The Great Save Game Debate

[IHaveHugeNick]

One deviation that I'd make is perhaps having more hardcore save system that WL2 had. Especially if the game is going to have day/night cycles with variable difficulty, which everybody currently seems to agree on, but of course Brian and co. may have another idea.

Nothing adds the tension without artificially inflating the difficulty like not being able to constantly spam F5.

[Zombra]

One deviation that I'd make is perhaps having more hardcore save system that WL2 had.
Nothing adds the tension without artificially inflating the difficulty like not being able to constantly spam F5.

God yes. I am so sick of this mentality that every game has to have quicksave anywhere any time, just because the technology exists. I've had this argument over and over with some people, but "just don't use it!" is not an answer. Ironman and roguelike games exist for a reason. At least having a mode where saves aren't enabled absolutely everywhere would be nice.

In the original Bard's Tale, you could only save the game at the Adventurer's Guild. This makes a huge goddamn difference to gameplay, and it is a good thing. Bring it the fuck back.

As a concession to reality ("But I have to pick my kids up! I can't budget my time! Waah! I have to have a weakling save system!"), I will allow one autosave slot upon exiting the game, that automatically erases itself when you load it and start playing again.

I think Firaxis had the right idea with XCOM: Easy, Normal, Classic, Impossible, where Classic is how it's "meant" to be played by real gamers, but with no stigma attached to Normal.

I think the lowest difficulty should be "challenging" and then harder on higher modes. Because tough difficulty was such a central component of BT, I don't think their should be an Easy setting.

Gonna agree to disagree here. If there are difficulty settings, it's good to have a softball setting so wimps can enjoy the game too. That said, I think BT4 should be built and balanced around the Challenging/Classic/Veteran Gamer level, and the other levels can just have arbitrary HP/damage/loot drop % increases/deductions/whatever.

[IHaveHugeNick]

I think they probably realize obnoxious 80-style backtracking is not really acceptable option in 2015

God yes. I am so sick of this mentality that every game has to have quicksave anywhere any time, just because the technology exists. I've had this argument over and over with some people, but "just don't use it!" is not an answer. Ironman and roguelike games exist for a reason. At least having a mode where saves aren't enabled absolutely everywhere would be nice.

In the original Bard's Tale, you could only save the game at the Adventurer's Guild. This makes a huge goddamn difference to gameplay, and it is a good thing. Bring it the fuck back.

As a concession to reality ("But I have to pick my kids up! I can't budget my time! Waah! I have to have a weakling save system!"), I will allow one autosave slot upon exiting the game, that automatically erases itself when you load it and start playing again.

Not sure if I would go for such an extreme system, but otherwise, spot on.

I don't think it would have worked for Wasteland 2 style of game. But for combat heavy dungeon romp, limiting the ability to save is much preferred option, IMO. It completely changes how the game feels, as opposed to just cranking up the number and stats of the opponents.

And this way even people playing at lowest difficulty setting can experience that tension, instead of simply being overwhelmed by fights that are constantly hard to survive.

[Drool]

In the original Bard's Tale, you could only save the game at the Adventurer's Guild. This makes a huge goddamn difference to gameplay, and it is a good thing. Bring it the fuck back.

No it was not and no they should not. Going all the way back to Guild to save is terrible, I never liked it.

"Here I am on the third level of this tower. But it's time for bed. Guess I'll just backtrack through the tower to the city, through the city to the guild so I can go to bed. I didn't want to keep that three hours of progress anyway."

Being able to save and turn off the game without an hour of backtracking is a good thing. I'm not a twelve year old on Christmas break any more. There are times where I've only got twenty or thirty minutes to play. Having that cut in half because I can only save in one place doesn't fit any definition of fun that I'm familiar with.

You frequently rail against pointless busywork in games. What is walking all the way back to the magical save spot other than busywork? Besides, it's a dungeon crawler. It's not like there's dialog choices to savescum through.

[IHaveHugeNick]

Drool, to be fair, his solution for dealing with saves would autosave every time upon leaving the game. So you could stop playing at any time.

Otherwise I agree that having location based saving is a no-go. For some games it of course works. But in a genre that from definition always has some inherent backtracking, the less features with additional backtracking the better. Especially if there's gonna be a lot of random encounters. Extensive backtracking+random spawns is a nightmare of a combo.

There's plenty of variations for saving system that would suit Bard better, imo.

[Zombra]

Being able to save and turn off the game without an hour of backtracking is a good thing.

As a concession to reality, I will allow one autosave slot upon exiting the game, that automatically erases itself when you load it and start playing again.

But thank you for reading and comprehending the large print part. Not being sarcastic. I want to get the word out and people thinking about it

[Gatt9]

In the original Bard's Tale, you could only save the game at the Adventurer's Guild. This makes a huge goddamn difference to gameplay, and it is a good thing. Bring it the fuck back.

No it was not and no they should not. Going all the way back to Guild to save is terrible, I never liked it.

"Here I am on the third level of this tower. But it's time for bed. Guess I'll just backtrack through the tower to the city, through the city to the guild so I can go to bed. I didn't want to keep that three hours of progress anyway."

Being able to save and turn off the game without an hour of backtracking is a good thing. I'm not a twelve year old on Christmas break any more. There are times where I've only got twenty or thirty minutes to play. Having that cut in half because I can only save in one place doesn't fit any definition of fun that I'm familiar with.

You frequently rail against pointless busywork in games. What is walking all the way back to the magical save spot other than busywork? Besides, it's a dungeon crawler. It's not like there's dialog choices to savescum through.

I loved Bard's Tale, but I'm in agreement with Drool.

I think there would be a lot of negative consequences to not having "Save anywhere", over the past decade every game I've seen implement extremely limited saves has taken a lot of flack and seem to have sold poorly. The one thing I think should be changed is the save system.

[Caerdon]

I think there would be a lot of negative consequences to not having "Save anywhere", over the past decade every game I've seen implement extremely limited saves has taken a lot of flack and seem to have sold poorly. The one thing I think should be changed is the save system.

I don't remember Torchlight series taking any flak from the lack of explicit save/load functionality. Of course, it's an ARPG (*shudder*) so a mere suggestion of borrowing a feature from it could cause a lot of people to go totally bonkers...

[IHaveHugeNick]

Why? Dungeon crawler and ARPG are'nt mutually exclusive.

Plus It wouldn't be borrowing If original games had it, would it? Even if it was mostly caused by technical limitations of the era.

[Crosmando]

Only if you need to find Ink Ribbons and use a Typewriter in the guild to save your game

[Zombra]

I would be totally down with Ink Ribbons or some kind of consumable Save Crystals. Just anything to take away the huge advantage of tapping F5 constantly.

The idea of an xp drain per save is interesting too. Wouldn't need to hide it from the player for it to be effective.

[Caerdon]

Why? Dungeon crawler and ARPG are'nt mutually exclusive.

I know, but some people just don't understand how a genre they generally dislike could somehow have a feature that'd be good for a game in a genre they do like, and "ARPG" seems to be a curse word amongst some hardcore or traditional RPG fans. (I'm not referring to anyone on this board in particular; in fact, this place is pretty cool in this regard.)

The idea of an xp drain per save is interesting too. Wouldn't need to hide it from the player for it to be effective.

Would probably be more effective if players knew about it, even if the penaly was extremely minor...

[Crosmando]

XP drain for save sounds awesome to me, I support all of that "harder core than thou" stuff, game also needs enemies like Vampires which level-drain characters

[Drool]

Man, I dunno. Personally, I wouldn't mind some kind of autosave feature, mainly because I always forget to save otherwise.

I would be totally down with Ink Ribbons or some kind of consumable Save Crystals.

Ugh, no. This hang nail on my thumb is pretty annoying, but I don't think amputation is a reasonable solution. You don't fix a mild annoyance by implementing a horrible mechanic.

Besides, whatever happened to, "if people wanna save scum that's their problem"?

I mean, seriously? Save crystals? If you want to go all roguelike and have the save-anywhere slot deleted upon loading, that's fine. I mean, it worked for Diablo, but let's not get stupid with our draconian measures to stamp out perfectly legitimate gameplay that you, personally, happen to dislike.

[Zombra]

Besides, whatever happened to, "if people wanna save scum that's their problem"?

Nothing happened to it - it's just never been valid, any more than "So you want to save your game and go to bed? Too bad" is valid. Roguelike and ironman games exist for a reason. I'm not saying BTIV should be a true roguelike - it absolutely shouldn't - BUT there is a middle ground between the harshest possible save system and the most permissive possible save system.

I mean, seriously? Save crystals? If you want to go all roguelike and have the save-anywhere slot deleted upon loading, that's fine. I mean, it worked for Diablo, but let's not get stupid with our draconian measures to stamp out perfectly legitimate gameplay that you, personally, happen to dislike.

I'm perfectly willing to compromise. The main point I want to get across is that permissive save systems do impact gameplay, and putting the F5-no-consequences-to-anything key in the game should neither be a no-brainer nor a foregone conclusion. Let's have some limits.

[Drool]

The main point I want to get across is that permissive save systems do impact gameplay, and putting the F5-no-consequences-to-anything key in the game should neither be a no-brainer nor a foregone conclusion.

Fair enough. But, see, I've actually played both Bard's Tale 1 and Bard's Tale 3. Being able to save anywhere didn't magically make BT3 a cakewalk. It just meant that, when I died in the Black Tower, I could continue from before the fight with the Black Wizards as opposed to going back to the refugee camp, walking to Cold Peak, teleporting to Gelidia, going through the keep, and climbing up through 5 levels of invisible-walled maze. And that's assuming that I made the trek back to the refugee camp after every tower (there's three of them).

And that's the second world. Kinestia and Malefia are bad enough as is without having, literally, hours of backtracking to save the game. I mean, Malefia freaking sucks enough as is.

[Zombra]

Huh, so it was true no-limit save anywhere in BT3?

[Scorpion]

Saving outside of the inn makes no sense for at least two reasons.

1) If the save creates a new instance, then you end up with multiple copies of your characters, those out in the world and those back at the inn.

2) If the save is a global save, meaning the entire instance of the game is saved, then you could be totally screwed if you saved in an area surrounded by monsters and have no way of getting out.

Bard's Tale is different in that your characters "check in" and "check out" of the inn. The inn should be the ONLY place you can save the game.

[IHaveHugeNick]

Save crystals sounds like a cool idea. Autosave at nightfall, sunrise, upon exiting of the game and otherwise save points can be a resource just like any other.

Works for me.

Besides, whatever happened to, "if people wanna save scum that's their problem"?

Different games, different needs. I had zero problem with WL2 save system, but since we all want BT4 to be high difficulty game, limited saves are much more elegant solution compared to just cranking up the HP and damage on the monsters

. The inn should be the ONLY place you can save the game.

No chance in hell that's happening. Its not 1975, most of us have very limited time to play and don't intend to spend most of it backtracking to the Inn.

[Woolfe]

/me fighting very hard not to explode....