Design decisions

[Owain Taggart]

It seems that now, we're just starting to see console games allowing you to save anywhere, like Uncharted 2 for instance. I don't know how common it is for the current generation of games, but I bought The Force Unleashed recently which has save points, which only save and restore you to that location if you die. The thing about save points, is that they're not always well placed.

Case in point, in The Force Unleashed, I'm on the Praxus Prime level, I think it is. The junkyard planet. I'm at the point where you have to kill that trash bot which I suppose is a mini boss. I've died so many times only to have to restart the whole sequence including that battle, which comes across as unforgiving for making even the slightest mistake, because if I die after that battle, then I have to restart the whole thing again. Sometimes it makes me wonder what the devs were thinking.

 

[Kelthaz]

I've died so many times only to have to restart the whole sequence including that battle, which comes across as unforgiving for making even the slightest mistake, because if I die after that battle, then I have to restart the whole thing again. Sometimes it makes me wonder what the devs were thinking.

It's the only way you'll get better. Anyone can beat a level or a boss with save scumming regardless of their skill, but limited save points require you to master the section. Not only is it more rewarding when you finally beat the level after mastering it rather than save scumming, but the fear of dying adds excitement to the game when failure has consequences.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I'm going to have to disagree there. Save points have their place, sure, but sometimes they're just badly placed and this is one of those times. It's not about getting better. It's about a stupid level design decision that makes you restart the whole part of that level if you happen to fall to your death due to misjudging a jump. That part of the level is designed in such a way that it's not immediately obvious where you're supposed to jump, so you fall to your death and you've got to fight the boss again. Just serves to frustrate the hell out of me.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Yeah the Junkyard one could be a pain, you defeat the big Junk yard robot thing, make a junk ledge, jump, miss ledge.....Goto 10.

There is a fine line between enjoyment and frustration in games, and sometime a ill thought out save point can make a game very frustrating, especially when you have done something like kill a boss which you would think would also be a save game moment.

GTA4 was another game with no mid mission saves, you fail a mission and you have to start the mission again, including the journey to activate the mission......I'm still stuck on the mission were you rob the bank and have to escape with the bags of money.

Give me a manual save mid mission feature any day.

 

[Jadzia]

When I discovered that some games can be won by abuse of the save/reload function, it changed how I felt about them. You can use that function to make winning a game a lot easier, and avoiding that function becomes a self imposed penalty.

I'm more inclined to like games that use levels, where you can only save between levels and not during. But don't have any level too long ~15 minutes. Otherwise "going back to the start" will be discouraging if I'm having to repeat an hour of progress.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah the Junkyard one could be a pain, you defeat the big Junk yard robot thing, make a junk ledge, jump, miss ledge.....Goto 10.

Exactly! It seems like a rather punishing save point. I can beat the boss easily and the other things, but to have to redo it time and time again because I messed up somehow? The whole thing? At the very least, they could have added a save point after beating the boss so that you don't have to beat him all the time. It just becomes an excersize in frustration. Fall to your doom? Ohhhh too bad, you have to beat the boss again. And this being on easy. You have to be kidding me, devs. This is exactly why save points are arbitrary.


I think it depends on the type of game, Jadzia. Though PC games have long ago let you save anytime and have made their games work to its advantage. Since consoles haven't had the ability of saving to disk until recently, save points had become the norm on consoles. At the very least, I feel that the open-ended and free-roaming nature of some games these days, saving anywhere tends to suit things better rather than save points.

 

[RoJoHen]

I've died so many times only to have to restart the whole sequence including that battle, which comes across as unforgiving for making even the slightest mistake, because if I die after that battle, then I have to restart the whole thing again. Sometimes it makes me wonder what the devs were thinking.

It's the only way you'll get better. Anyone can beat a level or a boss with save scumming regardless of their skill, but limited save points require you to master the section. Not only is it more rewarding when you finally beat the level after mastering it rather than save scumming, but the fear of dying adds excitement to the game when failure has consequences.

I don't give a shit about mastering video games. I play games to have fun. If I want to stop playing a game, I should be able to stop playing wherever and whenever I want. It's frustrating when you die and then have to replay the last 5-10 minutes of a game just to get back to where you were. And depending on how many times it takes to beat a certain section, it can get damn infuriating.

I almost gave up on "The Force Unleashed" for this very reason.

 

[Kelthaz]

I don't give a shit about mastering video games. I play games to have fun. If I want to stop playing a game, I should be able to stop playing wherever and whenever I want. It's frustrating when you die and then have to replay the last 5-10 minutes of a game just to get back to where you were. And depending on how many times it takes to beat a certain section, it can get damn infuriating.

I almost gave up on "The Force Unleashed" for this very reason.

An action game without challenge isn't a game -- it's a movie. I can't understand why anyone would want to play a game like that. Of course, if you buy the game you should have the choice on how you want to play it (say by selecting the "save anywhere" option in the cheat menu), but games should be designed around save points otherwise you end up with an interactive movie. Again, if people want an interactive movie than more power to them, but throw that option into a cheat menu and design the game as a game.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Dude, it depends on the game. Again, it's not about not having challenge, but having a game that's well designed. It's also not about cheating. If the levels themselves are designed in a way that's frustrating to the player, then badly placed save points only add to the frustration. I can beat this boss all I want. Beating him isn't the problem. It's doing it many times due to missing a jump. It doesn't come across as challenge. It comes across as sloppy game design due to where the save point was placed. And that's where I have a problem with save points. They're arbitrary. They're where the developer wants you to spawn. In a situation like this, it comes across as punishing as you're forced to go through it again and again until you get it. To me, that's not fun; it's frustrating as hell. Again, it's not due to skill, but level design.

I have small hands which makes it difficult for me to play this game for long periods of time due to the awkward buttons combinations used, something that doesn't happen with other games, making my joints ache after awhile. I've been stuck on this level particular part of the level for weeks. And that's supposed to be fun?

 

[FPAlpha]

Save points are a relic of the past when there were no consoles with built in hard drives and storage space were removable cards or somesuch that not everyone had because they were expensive.

So games had to save space and use as little space on onboard memory or those portable devices aspossible and a pre-determined save point did exactly that.

With current gen consoles that have built in HDDs there's absolutely no excuse no matter how elaborate to have save points at all. Now it's just a means to cut corners and have a faster development cycle because a save anywhere function needs more development time than a pre-determined one.

Thankfully i'm seeing less and less of this relic and by the next generation consoles it should be really rare if non-existant.

 

[RoJoHen]

Dude, it depends on the game. Again, it's not about not having challenge, but having a game that's well designed. It's also not about cheating. If the levels themselves are designed in a way that's frustrating to the player, then badly placed save points only add to the frustration. I can beat this boss all I want. Beating him isn't the problem. It's doing it many times due to missing a jump. It doesn't come across as challenge. It comes across as sloppy game design due to where the save point was placed. And that's where I have a problem with save points. They're arbitrary. They're where the developer wants you to spawn. In a situation like this, it comes across as punishing as you're forced to go through it again and again until you get it. To me, that's not fun; it's frustrating as hell. Again, it's not due to skill, but level design.

Indeed. It has nothing to do with a game being challenging or not. I like games that are challenging. But once I've beaten a challenging part (like a boss), I should be able to save it there so I don't have to beat the boss again the next time I die.

I know exactly what part of "The Force Unleashed" you're talking about because I had the same problem. You go through all the trouble to kill the boss only to die afterward from accidentally falling off a cliff. When I start over, I should start from the cliff, not the boss before the cliff.

I really don't enjoy having to do the same thing over and over again. I am not a gamer. I play video games occasionally for fun, and I have no desire to master them or earn 100% on every little thing. I also want to be able to turn the game off whenever I feel like it without having to worry about where the game saved last. If I have already beaten a section of the game, I should have to do it again just because I decided to quit playing before the next save point.

I've been stuck on this level particular part of the level for weeks. And that's supposed to be fun?

Just wait until you have to bring down the star destroyer.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Just to clear things up, I'm not against save points in general. I feel that some games use them to good advantage. I'm not at all condemning the use of save points. A game like this suits them just fine. I'm also not looking to save anywhere. I just have a problem with save points that aren't well placed in order to give more of a so called challenge.

Most modern games use a hybrid system. They still use save points, but they're organic in nature. They feel as though they're part of the level, so you don't really notice them. And they also allow for saving anywhere, which is completely optional. In Uncharted 2 for instance, you could use the save points or save anywhere, and because they were at logical points in the story, they weren't frustrating. I wish more games would use this hybrid system as compromise.

And yeah, a boss should stay beat, especially if I've already completed an objective. I'm just glad I'm not the only one. Where to jump from isn't immediately obvious. So, by experimenting with my jumps, I have to redo the whole section again. Which side are you supposed to jump from? The left or right? I see a platform, but it's only obvious to me that it's where I bend the metal shaft from, but I see no obvious location to jump from. I tried the gap from the engine side but that didn't work.

 

[RoJoHen]

It's been 2 years since I played the game. I remember the level, but I don't remember exactly what you need to do.

 

[Itisnotlogical]

I liked the Halo game's save system. The checkpoints were well-placed and virtually unnoticeable, and penalized you for losing without being too harsh.

 

[Kelthaz]

I really don't enjoy having to do the same thing over and over again. I am not a gamer. I play video games occasionally for fun, and I have no desire to master them or earn 100% on every little thing. I also want to be able to turn the game off whenever I feel like it without having to worry about where the game saved last. If I have already beaten a section of the game, I should have to do it again just because I decided to quit playing before the next save point.

And that's why developers should incorporate choice into their games so that more people will buy and enjoy their games. Nintendo has really impressed me with their "Super Guide" feature where after dying a few times on the same level the game will offer to beat some of or the entire level for you. This allowed them to make DKCR very hard for people like me who were worried that the game was going to turn into a cakewalk for the masses, and people like you can enjoy the game even if you don't feel like losing 50 lives trying to get across that one lava pit.

Games should be designed from the ground up to be very hard (such as with limited saves), but add in options to make the game more accessible such as unlimited saving, more health, super guides, higher time limits, better jumping ability, etc. StarCraft II was one of the first games I've seen in a long time to incorporate difficulty levels that ranged from "you could beat this in your sleep" to "Koreans only" without changing the gameplay.

 

[archeryguy1701]

I have no issue with save points, but they have to be well thought out. You can't have them too far apart because it'll be frustrating loosing a ton of progress. It's also stupid to put a very difficult task at the end of a gap between save points. Things like boss battles should be their own little thing- have a save point shortly before hand and have a save point right after the boss is defeated. Having it any other way really isn't all that fair to the players, especially if a player had a helluva time with that boss. If you spend an extended amount of time trying to beat something, then you don't want to have to be stuck having to redo it because of a random death or some boneheaded move like stepping off a ledge.

I try not to save too often when I have the option of doing so, but when things start getting ugly and I start dying a lot, I'll admit that I do get into the habit of saving before/ after each big battle or major enemy. It's not that I want the game to be easier, but I just don't want to lose a ton of progress in a situation where I'm likely going to die. Or you have games like Fallout or Oblivion where I wouldn't go into any caves/ buildings/ etc for a long time just roam the woods or wastelands and I die and suddenly I've lost an hour or two of progress simply because I never saved along the way. How much worse would that be if you didn't have the ability to save anywhere you wanted?

 

[Owain Taggart]

Exactly. Very well said Like I said earlier, I don't mind save points. But I do mind when they're badly placed such as in that level I was talking about, which ends up making the situation unfair.

I see it this way. Linear games work best with save points since all you're really doing is going from point A to point B. Saving anywhere works best for games with an open-ended nature with large areas. Due to the free-roaming and sandbox nature of some games like Fallout and Oblivion, there's so much more that can go wrong due to the amount of freedom one has that it just wouldn't be fair for the game to have save points.

 

[Kelthaz]

Due to the free-roaming and sandbox nature of some games like Fallout and Oblivion, there's so much more that can go wrong due to the amount of freedom one has that it just wouldn't be fair for the game to have save points.

You know, I still think I would prefer save points in open world games. Sandbox games give you all this freedom, but there's no consequences for your actions. If something goes wrong you can just reload and make sure to get the result you want. Well that's no fun.

Wouldn't it be so much more fun if when you fail a quest the game will overwrite your save file and force you into a new plotline as a result of your actions? Maybe you fail to stop an evil wizard from summoning a demon that will destroy the world, so instead of becoming known as a great and powerful hero who saved the world you are disgraced. Because failing to kill the wizard wasn't a mandatory plot point, but instead failure by the player that gives personal motivation to take the demon down. Consequences can get you personally invested in the story.

 

[Arrqh]

If something goes wrong you can just reload and make sure to get the result you want. Well that's no fun.

So don't reload. Problem solved!

I frequently did this with FPS games. Unless I did something really really stupid (like throw a grenade at my own feet ) I would never go back on a save if it didn't go my way. Come out of an encounter with only 10hp left, quicksave and push forward. It was challenging and I enjoyed the sense of continuity.

Wouldn't it be so much more fun if when you fail a quest the game will overwrite your save file and force you into a new plotline as a result of your actions? Maybe you fail to stop an evil wizard from summoning a demon that will destroy the world, so instead of becoming known as a great and powerful hero who saved the world you are disgraced. Because failing to kill the wizard wasn't a mandatory plot point, but instead failure by the player that gives personal motivation to take the demon down. Consequences can get you personally invested in the story.

They sure do! But if a person chooses not to become invested in the game, then that's their choice. You can't force them to and trying to do that is just going to make them frustrated and go play something else. I am perfectly capable of investing myself into a game world and living with the consequences of my actions in that game without having my progress behind held hostage because I want to stop playing in between save points.

Unless there is a technical restriction... such as ME games not letting you save during combat or conversations... I can think of no valid reason for limiting saves. Doing so is nothing more then the designers trying to game the player in a metagame. And I'm perfectly capable of enjoying a game without being dictated how I'm allowed to experience it.... and that includes not having to leave a game running paused for hours on end so I can attend to other business while I'm trapped between save points.

 

[RoJoHen]

Due to the free-roaming and sandbox nature of some games like Fallout and Oblivion, there's so much more that can go wrong due to the amount of freedom one has that it just wouldn't be fair for the game to have save points.

You know, I still think I would prefer save points in open world games. Sandbox games give you all this freedom, but there's no consequences for your actions. If something goes wrong you can just reload and make sure to get the result you want. Well that's no fun.

Wouldn't it be so much more fun if when you fail a quest the game will overwrite your save file and force you into a new plotline as a result of your actions? Maybe you fail to stop an evil wizard from summoning a demon that will destroy the world, so instead of becoming known as a great and powerful hero who saved the world you are disgraced. Because failing to kill the wizard wasn't a mandatory plot point, but instead failure by the player that gives personal motivation to take the demon down. Consequences can get you personally invested in the story.

Yes, that would be awesome, but what about randomly falling to your death because you accidentally hit the joystick too hard?