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[Guilty_AI]

...But that sounds like flat-out bad game design, though. Or at least punishing-on-purpose game design. If a game is designed for rare events to be special

In this specific case however, BG3 is just emulating DnD rules and sessions. Chaos and chance are part of the experience.

 

[Aenima]

Imagine trying to play a Bugthesda game without multiple manual saves.

Im ok when a game does not allow you to do that by design because thats the dev vision, right now im playing a game that has multiple choices and thers no manual saves so whatever happens, the games moves on with the good or bad choices you made. But thats not somethng i want to see in all games i play. Manual saves allow me to experience diferent outcomes without having to do a new playtrough.

 

[CamHostage]

It's not really about self control.

People keep bringing up Mass Effect to counter the Josh Sawyer tweet but they shouldn't.

Mass Effect was built with the developers knowing 99.99% of players were going to reload. They fundamentally designed the experience around that.

If they design Mass Effect knowing 0% of players have the reload function, it becomes a vastly different experience.

Also, if you read deeper into Sawyer's thread, he's not saying that save spaces shouldn't exist; kind of the opposite in some ways. He mentions that some manual save states have/should have automated solutions for them now (if you need to leave a game, for example, the exit save or the console's own sleep mode should do the work,) and in cases where the multiple manual saves players from corrupted saves or load-spawn errors, that's something the game designers should be responsible for fixing/avoiding, it shouldn't be assumed that players will deal with that themselves.

Also, it's not to say that multiple branching paths could never be available to players. A modern solution would be a total rewind feature after a game has been played through, to take you back to infinite numbers of points of time in a playthrough to try changing course of action. That's sort of the same thing as manual saves, but mechanically, it's taking the onus off the player to nervously save everywhere they think a game might take an interesting twist, and so instead they can play through and face their consequences of actions inside the immersion of the game; for games which include the rewind feature, you can return once your story is complete.

 

[Loomy]

Before autosave were a thing, manual was the only option. Is he suggesting that we should have suffered leaving on games running overnight for years until autosave was introduced?

 

[Varteras]

Fuck off, Josh. Make your games however you want, but don't presume to know what I need out of my experiences or what's "good for me". Pretentious twat.

 

[Silver Wattle]

Who are these people that think everyone else has time to burn?
Fuck off josh sawyer(whoever the fuck that is).

 

[DaciaJC]

Yeah, gonna have to disagree there. I love using manual saves as a sort of "bookmark," a way to revisit certain chapters or special moments from a playthrough.

 

[Barakov]

Obsidian is a mistake nowadays.

They definitely lived long enough to see themselves become the villain.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Baldurs Gate 3 is one of the best games of all time, and it's very save scummy. I'm more impressed by well designed checkpoints, but there are too many counter-examples to say there's a rule here.

This. A bad start of the fight in BG3 can wipe half your party because the enemy managed some scummy bomb+oil combo. Another example is if you fail a persuasion check and have to fight

Spoiler

Gith patrol that are most likely way above your level at that point in the game

 

[Spukc]

Rewind function..

Even better in retro games

 

[existensmaximum]

What a stupid take.

 

[ReBurn]

Manual saves are the best.

 

[RyRy93]

People are talking about experimentation and save scumming but simply being able to hit save and quit a game instead of wandering around trying to trigger the next auto save is convenient.

 

[tusharngf]

No one should trust this person with that name lol

 

[Zathalus]

Just give players a choice, like BG3.

 

[StueyDuck]

The statement is too dumb and simplistic to even get involved with.

The guy put some bait out there and you are falling for it.

 

[RoadHazard]

Games like Souls/ER definitely should never have a manual save/load system. Would remove so much of the tension that makes it great if you knew you could just reload whenever.

 

[Cakeboxer]

Unlimited saves were a mistake. I like the idea in Hitman that you got a certain amount of savegames per level depending on the diffculty. Also the idea from i think it was Kingdom come where you needed an item to save. Both prevent savegame spam that trivializes games. That's fine for very easy, but higer difficulties shouldn't have it.

 

[Filben]

I would have had only half as much fun with Max Payne back in the day. Constantly reloading to do the same shootout differently, with better style, or simply to see it again because of how awesome it looked. Also, playtime was at least twice as high as if I was just blazing through, especially the second game, which is way shorter than the first.

Why would anyone take that away from you?

 

[SCB3]

He’s wrong as the amount of games that will simply fucking crash on you for no reason whatsoever is a thing

In fact a bad save system actually stops me playing a game, the Original Dead Rising (though I did play all of that) and Kingdom Come are great example of that

 

[Cao Cao]

Only if you can save everywhere anytime. That's why I prefer Savepoints.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

What an L take from Sawyer here. I can't imagine playing a VN with multiple routes and endings without having multiple manual save slots.

 

[gtabro]

Yet manual saves allow you to to save before events/ choices so you can see more than one outcome without having to repay the game where as auto Dave you are SOL and can't see more than one outcome

And that’s why it’s a coming experience how in just a few weeks the story becomes a mumbo-jumbo in your head instead of one coherent exciting piece that was YOUR adventure and not Dr Strange’s multiverse bullshit.

Just watch the other outcomes on Youtube later man.

 

[Robb]

Disagree and that argument makes no sense. If I save I can go back and change the outcome of any single moment indefinitely if I’d like.

 

[Denton]

Would soulslikes be better games if they had unlimited manual save?

No?

So what the fuck is with this thread?

Manual unlimited saving is effectively a gameplay mechanic of unlimited time travel, which trivializes every challenge and obstacle in a game.
Obviously, it still has its place, and especially when a game is not 100% technically polished, its absence can be annoying. But developers considering unlimited saving to be what it is - a game mechanic - and thus limiting it to achieve their design goals, is a good thing.

 

[thief183]

I totally agree if we are talking about RPG, save scumming totally ruin the experience, in other types of games it is totally fine (FPS for example)

 

[killatopak]

Imagine saying this and making Fallout New Vegas where bugs can literally fuck up your 100 hour game. With only fix outside of console command is reloading an earlier save.

And I fucking love FONV.

 

[midnightAI]

The game I'm making doesn't have saves at all (currently)

 

[mckmas8808]

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.

This is nuts. I want to play the game, but also PROGRESS!

 

[Fortress of Regrets]

This dude is wrong.

 

[sigmaZ]

One size doesn't fit all, Joshua.

Yeah. His mom should have thought him that. I like the save system to accentuate the rest of the game, but these days there's so many games and so little times, so I prefer to be able to save whenever I want.

 

[FewRope]

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.

He has a point in the extended take, I still want manual saves

 

[DelireMan7]

I like "action and consequences" and "assume your choice" philosophy in games. I find it cool to have some "no way back" point. It also gives more sense to alternate endings and gives more weight to choices.
So for me reloading a save to have a different outcome or change something is an heresy. Personally reloading just before the end to see different endings is senseless. An ending only makes sense if I do the full adventure. But that's very personal I guess. I am fine missing stuff and not seeing everything. If the game is good I'll replay it and see them at one point.

I could totally do without manual saves. I voted "True" to the statement on the principal. But it's fine if people save scumming.

 

[niilokin]

I save scum proudly and without giving shits n fuks

 

[DelireMan7]

Imagine trying to play a Bugthesda game without multiple manual saves.

Im ok when a game does not allow you to do that by design because thats the dev vision, right now im playing a game that has multiple choices and thers no manual saves so whatever happens, the games moves on with the good or bad choices you made. But thats not somethng i want to see in all games i play. Manual saves allow me to experience diferent outcomes without having to do a new playtrough.

What the game you're playing ? Sounds like something I'd like

 

[Green_Eyes]

What if I want multiple save files for different sections of a game? Idiot...

 

[Wildebeest]

It's not about saying "you got this narrative outcome, accept it", it's about inviting a the player to replay the game to find other narrative outcomes. Not every path is satisfying and because of the brief runtime of any given playthrough, it isn't a time sink which is the point of my original post.

It is a time sink. Saying that it is fine for some reason or another is just saying we should just accept it.

 

[DelireMan7]

Baldurs Gate 3 is one of the best games of all time, and it's very save scummy. I'm more impressed by well designed checkpoints, but there are too many counter-examples to say there's a rule here.

I'd say it's save scummy if you want it to be.

Completed it twice without a single save scum.

 

[AV]

Ironically, in Fallout 1 and 2, quicksave and quickload are practically gameplay mechanics. Autosaves only would make those games unbearable.

 

[Drell]

That's the same as fast travel in open worlds. I personally hate fast travel but I won't complain if it's there since I can simply ignore it and play the game as I want. Let people play any game as they want. If there's a manual save, let anyone choose if they want to use it or not.

 

[MMaRsu]

What a clown

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Not at all. Manual saves protect you from game breaking bugs, that an autosave could lock you into.

If something like that occurs, you could reload a manual save you made an hour earlier, so you can avoid the issue.

Yeah in order for auto save to work and not annoy people or soft lock them you need to have multiple auto saves and do them frequently.

And at that point it's not far removed from save scumming anyways.

 

[Roberts]

Pardon if somebody already mentioned it, but you have to take in consideration that Josh Sawyer is a notorious joker, prankster and a twitter troll of the most amusing kind. I love the guy, he is one of the best developers out there and certainly one of the most passionate and intelligent ones, but you shouldn't take anything he says absolutely seriously.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Just like fast-travel in open-world games, it should always be an option.

 

[Hypereides]

This is more of a case-by-case basis sort of thing. For some games it makes sense while for others it doesn't. Just making a blanket statement "manual saves were a mistake" is not useful. I actually kinda miss when that sort of a thing was a standard in SP games. Managing where and when you "checked-in" was a neat feature. It lent more control over the direction of the game's state/flow imo.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Dude must not have enjoyed seeing a save point in a Final Fantasy game. Sometimes you’ll grind from that spot or you find one because you need to shut the game off. That feeling of seeing a save spot can be rewarding. Saving before a boss or reaching a new area.

It’s like his experience with games never gave him that.

 

[DenchDeckard]

 

[cireza]

Handle better players failing then. People save a lot because they don't want to waste their time replaying 5 or 15 or 30 identical minutes.

 

[The Stig]

 

[Hollowpoint5557]

This guy hasn't lost a Fallout 3 save due to auto-save corruption obviously. I learned that every time you do ANYTHING you save manually. Open a door, save, loot the building, save, open the door to go out in the world, save, walk 10 steps, save...