Save Scummer

[Warachia]

So, Yahtzee, why didn't you like Dark Souls again?

Because you couldn't pause.

OT:I will not apologize for save scumming in games like X-COM where the computer blatantly cheats (getting a free move as soon as you see them is bullshit) or when the characters occasionally don't go when I point them to go (I wanted one person to take cover behind a wall, they ran outside in the opposite direction and got killed, and the game sucks at multiple heights), but I mostly use saving to make sure nothing glitchy happens, if I place a character somewhere and they get shot I won't reload for that.

 

[Dark Prophet]

It's a game where really have to save and save often unless you are some kind of miracle child, because the randomisation can fuck you up so fast you don't even know what hit you. This one time I was doing a terror mission and I always take my best people on terror mission because rookies just fuck everything up. So I was near the end and had 4 enemies left 1 muton and 3 heavy floaters muton was close to so I thought I'll take it out and try to flank the flotars later I put my soldires to their positions, I had 4 of them at the time 1 heavy 2 assault 1 support their hit % was between 45 and 70 and I used 2 turns and none of them hit the fucking muton. Also the game has a terrible habit spawning aliens behind you or on your side, I think all the aliens should be on the map when you start the mission.

As for the voices, one of the dev team dude was on IW in Game Trailers and he was asked about the voices and I think he said something about there being not enough time and money.

 

[gyroc1]

Ohp, looks like I have to call Yahtzee if I need a voice actor! Just wait for me to learn how to make video games. Look out for me! (in a few decades)

The closest I come to save scumming is when I use save states. I try not to use them anymore, but it makes old games like Sonic 3 easier to complete. I really don't want to replay the whole game just because I missed too many chances to get all the chaos emeralds.

And other old games require memorization. I'm going to foam at the mouth when I try to beat the American Battletoads and have to replay hard stages multiple times just to practice an even harder stage.

Spoiler

 

[Darth_Payn]

Alright, alright, I confess! I save scummed when I lost too much money on pazaak in KOTOR and when shit got too real in my base in Evil Genius. And at certain points in Half-Life 2. There, you happy?!

 

[Strazdas]

I used to save scum back in Mafia.
now i find Iron man the most fun game-way. Only save when you have to "leave" computer. And sometimes i pay for it, when a group of unexpected soldiers makes half of my empire useless its hard to build back up AND fight them off, but that makes games more fun, unexpected, unprogrammed challenges.
P.S. Xcom campaign was too short, not too long!

 

[bushwhacker2k]

Mmph. I still have this problem!

I end up getting bored of games and hoarding crap, when actually dealing with risks adds so much more life to a game.

I think I'd be doing this in DE: Human Revolution but I'm trying to get that obnoxious no-kill achievement.

Now that this gets brought up I want to do this all the time! It sounds like it'd revitalize my interest in so many games.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I am very serious about playing games the way they are meant to be played. I haven't used an Easy Mode for years and I will stop playing rather than compromise on that. But I will make an exception for saving and reloading if 1. There are unfairly large consequences AND it isn't the player's fault or 2. I have beaten the game before. Examples are FTL, which was great and I happily tried and tried again form scratch until I beat that Rebel Flagship motherf***er fair and square. But there comes a point where you cannot deal with all the starting out crap and you just want to have a good run. When I run into a Rock ship armed with 4 bombs and seemingly more missiles than I had the entire run on the last level, I will reload because I've earnt it and I don't have the patience. Note though, a mode where you could choose your weapons and upgrades to start out with would fix this. Skyrim, on the other hand, is a game where I'm sure the majority of theives will reload all day long, and I think that's fair enough as well, because if that's part of your playstyle you'll be losing half your coins and items every time you get caught and also having to break out of prison every few minutes, which gets damn tiresome. I'm all for living with consequences but that is just not practical gameplay.

 

[Fasckira]

I've only "save scummed" in one game recently and that was Dishonored. Interestingly enough I done so for the reasons you stopped in Thief - if you screw up in Dishonored then depending on the level of fuck-up you might find yourself surrounded in a heap of bodies and your Chaos Rating through the roof. If you're aiming to get the "good" ending this is very frustrating!

 

[snekadid]

Theres only 2 times I typically save scum, when the game is so buggy it could crash at any moment and when I'm playing a stealth game and the enemy AI is buggy.

KOTOR2 is a example of the first, even with the fan patches i find myself saving alot just to prevent me losing too much time when it crashes.

Dishonored is a example for the second, I'm constantly getting seen through walls while choking a guy out or through the floor by enemies upstairs. It drives me nuts and I refuse to have my master ninja skills thwarted by shit programming.

 

[TurkeyProphet]

There are lots of stealth games where I find it kinda defeats the purpose if you don't save scum. If you just go with the flow in Hitman for instance you just end up murdering everyone and it's incredibly unsatisfying. I like trying to figure out the perfect stealth route and I don't want to keep re-doing a level from the beginning.

One of the things that killed Assasins Creed for me was the fact that you couldn't just restart a mission instantly. I'd end up killing a 100 or so soldiers half the time.

In many ways when I don't save I have a tendency to just run through the game because there is no sense in which I need to perfect anything. I think game designers should just have an adequate checkpoint system.

 

[Brian Noone]

I can see where the frustration can come when losing after a long drawn out battle, but this game is by no means long...quite short in fact, as most people agree.

The only thing I find pulls me away from the game is a lack of difficulty options(just 4?), and the scripted nature of alien attacks, and resources. It bottlenecks you into using the same strat everytime, which heavily detracts from replayability.

To me, its not the random, Its the distinguishable, lack of random, especilly in the stratigic layer(if you can even call it that), that pulls me away.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

I only care about enjoyment in a game. To be honest, my perfect game is some kind of gory mayhem with God Mode on. I loved God Mode in Doom and other such games. In recent memory only Saints Row 3 provided that.
To me the entire "save scum" argument is a simple question of what you have MORE fun with. That depends on a game, naturally.
While myself I had fun playing difficult games this gen, I liked Demon's Souls and got platinum trophy in Dark Souls. But to me the challenge is not fun in itself. I like to break it. I enjoy playing a God. Whatever comes handy - normal tactics, glitches, exploits, micro-transaction items. I don't really care how, I only care about the end result of being a god and breaking the game.
That said, if game is too easy and isn't trying to be hard it's all sort of loses appeal.

As for XCOM, it's also a thing of time. In a game like Binding of Isaac you can re-roll your play-through several times per hour until you get what you want. If it takes more than that, than save and reload as often as you can. Looks like the game has no easy way to game the system, and on a console you don't even get cheats.

 

[Wolfefang]

I find that I same scum when I am pretty much going to lose regardless of what I do, or If I just want to get some good Items out of a rare encounter. I find that the frustration of losing and making up all the progress up to that point, recovering the money or Items you lost, resupplying on expensive product, or just having to go on without a party member that you rely on for the sort of thing your trying to do, be that some things or everything. I typically play a game save scumming full power, so that I can have a lot of fun without all impediments, then I just play the game no sell on it because I already beaten the game and want to try something new. I not saying I abort every time I fuck up, but when continuing would be what I consider VERY counterproductive, like losing all your money if you lose is some games, setting you back all the way to the star of the a long level( platformers being the exception), or even the entire game, or losing party member you've been leveling up so carefully, either temporally or permanently.

Things like losing some battles, having some characters downed as I fight, screwing up some things etc., those things I can deal with, because they are at best minor setbacks, and at worst a problem that that be overcome with some hard work or ingenuity.
But if I keep fail at something because I didn't get I JUST right, I get hit with something that was unfair or that I was not prepared for or COULDN'T be prepared for,, If all the progress I made, all the hard work turns to ash in my mouth, I have no qualms about save-scumming, or whatever you want to call it.
I rather save scum, detracting for the experience a little bit or I lot, possibly being called a cheater for it, then play it right and die over and over again, botching everything haven't done before or have done before, but I didn't do it in a particular way or do it too fast/slow, then being sent back to mission base trying how to find the sliver lining in those fuck-ups, tearing out my hair and slowly going mad, or not even that, and having to redo everything for the damn beginning, eventually taking my game out and breaking it with a particularly convenient ball baring, or sealing it in the vault, to be lost to time, unloved and uncared for all eternity, while I sit around trying reorganize my room after that meltdown.

 

[obliviondoll]

There are ways to approach XCOM which neatly sidestep the need to save-scum.

Things like building up TWO good squads, and always bringing a couple of lower-ranked guys into each mission, and making a point to rush out the satellites early on.

If you're playing on Impossible, a bit of bad luck in the wrong moments can lead to an early loss of a country or two, but on any other difficulty, you can (almost) completely eliminate that risk once you understand what the game needs you to do. Having satellites and uplinks built and ready to launch on demand can turn the tide back in your favour when a tough terror mission falls apart.

Similarly, the majority of tactical missions aren't significantly worse with the addition of a couple of Rookies/Squaddies in place of one of your high-ranking guys, but if you have a solid team of 12 decent soldiers, losing 4 of them will hurt a LOT less than losing your only 6 super-soldiers that you've been building up since the war began.

 

[ckretmsage]

I just recently started the practice again, but I blame the game design honestly. Some games just force you into it, for example I started playing Wasteland 2, there is such randomness to all of the old school skills that it can be a pain in the ass and even game breaking if you don't.

Even at a high level of skill there is still a critical failure % that can cause problems. The breaking down weapons for instance into useful parts, when I've already got 5 mags in a a row, I don't need another one or more junk items.

The same with a lock, when you have a skill of 8 and can't get more than a 27% chance of opening it and a 35% chance of critical failure, I'm gonna save scum that all day.

Oblivion & Skyrim the only time I used the save was when I died or wanted to see if I could kill and entire town and then reload. Sometimes its nice to remind a city and everyone in it that you could completely wipe them off the face of the earth if you wanted too. (Even if they don't remember you doing it, somewhere deep down in their code, they know.)

 

[Johnny Impact]

I try to hit quicksave at least every five minutes. I just don't have the time I used to, and losing thirty minutes usually kills my gaming for the night.

Dark Souls doesn't allow savescumming. It's a checkpoint system. Not the same thing. Savescumming would allow you to kill enemies one at a time, saving after each one. DS doesn't allow that. You get as many tries as you like at each segment of the game, I guess that's more what he means. I try not to use the bonfire reset as a crutch. Given the choice between returning to a checkpoint and pressing on, I always press on, no matter how bad shape I'm in. I've had plenty of "shitshitfuckfuckfuck" moments in Dark Souls, but they don't come from dying. They come from those times I get it *almost* right and find myself in a corner I just might be able to fight my way out of. It doesn't require dying and reloading, though that often is what happens. There are times I simply get splattered like I fell 100 stories onto concrete. But the times when I have a chance to salvage a bad situation are the best. My own favorite experience so far has been getting cursed in Great Hollow and having to fight back up through Blighttown because I didn't have any Purge Stones and hadn't discovered the elevator. I guess technically I had to die to have that experience, but my point is one missed dodge "cost" me a couple hours of edge-of-the-seat play to recover from. That's just awesome.