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Original post by Inmate2993 What I was saying with Save/Load, treating it like Time. Count how many times the player has saved (I''m not sure if we can count loads) and award a trivial bonus at the end. Money, ammo. Something thats not absolutely important, but it''d make a nice incentive to make it through without saving a lot.
Yep, i wasn''t thinking very clearly in my last post.
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Of course, thats just one idea, the other idea was treating saving as a resource by allocating save tokens or something. I think Diakatana did that. Wild Arms 3 did that.
So, the process doesn''t need to be altered really, just a different mindset would work.
Well you''ve convinced me its could work well depending on the game. We''re both thinking FPS which is probably the reason there is such little responses/interjectures. Hmmm
Game Design Rule 1: Its all about fun Rule 2: Never blame the player
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The other thing I use some saves for is to allow me to play certain sections again later
It would be trivial to include a third kind of save where you can load and continue from any point, but can''t save. This might encourage exploration and "let''s see how far i can get" behaviour. It would probably be easy to crack unles the process of saving is a function of the data from the previous save ie embed the data reuired to save.
StaticVoid, your idea is wierd, but kind of appealing. I think there might be real material there.
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I don''t think it''s worth making too much of an attempt to prevent the save system from being cracked - at least part of the point of redesigning the save system is to make the game designers think about the balance issues that make people save/reload in the first place. Ultimately if people want to get around save restrictions badly enough, it''s probably better to let them do it - it''ll probably have a negative impact on their enjoyment of the game, but it beats them getting frustrated because they can''t handle not being able to save/reload their way through the game. If a player really wants to ruin their gaming experience, then it''s their problem not the designer''s.
I like the idea of an "explorer" save though. Probably disable high-score, secret unlocking and any similar "global" effects by default - otherwise you get the incentive to just leave the game paused between play sessions until you get to the end...
Continuing my habit of mentioning console game save systems (generally Nintendo consoles at that), Conker''s Bad Fur Day used a system whereby in addition to playing through the game straight, there was a "chapters" list that had preset "saves" for certain checkpoints during the game which were unlocked as you progressed through, allowing you to start playing from any of those points and continue as far as you liked (though again no further saving) I never actually tried playing from the chapters list beyond where I''d reached in a "real" game, so I''m not sure whether it allowed you to do so, but I suspect it would.
Digressing marginally, but one thing I think would be nice in a heavily plot driven, linear, cutscene heavy game (not mentioning any FF game by name) would be a compiled "movie" of all the cutscenes (both pre-rendered and game engine), possibly with linking sections if required, and possibly including optional plot-related scenes to be unlocked by experiencing them in-game. Obviously, it would only be unlocked as you experienced the cut-scenes in-game, but it would save having to piece it together by hand by saving just before key scenes (example, in FF8, I have a permanent save just before the ballroom scene, the Ragnarok landing scene and typically a couple of others (I can''t remember since they''re back home and it''s been 5 months since I looked at them...). Come to think of it, Metal Gear Solid did have a movie option - in fact it had two movies, one for each of the endings (Meryl/Otacon). I''m sure there are games that let you revisit bosses, though I can''t remember any titles at the moment. That sort of feature, which just requires a few bits in a data-file (possibly encrypted somehow) to keep track of progress (the more linear the game, the fewer bits are needed just to keep track - rather than 1 bit per key-point, you just need to keep track of the most recent one visited, and then one bit each for optional ones). Of course, if you have an RPG type game, you''d probably want to store characters as well, and the more non-linear the game, the more tightly you''d want to restrict access - meaning you''d want to keep it to closed scenes that could easily be cut off from the larger context (minigames for example), but it''s the sort of thing that could be added fairly easily, particularly to PC games where generally disk space is not an issue, yet make a big difference to the replay value of the game.
That last idea about giving a playlist menu of ingame cutscenes, Final Fantasy Tactics does that. Nicely too, they even give a short description of each scene.
Personally I''ve always found console-like savegames boring. If playing back some "already played" scenes could be exciting for a few people, let them choose the possibility to not save their games lol. The stress of dying with a high chance to start again a whole level is not really pleasant for me, I would rather uninstall such a game if it''s really too difficult (Difficulty in a game should be ENJOYABLE to deal with, not the opposite).
I generally prefer games where you can save wherever, whenever you want, just because I find other systems kinda boring. And I think I''m not the only one to think savegames have to be handled like that since that''s pretty much how every PC games worked, works and will probably continue to work.
NB: This fact is pretty much true when applied to roleplaying games, where savepoints would be an unrealistic non-sense. In FPS perhaps other ways are possible and functionnals, but those won''t get my vote.
In Alien Versus Predator 2 they removed the five savegames limit which applied in avp1, and it''s a good thing because in that first episode you actually used more time to think about a good moment to save the game (depending of the level size) rather than actually playing it in a "positive/fun" fearful athmosphere.
So how do we prevent a player from feeling the need to incrementally save?
If the game is enjoyable, it is probably unpredictable. This implies there may be trouble round any corner so an experienced player may save at every pause in the action for no other reason than to avoid kicking themselves in a few minutes time.
If the game is non-linear story driven, being able to play arbitary sections or multiple story paths concurrently, the player will have more information about the story world and save frequently because a) more info leads to wiser choices (RPG stats) and b) to explore the story without replaying massive sections common to more than one story.
If the game is arcadey then saving isn''t a problem. The argument applies to more "realistic" (detailed) game worlds. Here, there is a much greater concious effort than simple reflexes. The obstacles are supposed to be analysed. The challenge is a save system which lets lazy players have fun, but discourage serious players from "cheating". Isn''t this a contradiction in terms? I don''t think so. But what is the solution?
Maybe it''s a physical manifestation of the "true but not proveable" problem.
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A Problem Worthy of Attack Proves It''s Worth by Fighting Back
spraff.net: don't laugh, I'm still just starting...
Maybe I''m just too smart for my own good, but playing a game where save/reloading makes it all but impossible to lose (making it just a matter of time to get through the tricky part), once I realise that I can''t lose, it suddenly stops being fun - it''s like cheating at solitaire...
And I''ve enjoyed console games save systems more than the Half Life quicksave simply because it doesn''t lead to situations where step-saving is the first solution to come to mind.
If I try and think of the most abused save system in a game, I would definitly say the UFO: Xcom series. So many people, including me, would run into a mission, have a unit get the heck shot out of him, curse because he was my highest ranking unit, and then load the save game. It was not uncommen at all to have the very first units you started the game with be the very same that you finish the game with.
I do like in Sacrifice, when you die the main character will say, (and since the whole game is a memory) "Of course, thats not what really happend..." as the game is loading.
I still have to completely disagree that save slots should be limited in any fashion. Apparently some of you don''t have a problem with having to start all over again, but if I''m playing a game like Half-Life, I want to enjoy the story and the atmosphere. Of course I want a challenge too, but there''s more than enough challenge WITH the save/load system. I''m the type of player that is paranoid about dying, for the simple fact that I hate repeating myself. For me, playing through a mission once is fun. Playing through a second time is repetitive. A third time is excruciatingly boring, and anything beyond that is... well it just doesn''t happen. Fortunately, it doesn''t have to, because by that time I''ve loaded up the game from a recent save point, and however many tries it took, I finally beat that part that was whipping me before and I''ve moved on.
In every game there are challenges and there are rest points -- points where the player can relax for a moment and feel the satisfaction of their accomplishments. At the very least, the player should be able to save/load at the rest point between each challenge.
When the player dies, where would you have them start over? Before the challenge? At the beginning of the mission? At the beginning of the game, heaven forbid?
One final comment... another interesting way to handle death in games without having ANY kind of player-initiated save/load system, is that which is used in most MMORPGs -- the player state is always stored, in case of connection loss, but when the player dies, they enter a "dead" state. Different games handle this in different ways -- the beauty of this method is that the game timeline goes on and the player has to reintegrate himself with the challenge, so to speak. I can''t help but wonder if this could be translated to single player and perhaps even non-persistent games in some fashion.
