What games are you playing now?

JDR13 said:

Wrong. You can't select individual checkpoint saves. The only option is to replay an entire chapter from the beginning. Are you f*cking kidding me?

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An early 90s save system? Seriously? Guess that's off the list forever.

In the early 90s Wolfenstein 3D, you can save everywhere (except in the SNES version, it's level codes there). So that TNO save method is not so much early 90s than consoles.

JDR13 said:

I've moved on from Strife and started playing Wolfenstein: TNO.

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I am actually just digging into Strife, and finding it quite a bit of fun

JDR13 said:

Wrong. You can't select individual checkpoint saves. The only option is to replay an entire chapter from the beginning. Are you f*cking kidding me?

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Reminds me of Dark Forces ... but in that game the levels were designed to be played that way ...

For me:
- KOTOR on iPad - with gamepad control support it is much more fun!
- Bioshock on iPad - ditto.
- Divine Divinity on Mac - exhausting dungeons!
- Strife on Mac - just loads of fun.

txa1265 said:

I am actually just digging into Strife, and finding it quite a bit of fun

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I played until I reached the sewers where I kept getting lost and running out of those environmental suits. Fun game, but the call of more recent games in my backlog was too strong to resist.

I decided to start over in Wolfenstein: TNO, and now I've also installed the 2009 Wolfenstein and I'm messing around with that too.

Jaz said:

In the early 90s Wolfenstein 3D, you can save everywhere (except in the SNES version, it's level codes there). So that TNO save method is not so much early 90s than consoles.

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I was thinking of Dark Forces, but in retrospect it seems there were more free-save games then than I thought. That makes it even more ridiculous for a modern game to not have it, but of course that would give control to the player, which is Bad.

JDR13 said:

I played until I reached the sewers where I kept getting lost and running out of those environmental suits. Fun game, but the call of more recent games in my backlog was too strong to resist.

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Ahhh Strife! Love that game so much, though it's really easy to ruin it early on by doing things in the wrong order. It's not THAT bad as you will notice for sure by the end of chapter one and can still restart then, but being limited by one save slot per game does that to you. The sewers are tricky, I hate them, too, but there are other regions where you can get lost easily as well.
EDIT
I'm talking about the original, of course. Haven't played the new version.

Jaz said:

but being limited by one save slot per game does that to you.

I'm talking about the original, of course. Haven't played the new version.

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The new version gives you 5 save slots - which is, ironically, much better than what we're getting in most new AAA titles.

Menigal said:

I was thinking of Dark Forces, but in retrospect it seems there were more free-save games then than I thought. That makes it even more ridiculous for a modern game to not have it, but of course that would give control to the player, which is Bad.

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I am sure that Dark Forces would been a much worse game if you could save anywhere, save anywhere takes out any kind of excitement out of a game, you're never afraid to die, because you can just load. Makes such a games like dark forces pointless. It is a pity so few games get this right, only dark souls and to some extent Diablo 3 comes to mind as of the recently released games.

Well, you can always decide not to save everywhere if that's your thing.

pibbur who prefers to save when he wants in stead of when the game wants

GothicGothicness said:

I am sure that Dark Forces would been a much worse game if you could save anywhere, save anywhere takes out any kind of excitement out of a game, you're never afraid to die, because you can just load. Makes such a games like dark forces pointless. It is a pity so few games get this right, only dark souls and to some extent Diablo 3 comes to mind as of the recently released games.

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So don't save. Saying it ruins your enjoyment of a game to offer that is like someone who hates subtitles saying having the option to view them ruins their experience, or complaining about someone else putting a topping that you don't like on their pizza.

If I have to stop playing right now or if the game glitches out or whatever, then I don't want to have to spend 15 minutes just getting back to where I was. There is absolutely no excuse for a modern RPG or FPS to not offer that. Designers need to get over this idea that people who want that are playing their game "wrong". Imagine if every time you put down a book you had to start from the beginning of the last chapter. It's just a ridiculous waste of your customer's time.

The player should be in control of their experience, and that extends to pausing or skipping cutscenes, changing control schemes, volume controls, brightness settings, etc. But we're getting a bit off-topic now.

It's not that simple, if a game is designed against the fact that you can save anywhere, it'll not work to play it without saving, for example in a game that has a surprise trap with perma-death you have to use the save system, IMHO this is not only poor game design it is boring. Another drawback of saving and loading is it really breaks the immersion and enjoyment of the game, I often quit playing if I have to load a save, it is simply boring and breaks the flow.

I hope that saving and loading will soon be a thing of the past for most games.

GothicGothicness said:

It's not that simple

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Actually, it is. For the majority of games, being able to save when and where you want is a convenience that has no negative impact for most people.

JDR13 said:

Actually, it is. For the majority of games, being able to save when and where you want is a convenience that has no negative impact for most people.

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I would argue that it has a minor negative impact, because some of us find it hard to resist that quicksave button.

That said, I really dislike not being able to save anywhere in most games, because it means that I can't quit whenever I want to. And as checkpoints are not always placed in logical locations, it's also rather annoying to have to keep track of the autosave HUD icon, so that I know when I can quit.

Fnord said:

I would argue that it has a minor negative impact, because some of us find it hard to resist that quicksave button.

That said, I really dislike not being able to save anywhere in most games, because it means that I can't quit whenever I want to. And as checkpoints are not always placed in logical locations, it's also rather annoying to have to keep track of the autosave HUD icon, so that I know when I can quit.

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Yes that is horrible. Game should always automatically keep your progress when you quit, that you have to remember to save in some games before quitting is a joke. It just shows how lazy those save anywhere game developers are, they can't even save when you exit the game, like in Dark Souls and Diablo 3.

To keep pressing a quicksave button or to go into a menu to save is also rather pathetic in my opinion and breaks immersion a lot.

A game should always save your progress no matter what you do, and it should have some mechanic to handle if you die, that is how all modern games should work.

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness View Post
It's not that simple

Actually, it is. For the majority of games, being able to save when and where you want is a convenience that has no negative impact for most people.

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To me it has a huge impact and greatly decreases the enjoyment of the game if you can save anywhere and load anywhere, it even prevents many people from fully enjoying the game, because they think they made a "bad" decision and loads, and don't even get to experience that path of the game, which might be a lot of fun had they tried it.

Besides it takes away any kind of excitement while playing… ooo well I died I'll reload. O I took a decision which might not be optimal I'll reload. O this dungeon is super hard o well, I'll reload until I win the fights by a lucky hit.. boring and pointless.

Sorry GG but see… I don't play games on phones or laptops that come with a battery.
And live in an area with frequent power surges.

To me, being able to save anywhere is a must option in a game.
I plain hate when power gets cut briefly and then I lose progress because devs put a phonegame/console save system on PC so I have to replay 30 minutes or sometimes even more of annoying stuff.

If you ask me, that's what decrease of enjoyment is.
For phonegames, sure, keep it on checkpoints or something I don't care as they don't turn off all of a sudden. But a game on desktop PC? Hell I want F5 on it. If it's not there, I don't see any reason I should buy that crap.

But the problem you see "ooh, a bad decision, lemme reload and pick another" IMO is irrelevant. No need to do that, there is always game replay - if a game is good. Only if a game sucks, like DA3, there is no replay regrind.
The actual problem is random placed loot where people use quicksave/quickload to cheat the random generator. Don't remove F5! Remove randomized loot!

JDR13 said:

Actually, it is. For the majority of games, being able to save when and where you want is a convenience that has no negative impact for most people.

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I disagree with the basic idea that 'no level saves' doesn't have an impact ... it is a fundamental design element that informs everything in the game. Like regenerating health, infinite ammo, respawning enemies and so on ... when a game is designed with checkpoint saves and save-anywhere, it is engrained in everything about the gameplay.

It doesn't mean you can't play without saving ... it just means that a game designed around no levels saves plays fundamentally differently than one that allows them (or one that has checkpoints).

joxer said:

Sorry GG but see… I don't play games on phones or laptops that come with a battery.
And live in an area with frequent power surges.

To me, being able to save anywhere is a must option in a game.
I plain hate when power gets cut briefly and then I lose progress because devs put a phonegame/console save system on PC so I have to replay 30 minutes or sometimes even more of annoying stuff.

If you ask me, that's what decrease of enjoyment is.
For phonegames, sure, keep it on checkpoints or something I don't care as they don't turn off all of a sudden. But a game on desktop PC? Hell I want F5 on it. If it's not there, I don't see any reason I should buy that crap.

But the problem you see "ooh, a bad decision, lemme reload and pick another" IMO is irrelevant. No need to do that, there is always game replay - if a game is good. Only if a game sucks, like DA3, there is no replay regrind.
The actual problem is random placed loot where people use quicksave/quickload to cheat the random generator. Don't remove F5! Remove randomized loot!

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I see you didn't read my post Well, most of the time you do so no problem.. I do not like checkpoint save system, the game should always save all the time, you should never lose any progress because your power went out or whatever, which could happen even if you have quicksave or autosave or whatever.

txa1265 said:

Originally Posted by JDR13
Actually, it is. For the majority of games, being able to save when and where you want is a convenience that has no negative impact for most people.

I disagree with the basic idea that 'no level saves' doesn't have an impact … it is a fundamental design element that informs everything in the game. Like regenerating health, infinite ammo, respawning enemies and so on … when a game is designed with checkpoint saves and save-anywhere, it is engrained in everything about the gameplay.

It doesn't mean you can't play without saving … it just means that a game designed around no levels saves plays fundamentally differently than one that allows them (or one that has checkpoints).

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Spot on, this is more or less exactly what I meant.

GothicGothicness said:

I see you didn't read my post

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I did. But frequent autosaving, when a game has superlong saving/loading system like Aurora engine games, is... Not rational to expect.
Maybe will be when SSD replaces HDD completely.

It works in dark souls even on a very slow HD I am sure it could work on other engines as well, as long as they are built for it. It is actually much easier and faster then a normal save, because in this situation you can do incremental save only, which is a lot faster, so it'd also solve that horrible slow immersion breaking saving / loading process.

Errrr... Not buying that game.
I'd say, it works in games that don't save killed mobs because mobs respawn endlessly so no need to save which one you killed.