Decline The great evil of save-scumming

[Tramboi]

Like those... what?

What does permadeath have to do with what I said?

Mmmh "checkpoints" you said ? Specific game-designed (town or game quitting) save locations in games ?
Seems to me Wizardy and Rogue fit the concept.

 

[CptMace]

RPGs allow you to create an overarching story and reloading muddles that up. I just stop playing a game when I lose. The story ends with the death of my character/party/whatever.

What a compelling overarching story you'd get then.
Fallout tells a story set in a post-apocalyptic uchronian future. A brave vault dweller ventured outside his safe home to help his community, searching for a water-processing chip. He met a peaceful community on his way to Vault 15 and decided to help them get rid of radscorpions out of pity for their elderly, and secretly wishing he could get reward sex with the daughter of their leader. While fighting the mutated beasts, he clumsily shot himself in the foot and dropped his gun. He then got inoculated with a violent radscorpion's poison and died alone in a wet, dark cave, convulsing, shitting and pissing himself, blood pouring out his eyeballs while giant scorpions were beginning to eat his arse.
His vault never sent any help, and eventually got overrun by an army of supermutants who proceeded to murder, rape or abduct its inhabitants.
FIN.

 

[JarlFrank]

There was some indie game 10 years ago that was super obscure and only known on the Codex. The setting was pretty cool, 1950s alien invasion scifi, classic Baldur's Gate style RPG. I forgot the name of the game, something with Omega in it or something? I don't think it's commercially available anymore.

The creator of the game hated savescumming and loved ironman. Therefore, the game had an enforced ironman mode. You only had one save and if you died, the save would be deleted. Try again loser.

Now, considering the fact that it's a Baldur's Gate style RPG rather than a randomized roguelike, and the fact that some players encountered bugs, you might guess why forced ironman mode with save deletion is a terrible idea.

Died in act 2? Haha, now you can do the entirety of act 1 again even though you already went through it an hour ago, finishing every single fetch quest like a completionist. Have fun experiencing the exact same content once more!

Fuck enforced ironman mode. Unless your game is a randomized roguelike, shit like this is out of place.

 

[Pizzashoes]

RPGs allow you to create an overarching story and reloading muddles that up. I just stop playing a game when I lose. The story ends with the death of my character/party/whatever.

What a compelling overarching story you'd get then.
Fallout tells a story set in a post-apocalyptic uchronian future. A brave vault dweller ventured outside his safe home to help his community, searching for a water-processing chip. He met a peaceful community on his way to Vault 15 and decided to help them get rid of radscorpions out of pity for their elderly, and secretly wishing he could get reward sex with the daughter of their leader. While fighting the mutated beasts, he clumsily shot himself in the foot and dropped his gun. He then got inoculated with a violent radscorpion's poison and died alone in a wet, dark cave, convulsing, shitting and pissing himself, blood pouring out his eyeballs while giant scorpions were beginning to eat his arse.
His vault never sent any help, and eventually got overrun by an army of supermutants who proceeded to murder, rape or abduct its inhabitants.
FIN.

Yeah it's tough. I still haven't beaten the game. But I roll a new character now and then and try different ways of succeeding.

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

RPGs allow you to create an overarching story and reloading muddles that up. I just stop playing a game when I lose. The story ends with the death of my character/party/whatever.

What a compelling overarching story you'd get then.
Fallout tells a story set in a post-apocalyptic uchronian future. A brave vault dweller ventured outside his safe home to help his community, searching for a water-processing chip. He met a peaceful community on his way to Vault 15 and decided to help them get rid of radscorpions out of pity for their elderly, and secretly wishing he could get reward sex with the daughter of their leader. While fighting the mutated beasts, he clumsily shot himself in the foot and dropped his gun. He then got inoculated with a violent radscorpion's poison and died alone in a wet, dark cave, convulsing, shitting and pissing himself, blood pouring out his eyeballs while giant scorpions were beginning to eat his arse.
His vault never sent any help, and eventually got overrun by an army of supermutants who proceeded to murder, rape or abduct its inhabitants.
FIN.

Tart it up a bit and that's a fucking winner

 

[fantadomat]

Hate replaying same shit over and over again. Waste of time.

 

[Lurker47]

I only savescum if I fucked up a battle super hard and lost valuable resources and party members due to horrible play and I want to see if I can do better. I think restarting when your choices lead to something fucked up is gay though and that's really where savescumming becomes a bad thing.

 

[Mustawd]

I find it weird that so many games go out of their way to prevent you or punish you for save scumming, but so little of them reward you for NOT save scumming. Frayed Knights is the only one that comes to mind that has a reward system for not save scumming.

 

[Zerth]

What a compelling overarching story you'd get then.
Fallout tells a story set in a post-apocalyptic uchronian future. A brave vault dweller ventured outside his safe home to help his community, searching for a water-processing chip. He met a peaceful community on his way to Vault 15 and decided to help them get rid of radscorpions out of pity for their elderly, and secretly wishing he could get reward sex with the daughter of their leader. While fighting the mutated beasts, he clumsily shot himself in the foot and dropped his gun. He then got inoculated with a violent radscorpion's poison and died alone in a wet, dark cave, convulsing, shitting and pissing himself, blood pouring out his eyeballs while giant scorpions were beginning to eat his arse.
His vault never sent any help, and eventually got overrun by an army of supermutants who proceeded to murder, rape or abduct its inhabitants.
FIN.

Just like in the roguelike Tales of Maj'eyal when your toon gets killed, the system creates a death message describing the cause of death and the perpetrator; then post it in global chat so you can rejoice at your wasted effort alongside others.

 

[wyes gull]

Why should it matter to anyone how everyone else plays their single-player games? They paid for it, they decide if they want to spend more time looking at loading screens than the game world.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Why should it matter to anyone how everyone else plays their single-player games? They paid for it, they decide if they want to spend more time looking at loading screens than the game world.

because I have no friends and therefore can't play multiplayer games so I need to judge other people based on how they play their singleplayer games

 

[Mustawd]

Why should it matter to anyone how everyone else plays their single-player games? They paid for it, they decide if they want to spend more time looking at loading screens than the game world.

This is actually a good question. Why does it matter? Because people will complain if a system is too punishing or if a game is easily abused. And in turn developers will adapt by making it more or less save friendly. Look at KCD. It;'s obvious they attempted to make a game that's immersive as possible. Thus the save system with the sleeping and the shcnapps, etc. However, after the backlash, they're already changing the system slightly. And I bet next go around the save system will be less punishing.

Also, there are games that are actually BETTER if you save scum. For example, Swords and sorcery: Underworld, is a game I tried playing without save scumming. I t was fucking brutal. I even complained on the codex and ppl were saying "dude, just save scum. Otherwise you'll lose ur sanity".

I'm not commenting on if it is good or not, I'm just saying it DOES matter how people are or are not playing the game.

 

[Saduj]

There are plenty of behaviors that I personally dislike that I don't engage in while playing a game - extreme min-maxing is generally one. The problem is solved by not doing it and not giving a rat's ass what other people do in their single player games. This is also the solution for sane people who don't like the save game feature. The End.

 

[wyes gull]

This is actually a good question. Why does it matter? (...)

If the internet has taught anyone anything, it should be that people will complain about literally everything. And that 99% of the time, you're better off ignoring them. If you're a game designer and you can't fathom that, your game is gonna have a bad time.
Having said that, both your examples sound like either difficulty or save solution problems. And that not having anywhere saving on an open world game sounds like a really bad idea, for bugs if nothing else.
Save scumming is merely a solution to a problem; a means to and end that's preferable to the alternative. Now whether that problem exists or whether that alternative amounts to more than just "playing the game" is entirely subjective. Some will do it, some won't. Save-scumming can be indicative of problems with games as much as gamers and should be regarded as such; the games, however, have to stand on their own merits.

 

[Valky]

Eador Genesis approached this "problem" in a brilliant way, by giving the player access to going back in time their previous turn but each use cost them resources, while having no manual saves so the player had to get used to making the most value of every move they had. One of the better ways to do it, even though you could still technically savescum by copying the save file in the install directory.

 

[Mustawd]

If the internet has taught anyone anything, it should be that people will complain about literally everything. And that 99% of the time, you're better off ignoring them. If you're a game designer and you can't fathom that, your game is gonna have a bad time.

TBF, internet forum postings was not specified. It was literally "why should anyone care how ppl play games" Really my point is that we should all care how ppl play games. Because that affects how future games are designed. Just like how we should care how ppl use micro transactions. Because it affects future games.

Having said that, both your examples sound like either difficulty or save solution problems. And that not having anywhere saving on an open world game sounds like a really bad idea, for bugs if nothing else.

Not disagreeing with you on that.

 

[huskarls]

In philosophical debates people start by defining their terms to avoid confusion, and I can see why since everything short of ironmanning has now become save-scumming in this thread.

Save scumming is where something happens in a game that you don't like as a result of your actions, and so you load an earlier save to undo it.

So you die and reload the game, well yeah you are there to play the game. But let's say you use too many potions, or one of your dudes dies, or you lost homo points on your gay romance, so you reload the game. Well then this has become a matter of save scummery where you just want the optimal experience and its the developers fault for having randomness fuck you codex etc.

I think save-scumming is a shame because you miss out on having to work with a less than ideal situation, which can even have its own fun little narrative such as barely hauling ass from a dungeon, killing every one in a botched theft, or some other funny story you can tell your bros on the dex. Save-scumming even works its way into design philosophy because developers become defeated about consumers averting failed routes for quests, so they don't make it possible to fail and make more roller-coaster like games. Though this may be a problem with the games themselves like some of you say where you are worried about missing out on content and failing doesn't unlock alternative content, usually.

 

[wyes gull]

Because that affects how future games are designed.

The point was, if I make chairs and a portion of my clientele starts using the legs to fuck themselves with to the point I change into dildo manufacturing, odds are I never deserved the patronage of people who just wanted something wot to sit on. Hold on, that metaphor doesn't really work. Eh, you know what I mean. Regardless, no amount of #STOPFUCKINGCHAIRS posts you make is going to deter the people doing it or the business decision. Demonizing it, like you often see with regards to save-scumming or cheating (again, in single player) is a waste of time.

On the other hand, demonizing the people cretins that spend money on micro transactions is entirely incline. You show those little shits.

 

[fantadomat]

In philosophical debates people start by defining their terms to avoid confusion, and I can see why since everything short of ironmanning has now become save-scumming in this thread.

Save scumming is where something happens in a game that you don't like as a result of your actions, and so you load an earlier save to undo it.

So you die and reload the game, well yeah you are there to play the game. But let's say you use too many potions, or one of your dudes dies, or you lost homo points on your gay romance, so you reload the game. Well then this has become a matter of save scummery where you just want the optimal experience and its the developers fault for having randomness fuck you codex etc.

I think save-scumming is a shame because you miss out on having to work with a less than ideal situation, which can even have its own fun little narrative such as barely hauling ass from a dungeon, killing every one in a botched theft, or some other funny story you can tell your bros on the dex. Save-scumming even works its way into design philosophy because developers become defeated about consumers averting failed routes for quests, so they don't make it possible to fail and make more roller-coaster like games. Though this may be a problem with the games themselves like some of you say where you are worried about missing out on content and failing doesn't unlock alternative content, usually.

It is a game mate,you lack the versatility of real life. If you mess up something there are no positives,loosing homo points means that you don't endup being a homo,you cant go over to the guy and talk it over like in the real world. Also in real world you don't loose homo points for stupid things like having different opinions on something trivial. In the real world you don't get caught because you are picklocking a small box put next to the head of the owner,you can simply take it outside and smash it open. Also you don't get caught because you can't turn off the freaking lights. I have raged many times at the screen because of my protagonist says something retarded and fucked me up. Many times games are made by asocial guys that lack the exp. C&C are pretty bad in most games and i get annoyed by some because there is a clear third way that will work for most people bud the devs didn't came up with it.

 

[KateMicucci]

Of course the player should be allowed to save and close the game whenever they want.

But I'd also like to see more games where making mistakes isn't punished with having to either having to reload or else suffering annoying crippling bullshit that makes you want to reload. PST rewarded players who fucked up and died.

 

[Daemongar]

I can't really see it. Please, before your passion overrides your judgment, read what I have written below.

What is so wrong with save-scumming anyway? It's a computer game after all. You are supposed to win at the end. I can see the scenarios in which it is bad, namely when the difference in winning or losing an encounter is based solely on chance or at least predominantly based on chance. That as I see it is just a consequence of bad design.

I can think of two alternatives to alleviate this problem: Firstly, make all checks "hard", i.e. there is a simply a skill level requirement that you need to accomplish anything; no die rolls like in NWN that allow you to pass a check. This is not PnP after all. Secondly, make the rolls have a small effect based on the chance like in AoD where you can save-scum but you are punished for it by having to do it a billion times to win a fight without the requisite skill. People autistic enough to do that exist and there is no problem with that. If you are an autist in the other direction, i.e. you want to "iron man" aka torture yourself to finish a *computer game* you are welcome not to use the quick-save system. Just use the save button on exit.

In the end, I'm going to argue that save scumming is idiotic, and leads to wasted time.

1. 90% of the time, it's easier to just hack an item or cheat an item into a game rather than go through the reload song and dance.

2. Save scumming offsets the balance of the game. Random loot tables worked in D&D because eventually after enough effort, you'd have a pretty good mix for your character. If every chest, monster, and store had the best items, eventually you'd be swimming on magic. In the day, those were called Monty Haul campaigns, now they are called Pathfinder campaigns. If you want the game to be easy, just set the difficulty to easy. Why go through the reload effort?

3. Save scumming only works if you are aware something better is available from a drop or roll. I'm not against 2nd and 3rd play savescumming, but I am in principle having the foreknowledge of events in the game on your first run. What in the fuck are you exactly playing for in the first place? Just to get it over with? I never knew about random artifacts in MM6 the first time I played, but on future playthroughs, I suppose its ok. Are you playing with a walk-through on your lap?

4. Eh... the dynamic of "It's a computer game after all. You are supposed to win in the end." That doesn't work for me. The player is supposed to master skills while also gaining abilities, and by coupling those, the player overcomes obstacles. The player doesn't win just by putting their time in. You figure out the spells, classes, skills, weaknesses, you start out weak, and you determine strategies that work and don't work, and you become more and more efficient at murdering the old creatures and then get introduced to more difficult enemies. Fuck, you don't just win by showing up. You are supposed to fight battles in ever increasing difficulty by combing more complex strategies.

Say what you want about how easy BG1 is, how shitty it is, how it sucks, whatever. You can say that because we all know where the ring of Wizardry is, how to make ankheg armor, where the gauntlets of ogre power are, and the various tomes and sundry items are. But in the end, the first time you played it there was some difficulty involved. You got poisoned 97 times in Shadowcloak forest(?), you got murdered 90 times by 2hp kobolds with arrows in the mines because you didn't bother to buy longbows or roll a ranger, you had Khalid in your party, that Wizard on the stairs in the first Inn kicked your ass... however, eventually, you mastered the game, and at 7th level stopped the Master and the Mutant invasion. If you didn't pay attention, created a garbage player and a garbage party, you'd either abandon the game or you'd accept reality and turn down the difficulty.

Save scummers are telling themselves they aren't exploiting but... they are. I don't think this can exactly be resolved, as there are personality types that are more likely than others to do this. Let's just say I'm against it because there are more direct methods to reduce the games overall difficulty and gain mega items without wasting time on reloads.

Think we need to remove the stigma associated with playing on easy so folks stop save scumming. Nah, fuck you you candy asses! You are ruining everything!

 

[Siveon]

There was some indie game 10 years ago that was super obscure and only known on the Codex. The setting was pretty cool, 1950s alien invasion scifi, classic Baldur's Gate style RPG. I forgot the name of the game, something with Omega in it or something? I don't think it's commercially available anymore.

The creator of the game hated savescumming and loved ironman. Therefore, the game had an enforced ironman mode. You only had one save and if you died, the save would be deleted. Try again loser.

Now, considering the fact that it's a Baldur's Gate style RPG rather than a randomized roguelike, and the fact that some players encountered bugs, you might guess why forced ironman mode with save deletion is a terrible idea.

Died in act 2? Haha, now you can do the entirety of act 1 again even though you already went through it an hour ago, finishing every single fetch quest like a completionist. Have fun experiencing the exact same content once more!

Fuck enforced ironman mode. Unless your game is a randomized roguelike, shit like this is out of place.

Fuck you for making me look for it, because curiosity.

Uh, was it The Omega Syndrome? And no, you seriously can't find the full version anywhere.

 

[Master]

Omega Syndrome?? I played that a hundred years ago.

 

[JarlFrank]

There was some indie game 10 years ago that was super obscure and only known on the Codex. The setting was pretty cool, 1950s alien invasion scifi, classic Baldur's Gate style RPG. I forgot the name of the game, something with Omega in it or something? I don't think it's commercially available anymore.

The creator of the game hated savescumming and loved ironman. Therefore, the game had an enforced ironman mode. You only had one save and if you died, the save would be deleted. Try again loser.

Now, considering the fact that it's a Baldur's Gate style RPG rather than a randomized roguelike, and the fact that some players encountered bugs, you might guess why forced ironman mode with save deletion is a terrible idea.

Died in act 2? Haha, now you can do the entirety of act 1 again even though you already went through it an hour ago, finishing every single fetch quest like a completionist. Have fun experiencing the exact same content once more!

Fuck enforced ironman mode. Unless your game is a randomized roguelike, shit like this is out of place.

Fuck you for making me look for it, because curiosity.

Uh, was it The Omega Syndrome? And no, you seriously can't find the full version anywhere.

Yes, that one!

The creator apparently took the game off sale cause he's no longer interested in selling it, and only few people ever bought the full version (I never did so I don't have it, else I'd upload it somewhere).

Unless some Codexer still has the thing and can upload it somewhere, it looks like the game is completely lost to time.

 

[Jimmious]

I don't care if people save scum but I really prefer it when games promote a "non save-scummy" gameplay.
In other words, a good game for me should give incentive to the player to go with his choices and rolls instead of reloading 10 times to get what he thinks is best.
Worst offender was for example Wasteland 2 and lockpicking etc.