Save Scumming and You

[Demonchaser27]

Save scumming, or "choice without consequence", is one of the reasons I'm against save anywhere in games - the ideal for me is "save on exit" combined with the game auto-saving periodically to avoid too much lost progress if the game crashes or your computer/console loses power. In certain games like difficult platformers save checkpoints are fine.

One really nice thing about getting rid of manual saves is that the developer gets creative in dealing with it - Dark Souls is designed around the understanding that the player will die and avoids over-punishing the player.

The idea of manual saves is that the player never dies because he just reloads whenever something bad happens. This leads to a lack of consequence for actions taken in a game, which in turn helped fuel the popularity of multiplayer games which don't have reloading.

Games where save scumming is nearly a requirement are poorly designed.

I'm a personal fan of Dark Souls and I have to admit I feel that they failed at that. The punishment is often a little too much at times. There are times when its fine and okay. But others I feel like just cutting the game off and coming back later, and sometimes I do.

That being said I don't personally think that "games without consequences" as people call them are a bad thing. Being able to undo a mistake can make a game feel undeniably better for a perfectionist than one that forces you to restart the entire game and do almost trial and error to see the best intended outcome. I honestly don't know what I would do in games with giant dialogue trees and options if I was forced to replay the game multiple times just to see the best ending.

I think its honestly one of those things where I don't see why not being able to save whenever would ruin the experience for either type of player. Just don't use the mechanic if you want that kind of experience. In the best case scenario they have a mode for it, where you can't save and the game just autosaves after every choice and another mode where saves are allowed any time. Then for those who want the experience, yet lack the self control to make it happen, can get what they want and perfectionists/other players can just go about their business using saves.

 

[Demonchaser27]

Basically, if a game is designed in such a way that it encourages or even requires save scumming, then it's a poorly designed game.

*Blink blink* Super Meat Boy is a poorly designed game suddenly?

Well, given that SMB doesn't have manual save states and instead utilizes relatively short levels with a checkpoint style system.. I'm really not sure what you're getting at. Maybe things have changed since I last played SMB, but I don't recall the ability to just hit F5 and save my progress halfway through a level right before a tough jump and then again right after it (not that it would help anyway given that so many of SMBs levels rely on maintaining momentum and save state use would likely clash with that).

I already explained this twice, my posts didn't go anywhere.

No, but they also don't explain your point. SMB clearly doesn't allow save stating or save scumming. Designing levels in a short "one bite" style of challenge isn't equivalent to designing a game where you have to instant save and reload to progress before and after every step. Now, I'm not saying that SMB wouldn't be more of a challenge if it had longer levels or didn't have infinite lives but that's clearly not what's being discussed in this thread.

Ah, but there-in lies my point. The game is designed in a way that in any-other game would be save scumming, but "it's okay", because it was "designed that way", something that you asserted makes it a poorly designed game. Hence my entire point about save scumming being a flawed concept from the get-go. You, nor anyone else, has yet to adequately explain how "save scumming" removes the challenge from a game.

WhiteTiger is right. Challenge and Punishment are two very different things. The willingness with which someone usually puts up with a challenge is mostly based on it punishment. Most players find Super Meat Boys trial and error okay mainly because the punishment is almost nothing. Therefore no one truly cares much about the actual challenge of the game. The punishment is almost always a negative connotation. This is what most players should be debating about. Not to say a game requires incredibly high challenge, but challenge isn't usually the problem. Punishment is. If someone has to spend 5 minutes or more redoing something or suffers ridiculous enough detrimental circumstances they deem the challenge unworthy of their time. Its not that said player couldn't beat said challenge, merely that they refuse to put up with the punishment inflicted by failure of it.

There are still poorly made challenges and well made challenges, so challenge is still an issue. However often times punishment is the biggest factor. One reason that the Souls series is kind of niche is because of its punishment. Its challenge is far from the most difficult a game has ever attempted to be. Its punishment however, can be degrading and eventually make a player not care for continuing. Those who were deemed, by the usually "elitist" community there, not "hardcore enough" just didn't care enough to have to redo sections of the game. Punishment isn't required to craft better skills, just practice of challenging segments of a game. Ask a speedrunner. They exploit "save states" and "save scumming (as we're calling it here)" to practice and master segments of a game. They usually don't just put up with the punishment that the game asks of the player, they alter it to fit their desires for enhancing the development of their skill at certain points of the game.