OT: Save Loactions or SaveAnywhere

[Agrajag]

Well, the thread where this was discussed was locked for flame-reasons which were unrelated to the topic of Far Cry's system of saving only in certain times rather than allowing you to save anytime anywhere, and I feel there's still a bit more to discuss this issue, flamelessly, in a new thread.
So here goes:

While I do agree that using specific saving locations adds to the tension, difficulty and thus fun of the game, I also think that it isn't a good way of doing that.
1) It is just an artificial way of increasing the difficulty of the game, and thus the fun.
There are much better ways, such as more innovative gameplay, map design, AI, weapons, foes etc.
2) It can severely increase frustration levels - there's nothing more annoying than sinking an hour of your time into a game, only to be mowed down by some unseen enemy and having all that effort wasted and going back to a previous save.
3) It deviates from the norm and "goes backwards in time". It is like a modern RTS that will not allow you to select all units of a certain type by double-clicking on a unit from that type.

That is all so far.

[OG_Gleep]

I hate it when games don't let you save anywhere any time. Anyone remember the first vampire game? There was such an uproar on the forums, they quickly released a patch to put it in. Many console/pc games when developed together will have a save point system instead of a save anywhere anytime system that we are used to. IMHO thats lazy game design. Now a days with harddrives coming standard on consoles, it will be less of an issue down the road.

But by and large save point systems suck. It forces you to replay the same sequence of events, often scripted, over and over again. If someone wants the challenge, in a save anywhere system, they can just avoid saving often.

[Gandalf Parker]

I take it for granted this is not a Dominions discussion?

While I do understand the advantages of save-points, there is another way which I like better. I love it when games thwart my efforts to cheat by making random rolls well in advance.

[Agrajag]

Gandalf Parker said:
I take it for granted this is not a Dominions discussion?

Yep, that's why there's an OT right up ahead at the topic.

thejeff said:
1)I'm not sure that specific saving locations is anymore an artificial way of raising the difficulty than saving at anytime is of lowering it.

I dislike the ability to win a fight by just saving and trying it 5-10 times, and try to avoid the temptation. I don't always succeed It does seem many games are designed expecting that behavior.
How would Dominions play if it was standard practice to restore and run a turn again if a battle didn't go your way. Maybe tweak the orders a little...

2) I'd agree with this, though I'm not in the habit of saving often and thus wind up doing this even when I can. More frustrating to me would be not being able to save where I am when I need to stop playing.

3) Backward in time? Was this ever standard on PC games? Back to old text adventures (dating myself) saving at will has been common.

Of course, I'm an old nethack addict so I've always been fond of the save and quit approach. It takes a different style of game though.

1) Then you shuoldn't "screw" the rest of us just because of your weak will
3) SaveAnywhere is standard now, so abandoning it is going back in time

Vicious Love said:
I've always favored games that autosave pretty much everywhere, and don't tear you away from the gameplay to manually handle the act yourself. Constant metagamaing = bad, but constantly replaying the same scenes and dialogues = really aggravating.

I don't know, a quick jab of the old F5 doesn't tear me away from the gameplay.

[thejeff]

1)I'm not sure that specific saving locations is anymore an artificial way of raising the difficulty than saving at anytime is of lowering it.

I dislike the ability to win a fight by just saving and trying it 5-10 times, and try to avoid the temptation. I don't always succeed It does seem many games are designed expecting that behavior.
How would Dominions play if it was standard practice to restore and run a turn again if a battle didn't go your way. Maybe tweak the orders a little...

2) I'd agree with this, though I'm not in the habit of saving often and thus wind up doing this even when I can. More frustrating to me would be not being able to save where I am when I need to stop playing.

3) Backward in time? Was this ever standard on PC games? Back to old text adventures (dating myself) saving at will has been common.

Of course, I'm an old nethack addict so I've always been fond of the save and quit approach. It takes a different style of game though.

[Saber Cherry]

Jagged Alliance 2 has a save-anytime approach, and it was difficult to force myself to "accept" a merc being hit in the shoulder and losing 2 points of dexterity, rather than simply reloading ten times until it went "right". Opinions differ, though - even in myself - so I am more in favor of an "Ironman" mode that leaves it up to the player, at game creation time. In that case I would generally play in Ironman mode to prevent me from cheating myself

[Vicious Love]

I've always favored games that autosave pretty much everywhere, and don't tear you away from the gameplay to manually handle the act yourself. Constant metagamaing = bad, but constantly replaying the same scenes and dialogues = really aggravating.

Regarding JA 2, the game would have been downright infuriating without the save anywhere system.

It's not that I reloaded whenever a merc was killed or critically/permanently injured; That kind of crisis is half the fun of games like JA 2/X-Com. But you know those situations where you've got a special enemy character surrounded by an entire squad of elite mercs, all partially behind cover and all drawing a bead on him, and he still gets an interrupt and injures or kills one of 'em? Or when the last enemy on a map is behind a closed door in a bunker, and you have absolutely no way of telling your mercs to just kind of nudge the door open from the side and toss a grenade in?

That's when I reload. Cheating and metagaming are a powerful weapon in the war against bad gameplay decisions. In the hands of the wicked, however, they may dispel fun and immersion in ways no mere flawed inventory system or poorly-scripted event chain could ever hope to do.

[PrinzMegaherz]

Fixed save point locations are no issue for me, as long as the points are fairly placed. I have never heard anyone argue that the final fantasy games should have a free save option instead of fixed save points.

This works as long as the savepoints are not too scarce and the game not too random / hard. Call of Cthulhu would be an example for a game that has unfair savepoints. I stopped playing it because I got to frustrated. Wesnoth is a strategy game that has very random rolls and is very hard to play unless you save constantly - one reason why I do not enjoy that game.

So, fixed save points can be okay in the right circumstances, free saving is not the ultimate solution as many game designers use it as an excuse to make ridiculous hard games (like the formerly mentioned JA2)

[OG_Gleep]

You can save in dominions. Just save your turn, copy the folder, and reload. If things don't go as planned, exit to the main menu, and copy over the old folder. Its useful if your testing scripts.

I admit, I tend to save too often, but I would much rather have the option, then leaving it up to the developers.

Consoles are different, as save points have been standard since they got rid of the end of level codes.

[Vicious Love]

PrinzMegaherz said:
Call of Cthulhu would be an example for a game that has unfair savepoints. I stopped playing it because I got to frustrated.

It was the cheesiness of it all that turned me off. That, and the absurd linearity. I mean, honestly, you have visions of the hotel manager murdering pretty much everyone who lodges at his hotel, you find a journal describing precisely how he murdered them all, and, just in case you've reason to doubt the journal's veracity, you find it on a desk in a room full of hacked-up human body parts. And STILL you decide to sleep there. I mean, a proper Lovecraftian protagonist would rationalize absolutely everything until he went bonkers, but your guy is just... a lemming with stubble, really.

Getting back on topic, the problem with this linearity(apropos save systems) is that there's only one way to complete each and every mission. Saving and loading in DCotE isn't like playing two or more rounds of the same game, it's like watching two or more reruns of the exact same episode of a(rather uninspired) TV show, with each viewing being semi-randomly interrupted until you can finally memorize the script, the exact sequence of actions that gets you through the episode. In a game that claims to be in the horror genre, this sort of pointless drudgery is inexcusable, especially since it gives you countless golden opportunities to see the strings holding absolutely everything up. Show me a DCotEsque game that's nearly as replayable as it is playable, and I'll show you a save system I can live with, no matter how limiting it may seem.