Delighted to see save scumming fall out of fashion with streamers

[micah6vs8]

I have a simple formula for streamers, as one who is entertained by high quality EU4 play.

> Risk is entertainment. Save scumming negates risk.

If I see you save scum, I am gone. I don't think I am alone. Might be good to keep in mind as a good business practice. Cheers.

 

[Deliberus]

all have their preferences I guess but learning the game like this without save scumming is difficult and I'm not exactly sure why streamers should be exceptions...

 

[Vin55]

Not really about risks but I agree, that some take it over the toop especially those insane oriat wc runs are just so damn dumb. But I think that if you have a 666 ruler aged 20 and he dies that is also just stupid and I dont agree with the game, or you have a 000 heir after kicking 3 210 heirs just prior with two 534 rulers or something the like. Or just some start as Byzantium where you really need to have the optimal outcome so using it sometimes but not always is totally ok. But ecessive for every bad outcome is too much.

 

[Lars_Schneller]

I totally agree. It is a good sign to me when the streamer says "for this playthrough we won't be reloading saves." Risk and possibility to fail with no cheating ability is element of entertainment for me. I usually don't reload saves, sometimes I do. But for me to find a valid reason to watch something, it must be entertaining, which means challenging and it must entail streamer investing a bit of thinking into decisions. When you lose a war, it is much more fun to see a streamer bounce back from unfavorable position then to watch him reload his previous advantageous position.

 

[Kuantum]

What about a Ryukyu? You can't do a unscummed Ryukyu... , well, maybe Florryworry can...

But yeah.. I even did a C# app to manage all the scum (because I'm trying a Ryukyu)

Very useful, in case you do a wrong peace deal.. stupidly annex someone with 3 vassals... lose 20K to naval attrition...

 

[iClipse]

What about a Ryukyu? You can't do a unscummed Ryukyu... , well, maybe Florryworry can...

Sure you can.

 

[Zaddy]

I would rather not see a plan get trashed because the streamer misclicked something or made a peacedeal wrong. Also extremely silly RNG (my 20 year old ruler died, etc) I think is fair play for savescumming. Your mileage will obviously vary though.

 

[micah6vs8]

I am surprised there is any negative reaction to my statement. Isn't the reality of the situation better then artificiality? People cite misclicks or fringe cases as viable reasons for artificiality. Isn't every plan subject to the blessing or curse of the Fates? Isn't every corner, every nook and cranny, of history filled with this lesson? Including our own life? Why do we watch players play chess? Or football? Or music? Or EU4?

I am afraid that some have made the Perfect the enemy of the Good. That is a closed learning circle, with no or little gaining of competency. It is the hard road.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

I really don't like save scumming and have almost never done it in EU4 or any other game. I was shocked to see some Twitch/YouTube EU4 players that I respect do it.

However, I was having the world's fun with my Byzantium save when my heir then ruler died and I got stuck with a Habsburg. He was a 1/0/1, but that's not why I reloaded. I didn't want a Byzantine Habsburg. For me this is beyond cursed and ruined the roleplaying experience I was having, so I reloaded and ended up with a 6/5/5 Greek. I didn't feel guilty for that. I'd already gotten Basileus.

I'd feel I cheated if I save scummed for an achievement, which is something I never have, or never will do. Hell, I even feel guilty when my game legitimately crashes!

 

[Reman]

While risk is entertaining, a lot of people watch streamers because they can pull off crazy feats or otherwise break the game. EU4's UI isn't the greatest at the margins, so losing significant progress because the UI said something that wasn't true feels more like remedying a bug than "cheating". Likewise, it can be frustrating to lose a lot of progress due to a simple misclick, and oftentimes making up for said progress in-game would amount to doing the same actions again, so savescumming is just faster.

That said, savescumming when your 6/4/4 heir dies at 45 is less defensible. You got bad RNG, but this game has tons of RNG, that mostly cancels out over the long-term, so...

 

[darth254]

I am surprised there is any negative reaction to my statement. Isn't the reality of the situation better then artificiality? People cite misclicks or fringe cases as viable reasons for artificiality. Isn't every plan subject to the blessing or curse of the Fates? Isn't every corner, every nook and cranny, of history filled with this lesson? Including our own life? Why do we watch players play chess? Or football? Or music? Or EU4?

I am afraid that some have made the Perfect the enemy of the Good. That is a closed learning circle, with no or little gaining of competency. It is the hard road.

I generally agree. I don't consider it "save scumming" if it is due legit wonky bugs, glitches, crashes, etc.

but yeah, doing stuff to selectively maximize luck is asterisk-worthy. "blah blah blah was unfair" .... play through it.

 

[Blk82]

A lot of mechanics do force a save-scum, for example, ruler death. The player shouldn't stand idle for up to 15 years just because of one bad RNG event that the player has not control over.

 

[Zaddy]

I am surprised there is any negative reaction to my statement. Isn't the reality of the situation better then artificiality? People cite misclicks or fringe cases as viable reasons for artificiality. Isn't every plan subject to the blessing or curse of the Fates? Isn't every corner, every nook and cranny, of history filled with this lesson? Including our own life? Why do we watch players play chess? Or football? Or music? Or EU4?

I am afraid that some have made the Perfect the enemy of the Good. That is a closed learning circle, with no or little gaining of competency. It is the hard road.

Chess has no RNG or lying or silly UI that results in mistakes.

Never cared for sports.

Not sure how music is really related honestly.

I watch EU4 to see someone doing something unique. It's more annoying to see the game getting in the way of that by putting the streamer into a regency or having the UI mislead them. I do not understand (what I presume to be) your argument that working around the garbage UI or extreme RNG to be any form of learning. The only thing you "learn" from getting a regency was "have better luck next time."

 

[makaramus]

Sure you can.

you can but its so difficult and risky you have very high chance of restarting.

 

[SwordofKhaine123]

I just started playing, and from what I've seen on Youtube the game is quite an investment in terms of time. Personally I think it's okay to reload saves if that means you don't have to restart the entire playthrough.

 

[Forderz]

Listen, when the infertile queen of castile loses her heir at 59, I'm getting the claim throne. O don't care if she lives to 72 and has 7 kids before that, I'm getting the damn PU

 

[Vaximillian]

Oh look, a bird!

 

[iClipse]

The only time I savescum is if the UI literally lies to me, or if it's a blatant misclick. I use the letter 'c' a lot to confirm events. If I however accidently accept an automatic peace offer from the primary war participant just because it was hidden between the other 50 events I received that day, then, yeah. I savescum.

However, nothing ever related to rng. Your 6/6/6 dies at age 20? Tough luck. Your siege is at progress 99% while the opponent sieged 3 forts in the same time with less siege ability? Could have planned for it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Very different opinion on OP's take depending on whether the reason for reloading is to pursue better RNG/negate bad RNG, vs the game lying to the player/undoing a bug etc.

I can respect preferring not to watch the former. I do not respect lumping the latter in with savescumming, however.

 

[wielkiciensteam]

Average EU4 campaign takes me something like 10-15 hours (up to 1650-1700) depending on the tag difficulty. Having my campaign utterly ruined by game in the mid of the campaign and not save-scamming is like wasting several hours of my life. And I really play this game to enjoy my time, not waste it. My main reason for save scamming is probably loosing PU's - just recently my 30 yo ruler died 3 year after forcing PU on other tag and I was on the way to improve relations to positive just so that they wouldn't break away after monarch death. I was like -10 when he died and lost PU so just 3 more months and I would be ok. I understand that this is RNG etc. but c'man - 300k men lost to nothing?
UI bugs and misclicks are also understandable reasons to save-scam. This is a game that we should enjoy - there is a difference between rushing unprepared for war or taking too much AE and facing coalition and thing that could easily be avoided if the game worked differently or if the player would be more concentrated.
I sometimes save-scam too much and most of that time I end up leaving my campaign even if I'm close to achievement - it just doesn't feel fun anymore if I know that the victory was achieved because of "cheating".
So I guess everyone should have his own moral code and alone decide whether it's ok to cheat or not, even in Ironman games (did you know that WeMod lets you enter console commands in Ironman mode so you can even WC in 1444? Possibility is here - it's up to you to decide whether you'll use it). It's your game, your time, your money well spent of dozens of DLCs. Your rules. And all anti-cheat/anti-save-scam crusaders should just go and play and enjoy the game the way they like, not teach others.