Is save scumming objectively bad ?

[Whiran]

I used to care about "save scumming," thought that it was "cheating," and believed game designers should design games that actively thwarted attempts to do it.

Now I don't care what other people do in their single player games anymore. If someone wants to spend hours reloading their game for the perfect (in their mind) result who am I to argue or to police their behaviour?

Game designers should NOT design a game with "save scumming" in mind that creates really bad design in my opinion. I don't want a game "balanced" around a belief that someone needs to reload the game for success or that somehow the game's difficulty is impacted by a game designer worrying about someone reloading the game. If the game designers do not want reloading in their game then they should not allow reloading.

Save anywhere and anytime - of course
Load anytime - nope.

But, really, why care what someone else is doing?

I do not "save scum" in most games. In some games I do reload because I am curious about what alternative results might happen. Usually that is actually due to bad game design (lack of clarity as to what the consequence of a decision will be: if a dialogue option suggests that you are being kind only to find out that, nope, that was the you are a total asshole option - not cool) although sometimes I become curious about loot tables so I will reload over and over and over at a random loot chest just to see what are the possibilities.

If I do or if I do not makes no difference to how someone else plays the game.

 

[mondblut]

Funny, I see nothing funny about it. And I don't see how backups are "natural" in URW. And what takes you so long to complete advanced course either. URW is a SANDBOX roguelike, silly, you can't possibly complete it. Before latest 3.19 patch there was literally nothing to do, but to complete these courses infinetely (now it's restricted to 1 time per playthrough) and death in URW could happen either if you're a total noob or play it piss-ass-drunk. My fucking cat can play it randomly bashing paws at keyboard and still won't lose. Backups in URW. That's a good one.

I don't feel like starting from scratch when one of the 7 foreign traders I am killing at once gets a lucky eye shot. My time is better spent killing the next 7 foreign traders.

NATURALLY! Duh. Stupid devs forgot to include save function, those retards. Good thing there are modders out there to fix this mess of a game.

Precisely. It's my game to rape as I want to. When I don't like some design decision taken and find it standing in my way of entertainment, I am perfectly entitled to take it away. And no, I don't give a fuck if the EULA claims otherwise.

Your point being? Or did you just ran out of arguments and don't know how to show it?

What arguments would I need for a person crying over the fact someone else enjoys their entertainment in a different way than he, and he can't do shit about that? None whatsoever.

The thing is, this a thread about savescumming in videogames. So what next? You will tell me about ur childhood?

If that pleases me. The thing is, this is a thread about butthurt. Savescumming itself is hardly worth making a dozen of keypresses about. I do it, I enjoy it, end of story, cry me a river.

So spoiled you people are. When you were buying cartridges in 90s, there was not such thing as "bad game" or "not worthy of my time".

You can't even begin to imagine

Playing them now is pretty damn pointless, especially on emulators. It's just there for nostalgia's sake.

I dunno, having a run of Wizardry 5 not made out of vectors was pretty satisfying a few years ago.

Thankfully, I play with less casul GMs. And I'm man enough to accept defeat when it comes without whining and bitching about it. "Get beaten up"? GM? Puh-lease.

What's "defeat"?

 

[Grimwulf]

I used to care about "save scumming," thought that it was "cheating," and believed game designers should design games that actively thwarted attempts to do it.

Now I don't care what other people do in their single player games anymore. If someone wants to spend hours reloading their game for the perfect (in their mind) result who am I to argue or to police their behaviour?

Game designers should NOT design a game with "save scumming" in mind that creates really bad design in my opinion. I don't want a game "balanced" around a belief that someone needs to reload the game for success or that somehow the game's difficulty is impacted by a game designer worrying about someone reloading the game. If the game designers do not want reloading in their game then they should not allow reloading.

Save anywhere and anytime - of course
Load anytime - nope.

But, really, why care what someone else is doing?

I do not "save scum" in most games. In some games I do reload because I am curious about what alternative results might happen. Usually that is actually due to bad game design (lack of clarity as to what the consequence of a decision will be: if a dialogue option suggests that you are being kind only to find out that, nope, that was the you are a total asshole option - not cool) although sometimes I become curious about loot tables so I will reload over and over and over at a random loot chest just to see what are the possibilities.

If I do or if I do not makes no difference to how someone else plays the game.

Well, it's all about that "objectively" word in the topic, so this was SUPPOSED to be an objective discussion. About purely subjective experience tho.

I'm rather talkative on this one because of recent Wasteland 2 playthrough. Imo, devs were trying to deliver a message about savescumming. They made absoltely retarded "loot-based-on-random-seed" system, which I last saw... Idk, in Might and Magic VIII, probably? In other words, a truly ancient and rudimental element of rpgs today.

What it does : you get different loot from containers every time you reload. EVEN if you stay right in front of them, in the same fucking location. Loot may vary from a single piece of junk to actual rare guns and explosives. And don't tell me it's bad design in otherwise rather effort-involved game. It's not without flaws, but you don't just do that kind of shit out of "hey, that's a good idea, people will like it" kind of thought. It was really a message.

I first went blind on this game and savescummed through the first mission (ag tower), just too see how game mechanics work and what to keep in mind while char designing. By the end of mission, the team was INSANELY op with weapons+modifications+shitload of ammo, meds and scrap(cash). That is NOT how you should play the game, even if you have a "legal" right to do so. It may be my subjective perspective, but it is as objectve as it comes. When I restarted it from beginning with serious approach and had to develop some kind of game saving homerule (in the end decided to save only near water sources + autosave/60min. function) - that's when W2 actually became a game. When you carefully plan on ammo, avoid difficult traps and somewhat dangerous enemies, you constantly lack healing supplies, etc.

If you reroll all skill checks, all loot containers, all "bad" encounters (when you get injured a lot), then it's just another... thing, not even a game. It felt to me like devs designed the whole game around "no-saving" style of play, but in the end just DUMPED this function, just for casuls sake so nobody gets offended. And then thinking about, how many games were designed that way? Was it really necessary to include save-anytime option in Mount&Blade, considering that it just ruined the feel of the whole game? But if it was totally excluded, how many players would be pissed?

And it's not other people habits that bother me, despite what mondblut thinks. What REALLY bothers me is when games do NOT explain it to me. If you include "save anytime" function because you expect me to save like a madman, SAY SO. RPGs like Arcanum are simply impossible to complete without savescumming, without metagaming a lot. First blind playthrough - absolutely impossible. Autosave function was broken in vanilla too. But the game *seemed* all based on role playing and you *felt* like playing honest and roll on with bad calls here and there. Even Baldurs Gate 2 had more "markers", when you feel like "this dialogue twist could lead to trouble" or "this area could be a bit too much for me".

And there are opposite games, that feature "save anytime" function, but were designed to play without it. Wasteland 2 is the most recent and obvious example. And does it say a word about that? Fuck no! On the contrary, it advises to "save often" in loading screens. I mean, there is a lot of nerdy smart-ass jokes and trolling, but this is too much. That "advice" would ruin my first experience with the game, have I not played "experimental scouting party" beforehand.

But, really, why care what someone else is doing?

I wish there was one single guy, who would tell me in 1997:"When you'll play Fallout 1, don't savescum. I know you played a lot of modern games that allow you to do so, but don't do it in Fallout 1. Seriously, just consider the risks and roll with the consequences". Or maybe some people never knew about "no save" in M&B (=never played M&B whatsoever). Or maybe someone who still haven't tried W2 would read my mumbling and give it a thought. I do not beat myself up upon other player's experience, I just share my own experience and suggest things that I personnaly enjoy. It's just a good thing to do.

goes on with pointless conversation

'k.

 

[Perkel]

I used to care about "save scumming," thought that it was "cheating," and believed game designers should design games that actively thwarted attempts to do it.

Now I don't care what other people do in their single player games anymore. If someone wants to spend hours reloading their game for the perfect (in their mind) result who am I to argue or to police their behaviour?

Problem with save scumming isn't that its features makes design of game completely different.

Take for example STALKER. Whole game is build around F5F9. Developers instead of designing proper combat and mission design they just throw at you ton of soldiers that will fuck you up unless you reload like crazy. Since you have F59 why would you run away and regroup ? Maybe hire some NPC or talk to friend to help you out with that warehouse. Also there is no scouting due to that. Sure you can scout ahead what is in warehouse but why would you do that if you can just F59. Same with traps and other things.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

I never could understand why savescuming is regarded like the root of all evil. I mean, for example, it's the most efficient way to learn some roguelikes, and games with roguelike mechanics. Also, in text-heavy storyfag game I fail to see anything wrong with reloading on particularly interesting dialogues, to see the outcomes.

I think that the main problem is balancing game's difficulty - game should be challenging with or without savescumming. It's only bad when constant save-load significantly diminishes game's difficulty.

 

[Grimwulf]

I think OP should have been more specific about definitions in op-post.

You can't savescum in FPS games, as far as I concerned. You shoot and sometimes get shot. If you get shot and die, you reload and try again. 99% of FPS were designed that way. Stalker was special in some ways, but the principle stays the same.

And loading to explore other dialogue options isn't savescumming either. I do it on constant basis: first I try to stay in role and choose dialogue options accordingly, than save, then explore other options out of pure curiosity (especially when I like the writing), then load my RP save and go on with my initial choices. Learning in roguelikes can't called scumming either, I suppose, if you want to get prepared for the challenge. But... why? I can't remember any roguelike that would make sence to act like this. Most of them are SEVERELY random. Yes, ADOM has some non-changing layouts as well as Stone Soup and many others, but are they really mandatory? What you want is wiki, thankfully most of big roguelikes have their wikis. Just keep them as handy reference during playthroughs when you need to dive into mechanics and specifics.

Anyway, savescumming is totally another thing. It's when you try to overcome some obstacles that would be almost impossible otherwise, by save-loading. Like stealing every single item from every single NPC in Fallout 2 with 1,5% chance of success. Or any other way of exploiting crappy game designs based on random seed for profit. When you save and load after every single shot in JA2, just so you never miss - that's classic savescumming. When you experiment, explore, or just play an FPS - that's not savescumming in my book.

 

[Norfleet]

When you save and load after every single shot in JA2, just so you never miss - that's classic savescumming.

You can't even do that in JA2, anyway! I'm surprised you didn't know this is impossible. JA2 is one of those seeded games. If you shoot and miss, it was simply not fated to be, and no amount of reloading is going to change it. JA2 isn't a game where you can savescum for this, the only thing you can do by reloading is explore an alternate destiny. You can't save and reload after every shot to make that shot hit, you can only explore an alternate path like "What if I did X instead?".

 

[Grimwulf]

When you save and load after every single shot in JA2, just so you never miss - that's classic savescumming.

You can't even do that in JA2, anyway! I'm surprised you didn't know this is impossible. JA2 is one of those seeded games. If you shoot and miss, it was simply not fated to be, and no amount of reloading is going to change it. JA2 isn't a game where you can savescum for this, the only thing you can do by reloading is explore an alternate destiny.

Eh? I never tried, honestly Then why do people joke about it all the time?

 

[Norfleet]

Probably because it's a joke, like sending someone to fetch a gun report or a muzzle blast. I suppose you could savescum of a sorts by seeing what your fate is to be and then doing something else, but this is a somewhat different form of save/reload behavior than simple RNG-forceage. In JA2, you have a destiny and saving and reloading only lets you explore what to make of it, akin to picking an alternate dialogue option. If the situation in which you saved has no alternate path, then that's it.

 

[Grimwulf]

Probably because it's a joke, like sending someone to fetch a gun report or a muzzle blast. I suppose you could savescum of a sorts by seeing what your fate is to be and then doing something else, but this is a somewhat different form of save/reload behavior than simple RNG-forceage. In JA2, you have a destiny and saving and reloading only lets you explore what to make of it, akin to picking an alternate dialogue option. If the situation in which you saved has no alternate path, then that's it.

Okay. I'm sorry, JA2, for talking shit about you. I love you anyways.

Spoiler

Is it even possible to hate JA2?

Fallout: Tactics didn't seed tho. And if you didn't play Iron Man, I believe you could save in combat. And make them reloads-if-missed. Lots of other rpgs, both turn-based and real-time, allow to save during combat and random seed on reloads. And often exploited by players, even though those games are not even hard.

I often find myself STRUGGLING to make my gameplay harder. Develop and stick to home rules, restrict myself to do a lot of things or simply doin' old-fashioned roleplay, and most of the games are STILL easy. Why savescum? I failed to see a single good reason. It's either "coz I want to skip the gameplay and watch cutscenes" or isn't savescumming at all (perfect runs, content exploring, munchkin syndrome, etc.).

 

[Cadmus]

I know what you guys are saying but for me, the line where a simple saving and loading becomes save scumming is very blurred. It's fucking obvious that the saving system should be fit for the specific game.

In Hitman and Hidden and Dangerous 2 which I'm replaying now, you get limited saves which is I think one of the best solutions. In a combat heavy RPG, I'm totally fine with saving only out of combat or even in combat.

In PST I let myself get kinda immersed in the game and load only if I get myself into an unwinnable fight via some retarded dialogue option which I didn't understand what it did when I clicked it.

In games where attrition isn't as important as the actual encounters, I'll gladly save anytime I make a significant progress in a battle.

In games where random loot is given upon opening a box and that loot changes during every re-load, I might save scum a little bit if I for example get a good loot, then don't save and die and come back to open the box and there's only a banana inside instead of Flaming Battleaxe of Skullcrushing. I just feel fucked over by the game a little bit and will try to load enough to get something decent now that I've discovered the loot changes every time and I practically had the good reward instead of the fucking banana. This happened to me in Divinity 2 for example.

In Homam likes, I like the autosave each day function and I don't think it's save scumming if you use it to avoid a battle you realized you couldn't win.

Whatever. One thing is that the player should get to decide when to save but there are definitely some games that benefit from limited saving options. Sure I wouldn't save after every kill in Hitman but I would save after 2 or 3 or one that was really difficult but when you can't, it makes you play differently.

 

[mondblut]

You can't even do that in JA2, anyway! I'm surprised you didn't know this is impossible.

JA2 is one of those seeded games. If you shoot and miss, it was simply not fated to be, and no amount of reloading is going to change it. JA2 isn't a game where you can savescum for this, the only thing you can do by reloading is explore an alternate destiny. You can't save and reload after every shot to make that shot hit, you can only explore an alternate path like "What if I did X instead?".

Unless by "alternate destiny" you imply "make this or even another character do something irrelevant on the side first to bypass that bad apple of a pregenerated random number before retrying your shot", you are grossly mistaken.

Sorry for ruining your future JA2 gaming

 

[belowmecoldhands]

I used to when I was younger but now I prefer to live with the consequences of my actions in games.

Same here. But this is also why I don't like games where I die a lot. It gets to a point in some games where in order to "live with the consequences" you have to die constantly. This means rerunning the same content after death. That's soooo 1990's. I want something a little slower but still with heavy consequences for my actions. I'm ok with a death now and then.

I like games where there's no hand holding and lots of danger and it's open ended, but I need room to fail. I like it when resources are tight too. Somehow failing needs to be changed from death->reload to something else.

Keep in mind two times I've played JA2 on hard and quit if my main died. Both times I had a very exciting and tight game. I lasted for a while in each try. I wanted to try easier difficult, but I was woried it'd lose hte intensity.

Al in all, JA2 would probably be better if I did it on normal. Maybe it's not as easy-ish as I fear. I've thought one way to do it would be to kep my main in a city and because I got more money do the important things with the mercs. In some ways it'd make more sense too becuase the main is the leader of the combat operation and shouldn't be too wreckless.

Moving the deaths from my main to my mercs only realy accomplishes not having to reload, it doesn't stop having to redo some content. For example, if my mercs fail to take a sector and I lose a couple then I'll have to g back. Of course, it'll be a bit different possibly (if the enemy mercs stay dead), and mith not feel as artificial to me as it does when I reload a savegame. Of course, having to truck some mercs all the way back to the sector would take more time than just reloading. Naturally, it seems living with the consequences (assuming it means you don't die) means you'll lose some time versus save scumming. Some others have mentioned this already. For example, if you win a misson but lose something important, reloading can save time.

 

[Norfleet]

Unless by "alternate destiny" you imply "make this or even another character do something irrelevant on the side first to bypass that bad apple of a pregenerated random number before retrying your shot", you are grossly mistaken.

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I meant.

But, of course, you still have to pay some kind of cost to do this. A character must still take an action that consumes from the stream of fate.

I've actually turned this into kind of an artform in various games, where it is possible to actually predict the sequence of numbers generated, and thus know whether the action is worth taking or not in multiplayer, because PRNGs are not actually random, but a deterministic mathematical sequence, and if you know the numbers used to generate the stream and where you are in the stream, you can predict the next few numbers and how to use them. It's extremely funny to be able to do this, and intentionally consume good numbers and leave bad numbers for your opponents, and he'll have NO idea why his luck is always shit.

 

[mondblut]

I've actually turned this into kind of an artform in various games, where it is possible to actually predict the sequence of numbers generated, and thus know whether the action is worth taking or not in multiplayer, because PRNGs are not actually random, but a deterministic mathematical sequence, and if you know the numbers used to generate the stream and where you are in the stream, you can predict the next few numbers and how to use them. It's extremely funny to be able to do this, and intentionally consume good numbers and leave bad numbers for your opponents, and he'll have NO idea why his luck is always shit.

You should try that in Vegas