Quicksave - Fustration saver or atmosphere killer?

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 2:43 pm

Its been debated in the FPS world for a while what place the Quick Save holds in games.

But what about in RPG? Does the Quick Save (or the ability to save anywhere) have a place in a world that is dependent on you feeling your choices make a difference? Can you really suspend disbelief when you know that you have a save from five seconds ago (taken specially before talking to someone) that you know you can fall back on if you make a wrong step.

On the other hand, would the game work without such a save? Would it be more fun, or simply fustrating, to enter fights knowing that your last save was back near the beginning of the location. Or would it add some extra spice to the fight, knowing that this really could cost you something?

There is always the crowd that argues that you shouldn't use the quick save if you don't want to. Great, if humans were robots. However they're not, they want to win and to progress, and the quick save enables them to do it easily. Not only that, but a game is either balanced for the quick save, or it isn't. You really can't have a scripted fight with only one way to win if there isn't a quick save.

However, would people find more enjoyment in a world where they really were in a danger of sorts?

For myself, I find it disappointing that so much of the risk is gone from games. Quick saves rule supreme, you want to talk to someone. You save. You can play through every option. You're about to open a door or chest, you save. How many people do this? Almost everyone I'm willing to bet, it's probably a subconcious thing for most. Just like your character automatically swings their weapon, you reach across for the Q.

Where is the risk....the roleplaying, when you can undo every action with sickening ease? I can count on one hand the number of times I carried on playing when a character died, because I knew I could reload just before the fight started. In fact, I never retreated from a single fight through the entire game.

I really think games like this need to come up with something better. Save locations, or a better automatic save system. How can you play a role, when you risk nothing? There's a safety net in games, and it's never more than five seconds away.

[ 10-10-2001: Message edited by: Quitch ]

Xyx · Post by **Xyx** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 3:06 pm

Saving takes a lot of time in BG2, and I'm so arrogant I think I'm almost immortal. Hence, I don't really save that often.

Hence, I sometimes have to replay from the Auto-Save.

In BG, the Auto-Save really saves my butt. Levels aren't too big, so you never have to do too much stuff all over again. If I get killed, I load the Auto-Save, play up to the tricky part, then Quicksave.

I absolutely hate it in games if I cannot save anywhere at any time. Not every bit in every game is thrilling, exciting and refreshing when you have to play it for the fifth time...

Saving often is far less of a suspense killer than having to drag my party through an already too familiar part all over again.

two · Post by **two** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 5:42 pm

This is actually something I feel fairly strongly about.

I think quick saving just KILLS games.

SOA, for example, would be a much better game if it disallowed saves except at Inns, or in other "safe" spots. That way you either have to go through a whole dungeon without a catastrophe, or spend some time going back to an Inn for rest & saving. Either way, it makes sense. And it will make you sweat, for once. Think of the feeling when, having scraped your way through the final battle, you can stagger to the inn for a save! That is fun, exciting, etc. If you die - you die. Think a level takes a while to replay? Try PnP. Death can mean months down the drain.

Also, it's the only way to make people think about dialogues and other stuff like that. Otherwise they just try it, revert to Qsave, try another, revert, etc. You want boring? THAT's boring.

Same holds for resting. They HAVE to fix the resting rule (ie no resting in the middle of a dungeon corridor for 3 days). It makes the game dumb, and players lazy. Myself included, of course.

reedimus · Post by **reedimus** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 6:39 pm

Good topic.

I would really enjoy a game closer to the PnP experience, and I expect such games to exist in the future. Until then, despite all of its flaws, BG2 is still a damned good game. Hoping NWN takes us a step in the right direction.

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 7:03 pm

Quicksave is necessary, IMO, because BG2 isn't a PnP RPG, where you can gather a city-ful of hints about what to expect, and where the DM (unless they're power-mad) isn't about to drop you into something that simply can't be handled. Without quicksave, your party can be easily decimated many times, and then it's back to the shop with ye olde game; break out that Solitaire, and enjoy.

Mind, I'm not advocating endless saves and cheesy ways out of every deathly situation. But a discreet use of savedgames prevents you from losing all that experience and those goodies you carefully piled up over the last four hours of gameplay, and I don't see anything wrong with that.

GrimReaper · Post by **GrimReaper** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 7:33 pm

The way I look at it is that save when you want. I know everybody is going to hate me for that because it's been said millions of times, but really, it's true. If you wanna try to stagger through a dungeon and make it back to an inn, then by all means go ahead. I personnaly would hate it if I couldn't save wherever I want. I probably never would have finished the game simply because I am quite impatient and cannot stand to go through the same easy part ten times only to mess up again on the hard part.

Arch_Angel · Post by **Arch_Angel** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 11:05 pm

I think they had a similar problem with the game called Project: IGI (I'm Going In). It was a first person shooter where you couldn't save during the levels. This turned quite a number of people off the game because if you died at any time you had to re-start the level all over again. I quite like the quick save simply becuase mistakes can be made, and things can go wrong. For example dialogue, sometimes I accidently hit the wrong key (I use the numbers to go through dialogue) and the person turned hostile. Luckily I had a quick save just before this happened and I was able to reload.

There is also the problems with bugs in the game, sometimes when I hit a bug I reload just before it happened to see if it occurs again. Game crashes can also occur, through no fault of the player. It seems unfair to me that I should have to go back the the start of the level repeating a battle that took me ages to win simply because my computer crashed. (it's happened before

)

I think it should be used as the player sees fit. If they wanna spend more time on loading screens rather than playing, it's their business.

Xyx · Post by **Xyx** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 1:09 am

Originally posted by two:
They HAVE to fix the resting rule (ie no resting in the middle of a dungeon corridor for 3 days).

Agreed on that!

Originally posted by GrimReaper:
I am quite impatient and cannot stand to go through the same easy part ten times only to mess up again on the hard part.

Right! That's what I mean. A good game might remember to always auto-save before any of the hard parts, but I don't trust game developers that much...

It's better for the quicksave to just be there, since you can simply keep away from it if you think it's cheesy. If it's not there when you need it, you can't do anything about it at all.

Saruman · Post by **Saruman** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 1:17 am

I remember playing Tomb Raider I on the play station, You could only save at specified points when you reached a save crystal. At the time I found it very annoying as sometimes the crystals were miles apart and one little slip with the joypad could make you go back through hours of delicate play. However when I played Tomb Raider II on the PC you could save at any time and I realised just how much more atmospheric, not to say difficult TR1 was, with you having to plan moves that much more carefully because you couldn't save every couple of minutes.

Another save option is the limited save (like in Resident Evil 2) where you can only save so many times depending on level of difficulty you set the game at, also in Resident Evil 2 the number of saves you use affects your overall score when you finish the game.

So to conclude I prefer the occasional save or limited save option rather than save on demand.

two · Post by **two** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 4:20 am

I think one thing everybody is overlooking -- when you can save anytime, anywhere, how is the game exciting? How is it a challenge?

Everyone keeps saying "I am impatient I don't want to replay the same level X times" well, if you couldn't save every 10 seconds:
1) You would be forced to play slower, and more carefully, and possibly even use a lot of buffing/prep spells that a lot of people don't bother with,
2) You would try different strategies out, including running away and resting during a big battle instead of just staying there and getting chopped,
3) You will do more scouting and ambushing,
4) SOA is not that difficult a game; I am having trouble seeing where the "save only at an inn" rule would mess a party up for more than 1-2 reloads at worst.

To sum, you would do a lot of things that would make for a better game experience, and that makes the game MORE FUN/MORE EXCITING.

How do I know these things? I've tried it. When I was playing no death/no reload I would save very rarely, and usually at Inns or outside before camping. That game was much more exciting and fun than a regular Qsave game. I ain't lying, folks.

Why don't other people try it? You will see what I mean. Really -- it's fun! It makes you pay more attention to the game, be more paranoid, and forces you to be a better player, I think. These are all good things.

I am pondering Firekraag; that seems to be a case where the dungeon itself is fine, but the RD is tricky. I would allow a save before going up against that guy, but not the dungeon itself which should be quite reasonable with a party.

Everywhere else a Inn or someplace safe is close. Even in the underdark, I'm imagining saving after talking to the SDragon, and in the drow city saving after each quest. Something like that.

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 5:42 am

It's better for the quicksave to just be there, since you can simply keep away from it if you think it's cheesy. If it's not there when you need it, you can't do anything about it at all

This isn't true at all. Firstly, if it's there, you'll use it. I think it's you who talks about wanting to have to work for your cheese, but if you find some easy cheese you use it don't you? If a good thirty minutes of play is on the line, do you really think you could resist the temptation? It's harder than you might think.

Plus, a game is either balanced for quick-save or it isn't. There isn't a middle ground here. You either design your game to give the player challenging encounters and throw stuff in whenever you want, knowing they'll have a quick save, or you make the encounters less dangerous, knowing that the player cannot afford mistakes.

Also, as it stands, BG2 is not designed for non-quick save games. The autosaves are not well spaced, they are not limited. You'd effectively do a quick save by bouncing against the edge of the location.

The biggest problem though is that people simply won't find out a no quick save game if they have that feature avaliable to them.

As two has said, the quick save removes quite a lot of the fun. As I see it, why is it avaliable above the Normal level. Core rules they say? When did PnP have such an easy fall back?

Going back to the Project IGI example, this was taken from Delta Force. The inability to quick save MADE Delta Force fun. You couldn't storm the enemy village, because you knew you would be too exposed, you'd be gunned down, so you had to sneak in and then clear the houses, moving between cover. The enemies moved about, and each time you played through they were often in a new position. It never got boring, because it was always different.

With a quick save, you'd try the rush, you'd note who shot you, then you'd kill them on the reload. *yawn*

In Baldur's Gate I once ran up against some Red Wizards in some ruins. I had been sloppy, had forgotten to save. A good 15 minutes area clearance was on the line, and the fight was a hell of a lot more satisfying because of it.

The ability to rest wherever for however long you want, just smacks of sloppiness. It's like having your own personal inn no matter where you are.

[ 10-11-2001: Message edited by: Quitch ]

Dottie · Post by **Dottie** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 6:01 am

imho there is far to much combat in BG2. i would like it to be about 90% dialogue and much of that should be in-party, then ones in a while you should get in to a fight wich realy is dangerous.

the problem with BG2 is that there are numerous fights so easy that you dont have to care at all, you can sit there and watch when your part thief kicks but with his shortswords

then there are some fights that you realy have to prepare for to be victorius.

it would be much more intresting if they skipped every fight that is not important for the plot or the atmosphere. and when there is a fight it sould ALWAYS be dangerous. this way you dont have to save that often beacuse you dont have to play through 2hours of pointless goblinhunt or equivalent every time you die, but dying is still no fun.

another complaint i have, abit of topic perhaps

is that rais dead types of spells are far to common. you can rais unlimited numbers of pepople in every little country village there is

this ruins alot of plots wich are based on the assumption that dead people stay dead.

Xyx · Post by **Xyx** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 7:33 am

Originally posted by two:
Everyone keeps saying "I am impatient I don't want to replay the same level X times" well, if you couldn't save every 10 seconds:
1) You would be forced to play slower, and more carefully, and possibly even use a lot of buffing/prep spells that a lot of people don't bother with,
2) You would try different strategies out, including running away and resting during a big battle instead of just staying there and getting chopped,
3) You will do more scouting and ambushing

Why wouldn't you be able to do any of this if you can Quicksave? I mean, I Quicksave and I still do all of that.

I also like to play on edge, seeing if I can beat enemies with a minimum amount of preparation. If I had to go through on less saves, I'd be sleeping/buffing after every fight, and before entering any new area. I'd spend 30% of my time on casting spells. I'd rather spend that time fighting stuff and playing through the story.

You can't compare a CRPG to a PnP game. In PnP, when you walk back to an inn to rest, you tell your DM: "We go back to the inn.". He then tells you: "You get there safely.". In a CRPG you have to click a lot, wait while characters with bad pathfinding stroll all over the map, and suffer through various annoying load screens before you finally get to the inn.

And if there's one thing I like less than having to fight the same enemies again, it's listening to the same dialog again... In the fight you can at least try stuff you didn't try the previous time without messing the game up.

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 8:29 am

Two writes:
I think one thing everybody is overlooking -- when you can save anytime, anywhere, how is the game exciting? How is it a challenge?

I think this is a matter of differing viewpoints over the word "exciting." Personally, I'm not sure of the outcome when I enter a fight even if I've tried it five times, so there's an element of excitement tied to the uncertain outcome. I also find that even if I succeed in a given battle, going back and attempting different strategies upon it provide a degree of excitement--will they work, or fail, and how will my enemies react, this time?

On the other hand, if I wade into a fight without the security of knowing that my my gains in levels, spells and items, are secure, it actually detracts from the excitement. Because I'm pi**ed at hell that the game's developers have so little consideration for all the time I've invested in this (or any) playing session. (I'm assuming that this no-save policy was forced on me, since I'd never voluntarily use it.)

De gustibus. To each, their own.

two · Post by **two** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 3:33 pm

Originally posted by fable:
I think this is a matter of differing viewpoints over the word "exciting." Personally, I'm not sure of the outcome when I enter a fight even if I've tried it five times, so there's an element of excitement tied to the uncertain outcome. I also find that even if I succeed in a given battle, going back and attempting different strategies upon it provide a degree of excitement--will they work, or fail, and how will my enemies react, this time?

On the other hand, if I wade into a fight without the security of knowing that my my gains in levels, spells and items, are secure, it actually detracts from the excitement. Because I'm pi**ed at hell that the game's developers have so little consideration for all the time I've invested in this (or any) playing session. (I'm assuming that this no-save policy was forced on me, since I'd never voluntarily use it.)

De gustibus. To each, their own.

Huh? You are fighting a straw-man here. I'm not saying you will EVER go a level (or even a half level) without saving. .25 of a level -- yes, possibly. How much is Umar Hills worth, for example? Save in the town, maybe save in the rager cabin, do NOT save in the dungeon before you open the dragon door. Maybe save there because you have a special stone, and you have cleared the place pretty much. Etc. I'm not talking about not saving between levels 8 and 10, I'm talking about stopping saving between level 8.8 and level 8.801 or 8.8 and 9.0. You just took the silly extreme -- no quicksave, so we must only get to save every other level. Not at all. Even a SMALL increase in save "difficulty" would help a LOT.

Hell -- I'd even be happy if you could only save once every 40 rounds game time. As it is, you can save almost every round if desired.

Arch_Angel · Post by **Arch_Angel** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 6:11 pm

I think that another thing people seem to have forgotten is that not everyone plays at the same level of skill. I imagine that a lot of people who just bought the game to play through once or twice (not over 10 times like some of us

) would complain about it being too hard and the lack of the areas to save, saying that every time they come into a hard fight and died have to go back to an earlier area in the map. Instead of having to put up with alll these people complaining I imagine that it was just easier to put in a quicksave option. Besides I'm one of those people who have done completed the game over 10 times (no life I hear ya

) and I love my quick save feature. If you really wanted to play without it you could always just go into your options and remove Q as the quicksave and don't put any key in it's place. That way it takes away the urge for that hand to slide aross the keyboard and "accidently" hit it.

[ 10-11-2001: Message edited by: Arch_Angel ]

THE JAKER · Post by **THE JAKER** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 8:06 pm

this is an interesting discussion and i would like to throw in my 2 coppers. I personally believe as a modern computer user that I should have the ability and the right to save whenever I want. I feel this should be pretty much a given in any computer program whether it be a general ledger program, word processing, or a game.

I don't think that saving, quicksaving, and autosaving are the problems with BG2 - I completely agree with the viewpoints stated above that the biggest problem in the game is: the easy resting. Followed by: bad (shall we say limited?) AI and scripting. Other things I can handle myself: too many overpowered items? don't use them. too easy to save and try it again? Don't save so much. I can even do something about the resting (just don't rest places where it is implausible that resting would be undisturbed) and the AI (harder, but I can avoid some of the tactics that exploit it the most, and I can download scripts and harder battles - too bad there's no "improved Irenicus" at Balderdash, they should really beef him up for games with TOB installed.)

I use quicksaves, autosaves and regular saves, but I don't always use them enough when I'm playing - there's been plenty of times I've wished I had saved more, but I will get into a groove, forget to save, and then regret it. There's a lot of "experimental" reasons to use quicksave and other saves that allow you to explore things more, it's not JUST a safety net. I know the first time I played BGII, I was playing all careful and scouting everything all the time, and I still would get pasted contantly. Now that i'm playing it for the whateverth time, I know that I pretty much try to play my cards as they are dealt, and when I see that "your character has been killed" screen I feel incredibly defeated, but I'm glad I can go back to saves. It's true that when I've died in a battle, and then I go back and win it, there is less of a sense of triumph and accomplishment, so I usually try to carry through as much as possible.

I basically feel like - if you feel you're abusing the save function, then stop. We all have our little rules and meta-games that we play with. Restricted saves to me sounds like a console game, not like a PC.

THE JAKER · Post by **THE JAKER** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 8:08 pm

Oh yeah, and what about the easy access to pausing in the game???? Does anyone feel that they don't abuse that little function?

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 8:34 pm

Originally posted by two:
Huh? You are fighting a straw-man here. I'm not saying you will EVER go a level (or even a half level) without saving. .25 of a level -- yes, possibly. How much is Umar Hills worth, for example? Save in the town, maybe save in the rager cabin, do NOT save in the dungeon before you open the dragon door. Maybe save there because you have a special stone, and you have cleared the place pretty much. Etc. I'm not talking about not saving between levels 8 and 10, I'm talking about stopping saving between level 8.8 and level 8.801 or 8.8 and 9.0. You just took the silly extreme -- no quicksave, so we must only get to save every other level. Not at all. Even a SMALL increase in save "difficulty" would help a LOT.

@Two, the exact dimensions of your "permission to save" weren't made clear by you in your previous post. You took exception to saves "every 10 seconds," but never said how much you'd allow. Consequently, if I've been aiming at a strawman, it's the one you built.

So what is permissable, in your opinion? Saves every fifteen minutes, say? Saves before entering what you know will be a tough battle? If you can explain that, I think we can have a better handle on the discussion.

Xyx · Post by **Xyx** » Fri Oct 12, 2001 2:03 am

Originally posted by THE JAKER:
Oh yeah, and what about the easy access to pausing in the game????

I think accessing your Inventory should cause your character to stand around unresponsive for a couple of seconds when you exit the screen...

Other than in-battle item swapping, I'm extremely happy with the pause function. In fact, I wish more games had that. I think it combines the best (as in: I like best) traits of Real Time and Turn Based playing.

You'd have to become some sort of keyboard shortcut / mouse god to control a party of six effectively in BG battles. That would immediately prompt me to write a bunch of scripts to handle most of the stress for me, and pick mostly tanking characters, since those are easy to script effectively. This would be an less interesting game in which I'd do nothing but sit back and watch my tanks run around and hit stuff... I think that's fun for at least the first half of the game, but not after that.

Originally posted by fable:
So what is permissable, in your opinion? Saves every fifteen minutes, say? Saves before entering what you know will be a tough battle? If you can explain that, I think we can have a better handle on the discussion.

BG already imposes a few restrictions on saving. No saving in combat, for example. This has nothing to do with engine limitations (since auto-saves still work fine in combat).

I'm happy with the "no save in combat" policy. It removes the option of saving every time you make a saving throw or your enemies fail to hit you. That way, even a starting character could win over half the battles in the game, provided you have the patience to save/load hundreds of times. Not very exciting, IMO...

As for when the game should be saved... I'd say before and after a part where you can screw up. It's no fun to win a hard battle, but get killed by a trap two hours later. It's even worse to trudge through two hours of exploration and dialog only to be killed repeatedly in a hard battle at the end.

I guess I could mostly live with the absense of Quicksave. The game auto-saves often enough to my liking, in many areas to the point that I don't even bother to Quicksave at all.