Baldur’s Gate 3’s huge launch has reignited the age-old debate about save scumming.

  • Poggervania@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Bigger question is who gives a crap?

    It’s a single-player game, let people enjoy things the way they want to. I personally don’t save-scum the skill and ability checks, but I will save-scum on a tough fight if I’m in a losing position - and I ain’t gonna knock on people who do and don’t do that in a single-player game.

    For multi-player, I would discourage it since dealing with your friend’s fuckups is like, half the fun of a tabletop session.

    • Ready! Player 31@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Presumably IGN have not been able to generate sufficient clicks by saying ‘this game is really good and not very controversial’ so they’re turning to shit like this now.

    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, I have to agree. When it’s a single player non competitive environment, who gives a fuck? Even if it ruins the game for the person doing it, that’s all their are hurting, their own experience.

    • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
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      1 year ago

      I think reloading a difficult fight you’re losing isn’t necessarily savescumming. What’s the alternative, letting it play out until you get a TPK and then starting over with a new level 1 character because “that’s what would have happened in pen-and-paper”?

      • Poggervania@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, and that’s an extreme take I’ve seen some people take on games in the past - basically treating every game as if they had an Ironman mode.

        I personally don’t even see reloading the game after losing as “save-scumming”, but there are the rare individuals who would consider it as such.

      • Hairyblue@kbin.socialOP
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        1 year ago

        I think this is the challenge for some who don’t want to reload a save. But random dice --with 1 always failing and 20 always hitting are just that random. No play skill involved.

        • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
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          1 year ago

          I agree. But hey, people do permadeath no-reload challenges of XCOM, too. Some folks are crazy.

          I just don’t think reloading a save after losing a fight counts as savescumming. That functionality is such a core part of games that we had to invent an entire genre to design around not doing that (Roguelikes).

  • Bobert@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Is only game. Why you heff to be mad?

    Play video games the way YOU want to and stop worrying about how other people play. This is a major problem in MMOs/Multiplayer games, I don’t know why we should open the door for people to be upset about someone else’s Singleplayer experience.

  • futureman@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Save summing is enjoyable. If I wanted to live with my horrible decisions I’d turn the game off and engage with reality. Anyone debating how someone else enjoys something they paid for is a muppet.

  • Sparkega@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    IMHO, no harm in a single/cooperative multiplayer game. If the player wants to go through the hassle of saving and loading repeatedly, that’s their decision. No harm to the community at large.

  • sebinspace@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Question: how many people are this “debate”? Judging by this thread, there’s not many, and it’s a slow news day at IGN.

  • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I’m not going to play the game 500 times to see every failed event or storyline I missed from a bad roll or lack of having the right spell equipped.

    I am going to play it a few times mins you, but I want to explore different paths.

  • Glide@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    They didn’t put quick save and quick load on single-keys in easy reach because they expect you to live with the consequences of what happened. Anyone who doesn’t recognize that save-scumming is part of the design intent is lying to themselves.

  • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
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    1 year ago

    First of all, I don’t think there is any right or wrong and everyone should just play the way they enjoy most, whether that is rolling with their failures or ensuring they get the outcome they desired (because they might perhaps not have time to do a second playthrough of a 150 hour game).

    Secondly, I think the desire to savescum usually materializes because of inherent game design issues. Failures are often less interesting and satisfying than successes, regularly closing the door on additional content which leads to the player feeling like they’re missing out. In pen-and-paper, improvisation between both players and the DM usually means there are other ways to access that same thing if the first option fails, but this is much harder to implement in a CRPG and so many checks end up being “succeed or miss out”.

    The only game I’m aware of that really tried hard to design around these types of problems is Disco Elysium (though even that game had several instances of fascinating content possibly missed because of a dice roll). Still, I really wish more RPG developers would study this example and adopt a similar “fail-forward” design principle.

  • There is no debate. If you think save scumming is wrong: you’re wrong; just don’t do it yourself at that point since someone else doing it doesn’t affect you at all. Saving and reloading is the one, universal thing about video games that makes them so great. You can keep trying different things until you succeed, without all the tedium of starting completely from scratch every time.

  • throwsbooks@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    In a game that takes dozens of hours to get through? Of course I’m save scumming to get the result I want. If I don’t care about some consequence maybe I’ll let a failure slide but for the big stuff, I’m not starting again and doubling my playtime, I’m usually burnt out on the title by the end of the first run.

    • lemick24@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is definitely it for me too. On games like this I’ll happily savescum because I want to see the ending I desire. If I love the game enough I may replay it, and in that case I’ll just roll with whatever happens as I explore new paths.

  • the_frumious_bandersnatch
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    1 year ago

    I only wish they had an option for time based auto saves. Realized too late that it’s based on milestones and had to relevel every character after a tpk.

    • ThayWiz Gwar@lemmy.worldM
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      1 year ago

      I bought a super fast NVME drive just for this game as I acknowledge that I am a save scummer and hit F5 before and after anything important happens. It’s muscle memory by now. Someone looks at me sideways, they get an F8 to the face.

      On top of that I do periodic named saves because I left number of autosaves and quicksaves set at default 25.

      I realize I haven’t Got Gud at the game as quickly as a result, and do respect those that only reload after a TPK.

      When watching streams, I start to stress when the player hasn’t saved in the last 5 minutes. It’s the price I pay.

    • BadlyDrawnRhino @aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

      There is a mod on Nexus, the Life Saver Mod, which is supposed to auto save whenever you enter combat. But it hasn’t been updated since 2020 and doesn’t work on the release version. Hopefully the author comes back to it, or someone releases something similar.

  • CIWS-30@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I don’t think there’s ever been a save scum debate. Most people just do it, especially the game is unreasonable or has easily missable / permanently locked content that you lose out on forever after dozen or hundreds of hours of playtime unless you save scum.

    It’s more like most people do it without shame because they have lives, jobs, families, and limited time and energy to play, and a vocal minority of tryhards and internet trolls (who also save scum but lie about it) who try to force their twisted values on the majority for no other reason than to try to control everyone because of some personal dysfunction.

    • BadlyDrawnRhino @aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

      The gripes I see about save-scumming usually come from those who would prefer not to but don’t have impulse control, so they’d prefer developers to take away from players who don’t care, and have valid reasons for doing so like you listed.

      • DV8@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Developers disallowing saving when I want make me so irrationally angry. Let me play the game in a way that I know I will have fun. Not allowing it has always been a way to extend your game artificially.

        • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Also it means I can’t pick it up to play unless I have a large block of time I know will be free and I rarely have that so basically I can’t play the game.

          • Nepenthe@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Octopath’s final battle is a gauntlet of eight or so bosses, followed by the last boss with two forms. One of those forms, if you don’t manage to dispatch a specific enemy at a certain perfect moment, runs the risk of actually trapping the player in an endless loop as everything keeps healing itself faster than the player is able to take anything down.

            This is a known possibility that forces you to restart the entire gauntlet again from the beginning just to have a chance, and you can’t save in that room. Guess whether I’ve technically finished Octopath or not. You’re goddamn right I’m going to figure out how to glitch it and save anyway, because I don’t and will never want to sink genuinely 2-3hrs of my life each time I try to beat that, with less than zero guarantee that I actually will. I get the feel they were going for, but who the fuck is responsible for this decision.

            Where Baldur’s Gate is concerned, I do clinically have difficulty making decisions but I’m mostly only doing it because I love the writing so much. 90% or more of my save scumming is dialogue related and I’d take it as a huge compliment.

            I severely dislike role-playing in a way that makes me choose options I don’t actually believe in, so every file I’ve ever played for any game tends to be identical. But in this game and this game only, I desperately want to see what happens if I do and it’s almost always rewarding. It’s SO good

      • JackbyDev
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        1 year ago

        The debate often pops up in rogue like games when you say there should be a save and quit option.