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Original post by Cahaan
The problem with Half-Life was not the savegame system itself, it was the game. Boring shooting game.

But check Deus Ex, it''s odd that savegames are not a problem there. Just because the game is more interesting, the design''s better.

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Good point.

Lets just say that, in my experience, games with unusual save systems are often better designed to cope with the whole save/reload problem.

I''m not sure if someone already mentionned it but here''s an idea: allow one save per X amount of time. Like, one save every 5 mins, or one save every 10 mins ? or one save every 15 mins ?

Y.

I believe games SHOULD be beatable because i have gone through a game before and i got so angry because i couldn't beat a level and quit it, however, you don't have to force the player through the story if they don't want to. Thats why i believe in mini games and allowing the more hardcore-gamer ones to find the storyline or to get the extra levels if they really wanna challenge.

I think you should have something maybe like FF games, have like a little spot to save but i wouldn't limit saves like Resident Evil. Resident Evil made me a bit angry because you only had limited amounts of weapons and saves, but i do realize it is trying to freak you out because its a survival horror game.

[edited by - SumDude on March 28, 2003 8:31:48 AM]

I don''t think a limited X-saves-per-level type solution is naturalistic enough to be anything other than a further artificial obstacle to the player. QiockSaves are a nice system because they can be done with one unintrusive keypress (and, in the right engine architecture, instantaneous)

When I play, I like to use only one save slot per level if at all possible, the point being I can''t backtrack to any old place.

This topic wasn''t started to find ways of stopping the player saving, it''s to find ways of making the player stop ***LOADING!***




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A Problem Worthy of Attack
Proves It''s Worth by Fighting Back

Simplest way to stop people loading too much is to stop them saving too much - a simple, well designed save-point system, possibly with the option to interrupt-save between save points could well work. In the case of a linear game divided into levels, the fixed save points could co-incide with the level breaks.

As an avid RPG player, i''m very familiar with the constant reloading that is considered gameplay by the recent games. I think the idea of combat based on needing to reload is a bad idea. However, designing a game that forbids multiple saves at different times (like nethack) isn''t an option for modern rpgs. Nethack''s system works for one important reason: Nethack is amazingly stable and has been bugtested for years. There is almost no way to "get stuck" in nethack or to have the computer "screw you over". Most retail PC games however, are released in a very buggy state to meet deadlines with the idea of adding patches down the road once the players find more errors. I remember when Ultima: Ascension came out they strongly recommended you save in many different save spots every 20 minutes or so "in case something happened", and there were many bugs that would break the main quest but not be noticable for a long time, meaning you would have to regress to a save from 4-5 hours ago. If you had overwritten those saves, you were screwed, and had to start the whole game over. Now Ultima: Ascension was particularly buggy, and games don''t have to be this way, but ALL pc games, especially RPGs, are going to be shipped with crash bugs and game-breaking problems because of the need to rush to meet publishing deadlines. So a way to make multiple backup saves is important.
Of course, a better solution to this is to reduce the need for publishers, but that is dangerously anti-american and probably shouldn''t be discussed around here

But, absolutely and completely: the save system should not be a bug-fix.

And I''m increasingly leaning towards the fixed-point saves system (possibly with interrupt saves) as the best option - it even works as a bug fix since the fixed point saves can be in different slots, so you can keep backups as far back as you want.

But a game where you have to keep saves back 4-5 hours or more because of bugs deserves not to be played - charging US$50 (or whatever full price games cost in US) for a chance to beta test your game is... is... sufficiently bad to break my vocabulary!

Alright, if we want to breaking the quickloading habit, heres an idea.

First, we give a free save/load at the start of a level. Starting a level over should be no problem. Then, as the level progressing we start racking up a score. At the end of the level, this score gets you a bonus item or something (as I suggested before). Now, for the clincher, we DO NOT save the score when saving mid-level, and we reset the score to zero when loading.

We get two psychological ''modes'' here. The play to beat, where quicksaving and quickloading is used frequently, and where we probably don''t have a problem. And, the play to master, where the player will go back and replay levels without quicksave/loading to get that bonus item.

So, any problems with replay value? :D

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Original post by Ysaneya
I'm not sure if someone already mentionned it but here's an idea: allow one save per X amount of time. Like, one save every 5 mins, or one save every 10 mins ? or one save every 15 mins ?

Y.

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That is an interesting idea. In order to get rid of players constantly saving and loading, you limit saves to automatic saves every X minutes.

If they sit around and wait the interval to save, they wasted about X minutes.

If they don't and they die, they waste X minutes at most(maybe when you die, it will save 1 minute after you load from your last spot to move you forward, but as long as you stay alive after that, it will only save every 15 minutes or so).

If they dont and they don't die before the next save interval they don't lose anything but maybe a few health.

I like it; it eliminates both the problem of saving too often and the problem of having to start too far back after death. Maybe make the time depend on difficulty level also, like 5 minutes for very easy and 30 for very hard.

[edited by - Extrarius on March 29, 2003 1:11:06 PM]

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Original post by Extrarius
That is an interesting idea. In order to get rid of players constantly saving and loading, you limit saves to automatic saves every X minutes.

If they sit around and wait the interval to save, they wasted about X minutes.

If they don''t and they die, they waste X minutes at most(maybe when you die, it will save 1 minute after you load from your last spot to move you forward, but as long as you stay alive after that, it will only save every 15 minutes or so).

If they dont and they don''t die before the next save interval they don''t lose anything but maybe a few health.

I like it; it eliminates both the problem of saving too often and the problem of having to start too far back after death. Maybe make the time depend on difficulty level also, like 5 minutes for very easy and 30 for very hard.

[edited by - Extrarius on March 29, 2003 1:11:06 PM]

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At least until you get a save where the enemy rocket is half a second away from your 1% health character...

I know I keep repeating myself on this, but a save point system (done competently) should average about the same save frequency as a timed save system, and automatically avoids the problem of saving a certain death situation.