limiting saves.

[Uncreation]

Uhm, i like saving. A LOT! In most games i think i save once every 5 minutes, at least. I want to be able to save whenever i want, and as many times as i want. If you don't, fine, your option, but don't take this away from me. I NEEEEEEEDDDD to be able to save at any time.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

who is forcing you to save? you can choose not to save. that way, you can be happy since you have your difficulty, and players that don't want this are happy since they can make use of this.

Self-imposed challenges are not a substitute for good game design.

Making a game difficult but fun requires a lot of work. It requires a lot of tuning, balance, and refinement. For example:

where do you place these checkpoints? place them close together, and you have the quicksave you dislike; place them to far and players get frustrated if they manage to complete a part that is hard for them, only to die on the next part (with no checkpoint in between)

Figuring out where to put checkpoints is part of designing a game. The developer has to carefully consider each encounter/section/wave of enemies to decide if it's too much or too little.

Making the player create his own challenge robs him of all of that design and consideration that the developer should be doing. How many enemies should I kill before I let myself save? How far should I go? How should I even know where I should be saving if I haven't already played through the game?

Self-imposed challenges only work when there's a clear way to keep yourself to them. They only work when they mesh well with the game design. They're a cool bonus that can pop up when you're already enjoying a game- not a way to turn a bad game into a good one.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

I doubt that a save limit would be the deciding factor on the game's layout or implimentation of balance (the shotgun in Doom 3 wasn't weakened because you had a quicksave feature, it was because they wanted to make close combat a more preferable option).

It is one of many factors in balancing the game. At least in well designed games. If you need a specific example how about the gourge in Death Smiles. That one level is worth basically 1/4 of all the points you can get in the whole game for extends and ect. This is a game with zero saves. Half life 2 usually has some ammo and health packs hidden off the beaten path. They obviously took into consideration that they couldn't reward players too much for going off the beaten path because the risk is low.

Save states can be abused (just as game breaking abilities can) but this isn't to say that the one guarenteed way to increase the challange in a game is to remve the ability to save (or by definition, you should remove things such as health regen and back-up weapons since they also take away from a player's need to manage their resources in combat).

The example you gave in Final Fantasy is an example of how save states can be abused but in order to do so would require excessive save abuse (as in, to be abe to get drop items you want you would be there for hours possibly reloading old saves), this is like saying that hacking a game reduces the challange (when you look at it this way of course it makes the game easier, you're using a feature in a way that wasn't intended by the devs).

So you agree that saving can be excessive? How would we fix this ridiculous romhack of FF? How about you get 10 saves when you leave an inn and have to go to a town or use some items to get more? That's what this entire topic is about. If you agree that saving can be used in a broken manner then why not limit it? I don't want saves gone completely, I just want them to have a cost maybe even if the game is balanced that way it would be a cost so small that it would only matter if used excessively. And I never said every game should be super difficult and in general restricting saves most on the harder difficulty is a good idea. It still doesn't excuse saves not being balanced to go with the other aspects of the game even for easy mode players. Saves are an entire aspect of strategy and resource management that has been needlessly underutised.

And just because books were written about something doesn't automatically mean it'scomplex (hell, there are lots and lots of books out there on subjects of varying complexity and simplicity, the subjects may be still be incredably simple even if the books about them aren't). Many (if not all) games are trying to aim for the old addage of 'easy to learn, hard to master'.

Simple games are easier to enjoy because all yo have to do is focus on playing and having fun (look at the old Sega and SNES games for lots of examples of this, all the old classics are very simple games), complex games tend to just get confusing and go into way too much detail with varying play styles, tactics, rules, laws, regulations etc. (FFXIII was infamous for having a tutorial length that could classify as 'unholy', I am not going to spend over a day consective playing just to learn how to play a damn game).

Overall, I think you just have to suck it up and accept that maybe you're being a bit tight fisted over this whole save thing, it's not a big deal that you can save when you like (and again, if you don't want to save then don't, we won't make you).

Your right about the book thing but it doesn't really change Go being the most complex strategy board game that I've seen. And I still stand by my point that complexity gives games longevity and that almost any game that has maintained it's audience was at the cutting edge of compexity at the time of their release. Quake, Starcraft, Street Fighter II, even Super Mario Bros with it's hidden stages and shortcuts. The exceptions being the games that had great aesthetics or novelty for their time. But don't be mistaken that complexity is only determined by the amount of rules, many JRPGs are filled with mechanics that are useless in the vast majority of situations. Complexity is also a measure of the challenge present that determines the meaningfulness of each move. In a shoot 'em up if you make a wrong move you lose a lfe which is usually 1/3 of a game over. In Chess making a wrong move could put you at a disadvanteg but with the possibility to recover. In Starcraft a minor wrong move might only waste a few seconds. In a particularly bad JRPG a wrong move won't matter at all, in fact no move will matter at all if all you are doing is grinding againstweak enemies (grinding is another aspect of games that should have countermeasures to balance it.) I hope you see what I mean, it is the penalty for failing to properly use a mechanic and the reward that goes with properly using it that gives that mechanic complexity.

And depending on the genre there should be nuances that take time to master. It's what keeps the people who mastered the previous nuances coming back for more.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

I thought the point with technology was to move forward not backwards. Limiting or removing saves is a thing of the past that we dont really need to bring back.

This part of your post is contradicted by the positive things you said about limited saves in certain situations. I'm not suggesting that all games should one type of save sustem. I just think save should be considered as the strategic resource that they are.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Tell you what, I'll support limited saves when all games are released bug free, external conditions are no longer capable of interfering with the operation of electronics, and I no longer have a life that frequently interrupts my gaming sessions.

 

[Mafoobula]

Some games I've played were dependent on popping an ability at the precise millisecond, and if you fail, it's easier to reset and hope for a better hand.
Mega Man Battle Network immediately springs to mind. Half of the fun of fighting was in the sheer luck needed to get the combo of chips needed to annihilate your enemy.

 

[Infinatex]

Auto save is a life saver! Play Fallout for a good 5 or 6 hours without manually saving and you will love as much as I do! Though I do like the idea of limiting saves by adding a cost.

 

[DustyDrB]

That would suck in a game like Oblivion or Fallout: New Vegas, where I save as often because of the threat of a bug as I do because of an in game enemy threat.

 

[Coles_Law]

I'm a fan of the Majora's Mask method. You get a temporary save at the owl statues, but you can't reload from them-it was just a pause so you could turn off your console. The only way to get a full save was to return to Day 1 (the equivalent of completing a level, really).

 

[Velocity Eleven]

having a quicksave is fine, where you can "bookmark" your position in order to let you take a break. But having the ability to do a regular save anywhere you want where you can just reload over and over again for the most part is stupid.

It depends on the genre, for a fighting or a racing game it makes sense that the game would auto-save at specific intervals.

However for the big RPGs allowing a save anywhere ability will most likely just take away all elements of risk... I like the idea of being fsr away from a savepoint with the dilemma of whether to continue forward or to turn back saving with all the new EXP and gold I just earned.

If you can save anywhere, you will save everywhere, and saving over and over again isnt fun.

 

[Sinclair Solutions]

I like being able to save at any time. See, I usually am a very busy person and can only play video games for short periods at a time. Saving whenever I can makes it easier to just leave when I am called to do something.

 

[thenamelessloser]

Tell you what, I'll support limited saves when all games are released bug free, external conditions are no longer capable of interfering with the operation of electronics, and I no longer have a life that frequently interrupts my gaming sessions.

This... but actually even then for me personally I would want unlimited saves, just because I hate doing stuff sometimes in games over and over again, once I get something right in some games I just want to never do that shit again. But that is my lazy ass's choice but I don't think that is a very good argument....

 

[TK421]

Save limitations are NOT even semi-acceptable.
I have nothing against the OP, and they may have other ideas that are absolutely grand, but this is quite possibly the worst gaming idea that I have ever heard of. Ever.

 

[Velocity Eleven]

it astonishes me just how many people demand that all games allow to save anywhere... do people really consider being able to undo any mistake on the spot "fun" at all? Of course you have games like Braid where its implemented effectively but really!?

 

[Amethyst Wind]

I wouldn't mind a lot of so-called 'regression' in the Resident Evil series. Going back to physical items used to save, meaning you have to scrounge around to keep your progress, would add a lot more of the thriller aspect to the game rather than quick-time-punching Europeans/Africans.

Granted, they did do it badly since they drowned you in Ink Ribbons, if they'd made them more scarce it would've been better.

Hell, a lot of games could do with the added challenge of limited saves.

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

I don't see why video games have to change to be made more difficult. Some of us don't want games to be harder.

If you want to limit saves, maybe make it an option, not a requirement.

 

[Velocity Eleven]

I don't see why video games have to change to be made more difficult. Some of us don't want games to be harder.

If you want to limit saves, maybe make it an option, not a requirement.

I didnt say make the games harder I just said dont allow us to save constantly, you could very easilly balance out this difficulty by making the events themselves easier

 

[Something Amyss]

A couple of ways to limit saves...
- require a cost to use a save
- have a specific requirement needed to be completed to use a save
- reward players for not saving
- remove saves entirely

Cost to save: Maybe, depending on how punishing it is.
Specific requirements: Isn't this how a lot of games do it already?
Reward for not saving: Probably the best of the suggestions.
Remove saves: Not. On. Your. Life.

Removing saves is one of the worst ideas I've heard in a long while. I'm not playing a six hour game in one sitting. That's not hardcore, it's just problematic.