste', rather than a copy. So you have to win next time or else there's no more backup!

Interestingly though, I must be getting better, since I've not had to revert to checkpoints at all in the last two weeks. Perhaps they're becoming ceremonial, and I will ditch them entirely in time as I become of a higher skill. For the meantime, at least, however, when I'm thrown in the deep end, at least its not headfirst in a blazing pool of lava without Rf+++ equipped.

Even so, I can entirely understand the joy one can get from dulling the edges of a game sometimes. Everyone plays differently; and for some, the end justifies the means, even if that means was scumming to avoid 45612 deaths. What's not on is doing this and then pretending you did it right.

You can do this (more or less) in wizard mode. you get a Y/N prompt before dying, and selecting No puts you back to full health.

I admit, I've never won without wizmode, though I've come close a few times. I'll primarily use it if i have some crazy idea I want to try . Can an uber-weapon alone let a low level character survive a zig (obviously not, but amazingly fun to spawn something and give it a +300 +300 demon trident randart with electrocution and holy wrath). Sometimes I'll do something trivial to make an easier game, like give myself a nice mutation to start with, or a small number of enchant scrolls, or start with a non-starting diety or something.

No save scumming for me though.

[khalil]

Nope, never save scummed. But once? I did look in my morgue. Did I really die _that_ many times??

-snip- Or maybe it's because I come from Dwarf Fortress land. Losing really IS !!fun!!

fixd that for you. nothing like micromanaging a hundred drunken idiots who will give it all up in a second for a sock.

ftfy

[CykusX]

Yolo. That is all.

[Lafaros]

I've never cheated myself. Nor have I even really looked into exactly how to do it. The permanent death aspect is one of the things that drew me to Crawl in the first place. It was the very first "permadeath" game I had ever really gotten into, and I've always found that the threat of full character death keeps things exciting. I remember on my first ascension, through a series of moves so terrible they could only be my own, I ended up with 5 HP and no healing items remaining. I barely managed to make it upstairs, rest up a bit, then kill a few enemies for healing. I went on to get my first win.

I've beaten Crawl multiple times since then, but that moment is still one of my favorites to happen in any game. I truly felt like something was on the line, and the adrenaline was great. And then, when I won, it felt amazing after I had died so much. I had lost two characters in the Orb Chamber before my first win. If they had been allowed to live, or if a death on the orb run had only meant restarting from back when you first picked up the orb, I don't think it would have been anywhere near as satisfying or exciting for me. But, to each their own; I don't begrudge those who prefer extra attempts with a character.

[Sojiro]

Now, let's take a new-ish player who can get through D1-8/whatever just fine. They meet Kirke or Mara or Rupert or whatever for the first time and get blasted and dumped into the inventory screen. Even by reading the morgue file, they'll have virtually no information on what killed them or what they did wrong. For them to do "trial and error" on Kirke or Mara or Rupert or whatever using a different tactic will require them to replay the first several levels of Crawl over and over and over and over again.

This. This was a problem I had when I started Crawl.

But more importantly, replaying the first several levels over and over doesn't teach a player how they could have dealt with/avoided getting killed by Kirke or Mara or Rupert or whatever.

I would go through the same stetch over and over (D:1 to Temple, then later to the Lair, then Vaults), only to get obliterated without understanding what was happening. I would learn one piece of information about one feaure of the game, possibly two (like "blade traps can deal enough damage to one shot a spriggan" and "blade traps can appear as early as Lair"). Then i would re-do the long part that I already knew, delve into the unkown and get killed by something I met for the first time (or met in a difficult situation).
I was starting to get very annoyed to spend hours of doing the same thing just to get a few minutes of learning experience.

By using wizmode/save files, the same new-ish player can test different tactics against the same tough opponent and figure out a viable solution (a) without having to repeat the first several levels and (b) with the same equipment/spells/options they had at the time they met their demise.

I installed the game offline to try this out. When I faced a dangerous/new situation, I'd save and see which tactics would work and which ones would get me killed. I didn't just get past the hard part and continue, I'd re-do it a few times to see how it worked.
But it got a bit boring and easy, so I switched to only saving before going into a level so that I couldn't use knowledge of how it is set up to my advantage. And shortly after that, I switched to only saving before entering a branch, so when I died I lost all my progress and neat finds from that branch, but didn't have to re-do the beginning of the game.

Recently, I've started doing this with escape options rather than saves. I went ahead and challenged Cerebov when it wasn't actually necessary to see how I could beat him, and when I could see the fight wouldn't turn in my advantage I read a teleport scroll or drank a potion of magic to cBlink a few time ; that way I could disengage, recover, and try again with another tactic. However that only works with a character that can already easily survive almost everything even when I don't know what I'm doing ...

I did a bit of save scumming to see different possible results of drinking a bunch of mutation potion at once, or tried a variety of portals (WizLabs, Troves, Volcanoes ...) to see what layouts existed and how they worked. But it wasn't really "scumming" because I didn't chose the best result, once I had a good idea of how it worked and decided to move on, I just resumed playing normally.

[BlackSheep]

Now, let's take a new-ish player who can get through D1-8/whatever just fine. They meet Kirke or Mara or Rupert or whatever for the first time and get blasted and dumped into the inventory screen. Even by reading the morgue file, they'll have virtually no information on what killed them or what they did wrong. For them to do "trial and error" on Kirke or Mara or Rupert or whatever using a different tactic will require them to replay the first several levels of Crawl over and over and over and over again.

This. This was a problem I had when I started Crawl.

Those are actually horrible examples since all three of those uniques have specific tactics they like to use that other uniques don't. What dying to any of them teaches you is that when you see them next time, you should RUN AWAY. The problem isn't that save scumming is the only way to learn how to beat them, it's that dying to them apparently isn't enough to teach you that you don't have to kill them to "beat" them.

[Pereza0]

I have entered wizard mode a couple of times and messed around with it. But I get bored pretty quickly, since there are few things I want to test.

I am constantly moving my files, since I play on different computers, when I lose a characters I delete all the other savefiles or kill myself through miscasts if a caster

The only time I have cheated was once that I accidentally used a scroll of enchant weapon III on a weapon I had no intention of using. When I realized what I had done, I copied the savefile , restarted the game (surprised it took my to a turn previous to that happening) and used the scroll on my main weapon.

Upset to have botched the legitimacy of my game over something so minor though.

Its funny, I sometimes get the urge to cheat over minor stuff like this, but never get it when actually losing a character.

[Sojiro]

Those are actually horrible examples since all three of those uniques have specific tactics they like to use that other uniques don't.

That's actually what make them good example.

What dying to any of them teaches you is that when you see them next time, you should RUN AWAY.

So you should always run away from every single unique that has ever killed you in every circumstances and never learn how to deal with them? Really?

The problem isn't that save scumming is the only way to learn how to beat them, it's that dying to them apparently isn't enough to teach you that you don't have to kill them to "beat" them.

You don't have to use saves to kill them, but it is considerably more effective at learning how to do it than just restarting the game until you meet them again.

[BlackSheep]

Those are actually horrible examples since all three of those uniques have specific tactics they like to use that other uniques don't.

That's actually what make them good example.

What dying to any of them teaches you is that when you see them next time, you should RUN AWAY.

So you should always run away from every single unique that has ever killed you in every circumstances and never learn how to deal with them? Really?

The problem isn't that save scumming is the only way to learn how to beat them, it's that dying to them apparently isn't enough to teach you that you don't have to kill them to "beat" them.

You don't have to use saves to kill them, but it is considerably more effective at learning how to do it than just restarting the game until you meet them again.

It's really not. Getting turned into a pig is a really great lesson, as are getting paralyzed by fear, mislead, and meeting your own ghost. If you learn nothing from these things, that's on you. And yes, you should run away from a unique that kills you handily until you're good enough to deal with it. The topic of conversation was not "every circumstance." It was meeting a unique and getting "blasted" which I took to mean dying quite suddenly. Restoring a save just to go at it over and over with the same exact set of circumstances is a bad idea because you will seldom, if ever, be in exactly the same circumstances in a future game. If you go toe-to-toe with a unique and nearly kill it, you learn something else: use a consumable or two and that loss could have been a win.

[Pereza0]

It's really not. Getting turned into a pig is a really great lesson, as are getting paralyzed by fear, mislead, and meeting your own ghost

I agree with this sentiment. There is nothing like getting Abyssed by Louise to learn to tread carefully around her.

Anyway, save scumming won't get you very far, you will learn how to deal with a particular unique, maybe, but you will get worse at assessing threats, since nothing can be considered one if you can't die.

[Sojiro]

You do die. You just skip the "retrain up to this level" before you can try what you have learned from your previous mistake.
And the point isn't that you can't learn from being turned into a pig, on the contrary. It's that normally doing that costs you your character and a lot of time building it up again. If you've saved a bit earlier you can learn the same as if you had been perma-killed and then jump right back to learning about new parts of the game instead of re-doing the very early game thing all over again.

[Pereza0]

You do die. You just skip the "retrain up to this level" before you can try what you have learned from your previous mistake.
And the point isn't that you can't learn from being turned into a pig, on the contrary. It's that normally doing that costs you your character and a lot of time building it up again. If you've saved a bit earlier you can learn the same as if you had been perma-killed and then jump right back to learning about new parts of the game instead of re-doing the very early game thing all over again.

It doesn't stick as much. If you are save scumming you are probably being a lot sloppier and more careless than you usually would, getting in more dangerous situations often and learning little.
Plus if you are already with that mindset, there is nothing keeping you from reloading the game when you get a bad mut, reloading when you get abyssed, etc...

Crawl is balanced with permadeath in mind and should be played that way, otherwise many things like mutations, risk assessment and choices become meaningless. By playing like that, you are missing out on a lot of the things that make crawl fun. It would be more logical to play a game that admits character death and recovery, and that has been balanced around it than to play a game which doesn't and that is broken otherwise

[prozacelf]

I did QA for a game studio for nearly two years, and from that standpoint, I can say you can have a lot of fun using the "cheats." But when you're TESTING a game, it's not cheating. In some cases, we had to have the ability to not die, or to automatically kill everyone on-screen, or get unlimited ammo and such, in order to properly test the game.

Taking that in mind, I never use Wizmode just to "see what's coming up" or to build up a character. It seems wrong to me. If you like to do it, fine. I think you're cheating yourself. I'm terrible at this game. I'm also terrible at at least one of the games I QA tested. But when I get killed in this game, I learn to use a different tactic or run from the beastie that just ruined me. Which I like to think is the idea the creators had in mind.