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Incline On the topic of Consequence Persistence & save systems

What type of save system do you prefer?

  • Save and exit only, exit save deletes upon continuing

  • Save and exit(with delete) + limited saving(resting, special items, etc.,)

  • i like to savescum and therefore prefer quicksaves


Results are only viewable after voting.

Metronome

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If you sincerely believe that sacrificing software flexibility that is the concept of save on demand is worth it due to your personal views on fun, then you have very little reasonable ideas to share probably on a much wider array of topics

It's a non-issue, a phantom Codexers conjured to lose in fight against it - there is nothing wrong in quicksaves, they were never wrong in the first place, a quicksave free system makes no sense in 2020
It's more convenient sure, but not worth the price. It makes large chunks of the intended challenge irrelevant. And I can tell the challenge is intended because they wouldn't have left those consequences in if they expected everyone to just reload when they are effected by them. It really messes with the immersion of a game as well, because I am pushed into meta-gaming. The "pro-move" if you get a suboptimal outcome is to reroll, even if that is not a natural way of playing the game. Or you could play nice with the developer and take it on the chin, but usually that feels like self-flagellation. Either way I am taken out of the experience.

In a roguelike you make decisions in a reasonably natural way, because almost as much is on the line as there would be in real life. In a regular RPG with limited saves there are still risks but fewer possible consequences for your mistakes. The developer should not include certain consequences that work in roguelikes because they do not suit a handcrafted design. Finally in a game with unlimited saves, there are almost no possible consequences to mistakes. The only way the developer can make your mistakes matter now is to make those consequences delayed. The result is people replaying large sections of the game over again because the developer tried to make something matter. That however makes the flexibility of this system moot.

Maybe you could make a game with unlimited saving have negative consequences that work. You would have to design around unlimited saves though, and that's hard to do. As a result, most developers design their unlimited save games with roguelike/limited save consequences that don't work in the system. Unlimited saves don't just make the game easier then, they limit the number of meaningful options developers have to make the game challenging.
 

Serious_Business

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Recently I've been in majorly favor of the ironman system. It's been argued that this is just an option for players who "lack discipline" to not reload, but I think it goes beyond than that - it implies (or at least can imply) that the designers made their games in such a manner that player mistakes or even death would be part of the experience. To me, this changes drastically what a game can offer - it brings it closer to rogue-likes, essentially. In his Battle Brothers review, Darth turd criticized the game from essentially the perspective of non-ironman play ; I can in fact understand how the game can become tedious while playing on normal mode, as every decision just looses its impact and there is no risk. Don't tell me you don't reload when you loose your best guy, because you "weren't paying attention" - you're supposed to be paying attention, at all times ; if you stop paying attention, it means there was no tension to begin with. The game was made to be played on ironman - it was made to generate that tension. The tension is what is interesting here. You either love it or you don't ; you play games for that kind of challenge, or just for a "relaxing time". And if indeed there are minor spots in the game where a death can come not from bad play, but entirely from random circumstances, I'm for it. Entirely controlled experiences are entirely boring (trying my best to sound like Oscar Wilde here). I do understand that some players look for controlled experiences (I suppose I could make an autist jab to follow meme convention, but fuck you), but I don't care for it. You need to have an element of randomness - otherwise I just play chess - and a consistent save system removes that element. This is the same reason systems that remove RNG are bad, ultimately. In a PnP game, randomness is everywhere, it's in the dice rolls. In a computer game, you gotta have some kind of enforced system so that randomness becomes a key part of what is going on. If it's entirely controlled by the player (if you can reroll the dices), then you just broke the game.
 

Shadenuat

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If you do not override player choices by throwing +2000 dps sword 5 mins after player crafted their own unique one and make character building varied and interesting, I think there's already enough persisting consequences in the game to make it worth playing.
Basically, I believe most interesting choices in RPGs happen through character building and growth, and you don't need to mess with save system to give it meaning.
 

Gibson

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I chose the second option because I don't want to be associated with save-scumming in any way/shape/form; to me that is for weak bros who most certainly do NOT lift.
I always play with only one quicksave file and usually save after every harder fight (don't save for trash fights) and at the end of every conversation (that way I've made my choice and need to stick with it).
 

Gibson

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"Hurr durr restarting is fun"

No.

why restarting?
I can always go back to my last quicksave and I'm not such a retard to fuck up things so badly that I'd need to restart a game.

people always whine and moan about C&C and yet a lot of them save-scumm; even if the game has only a quazi C&C (only on paper, but not really) you eliminate even that miniscule amount by save-scumming.
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
My take is that nothing stops an individual from self-imposing their own difficulty standards on a game (i.e. no save-scumming). But their own lack of will prevents them from not "cheating" as they see it, so they demand that the rules be forced on them to make up for their own (perceived) lack of character.
I get the feeling that you'd be against having a cheat mode enabled by default though.

I relent, games should offer two modes:
"The way games are meant to be played" mode without cheating/savescumming enabled
and
"People who play RPGs just to read text" mode with cheats and savescumming enabled
 

V_K

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The problem is that when you design a game around the assumption that everyone will savescum and only masochists won't, you get retarded shit like the consequences for failing a lockpicking or pickpocket check being an entire town fighting you to the death. Because hey, you can just reload! Hey, lets put in a dialogue where the player has no hints and has a 50/50 chance to just die, you can just reload
As if roguelikes are immunes to such designs.
 

Damned Registrations

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The problem is that when you design a game around the assumption that everyone will savescum and only masochists won't, you get retarded shit like the consequences for failing a lockpicking or pickpocket check being an entire town fighting you to the death. Because hey, you can just reload! Hey, lets put in a dialogue where the player has no hints and has a 50/50 chance to just die, you can just reload
As if roguelikes are immunes to such designs.
As if you know jack shit about roguelikes.
 

luj1

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My take is that nothing stops an individual from self-imposing their own difficulty standards on a game (i.e. no save-scumming). But their own lack of will prevents them from not "cheating" as they see it, so they demand that the rules be forced on them to make up for their own (perceived) lack of character.

That's exactly what it is.
 

JarlFrank

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
There’s a difference between failing and failing with “lolol now go play teh last two hours over!”. Replaying content because the game lacks basic quality of life features isn’t hardcore or cool. It just sucks.

I even reject the assumption that having to start over when your character dies makes a game more difficult. It is time consuming but that’s not the same thing as difficult. You’re restarting with a bunch of meta knowledge and can avoid sub optimal choices you made the first time. How is that more difficult than reloading and trying to beat the game with the same flawed character that just got wrecked?

This. All these calls for removing save everywhere features would turn a lot of games into frustrating experiences you won't complete but abandon after the 5th failed attempt, after which you don't feel like repeating the same content yet again.

Limited saving only works for roguelikes and other randomized games. In proper handcrafted RPGs, you should be able to save anywhere.
 

JarlFrank

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Arguing that losing progress is nothing but a waste of time is what can't be logically defended. Are all competitive games wasting your time because the other team can score points as well? If you think Starcraft is better if you save and reload whenever you make a shit decision, why not apply that to multiplayer too? Why not just make all your shit invincible so you never have to 'waste time' by not winning your first and last attempt?

You cannot compare strategy games and RPGs like that. A Starcraft match takes half an hour, tops. It's one player facing off against another (or against an AI), with both playing by the same rules. It's a competitive game of PvP.
A game like Total War, Europa Universalis, Civ etc is also PvP, even though they're single player against the AI. Every AI in the game is a player, just like you (and in fact, every faction in the game is playable by the player). It's a massive PvP match on a large world map where everyone tries to make their empire prosperous, forge alliances and curbstomp rivals. If you lose a game, you try again, maybe this time with a different faction. All gameplay comes from direct interactions between different players.

But a game like Arcanum, Baldur's Gate, Morrowind, Gothic, Temple of Elemental Evil, etc wouldn't be a lot of fun if you had to restart from scratch every time you die.

Imagine having to start from Irenicus' dungeon again because your character died in the final boss fight of Throne of Bhaal. That's 80 hours of progress gone, wiped away. Do you have the motivation to start over yet again? Yes, the game does offer different choices at various points of the story, and a lot of the content is optional, but... do you really want to go through all of it again? And, knowing that the final fight is fucking hard, you probably want to do all the optional content to gather as much XP as possible, so you will repeat every single minor side quest. That's going to get very tedious very quickly.

Additionaly, in a game with ending slides - let's take Arcanum as an example - you can make different decisions on your second playthrough to keep it fresh, but you will always be left wondering what endings your original choices would have led to. You're not gonna find out unless you re-play the game from scratch, make the exact same choices again, and this time take care not to die (if you die, too bad, gotta start over from scratch again!)

Fuck that shit.
 

Strange Fellow

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I don't see the need to get bogged down with the theory of it. You can just imagine playing a game and spotting an intimidating monster or a foreboding entrance to a dungeon. With unlimited saves you won't be anywhere near as apprehensive, because you can reload at any time. With a limited saving system, you'll be weighing your options and paying attention to clues that could suggest the difficulty level of a particular encounter or location, because it's essential to be aware of these things in order to make progress. Save anywhere is incompatible with this way of playing and completely changes the way the game makes you feel when you're faced with these decisions. I'm not saying that limited saving is the only way of doing things, but I personally love that feeling, so the risk of going an entire session without making any progress is a price I'm willing to pay.
 

V_K

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I don't see the need to get bogged down with the theory of it. You can just imagine playing a game and spotting an intimidating monster or a foreboding entrance to a dungeon. With unlimited saves you won't be anywhere near as apprehensive, because you can reload at any time. With a limited saving system, you'll be weighing your options and paying attention to clues that could suggest the difficulty level of a particular encounter or location, because it's essential to be aware of these things in order to make progress. Save anywhere is anathema to this way of playing and completely changes the way the game makes you feel when you're faced with these decisions. I'm not saying that limited saving is the only way of doing things, but I personally love that feeling, so the risk of going an entire session without making any progress is a price I'm willing to pay.
My problem with the appeal to the adrenaline of high stakes is that it's only fun if you actually succeed. So the game must be ultimately easy, but masquerading as challenging to make you feel good. I seriously doubt Dark Souls would become as popular if it had permadeath.

Basically to avoid situations like reload chest on loot generation or save in between turns
Off the top of my head I can't remember a single game that would allow saving between turns. And the solution to savescumming loot is not having generated loot in the first place.
 

Lord_Potato

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Imagine having to start from Irenicus' dungeon again because your character died in the final boss fight of Throne of Bhaal. That's 80 hours of progress gone, wiped away. Do you have the motivation to start over yet again? Yes, the game does offer different choices at various points of the story, and a lot of the content is optional, but...

My brother used to play IE games just like that, at least Icewind Dale 1&2 (propably it was too easy to loose the PC in Baldur's Gate). He formed a party, went on adventuring and if they, died he used to say "It seems the party was not strong enough" and created a new one. Self imposed ironman, with no exceptions. I would not be able to do it (and would not consider restarting for the 4th time much fun) but somehow he could find enjoyment in this. Now I am curious if he ever managed to complete those games. Have to ask him next time I see him.
 

Strange Fellow

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
My problem with the appeal to the adrenaline of high stakes is that it's only fun if you actually succeed.
I would say it's fun until you get a game over, which is very different. But even when I do lose in this type of game, I don't feel like the fun I had before is invalidated.
I seriously doubt Dark Souls would become as popular if it had permadeath.
Dark Souls is a 50+ hour, mostly linear game with no random elements whatsoever. Making a game like that permadeath is a ludicrous idea. I didn't have permadeath in mind anyway, but rather limited/checkpoint saves.
 

Lord_Potato

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Off the top of my head I can't remember a single game that would allow saving between turns. And the solution to savescumming loot is not having generated loot in the first place.

Fallout games (although it was supposed to break some scripting. Never experienced that result however.

You can also save between combat turns in Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Hong Kong.
 

Saduj

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This is much less prevalent now but CRPG players also got into the habit of making new saves frequently in case they break the game or forget to do something important. The classic example is a missing quest item that disappeared or was sold or wasn't picked up from some unique location that can't be accessed again easily or at all. I can't remember it happening in a new game recently but I had to go back to an old save for something when I was playing the Fallout Nevada mod - might not have been main quest stuff, I think it had to do with power armor parts. Sometimes going back 2-3 saves and replaying some content is more convenient than getting back to whatever location to pick up the mcguffin.
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
Additionaly, in a game with ending slides - let's take Arcanum as an example - you can make different decisions on your second playthrough to keep it fresh, but you will always be left wondering what endings your original choices would have led to. You're not gonna find out unless you re-play the game from scratch, make the exact same choices again, and this time take care not to die (if you die, too bad, gotta start over from scratch again!)
I'm honestly surprised at how much difficulty you're having understanding that the game would be designed differently if it had a different save system.
It was designed this way because the designers knew you would do this.
 

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