10 replies to this topic

[Monkeydog]

How do you think Save Points should be handled? Especially in an RPG?

First off, I think I should bring up what I think is the stupidest use of save points, which is Donkey Kong Country. Which forces you to play through almost an entire world before you can even save, which is ridiculous.

I bring up saves because of the two games I started playing recently: Radiant Historia and Harvest Moon.

Radiant Historia is your commonplace RPG (at least so far, I haven't played it much), and doesn't allow you to save by will. There's save points. But they are all literally five feet away from each other. I can understand that save points kind of make the game a bit harder, but not if you put them everywhere. You might as well just allow me to save in menu.

Harvest Moon on the other hand allows you to save whenever wherever. Which I like, because it makes my life easier...but it also makes it so much easier to cheat. I could just keep loading my game over and over again until I get the game to do what I want. Which makes it nice for me...but it's also cheating and makes me feel odd about it all. The same thing with Elder Scrolls and Fallout. Being able to save and load until you win makes the game much easier for me and allows me not to get as frustrated with it, but it also makes the game waaay too easy (to an extent).

What are your guy's thoughts?

[kspr]

if you're playing a game, there is a definite beginning an end. therefore to experience the whole thing, you have to be able to do it without dying. in order for the story to exist in the first place, the character cannot die, unless they are supposed to. you should be able to save anywhere and redo things, because in order for there to be an ending, which you already know there is, then the middle part has to go perfectly. did that make any sense?

video games are a strange experience because you can know that there is an ending without knowing the middle.

[Stars]

I kind of like the way inFamous handles saves. You can save anywhere at any time, but when you load your game (or die), you'll start back up at the nearest spawn point rather than at the exact spot you saved. Also it autosaves a lot, but that has nothing to do with a typical RPG. And I'm not sure how you would do either of those things in RPG Maker.
I guess you can approximate autosaving by asking, "Would you like to save?" after major events. One could also code an event that sends the player to a spawn point when they get a Game Over, but I don't know that it's possible when loading a saved game.

As for RPGs, I generally like to be able to save anywhere when I'm on the world map or in areas without enemies, like towns. If it's not an action RPG like Elder Scrolls, I don't mind if dungeons only let you save at specific points, perhaps at the midway point if it's long, and again before any bosses or mini-bosses.

[Kamau]

I like games that let me "pause my progress" whenever I want, even if it means that when I get a game over I still have to go back to the nearest save point.

I like when save points are obvious (i.e., anything but Epic Mickey) because I like to know that I'm saving. At all times.

I'm okay with not being able to save anywhere I want, if only because it helps me judge when I should prepare my items for a battle or something (since in most of my games, save points only come up before boss battles or other big events, and that's always handy for me).

[Monkeydog]

Even if games are stories and you need to get to the end (Which I don't think is necessarily the case for every game)...it's also a game. And there needs to be a level of difficulty no matter what. Allowing yourself to keep redoing something over and over again (only because you can just load it back up again) until you get it right or something changes is kind of like cheating. Which takes away from the game part of the game.

[Stars]

For some games, like say Mass Effect or Dragon Age, where you make various choices throughout the story, it can be interesting to be able to save wherever and then reload to see what else might have happened if you did something differently. On the other hand, you'll probably play Mass Effect multiple times anyway, so maybe that's not the best example. :p

[Kamau]

The only game where I enjoyed being able to save whenever the heck I wanted was...I think it was Tales of Legendia...just because I liked to go back and watch the cutscenes. XD I did that with Lunar, too.

In general, I only like the idea of saving wherever because I like to go back and rewatch scenes without having to replay the entire game. Like, my favorite parts...Buut I am much happier with games that have a "cutscene" section that I can access after I beat the game. Much more efficient. And very useful, in 999!

[Vicious Parker]

With massive amounts of memory in every system, I don't see any reason at all why games shouldn't allow you to save as often as you want, and hold as many save files as you like. I can see some exceptions like not allowing you to save in the middle of battle, but otherwise, "save points" have no real reason to exist anymore, like extra lives.

That said, I actually only occasionally save my game. Auto-saving in many games has become so well executed and super convenient, that I almost entirely rely on auto saves these days. I especially like games that keep three or four autosaves (like Valve games).

The reason I feel this way in both cases is because having to replay entire sections of a game because of 1) not having a near enough save point to where I died, or 2) forgetting to save recently and sometimes losing hours of gameplay are just too inconvenient. I have quit playing games entirely for this reason. Not recently, though, because games are getting nicer with saves.

[Stars]

I have never played a Resident Evil game for more than a couple minutes, but I do like the idea of how the old games handled saving. For a survival horror game anyway. Not only did they have save points, but you also had to find rare items in order to use them.

Of course, this would be a horrible idea for any other kind of game ever. xp

[kspr]

they werent exactly 'rare', you could save, find a bunch, load an earlier file, and get the ones you just found, then re save. i think RE5 did it perfectly where for most of the chapter, you'd be running and gunning and trying not to die, and them it would give you checkpoints before bosses or hordes of enemies would attack.

i never got frustrated by that because it was never boring. cutscenes were skipable, and generally if you could figure out how to fight the boss, you could kill it within a few tries.

[lazlo falconi]

In general, I like save points, I think it gives a good way to break up the story and game play, sort of like chapters in a book. When playing a game with autosave, it's hard to say, "I'll stop playing when I reach something," but in older games it was always easy to stop playing at the next save point, because you always knew one was coming up.

But also, I hate when there's a save point right before a cutscene you can't skip right before a boss battle and oh yeah, there's only one save slot.