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[Hellbent]

Hi,
I just started playing DoomRL last night. Pretty fun! I play lots of Angband, so that's what I'll compare it to.
When you save a game in Angband, the game saves. That's it.

When I found a secret room in DoomRL I found stairs in there, too, so I saved the game. Then it prompts me to exit the game????? Why not just save the game? So I reload it and I'm in a new level. No longer in the secret room I found, which I hadn't explored yet. Pretty annoying and discouraging for new players. Why can't the game just save like normal?

Otherwise, very nice game.

[Sereg]

Saves aren't meant as a backup, but as a way to exit the game temporarily. The pace of DoomRL is a lot faster then most Roguelikes, and games are usually measured in mere hours if not minutes, whereas a single game of something like Angband might take place over days, weeks, or even months.

Most DoomRL games, with the exception of Ao100/AAo666 challenge games, will never need to be saved at all - you simply play them through to completion in a single session.

Edit: It's worth noting that the Nightmare! difficulty mode forbids saving entirely, so even a game of AAo666 - where you have to travel through 666 full DoomRL levels without dying to win - must be completed in a single session. I've tried that before and when I need to take a break, I just keep the game open and running in the background =P saving really isn't necessary here ;)

[yaflhdztioxo]

Saves in DoomRL only happen between level transitions (so by saving on a staircase you automatically descend--sounds like you missed that detail, maybe it could be made more explicit?)
It's been suggested before, and there's merit to the idea.  In my mind save scumming a new level isn't much different from save scumming the original level.  The no N! saving is solely to deprive save scumming--a bit on the overkill side but nobody said N! was fair.  Adding a mid-level save just makes things that much more flexible for everyone else.

But like Sereg said DoomRL is played quickly, and there's a bit of charm to the current method.  Also changing that would mean more work and testing on a feature that most people probably consider 'good enough'.  The work-to-value ratio isn't in this issue's favor; if someone outside the dev team does it and submits a pull request it might get in but I doubt anyone will push hard for it.