Save Points, A desperate plea Options

[rewells]

Hey y'all,

I've been meaning to write a post about this for a while, but it keeps slipping my mind until now. I get really annoyed when games do not have save points. The majority of non-RM games I play do have save points, so I am used to relying on them, not having to save just whenever I think about it. I'm glad that RM lets you save anywhere by default, but you could at least put some reminder to save before a boss or after a long cutscene. In most commercial RPGs, save points let me know when the challenge is going to increase (i.e., a boss fight is up ahead) or to let me know that a cutscene is about to happen, so I know if it's a good time to to take a bathroom break or call it quits for the night. They help me pace my the experience, and, most importantly, they remind me to save so I don't have to replay the same 20 minutes of game play!

Thank you

[TheBen]

There are, of course, certain times when saving anywhere would be a bad thing, mainly to preserve a sense of difficulty. If you can save in the middle of a Fire Emblem battle, then you have the advantage of immortality on your side - if the battle doesn't go your way, start over from a turn ago and plan things differently this time. On the other hand, if you only have partial immortality - you can restart at the beginning, or major points in the battle - you're going to play a more defensive, high-stakes game to avoid the punishment of starting over.

However, save points are otherwise rather unnecessary and don't make the game that much harder in the end. Even in cases such as the one described above, you could include a "quicksave" system to allows the player to finish a level in multiple sittings (it's what the FE developers did!).

If you do include a save point, then at least let it perform some auxiliary functions (limited healing, teleportation, access to a shop) rather than being a total nuisance.

P.S. If you put a save point into an open-world game, I might have to kill you. Having to to spend the extra 15-20 minutes gunning for a save point miles from your location (or objective) is really just a bad idea... *cough* Metroid Prime *cough*

This post has been edited by TheBen: Sep 18 2012, 02:09 PM

[Shaddow]

P.S. If you put a save point into an open-world game, I might have to kill you. Having to to spend the extra 15-20 minutes gunning for a save point miles from your location (or objective) is really just a bad idea... *cough* Metroid Prime *cough*

Haha. That is so true! I also agree with the auxiliary purpose thing. Another thing to consider, is giving rewards for limited saves, kind of like how the Resident Evil games reward you in a second play through for few saves. This could, of course, be implemented mid game, a reward for reaching certain points with minimal saves, it would encourage heavy playing and while saving is an option, it presents risk v reward scenarios for the players.

[Patinator]

Huh. I for one really like the idea of using tents and such as a portable save, and being able to upgrade it as the game goes on. That's... a really cool idea... auto-saving would work well too. Combining the two - being able to save only in towns at certain buildings except for using your tent/etc., which is limited to being used only in non-populated areas... and then having a subtle autosave feature every once in a while in dungeons and stuff. Have a slight pause and a little tiny message in the bottom of the screen that says "Autosaving...", which makes the player go "oh crap, boss"...

...I might have to think on this. The save system is important! Hmm.