Homage to RPG games that constantly autosaves

I recently was play Shin Megami Tensei IV:Apocalypse, went 20 minutes without saving and died and didnt feel like loading the game after that. I stopped playing the game. I am so frustrated at it.

The I remember playing the new Zelda game and it autosaving like every five minutes after every major fight. I remember how i constantly died albeit because i made the game deliberately hard for myself and how i always had an autosave to load even though I would play for hours sometimes without a manual save. That saved me a lot of heartache.

Tell me stories of games that constantly autosaved or that game that you had a hard time continuing because of the lack of it.

I think the older I get the more I want the option to save whenever I like.
Single save games can discourage me from replaying rather than encouraging it.
Sometimes I want just to see what the other conversation option was. Sometimes I want to save/load on chests. Sometimes not. I just like the option.

I DEFINITELY do not like being forced to make it to the next checkpoint to save before I can get up from the computer or something. Its almost insulting.

Dark Souls series I died frequently but the autosaves make it bearable even when you are playing on high difficulty.

Civilization autosaves are nice when you go down a path and realize you are 100 miles away from your base and you have Enemy Cluster Attack from Hell standing in the fog one move away.

I have to say that Civilization autosaves are a godsend. Sometimes you get perfect start that you get once in a thousand times of playing the game. It is so handy that you can reload a certain part to redo what you screwed up when you do.

I save my games usually every ten minutes. I never ever ever use a quick save system, I deliberately go and do a custom save, and usually jot down the time on a piece of paper. I keep four-five saves until I finish, I don't expect the game to save for me, and I really dislike checkpoint systems, often to the point that I'll not even play the game if I'm warned in advance.

I'm indifferent to autosaves so long as they don't take long, don't interfere with gameplay and aren't spoilers. Walking into an area and having an autosave before an ambush or "surprise" ruins any surprise.

I also prefer there to be options for autosaves, enable/disable, how many, how often etc.

Also don't care if there is no autosave system in a game, as long as there is a quicksave. A good quicksave system is even better, multiple quicksave slots that cycle so you have backup quicksaves. Also the quickload button should load the last quicksave, not the last save.

I prefer auto quicksaves that save based on time played and often.

I'm grateful for the autosaves in games like Civ or Gal Civ, but don't find them necessary in my RPG's. I tend to use the quick save in those.

Well, I'm loving the autosave in TW3.. I gotta admit I'm not doing so well with the combat and Geralt is getting his a$s kicked so often, I'm really appreciating that autosaves.

Mass Effect Andromeda is the worst save system I ever played, but quote I don't play console games, or very few.

It's a total garbage and the game accumulate all the possible problems:
- You can't save and there's no save during very long parts of the game with many combats and exploration parts. It setup sort of challenge sections, except that those section include some exploration parts that are fairly fun but replay them feels crap.
- As the game has many areas with auto save, you can play 1H in areas without any save and not realize it and forget use the manual save. Ok I perhaps didn't lost 1H though that, but 30mn+ I did.
- There are parts without manual save and relatively large and non linear, in those auto save are done by triggers that can end be awfully weird because you skip something or moved forward and then walk-back and when you came back you have already spend your auto save for what's further.

It polluted significantly my first play, because:
- All parts more heavy on story and then supposed to be more interesting get a fun spoiled with the problems quoted above.
- I couldn't find a right difficulty setup, with Hardcore I had my fun but was dying too often. And at Normal I as dying less but combats was less fun.
- With the cumulated irritation, most bosses ended be played in story mode, sigh.

I was planing replay only after they fixed it largely. But I ended replay the game anyway. And at my surprise it seems works better:
- I look more the long parts with no save as a challenge and then take some fun from it and don't get disturbed to have fail and have to redo. It helps that combats of a same areas tend have many variations when they are repeated.
- For the story parts anyway I already know most because of replay, so I focus more on combats and then replay a part because I hadn't manual save is less a problem.
- For a few areas with no save and with exploration and non linear I play with a lot more caution as a tiny permadeath part where no way I want die even once. And it's a bit fun.
- After MEA first play, have replay full first trilogy, plus the MEA play, made me a bit more fluent on combats and then I could die less and still have an action fun with Hardcore difficulty. So I suffer less of the no save problems than at first play.

I don't have a problem with there not being auto-saves, as long as I can save anywhere. I do prefer auto-saves though, I don't rely on them but it's nice to know they're there covering your ass from a power spike.
One guilty pleasure I have is quick-saves. I swear the paint on my keyboard's F5 is probably gone by now.

In my case if a game doesn't have manual saving option, the first time it crashes or I get hit by power outage I wish I didn't spend my $ on it.

Quicksaves/Autosaves are a nice addition, but I won't whine it a game doesn't have that as long as I can save the game manually and later resume from the spot I've stopped playing at.

Another thing. Some games allow saving during combat. IMO that should always be disallowed.
Savescumming possibility because developer was too lazy for handplaced loot but made it randomized, should not be the reason to have only checkpoints in a (obviously bad) game.

joxer said:

Another thing. Some games allow saving during combat. IMO that should always be disallowed.

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I am mixed with this idea. I think that if a lesser player wants to save in combat because they are bad, they should be able to do so. I would never do that however.