So who's buying Crysis 2?

hal · Mar 25, 2011

SleepyHe4d said:
stuff

Are you a (budding/wannabe/actual) game designer? All your arguments hinge around game design, yet you completely ignore the fact that there are actual gamers that enjoy having the ability to save whenever they want. So what? How does that ability "cheapen" the experience for anyone playing the game?

It kills the suspense? It's more challenging to have to replay 30 minutes than 10 if you fail?

Don't use it.

And no, it's not a freakin' BFG because you have to play the game. It's not a WIN button.

Your assertion is that games should be a challenge in your argument against, thereby implying that saving/loading at will removes all challenge from the game. Not true! IF you choose to button mash the save key then all you're doing is reducing the penalty for making the wrong decision.

Is that a fun way to play? I dunno.. sounds kind of tedious to me. But if someone gets their jollies off of doing that, who am I to argue? It's fun for them, obviously.

Choice is what I'm arguing for and you clearly said ALL games should move to something like checkpoints. I simply disagree. Give me the ability to decide when I am done. I'm a proponent of saving at will and I don't "save through boss fights" or whatever offends you. I stop when I want. And it doesn't bother me in the least that some other guy is playing it his way.

Plumb_Drumb · Mar 25, 2011

star trek the next generation is on. Gotta go.

dragonfliet · Mar 25, 2011

hal said:
Are you a (budding/wannabe/actual) game designer? All your arguments hinge around game design, yet you completely ignore the fact that there are actual gamers that enjoy having the ability to save whenever they want. So what? How does that ability "cheapen" the experience for anyone playing the game?

It kills the suspense? It's more challenging to have to replay 30 minutes than 10 if you fail?

Don't use it.

And no, it's not a freakin' BFG because you have to play the game. It's not a WIN button.

Your assertion is that games should be a challenge in your argument against, thereby implying that saving/loading at will removes all challenge from the game. Not true! IF you choose to button mash the save key then all you're doing is reducing the penalty for making the wrong decision.

Is that a fun way to play? I dunno.. sounds kind of tedious to me. But if someone gets their jollies off of doing that, who am I to argue? It's fun for them, obviously.

Choice is what I'm arguing for and you clearly said ALL games should move to something like checkpoints. I simply disagree. Give me the ability to decide when I am done. I'm a proponent of saving at will and I don't "save through boss fights" or whatever offends you. I stop when I want. And it doesn't bother me in the least that some other guy is playing it his way.

I want to start this off by saying that I, personally, prefer to have the save button at my command. That being said:

Choosing checkpoints over save-at-will IS a game design decision. It changes the way the game is played a little bit. You may agree or disagree with it, but it isn't a consilization, it is a choice. I've been doing a lot of rock climbing, so we'll use this as an example.

There are essentially two ways to tackle a climb, we'll climb it bashing and crashing. Bashing is when you climb and fall, but the belayer just holds you there and you try again on that same spot and try and try until you get past it, then you move up, fall at the next spot and keep going. Crashing is where when you fall, you are lowered all the way to the ground and you try again from scratch. They're both climbing, but if you're crashing, you're MUCH more aware that if you fall, you're going to start over again, which is more work and is more tiring, and so you'll approach a move with that in mind--it's more tense and more thrilling to get past an area, but it is also more frustrating; if you're bashing you have less pressure and you get to just keep trying a move over and over until you get it down, and you are free to experiment with crazier moves, but it has less of a thrill, as you don't lose anything if you don't make it.

While I'm with you, Hal, in that it's nice to have choice, I don't feel like it's a terrible thing for a game designer to say that it's their rockwall and they want to make it so that it's one shot to make it up a route, no stopping halfway and trying over and over.

It's a design decision, it affects the game, it's not a win button, but it does change how the game is approached and conquered. Maybe it's just not for you, but that doesn't mean that it's inherently bad. It's like including certain kinds of puzzles or weapon types, etc. You might not like it, but they want it there, and they don't want to allow you to just skip the platforming, let's say, because you don't care for that.

~Jason

Fuzzle · Mar 25, 2011

Will buy when markdown, not planning on pirating. I hardly get time to even dabble in the games I purchase these days, it would be masochistic to start pirating stuff as well.

And eh, I'm a bit in the "the presence of a save-anywhere button kills the challenge for me" camp myself. Not using it starts feeling like deliberately limiting yourself, which makes the challenge feel shallow and unsatisfying. I'm not terribly hung up on it and I expect to have fun with the game regardless.
I like challenging games when you have to pull out all the stops and still just barely pull through. Whether that challenge is an illusion or not is irrelevant, but whether the illusion is lost is what matters to me.

hal · Mar 25, 2011

dragonfliet said:
Choosing checkpoints over save-at-will IS a game design decision. It changes the way the game is played a little bit. You may agree or disagree with it, but it isn't a consilization, it is a choice.

To be clear, I never said it was consolization and I do understand that it CAN be used to change the risk/reward factor that the game designer seeks to instill. I was simply trying to counter the argument that the mere presence of a save button somehow ruins the experience for everyone. Remember, there are comments in this thread that say things like:

SleepyHe4d said:
Funny, I think all games should move to checkpoint systems or something similar.

UBerserker said:
Saving the game during boss fights or even normal battles should be banned. ****ing dumb.

UBerserker · Mar 25, 2011

Saving games during boss fights is a form of cheating.
It will be ultimately abused.

Then as far as I know there isn't even a recent game that give you the possibility of saving during boss fights so why complain. Good thing nonetheless.

So how many recent games have a free saving system? Aside Fallout 3/NV and Oblivion.

What i hate is that picking a difficulty is a lie. Choosing normal is NEVER choosing normal. it's always just the same as easy with extra damage or some other limitation but really all that means is that they made the game easy in the first place and then implemented some arbitrary "debuffs" for higher difficulties.

This is also why I stopped even bothering with high difficulties. Nowadays Hard or ExtremeWhatever means the same enemy placement, and enemies themselves having better stats. That's it. No randomization, nothing new to expect from the bad guys. Simple last resort replayability bonus.
At least actions games still go beyond this trend and are generally more enjoyable to play.
Unlocking difficulties in certain games also suck too. If people find Normal boring and not challening they have to stick to it until the end, which is not funny. This trend seems to be going away though.

N1ghtmare · Mar 25, 2011

UBerserker said:
Saving games during boss fights is a form of cheating.

Because there was such a huge issue with people saving in the middle of the final battle in Unreal against the Skaarj queen.

UBerserker · Mar 25, 2011

Or people didn't care about this matter back then. They didn't even care about the word "challenging" that much too.
Unreal as a whole was incredibly easy, even on Unreal difficulty.

Teridax · Mar 25, 2011

UBerserker said:
Saving games during boss fights is a form of cheating.
It will be ultimately abused.

Abused by who? I really don't see the problem here. It's not like saving when you want is an automatic win, and why should it matter how anyone else plays their game, anyway? It just means that you don't need to repeat a ton of steps to get where you are. I just don't get why it should matter for a single player game if the player is going to be the only one caring about how he or she plays.

Borderlands: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx could have been helped out a lot by being able to save whenever you want - maybe not during boss fights, but everywhere else. At least that way, you wouldn't have needed to start all the way at the beginning every time you would reload. That got old really quickly.

Dawn of War II is another example. The single player campaign isn't hard, it's just incredibly tedious. It would have actually been bearable if you could save whenever you want in that game so that you wouldn't have to start all the way at the beginning of an already tedious level.

UBerserker · Mar 25, 2011

Teridax said:
Abused by who?

Certain players. Nobody would stop you from using the save function again and again during boss fights.
I don't mind free saves when you are exploring or doing anything else, but proper boss fights? Isn't the point of a boss fight to be a challenging (and as fun as possible) part of the game that needs skill to get through and not a rinse-and-repeat thing?
If the game happens to be tedious or whatever, then it's due to bad design and how the devs screwed it up. And usually the free-at-will saving system is a solution to cover that.

.....

Checkpoint system in recent games has flaws as far as I can see. One, in certain games you are not warned that you hit a checkpoint and even if it did, you'd probably forgot where it happened; so yeah, you'll become extremely careful of literally everything because you're afraid of dying and lose tons of progress. Second, their unexpected placement; examples mentioned in previous posts with the Halo series, etc...
Having checkpoints only is mostly a no-no.

Then there are games with both save spots and checkpoints (BioShock, Dead Space). This is okay as far as I can tell - it mostly depends on the level design and how much easy is to die in a game. Either you'll be fine with it or ultimately wish there was a free saving option.

Capt.Toilet · Mar 25, 2011

UBerserker said:
Then there are games with both save spots and checkpoints (BioShock, Dead Space). This is okay as far as I can tell - it mostly depends on the level design and how much easy is to die in a game. Either you'll be fine with it or ultimately wish there was a free saving option.

That is what I am wishing for at the moment in DS2. Hardcore mode has ****ed me over at least half a dozen times that I remember. The sad part is I made it to end of Chapter 7 and died without saving. I watched that damn beginning scene too many times to count.

Agent_5 · Mar 25, 2011

SleepyHe4d said:
Just so you know, my ONLY argument for the removal of saves is it's "a lot better design than letting someone save 20 times in the middle of a boss fight."

And how does a person's personal play style in a single player game directly affect you? I don't understand why some people are so distressed when a person saves a whole bunch. It's a personal preference about entertainment consumption.

UBerserker · Mar 25, 2011

Capt.Toilet said:
That is what I am wishing for at the moment in DS2. Hardcore mode has ****ed me over at least half a dozen times that I remember. The sad part is I made it to end of Chapter 7 and died without saving. I watched that damn beginning scene too many times to count.

Hardcore mode on DS2 was brutal. It really pissed me off in the last chapters with the Hivemind Child (Regenerator) chasing me. And also every time where I had to look out for windows and not getting sucked into the space. Goddamn.

Just a difficulty mode based on heavy memorization in my opinion.

shadow_dragon · Mar 25, 2011

UBerserker said:
Certain players. Nobody would stop you from using the save function again and again during boss fights.

I think his point here was that the only people "abusing" the save function were single players and who cares whether they did or not?

If you think the "point" of games is to provide a challenge then why do you think games come with an "easy" mode. A large part of computer games is to provide more of an itneractive story than it si to provide a series of scaling challenges. The only reason they do that is to maintain interest. If developers were truelly designing games to be "challenging" then they have a lot to learn because I can name only a handful of games that i didn't get to the end of due to an actual stumbling block of difficulty.

If a player decides that his itneraction with his game is no longer enjoyable and he wants to use saves to reinforce his progress on a tedious/challenging encounter... then why would you have a problem with that. Let's him progress the story and enjoy the game more rather than sprint over to the nearest forums and QQ about how stupid the mechanics are.

UBerserker · Mar 25, 2011

shadow_dragon said:
If you think the "point" of games is to provide a challenge then why do you think games come with an "easy" mode. A large part of computer games is to provide more of an itneractive story than it si to provide a series of scaling challenges. The only reason they do that is to maintain interest. If developers were truelly designing games to be "challenging" then they have a lot to learn because I can name only a handful of games that i didn't get to the end of due to an actual stumbling block of difficulty.

Both fun and at least challenging (or as balanced as you can get) mainly. And then the rest of the other aspects can come into play. This is subjective though.

But yeah, if the player sucks at gaming and is mostly interested at other stuff (story, atmosphere, etc..) then that's why there's an Easy difficulty mode! And easy means easy, so there's no excuse if the devs end up making that mode frustrating too. Unless they come with a big banner on the cover "This game is hardcore" there's no reason to make Easy difficulty feels like a semi-hard one just to annoy people off.
Of course, people should at least expect or know before going to buy a relatively challenging game. Otherwise, usual stuff happens: whine on forums - for example.
Oh well, nowadays boss fights aren't generally hard anymore, except in certain action titles. Saving system should be based on how the game basically works (and extensive game-testing has be done).

Don't want to derail this thread further anyway.

shadow_dragon · Mar 25, 2011

UBerserker said:
Both fun and at least challenging (or as balanced as you can get) mainly. And then the rest of the other aspects can come into play. This is subjective though.

But yeah, if the player sucks at gaming and is mostly interested at other stuff (story, atmosphere, etc..) then that's why there's an Easy difficulty mode! And easy means easy, so there's no excuse if the devs end up making that mode frustrating too. Unless they come with a big banner on the cover "This game is hardcore" there's no reason to make Easy difficulty feels like a semi-hard one just to annoy people off.
Of course, people should at least expect or know before going to buy a relatively challenging game. Otherwise, usual stuff happens: whine on forums - for example.
Oh well, nowadays boss fights aren't generally hard anymore, except in certain action titles. Saving system should be based on how the game basically works (and extensive game-testing has be done).

Don't want to derail this thread further anyway.

You still miss the point, you don't have to suck at games, that's just you making a snide remark about people you think are below you, you just have to not appreciate tedium/ repetition or simply have less time than other people to have a reason to save mid-action or whatever.

I still don't see how your argument can justify removing on-the-fly saves from singleplayer games. They have no negative effects at all on anyone that cares and only positive ones on everyone else.

You may as well be saying that people shouldn't be able to pause if the developer decides for some reason that doing so would detract from the challenge.
You can only ever save whatever you've already achieved so clearly whatever you did up to that point was a challenge you were quite capable of and thus doesn't need to be achieved again should you choose..

Vaskadar · Mar 25, 2011

Got kicked for using laser sight and point fire enhance. Kids these days! D:<

NeoNite · Mar 25, 2011

Uberserker said:
But yeah, if the player sucks at gaming and is mostly interested at other stuff (story, atmosphere, etc..) then that's why there's an Easy difficulty mode!

You can easily enjoy the atmosphere and immerse yourself into a good storyline on the hardest skills.

Capt.Toilet · Mar 25, 2011

NeoNite said:
You can easily enjoy the atmosphere and immerse yourself into a good storyline on the hardest skills.

That depends on how hard the game is. You really can't get "immersed" when you die 20 times in the same spot.

SleepyHe4d · Mar 25, 2011

tl;dr post commence!

hal said:
Are you a (budding/wannabe/actual) game designer? All your arguments hinge around game design, yet you completely ignore the fact that there are actual gamers that enjoy having the ability to save whenever they want. So what? How does that ability "cheapen" the experience for anyone playing the game?

It kills the suspense? It's more challenging to have to replay 30 minutes than 10 if you fail?

Don't use it.

And no, it's not a freakin' BFG because you have to play the game. It's not a WIN button.

Your assertion is that games should be a challenge in your argument against, thereby implying that saving/loading at will removes all challenge from the game. Not true! IF you choose to button mash the save key then all you're doing is reducing the penalty for making the wrong decision.

Is that a fun way to play? I dunno.. sounds kind of tedious to me. But if someone gets their jollies off of doing that, who am I to argue? It's fun for them, obviously.

Choice is what I'm arguing for and you clearly said ALL games should move to something like checkpoints. I simply disagree. Give me the ability to decide when I am done. I'm a proponent of saving at will and I don't "save through boss fights" or whatever offends you. I stop when I want. And it doesn't bother me in the least that some other guy is playing it his way.

First, Of course I'd want to design games, wouldn't you? If you can't relate to the BFG example of why it cheapens the experience, read below the next two quoted posts for an explanation.

And stop saying "don't use it." You can say the same with the BFG example. That is why I was making that example. Why not have the BFG crap in the games? You can just not use it right?

Second, the BFG isn't a win button either, skill level is relative. There are easier ways to make the game easier than either saves or the BFG, and that would be difficulty levels like easy, med, hard, ect.

Third, are you implying that there shouldn't be a penalty for dying? Why not just have god mode then?

Last, I've already explained that you can stop when you want in any system, so that point doesn't matter one bit.

hal said:
I was simply trying to counter the argument that the mere presence of a save button somehow ruins the experience for everyone.

It ruins the experience for some people like me who are competitive and want to use every game mechanic to their advantage so are sort of forced to even use cheap ones. Doing that would obviously take away from the experience. It would be fine if they offered a different difficulty that said, "no saving, only checkpoints."

I think I've actually seen a game that has done that recently, so that is awesome. Also Dead Space 2 had a hard mode that you can only save 3 times the whole game, but that is a bit different. That would actually be similar to your "player has to balance it themselves" trade off argument. It should also illustrate why that game mode would not be good at all for normal play.

Agent_5 said:
And how does a person's personal play style in a single player game directly affect you? I don't understand why some people are so distressed when a person saves a whole bunch. It's a personal preference about entertainment consumption.

What other people do doesn't bother me, they can just use console cheats or other built in cheats if they want, or downloadable hacks.

What bothers me is that it's a main mechanic that's meant to be used, so as a competitive player, I will use all game mechanics to my advantage. Yet using it makes everything feel extremely cheap. Still, I am forced to use it because of my competitive nature and because it's designed as a main game mechanic.

If people can relate to the BFG example I gave, then they would understand exactly where I'm coming from. I can't think of any better ways to portray my feelings. If you think the BFGs would be fine and it wouldn't bother you in the back of your mind while ignoring them, well then I'm out of luck for trying to convey my feelings.

And can someone freakin explain to me why it keeps taking me to the index instead of login screen when I try to do some things like make a post or quote. FFFUUUUU

So who's buying Crysis 2?

Are you buying Crysis 2? Did you Pirate it?

I bought it or am buying it and I didn't pirate it.

I bought it or am buying it and I pirated it.

I'm not buying it and I didn't pirate it.

I'm not buying it but I pirated it.

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