Are save points a valid tool for game design, or are they better off gone in favor of convenience? I can see how some games use them to create tension by making the punishment for failure naturally inflate as you progress without saving, but it also feels wrong to have such a meta aspect of the game held hostage. Like what if you just really need to quit because of something in real life? Does anyone really miss this as a mechanic outside of retro games that were designed to have them?
>>693341808Quick saves are just as bad as save states, IMO. Every game should have save points.
>Like what if you just really need to quit because of something in real life?That's called Pause, you shouldn't take that away of course
>>693341808Imu>Ryona>Murasaki=Miyabi>Ryobi
depends on the game. if you want to immerse the player in your RPG and make choices matter, you can't have quick save, people will abuse it even if it frustrates them
>>693342153So if I very suddenly have to go somewhere I should just pause it and leave the PC or console on for however long I’m gone, wasting electricity? I guess I can do that, but I’d rather not have my choices on how I can leave the game be so limited.
Save points are fine. And honestly are far superior to manual saves being allowed anywhere, from both a “don’t cheese the game” perspective and a “oops a bad manual save has soft locked you because you get shot in the head 2 frames later” perspective.But save points should be common, unless you are doing something that’s supposed be very tense and punishing, but whole game has to be designed around it.Although there are other options. EG games that let you save whenever, but dying or loading the save doesn’t put you exactly where you were, it puts you at nearest spawn point. This fully prevents bad saves softlocking you, and cheesing the game by saving and reloading until a perfect outcome. But also allows you to save everything except current area progress at any time, like items found, xp gained etc…
>>693341808>what if you just really need to quitThis is a solved problem. You can have both progress-saves and suspend-saves. How do people still not get this in current year?
>>693341808If I can't save whenever then I can't play before work when I have energy because I don't know how much time I'll need, so I'll just not play at all most times.
>>693341808I think every game that forces the player to use save points should implement a suspend save feature so that players that need to close the game can do so without needing to plan ahead for the location of save points
>>693342720If you feel like the minimal electricity needed to keep it running is a waste, then your current level of progress is unimportant and can be thrown awayOtherwise you're just inventing problems
>>693341808Save points are fine. It depends on the game. There is very little reason to not be able to save at any time for a strictly linear story-focused game, such as a VN or a really linear RPG. On the flip side, being able to save anywhere in a horror game is generally an awful idea, pretty much ruining any sense of tension the game could offer.The only bad thing is when the game isn't designed with its save feature in mind. I don't need to save every second in an action game, but don't expect me to sit down and play thru 3 hours in one setting because you decided to just not put any save method into the game.
>>693346312>being able to save anywhere in a horror game is generally an awful idea, pretty much ruining any sense of tension the game could offer.I think it works just as well with a checkpoint system as without, it makes no difference to me.
>>693341808Save points are a way to chop the game into self-contained challenge segments and are practically necessary in any game that has flow.In most cases save points are frequent enough that you won't lose that much progress, since not having a save point for an overly extended period of time defeats the purpose of a save point.
>>693341808Saving is for fucking casuals. Be a real gamer, if you die, start over. If the power cuts off, tough shit.
