Huh. I had no idea there were that many modern games that completely eschewed a manual saving system.
Color me surprised and incorrect.
Nah, it’s just bad game design. This Polygon article has game designers talking about save points and they agree that “I’d start this level but why bother if I can’t get to the next save point before needing to quit?” is a problem and issue with bad development choices, not “Well, guess this game wasn’t for you”.
I don’t buy that it’s that hard to save where you are in modern games, due to all the space we have. You’ve got the save file basically in memory–it’s just the state of the game. Reducing that down should not be a hard problem. Sure, autosave can be a nice bonus, but there’s no good reason not to be able to keep your position on a map and the state of the game. You’d need the latter anyways for autosaves.
I do get getting rid of save points. They are less convenient. But allowing you to save as you quit? That’s not inconvenient at all. It’s a simple additional question. And you can still have a timed autosave, just in case. (Though do keep it in a separate slot, in case the save happens at a really bad time.)
That whole article is about bad vs good checkpoints though. It assumes checkpoints are a fine thing as long as they are well implemented and no developer in the article says anything about checkpoints themselves being a bad design decision.
No, but Madsircool talks about the problem of checkpoints and real life. There is a real issue with checkpoints causing you to lose progress if you need to stop playing or because it’s not worth it to continue if you don’t know when/where the next point will be. The developers talked about the problems with players suffering lost/stalled progress (quitting out of frustration at lost time, deciding not to continue, changing play styles, etc) and no one says “Welp, not all games are for all people” but agree that checkpoints which promote that thinking or player choice are bad design.
Madsircool is suggesting that any checkpoint system at all is not good for him, not just poorly implemented ones. So are you suggesting that a well implemented checkpoint system is bad design? Cause that’s not what those developers are saying. I think the assumption is that the player is able to make some commitment to the game but the reality is that some players are not able to commit to the game enough for even a good checkpoint system to be tolerable. It is possible that these games are not for those players.
It’s just a fact of life really. Sometimes, having the option is equivalent to requiring the option. Is permadeath incompatible with how some players like to play? Sure. Is it reasonable for working adults to grind 400+ hours on those interminable JRPGs? Maybe not. But then, those games aren’t really for you then, are they?
I’ve come to terms with the fact that I can no longer play fighting games, and that I have other responsiblities other than training my muscle memory and grinding out games. That’s why I got a Switch, I can put it down at any time, suspend the game at any time, bring it out and play whenever I have time, and I select games that work with my schedule.
I mean, I don’t complain that work doesn’t give me enough time off to go climb mount Everest either.
Your question might then be, why not allow players to save at any time? There could be many answers, technological (too expensive to allow saving wherever) dramatic tension (no tension at all if you can save every 5 feet) marketing (majority of market will write off “easy” games) immersion (gamers discover that they can save scum, complain that save scumming ruins the game).
The bottom line is, though, that you can’t. So find a way around it.
This bothers me to no end. If ‘save scumming’ bothers someone, don’t save scum. If I’m saving after every 3rd kill (or after putting up every 3rd wall…friggin’ crashes) in Fallout 4, how does that affect your immersion? If one doesn’t have the willpower to not save scum, complain about one’s own short-comings, not the game’s.
Yep. Complaining about having the ability so save scum is like complaining about having access to cheat codes.
I don’t think anybody has ever seriously argued that the existence of cheat codes ruins a (single player) game. You use them or you don’t. You save scum or you don’t. Easy.
Even better, it’s like complaining because a game has an “ultra easy” mode designed for players who want to experience a story without worrying much about combat. Horizon Zero Dawn had one. I have no intention of ever using a mode like that, but why should I care that the option is available?
Imagine a game where the first weapon you run across instantly defeats all enemies in the game in one-hit (even in ultra-hard difficulty challenge mode), and has no drawbacks. All the other weapons are well balanced, its just the first weapon you stumble across is incredibly overpowered.
Is it my responsibility as a player to hamper myself by not picking up the first weapon? After all, its completely optional. Whose fault is it when a large percentage of the people playing the game get bored because its “too easy”? Say I have some self control and don’t pick up the first weapon, and get a incredibly rewarding, challenging game out if it on “hard” difficulty, and then later overhear someone else brag about how easy the game was for them even on ultra-hard-difficulty challenge mode (obviously they exclusively used the first weapon), should I not be a little irked? Shouldn’t it be the developers fault for putting such a game-breaking tool within easy reach of the player? There are at least some barriers to accessing “cheat codes”, or “easy mode”, as even the titles alone ensure that the player understands the repercussions of selecting them - they are not part of the normal intended game.
But savescumming often has no such barriers, and can often be similarly game-breaking. “Ironman” mode, Single-slot-save&quit, and a checkpoint system are all valid tools a game developer has to encourage the player to get the intended full experience of the game.
It’s your ‘responsibility’ to have fun. If you decide that this overpowered gun is going to limit your make-believe-fun-times, then don’t use it. That’s a totally legitimate decision to make.
I cannot fathom why you would care. You got an “incredibly rewarding” experience out of it - why should other players’ enjoyment in a single-player game impact you?
There are real games that have qualities similar to your hypothetical. Most any RPG of sufficient depth is going to have builds that are ‘broken,’ in that they make the game’s challenge trivial. They’re not necessarily available at the very beginning of the game, but they might still make vast swaths of content non-challenging.
If I decide to build into a particularly overpowered combination of abilities, am I somehow invalidating the players that make different decisions?
If you can’t stop yourself from save scumming and not having fun, maybe the game isn’t for you 
More seriously, the few times I’ve ever save scummed I certainly didn’t walk away feeling like the game was “too easy”. If your progress is mapped by how quickly you can mash F5, that’s pretty much the diametric opposite of easy mode.
Lazy thinking and handwaving away a development failure. There’s a big difference between “this fighting game takes quick reflexes” or “I’m not really interested in pretending to drive a big rig from Paris or Warsaw” and “Poorly designed save mechanics are wasting my time”. You buy a permadeath roguelike because that’s the kind of game you want to play. No one is saying “Gee, I heard the checkpoint save system can waste an hour of progress or sometimes it’s not worth playing at all unless you can free up an hour block! That’s exactly what I’m looking for in a video game!”
I’m not against any and all checkpoint systems and I’m not going to argue for Madiscool by proxy but I do think that they’re sort of lazy and, when poorly done, make a game worse while virtually never adding to it or making a game better. I never played Dragon Age Origins or Metro 2033 or Stalker: SoC and thought “Man, if this only had a mandatory checkpoint save system it would be so much better!” (note that at least two of those titles DO create a separate save at important points by also allow you to save on the fly circumventing the “But what if you save in a bad spot?” issue). On the other hand, I do remember playing the latest Doom and really enjoying it but also feeling let down when, towards the end of the night, it wasn’t worth it to start the next chapter because I knew I couldn’t invest the time to finish it. That’s not a question of “not for you” – the game was right up my alley and I doubt the developers were thinking “This game is only for hard core people who always have a full hour!”.
Some of the problems may stem from achievements/badges becoming more popular. People want to be able to “show off” how good they are with their collection of gold/platinum trophies for all their games, but if my legit badass gold trophy is indistinguishable from your save scumming gold trophy, then I may feel devalued.
Personally, I find achievement systems to be pretty stupid in general, but they are popular.
That’s why games with achievements tend to lock a portion of them behind harder difficulty settings or Ironman modes.
Whoops, addendum to the above: Metro 2033 did have a checkpoint system (no quicksaves) but apparently had a lot of save points so I guess I forgot/never noticed/never bothered me.
I agree with Jophiel…ideally there should be an option to utilize quicksaves. Why freeze parents or on-call workers out of games?
IIRC, Dragon Age Origins also prevented saves while in combat.
I think you’re right but they allowed it any other time. It didn’t really prevent save scumming since you’d just save before combat. Fights were short enough that you could refight them until you got it right or got lucky.
More to the point, at no point did I think that the quick save system was hurting the game. But I’ve certainly been exasperated with or disappointed in checkpoint systems.
No. Not at all. And if one is, the problem is with the player, not the game.
a lot of rpgs do both these days … they save when you finish a quest but you can also save your self in town …