Is restricting saving to the world map annoying?

[The Fox Eyed Man]

I know there have been games out there that only allow saving on the world map or at specific points like crystals, but what do you all think of this? Do you find it annoying to have to run to a place/out of the interior map just to save, or is it something that nobody really cares about?

 

[EdgeMaverick]

Personally I like the option to save anywhere, cause if I get into to a huge dungeon with puzzles and I am almost at the end of finishing it and had to close the game for any reason i would like to have a save option rather than looking for a crystal to save. 

 

[Andar]

It depends on how the game works.


The reason for saving is so that you don't have to do everything again. With small dungeons that is absolutely no problem to save only outside.


If the dungeon requires five or ten minutes walking just to get back to the savepoint? annoying as hell, especially for people who need saves because they can only play short sequences at a time (there is a real life, you know?)

 

[Kes]

This is a topic which has been discussed quite frequently.  In general (though obviously with exceptions) there is the opinion that only saving on the world map and/or crystals has a lot of drawbacks and should only be implemented if your game design/genre actually requires it.  Increasingly players are less tolerant of lost progress than they were a few years back.

 

[The Fox Eyed Man]

Yeah that's what I was thinking, it seems as though it's a traditional system that in most cases belongs in the past (especially like you said about the long dungeons etc.)


I suppose a good way around this might be to change the 'save' option for something more immersive like a journal or diary in which the player records their adventures etc. Then it can be done anywhere and would make sense (depending on the game of course). (and sorry for bringing up this topic again, I should have looked for older threads that addressed it  )

 

[Ms Littlefish]

I don't prefer it, not unless the mechanics of the game benefit from restricted saves. Like others, I often don't have large uninterrupted blocks of time to play games. Or, even if I do I'm still at the whim of the rest of life that surrounds me. Back tracking also really gets on my nerves, especially if the area is huge. Of course, there are always exceptions. But, without a designed reason it; to me, just feels like a relic of the past. A lot of people feel like saving anywhere let's people "cheat" the game if they don't like a certain outcome, but even then I'd say people play how they will.

 

[boomy]

There are many ways to implement saving.

1. Save anywhere. Most convenient but can decrease the difficulty of the game. 
2. Autosave. Can be implemented in conjunction with other options. Some games only have autosave (rogue-like games) so players have to deal with the consequence of game overs / loss in a battle.
3. Checkpoint / save point system. Works better for metroidvania games but many RPGs such as Paper Mario implement it quite nicely. 
4. Limited saves. Saving can be done anytime but require some sacrifice such as usage of an item or sacrificing energy (Ori and the Blind Forest)

I will note one thing; having a check point system is a great 'warning' system in many RPG dungeons. A save point in a long dungeon is often a way for the developer of the game to subtly hint that something challenging is up ahead. Remember, a 'save anywhere' feature is only 'time saving' if its used at the right point. Whilst needing to find a save point or backtrack to the world map to save can be frustrating, what is even more frustrating is a game that allows you to save anytime but does not nudge you to save at the proper times.

 

[Labyrinthine]

It depends on the type of game you're doing. If the save option is limited, it should make sense. Let's say I have a chase scene in the game, which could potentially lead to the player's death. If the player is able to save mid-chase and locks himself into an inescapable situation, it would be bad game design. If your game contains parts like this, I would recommend doing save points.

 

[Caitlin]

There are many ways of handling saving your game.  Dragon Quest has no saving, except for in town from the King to the priest has handled this duty.  Final Fantasy has the ability to save any where on the world map, in city, but in dungeons you had a place you could rest with tents and save the game.  Ni No Kuni, however, had a really unique way of handling save games.  I know you could save it any where, but in the dungeons, there was a spot to save it before you entered and at the end of the dungeon, too.  The way I am going to handle saved games is that you have the ability to save on the map, in cities, but in dungeons, I am going to handle another way by having the saved game at the beginning and before the boss battles. I am going to do this, because if you get stuck in a place, I don't want you to have to start ALL over again, because you can't leave the dungeon.


Actually, in Dragon Quest, if you died, you ended up in the last place you had saved it last with half of your gold gone.  So, yes, you were back at town, and it did teach you to think ahead, not just on the temporary current battle you were facing.  I liked that and am not sure if I would put that in my game, it worked for that game, though.

 

[Kes]

@Caitlin I would approach saving immediately before a boss battle with some caution.  Players often do not stick to the golden rule of saving into a new slot and if they have saved over the slot from the beginning of the dungeon, and then find themselves too weak to either beat the boss or get back to the beginning on their own feet, they could be locked into an unwinnable situation.

 

[Aoi Ninami]

Sure, but if you're going to do limited saves, then you have to provide saves before bosses. Bosses, by their nature, tend to be hard challenges that need several attempts to analyse the boss's patterns and weaknesses and come up with a good strategy to counteract them. Having to do the entire dungeon over to get another attempt at the boss is terrible. The answer to the "unwinnable situation" problem, then, is to make sure the save comes at a point that doesn't lock the player into doing the boss battle -- they have the option of walking back out, or, if plot reasons prevent them returning to a main hub at this point, you provide a source of free healing (or just make your savepoint double as a healing point).

 

[Kes]

@Aoi Ninami Yes, I know that and you know that, but I have seen a fair number of games where that save point does lock the player in - which is why I said that it needed to be approached with caution.

 

[Ronove]

If you're deadset on only saving on a world map, at the very least offer your players an autosave or something so they don't lose their entire progress of a dungeon. If players get upset at a battle gone wrong and have to start over from floor 1 of a dungeon, they'll likely just stop playing.

 

[Canini]

Saving everywhere is nice, but remember as a lone/small team developer testing everything for bugs may prove difficult. If the player gets stuck somewhere and saves...well.

 

[LuLingqi1]

I fiddled around with a world map, or well, a dungeon map. Playing my own game, I got frustrated with it. I hated it so much. I only did it specifically for the worldmap only saving technique, and it was just tedious. I have been toying around with like, turning off the ability to save in certain areas. 


For my main game, I just kind of have the "save whenever", and then at certain points if I feel a save should be reinforced, I have a menu pop up asking if the player would like to save.


In the other game mode I'm trying to make, you can only save on the world map since this mode has you doing mini-dungeon runs or straight up monster battles only.