No Save When Diseased???

[KillingMoon]

-- Warning - Rant Coming --

I like to play hardcore, for me it's the only way to play the game. Reloading when you're happy with a certain outcome isn't on for me. No saving when enemies are nearby - thumbs up.

But here's what happened yesterday: I caught troll fever from a mouse. That's 50% less strength, 50% less endurance. Not ideal, something that needs to be sorted at some stage, but hardly an emergency. I didn't have a potion on me, but you never know what you might find...
So I just played on, chopping down decent numbers of enemies enemies without resting... I didn't feel much discomfort from my disease. I actually forgot about, until I wanted to end my session... Rule violation! Cannot save while diseased! Aaaargh!!!... Must I now go to the shop and buy a potion just so that I'm able to end my session???

This is not right! Even when diseased I should have the option to play on, even play half the game with it if I would so want to! Please, change this, Basilisk Wrangler, because this is surely not what you intended, right?

[Krafen]

How can you complain about an option you chose to apply?

[KillingMoon]

From an emotional point of view, I can!

Having thought about it, slightly more rationally, I can see the sense of the rule now: if you would be able to save/reload while cursed, diseased or poisened, then this would allow you to replay the moment you got the affection and avoid getting it on a replay.

I take back my rant with an apology to Basilisk Wrangler; I see the need for the rule now.

[Apoteos]

I don´t know. While it certainly is something of a discomfort, being unable to save when diseased really makes the game "hardcore" instead of just "hard but not to bad". Not only is it hardcore when it comes to game difficulty, but also when it comes to management. Think of the "save points" in other games, which doesn´t exist in Eschalon. The inability to save in certain conditions provides an "element of save point" to Eschalon, which makes you unable to save when experiencing difficulties in the middle of wilderness (unless properly supplied with potions and other important survival gear).

When low on HP, the rule makes the game more challenging by unabling you to save and then trying out different strategies to survive. When diseased, the rule does exactly the same since, by most cases, diseased is more or less like having low HP: you are in trouble, and shouldn´t get unlimited chances to survive. Therefore, I feel this rule is legitimate and not uncalled for. After all +5% experience is worth a LOT of trouble

EDIT: Oh, I guess you argued against your own statement before I finished writing

[Antigrav]

I don't know (as I have a Mac), but it seems to me that saving your game while diseased is harder mode. Because now you have no way to wimp out of it: your saved game is diseased. If you wanted to play in "safe and prudent" mode, wouldn't you be happy to have a game saved to just before you caught the curse/poison/cooties?

[Apoteos]

Valid point, but I believe saving your game while diseased (if rules allow) while not in immediate isn´t so much about game diffiulty as a bad call from the players side, unless a cure is close at hand of course. However, if you are diseased and trying to get back to town, you might want to save in a different save slot just before crossing that field filled with those snow wolves you didn´t defeat earlier. I think the inability to do so is what makes the game harder. If you are not experiencing difficulties from the disease however, this rule might seem a bit odd, since diseases are meant to be a hindrance.

[KillingMoon]

@ Antigrav; first; if you would just save your game using quicksave (F2) all the time, then you would indeed always be overwriting a previous save. But if you're using the slots for manual saves then you would have saves of several moments in the game and you can always go back if you would want to.
I have a save of somewhere before I got diseased, but I rather would have been able to make a save after that and continue play from that one. I accept the disease, it's a part of the game, I want the full experience of the game and I see no point in having diseases and stuff in the game while avoiding them through save/reload.

The games that I've played mostly the last couple of years had seed preservation as default, and the players' communities of those games rejected going back and changing a decision.
The concept of save/reload to change something is so alien to me that the possibility didn't cross my mind. But now that I'm realising the possibility I also understand the rule better.

Antigrav, I'm not sure when exactly the Mac version comes out, very very soon, I think, but prepare for something good!

@Apoteos; I was indeed not experiencing much bother from this disease, still putting down enemies by the score, so this contributed to me not understanding the point of the rule.

[Apoteos]

Glad you realise the supreme mind of our favourite basilisk, Killingmoon

Anyway, what kind of character were you playing? Troll fever is always a bother to me, even as a mage, since it leaves me encumbered

[KillingMoon]

Oh, it was still extremely early in the game. An earlier attempt I had to abandon because of corrupted save files.
On this second attempt I was still running around my starting area with this character:

Eventually I'm trying to make him a rogueish type, but I picked Swords first to help him deal with the enemies in the early part of the game. Divination came free with this character. Hm... I should have bumped up dexterity more, for a rogue.
Among my freebies from the early chests came the Divine Heal spell and the FleshBot spell, not miserable. You can imagine that with that in my pocket I didn't have any problem with the early encounters in the game, disease or no disease.
A cure was at hand from the shop in Eastwillow, but I thought it was more clever to deal with all the mice first before taking the medicine, otherwise I ran the risk of needing a second bottle. Yeah, I could have stayed ranged, of course, with FleshBot, but chose the reckless approach. Didn't get away with it.

[Arcanfix]

I actually find the game easier with this rule intact.

It disables the fact that you're dying. If I save when I'm near death but can't be bothered continuing, when I reload, I might be too far or forgetful to heal myself and die.

[CrazyBernie]

Hmmm.... what if your savegames became diseased, and were able to infect other savegames..... now that would be hardcore!!

[Apoteos]

Virus mode, play Eschalon while your harddrive does its best to erase itself My Norton would certainly mind me downloading that version of book II

[CrazyBernie]

Well, the Mac release is due out in a few days....

[Randomizer]

Get back before you infect my game.