Death Penalty and Saved Games [poll]

[Johnny Wasabi]

Developers and players debate the pros and cons of the harshness of the death penalty in games. In some old school games, death of a character was permanent. You don’t really see that in modern games. The games have gotten softer, and with that something was lost.

I think a deep bond to characters and story comes from the possibility of harsh penalties for failure (like permanent death). It was like that playing pen&paper Dungeons and Dragons. Everquest achieved some of that quality because of its difficulty and harsh death penalty (not permanent death, but you'd lose experience, possibly a level, and possibly everything you had on you if you were unable to recover your corpse, which represented a very large loss of time invested).

When a game is difficult and fraught with real danger (permanent loss of something) then you cherish the accomplishments that much more. I think that is definitely part of the nostalgia for the old-school experience--not so much for the times you died (that always sucked), but for the triumphs in the face of death (especially if death was permanent).

What kind of death penalty would you be interested in playing with, if any?

I think the player should definitely be able to stop the game at any time and continue from that point later, but that save-for-continue feature is not a saved game that you can arbitrarily load up again after resuming play. Once you’ve resumed play it’s gone. It’s a single temporary holder of your last session that only exists between play sessions.

A saved game persists after loading it, and you can reload it at any time. Deciding when saves occur and how many save-slots you can have determines the harshness of the penalty for character-death. If you have only one save slot and the game auto-saves whenever a character dies, then you have permanent death. There are other ways of handling permanent death that decouple it from the saved game system, but let's keep this simple for now.

This poll is designed to see what kind of death penalty and saved game system people are interested in. Vote for all options you think you'd actually try out if they were all available at the start of a new campaign.

[Note: the poll has been updated a couple times based on feedback. Some of the comments below apply to older versions and may not apply any longer for the current version of the poll.]

[Woolfe]

Ack,

I hate the concept of difficulty affecting when and where i can save.

I save because I have to stop playing and need to go do something else. Which means I can't always wait to save when you give me the opportunity.

Absolutely hate that concept.

[EagleEyez]

I save because I have to stop playing and need to go do something else. Which means I can't always wait to save when you give me the opportunity.

Absolutely hate that concept.

Sure, but that's not what's being described above. As mentioned, this would be more of a persistent world -- if you stop playing, at any time, you can come back at any time and continue wherever you left off:

I think the player should definitely be able to stop the game at any time and continue from that point later, but that continue feature is not a saved game that you can arbitrarily load up again after resuming play. Once you’ve resumed play it’s gone. It’s a single temporary holder of your last session that only exists between play sessions.

This would never prevent you from being to stop whenever you want or need to but would provide the tension and difficulty of permanent death.

[krellen]

I don't like your choices. None of them fit what Wasteland itself did, which was a single save, persistent, but you could go back to your last save if you died.

[Johnny Wasabi]

I don't like your choices. None of them fit what Wasteland itself did, which was a single save, persistent, but you could go back to your last save if you died.

Thanks for pointing that out, Krellen. I'm sorry I missed that option in the poll. I was mostly thinking about the penalty (harsh, some or none). So for purposes of the poll, I would group that in the "No Penalty" category.

[Woolfe]

I still lean to save at anytime, because I have yet to see a system of "perpetual saving" work correctly 100% of the time.

But I would probably change my vote to a choice of mode in that case.

[Sxerks]

If a difficulty setting is going to be implemented then the last option would make the most sense.

I assume you wouldn't be able to save during combat. So, in the hard core difficulty, the "quit game"/"resume game" save would be prior to the combat you are currently in?

[Johnny Wasabi]

I still lean to save at anytime, because I have yet to see a system of "perpetual saving" work correctly 100% of the time.

But I would probably change my vote to a choice of mode in that case.

It would "save-for-continue" when you manually exited the game. You would only lose progress if the game crashed out without you exiting manually. To mitigate that possibility, it could also auto-save-for-continue at regular intervals (probably of your choosing in a setting).

[krellen]

Wasteland actually had a really good auto-save function. Most games since have failed to match them.

[Johnny Wasabi]

If a difficulty setting is going to be implemented then the last option would make the most sense.

I assume you wouldn't be able to save during combat. So, in the hard core difficulty, the "quit game"/"resume game" save would be prior to the combat you are currently in?

The save-for-continue feature would happen anytime you exited the game, even during combat. The idea is you want to be able to pause and continue the game later, but not have to leave the game running in paused mode. So whenever you quit you can rest assured that when you boot up the game again you will can continue from where you left off (even the middle of combat).

[SniperHF]

If I can't save AND LOAD whenever, wherever, and for whatever reason I want to I'll be pretty annoyed.

I'm fine with permanent death but it doesn't have to be related to the save issue. Let people save and load as they want to (or not) and if they want to load when a character dies let them do it. It doesn't change your experience and it allows that player to have his/hers.

I get equal satisfaction from reloading and learning HOW to beat a fight I just lost as opposed to taking the penalties of the loss and forging on. Call it save scumming if you want, but I have a ton of fun trying to win fights I have absolutely no business pulling off. Party down to 20% hp, suck with melee weapons only, and surrounded by enemies. I'm reloading till I figure out why I lost and how to beat it.

What I don't like is forcing me to replay sections of a game just to get back to where I was. You can kill my characters, you can take away money or gear. But I hate wasted game time replaying the same content. I want to move on.


Also I've brought this up before, but it bears repeating. Difficulty options should not be tied together. If Hardcore mode has increased damage, less ammo in the world, and no loading except from a quit state I want to be able to play hardcore mode with all of the above except the loading part. Make it a laundry list of difficulty options and not a LOW-MED-HIGH situation.

EDIT: and you really should change the title to Saving options, as its not just about death. as I mentioned you can have perma death without restricting saves and loads.

[Maukka]

The options - option seems most sensible... though it could maybe use a superhardcore mode where upon dying your saves would be erased and the computer would punch you in the face, you know - for the true masochists out there.

[krellen]

the computer would punch you in the face

If inXile could figure out how to program a computer to do that, they wouldn't need kickstarter funding for anything; they'd make billions selling that.

[Woolfe]

I still lean to save at anytime, because I have yet to see a system of "perpetual saving" work correctly 100% of the time.

But I would probably change my vote to a choice of mode in that case.

It would "save-for-continue" when you manually exited the game. You would only lose progress if the game crashed out without you exiting manually. To mitigate that possibility, it could also auto-save-for-continue at regular intervals (probably of your choosing in a setting).

Having worked in IT for many many years, I pretty much expect a game/pc to crash out. I have to regularly save Masseffect 1, becuase every so often it throws up an error and dies on me. Which is really annoying after you spent the last hour hooning in the Mako looking for stuff. ME1 has been out for a long time, and yet it crashes. (and yes I have looked to see if it is fixable)

Sorry but when it comes to PC, it is nigh on impossible for you to cover every possibly failure. Thus I am against the Save for continue type stuff.

Plus what if I want to just try something. I once walked into Reno in FO2, and opened fire(accidentally I think). It was great I spent a fun period battling with every dude that came at me. Good times. But it was completely against the way I was playing the character, so I reloaded and walked back into Reno and did it the way I wanted to do it.

I don't want to have to play another game through to a point just to be able to play around a bit. Its a game, its all about what I enjoy.

If you want, put it in as some sort of "achievement" - Never reloaded the game.
Or something, but don't mess with my ability to save.

[Zeful]

If I can't save AND LOAD whenever, wherever, and for whatever reason I want to I'll be pretty annoyed.

You must be annoyed with a lot of games then, I can't remember a single RPG I play that allowed me to save during combat other than Fallout 3.

[SniperHF]

If I can't save AND LOAD whenever, wherever, and for whatever reason I want to I'll be pretty annoyed.

You must be annoyed with a lot of games then, I can't remember a single RPG I play that allowed me to save during combat other than Fallout 3.

Not saving in combat annoys me a lot less than other save restrictions. But it still bothers me sometimes.

Pretty sure you can save in combat in NWN, Fallout1&2, and KOTOR to name a few. I think you can in TOEE but I haven't played it yet. I'm sure there are more.

[Drool]

I don't like your choices. None of them fit what Wasteland itself did, which was a single save, persistent, but you could go back to your last save if you died.

If your whole party died, though, you had to kill the game right quick or else it would save you as a bunch of corpses and you'd have to start all over again.

However, I do like Wasteland's system: autosave every time a new map is loaded, save whenever a player wants (except mid-combat), both auto and player saves use the same, single save file which is overwritten with each save. Death is permanent unless you exit the game and reboot before a manual or autosave.

[Wild_Bill_711]

I'd 'vote' for a similar "SAVE" system as in the original (IBM/PC version) Wasteland... there was an "Auto-Save" of the most recent 'maps' whenever the player was 'entering another (different) location'. IF "death" occurred, there was the "Your life has ended in the Wasteland" screen... BUT then restarted at the last 'saved' position !

Continuation of the "Save" / "Exit" the game options for the player, BUT ONLY executed with correct usage of the "Y" (yes) or "N" (no) keys !!! ANY other keys/letters NOT triggering any 'action'.

Would also suggest adding possibly 2 extra 'historical save slots' that the player would 'rename', as desired, for future use IF the needed to 'restore' game maps to some earlier time period arose. (hoping to have my cake & eat it too !).

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EDIT: see also - page #4 :
by Wild_Bill_711 » March 28th, 2012, 1:27 pm

[Drool]

IF "death" occurred, there was the "Your life has ended in the Wasteland" screen... BUT then restarted at the last 'saved' position !

No you didn't. It saved your party as dead and you had to start over again.

[krellen]

IF "death" occurred, there was the "Your life has ended in the Wasteland" screen... BUT then restarted at the last 'saved' position !

No you didn't. It saved your party as dead and you had to start over again.

Didn't do that to me when I died this past Sunday.