On the subject of saves:
Checkpoints are kinda finicky. Done poorly, they put the player in unfun situations and may force them to go through that unfun situation many a time. However, done well, they make sure that the player is always dropped off in an engaging situation after death, and make the game a more enjoyable experience because of that. In games with only a manual save system, a player would need to put in an inordinate amount of effort and know the game inside and out to replicate the upsides and engagement of a good checkpoint system. As such, the argument that there's no downside to only having manual saves is quite silly.
As to what I personally think would be optimal? Both manual saves and a checkpoint system that has had a good amount of effort put into tuning it. Manual saves to allow the player to make up for where they feel the checkpoints are particularly lacking or when then want to be able to revisit some firefight they've set up, and checkpoints means the player is rarely at risk of forgetting to save and losing a bunch of progress, and if the developer has done well can be relied on in place of the save system to deliver more polished experience.
Do note that this is mostly said with FPSes in mind, being the genre I find myself playing the most. I'd think it'd apply to other genres just as well, but just in case, y'know.
Can we all agree that VVVVVV's saving system was pretty much perfect? I don't advocate it for everything, but for how that game was designed, it was incredible.
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
I never got far enough in 555555 to notice if the saving system was good or not
A platformer built up into tiny challenging but digestible segments, with checkpoints after each little piece and full saves after a section. They took the general concept of a platformer and distilled it to it's base ingredients, then refined them to perfection. I love that game.
also I usually don't manually save at all in games with an autosave except sometimes in big ones like dragon age or skyrim where I might accidentally overwrite the autosave when coming back to it, but even then I only manually save at the end of a play session
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Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
As I librarian I will weigh in on the Book/eBook debate.
A platformer built up into tiny challenging but digestible segments, with checkpoints after each little piece and full saves after a section. They took the general concept of a platformer and distilled it to it's base ingredients, then refined them to perfection. I love that game.
yeah I remember the difficulty in that game feeling like a cliff and I just kinda smacked my head against it then stopped
A platformer built up into tiny challenging but digestible segments, with checkpoints after each little piece and full saves after a section. They took the general concept of a platformer and distilled it to it's base ingredients, then refined them to perfection. I love that game.
yeah I remember the difficulty in that game feeling like a cliff and I just kinda smacked my head against it then stopped
Oh yeah, probably should have capitalized challenging or something. That game gets balls hard at times.
can we please talk about LoL's female character designs instead?
to be clear I'm not mad about the save thing
I'm just a firm proponent of options that allow for more inclusive games
the LoL one I was really mad about
It's okay, I get it.
It's just a deadlock between your position and authorial intent. You can literally never reconcile the two on this particular point so there's really no point in arguing it. No solution will ever please everyone.
can we please talk about LoL's female character designs instead?
to be clear I'm not mad about the save thing
I'm just a firm proponent of options that allow for more inclusive games
the LoL one I was really mad about
It's okay, I get it.
It's just a deadlock between your position and authorial intent. You can literally never reconcile the two on this particular point so there's really no point in arguing it. No solution will ever please everyone.
can we please talk about LoL's female character designs instead?
to be clear I'm not mad about the save thing
I'm just a firm proponent of options that allow for more inclusive games
the LoL one I was really mad about
It's okay, I get it.
It's just a deadlock between your position and authorial intent. You can literally never reconcile the two on this particular point so there's really no point in arguing it. No solution will ever please everyone.
can we please talk about LoL's female character designs instead?
to be clear I'm not mad about the save thing
I'm just a firm proponent of options that allow for more inclusive games
the LoL one I was really mad about
It's okay, I get it.
It's just a deadlock between your position and authorial intent. You can literally never reconcile the two on this particular point so there's really no point in arguing it. No solution will ever please everyone.
can we please talk about LoL's female character designs instead?
to be clear I'm not mad about the save thing
I'm just a firm proponent of options that allow for more inclusive games
the LoL one I was really mad about
It's okay, I get it.
It's just a deadlock between your position and authorial intent. You can literally never reconcile the two on this particular point so there's really no point in arguing it. No solution will ever please everyone.
why the heck in ocarina 3d did you still start back at kokiri village/temple of time upon loading a save
This was one of my major problems with that game
If you start messing with spawnpoints it can create all sorts of unforeseen issues. It was originally like this because of N64 memory limitations, yes, but if it didn't do that, then you run into issues, say, like the bridge issue in TP (this is just an example of the KIND of issues to look out for). Your way back is blocked, you reload at the start of the area, now you're stuck.
Like in this specific case restarting at Link's house vs. the start of the area would not have changed anything to the issue but if you start messing with it you definitely open the door to this type of issue.
MM is different because the owl statues are already a built-in save mechanism, the only difference is they've disabled the part where the save is automatically deleted when loaded. You can only save at owl statues at the moment you strike them, it's a punctual save mechanism. As opposed to a lapsed save system where the game will save your state at specific checkpoints (user-triggered or not), but will spawn you at a different location from where the save occurred. The issue is that some games, especially older ones, want to let you save anywhere you want, but saving the specific location where you saved creates issues the game isn't built to handle, so it resets you to a checkpoint, for example at the area's entrance, which creates a whole other set of issues.
Saves are complicated as fuck. The logistics of saving is one of the most complicated problems in game design. Along with online sync, when applicable.
I choose to believe when Peach goes "ohhh, did I win?" in Smash Bros she is being sassy as fuck
It's better for her character if it is, but to me it always sounded like a genuine dumb bimbo line. "HAHA I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS GAME I'M JUST A GIRL." Maybe it's just because of the pose she took in Melee as she said it. Like she's asking her dad or something.
I choose to believe when Peach goes "ohhh, did I win?" in Smash Bros she is being sassy as fuck
It's better for her character if it is, but to me it always sounded like a genuine dumb bimbo line. "HAHA I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS GAME I'M JUST A GIRL." Maybe it's just because of the pose she took in Melee as she said it. Like she's asking her dad or something.
Always hated it.
Brawl and SSB4's voice clips and poses seem way sassier than Melee's.
I choose to believe when Peach goes "ohhh, did I win?" in Smash Bros she is being sassy as fuck
It's better for her character if it is, but to me it always sounded like a genuine dumb bimbo line. "HAHA I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS GAME I'M JUST A GIRL." Maybe it's just because of the pose she took in Melee as she said it. Like she's asking her dad or something.
Always hated it.
Brawl and SSB4's voice clips and poses seem way sassier than Melee's.
Yeah probably. I know it annoys me way less in those. It's just that my mind always snaps to the Melee one which is the one I hate.
what if we brought back passwords but now they're scannable qr codes
Weren't passwords typically a representation of the actual machine code of your "save data"? Considering the save files of some modern games are significantly bigger than the entire ROM of the games that used password-saves, I don't think I'd wanna see a modern password.
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Checkpoints are kinda finicky. Done poorly, they put the player in unfun situations and may force them to go through that unfun situation many a time. However, done well, they make sure that the player is always dropped off in an engaging situation after death, and make the game a more enjoyable experience because of that. In games with only a manual save system, a player would need to put in an inordinate amount of effort and know the game inside and out to replicate the upsides and engagement of a good checkpoint system. As such, the argument that there's no downside to only having manual saves is quite silly.
As to what I personally think would be optimal? Both manual saves and a checkpoint system that has had a good amount of effort put into tuning it. Manual saves to allow the player to make up for where they feel the checkpoints are particularly lacking or when then want to be able to revisit some firefight they've set up, and checkpoints means the player is rarely at risk of forgetting to save and losing a bunch of progress, and if the developer has done well can be relied on in place of the save system to deliver more polished experience.
Do note that this is mostly said with FPSes in mind, being the genre I find myself playing the most. I'd think it'd apply to other genres just as well, but just in case, y'know.
Gotcha, my bad
that game was so amazingly not for me
I... I dunno, I guess I've always assumed that everybody backup saves! I've just always done it that way.
Except with like, Pokemon which only has one save slot which is BULLSHIT
Reading is good.
Read in whatever format works best for you!
Rock on!
yeah I remember the difficulty in that game feeling like a cliff and I just kinda smacked my head against it then stopped
Damn you, Nintendo
By breaking the limitations of physical product you are also breaking my ability to resist you
I thought that had been gone for a while
Oh yeah, probably should have capitalized challenging or something. That game gets balls hard at times.
to be clear I'm not mad about the save thing
I'm just a firm proponent of options that allow for more inclusive games
the LoL one I was really mad about
I'm not sure Nintendo's ever done preloading until now.
It's okay, I get it.
It's just a deadlock between your position and authorial intent. You can literally never reconcile the two on this particular point so there's really no point in arguing it. No solution will ever please everyone.
There's a new ToeJam & Earl coming
But the author is dead.
I shot him.
Chincy shot the deputy.
They also raised the level cap to 200 and i'm all at like level 50. i think they want me to invest more time into this then i do.
Yeah but he can still influence the story from the afterlife by passing through dreambubbles that occasionally intersect with the main story and...
Oh christ almighty why would you link me to homestuck what have I done to wrong you?
This was one of my major problems with that game
If you start messing with spawnpoints it can create all sorts of unforeseen issues. It was originally like this because of N64 memory limitations, yes, but if it didn't do that, then you run into issues, say, like the bridge issue in TP (this is just an example of the KIND of issues to look out for). Your way back is blocked, you reload at the start of the area, now you're stuck.
Like in this specific case restarting at Link's house vs. the start of the area would not have changed anything to the issue but if you start messing with it you definitely open the door to this type of issue.
He means my ability to resist Nintendo, I think
Saves are complicated as fuck. The logistics of saving is one of the most complicated problems in game design. Along with online sync, when applicable.
Oh.
Yeah I've never had that.
It's better for her character if it is, but to me it always sounded like a genuine dumb bimbo line. "HAHA I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS GAME I'M JUST A GIRL." Maybe it's just because of the pose she took in Melee as she said it. Like she's asking her dad or something.
Always hated it.
Brawl and SSB4's voice clips and poses seem way sassier than Melee's.
Yeah probably. I know it annoys me way less in those. It's just that my mind always snaps to the Melee one which is the one I hate.
Weren't passwords typically a representation of the actual machine code of your "save data"? Considering the save files of some modern games are significantly bigger than the entire ROM of the games that used password-saves, I don't think I'd wanna see a modern password.