Should All Games Have Manual Save/checkpoints?

[The Simpleton 2]

These days most games are bloated and take a long time to complete (although no one's complaining about that ) It's a good thing in a way 'coz we get to play a lot more and have some fun. But sometimes, we're stuck in the middle of an exciting situation when we need to suddenly quit the game and attend to something else urgently. What would you normally do? You'd look to save your game and then quit, right?

 

But these days more and more games are following the trend of allotting pre-defined save/checkpoints. That means you can save your game only at that point and not wherever/whenever you like. Developers have found unique ways to implement this. For example, in the Prince of Persia (POP) trilogy, we get to save our game only when the Prince reaches a water basin/sink/waterfall. If we wish to quit in the middle of a fight, there's no other option but to play the game again from the last save point. This can get annoying at times when there's no opportunity to save, and quitting means going back to the starting of a long level. I'd like to take POP as an example again.

 

I was playing POP:The Two Thrones and the level's name was The King's Road. The level involved a long chariot ride through many obstacles and then a boss-battle with two twins. And there was no way you could save in between! The chariot ride was a bit tough but I managed to complete it within 20 minutes. Then came the boss-battle and here it was tough - one had to figure out the strategy to beat the twins. Mere sword-slashing didn't help! I was already exhausted from playing for a long time so I wanted to quit at this point,but there was no way I could do so! If the prince died during the boss-fight he would respawn at the beginning of the fight, but quitting meant restarting from the chariot-ride all over again!

 

Get my point? It's really frustrating in such situations, and I don't know why game deveopers seem to like this technique more. Why don't they just allow the gamers to save wherever they like?!!!

[shadowx 0]

In your example where would you have liked to save the game? During the chariot ride? Just before battle begins? I would agree that a save point just before the battle begins would be ideal, presumably you get off the chariot, bare your weapons and go about cutting those two guys down to size, so a save point could easily have been added at the "get off the chariot" part. But having the user able to save at any point is a bit awkward, at least if they want to save during the middle of a battle. For instance in your example you could be cutting those guys down and perhaps at 50% hp they get more powerful of something so you could just pop the save button at 51% hp and then you can just "grind" your way through the battle, saving it if you are doing well and loading if you are doing badly and just crawl through it with no skill. Not to mention the logistics of saving the exact skills used, cooldowns (if any) the *exact* positions of the characters, including the stage of their attack/defence animations at the exact time you clicked save etc...I dont see it as practical in many games. But it would be nice to have more checkpoints

[rvalkass 5]

It's really frustrating in such situations, and I don't know why game deveopers seem to like this technique more. Why don't they just allow the gamers to save wherever they like?!!!

Generally, games developed solely for the PC let you save wherever and however you like. However, games ported over from console releases, or developed simultaneously with console versions, often have very limited save points, or restrictions on when/how you can save. The Nintendo is Wii is the worst culprit for this - developers are very limited on how often they are allowed to write to the flash memory during a game, and have to stick to a fixed file size for their saved game file (similar to the old 'blocks' idea on original Playstations of old). Microsoft also limit developers on the 360 with a selection of "strange rules and regulations", complicated by the fact you can use your save games on different consoles. On a PC, developers are free to do whatever they like with save games. So, if a game is ported from consoles then it will likely stick to these rules and regulations at least to some extent, and fixed save points are usually fairly core to the game, so get left in.

However, some developers like the idea of fixed or limited saves. If you can save whenever you like then the risk is removed from the game. You can save just before a big battle (for example), then attempt it. If you lose, load the save and build yourself up to be stronger before trying again - there's no risk. For a lot of developers (and gamers alike) that results in the games not being played how they were meant to be played, and removing some of the risk-taking and suspense elements.

[The Simpleton 2]

Generally, games developed solely for the PC let you save wherever and however you like. However, games ported over from console releases, or developed simultaneously with console versions, often have very limited save points, or restrictions on when/how you can save. The Nintendo is Wii is the worst culprit for this - developers are very limited on how often they are allowed to write to the flash memory during a game, and have to stick to a fixed file size for their saved game file (similar to the old 'blocks' idea on original Playstations of old). Microsoft also limit developers on the 360 with a selection of "strange rules and regulations", complicated by the fact you can use your save games on different consoles. On a PC, developers are free to do whatever they like with save games. So, if a game is ported from consoles then it will likely stick to these rules and regulations at least to some extent, and fixed save points are usually fairly core to the game, so get left in.

 

However, some developers like the idea of fixed or limited saves. If you can save whenever you like then the risk is removed from the game. You can save just before a big battle (for example), then attempt it. If you lose, load the save and build yourself up to be stronger before trying again - there's no risk. For a lot of developers (and gamers alike) that results in the games not being played how they were meant to be played, and removing some of the risk-taking and suspense elements.

Oh that explains a lot! Now that I come to think of it, most of the games which I played were indeed ported onto the PC platform or were built for multiple platforms, so yeah that logic makes a lot of sense. And while I agree there may be some gamers who wouldn't like to have it too easy, there are others who get exhausted after playing for long hours and would like a bit of rest before the next big battle or something else. For people like those manual save points are a blessing. Some games have both automatic and manual save points so such a system would make both categories of people happy.

In your example where would you have liked to save the game? During the chariot ride? Just before battle begins?

Yup, just before the battle begins - I've seen some of my friends trying for hours to pass the chariot level, and a boss battle after that with no save point makes it very frustrating. I'm not saying there should be an option to save right in the middle of the fight; just before it and immediately after it if there were an option to save that would be a good reliever.

[shadowx 0]

I would agree that there should be a point every 20-30 mins, otherwise its unreasonable to expect the player to pause the game for perhaps hours while they take care of something more important in their real life.I played prototype on the xbox (which is a good game by the way!) and it had the manual save option but if you saved it mid-mission/task it would start you back at the start of the mission, which was good in a way because it prevented the game being "grindable" with multiple saves every time you done something right. There was however a tough boss at the end of the game that took me ages to do! (well actually he wasnt that tough, i was trying to beat his brains out with various abilities or cut him limb from limb but i shouldve been throwing jet planes, helicopters and missiles at him...) But even doing it the way the game makers suggested it was still a 20-30 minute battle but the game had a checkpoint about halfway where some event happened, i cant remember what it was) so in effect if you got killed, which happened regularly when i first tried him, you only had to fight another 10-15 minutes to complete the boss which i think was very reasonable. It wasnt too easy but it wasnt life wasting either.Something like that would be very useful in a lot of games!

[-Sky- 0]

No. Totally no. That'd be so annoying since you'd try do something then fail/die or something it loads you back. I personally think checkpoints/save points should be removed. Say if...you get further then the first checkpoint, near to the next and you fail on what ever it is on what ever game your playing...it takes you BACK to the first/recent checkpoint archived.

[shadowx 0]

But doesnt that make you *not* want to die? Like in MMORPGs itd be pointless if when you died you just respawned straight away with no loss of items, XP, money or health/mana/stamina. There would be no incentive to stay alive, but that threat of losing something you had to work for (even if its just a temporary malus like lowered attack power or HP makes you run away when you get too low on HP, or take a risky move like going for finisher and hoping that he dies before you. Thats a much better idea, and the same thing applies to single player games, except without the XP, gold and item system the only real penalty is being put back to a checkpoint. I agree though that some checkpoints are very harsh but they have to be there!

[rob86 2]

I think it's really a toss up between whether it's better to have check points or the ability to save at any time. Like everyone else, I have experienced the frustration of playing something difficult with no option to save halfway through it. I get angry at the developers for not giving me the option. The thing is, I understand and agree completely with the arguments that having the ability to save makes a game less fun. When I play games with checkpoints, it's more exciting and rewarding. There's no doubt about that. There are so many games where dying means something, whether it's an RPG or Strategy or FPS. In tactical strategy games, when you make a tactical error a half your army gets killed, you should have to live with that loss, but I find myself restoring a recent save point and not making that fatal error. Or in R6: RavenShield campaign if I accidently sent a team to their death, I should accept that my error got my finest team blown up by a grenade, but I usually just load a saved game. In the few RPG's I've played, I save so often that I don't even fear death because there are no repercussions. I guess you could say that gamers like myself should be able to control our urges to save and restore all the time, but it's really hard not to be tempted by the ease of saving :PSo I guess in conclusion, I think that developers should limit the amount of times a gamer can save. Ignore our complaining and frustration. I think a lot more fun in the game is worth a little bit of frustration once in a while. It's always the games with limited saving I enjoy more even if they do make me angry at times. Either that or gamers should have more self control and learn to use excessive saving only when absolutely necessarily.

[Jess123 0]

I actually think that'd it be a good. I think Chekpoints in games are really useful and I think every game should have them. Even if they get annoying or not...

[H.O.D 0]

I feel that if games were a bit shorter then the hassle of save points would be eradicated altogether, right? Save points should exist, but less in number and simultaneously, the game should also be short and sweet, satisfying to play. That way such irritations will be few in number. That's just my opinion - I know most of the people like long games with hard core action and all that stuff

[Spudd 0]

Saving anywhere is a nice feature, but it can make things far easier in some games. For example, you have a lengthy, difficult mission in game, and it lets you save anywhere. If you do really well on the first part, and save it, you'll have done really well on the first part every time you attempt the mission. Now there's a difficult part where you have to defeat many enemies. You try many times, and finally beat them, save it, and you can now restart from that point whenever you like. You can do this for the whole mission. Now you see what happened, right? You just took your best runs of those particular points, and put them together. You would not have succeeded so soon if you had to beat the mission all at once. Being able to save anywhere works for some games, but I don't think all games should have this feature, as you suggested in your title.

 

There's one other major problem with it: You can get stuck. If you happen to expect a difficult part coming up, of course you'll save. But what happens if you go in there and realize, "whoops, I got no ammo/weapon/potions/etc." You die, of course, but when you return to your last save, you can't go back, as the door has shut and locked behind you. Looks like you may need to start a new game.