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General discussionGames where 'save-scumming' sometimes become necessary(75 posts)(75 posts)
(75 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 06, 2015
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darthspudius: I have had this conversation... im not into the superiority thing. I'm more into practicality.
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CarrionCrow: You have more sense about the whole thing, then. If a person is at the point of taking something based around fun and turning it into validation for their existence, they need to think long and hard about their priorities.
You are essentially describing 90% of Dark Soul fans.
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CarrionCrow: It's a guilt/superiority thing. Some people put fun before anything else, some people's experience hinges on that sense of accomplishment they feel from overcoming bigger and bigger challenges. But when they get stuck, and they have to resort to frequent saving, they still feel the urge to describe it as something negative.
Then you have the people who bank way too much of their self-esteem in video games, to the point that they'll use the term as a "I'm better than you, I didn't have to save scum my way through such-and-such section" insult.
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jamyskis: I'd say it's more based on what you expect to get out of a game and your own personal sense of fulfillment and achievement.

Personally, if I've had to save scum my way through a game (which I recently had to do with American McGee's Alice because of that game's appallingly bad collision detection and physics), I feel very little sense of achievement, just as if I'm forced to use a walkthrough to circumvent wholly illogical puzzles or engine bugs.

You have to ask yourself - do you just want an interactive storyline, do you want a challenge, or do you want to experiment with gaming the system? I'm sure save scumming is acceptable when you're trying to game the system, or if you just want to experience the storyline with little challenge, but I don't think anyone should kid themselves that they've actually achieved much if they complete a game by constantly hammering the F5/F8 keys and eventually getting lucky.

If you want a challenge, you need to be able to handle appropriate penalties for poor performance and to be able to deal with the luck of the draw.

And as I said, if a game is so poorly designed as to actually require save scumming to even be playable (e.g. JA: Unfinished Business as Avogadro6 pointed out), that doesn't speak well for the game.
or we as gamers could just have fun.
Post edited October 06, 2015 by darthspudius
Posted October 06, 2015
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dtgreene: What about a well-designed game that is made with the assumption that players will take full advantage of the save/load system (I'm thinking of Wizardry 4 here; I think that game is actually well-designed, provided you assume the player is an expert)?
Not played Wizardry 4, but "well-designed" for me means a game that could theoretically be beaten on the first try without a significant amount of luck and without gaming the system.

This to me means that it must be (theoretically) possible to overcome every trap, every enemy and every puzzle the first time around on the basis of skill, finely-tuned reactions and advance knowledge alone. Any failure is attributable to the player's oversight or miscalculation as opposed to being lurched upon by some unknown factor and then using knowledge of this factor's existence to overcome the problem the next time around.

Of course, this is the optimum, and very few games actually achieve this without being too easy.
Posted October 06, 2015
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darthspudius: You are essentially describing 90% of Dark Soul fans.
Funny you mention that particular title. Have tried getting into it maybe half a dozen times now, but it's never clicked. It's just not enjoyable to me.

Silly people. Anyone can eventually beat their head against that wall until they get through. They just choose to have experiences that aren't miserable for them.
Posted October 06, 2015
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darthspudius: or we as gamers could just have fun.
Well, it depends on what you define as "fun". Personally, I like to be able to improve my logic skills, spatial reasoning and reactions using games, and to be challenged philosophically. That's fun to me.

If I just want to "switch off" and do something brainless, I'll watch a Michael Bay movie.
Posted October 06, 2015
Save-scumming just to get some more HP at level up, or get better loot from a chest, is lame.
Posted October 06, 2015
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darthspudius: You are essentially describing 90% of Dark Soul fans.
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CarrionCrow: Funny you mention that particular title. Have tried getting into it maybe half a dozen times now, but it's never clicked. It's just not enjoyable to me.

Silly people. Anyone can eventually beat their head against that wall until they get through. They just choose to have experiences that aren't miserable for them.
Annoying yourself playing cheap level designs with horrible end level bosses and very loose checkpoints does not really define fun for a lot of people. Throw quick save in here and things become a lot more bareable. A great example of this kind of shite is Abe's Oddysee, great game with one major flaw that pisses off 75% of the people who play the game.

Dark Souls is a game I do not understand. It is littered with poor mechanics, hit detection and awfully checkpointing system just to make it hard. Fans of the game think that it is perfectly okay because it makes you a super elite gamer. Where as the game that came before it was much more refined, much fairer in terms of difficulty, the levels were shorter with better design and for the most part if you died, it was your own fault.

I do not understand cheap kills = challenging
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darthspudius: or we as gamers could just have fun.
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jamyskis: Well, it depends on what you define as "fun". Personally, I like to be able to improve my logic skills, spatial reasoning and reactions using games, and to be challenged philosophically. That's fun to me.

If I just want to "switch off" and do something brainless, I'll watch a Michael Bay movie.
Sadly not everyone has good reaction skills. My wrists and hands have deteriorated so bad I couldn't complete some levels of Doom in one go anymore. Unfortunately it means if I want to play a modern shooter it takes me a lot longer then normal because I can not save my progress. That is not fun haha.

Right on about the michael bay movie, do enjoy his silly movies. :D
Post edited October 06, 2015 by darthspudius
Posted October 06, 2015
I never "save" in games, I "save-scum" XD
Posted October 06, 2015
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dtgreene: What about a well-designed game that is made with the assumption that players will take full advantage of the save/load system (I'm thinking of Wizardry 4 here; I think that game is actually well-designed, provided you assume the player is an expert)?
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jamyskis: Not played Wizardry 4, but "well-designed" for me means a game that could theoretically be beaten on the first try without a significant amount of luck and without gaming the system.

This to me means that it must be (theoretically) possible to overcome every trap, every enemy and every puzzle the first time around on the basis of skill, finely-tuned reactions and advance knowledge alone. Any failure is attributable to the player's oversight or miscalculation as opposed to being lurched upon by some unknown factor and then using knowledge of this factor's existence to overcome the problem the next time around.

Of course, this is the optimum, and very few games actually achieve this without being too easy.
I disagree. A game can be well-designed without being theoretically beatable on the first try. Some games (Wizardry 4 is an example, but I could also cite Syobon Action as another example) are designed with the assumption that a player will not complete a level on the first attempt. As long as the game doesn't make you lose too much progress when you die, that sort of design can actually work.

In Syobon Action, for example, much of the challenge is remembering where the traps are. If you actually play the game seriously, there is likely to be some point when you forget about a trap and die as a result; I see that as being part of the game, not a flaw in the design. Different games test different skills; this one just happened to make a few unusual design choices.

(Of course, the game is not without its flaws; the controls aren't ideal, and I find the end of stage 3 to be rather tricky to execute.)

I do suggest giving Syobon Action a try, especially since it's free. (Note that I prefer the first 4 stages to the later ones; the later ones start to focus too much on execution rather than memory.)

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PetrusOctavianus: Save-scumming just to get some more HP at level up, or get better loot from a chest, is lame.
I would actually say that random HP at level up, or random loot from non-respawning chests, is lame.
Post edited October 06, 2015 by dtgreene
Posted October 06, 2015
I usually youse "Savescumming Tactics" in games like Serious Sam, for the jumping parts. When I have to jump six or seven times in a row and every failed jump can lead to death, then saving after every jump is very necessary! Also I did the same in TES Skyrim in the parts where you have to be very fast to avoid traps that kill you.
To save very often is a must in many games, I often forgot to save, then I died and one or more hours of playing were for the cat!!
Posted October 06, 2015
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wolfsrain: Might and Magic VI - IX. Especially M&M VII, a game that had a rather nice exploit when you were killing a dragon. You saved the game, click on the dead dragon and there was a 50% chance for the dragon to stay and award a second drop. If you were save scumming, you could grab yourself some rather nice items, right before leaving the first island (this stuff made killing the dragon from Emerald Island really worthwhile, as you could have some relics and artifacts, right at the beginning of the game, though you could not use them right away, as the items had certain level requirements). Stil, if you wanted to collect every single relic and artifact, save scumming was a ncessary evil.
There are no level requirements for any artifacts or relics. There were skill restrictions (can't use that artifact Plate armor unless you had the Plate skill), and there were sometimes class/race restrictions (only Goblins can use the Elfbane sword), but there were no level requirements.
Posted October 06, 2015
To me save-scumming doesn't exist, I prefer to save when and where I want over any limited save system any day.
Posted October 06, 2015
FM series =x
Posted October 06, 2015
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PetrusOctavianus: Save-scumming just to get some more HP at level up, or get better loot from a chest, is lame.
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dtgreene: I would actually say that random HP at level up, or random loot from non-respawning chests, is lame.
Of course you would.
Posted October 06, 2015
Some of my first games had system of saving in towns only. Thankfully, situation has changed and most games have function "save anywhere" (or almost anywhere). In many cases it seems to come at a cost of very frustrating elements (excusing it by stuff like "saving anywhere makes games very easy, so need to compensate for this").

Some of those frustrating elements which made me really upset lately - worlds with no respawn but with random rewards (loot, stats on level up, etc.).

Battles also tend to suffer from "saving anywhere" opportunity. A lot of them turn into "Hit-Miss" simulator, where you miss 90% of time, and you keep reloading until you are able to get successful saving throw vs Dire Charm spell or something like that.

Those are the elements which simply don't work in long sessions if you don't have access to saving. Games like Phantasy Stat II (with saving at towns) were hard, but not because your characters had 90% miss chance and so had to save after each fight. I wish saving function was used as helping tool to those who can't sit for long sessions anymore instead of being used as excuse to introduce a lot of frustrating elements.
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dtgreene: I would actually say that random HP at level up, or random loot from non-respawning chests, is lame.
Lame. Very. Why make loot system like in Diablo and then make no respawns? Those are good examples of frustrating elements. Also 1d10 HP on level up for fighter in D&D systems? Rolling 1 is gimping yourself by 90% and it is theoretically possible to have Lv.10 fighter with 19 HP vs potential 100 HP. I remember I made character in "Descent to Undermountain", Mage, and it had 1 HP. Mage had to go through tons of kobolds in first dungeon... I didn't know D&D systems in detail back then and I was very frustrated. I have beaten 1st dungeon and trashed the game.
Posted October 06, 2015
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omega64: Wanted to play it, the game wouldn't let me bind shooting to any button on my mouse though. :l
It's a bit counter-intuitive, but you have to do that in the game's "mouse" menu, where you also set sensitivity, etc.
At the bottom, you have entries for left, middle and right mouse buttons, for which you can cycle through the various game actions. Basically the opposite of the "assign button to action" thing seen in the "keyboard" menu.
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Grargar: Quicksave: The Game.
Yep, pretty much. Oddly, despite that, I love (almost) every single second of it.
Post edited October 06, 2015 by InfraSuperman
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionGames where 'save-scumming' sometimes become necessary(75 posts)(75 posts)
(75 posts)