Do you resurrect or start over?

[epatton]

Hi, I was just wondering what you guys typically do - resurrect your character after dying, or start fresh every time?

I am playing a level 50 Dwarf preist that has been resurrected about a few hundred times at this point. I'm on L88, not sure if I should dive down and just try for the endgame battle, or hang out waiting for a 9-9 or 8-9 level to try for better artifacts. I'm kind of getting sick of resurrecting all the time, and I wonder if the game is more fun if I tried to play way more carefully and go for a clean run instead. That approach may take a couple years to get back to the level I'm at now, but maybe it's worth it?

What do you guys think?

[Sky]

oh, i resurrect.

[Derakon]

Playing permadeath will give you less frequent, but more memorable lessons. It's easy to play fast and loose if you know that death has no real consequences. Not a bad way to tour the game, but not a good way to get good at the game.

I don't think there's any shame in playing with permadeath turned off when you're learning the game, but I'd also encourage you to step away from that crutch as soon as you can.

[Pondlife]

I normally play with permadeath. But I then generate a new character based on the old one because I'm comfortable with the race and class.

On the occasions when I've cheated death by restoring an old save file, I've found I just die again soon after. It seems that permadeath forces me to learn lessons, and put in place the appropriate mitigating strategies to avoid making the same mistake again.

[petvan]

Hi, I was just wondering what you guys typically do - resurrect your character after dying, or start fresh every time?

I am playing a level 50 Dwarf preist that has been resurrected about a few hundred times at this point. I'm on L88, not sure if I should dive down and just try for the endgame battle, or hang out waiting for a 9-9 or 8-9 level to try for better artifacts. I'm kind of getting sick of resurrecting all the time, and I wonder if the game is more fun if I tried to play way more carefully and go for a clean run instead. That approach may take a couple years to get back to the level I'm at now, but maybe it's worth it?

What do you guys think?

Dumb Q but are you talking about reloading from a save file that you protected or just starting over with the same character settings? I do the latter but haven't bothered with the former in years.

[fph]

Why the need to mess around with manually copying savefiles? Isn't there a "cheat death" option right inside the game?

[Sideways]

Hi, I was just wondering what you guys typically do - resurrect your character after dying, or start fresh every time?

I am playing a level 50 Dwarf preist that has been resurrected about a few hundred times at this point. I'm on L88, not sure if I should dive down and just try for the endgame battle, or hang out waiting for a 9-9 or 8-9 level to try for better artifacts. I'm kind of getting sick of resurrecting all the time, and I wonder if the game is more fun if I tried to play way more carefully and go for a clean run instead. That approach may take a couple years to get back to the level I'm at now, but maybe it's worth it?

What do you guys think?

It's definitely worth it to learn to play properly and accept death as final. Way back in the day, I used to be an evil save-scummer; and not only do I enjoy the game much more now that I'm playing it properly, but I'm winning a lot more games cleanly than I ever did by cheating. In my save-scumming days I usually died so many times I'd eventually get tired and give up before the end; there wasn't enough incentive for me to learn from my mistakes and figure out how not to die.

Like Derakon said, though, cheating death does let you meet the monsters (and items) and get a feel for what they can do; and while that's not what you're supposed to do (what you're supposed to do is learn by trial and error, and by probing every new monster you meet), it's no worse than using spoilers, which countless players have resorted to over the years.

[kandrc]

It's not entirely clear if the OP is asking about the cheat death option or the -w (resurrect dead character) switch. I haven't played with the former in almost 20 years. The latter, I do use on rare occasions:

1. When I die with un-IDed items, have something that may have been interesting, and forget to look at my inventory before closing. In this case, I'll ressurect, examine the inventory, and suicide.
2. When I'm playing nightlies and lose a good character to a bug. In this case I'll ressurect, continue, and consider it a clean game.

[epatton]

Dumb Q but are you talking about reloading from a save file that you protected or just starting over with the same character settings? I do the latter but haven't bothered with the former in years.

I'm talking about restarting Angband with the -w flag, so yeah reloading a save file.

[epatton]

Why the need to mess around with manually copying savefiles? Isn't there a "cheat death" option right inside the game?

I never have to do much messing around:

angband -uCalath_Dwarf_Priest -w

and voila.

[Pete Mack]

I play with permadeath now. But there is one kind of save file scumming I highly recommend for learning the ropes. After you can reliably get to dl 40 without dying, make a backup save file at around DL 45. Then when you die, restart from level 45. Keep doing this until you reach around DL 75 (which is functionally equivalent to DL 98.)
As for DL 88 with a CL 50 character: what are you waiting for? Go win already. A lot of those deaths you suffered are from the carelessness that comes from slow play.

[Egavactip]

Hi, I was just wondering what you guys typically do - resurrect your character after dying, or start fresh every time?

I am playing a level 50 Dwarf preist that has been resurrected about a few hundred times at this point. I'm on L88, not sure if I should dive down and just try for the endgame battle, or hang out waiting for a 9-9 or 8-9 level to try for better artifacts. I'm kind of getting sick of resurrecting all the time, and I wonder if the game is more fun if I tried to play way more carefully and go for a clean run instead. That approach may take a couple years to get back to the level I'm at now, but maybe it's worth it?

What do you guys think?

I "resurrected," if that's what you want to call it, while learning the game, because I wanted to be able to profit from my mistakes without having to take the time to play the game all over again up to that point.

Once I felt I understood the game, I stopped messing around and started playing it straight and have never "resurrected" a character since. If I die, I die. Since that time, I've gotten around 43 wins out of 92 attempts, so I die less often than I thought I would. The major reason for me dying is impatience; I get careless and move too fast.