Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
The longer I play games the more I see this as a fundamental issue that should be corrected. Games are simply better when they allow you to progress with more than one outcome.
Do you agree?
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"Manual save games were a mistake." - Josh Sawyer
- Thread starter Men_in_Boxes
- Start date
The longer I play games the more I see this as a fundamental issue that should be corrected. Games are simply better when they allow you to progress with more than one outcome.
Do you agree?
JimboJones
Member
What do you mean, like save points or having to going into the menu and click save?
TrueLegend
Member
But manual saves do allow you to progress with more than one outcome.
Ridicululzz
Member
I love save scumming
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Giving the player the ability to reload based on non ideal outcomes.
Imagine Frodo reloading after he gets stabbed by the Nazgul. The story is more interesting dealing with negative consequences.
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PauloRoberto
Member
Wrong.
YeulEmeralda
Linux User
Save scumming in games like Pathfinder or Baldurs Gate is ridiculous but who cares it's a single player game if someone wants to hit F5 every 2 minutes who gives a a shit?
Play how you want.
Play how you want.
CamHostage
Member
Eh, I mean, I love exploiting it if a game lets me (and I hate every game with save bugs that could have been avoided with some additional backup saves,) but... it is a game.
Like, the whole point of alternate endings/paths in games is to offer surprises and variations of story if you play through more times than once, but we gamers have gotten up our own asses of "gotta collect em all" that we have to see every ending. We can't let go and just enjoy games as they were designed, and we ruin the experience for our selves with our obsessiveness. We don't "play" games for the challenge of winning or losing, we "progress" through them to the pathed-out outcome.
Fundamentally, I understand the notion but cannot avoid the instinct. It's an imperfect world, and we live an imperfect life.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I think developers need to stop making games for those people. It's holding back game design.
Those people should just jump on YouTube or wikipidia if they want to "collect em all" story outcomes.
Hero_Select
Member
Tell that to my Mass Effect playthoughs.. I loved saving before a big choice and seeing the different outcomes
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Yes but what does it take away from the player?
Consequence. Stakes. Intensity. Finality.
Trogdor1123
Gold Member
Both have their virtues… this is dumb.
LectureMaster
Gold Member
Why do I feel this is all set up the narrative as my box men's ultimate goal: All games should be GaaS
Bulletbrain
Member
Yes and no. One should have the option to pick and choose. If I want to manual save and savescum to my heart's content? Let me. If Devs really want to limit manual saving, offer a XCOM ”ironman” like mode especially geared for that type of ”no going back” type of play.
In short: gimme the choice to pick how I want to play.
In short: gimme the choice to pick how I want to play.
Kuranghi
Gold Member
Jfc, who gives a fuck, keep that for real life.
Did you play games in the 90s? If you didn't save scum old peeking-simulator games you'd have a bad time, they were balanced to be played like that.
mayham2199
Member
I'm ok with that. I'd prefer that devs that want to do this create a separate trophy linked to no save scumming or a mode that doesn't allow it and you get a trophy for beating that mode. No need to force it on everyone.
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BlackTron
Member
The answer IMO is kinda complicated. I think you should be able to save and leave the game at any time, without leaving it running.
But that save should not necessarily insulate you from suffering consequences from failure in the game.
For example, Mario World only lets you save at certain points like beating a castle. Therefore you are under pressure to complete a chunk of the game with your available lives/skills, or you will need to do it over again. It's part of the game design.
Adding a save state doesn't take that away, but only if the state is deleted once you return to the game. Otherwise, you are insulated from failure because you could just return to the save state.
So the way a game handles saves really comes down to its individual game design, but IMO there's always a way to manage it where you retain the designers intention without managing the players time for them. Like just add a suspend to Returnal.
But that save should not necessarily insulate you from suffering consequences from failure in the game.
For example, Mario World only lets you save at certain points like beating a castle. Therefore you are under pressure to complete a chunk of the game with your available lives/skills, or you will need to do it over again. It's part of the game design.
Adding a save state doesn't take that away, but only if the state is deleted once you return to the game. Otherwise, you are insulated from failure because you could just return to the save state.
So the way a game handles saves really comes down to its individual game design, but IMO there's always a way to manage it where you retain the designers intention without managing the players time for them. Like just add a suspend to Returnal.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
Who is this idiot, and how do we send him away?
Judge Magister
Member
I don't like to make a mistake and have to redo everything again.
Also I'm not a fan of multiple endings, in most cases ends up removing the weight of the ending.
Also I'm not a fan of multiple endings, in most cases ends up removing the weight of the ending.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
It's not just real life. It's all your favorite books, movies, TV shows as well.
Imagine reloading when you realize Walter White develops cancer in Breaking Bad? Narrative tied to consequence is naturally more compelling.
crazyriddler
Member
No, I love the quick save, I hate wasting time having to replay a difficult part over and over again.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Frodo didn't have to do everything again when Gandalf died to the Balrog. That's how you should be viewing the Josh Sawyer tweet.
AtomicStarving
Gold Member
Dumbest take I've ever seen. Video games are a form of entertainment, and manual saves give players more control over how they experience that entertainment. Who the fuck is this clown 
Judge Magister
Member
But you can choose to not save anyway and keep going and don't care if you're getting the good ending or not.
Esca
Member
That's up to the player. Many may just want to see what was the outcome doing what they weren't going to do anyways.
You also forget that manual saves allow for tons of experimentation. Such as using all your resources to to try something crazy to see if it actually would work. Where as in a auto save you wouldn't take the risk probably cause it would set you behind a lot if it doesn't work out. Being able to save the game and take a break from how you normally play just to go and wipe out an entire villages or cities on a murderous rampage. Or what about being able to just replay a certain section of the game you really enjoyed the most? Taking away options is not good. Auto save is cool for those times you may have forgot to save not often. It should be used along with manual saving and not the only way of saving, that's lame AF
Puscifer
Member
This guy can kick rocks. I'm sorry but re-release MEGATEN 5 was great because I could manually save and not feel like I have to set aside chunks of my time to make progress. Sure, even if it was just 30 minutes or a hour or two I finally finished it after 50 hours.
Persona 5 took me ages because I just felt like I always HAD to play for hours at a time.
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Retrofluxed
Member
Once again, why the ever living fuck do we care how people play their single player games?
JimboJones
Member
Depends, stealth games that have multiple ways of achieving the objective can benefit from "save scumming" as I think it encourages experimenting. Some of my favourite game experiences have been in DeusEx and just dicking around and trying different approaches.
The Cockatrice
Banned
Obsidian is a mistake nowadays.
semiconscious
Member
right. i mean, imagine just drinking something after getting shot/stabbed/smashed, & suddenly getting all your health back. let's get rid of all instant healing, as well, i say. let us all just realistically be allowed to crawl away to die...
Quantum253
Gold Member
If auto saving didn't exist, you'd be paying for typewriter ribbons in REs through the games digital storefront along with everyone else
Punished Miku
Banned
Nah
Sooner
Gold Member
Imagine a movie character dying, but the scene keeps replaying until he survives.
Movies are not games and shouldn't follow the same logic.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
I love save scumming.
But I wouldnt so much if gaming AI didnt cheat. If youre someone who played old Warlords games, the cpu cheated in fights, and HoMM games the cpu cheated with extra resources/city boosts, which you could tell as it'd be physically impossible to create some monster structures that fast. Even if you had unlimited resources, structures could only be built 1 per day per city. The cpu would somehow be able to get advanced monster structures faster than possible and that didn't even consider resources requirements which is on top of it.
It also cheated by not being affected by fog of war, and it didn't need to step out a step going back and forth through moon gates. Surely many more if I thought about it.
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ReyBrujo
Member
For dungeon crawlers I prefer automatic saving per room so that if you mess up, you are done for. For other games I don't mind. However you can't expect a player to play a 30 hour game 12 to get every possible final, it's stupid. Imagine Chrono Trigger with automatic saving, it would be horrendous.
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