How do you play? (reloading, taking the losses, etc)

[Oblitus]

I'm reloading when calling "bullshit." Rimworld always had a fair share of this stuff, but 1.0 adds loads more.

[ashaffee]

Personally I can see the desire to do reloading because it is a huge moral crush to loose your only person that was good at a certain job. But the more I play the game on no save scums I noticed that it is kinda all in your head. The game is designed to help you recover from all your losses if you are playing on a difficulty that is correct for your skill.

On the flip of the coin reloading is the best way to learn the game. If you always make it to the point where sappers kill you then it could take you a month to figure out what you been doing wrong. Or you can just reload that event 10 times and learn in an hour how to deal with that.

For me it was always the drop ships that confused me at first on how to deal with them. Since 1.0 is getting rebalanced a lot I still am confused on how to deal with them sometimes so I do give myself the option to reload but I only reload if I've lost over 50% of my colonist.

You can't truly understand what good fortune is unless you've really experienced the bad side. Feeling those effects drive such a huge joy when you pull through. The next person that joins could be the person that finally gave you a new cook so your guys can stop eating paste or it could be your 41th person because no one ever died.

[Madman666]

Same as most of people here. I always save when a bad event hits, but only really reload if the event went utter and total bullshite way. Like if a guy in power friggin armor got too subsequent eye scars from a mad squirrel. This game is real rich on these, so i kinda reload more than i'd like to admit

Otherwise if I see that it was totally my own derp that killed someone or left him a vegetable, or if i even got wiped - i accept that begrudgingly.

[DariusWolfe]

I play on permadeath, but I reload when I think something's bullshit. Playing on permadeath does two things that are important to me:

1. It keeps saves nice and tidy. I'm not OCD in any clinical sense, but I dislike having a bunch of cluttered saves, even if I've only got one colony going at any given time. Screw anyone who thinks this is a dumb reason.
2. It makes me consider (except when I rage-quit; there's no consideration, just reflex) whether a particular loss is something I want to lose up to an in-game day of play time over.

I feel it offers a balance between easy save-scumming and true permadeath. If the way permadeath works gets changed, I'll probably look into fixing it myself, or request a more experienced modder to help in putting it back.

[5thHorseman]

I've never won the game and if the current playthrough (where I'm saving a lot and reloading on whim) is any indication, the reason why I had so much trouble was my adherence to accepting what the game gave me plus my inexperience with the systems. It meant I basically could not win. Or even reach the midgame.

This is the first playthrough were I've installed bionics on people. I was always afraid a complication would kill, but now I can save, do the surgery, and decide if I accept the result. This is also the first save where I've sent out caravans. I love it, but the danger of failure (which generally meant colony wipe) was too high before. This is the first save I've opened an ancient danger, built the ship (it's ongoing and I'm out of plasteel and uranium. No turrets for me!), crafted armor and guns to outfit my entire colony...

And it's all because I "save scum".

EDIT:

As to *what* I reload saves for, generally if a single colonist dies or gets a terrible injury (Poor Cactus just lost both legs to a centipede. I'm looking for a nice pair of bionic legs for a quest while I research up to the new levels to make them myself. Until then, double peg legs it is!). If less than - say - 1/4 of my colony lives through an event I'll probably keep it. I generally won't accept a caravan wipe because quests are so lucrative, but I will accept a failed quest if I can save the caravan, even if someone dies.

It's a bit complicated and I can't quantify it. I basically reload when the loss would make the colony unable to defend against the next raid.

[Zombull]

I play on permadeath, but I reload when I think something's bullshit. Playing on permadeath does two things that are important to me:

1. It keeps saves nice and tidy. I'm not OCD in any clinical sense, but I dislike having a bunch of cluttered saves, even if I've only got one colony going at any given time. Screw anyone who thinks this is a dumb reason.
2. It makes me consider (except when I rage-quit; there's no consideration, just reflex) whether a particular loss is something I want to lose up to an in-game day of play time over.

I feel it offers a balance between easy save-scumming and true permadeath. If the way permadeath works gets changed, I'll probably look into fixing it myself, or request a more experienced modder to help in putting it back.

You play on permadeath, but you reload? These things don't compute. Do you impose your own permadeath rule that you sometimes break or do you have some way to reload even on permadeath when something goes stupid?

[Serina]

I play permadeath, mostly on x2 speed. I'd be lying if I said I never used alt f4 in my b18 saves, although used mainly when my favorite animal/pawn died. After I alt f4, I usually start a new save because I felt like I was cheating. lol.
Proud to say I have taken all the losses and rng in my 1.0 playthroughs thus far and it has been a lot more challenging with NB starts since I'm used to the default 3 colonists starter pack with goodies.
That being said, I've never built the ship nor have I ever wanted to. However, hearing people talk about the final challenge before launch intrigues me so I might build my first ship once 1.0 stable is released.

[Crow_T]

I like permadeath- if I do any save-loading out of rage that colony feels tainted and I can't play it anymore. Usually the F-up is from my own poor planning anyways...

[DariusWolfe]

You play on permadeath, but you reload? These things don't compute. Do you impose your own permadeath rule that you sometimes break or do you have some way to reload even on permadeath when something goes stupid?

Sorry, I thought that was understood. Alt-F4. Hard quit the game, then restart. So long as you don't click Save and Quit, you'll revert back to the last save, which with default auto-save settings is no longer than 24 in-game hours.

[Teleblaster18]

The way I play entirely depends on my mood, and my own tolerance for setbacks and frustration at the moment that I'm playing.

Good/Neutral mood?  Give me the hand that's dealt...unless it's so egregiously unfair (and unfunny) that it strains credulity.  When I anticipate that a game mechanic has already pre-determined the outcome of an event, I re-load; not out of frustration, but to test "was this actually what happened?".  Very often, after 5-6 reloads of testing the exact same scenario, and I'm confident that I'm not facing an intentionally loaded deck, I'll go back to playing the first save with the undesirable outcome.

Stressful day?  Savescum City.  I want a healthy outlet to sublimate the frustrations of the day, rather than compound them with more frustration.  At that moment, I don't feel like I'm cheating myself out of a game experience; to the contrary, I feel like I'm actually enhancing my game experience by a continued sense of progress or accomplishment, where the day provided little of either.

Therein lay the answer to a question that I've seen asked by both TS and others "Why doesn't a player turn down the difficulty to reduce frustration?"  The answer to an extent from a psychological standpoint is this: "God doesn't put training wheels on his Harley".  No one wants to *feel* like an incompetent Demi-God, ever...even if that's exactly what they are, at the moment.  It cuts straight to larger psychological issues: self-schema validation, self-expectations (even in a vacuum), etc.  I've made note that almost nobody who's been asked that question will answer it in public.  The old cliche (in the days before GPS) of a man who will refuse to stop to ask for directions, even though he clearly doesn't know where he's going comes to mind.  Logic would dictate that he should...but ego and self-expectations kick in, and those are often far from rational.  I think it's the same phenomenon at work, to more than just a small degree.

Regarding that frustration factor: I think frustration is usually cut best by corresponding humor (or the extraodinary) to soften the blow.  I'll use the classic Mortal Kombat Fatalities as a good example:  the losing player has just been beaten by another human.  Frustration.  But who gives a shit: I've forgotten all about my failure in the game right now, because now I'm too busy watching my character's spine get ripped out.

[Scavenger]

As a kid I was always a save scummer.. A slight OCD and perfectionist Outlook made me have to do things just right haha.

But I eventually tore myself away from that style when I started roguelikes, and quickly fell in love with permadeath. Which I have never used the alt-f4 method in. Games are just far better when every action actually means something. And if that's not your place now, and you don't want a huge challenge, games usually have a very easy difficulty.

And this might be the best permadeath game I have seen! The best game for stories also. I honestly do wish it went the Dwarf Fortress route, and would endlessly be updated with new content to grow to the Dwarf Fortress scale of endless possibilities.

[Anniebenlen]

I love the building aspects of the game, not so interested in combat.  I'm a wimp and I scum save like a wimp and I play terribly and have a fantastic time doing so.  Don't judge me, I have fun.

[Gohihioh]

I pretty much always scum save all the time on my first playthrough on new Rimworld version. Since I want to discover and experience all stages of the game and I want to get to end game.

I pretty much never leave planet. I play for very long with having my own scenario in mind for each game.

My next playthroughs on version I already tested I save a lot but I load very rarly(either if some bullshit game mechanic or bug ruined game or if i got really attached to colony and i want to keep playing).

Sometimes I decide to play without saving at all and accept everything that game throws at me.

@edit
I also usually save and load since I never know how long till new version of the game so I don't want to start new playthrough if I expect new version to come out since I always start a new colony on new version. If the game will be completed and balanced properly I'll probably play a lot more without save and load.

[Gwaheer]

I can't stand a loss of colonists, it kills my enjoyment completely. I never play after loss of colonist, my general approach:

Loss of colonist to stupid missplay on my side, complete bullshit RNG (like meteorite smashing) or some glitch = load game.

Loss of colonist because my colony was not good enough to handle raid or event = lost game, start over.

Good for me, I enjoy early and mid stages of the game more than late game, because I restart a lot.

[mndfreeze]

I find myself being a mix of all the common playstyles we see here.  I came from playing dwarf fortress before even hearing about the idea of this being a 'story driven' kind of colony sim and that did actually really retard my game play in the early years.  I always felt like I was struggling to play a perfect game, not take losses, etc.  At first it was because I didn't understand mechanics well as expected in a complex game like this, then it was issues with RNG or numbers behind the scene I didn't see or understand.  It wasn't until later when I found some people playing on youtube and twitch doing hard scenarios like sea ice and stuff that I heard about the "story driven" part of the game and learned how people manage stuff.

I still rarely "beat" the game.  I've escaped on the ship maybe a handful of times, and never in 1.0 yet.    I always like playing more challenging scenarios as I find I get bored easy once the game just becomes a raid, rinse, repeat, ramp up and I'm mostly secure.  The beginning of the game is the most fun for me. 

I still get way to attached to my pawns, but I think part of that is because I always end up with small colonies due to being too picky with whom I take (I have past RW PTSD from some horrific spirals of doom all thanks to one bad recruit), or events thinning my down and feeling like they always target the one GOOD pawn I have.  I.e. if I only have one super constructor who happens to be my doctor, say I rerolled a LOT for a good naked brutality style start, that pawn is always the first to suddenly get mechanites, the plague, a shot out eye and a missing foot with infection all in the same few weeks. 

I mostly try to play on permadeath mode and have been known to ALT-F4 when I feel unfairly wrecked.  There have been times where I spend hours upon hours on a colony, almost getting stable, only to have one bad dice roll send me into oblivion and end the game when I feel I was playing the mechanics correctly and it shouldn't have happened.  I try NOT to do save scumming if possible, but that also depends on the play style I've been going with on that game.  Some times I'm just trying to build a cool base, other times I'm playing harder biomes and scenarios for challenge.  In the former I might save scum, the latter I try not to.

I think once the game goes final and is really balanced out I probably won't save scum much if ever anymore, but in all the iterations of the game I've played over the years there are definitely some balance points that can feel soul crushing to lose too.