I NEED YOUR OPINION.

There are ALWAYS times when saves aren't available. Like mid-battle. For certain events, saving doesn't make sense, and will destroy gameplay.

The problem with ability to save all the time, is that it can allow for infinite do overs, or progressional accomplishments for something you'd intended to be a single task.

It also renders randomness pointless. Randomness is often inserted into games to provide some uncertainty and to freshen an otherwise tedious event (like, say, having a random value added to your damage in a fight, instead of always hitting for the same precise damage). But, giving Baldur's Gate as an example, when you tried to write a scroll to your spellbook, you had a chance to fail to copy. Either way, the scroll was destroyed. To get around that, you could save just before the attempt, and reload after if it failed, so even if you had a 99% chance of failure, you could successfully copy it, given enough time.

Or, let's say you had a dungeon. For every obstacle or whatever, if I had a bad outcome, or even just a less than ideal outcome, I could reload the savegame. In that way, I could just ace the game simply by undoing bad outcomes. It decreases the challenge and the risk.

Saving is part of the gameplay, and you have to keep that in mind when you design your game.

^Truth, spoken better than I could.

EDIT: Goddamn, I'm talking about kentona's post.

author=arcan link=topic=2622.msg49333#msg49333 date=1228510944
I was pretty much saying the same thing. But, we really can't tell if he should have one unless we know what kind game he is making.

It is 100% certain that he should have one. What you are actually debating is how frequently the game should autosave. In the case of a tactical RPG, it should autosave whenever you finish a battle.

The idea is that the autosave kicks in every time the player would be advised to save in a manual-save system.

author=Feldschlacht IV link=topic=2622.msg49364#msg49364 date=1228514713

In the case of a tactical RPG, it should autosave whenever you finish a battle.

Whoa, that would be a horrible idea. It would make games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Growlanser unplayable.

Argharghsgdssaagh you also have a separate manual save slot. Have you never played a turn-based strategy game on PC that autosaves every turn but you also make your own saves every 10 rounds or whatever :(

author=Shadowtext link=topic=2622.msg49392#msg49392 date=1228521965

author=kentona link=topic=2622.msg49314#msg49314 date=1228508871
There are ALWAYS times when saves aren't available. Like mid-battle. For certain events, saving doesn't make sense, and will destroy gameplay.

The problem with ability to save all the time, is that it can allow for infinite do overs, or progressional accomplishments for something you'd intended to be a single task.

It also renders randomness pointless. Randomness is often inserted into games to provide some uncertainty and to freshen an otherwise tedious event (like, say, having a random value added to your damage in a fight, instead of always hitting for the same precise damage). But, giving Baldur's Gate as an example, when you tried to write a scroll to your spellbook, you had a chance to fail to copy. Either way, the scroll was destroyed. To get around that, you could save just before the attempt, and reload after if it failed, so even if you had a 99% chance of failure, you could successfully copy it, given enough time.

Or, let's say you had a dungeon. For every obstacle or whatever, if I had a bad outcome, or even just a less than ideal outcome, I could reload the savegame. In that way, I could just ace the game simply by undoing bad outcomes. It decreases the challenge and the risk.

Reliance on randomness to create challenge basically just makes your game a game of luck rather than a game of skill or logic.

If your player is masochistic enough to save and reload until he gets the outcome he wants rather than just playing the game properly, let him. It's no different from letting them save before a boss and getting to keep fight it until they get it right.

You're making the mistake of thinking you're competing with the player. You're not. Your job is to entertain the player and give him a fun experience, which often coincides with one that offers a challenge--but not always. At any rate, when it DOES coincide with challenge, it coincides with a real challenge based on the player's reflexes, intelligence, patience, and general skills.

Arbitrary limitations on saving don't offer legitimate challenge, they just introduce tedium into the system--the player can still go back and reload from the last save if he's not happy with the outcome, you're just making him go through a lot of crap he's already done to do it. The only "skill" that you have to have to deal with the challenge based on crippled saves is the skill to put up with the game long enough to get to the next save point.

I'm not saying you should rely on randomness to create challenge, I'm saying that a universal save feature destroys any benefit of randomness, whatever its application. Randomness does add an essential element of fun to the gameplay. Every RPG is filled with random rolls, from To Hit or Block %, to damage, to success at things like stealing, to item drops. It keeps it fresh.

So, if you destroy the uses of randomness, you are taking away a good chunk of the fun and excitement. That's no way to entertain a player.

I'm saying that a universal save feature destroys any benefit of randomness, whatever its application. Randomness does add an essential element of fun to the gameplay. Every RPG is filled with random rolls, from To Hit or Block %, to damage, to success at things like stealing, to item drops. It keeps it fresh.

I'll say it again; SaGa Frontier.

It allows you to save anywhere, even quick save anywhere, but it's one of the most random RPGs I've ever played. It's almost entirely free roaming, and while an experience player can cruise through it (not to say it's easy), if you're still learning the ropes, every battle is a dance with death until you figure out where to go, where not to go, what to do, and how to survive.

To those who've never played the game, I can elaborate if you want.