Save Points are for sissies

[Jawnsunn]

Give the ability to save anywhere. You can bring back high-rate encounters, you can bring back the attack-attack-attack strategy, you can bring back dungeons that paths that lead to nowhere, but please don't bring save points back.

Not many have the ability to play for hours like we were as kids playing these kinds of RPGs. It's also the reason why I love handheld RPGs since I can just use sleep mode on my PSP or NDS when I'm busy and can pick up my progress when I'm free.

 

[Archeia]

Save points, or really save anywhere, are for people like me who can barely play a game for 1 hr without being bombarded with work or responsibilities.

Calling someone like that a sissy is like saying I should be a couch potato

That aside, I did play Persona 3 and Persona 4 in one go, but those games did it differently, they have a floor checkpoint and I can go back to the main hub and save there before I go play another 5~10 floors ish for the next checkpoint. At least I can just go up the stairs and avoid encounters if I'm really pressed on RL because of time. But it does detract from gameplay experience for older people like me.

 

[West Mains]

If I were playing your game, I think I would want at least some indication on how long each dungeon is before going inside. If not an exact length in time posted, but maybe a Short, Medium, Long nomenclature. Or maybe you could make it part of the lore with made up names that count for length. Or maybe just NPCs near the dungeon entrance that gave hints through normal dialogue about how long it took them in the dungeon.

I would want something.

Or at least when you enter you get the option to save. If a box comes up saying "Save Game?," that's almost always short-hand for "hard bit coming up." So people would at least be expecting repeat attempts.

Calling someone like that a sissy is like saying I should be a couch potato

Yeah, you should be! #Hedonism4life

 

[Cozzer]

As long as you remember that difficulty is not equal to frustration, I think you could make a game without save points.

You should keep the dungeon short and intense, and the combat should be fast, interesting, fast, not too repetitive, fast and fast.

Also, without save points you should get rid of random screwyous (enemies' critical hits, istant death attacks, random encounters with greatly variable difficulties ...).

The point is, every time the player loses and has to restart he should be thinking "I did X wrong, next time I'll try Y!". He should NOT be thinking "Aww, I hope next time I'll have more luck".

Also, I think you should still implementate an auto-erasing quicksave feature for when you just HAVE to stop playing and continue later.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Full disclosure:  my project is meant to be a love letter to NES-era RPGs (without the graphics).  I'm aiming for it to be difficult.

This thread is meant to solicit opinions on the idea that dungeons, no matter how long or grueling they may be, will not have save points. 

This thread is not asking for approval because I'm doing this, it's happening.

Hehe... Thoughts?

I approve your attempt to punish the player! You should also add in 'sudden death' events with literally no notice that they exist! So not only can they not save, but they might lose randomly. Or just make certain enemies with obtuse weaknesses and obvious strengths!

Okay, real talk here. This is an awful Idea unless you have a really REALLY good reason for it. The most boring awful content in any game, is content that you are forced to repeat. You might think that it promotes challenge, but you have to remember all the time spent outside the challenge. Your big dungeon boss is tough and might require multiple tries... but the 4 to 10 easy boring fights between the dungeon entrance and the boss are going to take a lot of time, that's the real problem.

If you want to have a dungeon with no save points, then the dungeon as a whole needs to be a cohesive challenge. It needs to be engaging, the third time through, from start to finish. That's the design challenge you are undertaking.

 

[Cryranos]

Quicksaves or suspend saves are a must for games with save points.

Spoiler

I wrote a script for that.

 

[Scythuz]

In a lot of the recent Final Fantasy remakes (I think 6 had it originally too) there's been a separate save system of sorts, I believe it's sometimes known as memo.  Basically it saves the game and then turns it off.  Then, when you load the game back up you are at the same point where you saved but the save is deleted.  If a similar system could be designed with rpg maker (I've never been good at the programming or scripting side of games so I don't know how much the engine is capable of sorry) perhaps this would be better as it would still mean you'd still have to start from your last proper save when you die but it would also mean that players who need to quit the game and then want to come back to it later can still do so.  Hope this helps.

 

[Lars Ulrika]

I would strongly advice you to keep save points or save anywhere and put a bonus instead for someone who completes such or such dungeon without using a save point. 

This way, everybody would be happy. 

 

[echo]

Depends how long it goes on for. I mean it would be bloody annoying if you had to start over from scratch after trawling through a dungeon.  That would be a bit of turn off, I mean I've stopped playing games when I have to go back really far after I die.  But then, I do get frustrated unhealthily easily.  If it's not gonna take like an hour to do again, it would be coool.  That's cool with three o's.

 

[Elements]

Nope.