quote: Original post by Captain Insanity
I''m shooting myself in the foot telling you lot this, but this afternoon I played almost half of Deus Ex ... all with God mode on. And you know what? It''s still fun.

I accept it as a fact that playing in God Mode can be fun. Target practice can be fun. Sneaking around can be fun. Lots of different things about games can be fun. The question you need to ask yourself in this case is: what would the game be like if you could only play it in God Mode? I know I wouldn''t like it. Actual consequences make a difference to me.

quote: Perhaps this is just me being weird, but maybe this whole death/failiure thing is overhyped, and we could stop this spectre of the players rapid and unpleasant demise from dominating every single game situation altogether, taking some of the bite out of the save/don''t save debate.

If I understand what you''re saying here, you''re painting a picture of a game in which failure is pervasive and almost invariably fatal. A game like that would suck no matter what kind of save system you adopt.

quote: What good is trial and error if your first error is fatal?

If a game is well designed, what proportion of player errors do you think would be fatal? Would a player be unable to recover from fatal errors?

As lively as this topic has been I think the "real" point has been completely missed. To assume any player is going to "want" to play a game exactly like we (as developers) imagine it "should" be played is a bit silly. Game player always have and always will decide for themselves how they think they should play a game and if we (as developers) are silly enough to try and force our "mode" of play on them they will figure out a way to do what they wan''t anyway or your game will stay on a shelf (if it makes it that far). Don''t limit the players from doing something as basic as saving their progress if the game is of a type that it takes more than 10 to 15 minutes to complete since they are not going to live thier life around your game. If I as a player was in the middle of a game and had to leave but had no way of saving my progress I would take the CD outside with some gas and a lighter and after I finished destroying the cause of my insanity I would tell everyone I know how crappy the game was. Extreme I know but time is valuable and most people don''t like it to be wasted when they are paying money for the game. Now if we want to really do something that will be worth while, let the players think on their own.

GRELLIN

CGP | IYAOYAS | Linux.com | Linux Game Development Center

Don''t fear the penguin!

This thread has all the characteristics of a flame thread without flaming. the basic point by each side has been cycled a few times. thats the typical anatomy of a flame thread. i was going to present the surmise of my defence that has become much more sophisticated since the inception. however then i asked myself why? its lost in the cycle =)

Which of us are the cattle and which of us are the aliens would never be decided here. (obscure reference. read: which of us would actually respond positively to the counter argument in the next game we play. or read: which of us really isnt in touch with ourselves gaming wise.) of course i think myside is the aliens and your the cattle. but hell i dont blame you for thinking your the alien. Tis the way of the cattle to think they arnt the dumb grazer.. LOL sorry was just having fun with that. im really not _that_ crazy.


side note:
to flaming someone when they defined their terms with flame "you dont get to redefine the english language" sigh bro. the guy was telling you what the words meant relative to his statements. that is pure communication at its intellectual penical. its not odd or off the wall to say i define this word to mean this. in fact in most abstract discussion its required. philosophy is usually 9 pages definition to 1 page point (as are mathematical proofs strangely). sure his definitions didnt fit yours but thats not relavent. never is.

its like a #define in C (hence the name btw). he #defined two words for you. thats normally implied but in this case it was explicit. to bash that with as uncommunicative or counter productive is a /boggle to me.

quote: Original post by Grellin
As lively as this topic has been I think the "real" point has been completely missed. To assume any player is going to "want" to play a game exactly like we (as developers) imagine it "should" be played is a bit silly. Game player always have and always will decide for themselves how they think they should play a game and if we (as developers) are silly enough to try and force our "mode" of play on them they will figure out a way to do what they wan't anyway or your game will stay on a shelf (if it makes it that far).

Allow me to suggest that no game exists where the player isn't in some way limited by the designer's choices. Design is what defines modes of play, flexible or otherwise.

Let's say a character isn't able to fly without first obtaining a pair of wings. Is deliberately choosing when to present the player with wings forcing the player to assume a flightless mode of play in the meantime? Should we make wings part of a player's standard inventory so he can decide for himself when to make use of them?

Let's not misrepresent the issue by pretending it's a matter of taking away something which a player should not be denied. The issue is whether limiting a player's ability to save and reload can in certain cases make for a better game.

[edited by - chronos on May 19, 2002 5:27:04 AM]

quote: Original post by declspec
i submit a perfect game would have no save/load feature. it would be designed such that somehow the player sucked up loss as part of the game thought of it as actually fun. a toy.

But the perfect game has yet to be found and i also submit _isnt_ possible. but based on the above i invoke that a games design can be measured by how little you have to save/load.

I think this is a great point. In fact, I''m allready tuning several of my designs with this in mind. A whole host of things I dislike about many games becomes evident when I look at it in this light. However, the rest of your presentation not only takes away from the real focus of what you''re trying to say, it also ceases to use this idea as a design tool.

Now, correct me if I''m wrong, but I believe your statement would be "Looking at where, when and why a game would be frusterating if the player couldn''t save at any point is a good tool for finding flaws in a design."

quote:
less theoretical and more practically speaking.
Baldurs gate is ruined by the save anywhere feature.

In my opinion Baldur''s Gate was saved from the brink of disaster by the save anywhere feature.

quote:
Contrast BG with FF1. In ff1 you had long walks from saves to key battles and the entire _fun_ after wards was not the battle but getting back to where you could save. the drama was intense. every step was carefully considered after doing something good.

Baldurs gate however was save fight save fight save fight load fight save. Somepeople say well you didnt have to do that. but fighting to death without save forces you to do that. also the game designers job is to hand a consistant experience to the players imo.

I don''t really agree with walking back to town in FF1 being much fun.

And you''re very right about Baldur''s Gate. But I still think that wasn''t so much a flaw with the save anywhere system, as it was a flaw in the rest of the game.

Let''s grab that design statement again, and try to see a little of it.

One situation that would be frusterating to no end without the capability to save anywhere would be those when the player is caught unprepared for the threats ahead. Baldur''s Gate always liked to drop in a few groups of very hard monsters in places for no real reason other than to have them around. An example of this is the group of Thay Wizards in the forest, or, 15 feet away from them, the very dangerous group of spiders, who, incedentally, also had a web trap set for unsuspecting players. Or even the first set of traps the player runs into.

Another set of situations would be any of those where the player might think "oh man! That fight would have been so much easier if I''d have had spell X instead of Y."

Another set of situations are the plain unbalanced ones. Like fighting a group of enemies, equal in number, higher in level, and one of whom is an archer who can shoot three highly damaging explosive arrows in the time of a single sword swing. These are much worse when they appear suddenly amidst a set of ridiculously easy encounters.

And of course we can''t forget those cruel moments when, after dragging himself through a large dungeon, barely defeating the leader of the dungeon, and finally getting out, the game decides to spring a surprize encounter with a difficult group right outside the entrance of the dungeon, or while the player''s resting, or back inside of the inn.

And, of course, a common occurance is just anytime the main character dies. This is extra painful if the main character is a up close fighter type.

To say it simply, the game had poor pacing, random spikes in the difficulty of monsters, loss conditions that happened very easily, and often required advance knowledge of many of the dangers to survive. None of these I consider problems with the save system.

So, again, you''re right, the constant load-fight-save chain was annoying. But it is a product of some rough balance issues. I wish the initial point had been a little more clear.

On a completely un-related offshoot, in their defense, I would like to point out that there was the handy little difficulty button. Too bad that was marred not only by the stigma of having to play on "easy" (what am I? A wimp?) and also the penalty they exacted on the player, making it seem wrong to decrease the difficulty.

quote:
Consider the early nintendo wizardry. this is nintendo 1. AUTO SAVE. i now submit there is a certain element of _balls_ in early game design. In that first wizardry death was death. a party that was wiped was lost unless you formed some back up to go get them.

I havn''t played it, so I can''t comment from expierence. However, let me say that, if there were any of those random incidents that I didn''t feel at least partially responsable for, and that I would have great difficulty recovering from, I''d be just as likely to cheat, start over, or use a guide.

quote:

"ya but i didnt like that" I now finally submit that some of the popularity of online games comes from the sense of consequence. the sense that you dont get another shot adds drama to the experience.

I have to disagree with this. The times I felt that I wouldn''t get another shot, or was losing too much from the consiquences is why I, and several of my friends quit. Most of the people I know, who play seem to enjoy the social interaction more than anything else.

quote:
And lastly i would like to point out there is truth to what im saying. That its sort of a design cop-out to make your work into save load save load. there is no faith in the entire game experience. the challenge and the fun. BG is the finest example its so strong in my mind. there is no doubt in my mind that BG would have benefited from a "save only in town" rule that was prevalent in early gaming.

Yeah, I see what you''re saying. But again, It''s not the save feature, it''s the design. If the game was only altered so that a save in town feature was added, I think it''d be frusterating.

I''m just sad that a thread that could have been an interesting discussion on how to make better games turned into a little argument of "save anywhere''s good!" vs "save anywhere''s bad!".
In the end, it''s another design element, and it''s one that, depending on the goals, style, difficulty, and pacing of the game can be a good or a bad decision.

So, is anyone else interested in discussing what elements would need to be altered in games to make them more save resistant?

quote: Original post by AnonPoster
Yes, but it makes the entire game or level more difficult, which is my point.

No it doesn''t. It makes it take longer. There''s a crucial distinction there. You''ve not made any part of the game harder. You''ve just made it so that if the player fails at any point, they have to repeat more parts of the game. Using probability against them. You''re artificially extending the game''s life by making them repeat parts that they beat in order to return to parts they couldn''t beat. It''s not like they have to play better to succeed. They just have to play more. And be willing to play the same parts over and over and over...

You''ve got the same system as save-anywhere except with coarser granularity, which only favours the kids who will willingly play something over and over. Who are probably the same type of person who would reload after a successful encounter to see if they could manage it using less ammo anyway. So all you''re doing is eliminating the non-hardcore gamers who don''t want to have to repeat things they already played.

What are you gaining? So, the game takes longer to complete. It requires more pointless repetition to progress. So what? Most purchased games never get completed by the owner anyway, so why do you think you need to make the game even less satisfying by making it even less likely that they''ll reach the end?

[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost | Asking Questions | Organising code files ]

quote: Original post by Grellin
As lively as this topic has been I think the "real" point has been completely missed. To assume any player is going to "want" to play a game exactly like we (as developers) imagine it "should" be played is a bit silly.

Why do people keep repeating what is clearly false?

My sarcastic reply is if you don''t want to limit people, sell VC++ as your game...you can look at Chronos for a less sarcastic response. The point is you limit people with your choices ALL THE TIME.

Mario can''t fly unless he has a cape, or P-wing or whatever. Why can''t the player just choose to fly at any time? What if for some player the only fun part of the game is flying? Shouldn''t they be able to fly anytime then?

In fighting games you have to wait for your super meter to get full before you can do a super move...why?

Why can''t I do the levels of a game in any order? Why can''t I start with max level and equipment?

As a designer you make a game that is to be played in a certain way. That is what you do - that''s your job. Maybe some people will say "they big problem with Tekken is that I can''t drive a tank." Screw those people.

Now, I understand what people are trying to say. Basically, what I have used above are gameplay examples, while I assume people would claim that a save game scheme is sort of a meta thing that really doesn''t have to do with the game - it''s just icing like remapping your keys. But I disagree with that. That has to be the point of contention - is saving just an aside or does it really affect gameplay? The argument that limiting choice bad is self-evidently false. Every design decision you make forces people to play in a certain way. Does that mean the ultimate designer is someone who does nothing?


Remember we are talking about saving and reloading, not saving because you need to stop playing for a while. You can handle that while not allowing save/reload anywhere.

quote:
Don''t limit the players from doing something as basic as saving their progress if the game is of a type that it takes more than 10 to 15 minutes to complete since they are not going to live thier life around your game.

How does allowing save/reload address this problem any better than save & quit?

Let me try again:

Which is more difficult: Running a marathon at marathon pace or running 1 mile at marathon pace each day for a month?

We all know what the answer is! Nobody wants to say because it doesn''t help their cause, but the answer is obvious.

quote: Original post by Kylotan
There''s a crucial distinction there. You''ve not made any part of the game harder.

Difficulty is cumulative. See above example. This is not up for debate, it''s just factual. Doing hard things in a row is harder than doing any single one.

What you are trying to say, I think (not trying to put words in your mouth) is that you are making it more tedious as well.

quote:
You''re artificially extending the game''s life by making them repeat parts that they beat in order to return to parts they couldn''t beat.

The problem here is that you are breaking these things into parts, and you can''t always do that.

For example take a chess game. Your goal is to win. You could say that Chess has maybe an opening part, a mid-game part and an end-game part. Does that mean if you suck at the end-game part, if you lose you should just roll back and try only that part? It make make sense in a practice situation, but in the end in a real game the point of Chess is to play the whole game well.

I bet the Spurs wish they could just roll back and play some 4th quaters over again. That''s the only part they sucked at. But the challenge of basketball is playing for 4 quaters, not playing for 1.

I don''t think you can take a single level or mission and just break it up into arbitrarily small parts. Sometimes they have to be taken as a whole. If you want to be absurd you could map out Super Mario like this:

1: Move forward
2: Jump on goomba
3: Jump on second goomba
4: Jump on ledge
5: Bonk upper ledge with head
6: Get mushroom
...

You died at part 179: jump over hole? Why not just try that part again?

I would say that an individual "part" of Mario is a level. So my breakup would be:

1: Beat level 1-1
2: Beat level 1-2
...

You can take this to any extreme you want. Maybe you lost the 100 meter dash because you 32nd leg kick was a bit weak. Is there anyone who looks at the 100 meter dash as a series of single leg kicks? No.

You have to break these things up logically. The start of a race, getting out of the blocks, is fundamentally different than the middle of the race. You can reasonably say that is a different task. I don''t think it''s reasonable to say that each stride is a different task.

So, as a designer if you have a long level it may make sense to provide save points at logical places. For example some mario games have a mid-level save. Often after this save the level will change a bit, concentrate on some different skills, have a hard part, etc. They''ve broken the level logically. Breaking up levels too much become illogical. It''s like saving every stride in a race - the point of the race is running it from start to finish, lot being able to do a single leg kick.

quote:
You''ve got the same system as save-anywhere except with coarser granularity, which only favours the kids who will willingly play something over and over.

No it isn''t the same system at all. Save anywhere allows the player to break up the gameplay into elements smaller than natural. Save at save points is controlled. Another good example is the decathalon. Instead of running the decathalon all at once, why don''t they just take the best results for each individual section that the athlete did over the course of the entire year? Because the point of the decathalon is actually DOING the whole decathalon, from start to finish. Sure there are people who could say "man this year my pole-vault sucked but least year it was great." That doesn''t mean a whole lot.

quote:
Who are probably the same type of person who would reload after a successful encounter to see if they could manage it using less ammo anyway. So all you''re doing is eliminating the non-hardcore gamers who don''t want to have to repeat things they already played.

Let me point out 2 things:

#1: You supposition is wrong. I don''t play FPS games at all and I would never reload for something as trivial as ammo.

#2: I would contend that you have reversed the role of hardcore and non-hardcore gamers. Look at the console vs. PC split. I would say PC people tend to be more "hardcore," and PC games tend to be save anywhere. Which is a more "hardcore" game, Mario or ? I would say the FPS.

Their are really only a few PC games that appeal to non-hardcore gamers. (The Sims and various other sim type games being the primary ones) Whereas take somthing like console sports games - very popular among casual gamers yet AFAIK none of them allow save anywhere.

So I don''t think the data really backs your assertion that save-points are more "hardcore." If anything the data shows the opposite.

Finally, let me point out *again* that save-anywhere makes a lot of sense in certain games. In particular games where challenge isn''t the point, or where there isn''t a clear sub-division between tasks.

A good example would be Final Fantasy games. Generally you can save anywhere on the overhead map, but in dungeons only at save spots. Why? Because the dungeon is a controlled single challenge.

The overhead is much more free-form. There is no goal of wandering around on the overhead map, other than to get to places. You can''t really logically divide the overhead map up into phases or challenges. Nobody is going to say "yay I beat the the part where you walk from one town to another!" As such save anywhere makes sense there.

In a game like Sim-City which is solely about experimentation save anywhere makes sense. If there was a mode in Sim-City where you could compete for high scores against other people save-anywhere might make less sense in that case.

Boo-yah. Wavinator + Kylotan = Schooled. AnonPoster = Schooler.

Hee hee.

quote: Original post by ThoughtBubble
So, is anyone else interested in discussing what elements would need to be altered in games to make them more save resistant?

Yes let''s talk about this.

#1: Arbitrary death.
------------------
Numerous reviews accused "Fear Effect" of this and my friends confirmed it. Walk into a room, die, try again. Over and over. A friend described a situation where you had to avoid destroying setting off a bomb, but the auto-aim kept hitting it.

Any death that makes the player think WTF?!? is a bad thing. Doing well should not be based strictly on trial and error. Obviously practice will help in any situation but the game shouldn''t be such that you have to simply keep trying over and over.

Anyone remember BattleToads for the NES. I think that was the only NES game I owned and did not beat. (Including all the Ninja Gaiden''s, damn tough) BattleToads was the epitome of trial-and-error gameplay. In one section you have to race and avoid hitting some walls, but the walls come so fast you basically have to memorize them. In another section you had to ride some snakes that would move through a room while avoiding spikes. But you had no idea where the snakes would do. The basic game progression was get to go a bit, die, go a bit further, die again, then run out of continues and do the whole damn thing over from the start.

Some of the Ninja Gaiden games had limited continues and were hard, but the difference is that the difficulty was not "cheap." It wasn''t full of one-hit deaths that you simply could not avoid the first time through. If you die in Ninja Gaiden it is mostly because your screwed up and lack skill, not because you simply must memorize patterns to advance.

#2: Designers must recognize difficult sections
------------------
And plan accordingly. Some people seem to think that this is not the job of the designer - I strongly disagree. Yes everyone is different but the designer should have a good feel of what most people will find difficult. Difficult sections should allow you to save before-hand, have power-up items before them, etc. And in general your difficulty curve should be steadily upwards.

A good example of this done poorly, from what I hear, is Rogue Squadron for the GameCube. Apparently the 2nd or 3rd mission in is one of the hardest ones, in part because of foggy objectives. If the designers didn''t realize this they didn''t playtest enough and aren''t good designers. As a designer you should obviously have a feel for difficulty.

#3: Designers should be trusted by the player
---------------------
What I mean by this is, when a player gets into trouble they should have confidence that the designer anticipated this. For example, in Resident Evil you have a limited number of saves over the course of the game, but you don''t know exactly how many or how long the game is. So when do you save? The answer is "save when you''ve accomplished something major and it works out, trust us." It would really suck if you ran out of saves halfway though the game. But I''ve never heard of anyone doing this. The designers did a good job anticipating save patterns.

Another example would be a game where you run out of ammo, or use up some limited item, or something happens and you aren''t sure if it was supposed to happen or not. Was that a bug? Should I reload or is this supposed to happen?

In Symphony of the Night when the Grim Reaper takes away all your cool items at the start of the game was that avoidable? You have to assume that that was intended to happen, it wasn''t a mistake.

If you run into a room that has tons of monsters did you make a mistake? Are you supposed to have some item like a giant bomb you don''t have? Or will things work out somehow, maybe you shoot one monster that turns out to be the controller and the rest die on their own?

Basically players need to feel that whatever situation they are in the designer anticipated and planned for.

A great example of this is the game Earthlight for the Super-Famicom. On some missions halfway through some re-inforcements will arrive to help you out. As you progress though the level and lose some units you might think "wow these odds seem impossible, I guess you have to do the level perfectly to win - better reload." But you quickly learn that the reinforcements generally arrive on time, in a decent position and strong enough to allow you to win.

What happens when you reach a door that needs a red key to open, but your red key broke or you threw it away? You might think "reload time." But maybe the first red key was actually a fake, which is why it broke, and you can find another if you just do x and y.

A good example of this was when my friend an I were playing Resident Evil. He got to a part where he needed a key that he had thrown away. He thought about reloading but I said "they would never let you throw it away if you still needed it." And I was right, it turns out it was a different key that was needed.

How do you build this confidence? Well the only way is to avoid situations where you lose it. The first time a player does something and they aren''t sure if it was anticipated by the designer or not, and it turns out it *wasn''t,* that trust is gone for good. Designers can''t predict everything - if a player saves 20 times in the first hour of play they may very well run out of saves. But the Designer should be able to predict the vast majority of issues for the vast majority of players. That is part of their job.