Minimizing Save scumming. Or is it too much of a hassle?

[HangedMan]

Saving is a natural part of it, yes. However, no one is suggesting that we remove it. The first post in this thread made sure to add the caveat that a save&quit-function was part of the suggestion.

 

It's very frustrating to see so many people post in this thread without having grasped this; it really makes you wonder if there's a point in engaging here.

My main personal point is that I want multiple save slots. I certainly don't think anyone, on either 'side', has suggested that you can't save at all or something.

 

But multiple save slots/files ... where I can choose to save in this slot, play for an hour, then choose to put the next save in a new slot, creating a new file. There are numerous reasons why I like/prefer multiple save files, and most of them have little to do with wanting to "cheat" the game/combat all the time, every 5 minutes or whatever. Anyway, that is what I want, and that is what I've had the impression that the 'anti-save-scumming' folk do not want. Thus, we will never see eye to eye. If I'm wrong on this, please correct me.

That's ultimately what I want as well; and the freedom to use those save slots whenever I want, not at certain times and places. And likewise, I have been given the exact same feeling from the "anti-save-scumming" people.

 

Hell, I've even asked for clarification and failed to receive any. Which leads me to believe that that really is what they want, and that I'm not mistaken.

 

If you make certain bad decisions, you should be punished for it, not just able to reload your save.

 

So, your idea of fun is to have the game hurt you whenever you deviate from the script?

 

I play to enjoy myself, not to get slapped around by a computer program. If the purpose of any design element is "hurt the player", that is a bad design element. The focus should always be on what the player CAN do not what they're "not allowed" to do.

I'm a masochist, and even I agree with you, PsychoBlonde. Hurting the player is a bad design element.

Edited October 12, 2012 by HangedMan

[codexer]

Saving is a natural part of it, yes. However, no one is suggesting that we remove it. The first post in this thread made sure to add the caveat that a save&quit-function was part of the suggestion.

 

It's very frustrating to see so many people post in this thread without having grasped this; it really makes you wonder if there's a point in engaging here.

My main personal point is that I want multiple save slots. I certainly don't think anyone, on either 'side', has suggested that you can't save at all or something.

 

But multiple save slots/files ... where I can choose to save in this slot, play for an hour, then choose to put the next save in a new slot, creating a new file. There are numerous reasons why I like/prefer multiple save files, and most of them have little to do with wanting to "cheat" the game/combat all the time, every 5 minutes or whatever. Anyway, that is what I want, and that is what I've had the impression that the 'anti-save-scumming' folk do not want. Thus, we will never see eye to eye. If I'm wrong on this, please correct me.

 

We just want to limit saving a bit more. It's certainly possible to do that without restricting to only one save-slot.

[Giltspur]

If I had to pick my favorite feature in my video gaming across all genres, it would be the ability to save anywhere. And yet that way that you save have important interactions with various mechanics and encounter designs. As a result, I like it when games mesh appropriate design with the save-anywhere design.

 

Here are three difference resource-save combos:

 

Dark Souls: Vancian casting; spells recharged at save points; limited save points.

Baldur's Gate: Vancian casting; spells recharged by camping, which can for the most part be done at any time; save-anywhere design.

Dragon Age: Mana-based casting; spells recharged by mana regeneration; save-anywhere design.

 

Dark Souls actually needs limited saves. Baldur's Gate would gain some things and lose other things by having limited saves. And limiting saves in Dragon Age wouldn't really add any benefit. I want to talk through these games before I get to my conclusion: that I don't want limited saves in Project Eternity.

 

Why does Dark Souls have limited saves? Okay, consider this setup. You have encounters 1 through 7. And you can save before 1 and after 7 but not in between. Let's say you're a Sorcerer and you're good with Soul Arrows and are kind of junk with melee. And let's say encounter 7 takes 5 Soul Arrows at least to defeat. You don't know this. And you blow all of your Soul Arrows by encounter 5. This isn't Baldur's Gate. You can't just camp. You're toast. You've saved in the wrong spot and will reload into an unwinnable situation. (Strictly speaking you could run back to the campfire and respawn enemies, recharge resources and start over. But that's pretty game-y, and I imagine not something people want to see.) Part of getting better is not using more resources than you have to on an individual encounter. Keep something in reserve and hope it's enough. And so you're protected by not being able to save in a way that dooms you. The problem with that design of course is that it means replaying content. And that turns off gamers that don't like to repeat content. Encounter design has to take resources, recharging of resources and save points into account. You can't make encounter 1 require too many resources to clear if the player can't save until after encounter 7. So in a sense, the individual encounters have to made "easier" (that may not be the best word but hopefully you get my point) if you're getting your challenge from saving resources over time.

 

Baldur's Gate has save-anywhere design--and so the camping anywhere acts as a bandaid to people that are low on Vancian fuel. Just recharge if you have to. You should be okay for the next fight. The downside is that it sort of betrays the spirit of making the most out of your limited resources and surviving the long journey. Part of the point of Vancian resources is to encourage saving the spells until you need them. And Baldur's Gate doesn't really give you that experience in full because of the combination of its save system and camping.

 

My preference is that encounter design not be about saving your resources over a period of time. Instead I'd prefer encounter design to encourage the player to hit an enemy with everything they have and rely on the choices they make in the context of the one battle to be the difference between victory and defeat. And when you have that design, there's really no reason not to save anywhere (that I can think of at least). WIth that kind of design, it makes sense to use a naturally regenerating resource like mana or cooldowns.

 

So my preference is that they go with save anywhere system and wed it with appropriate resource system (regeneration) and encounter design (focus on the individual encounter and not on excellence across a series of encounters).

[AlphaShard]

Wasn't the final battle with Amelissan a multiple part battle that you couldn't rest but could save between each part? I remember that being very challenging.

[Osvir]

I had a dream about the ultimate solution!

 

...

 

..

 

.....

 

.. but I forgot it xD

[PsychoBlonde]

I'm a masochist, and even I agree with you, PsychoBlonde. Hurting the player is a bad design element.

 

There are a number of ways to minimize certain types of save-scumming, for instance, if you have people who play the game with the absolute minimum investment in skills and just save/reload until they succeed, you can "fix" this by making skill successes a flat numerical pass/fail instead of a random roll.

 

Ultimately, however, I think the effort to try and eliminate EVERYTHING that SOMEBODY thinks is an "exploit" is futile. If you're the type of person to have hysterics over how other people like to play games, well, all I can say is getting over it will be good practice for learning to get over things like where your roommate puts the dirty dishes and the neighbor's dog pooping in your lawn. Seriously, how much more pointless strife and heartbreak does the world need.

[Ieo]

I'm a masochist, and even I agree with you, PsychoBlonde. Hurting the player is a bad design element.

 

There are a number of ways to minimize certain types of save-scumming, for instance, if you have people who play the game with the absolute minimum investment in skills and just save/reload until they succeed, you can "fix" this by making skill successes a flat numerical pass/fail instead of a random roll.

 

Ultimately, however, I think the effort to try and eliminate EVERYTHING that SOMEBODY thinks is an "exploit" is futile. If you're the type of person to have hysterics over how other people like to play games, well, all I can say is getting over it will be good practice for learning to get over things like where your roommate puts the dirty dishes and the neighbor's dog pooping in your lawn. Seriously, how much more pointless strife and heartbreak does the world need.

 

Though to be fair, the better analogies would be where your sister's husband puts his dishes in their house or someone's dog pooping in another neighbor's yard.

 

But basically, someone else's save habits not only don't affect you, you can't even see them.

 

I still don't get the point of this thread besides "the number 3 is the best number, everyone must use the number 3."

[JFSOCC]

let it cost the player to save. not much, but significant enough that it is annoying. certain spots will be free to save, other spots (middle of dialogue) will be costly.

just a thought.

Edited October 13, 2012 by JFSOCC

[Gelp]

Sometimes in games I like playing "what if" games. You know, little experiments. "What if I really can take this red dragon on? Sure, I know it's a bad idea, but I'm curious. I get one shotted? That's about what I expected. Time to load."

 

Games that constantly autosave prevent me from doing this. I find restrictions like this annoying.

 

If someone wants to save scum, I don't see why they can't. The only person they're taking the fun away from is themself. That's the beauty of a single player game.

[JFSOCC]

what I'm proposing is not to make it impossible, but a choice. Yes I can save, but it will be a debuff directly after load, for a few rounds/dialogue panes. This way people can still save whenever, if it matters enough to them, but they'll be encouraged not to do so frivolously.

[Ieo]

what I'm proposing is not to make it impossible, but a choice. Yes I can save, but it will be a debuff directly after load, for a few rounds/dialogue panes. This way people can still save whenever, if it matters enough to them, but they'll be encouraged not to do so frivolously.

 

This serves no purpose. There's no true reason for such a mechanic. None of the "arguments" put forth as to why it's a good idea to limit saving are convincing.

 

And really, there's a vast difference between "encouragement" and "punishment." You really think your debuff idea is an encouragement? Wow.

 

Ultimately, your stance is meaningless. There's Trial of Iron for ya, probably other difficulty options to tweak saving too. It's a single-player game, so someone else doing the save-reload dance 30 times against Firkraag shouldn't bother you one whit (and if it does, well.... pathetic).

 

/facepalm

[Lady Evenstar]

what I'm proposing is not to make it impossible, but a choice. Yes I can save, but it will be a debuff directly after load, for a few rounds/dialogue panes. This way people can still save whenever, if it matters enough to them, but they'll be encouraged not to do so frivolously.

 

Ah, yes, Obsidian needs to discourage stay-at-home Moms from frivolously jumping up whenever the baby cries ... Seriously, folks have lots of reasons to save frequently that have nothing to do with save scumming--and really don't need designers of entertainment deliberately adding a debuff to the annoyance of interruptions.

[HangedMan]

what I'm proposing is not to make it impossible, but a choice. Yes I can save, but it will be a debuff directly after load, for a few rounds/dialogue panes. This way people can still save whenever, if it matters enough to them, but they'll be encouraged not to do so frivolously.

And how do you justify that from an in-game perspective?

[kjrubberducky]

I don't think it should really matter what other players do with their saves; they can limit them selves, or be allowed to exploit the system, whichever they prefer.

 

BUT,

if I had to have some type of limit on what kind of saves, where I could do them, how many, etc., I would probably split into 3 groups:

 

1) Combat Save (Save & Quit) - If you have to save in the middle of a battle, this will save your progress and quit your game; loading this kind of save will delete the file once you resume playing. You can only have one of these per Player Character.

 

2) Dungeon Save (QuickSave) - If you have to save in a location where you are exploring or traveling, but aren't in combat, you can use this save type; you can load this kind of save as many times as you want. You can only have one of these per Player Character; creating a new Dungeon Save will overwrite the old Dungeon Save.

 

3) Resting Save (Save Points) - If you are in a location deemed "safe" by the game, like resting in an inn or camping, you can use this save. This save can be loaded as many times as you want, and you can have as many of these saves as you want.

 

This limits save scumming to a per combat basis, preventing save scumming on a per round or per action basis. Basically, increasing the granularity of the save limits the flexibility of the save.

 

This is something that, if I had to, I could live with it.

 

But really, Project Eternity doesn't really need anything like this. In my opinion, the sheer boredom of constantly reloading the game until you get the optimum desired result is punishment enough.

[Osvir]

I don't think it should really matter what other players do with their saves; they can limit them selves, or be allowed to exploit the system, whichever they prefer.

 

BUT,

if I had to have some type of limit on what kind of saves, where I could do them, how many, etc., I would probably split into 3 groups:

 

1) Combat Save (Save & Quit) - If you have to save in the middle of a battle, this will save your progress and quit your game; loading this kind of save will delete the file once you resume playing. You can only have one of these per Player Character.

 

2) Dungeon Save (QuickSave) - If you have to save in a location where you are exploring or traveling, but aren't in combat, you can use this save type; you can load this kind of save as many times as you want. You can only have one of these per Player Character; creating a new Dungeon Save will overwrite the old Dungeon Save.

 

3) Resting Save (Save Points) - If you are in a location deemed "safe" by the game, like resting in an inn or camping, you can use this save. This save can be loaded as many times as you want, and you can have as many of these saves as you want.

 

This limits save scumming to a per combat basis, preventing save scumming on a per round or per action basis. Basically, increasing the granularity of the save limits the flexibility of the save.

 

This is something that, if I had to, I could live with it.

 

But really, Project Eternity doesn't really need anything like this. In my opinion, the sheer boredom of constantly reloading the game until you get the optimum desired result is punishment enough.

 

I'm replaying Icewind Dale and some other games. The only time I really need to reload is when I play with my noob friend on Multiplayer. The save thing isn't really an issue in Single Player. I've reloaded like... twice? (everyone died but 2 characters) Almost finished with Vale of Shadows. Had to go to the temple once thus far.

 

I'm rest spamming a lot though, that's the issue. Saving is not.

[GhostofAnakin]

Being able to save at any time was fine in BG, PS:T, Fallout, etc. But apparently it's going to be an issue in Project Eternity?

 

People have been clamoring for "another PS:T" or "another BG" for how many years now? Now that they're getting it, they're finding things that weren't even an issue in those games to complain about.

[Ieo]

Being able to save at any time was fine in BG, PS:T, Fallout, etc. But apparently it's going to be an issue in Project Eternity?

 

People have been clamoring for "another PS:T" or "another BG" for how many years now? Now that they're getting it, they're finding things that weren't even an issue in those games to complain about.

 

I truly believe those people are a very small minority asking for this nonsense.

[imatechguy]

While I understand the principle behind the issue; when and where to save needs to be left to the player. I have a wife and child, I need to be able to pause/save at a moments notice no matter where I am in gaemand come back 2 minutes, 2 hours or 2 days later and pick up where I left off.

[Larkaloke]

Honestly, I really don't see why this is an issue given that there is no multiplayer. I could see worrying about such a thing in a multiplayer game; but even if somebody exploits all possible loopholes wildly and vengefully in a singleplayer game, it doesn't affect anybody but them. If that's how they want to play the game, well, I don't have a problem with that since it isn't affecting me. If I don't want to play the game that way (I don't), I simply won't.

 

I like being able to save often and in different slots, particularly when the saved games are nameable (which I hope they will be). Partly for my own, perhaps slightly odd reasons (I like naming them odd or interesting things, and I like looking back over the whole list of them once I'm done playing through the game for that time); partly so that I can go back and load up a game to see what the party I had going was like at the particular time; and partly, the first time through a game, just in case I manage to screw up irrecoverably enough somewhere down the road that I need to reload a particular save.

 

There's already going to be the one-save-only mode, and beyond that, it seems fairly obvious to me that it's much easier to simply not save if you don't think you should be allowed to save than it is to save if the game doesn't allow you to but you would like to. You can always put limits on yourself using a feature such as saving if that's how you enjoy playing the game, but it's much harder to remove those limits if it isn't.

[Reddie]

This whole thread's permise is silly beyond belief.

 

It all gets down to people who want to limit player's ability to save saying: "we don't like save&reload approach, but when it's available it's tempting to use it, so it should get removed!" And I don't really see how it should be anyone's problem besides themselves? If you people can't resist the temptation to use mechanics that you feel is damaging to gameplay, get on with some will training instead of imposing your views on other people.

Edited October 14, 2012 by Reddie

[zimcub]

I usually strongly disagree when it comes to bypassing certain mechanics by having an easy option to go around it (in this instance, saves). However this is a single player game so it's only up to each player on how much you wish to limit yourself.

 

Not long ago i saw some guy saying in Baldur's gate remastered forum that he has never finished it because he always play's it with the rule, that if his main character dies he needs to restart the whole game.

I've also started to attempt this and it's amazingly fun. It makes survival really important so you even look forward to grinding mobs, just so that you won't die in the next big battle.

Even though i'm allowed to save and load as much as i want, it's no problem creating your own set of rules on how you play your game, because it's a single player, and you wont feel like you're behind everyone else if you limit yourself.

[AlphaShard]

 

But really, Project Eternity doesn't really need anything like this. In my opinion, the sheer boredom of constantly reloading the game until you get the optimum desired result is punishment enough.

 

BINGO!!!

[JediMB]

I still propose that there's some kind of middle ground option (options are good), between the regular "save anywhere" mode and the "Trial of Iron" mode.

 

For example, that particular mode could allow the player to save only where the characters can rest, but still allow an unlimited number of save files.

 

It wouldn't take any significant resources to implement, and I don't see why not all players would be happy this way.

Edited October 14, 2012 by JediMB

[AlphaShard]

I still propose that there's some kind of middle ground option (options are good), between the regular "save anywhere" mode and the "Trial of Iron" mode.

 

For example, that particular mode could allow the player to save only where the characters can rest, but still allow an unlimited number of save files.

 

It wouldn't take any significant resources to implement, and I don't see why not all players would be happy this way.

 

Yeah save points like in Final Fantasy games can still be too far away for when RL demands your attention RIGHT NOW and not a minute later. The save points would be in the middle or right before a boss battle allowing someone to save scum anyways.

[HangedMan]

I still propose that there's some kind of middle ground option (options are good), between the regular "save anywhere" mode and the "Trial of Iron" mode.

 

For example, that particular mode could allow the player to save only where the characters can rest, but still allow an unlimited number of save files.

 

It wouldn't take any significant resources to implement, and I don't see why not all players would be happy this way.

 

My perspective is that their are some people who are upset because they'll be playing the game in the "wrong" way, as if that's really possible. And they're really concerned about us, and want to save us from the bad-wrong-fun! It's kind of like the street preachers, trying to save our souls, but without the religious stuff.