Save Everywhere or Savepoints

[67420cf52cc73Dj 127]

You just said you haven't played the game and then went in-depth on the specifics?

Yes, because the first Resident Evil is a much discussed game and by overhearing what it's players talk about it elsewhere, I could understand a lot about that game.

[67420cf52cfe8Join2]

But then you're just repeating the opinions of others without real analysis of your own, dude. Bad practice.

[67420cf52d16bDj 127]

Real analysis? I just watched a few videos of Resident Evil at your behest, and it pretty much corroborates what people say about it. There's always going to be some degree of truth in what people say about a certain thing, be it a game, movie or a TV show.

[67420cf52d26bJoin2]

Not necessarily, but I'm dipping out. I left you a reply regarding your coding query over on moddb.

[67420cf52d3d1Join2]

Ex-LGS dev over on OtherSide forums:

I'm all for building out 'rules'. As I said last year, Xcom has shown the way. Iron Man,autosave, save crawl whatever [system] you want as a player.  It works, its awesome.

[67420cf52d4fbDj 127]

Not sure how that's relevant, as all he's saying is that he's willing to give choices of save systems to the player. Underworld Ascendant is going to have a freeform save feature anyway, and whether they add an optional checkpoint system remains to be seen.

[67420cf52d6c9Join2]

"autosaves" are checkpoints.

...unless they are triggered by game time passed or something, which defeats the point as making yourself a sandwich = game saved, so that's unlikely.

It's vindication for a lot of things I have been saying, ofc, and further disconnects viewpoints from idiotic posts like this that you yourself acknowledged. Any form of restrictive saving is related to what has been said by myself in this thread in some way. Only the "designed challenge structure" is unique to checkpoint-based systems (save stations, scripted autosaves (what most people know as checkpoints) or the Dark Souls bonfire system).

Underworld Ascendant is going to have a freeform save feature

Source?

[67420cf52d7e5Dj 127]

Autosaves are automatic saves, aka saves triggered by the player progressing upto a point. They need not necessarily be part of a checkpoint based system.

[67420cf52d9f9Join2]

"saves triggered by the player progressing upto a point"

While we could go into semantics and squabble like children some more, this thread has certainly run its course.

[67420cf52def0Dj 127]

An autosave is an automatic save, aka the player usually doesn't get a say in whether the game saves or not, it saves automatically. I should have added that line there.

Here's where one of the Otherside producers said they will implement free form saves:

So...I admit I can't believe this thread is still going.
If we put in quicksave...there is nothing saying you have to use it. and yes, it will most likely be in the game. People like to play that way. Why would I stop them from that? I have no interest in blocking people's fun.
That said, I've not used it my whole gaming life. I save, but I can't think of a game where I even knew what the quicksave key was. I play, I save, I quit. If things happen while playing, I deal with wherever they respawn me, or reload my session. In a game with Iron Man, I usually use that after my first playthrough, like X-com. It does add to the experience, but it would have been a nightmare while learning the game.

But we could add a hardcore mode. I'm all for that too. With options. No killing. No magic. whatever. constraints can add fun.  We won't protect you from copying your save and moving it or whatever other crazy people think up to save themselves from hardcore mode. I have no interest in engaging in an arms race to make sure people are being honest about their saves.
Sure...could we have a database for co-op on our side and whatever...but we haven't even given that any thought. But then comes the other side of that coin, corrupted saves, mismatches...

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=146.msg5378#msg5378

[67420cf52e1bexdiesp]

My own way is to quicksave every 15 minutes, or unskippable cutscenes that I don't want to get caughts pants down with, should I die suddenly. Essentially like autosaving with Office.

Save points sound like they will be more conductive of fear, than quicksaves, but in reality they are equally enablers of bad play habits. Wherein a bad player would hammer the quicksave button given the chance, he would still abuse save points by camping and backtracking. It's just like the saying, "culture is upstream from politics": once you understand how to balance your personal sense of challenge (which varies differently from person to person, no default formula exists) then you can make any system work.

To measure one's sense of challenge, and satisfaction with difficulty settings is tricky. You are yourself both observer and instrument of detection: swinging madly between "shit's impossible" when you die even just once, and "I'm overpowered" because you managed not to die for 5 minutes. It's best to sit back, relax and think of what you got out of the experience other than what shows up on the combat log.

[67420cf52e350Djant]

Sorry for bumping the thread, but Join Uss kept mentioning that his mod's Hardcore mode was a good implementation of a checkpoint based system in an open ended game. I found one impression by ZagorTeNeg though where he says that he would prefer playing on other difficulty modes after beating Hardcore mode once. Do you think he misses the point too?

[67420cf52e767Join2]

You could have continued this via PM as you were after the discussion ended.

I'm not interested in public discussion on the subject anymore, not here anyway. I wanted the reasons one would want to restrict saving by design to be understood, as they were not, as well as to explain some of the intricacies such as the fact you can still save anywhere with restricted systems. If some do not value those reasons despite understanding them in whole then that's their prerogative. Whether or not one does actually understand in whole is another matter.

See, the lack of understanding continues despite all that has been said, so why would I bother:

Save points sound like they will be more conductive of fear, than quicksaves, but in reality they are equally enablers of bad play habits. Wherein a bad player would hammer the quicksave button given the chance, he would still abuse save points by camping and backtracking.

You're under the impression that save points are inherently "campable" to begin with and cannot be one-time use or bound by resources, or just entirely developer-triggered in locations the player has no way of predicting.

[67420cf52ea4cvoodoo47]

no, as ZB said, the reasons were understood, but we don't like savepoints/limited saving anyway.

also, pretty much all games have cheats, which are trivial to find and enable nowadays, so not screwing up your gameplay is user's choice in the end, one way or another. not allowing to save anywhere will change nothing.

[67420cf52eceeJoin2]

"also, pretty much all games have cheats, which are trivial to find and enable nowadays, so not screwing up your gameplay is user's choice in the end, one way or another. not allowing to save anywhere will change nothing."

Again, not screwing up your gameplay/preventing cheating is merely one reason of many why a designer may want to restrict saving. This should be understood by now. Additionally, many games that feature this design intention often don't offer cheats or even disable them for their "hardcore mode" equivalent for that matter. This is what GMDX does in fact.

exec function cheat()
{
   if (bHardcoreMode) bCheatsEnabled = false;
   else bCheatsEnabled = !bCheatsEnabled;
}

"no, as ZB said, the reasons were understood, but we don't like savepoints/limited saving anyway."

They absolutely were not understood when this thread began. This can be verified by reading what was posted, ZylonBane's posts especially. If they are now understood (it's not by some, but never mind) and you still dislike it then that's fine by me.

/thread

[67420cf52f2f1Djant]

Additionally, many games that feature this design intention often don't offer cheats or even disable them for their "hardcore mode" equivalent for that matter.

I think voodoo47 was referring to using game engines and the like for cheating, not in built cheats. I don't think most modern games have in built cheats, and quite a few even disable the console entirely.

Besides, the bigger point voodoo47 was making is that no matter how many restrictions you may put on the game as a designer, players are going to find a way around them or get a different experience if they're determined to do so.

[67420cf52f428voodoo47]

exactly. a determined cheater/exploiter will find a way.

[67420cf52f62ffox]

Some even consider that a game in itself. Or even make the entire game about that, like else Heart.Break().

[67420cf52f7beQuindorrian]

Save Points are for console games.  They are lazy and allow developers to only worry about game design issues for saving the game only at those specific points.  Whereas, saving anywhere forces developers to have to consider bugs created by saving in odd spots or at odds times.  I hate save points unless they are supplementing a save-anywhere system.  Just my 2-cents.

[67420cf52f9baLaineyBugsDaddy]

Can someone explain to me why this is even a debate? SS1 was a save anywhere game. No, there was no quicksave key, that idea wasn't a thing yet. You pressed escape, you clicked on the save button, you clicked a save slot, you typed a name (or left the existing name alone if you wanted to overwrite a slot but keep the name), and you pressed enter. This was a basic function of the game and should not be altered, save perhaps eliminating the limited number of save slots that the nature of the environment in which the game ran forced on the original developers.

[67420cf52fba8Kolya]

Well I'm not going to argue for save points, but you answered it yourself: It's more than 20 years later now. That's why it is (was) a debate.

[67420cf52fdf1LaineyBugsDaddy]

You misunderstand me. They are debating changing a core feature of the game with no real justification. If they were debating whether or not to add quick save, that would be one thing, but they are debating replacing the basic save functionality entirely with either a checkpoint system or Super Metroid/Metroid Prime style save points, either of which would spoil the gameplay IMO. Aside from the foolishness of this, there was already something rather like these in the game, and which made sense in the context of the game anyway. To wit, the reconstruction booths you had to either take out of conversion mode or just plain activate. So again, why is this even a debate? It is, to coin a phrase from another favorite franchise, highly illogical.

[67420cf52ff69fox]

@LaineyBugsDaddy: I recommend reading the actual thread before jumping to conclusions about the foolishness of the arguments being made. Skipping it myself sometimes but that doesn't make it any less of a bad practice and boils down to arrogant ignorance.

[67420cf5300d5Join2]

Let's not forget it was suggested by NightDive's CEO himself. Myself and Dazzle! (both of whom have design experience in some form) have argued for it in this thread. OtherSide's producer seems open to it. That's 4 people with notable varying degrees of credibility.