Games With Single Slot (Auto) Savegames

[RyoScar]

I always get annoyed when Pokemon games only had one save slot, because if you've played through the whole game, it stops you starting again beacyse you'll have to delete your whole completed profile if you want to resave your new game.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

There is no reason not to have multiple save slots.

There is one actually. To stop save-scumming. To stop the player reloading a save over and over again until they get their desired outcome. It gives weight to the gameplay. Dieing in Dark Souls is a big deal because you might actually lose stuff if you're not careful.

Obviously not every game needs that though. I don't know about Bioshock Infinite but Tomb Raider can't be abused with save-scumming, so I don't see the point of only having one save in that.

Who gives a shit if it can be abused? It's a single player game, let the person playing the game to whatever the hell they want. If they want to ruin their own experience by save scumming then let them do it, it's their own choice.

That's like saying developers should put an unlock all achievements button in their games for people who don't want to bother getting them normally. The developers put these choices and hard parts in for a reason, what is the point in having a very hard choice if you are going to allow people to say 'Let me see both and then decide.'
Why on earth would a dev put in effort to let people play their games in a way they didn't want it to be played?

1. Who honestly gives a fuck about achievements? I mean really, would anyone not buy a game solely because it didn't have achievements in it?

2. What if you just want to have individual saves because sometimes you just want to replay your favorite part without having to slog through the game to get to it? Who the hell are you to limit what people can do with their game when it doesn't affect you? Who the hell are the developers to limit what you can do with your game as long as you paid them for it?

People are welcome to mod it in themselves once they have paid for it, but why on earth would a developer put in extra effort just so people can play the game in a way they didn't intend it to be played?
People seem to think that dev's come second to the players in how their game should be created. The dev can do whatever the hell they want, if the player doesn't like it then they don't have to buy the game.

What if you just want to have individual saves because sometimes you just want to replay your favorite part without having to slog through the game to get to it?

It works in some games sure, but again, in a lot of cases it takes away the impact of choices or having a bad run. If I was a dev I would not add a feature like this to my game if it might as well have been an undo button when the player makes a mistake.
It would be nice to be able to replay certain areas, but short of adding a 'Memory replay' feature or something it just takes too much away from other parts of the game.

 

[bificommander]

I'll just be happy if no game, ever, does what Rainbow Six: Vegas did: A single save slot with autosave. Oh, not a single save slot PER NEW GAME. No, just one slot. If your brother'd like to play too, he'd better wait untill you played through the entire campaign, cause he can only continue where you saved or erase your save and start over.

The best part was that there was a level-select option, that let you play any level you'd previously reached... but if you did, the game immediately forgot all your progress beyond that level. Whichever level you decided to play was as far as you'd gotten into the campaign as far as the game was concerned.

Fucking Ubisoft

 

[Tien Shen]

Dragon's Dogma so much!! It's made even worse when the frigging game autosaves for you at certain points. Once I handed in a quest only for me to find out that completing it meant automatically failing another quest which I didn't know had to be completed before. I tried to reload a recent save (not an inn checkpoint) only to find that the game had autosaved right after I handed in that quest, and the inn checkpoint was too far behind. I was like "BRGNNNNNNNNNNN HNNGGGGNNN! WTF IS THIS CRAP!"

 

[King Aragorn]

Dragon's Dogma has this. Fucking hate it in that game. A single save file in an open world RPG which has quests with multiple endings! No! Terrible!

I had one quest where I had to go around collecting evidence for a trial, and depending on what I gathered the verdict would be either guilty or innocent. If he was innocent he rewards me, if guilty then he gets thrown in the dungeon and his family hate me. What's more, it was timed to three in-game days. I collected all the evidence to make sure he came out innocent, and waited for the three days for the trial. What I didn't realise is that I had to go and take the evidence to someone! And they decide to hold the trial right outside the inn. So when I woke up from my night in the inn to pass time, which also saves, I can't deliver my evidence, so he comes out guilty. I have to walk out the door, and I [/i]have[/i] to trigger the trial. After that I get shit for being lazy and not doing the quest! I fucking ran around everywhere trying to gather information! That pissed me off more than anything else in any game for a long while.

So yeah. All games should have multiple save slots. If not for stuff like that, then for things like glitches where you can possibly break your game through sequence breaking, or if you get stuck somewhere you can't get out of.

Now this is how using one slot autosaves can go wrong. Manual saves, auto saves, multiple save slots and so on are all heavily dependent on what type of game. RPG's, specially the extremely open non-linear ones need to support multiple save slots. I've seen the argument of ''it adds weight'' to the gameplay, but hell, it's YOUR choice to reload that save or not.

 

[Cowabungaa]

That's my issue with it. I like being able to save and quit at my leisure, but if I can't at least give me a more than one save profile to work with.

Agreed. Now if I want to show my partner the amazing intro I'll have to restart my entire game. That annoys me greatly.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

I like single saves because it allows my skill to shine through

Manual saves are just cheating and while i concede that it's nice to have a save near some favourite parts of games a better option would be like Hitman bloodmoney where you can go back and replay levels once completing them. Being able to save whenever makes the player worse at the game and makes the game ultimately an inevitable completion.

You do something slightly wrong and bang, reload, it never happened. Lost a little too much health, reload, it never happened. I think they should put in negative achievements where you can see who uses dodgy tactics to cheat their way past the challenge as opposed to doing it the way it was intended.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

Save scumming? Screw that "defense." Manual saves are the thing saving a game from being a fucking NIGHTMARE.

You mean nightmare as in challenging?

 

[Old Father Eternity]

Personally, as some have already pointed out, it is more of an issue of not being able to quit and continue whenever you so see fit and of course negating the possibility for having multiple games running in parallel, whether it be a different type of character in rpg's or simply your siblings/friends wanting to play as well.
And yes, also the fact that games can glitch out and that can severely hamper ones enjoyment because hours worth of meticulous planning goes to hell due to a crash.

Save scumming, meh, too each their own, it is a single player game for crying out loud.

 

[Orthus]

Save scumming? Screw that "defense." Manual saves are the thing saving a game from being a fucking NIGHTMARE.

You mean nightmare as in challenging?

didn't know screen stuttering = challenging

 

[Mikejames]

Agreed. Now if I want to show my partner the amazing intro I'll have to restart my entire game. That annoys me greatly.

It's awkward when I resolve to delete a profile to introduce the game to someone only for them to quickly lose interest.
"I gave up my pre-finale save for yooouuu!!"

I like single saves because it allows my skill to shine through

Manual saves are just cheating and while i concede that it's nice to have a save near some favourite parts of games a better option would be like Hitman bloodmoney where you can go back and replay levels once completing them. Being able to save whenever makes the player worse at the game and makes the game ultimately an inevitable completion.

Games shouldn't be an inevitable completion?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

There is no reason not to have multiple save slots.

There is one actually. To stop save-scumming. To stop the player reloading a save over and over again until they get their desired outcome. It gives weight to the gameplay. Dieing in Dark Souls is a big deal because you might actually lose stuff if you're not careful.

Obviously not every game needs that though. I don't know about Bioshock Infinite but Tomb Raider can't be abused with save-scumming, so I don't see the point of only having one save in that.

Who gives a shit if it can be abused? It's a single player game, let the person playing the game to whatever the hell they want. If they want to ruin their own experience by save scumming then let them do it, it's their own choice.

That's like saying developers should put an unlock all achievements button in their games for people who don't want to bother getting them normally. The developers put these choices and hard parts in for a reason, what is the point in having a very hard choice if you are going to allow people to say 'Let me see both and then decide.'
Why on earth would a dev put in effort to let people play their games in a way they didn't want it to be played?

1. Who honestly gives a fuck about achievements? I mean really, would anyone not buy a game solely because it didn't have achievements in it?

2. What if you just want to have individual saves because sometimes you just want to replay your favorite part without having to slog through the game to get to it? Who the hell are you to limit what people can do with their game when it doesn't affect you? Who the hell are the developers to limit what you can do with your game as long as you paid them for it?

People are welcome to mod it in themselves once they have paid for it, but why on earth would a developer put in extra effort just so people can play the game in a way they didn't intend it to be played?
People seem to think that dev's come second to the players in how their game should be created. The dev can do whatever the hell they want, if the player doesn't like it then they don't have to buy the game.

What if you just want to have individual saves because sometimes you just want to replay your favorite part without having to slog through the game to get to it?

It works in some games sure, but again, in a lot of cases it takes away the impact of choices or having a bad run. If I was a dev I would not add a feature like this to my game if it might as well have been an undo button when the player makes a mistake.
It would be nice to be able to replay certain areas, but short of adding a 'Memory replay' feature or something it just takes too much away from other parts of the game.

It takes nothing away from the game. If it takes something away from the game for you, then it's a feature you don't have to use. No one is forcing you to undo decisions that you've made, no one is forcing YOU to exploit the save system. And if someone else wants to exploit the save system then it's not taking anything away from them either, because they don't value having to live with the decisions they make, or their mistakes. Nothing gets taken away from the game by adding this, but a lot of control is being taken away from the player by removing it.

 

[4RM3D]

Tomb Raider has 3 save slots. At least on PC.

But the game auto saves in 1 slot only. The other 2 slots are for new playthroughs.

*snip*

Ah, that explains it. Still not an ideal solution, though.

...To stop save-scumming...

Well, with Dark Souls it kinda makes sense. However that is not the case with most games. Pretty much this:

Who gives a shit if it can be abused? It's a single player game, let the person playing the game to whatever the hell they want. If they want to ruin their own experience by save scumming then let them do it, it's their own choice.

Bioshock Infinite only has one save slot? Is it like that on PC too?

Yup, I've played it on the PC. One save slot for each playthrough.

There is no reason not to have multiple save slots.

There is one actually. To stop save-scumming. To stop the player reloading a save over and over again until they get their desired outcome. It gives weight to the gameplay. Dieing in Dark Souls is a big deal because you might actually lose stuff if you're not careful.

Obviously not every game needs that though. I don't know about Bioshock Infinite but Tomb Raider can't be abused with save-scumming, so I don't see the point of only having one save in that.

Who gives a shit if it can be abused? It's a single player game, let the person playing the game to whatever the hell they want. If they want to ruin their own experience by save scumming then let them do it, it's their own choice.

That's like saying developers should put an unlock all achievements button in their games for people who don't want to bother getting them normally. The developers put these choices and hard parts in for a reason, what is the point in having a very hard choice if you are going to allow people to say 'Let me see both and then decide.'
Why on earth would a dev put in effort to let people play their games in a way they didn't want it to be played?

You can't compare it with achievements, because achievements don't change the functionality of the game. And achievements are meant especially for people who are either perfectionists or like to do extra stuff.

 

[NearLifeExperience]

I too, hate this A LOT. There is literally NO reason for this, and it's just player unfriendly. What if the one savegame you worked so very hard for becomes corrupted? For the love of the industry, game developers, stop this madness!

 

[CloudAtlas]

Tomb Raider has 3 save slots. At least on PC.

But the game auto saves in 1 slot only. The other 2 slots are for new playthroughs.

No, you can tell the game to auto save in any of the 3 slots. If you change the auto save slot, the previous earlier save is kept.

 

[Darknacht]

Its how the developers want the game to be experienced, if you don't like it you are welcome to mod it so that there is more that one save slot(or, if you don't like mods, just backup your save file when you think you might screwup something).
Also single save slot games have existed on the PC for a long time, in the '80s some games even modified game files as you played so if you wanted to start fresh you had to reinstall the game.

 

[4RM3D]

Tomb Raider has 3 save slots. At least on PC.

But the game auto saves in 1 slot only. The other 2 slots are for new playthroughs.

No, you can tell the game to auto save in any of the 3 slots. If you change the auto save slot, the previous earlier save is kept.

But you can only change the save slot when starting a new game, no? You can't change mid game, thus the problem still exists.