Saving games

[PrimeJunta]

I find it funny that people claim that they cannot restrict from saving often, but they can restrict themselves to not turn the option for saving often on...

 

Really? I thought that was common knowledge. If you have a tendency to eat too much candy, it's way easier not to buy a bag than to stop halfway through. Us humans work that way. Maybe it's different in Poland.

[JFSOCC]

That pretty much sums it up right there. Why do people care so much about how someone else plays a singleplayer game.

Because we want this game to be fun, not just for us, but for everyone. And while we can't prevent people from ruining their own game (as they are allowed to do), If it's within the power of the game designers to encourage players to play the game in a way that will be more enjoyable for them, why shouldn't they?

 

Wait, so you're telling us that you know better than we do about what is best for us when it comes to having fun?

 

"NO! You're having fun the WRONG WAY! Do this instead you quick saving philistine!"

 

Are you out of your ****ing mind?

I think sometimes the devs do know better, yes. Study after study shows that people are really bad at determining what will make them happy. If a player intends to save whenever the game gets a little challenging, then yes, I think I know better, I think the devs know better and they would be well within their rights to protect the integrity of their game and save people from themselves.

 

The problem lies in that there is no clear solution which only works against the exploiting of features, but doesn't punish players who are using features the way they're intended.

[Kimuji]

Menu -> Options -> Enable/Disable quick saves (caution, once disabled the only way to re-enable quick saves is to start a new game)

 

/thread.

[DreamingVoid]

That pretty much sums it up right there. Why do people care so much about how someone else plays a singleplayer game.

Because we want this game to be fun, not just for us, but for everyone. And while we can't prevent people from ruining their own game (as they are allowed to do), If it's within the power of the game designers to encourage players to play the game in a way that will be more enjoyable for them, why shouldn't they?

 

Wait, so you're telling us that you know better than we do about what is best for us when it comes to having fun?

 

"NO! You're having fun the WRONG WAY! Do this instead you quick saving philistine!"

 

Are you out of your ****ing mind?

I think sometimes the devs do know better, yes. Study after study shows that people are really bad at determining what will make them happy. If a player intends to save whenever the game gets a little challenging, then yes, I think I know better, I think the devs know better and they would be well within their rights to protect the integrity of their game and save people from themselves.

 

The problem lies in that there is no clear solution which only works against the exploiting of features, but doesn't punish players who are using features the way they're intended.

 

So you and your little protégé knows what's best for everyone? how cute.

 

What an utterly useless thread, sadly one of many on this particular forum.

[Dream]

I find it funny that people claim that they cannot restrict from saving often, but they can restrict themselves to not turn the option for saving often on...

 

Really? I thought that was common knowledge. If you have a tendency to eat too much candy, it's way easier not to buy a bag than to stop halfway through. Us humans work that way. Maybe it's different in Poland.

 

Except turning off a toggle isn't the same as not buying a bag; it's the equivalent of leaving the bag on the other side of the room (unless it's a hard toggle that can only be turned on and off at the start of the game, then I agree with you).

 

 

Wait, so you're telling us that you know better than we do about what is best for us when it comes to having fun?

 

"NO! You're having fun the WRONG WAY! Do this instead you quick saving philistine!"

 

Are you out of your ****ing mind?

I think sometimes the devs do know better, yes. Study after study shows that people are really bad at determining what will make them happy. If a player intends to save whenever the game gets a little challenging, then yes, I think I know better, I think the devs know better and they would be well within their rights to protect the integrity of their game and save people from themselves.

 

The problem lies in that there is no clear solution which only works against the exploiting of features, but doesn't punish players who are using features the way they're intended.

 

Devs (which you are not, by the way) might know what the majority finds more fun, but they sure as **** don't know what any given person finds more fun than that person themselves does. On top of that who are you to even say people aren't using features the way they were intended? Pretty much all manuals with games that allow you to save anywhere have something about saving as often as humanly possible (which, by the way, was the whole ****ing point of developing the QUICK save and load features).

 

You're taking a play style you disagree with, stating it's not the "correct" or "intended" way to play (despite having no evidence of this), and then demanding that features be implemented to "fix" this aberrant play style. All this despite the fact that said play style has been around forever and has even had features developed specifically to support it.

 

Do you understand how ****ing retarded you sound or are you actually this dense?

Edited November 28, 2012 by Dream

[PrimeJunta]

Except turning off a toggle isn't the same as not buying a bag; it's the equivalent of leaving the bag on the other side of the room (unless it's a hard toggle that can only be turned on and off at the start of the game, then I agree with you).

 

I've certainly been thinking of a hard toggle all along. Making it switchable mid-game would dilute the effectiveness a great deal. Same as being able to change difficulty level on the fly. I don't like that much either.

[Umberlin]

@Umberlin I would never dream of controlling the casual difficulty level. My concern was for the harder difficulty levels. The ironman mode has inherently been one filled with trepidation not because of its difficulty but because of instability in the game design (bugs, bad AI). If we knew that ironman would never fail I wouldn't even be bringing this up. But there it is, and here I ... was.

 

I can respect that.

 

But yeah, it is pretty sad. I do have self-control when it comes to saves/loads for the most part. But there are those few moments when I've lost a party member to chunking and I've been playing the game for a long time now and having to take such a big hit really bothers me. So I just come up with excuses as to why I should reload that save game and spam cloudkill on the umberhulks this time. it's those few occasions that are bothersome.

 

and i know many a player who truly loves those moments. they are the moments that players love talking about and are most memorable. a lot of the more "hardcore" players don't play games at a higher difficulty level because of some sort of weird nerd disfunction that is inherent in their genetic make-up. it's because of the emotional experiences that they have when their choices are made to matter in real-time and they suffer the consequences of their actions without recourse. you can learn a lot about yourself from a game.

 

of course, now that i've had further time to think about the situation, i do agree that putting down such a harsh striction on games as unbelievably long wait times would be not a good idea. As I said before, I've come up with a better solution for myself, hyperbole be damned. as for the other players, i believe everyone can come to their own level of acceptability with this. those who are blind to the enjoyments of a game with meaningful choice will either come around, or they won't. those who are like me - and there are quite a few - will find their ways.

 

Count me in the crowd that never had trouble moving on; when people died in some of my old games, or left me due to disagreeing with my actions, I just moved on. I didn't reload and try to fix it. Call it the frosting on an already decent cake, or whatever, a nice red velvet cake. o_0

 

Did you do some of the old Gamefaqs challenges? Like FF:T there was a solo Ramza play through. I loved some of those, and that was just players challenging themselves in different ways, those weren't rules enforced by the game. That's more my speed, setting my own pace.

 

mods feel free to lock down the thread if you wish. i don't care much for the hate on this thread.

 

Sorry it turned out that way.

[JFSOCC]

Do you understand how ****ing retarded you sound or are you actually this dense?

There's no need to get angry. I don't believe that players always know best, and I guess that's where we disagree. While in this example I may or may not be wrong, the point I was trying to make is that it is OK for the devs to decide some things for the player. We might disagree about what specifically. What works as an ideal might not as a reality.

[Dream]

Do you understand how ****ing retarded you sound or are you actually this dense?

There's no need to get angry. I don't believe that players always know best, and I guess that's where we disagree. While in this example I may or may not be wrong, the point I was trying to make is that it is OK for the devs to decide some things for the player. We might disagree about what specifically. What works as an ideal might not as a reality.

 

Yea, it's may be okay for devs, but you most certainly are not a dev. Additionally, devs have, by and large, supported the practice of "save scumming" on the PC platform. The only reason checkpoints/limited saves even exist on the PC nowadays is because a great deal of games are either straight up console ports, were made to be multiplatform from the start, or are indie "throwbacks" to the arcade/NES days (which basically makes them console ports as well).

 

Look at a predominantly PC genre like strategy games; you'd be hard pressed to find any games with checkpoints or limited save systems. The only real examples are games like Heroes of Might and Magic and Master of Orion where you can't save during combat, but in those games battles are largely decided before they even begin through careful preparation (in fact combat in those games could easily be compared to a hacking minigame in an RPG, right down to the fact that the outcome can be auto decided for you). As for strategy games where combat is a very large focus (Starcraft, C&C, Total Annihilation, etc.), they have, you guessed it, (quick)save anywhere.

[Water Rabbit]

It's not about free choice. People don't self regulate. If self regulation worked we'd not have an economic crisis. The psychology of man is to try and pick the most efficient way through. The trick is making sure that it makes more sense to play the game normally than to save whenever it gets tough.

 

Bingo.

 

 

The other fact that seems to be missing here is the idea of a tactical puzzle. Oftentimes I will save before a combat and win/lose/draw will reload it to try different tactics and combinations. Sometimes I will go back to my original save even with that because I liked the feel of it better.

 

Sometimes, you may be playing a character of a certain type but want to explore different dialogue options just to see what they would look like.

 

That's the point. Your choices don't matter. You find the most optimal and go with it. I'd do the same thing. But if I knew that if I picked a certain dialogue option, that would be the only time I could choose unless I started the game over, I would actually sit and think about my choices before making them. If you want to do that, fine. But I want the game to make me consider my choices as a one-time thing.

 

This is about the most silly point you have made. What is the most optimal? I generally make my choices based upon what amuses me the most as I play games for fun. I am not trying to build the most efficient combustion engine. Take a game like Mass Effect. The most optimal choices would be the ones that reinforce your Paragon/Renegade stat. However, those choices are often not the most amusing. Even more specific, in ME 1 the female Shepard's line

"Because it's a big stupid jellyfish" is way more amusing than when the male Shepard delivers the same line. Neither of which are more "optimal" than some of the other lines.

 

Which is the point you seem to not understand -- it's a Role-Playing Game not a Roll-Playing Game. Not every choice has to be the most optimal -- just cool or fun is sometimes acceptable. The ability to save games AT WILL allows for exploration of different options without having to replay the same thing over and over again.

 

I really don't understand why people like you want to add tedium mechanics to a game. Go play some console games with checkpoint save that are far apart and then come back and talk to us how great tedium mechanics are.

[jivex5k]

It's a single player game. What possible difference should it make to anyone else how much or how little I choose to save my game?

 

It shouldn't.

 

On the other hand, what difference would an optional, settable save-timeout for the benefit of those of us totally lacking in willpower make to you?

Um....duh

It would prevent us from saving and reloading to get the best result. Some people like to play that way, we shouldn't be punished for your lack of willpower.

 

Look at it this way:

1. Saving/Reloading limitations don't allow people to play the way they want if they want to save and reload constantly for the best result.
    
   
2. Saving/Reloading without limitations allows everyone to play as they wish in regards to saving/reloading.
   

TLDR: If you don't like saving/reloading 'abuse' then DONT DO IT! Don't force everyone to play the game like you want, single player RPGS are about choice.

 

I don't understand this obsession with forcing people to play what you think is "the right way".

The beauty of a game like this is: The right way is YOUR way.

 

If you think reloading over and over is cheap I have a solution for you. Don't do it!

Edited November 29, 2012 by jivex5k

[PrimeJunta]

On the other hand, what difference would an optional, settable save-timeout for the benefit of those of us totally lacking in willpower make to you?

Um....duh

It would prevent us from saving and reloading to get the best result.

 

Uh, optional. As in, something you can switch on or off. If you don't want it, switch it off, and save/reload to your heart's content.

 

Also, no offense, but you might want to go over this thread because most of what you're saying has already been addressed. Hormalakh even pointed out that the whole point is moot, since the functional equivalent is already in -- just play in Ironman mode and save-scum (in the roguelike sense, i.e., back up that single save.)

[jivex5k]

On the other hand, what difference would an optional, settable save-timeout for the benefit of those of us totally lacking in willpower make to you?

Um....duh

It would prevent us from saving and reloading to get the best result.

 

Uh, optional. As in, something you can switch on or off. If you don't want it, switch it off, and save/reload to your heart's content.

 

Also, no offense, but you might want to go over this thread because most of what you're saying has already been addressed. Hormalakh even pointed out that the whole point is moot, since the functional equivalent is already in -- just play in Ironman mode and save-scum (in the roguelike sense, i.e., back up that single save.)

Ah that makes sense.

Sure why not, as long as it's optional.

[pipboy2000]

I have one simple question to the people who want to limit saving games or enervate (?) people who want to save their game, via game mechanics:

 

How on earth does it concern you how someone else plays his own game?!?

 

I could imagine that it would be a pain in the ass, if somebody would/could save every 5 seconds in a multiplayer/co-op title... But we are talking about saving in a single player game!

 

Even if I spend my whole freaking day, saving my game you will never notice it nor will it affect your life in any way!

 

I mean, the solution to this whole "problem" is so ridiculously easy: if you do not want to save your game, than, for Christ’s sake: don't save it!

 

It is simply absolutely no concern of anyone, how you want to play your game!

If you want to mod it? Fine! Do it!

You want to cheat? Go for it!

Do whatever you want! It is your game!

 

I mean: How do you even get such an idea?! How do you logically connect a thought like: "I don't like saving all the time in a cRPG!" to "I demand that everyone else should be forced to play the game the way I like it" ?!

It just doesn't make sense...

 

There should be absolutely NO limitation to saving the game whenever you want, since, as a self-determined human being, you can decide for yourself if you want to forgo (?) saving your game for a more "hardcore" experience!

 

I am really sorry, if I offended someone. I normally do not react so angry, but reading how some "hardcore" gamers want to dictate a certain way to play a game to others just infuriates me.

[JFSOCC]

I keep seeing the same argument for freedom of choice.

 

It's not about freedom of choice vs "play the game this way" but as long as it continues to be framed that way, people are going to automatically agree. (because duh)

 

What I'm saying is "make the game such that people don't feel the need to save scum" If you can do that without taking away player freedoms such as saving anywhere, all the better. I'm not interested in taking away power from the player. never my desire.

 

Maybe when that is understood we can move on and think on possibilities on how to do that.

[jivex5k]

I keep seeing the same argument for freedom of choice.

 

It's not about freedom of choice vs "play the game this way" but as long as it continues to be framed that way, people are going to automatically agree. (because duh)

 

What I'm saying is "make the game such that people don't feel the need to save scum" If you can do that without taking away player freedoms such as saving anywhere, all the better. I'm not interested in taking away power from the player. never my desire.

 

Maybe when that is understood we can move on and think on possibilities on how to do that.

People who like to save scum will always feel the need to do so regardless of what you do.

[Dream]

I keep seeing the same argument for freedom of choice.

 

It's not about freedom of choice vs "play the game this way" but as long as it continues to be framed that way, people are going to automatically agree. (because duh)

 

What I'm saying is "make the game such that people don't feel the need to save scum" If you can do that without taking away player freedoms such as saving anywhere, all the better. I'm not interested in taking away power from the player. never my desire.

 

Maybe when that is understood we can move on and think on possibilities on how to do that.

 

Why though? "Save scumming" has been around forever on the PC and it's pretty much how people play. The only reason games even exist without "save anywhere" is because on consoles there are limited buttons and developers created checkpoints/lives to make it easier to play without having to open menus to save/load (same reason quicksaving and loading was invented on the PC, where there aren't limited buttons). Edit: The other reason lives were created, I suppose, is to charge people quarters; so maybe P:E should do that. Every save costs a dime and every load costs a quarter.

 

Why reinvent the wheel? Because YOU think it's not the "proper" way to play games?

Edited November 29, 2012 by Dream

[Agelastos]

Why reinvent the wheel?

 

Agreed! I only use wheels for their original purpose: making pottery, and I absolutely despise spokes and ball bearings.

Edited November 29, 2012 by Agelastos