What do you think about auto-save?

[FleshToDust]

My game has auto-save. Now the player won't be able to save to 100 different files and they won't be able to get out of bad choices. Did you lose a bunch of money on a mini game and want to redo it?Nope you can't do that. No cheating allowed. I'm hyped. What are your thoughts?

 

[Hudell]

My game has a quick save button to make it easier for people that want to save-scum.

 

[bgillisp]

First, remember that a player can always exit the game, back up the save file, then when something goes wrong they can restore it. That trick has been around since the 80's when DOS games tried to make every move permanent in the old Wizardry games. So there is no way to 100% stop save scumming.

As for the topic at hand, personally I say if the player wants to save scum, let them. Some find that more fun than playing the game you just railroaded them into. As it is, you are probably going to lose more players by forcing them into one save slot/autosave only than you will gain by doing it, especially as it has no allowance for what if the save file gets corrupted. Welp, you just made them start the entire game over now, as they couldn't make another save. Hope they like redoing the last 40+ hours.

Instead, I'd suggest making it a player choice. Maybe they can choose at the beginning to play an Ironman game this way? Then the player now has decided on doing it this way, when the option to play it the other way is still there.

 

[FleshToDust]

Dark Souls uses auto-save and if the save file corrupted they would have to start over. I think that's rare. I've never experienced that in any game. On the point of people doing backups I think only 1% of people would do that. Besides, lets say you're playing a gambling game. If you have to return to the title screen and keep loading it and enter the casino and pull the lever over and over again you'll have to be desperate to break the system. If you could just go to your menu and save/load right in front of the machine then the player will 100% cheat.

example: Say I'm playing pokemon and if right before my pokemon egg hatches I could save it and load over and over again until I get a shiny or one with high stats it would be really easy to get 100 shinies. You can't do that though.

Also about the corrupted file argument, pokemon also has only 1 file so if that corrupts it's the same issue. I think it's a very rare thing and not something to worry about.

 

[JtheDuelist]

example: Say I'm playing pokemon and if right before my pokemon egg hatches I could save it and load over and over again until I get a shiny or one with high stats it would be really easy to get 100 shinies. You can't do that though.

Except that example doesn't work- Nintendo took every step to ensure you can't do that by making the shinyness of an egg predetermined when you pick it up. Sure, you could save right before you pick it up, but that still takes a bit more time than save right before it hatches.


EDIT: Misread your comment- disregard what I said....

 

[FleshToDust]

@JtheDuelist I know it doesn't work. I was using it as an example to say "what if you could do that" and if you could do that it would break the whole game.

Yeah I like that it only works when you first get the egg and it takes additional time. That's similar to having to return to the title screen, reload, walk into the casino, find a machine and pull the lever. It's much more time consuming that the player will probably just say "forget about it I'm just going to play normal".

 

[JtheDuelist]

@FleshToDust Like I just edited my post to say- I misread the comment, so disregard what I said.

 

[Rhaeami]

I think both have their place. Autosaving gives extra weight to your choices and failures, which can either help or hurt your design. For example, 4th-wall breaking games like Undertale and One Shot wouldn't really work with a classic save system, because they're trying to sell the illusion that the game world is real and remembers you when you're gone. Even what save systems they do use are layered atop other background systems in service to that illusion. Autosaving is a core part of their design.

On the other hand, classic saves let you experiment and explore different possibilities before committing to a choice. This is good for games with lots of stats and heavy customization, like Pokemon and Digimon, where save-scummy shenanigans let you probe the depths of the game's systems and learn how they work, or act as a slight buffer against the kind of character-ruining disaster that may make someone throw out the game in frustration. Extremely scripted games, like visual novels, also have little use for autosaves of the one-file variety, since forcing the player to rewatch content that's the same every playthrough doesn't do anything to make the game better.

Personally, I don't know how to implement autosaves into RPG Maker, but I typically don't design in systems where permanent loss or punishment is an issue. Instead of a minigame where you gamble with your money, I just make it give you a unique reward when you beat it. Save-scumming wouldn't even help you. You could also implement an autosave feature to make SURE your player doesn't lose progress, but not have any permanent punishments that it might remember. Nintendo's big titles like Mario or Zelda tend to do it this way, lately.

Really, it just depends on the game.

 

[bgillisp]

@FleshToDust : I've had save files corrupt in games before. It was a more common issue in DOS if you turned off the computer before it had finished saving the game. And it can still happen in Windows if you save, close the game and immediately close windows, for the same reason people have their projects corrupted in RPGMaker.

Also, Dark Souls really had no reason to do one save slot from what I saw when I played it, letting the player save at various points would have probably even made it better. Plus then you wouldn't have had what happened to me where I accidentally hit the first shopkeeper while fighting a nearby enemy, and he became hostile. If I could have made another save, I could have fixed that without restarting and losing 2 - 4 hours of progress.

In fact, it is reasons like that (and others) why I eventually got rid of my copy of Dark Souls. So I wouldn't use it as a shining example of how to make a game myself.

Still, overall I'd say it depends on the game. Many games have no reason to implement such a system as it feels more like they are trying to railroad the player into playing a specific way, and not just let the player have fun. Remember, your game needs to be fun first. If having only one save which autosaves detracts from the fun then that system needs to go. But if it adds to it, then it is a good idea. But you will probably not know until you release at least a demo and test it out on players.

 

[FleshToDust]

Ah yes. People attacking the blacksmith and live to regret it. Don't kill the good guys. It's not Skyrim. There are consequences!
People wanted his hammer but when they found out it was worthless, boy did they get upset! The first game with real moral choices. You can even rescue a dude who kills every NPC (demons souls).

That makes me like auto-save more. It puts real consequences in a game but we can agree to disagree. It is a discussion after all and it's good for people to see all sides and decide what they think is the best way to go for their game.

 

[bgillisp]

You missed what I said. I said I accidentally hit him while attacking a monster, as there was a monster there. So I'm now stuck with that mistake? I never intended to attack him, but because I was still learning the game and controls some it decided I had to be messed over this way.

I still say you need to make it a player choice, but really the only way to know for sure is to make your game and see what the testers say. But just know that as of yet, I've yet to play a game where only having one save and being forced to autosave made the game better (though I've never played Pokeman so cannot comment on that one). And I've been playing games since 1982 or so.

 

[FleshToDust]

Sometimes accidents happen... It's a small price to pay for real moral choices. In Skyrim people go on a killing spree killing guards and then just reload their file. I prefer the Dark Souls way and I get it, sometimes you accidentally do things you didn't mean to but it's for the greater good.

 

[bgillisp]

Right, but remember people play games to escape, not be stuck with their accidents like in real life. And I disagree being forced into one save is for the good, as like I said, I've yet to play any game where such an item enhanced the game.

Now if you are worried about people gaming mini-games, then there are other ways to handle that.

 

[Amarok]

Certain games can be enhanced inmensely by an autosave feature like the ironman mode.
But its true that you will only enjoy it if you are specifically going for that challenge. Thats why i think the best option is to put this as an optional more challenging feature, unless you are doing something like a roguelike where its pretty much mandatory.

To put some examples, Mount and Blade, Europa Universalis or Fire emblem are so much better with this feature on, but for this to work you have to be fair to the player. If mistakes can be fatal then you should provide the player with all the info they need in order to prevent any mistakes.

The souls saga is infamous for those tiny accidents or mistakes that end screwing up everything, but thats pretty consistent with things like no having a pause button or invasions its to make sure you are always alert, not a moment of respite, thats a part of the challenge aswell, as frustrating as it is.

 

[The Mighty Palm]

Right, but remember people play games to escape, not be stuck with their accidents like in real life

Don't take one opinion as speaking for everyone. There are hundreds upon hundreds of games you can play to "escape" but something like this to me sounds interesting. There is no "proper" way to make a game, there is no "rules".

If your testers/players find game breaking bugs and they will, fix them. There is nothing else you can do about that. Auto-save or not those bugs will need to be fixed in the testing stage. So don't let that deter you.

Now as someone who has used Auto-Save in a game (Golden Pearl) I had game breaking bugs, I did have save-corruption, and ultimately I ended up having to commission a brand new auto-save script to fix it all. On top of that I DID add extra manual save slots, but it was because they complimented the gameplay.

For my example in good auto-save I'm going to use Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain is a game where if you don't react fast enough or make the right decision the story will continue on but your mistake will affect the outcome. This is the kind of game where going back and undoing your mistakes would taint the experience. Most of all it's a short game, you can beat it in a few hours. It's not a big deal if you mess up.

But if your auto-save doesn't compliment the gameplay, or if it's not fun, then make it optional or remove it.
Heck, maybe make it optional anyway if you think it's appropriate.

 

[FleshToDust]

Yeah heavy rain is a great example and it would be boring if you could just redo the parts you messed up to get a perfect game. I think it's immersive to have some mistakes. Nobody is perfect right? Also I'm thinking about having it so if you lose a battle you are returned to town instead of dying and having a game over. There is no way to hit a wall this way.

I could also make it auto-save to multiple files in the rare case of a corrupted file.

 

[Aoi Ninami]

Sometimes accidents happen... It's a small price to pay for real moral choices. In Skyrim people go on a killing spree killing guards and then just reload their file. I prefer the Dark Souls way and I get it, sometimes you accidentally do things you didn't mean to but it's for the greater good.

There are no "real moral choices" in a single-player game. It's a game. You're not actually killing any guards. The player could have any number of reasons for killing guards other than being morally depraved -- maybe they find it interesting to roleplay their character as depraved. Maybe they're curious to see how the game responds. Maybe they just want some loot, or the fun of a battle, or XP or whatever.

And there are no real consequences, either. Again, it's a game. The only real difference between "you messed up, go back to the last save" and "you messed up, start over" is the amount of time it takes to get back to the choice point, and the fact that redoing lost progress is usually a lot less fun than playing new content. And if you're deliberately making the player's experience less fun as a punishment for their actions, all that's going to do is drive them to put the game down and play something that is fun.

Also, obligatory link: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KarmaMeter in case you really thought Dark Souls was the first game ever to do that kind of thing.

 

[FleshToDust]

Killing an npc because you want his weapon and then having to play the rest of the game without being able to shop there or having a morality decrease leading up to a different ending is a consequence and it's interesting.

 

[Shaz]

I like it as a backup, so the player has a fallback if they forget to save and play for a long time and die.

But not as a replacement/restriction.

I don't want to be limited to a single save file, and I don't want to be told that I have to save at a certain time, or that I can only save at that time. Let me save where/when I want and have as many save files as I want, but give me an autosave just in case I forget to do it myself.

 

[Sauteed_Onion]

I think that auto - save is pretty cool. I kind of wish I knew how to implement the feature, but I wouldn't use it in my current project. I'm aiming mine at kids, and have a pretty light hearted theme all around. Ironman(cat) mode is not what I'm going for. But you never know.. if it could be optional I would think about it, meow.

I'm still learning how to do basic stuff, and working music out.