The Master

[Piorn]

I wish less games were specifically designed around quickloading.

Games like Skyrim, that just END when you die, That's just stupid. It discourages experimentation, while making a death entirely pointless and consequenceless. And with a powerful tool such as quickload, you'd have to be just stupid to NOT use it, rendering the entire game more or less pointless.

Compare this to Dark Souls. When you die, you don't just reload a save, the world continues as you left it. Everything is saved, for better or worse. You get a chance to reclaim the things you lost, and can benefit from the advancements you made last try, e.g. opening a shortcut, or defeating a unique enemy.
You'll have to live with the decisions you make, you can't magically undo them, and that forces you to think before doing them.

And don't try to play the platform card on me, it applies to PC games as much as it does on Console games.


tl;dr "Game Over" is a failure of the Game Designer.

 

[Smertnik]

The problem with doing this is that it's entirely possible to quicksave yourself into a situation that's impossible to get out of.
Like an enemy always inevitably killing you, or you failing to bring along the necessary weapons, etc.

Not if you also keep saving manually every 10-15 minutes.

 

[Ishal]

Yeah this was a good one. Save scumming is one of those things that can be countered in creative ways.

It's also one of those things people argue that should even be in games.

 

[DTWolfwood]

Always thought save-scumming is just a smart way to save time. You know not everyone have endless hours to play a game even if its incredibly difficult.

I'm a save scummer and proud of it! I don't want to have to waste time running through the parts that's easy just to get to the part that's hard and have to redo all the easy parts when the hard part stops me!

I work for a living "ain't nobody got time for that!"

 

[DEAD34345]

This is ridiculous slander. All true PC gaming masters (like me of course) only play games where a single death automatically deletes all your saves and starts you from the beginning again. Then we spend a month dying constantly in the first 5 minutes until the sheer frustration becomes insurmountable, the game gets deleted, the next one is installed and the cycle begins anew.

 

[Vegosiux]

When did saving become 'save scumming' and when did it get thrown around the same way 'gamers' use the words 'casual players'.

Gamers are just trying to divide themselves further to feel superior.

It is generally accepted that "hard" PC games that include a quicksave function will be prone to people beating the game by quicksaving incessantly whenever they've accomplished any thing (such as killing an enemy, completing a mission or walking three steps forward) and thus slowly "save creeping" through the game until they complete it.

The comic is a satire on PC elitism and a very striking one at that. I can't think of any PC gamer (myself included) I know that doesn't do this.

QFT.


It's a feature I myself abuse liberally. And yes, this comic kind of does somewhat summarize pretty much every "hard" game.

HOWEVER, what seems to be missing is a panel depicting what happens if your quicksave fucks up your game. As in, quicksave right before your head is splattered on the wall by an enemy you didn't see coming from behind?

I miss that panel.

 

[blackrave]

30% of XCOM's gameplay summed up in one panel. Also, why hasn't she mapped those keys to left and right mouse? Noob!

If you make game that sides itself with aliens, we must play dirty as well (on Classic and Impossible modes)


Besides, am I only one who believes that quicksave and quickload would be awesome superpower?

HOWEVER, what seems to be missing is a panel depicting what happens if your quicksave fucks up your game. As in, quicksave right before your head is splattered on the wall by an enemy you didn't see coming from behind?
I miss that panel.

Man, don't even mention it.
Reminds me my qs-ql fuckup in RedFaction
Spent ~12 loads to escape underwater vortex that was dragging me into insta-kill zone
But that is what you get for messing with map boundries :/

 

[Tar Palantir]

30% of XCOM's gameplay summed up in one panel. Also, why hasn't she mapped those keys to left and right mouse? Noob!

You didn't check Ironman???

WEAKLING!!!

 

[Fat Hippo]

The problem with doing this is that it's entirely possible to quicksave yourself into a situation that's impossible to get out of.
Like an enemy always inevitably killing you, or you failing to bring along the necessary weapons, etc.

But yeah, in games that allow this, I'm guilty of doing it.

I managed to save after I died in one game. Had to start over. Not my proudest moment.

I will readily admit to save scumming in any game with respawning enemies. If the game has the potential to spawn an enemy right behind me without warning then it's fair game.

Ugh, I managed to do this to myself in an RPG called Arcanum. I would still have had a save from a few hours ago, but it pissed me off so much, I didn't play again for a long time. This is why it's a good idea for developers to not bind quick save to F5 and quick load to F6 by default, as some games do, as that kind of slip up is real damn easy,

 

[EyeReaper]

I used to save scum, until I realized that it took all the fun out of a game.
I only quicksave now if the savepoints are few and far between, and I have a good reason, less "I snuck past one guard in dishonored woohoo" and more "Holy shit, look at the time, I'm late for class, quicksave!"
Because, really, if you want to play a game without the consequences of failure, just play easy mode

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Im all in for more difficult games having checkpoints. But PLEASE, let us save at exit. I dont mind one save slot as long as i can stop at any given time.

Same. I appreciate that a lot of developers want to limit save scumming, so they can properly design the challenges in their games but sometimes I just want to make a quick bit of progress before I have to be somewhere, or sometimes I start getting tired and want to sleep. I'd rather not have to go seeking out the next save point.

Dark Souls and Amnesia both did this, if I recall.

 

[Covarr]

If she's playing a VALV[sup]E[/sup] game, she really should press F10.

P.S. Thanks

 

[scorptatious]

I was hoping this would be a Fallout 1 strip.

Son, I am disappoint.

 

[Kyrdra]

U know there will be PC Gamers who are so indoctrinated to this that the joke will just sail over their heads...

Because that's exactly what's been happening, right?

...Oh.

OT: Guilty as charged!

One of the most terrifying things I ever did was play Fallout 3 relying only on autosave. I was popping in and out of random buildings constantly.

That said, I have attempted an Ironman run of the new XCOM... it didn't go well...

You can save scum in Ironman. I discovered that after my last move managed to see 2 platoons of elite mutons, a disk and a little bit more. I was so frustrated at that moment that I killed the game with alt+f4 and it didnt save m last move.

 

[The Lugz]

Games like Skyrim, that just END when you die, That's just stupid

Well, you've picked a title that can't really handle death being that it's a real classic rpg in terms of it's mechanics.. hell you just 'die' in D+D as-well and that's the general basis for all modern stat driven rpg's dying is death. plain and simple I've never role-played as an un-undead before, I imagine the complete lack of movement or player agency would be tedious.. so yeah, it's a hard position to be in but you do save every time you pass through a door, open a quest-line or pick up an objective so unless you're trying to battle a camp of bandits outdoors with no objective other than lewt and pillage with zero skill in your given combat and defensive trees you really shouldn't be dying all that often anyway and if you are the difficulty can be turned right the way down to 'Nord Smash' so it's quite fair really...

 

[Ticklefist]

I started 1999 mode yesterday and was disappointed to learn I couldn't rebind quicksave and quickload. Or that they didn't exist at all.

 

[Skeleon]

Meh, doesn't really apply to me, so I'm not offended. I'm just that awesome.

 

[LazyAza]

I like pc gaming precisely because I can cheat my way through anything if I ever can't be fucked haha. God the amount of games I've made so much more fun through mods and trainers and hacks.

 

[infinity_turtles]

I don't save scum. Instead I forget to save at all and lose multiple hours of progress on death. Clearly being unable to remember to save is the proper way to play games.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Sadly true. I own Megaman for the NES and PS2, but I first beat it on an emulator because I could quicksave on it...

Same. Emulators with a "save ram state" quick save function is the best thing ever invented and in my opinion saves a lot of classic games that would be too tedious otherwise. I love playing Earthbound on my phone but if I couldn't quick save (which I bind to my back key) then the game wouldn't be nearly as fun. Anyone who thinks games were funner when they involved playing in front of a tv for 4 hours only to lose to some cheap tactic has sadistic sense of "fun"