limiting saves.

[ayuri]

What is everyone talking about he means savior not save point.
Some games are just built like that and if you don't like it just leave the game alone it is your opinion(thats why I play magic the gathering).

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

No i'd rather not have limited saves. What if i'm in a rush and need to save quickly? i don't want to have a debate with myself to decide whether or not i need to hold in a poop or keep going on with a game and risk shitting my pants.

How... Very... Eloquent... I think...

I prefer games with check point saves thank anything, except if your game fucks up AS you hit a check point, and then you get raped by your obligation to start over

 

[Ascarus]

i like the ability to save whenever i want simply due to the fact that my game time is limited by outside influences (read: family, work, etc.). as such, it is a little annoying to be making progress in a game and have to quit without having any recourse to save my progress. that is especially frustrating when the game in question is a bit challenging.

i also enjoy the ability to save in games where i am pretty sure i will not play through the game a second time, but i want to see what alternate outcomes are like (e.g. NPC conversational outcomes). there are additional reasons that i enjoy the ability to save as often as i want, for example, the 'oh shit, i didn't mean to do that!' instance, the ability to do something completely outrageous just to see the outcome, the let's see if this actually works scenario (usually the answer is no or not the effect you were hoping for), etc. overall i think the ability to save on your own time adds flexibility to the game play.

that said, i understand that limiting saves (esp. in action games) is a wise decision from a development standpoint: having the ability to save whenever you want effectively removes all tension from the game. but practicing a bit of self-control and not saving over and over and over partially alleviates that problem.

 

[tgbennett30]

Im sure that a lot of games tried doing that years ago and it got a lot of negative feedback.
If you've ever played the Thief series you should know that its not uncommon to quicksave - Peak around the corner - quicksave, and repeat for a good half hour before adding a fullsave and calling it quits for the day.

Saves are what gives me the courage to go on, Hence why I havent got further than picking up the wineceller key in Amnesia.

A reasonable compromise sort of like this was tried in the original Alien vs. Predator on PC. You were given a limited number of saves per level. I can't recall for sure, but I think it was later patched to change by difficulty - e.g., on Hard you got 3 saves per level (each of which was ~60 minutes to finish), while on Easy you got 7. The thinking was that you could save any time if an emergency came up, but you could not pull the "peek around the corner, save, rinse, repeat" stunt and take all the fun out of it. It was also noted that since AvP was intended to be a scary game, this would add to the tension, esp. if you were out of saves and only halfway through a level, and God only knew the next time something would jump out of the shadows at you while you were creeping around with 1 lowly health point left.

I thought it was a neat idea. Apparently I was in the minority

The save system was brutally criticised, and many people appeared to hate it, so much so that few if any games have tried such a tactic since. It didn't help AvP that it could be a very difficult game at times, esp. the first time you played through and didn't know where the monsters were...

 

[tgbennett30]

Hmm...just checked, it appeared the first PC AvP had no saves AT ALL prior to the patch, only saving the game when you finished a level. Ouch.

 

[Bad Jim]

What about having unlimited saves, but saving quits the game? So you can always use it but the inconvenience discourages abuse.

Incidentally there is a good solution to the problem of doomed autosaves - Having more than one. Half Life 2 had 2, so if your autosave was unusable, you still had the autosave before that to fall back on.

 

[3AM]

How come we all fight for freedom in being able to buy and play the games we want but we look to limit the freedom of players to play the way they want? As long as saving is a choice, I don't care when you do it or if you do or don't do it and I don't think you should care if and/or when I save. If we're playing a game together than a save discussion is appropriate. Other than that - get off my computer please.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

I think this is a pretty complex problem, because being able to save anywhere can effectively remove the tension from any scene. However, I think it ultimately should be player choice. I dislike rules that say 'you have to experience the game this way' because I bought the thing, I'll experience it however I damn well please. Thing is though, I liked Dead Spaces approach from a tension standpoint. To me the save points were so perfectly balanced that it encouraged me to always push on through a scary segment and get the most of it, whereas in games that are more or less similar like Doom 3, I'd just save and quit - never getting through the game, because I could 'always come back to it later' whereas losing progress in Dead Space meant that if I wanted it to be worthwhile I had to push onwards. That's where I think the complexity comes from - but I think that overall being able to save wherever you want is best because there's just too many variables for any other solution to be workable - especially since that 'checkpoint' system only works well in a horror game. I know that getting through a scene in say, call of duty, and then being grenade exploded just before a checkpoint irritates the crap out of me.

Well There's the idea that restrictions exist in order to guide a player into a certain playstyle and profeciency to get maximum enjoyment. For instance continues ( which let you respawn right where you died) undermined arcade games to a great extent and even lead to the mistaken terms like "credit-munchers." With restrictions in place a player won't be tempted to sub-optimal playstyles without penalty and will be able to get more fufillment from the game.

No. Just no. Quick saves are a gift from god. Weather it be because you have to leave in a hurry, or because the game almost requires it, some games need the feature.

Case in point: The game series S.T.A.L.K.E.R. If you dont save every 20 seconds, your going to end up losing massive ammounts of time because some dude flanked you, and now your face looks like ground beef.

Quick saving doesnt remove the challange from games. Its what helps you get through the challange. Fallout New Vegas on the hardest difficulty, with Hardcore mode on, isnt any easyer because of quick saves. You save the game, a group of radscorps ambushes you, your dead. That would mean eather a game over, or going back to the last save point ((possibly an hour or more ago)).

Many games need to have the ability to save whenever you want. It doesnt remove any challange. It just means the producer is less of an *sshole.

No. The ability to erase all your mistakes with no cost removes challenge quite plainly. An ability that broken is only balanced if the game is otherwise irredeamably unbalanced like Kaizo Super Mario World.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

If you don't like a move that is completely overpowered, the game isn't broken cause you don't have to use it.
lol, ect.

Sorry for the double post but that's actually a terrible comparison.

A broken move ina game will usually alter the way combat goes (and thus potentially break the game), being able to save whenever you like just means you don't risk losing hours of progress because there isn't a magic glowing floppy disk symbol anywhere.

Also, the use of lol has a habit of diminishing your verbal credability rather than improving it.

In Guilty Gear if you commit to a move and want to take it back you have to use a roman cancle which cost meter. The precedent for taking back previous movements for a cost is already set.

And saving is a game mechanic. Moderating your amount of saves can contribute to a game's complexity in the same way you monitor health, lives, points till next extend ect.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

How come we all fight for freedom in being able to buy and play the games we want but we look to limit the freedom of players to play the way they want? As long as saving is a choice, I don't care when you do it or if you do or don't do it and I don't think you should care if and/or when I save. If we're playing a game together than a save discussion is appropriate. Other than that - get off my computer please.

Limiting the player is what creates the challenge and lets the player interact with the rules in a meaningful way. And those things are the primary things that gives a game any merit.

 

[3AM]

How come we all fight for freedom in being able to buy and play the games we want but we look to limit the freedom of players to play the way they want? As long as saving is a choice, I don't care when you do it or if you do or don't do it and I don't think you should care if and/or when I save. If we're playing a game together than a save discussion is appropriate. Other than that - get off my computer please.

Limiting the player is what creates the challenge and lets the player interact with the rules in a meaningful way. And those things are the primary things that gives a game any merit.

That's your opinion and is valid and just fine with me, it's just that I don't think others should have to play by your rules unless they're playing with you. I'm advocating allowing people to play however they want to. As many have pointed out in this thread, some play for the challenge and some play strictly for amusement. Most games can accommodate both kinds of play. There are enough people out there trying to define and limit our fun - let's not do it to ourselves. We gotsta be free!

 

[emeraldrafael]

Free actions are stupid. Like Pot of Greed in Yu-Gi-oh. Banned for being a freebie in nearly an circumstance. You wouldn't want a move in a fighting game or a unit in an RTS to give free advantage. Obviously being able to do something for free is atrocious balance. Yet saves are nearly always free.

Its time saves were incorporated into the general balance of resource manipulation. Resident Evil had a cost to its saves and it broadened the general concept of inventory management and item collection in the game.

A couple of ways to limit saves...
- require a cost to use a save
- have a specific requirement needed to be completed to use a save
- reward players for not saving
- remove saves entirely

Discuss the effect of games that utilize save limitions or think of new ways to incorporate new save limitations into games in this topic.

Hunh... not often you see people who know about yugioh. though theres something to be debated in your statement about it, here isnt the time or place.

Personally, I think saves at the end of the level are good. Quick saves... well, they do feel cheap, but if you have to leave suddenly, its nice to have. But its hard to make a game without saves. Imagine if... I dont know. Lets say DMC3 didnt have saves or checkpoints. People would be pissed. In RTS games, they're necessary because you could spend a good amount of time in a single area after amassing resources, coordinating strategies, and countering anything after you make your move.

As for special requirements to save... That just has bad idea written all over it. There are peopple who spend maddening hours at a game trying to beat things like get a 100+ hit combo (my room mate in particular), that it actually affects their lives (he's got more tension then a wind up toy). I couldnt imagine how people would react to doing that for saves.

Just put it at the end of each level, and if its a free roaming game like Dragon Age: Origins, Pokemon, GTA, RDR, stuff like that, Just have it whenever you want to save, since it can be difficult to finish a quest quickly or leave an area to go save.

 

[kouriichi]

I think this is a pretty complex problem, because being able to save anywhere can effectively remove the tension from any scene. However, I think it ultimately should be player choice. I dislike rules that say 'you have to experience the game this way' because I bought the thing, I'll experience it however I damn well please. Thing is though, I liked Dead Spaces approach from a tension standpoint. To me the save points were so perfectly balanced that it encouraged me to always push on through a scary segment and get the most of it, whereas in games that are more or less similar like Doom 3, I'd just save and quit - never getting through the game, because I could 'always come back to it later' whereas losing progress in Dead Space meant that if I wanted it to be worthwhile I had to push onwards. That's where I think the complexity comes from - but I think that overall being able to save wherever you want is best because there's just too many variables for any other solution to be workable - especially since that 'checkpoint' system only works well in a horror game. I know that getting through a scene in say, call of duty, and then being grenade exploded just before a checkpoint irritates the crap out of me.

Well There's the idea that restrictions exist in order to guide a player into a certain playstyle and profeciency to get maximum enjoyment. For instance continues ( which let you respawn right where you died) undermined arcade games to a great extent and even lead to the mistaken terms like "credit-munchers." With restrictions in place a player won't be tempted to sub-optimal playstyles without penalty and will be able to get more fufillment from the game.

No. Just no. Quick saves are a gift from god. Weather it be because you have to leave in a hurry, or because the game almost requires it, some games need the feature.

Case in point: The game series S.T.A.L.K.E.R. If you dont save every 20 seconds, your going to end up losing massive ammounts of time because some dude flanked you, and now your face looks like ground beef.

Quick saving doesnt remove the challange from games. Its what helps you get through the challange. Fallout New Vegas on the hardest difficulty, with Hardcore mode on, isnt any easyer because of quick saves. You save the game, a group of radscorps ambushes you, your dead. That would mean eather a game over, or going back to the last save point ((possibly an hour or more ago)).

Many games need to have the ability to save whenever you want. It doesnt remove any challange. It just means the producer is less of an *sshole.

No. The ability to erase all your mistakes with no cost removes challenge quite plainly. An ability that broken is only balanced if the game is otherwise irredeamably unbalanced like Kaizo Super Mario World.

So your saying, insted of being able to try several different tactics in one situation is cheating? You arnt erasing all your mistakes by using quick saves.
Would you like to start 30 minutes back at your last save because one random jackoff got a lucky grenade thrown? You arnt remove the challange.
THE CHALLANGE IS STILL THERE! You arnt changing the amount of enemys, theyer weapons, or theyer skill by having a quicksave system. The challange isnt changing. Your just letting someone try to beat it a few times.
And you forget there are just as many casual gamers as there are hardcore. Not everyone wants a challange. Just because your a good player, doesnt mean every other person who owns the game is.

Fine. Lets test this theory of yours. Go play STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl. Your only allowed to save 10 times throughout the enire game, your not allowed to use the quick save feature, and to top it off, you have to play it on normal or hard difficuly.

^Do that, and upload it, and tell em the game doesnt NEED a quicksave feature.^

 

[Wolf Devastator]

I wondered at one point what a player would do if they were given a certain number of saves per game, and they cannot earn more saves, but they could use them at any point in the game that they like.

I imagined it would be frustrating to the player, what do you guys think?

Also, any games you know of that do this? (other than like really old games where they may do this because of limitations)

 

[gphjr14]

If you don't want to save, don't.

Your problem is solved!

Leave the rest of us alone please.

This it pisses me off when someone trys to dictate how I play a game. As long as I'm not interfering with someone else's fun leave me be.

Once reason I played Uncharted 2 less. If I wanna quit GTFOver it don't penalize me. Why? because all it led to was rampant AFK players that DID ruin other peoples experience because then they had to quit co-op modes where there was no time limit and completion required teammates to all reach the checkpoint together.

I say just keep out the quicksaves. They pretty much take out any challenge what so ever.

Savepoints? Ok!
Checkpoint saves? Ok!
Save anywhere anytime? Not Ok, especially in an Action type game.
It pretty much takes away any or all challenge or risk.

Which is probably why I love Devil May Cry so much. Saving mid-level doesn't really save your progress in the level, just your collectables. And with levels being a short 10-20 minutes each, it was a perfect trade-off in my eye.

I don't see how choosing when you can save ads to a challenge. Pausing the game probably like in Onimusha during do or die puzzles, you couldn't pause the game. But unless you're strapped for electrical sockets there's nothing to stop me from pausing the game and just walking away.
Games like MGS 4 have very limited saves but it just makes it annoying not challenging. Some people have real life shit to do and can't spend 2-3 hours strait playing a game.

 

[Tasachan]

There could be a bookmark-type save that saves your place and then, later, after you load, it disappears so you can't "cheat" by using it to go back like regular saves.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance had something like this. There were normal saves, and then quick saves. When you loaded a quick save, it would be deleted. If you made a quick save, the game would turn off. That way you couldn't quick save during a fight, then reload if you missed with an attack.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

So your saying, insted of being able to try several different tactics in one situation is cheating? You arnt erasing all your mistakes by using quick saves.
Would you like to start 30 minutes back at your last save because one random jackoff got a lucky grenade thrown? You arnt remove the challange.
THE CHALLANGE IS STILL THERE! You arnt changing the amount of enemys, theyer weapons, or theyer skill by having a quicksave system. The challange isnt changing. Your just letting someone try to beat it a few times.
And you forget there are just as many casual gamers as there are hardcore. Not everyone wants a challange. Just because your a good player, doesnt mean every other person who owns the game is.

Fine. Lets test this theory of yours. Go play STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl. Your only allowed to save 10 times throughout the enire game, your not allowed to use the quick save feature, and to top it off, you have to play it on normal or hard difficuly.

^Do that, and upload it, and tell em the game doesnt NEED a quicksave feature.^

Your first sentence doesn't make any sense. But here's conterpoint to saves not removing challenge: Who is more skilled between a guy who gets the highest score in Mars Matrix and the guy who gets the same score but constantly uses save states? Being able to perform consistently is part of being skilled. Otherwise you might just get lucky and kill a boss without mastering his pattern.

You must have missed where I suggested that Kaizo SMW is a prototypical example of a game where unlimited saves is balanced by general difficulty. So save limits should more forgiving in a difficulty game and vice versa. So if STALKER is that difficult than it could be balanced by having a low cost for saves but an even better idea would be not making a luck based, impossible to predict piece of shit game in the first place.

Saves aren't vital. See any Arcade or NES action classic. But then again, I would gladly play Mario or Contra or Ikaruga or any Cave game over from from the start a thousand times when you can hardly stand being a few minutes back in STALKER. The Enormous gap in quality between arcade games and modern single player retail couldn't be more apparent.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

This it pisses me off when someone trys to dictate how I play a game. As long as I'm not interfering with someone else's fun leave me be.

Once reason I played Uncharted 2 less. If I wanna quit GTFOver it don't penalize me. Why? because all it led to was rampant AFK players that DID ruin other peoples experience because then they had to quit co-op modes where there was no time limit and completion required teammates to all reach the checkpoint together.

I don't see how choosing when you can save ads to a challenge. Pausing the game probably like in Onimusha during do or die puzzles, you couldn't pause the game. But unless you're strapped for electrical sockets there's nothing to stop me from pausing the game and just walking away.
Games like MGS 4 have very limited saves but it just makes it annoying not challenging. Some people have real life shit to do and can't spend 2-3 hours strait playing a game.

You should be pissed at developers then because they are defining all the possible ways you can play as soon as they make the game. Are you going to be mad at soccer because you can't use your hands.

As for the challenge of limited saves; see the post above this one.
For having to quit for some reason; see my second post in the topic.