Remaining Exploits and Abusive Bugs Discussion

[thorgi]

To preface this post, I want to say that TOME is my first roguelike beyond The Pit.

I wanted to bring up savescumming, as it's referred to, or abusing the save system of ToME, and didn't know if this thread was the relevant one to bring it up in. When you exit the game using the in-game method, it automatically saves your char, preventing you going back to an older save if something didn't go your way. You can get around this by ending the task (ctrl-alt-del), which forces the game to exit without saving. Obviously when you die, it saves, so it can't save you post-death, but every player has been in a situation where there is literally nothing you can do to save yourself from dying next turn, and this would allow you to "roll back time." It's an auto-win for escorts, and probably able to be abused in many other ways.

The main problem is I lack a programming perspective to know whether or not this is fixable. Like a failsafe where it prevents the program from being terminated until a save is made. Or storing any relevant info as part of the program closing procedures and committing them to a save on next boot.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

It certainly shouldn't be changed, given that there are bugs requiring a force-close.

I think very few people actually abuse this in tome.

[SageAcrin]

It's not too hard to make failsafe mechanisms.

It is too hard to make ones that don't annoy people, though. And the more effective the mechanism, the more it annoys people.

For example, you could just forbid manual saving, forcing people to use area transitions to save instead. But, that is pretty annoying.

If you're specifically asking if there's a way to override force quitting, or to force a save before forcequit...well, there might be, though I doubt it. But even if there is, that could cause serious problems in the case of bugs, I would imagine. What if the game was caught in a LUA error? Would your save just be forfeit, if it successfully saved? Could you even force quit in that situation, or would it wait forever for a save that would never come, if it wasn't saved?

Some fixes aren't worth it.

People can always boot up outside cheating mechanisms, too, and those are intensely hard to reliably stop and require something along the lines of rootkit levels of security. Only MMOs even bother, IIRC.

Besides, one can reasonably argue that ToME has two failsafes against it; A mode that reproduces the effect most people want out of save scumming(Exploration's infinite lives) for a small donation fee, and a vault to store all your save scummed characters, so that anyone who knows what they're doing can eyeroll at the idea that you won legit.

[Faeryan]

Save scumming seems to be the age old thing. Been there since the dawn of time and will stay there for at least some time. For me ToME is more about personal achievements, not the bragging rights, so if people save scum I don't mind.
I used to do that with Nethack and Adom back in the days but it took quite a lot away from the game and reduced the lifetime of the game for me.

On the technical side I think if it were simple to do it would be there already but for some reason it isn't. Fiddling around with saved games often ruins things. Some server save might work in theory, but what if some power failure happens? Your save might be gone. Save scumming is basically self-inflicted power failure.

Sure things could be done like in many mmorpg games in which the state is saved all the time. Sure DG would do that too if someone else would cover the expenses.

[thorgi]

Yeah, I figured there wouldn't be a viable counter to savescumming. I stumbled upon it myself on accident. Doing an escort, it refused to wait and pathed off into the arms of some lovely bears, so I ragequit. Windows hung up a bit, so I closed the task directly. Came back later, and I was at the start of the level again with the escort alive. I'm new to the genre but with the way the genre is, it doesn't surprise me that this is a labeled and common "cheat" in roguelikes.

I abused it on one char, then found myself feeling dirty and avoided it on subsequent chars. Also felt dirty when I used an unlocker and wiped my account of chars, unlocks, and achievements... Lol. Ah well. Fresh start.

[Doctornull]

This game is open-source, and very easy to mod.

If you have the will to scum, you can and will be able to scum, and that's fine with me. I have enough willpower to not scum.

[thorgi]

This game is open-source, and very easy to mod.

If you have the will to scum, you can and will be able to scum, and that's fine with me. I have enough willpower to not scum.

Indeed. Someone in chat inquired about why Mindslayers began with two greatswords as opposed to mindstars and a greatsword or some combination. The reply was "Why not mod them in?" But even that makes me feel dirty. Something about modifying the gameplay in any way that could be argued as beneficial or deviating from the original content. With that being said I fully see myself trying to make a class or two once I'm done with Normal. I've been wanting to dabble into code and LUA is pretty easy from what I've heard. Comparatively, anyways.

[Doctornull]

Indeed. Someone in chat inquired about why Mindslayers began with two greatswords as opposed to mindstars and a greatsword or some combination. The reply was "Why not mod them in?" But even that makes me feel dirty. Something about modifying the gameplay in any way that could be argued as beneficial or deviating from the original content. With that being said I fully see myself trying to make a class or two once I'm done with Normal. I've been wanting to dabble into code and LUA is pretty easy from what I've heard. Comparatively, anyways.

Yeah, beat the game.

Then play with the Adventurer class for a bit, and then jump into modding.

Making new classes really adds to the replayability value of the game.

[thorgi]

Indeed. Someone in chat inquired about why Mindslayers began with two greatswords as opposed to mindstars and a greatsword or some combination. The reply was "Why not mod them in?" But even that makes me feel dirty. Something about modifying the gameplay in any way that could be argued as beneficial or deviating from the original content. With that being said I fully see myself trying to make a class or two once I'm done with Normal. I've been wanting to dabble into code and LUA is pretty easy from what I've heard. Comparatively, anyways.

Yeah, beat the game.

Then play with the Adventurer class for a bit, and then jump into modding.

Making new classes really adds to the replayability value of the game.

That's the plan. I've only been playing for about a week. Highest I've gotten was my first and only Solipsist (Dream Forge spec) which made it to 39.

I have mixed feelings about the Adventurer, mainly because everyone calls it op. Honestly I'll probably use it to create my own concept classes instead of min-maxing.

Regarding class creation, I'll just think about something that I wish was in the game or something I think is an interesting concept.

[Doctornull]

Playing 1.0.5d right now, and the Aether Beam nerf (can't place in walls) prohibits some previously legit uses, like being able to put one in a long hallway of enemies and have it stick around for its full duration.

The problem is that any enemy who steps on the Aether Beam "trap" instantly disarms it, ending the spell.

Maybe make it NOT a trap, so it doesn't care if mooks walk on it or not?

This is still an issue in 1.0.5e, any thoughts on how to fix?

I do like that it's not exploitable via through-wall placement, but I dislike how this nerf impacts legitimate uses (especially long hallways).