Bjossi on 31/12/2012 at 18:59
Quote Posted by Slasher
If not, how do people avoid delivering significant kinetic energy to their PS3s and 360s via sledgehammer?
Perhaps people just enjoy wasting their time on repetition and having to legitimately get past horribly designed gameplay mechanics instead of being able to savescum past them and save a lot of time and frustration in the process.
This is probably one of those things that developers enjoy a lot more than the players do. Like escort missions.
gunsmoke on 31/12/2012 at 22:26
Yeah, countless games dating back several console generations had quick saves, save anywhere, and pretty much any other type of save available to PC gamers.
Slasher on 31/12/2012 at 23:07
That's what I thought. So this is basically a really glaring design issue. Whyyyyyy...
Phatose on 1/1/2013 at 00:53
Probably because of the Arcade model of the 360 they had for a while. It only had like 256MB of storage space total.
Not really sure what the workup here is. The only time I've really ever gotten tossed far by the save system is when I'm just dicking about pointlessly in the jungle anyway. Any time I've died going for a base, or climbling a tower or on a mission I've respawned real close to where I was,
Bjossi on 1/1/2013 at 01:11
Well the key word is "I". Fixed save locations will only suit fixed play styles and fixed players. It is bad for accessibility and it is bad for players who don't play exactly as the level designer expects. I have nothing against checkpoints but I feel there should be a manual save feature accompanying it, and that is when some people jump in and say that somehow the presence of said feature ruins their experience.
For every single game with a checkpoint save system you are going to get both "This game has excellent checkpoint placement." and "This game has horrible checkpoint placement.". What defines whether checkpoint placement is good or bad is the player and his/her play style. So why not simply let the player choose how to save his/her progress? This design decision annoys me both as a disabled player and as a player who LOVES to explore and really digs into the levels in detail. I'm one of those freaks who take 35-60 minutes to finish a Duke Nukem 3D level, and I can actually do that and thoroughly enjoy the game because Duke 3D has manual saves.
Phatose on 1/1/2013 at 01:17
I don't think it ruins the experience. But it undeniably makes for much larger save game files. That's a problem when you've got limited space. Worst case this generation is the 256MB Xbox arcade, and once you take into account that's shared across the entire library, well, 10MB save files become problematic.
nicked on 1/1/2013 at 09:00
No quicksave works absolutely fine in Far Cry 3. There's no long, linear missions that would require careful checkpointing, everything's bite-sized so it never becomes an issue, unless you're really bad at it I guess. It's not like some corridor shooter where if you die, you're replaying the same scripted battles over and over. It's also really hard to actually die in Far Cry 3. The health system is so forgiving. If you die in FC3, it's probably because the tactics you were trying didn't work and you got surrounded. So you just switch loadouts and try something else, still having fun. I only once wished for a quicksave during Far Cry 3 and that was when I died from falling off a cliff and respawned miles away. If you aren't bothered by the side stuff and just do the missions, it'd never become an issue. The issue I have is only allowing you one file, so you can't go back and replay missions or make a backup in case it gets corrupted.
Slasher on 2/1/2013 at 02:01
Yeah, lack of a manual save is a big let-down. I'd be okay with a mission-select feature too. Obviously I'd be happier with a real quicksave for convenience, but I really think I resigned myself to checkpointed missions in FPS about five years ago.
faetal on 30/1/2013 at 12:19
Ubisoft doing their best Ridley Scott impression I see.
