Damned Registrations
Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2007
- Messages
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We've had some thread derail into this over the years, but they usually start on some specific tangent and get dumped because both the original topic and the latest directing get beaten to death. So lets start with something broad here. This thread will be a place to discuss how games (especially RPGs) should handle saving and various pros/cons.
Lets start with some things we can all agree on (I hope.):
The system should allow you to leave at any time, in case you realize you're going to miss the season finale of My Little Pony and need to run off.
The save system should have backups in case of external system failure (Your computer, power, our the program itself dies).
I'm not going to put anything more than those two points up on that category for now. Fortunately, those can both be solved very easily with two things that have no other impact on the game: Temporary saves and temporary autosaves that are only accessible after an improper shutdown. The later are a bit easier to abuse, but I think it's safe to say if anyone feels like going outside the program to accomplish something within the program, no amount of design is going to stop them.
A 'temporary' save, is simply a save that is deleted upon being loaded. In pretty common usage at this point, and also the basis for any kind of hardcore game with a save system.
So, with some basics everyone can agree on out of the way, lets get into some examples we can bash eachother about.
One of the most common things people complain about involving saves is the save/reload spam abuse that break difficulty so easily. I've tried to think of some more elegant solutions (and seen other people do the same) before, but they always seem to encounter major hurdles in the form of requiring a heavy investment of design time to tie up all the loose ends. So I suggest an ugly and brutish solution instead. If the goal is to make the player not reload to accomplish a task simply because it's faster and less grief for him to try again than recovering from the failure, lets simply make reloading slower and cause more grief. Specifically: When you reload a save (that is, a save that has been continued from before, NOT a save that you made when taking a break from the game) you will be unable to do anything with a random variable for a set amount of time. No resting and hoping to not get ambushed by wolves, no lockpicking, no skill testing dialogues if they involve chance, no combat. You could accomplish this in one of three ways: Simply make the game pause for the required amount of time when you attempt to do such a thing while being penalized. Make such options unavailable while penalized (more work, slightly less immersion shattering and annoying overall). Or, finally, apply a negative modifer to all rolls so massive it outweighs even the benefits of rolling as many times as you could before it would have worn off anyways.
The result, in theory, should be that reloading after failure is agonizing. The only way to 'get around' the penalty is to not care about the penalty and do something else, either inside or outside the game. If your game is worth playing, that shouldn't be possible. There's no way in fucking hell I'd be willing to take a 10 minute break while playing say, XCom or Might and Magic 3 as opposed to sucking it up and taking the failure. Of course, this depends on the size of the failure, and games should include failures so complete you cannot continue from them. If the game is interesting enough, and balanced well enough that such failures are infrequent, it'll still be worth playing. Any hardcore game (roguelikes for example) is proof enough of that.
The primary drawback to this, is that it requires you to set the difficulty at a point where total failure is extremely rare. Unless your game is made of gold and shits ecstasy people are going to drop it rather than continue if a 5 minute fight kills them 5 times in a row, when they certainly wouldn't with normal reloading.
Optional parts that will/won't work:
This can't be tailored to the TYPE of failure. If you get a free reload because you died in combat, people will just get killed in combat after failing a lockpick roll.
Works well with soft death systems. If a total party kill doesn't end the game, but takes all your money and sends you back to town, then the player has the option of continuing, despite a loss of maybe 20 minutes of progress, or reloading and waiting 10 minutes before progressing without any of that loss. Some people would rather have the fastest route to new ground, while others would rather backtrack than twiddle their thumbs.
So, someone reply and tell me why my idea is shit and I'll do you the courtesy of returning the favour.
Lets start with some things we can all agree on (I hope.):
The system should allow you to leave at any time, in case you realize you're going to miss the season finale of My Little Pony and need to run off.
The save system should have backups in case of external system failure (Your computer, power, our the program itself dies).
I'm not going to put anything more than those two points up on that category for now. Fortunately, those can both be solved very easily with two things that have no other impact on the game: Temporary saves and temporary autosaves that are only accessible after an improper shutdown. The later are a bit easier to abuse, but I think it's safe to say if anyone feels like going outside the program to accomplish something within the program, no amount of design is going to stop them.
A 'temporary' save, is simply a save that is deleted upon being loaded. In pretty common usage at this point, and also the basis for any kind of hardcore game with a save system.
So, with some basics everyone can agree on out of the way, lets get into some examples we can bash eachother about.
One of the most common things people complain about involving saves is the save/reload spam abuse that break difficulty so easily. I've tried to think of some more elegant solutions (and seen other people do the same) before, but they always seem to encounter major hurdles in the form of requiring a heavy investment of design time to tie up all the loose ends. So I suggest an ugly and brutish solution instead. If the goal is to make the player not reload to accomplish a task simply because it's faster and less grief for him to try again than recovering from the failure, lets simply make reloading slower and cause more grief. Specifically: When you reload a save (that is, a save that has been continued from before, NOT a save that you made when taking a break from the game) you will be unable to do anything with a random variable for a set amount of time. No resting and hoping to not get ambushed by wolves, no lockpicking, no skill testing dialogues if they involve chance, no combat. You could accomplish this in one of three ways: Simply make the game pause for the required amount of time when you attempt to do such a thing while being penalized. Make such options unavailable while penalized (more work, slightly less immersion shattering and annoying overall). Or, finally, apply a negative modifer to all rolls so massive it outweighs even the benefits of rolling as many times as you could before it would have worn off anyways.
The result, in theory, should be that reloading after failure is agonizing. The only way to 'get around' the penalty is to not care about the penalty and do something else, either inside or outside the game. If your game is worth playing, that shouldn't be possible. There's no way in fucking hell I'd be willing to take a 10 minute break while playing say, XCom or Might and Magic 3 as opposed to sucking it up and taking the failure. Of course, this depends on the size of the failure, and games should include failures so complete you cannot continue from them. If the game is interesting enough, and balanced well enough that such failures are infrequent, it'll still be worth playing. Any hardcore game (roguelikes for example) is proof enough of that.
The primary drawback to this, is that it requires you to set the difficulty at a point where total failure is extremely rare. Unless your game is made of gold and shits ecstasy people are going to drop it rather than continue if a 5 minute fight kills them 5 times in a row, when they certainly wouldn't with normal reloading.
Optional parts that will/won't work:
This can't be tailored to the TYPE of failure. If you get a free reload because you died in combat, people will just get killed in combat after failing a lockpick roll.
Works well with soft death systems. If a total party kill doesn't end the game, but takes all your money and sends you back to town, then the player has the option of continuing, despite a loss of maybe 20 minutes of progress, or reloading and waiting 10 minutes before progressing without any of that loss. Some people would rather have the fastest route to new ground, while others would rather backtrack than twiddle their thumbs.
So, someone reply and tell me why my idea is shit and I'll do you the courtesy of returning the favour.