marbleman on 22/9/2022 at 10:28
Hey all,
I'm doing a bit of research on save restrictions in stealth games, and what better community to ask about this than the Thief one? :D
Basically, the topic of save restrictions has been gaining prominence lately, and some stealth games are starting to adopt this in some form. The explanation I always see in favor of it is, "It's just too easy to reload when you get caught!" which makes me think that the entire reason behind it is to inhibit the ghosting playstyle. However, I can't help but think I'm biased here because ghosting is my preferred playstyle. Thus, I want to ask: what other reasons are there for save restrictions?
Note that I'm not looking for reasons that quicksaves should be allowed. :D I don't want this to turn into a debate thread, I just want to see and understand all possible reasons against quicksaving.
fortuni on 22/9/2022 at 14:01
Glypher and Jax often need saves at specific points in the game when something goes wrong as it's not always possible to replicate issues otherwise.
I must have uploaded 1000s of quicksaves over the years whilst bug testing, guess that could be done with hard saves but not if the game had only allowed saves to be made at specific points in the game.
Without the ability to quick save it would have been a lot more difficult to make some dml's and we have all benefited from those.
I know you asked for reason as to why quick saves shouldn't be allowed and I gave a reason why they should, but felt it reasonable to put forward an otherwise unconsidered necessity of quick saving. Apart from the above I can't think of any positives apart from lazy taffer benefits, which I very much approve of.
Tomi on 22/9/2022 at 18:37
Maybe if the failure of stealth (for example a guard spots you) resulted in gameplay that is actually fun, then there would be no need to hit the quickload every time. But that's almost never the case. Non-stealthy gameplay in Thief for example is pretty awful, and sometimes it feels that most stealth games are designed with save scumming in mind.
So yeah, I'm all for some kind of restrictions on quicksaves, especially on harder difficulty levels. But the ideal solution would be to make some changes to whatever happens when the player gets spotted.
marbleman on 22/9/2022 at 20:30
@fortuni: Thanks, but yeah, not quite what I'm looking for. This is also a more general question that applies to all stealth games, not only Thief. And just to clarify, I'm not arguing in favor of save restrictions. I prefer uninihibited quicksaving myself. I just want to know what, in general, people think quicksaving takes away from the stealth experience.
Phantom0914 on 22/9/2022 at 23:12
Well I've tried ghosting without quicksaves and it takes an ungodly amount of practice, also it's not as fun because you could be at the end of an extremely long level and get seen at the last second and you're like ok I shouldn't do that again, but then spend a long time getting back to that point when you could have just had more fun quick loading. If you're not Ghosting then yeah, I barely ever quick loaded, but ghosting without quickload on some levels isn't fun to me. You probably shouldn't be able to reset their alert level if you mess up because it's not realistic, but games were never realistic to begin with. They're meant for fun.
Starker on 23/9/2022 at 00:50
Stealth exists in a liminal space similar to horror, dancing on the line of being in danger, but not quite yet. A big part of it is the tension of having to remain undetected while almost getting caught. So you want to stretch as much as possible the time spent between "safe" and "in danger". Being able to save anywhere, despite all of its other benefits, can be overused by the player and as such greatly increases the "safe" side of the safe-danger balance in addition to lessening the overall challenge. And you can't simply make the game more difficult to counterbalance it, because when it comes to stealth you're not interested in actually beating the player.
Much like in horror, the designer's chief responsiblity is to provide an enjoyable environment where the player can engage in the fantasy, because stealth and horror are both voluntary experiences where the player seeks to explore a particular feeling, a tension that the designer has to carefully enable with various tools at his disposal. The goal in horror is not to successfully scare the player as much as to allow the player to scare themselves, to stimulate and engage their fantasy, and likewise, in stealth the grand prize is not the challenge of the stealth, the difficulty of it, but this tension that the threat of getting caught generates.
So there's a lot of care that has to be taken not to push the player out of the experience. We don't want the player to feel too safe, we want to push him out of the safe zone so that he can experience the tension. Save restrictions are one such tool to force players to engage in risky behaviour without a safety net and to have to deal with the consequences. It increases the challenge and as such the tension that comes with it.
Of course, there is also the danger of pushing the player too much to the other side, the "in danger" side. Quicksaving is a fast way to get right back to the stealth experience, to the tension, while having to play through your failures is usually not. The problem for stealth is that once you're caught, the interesting part is over, the tension is released. Trying to make the consequences interesting doesn't actually solve the issue that there is no longer stealth and anticipation, that you're taken out of the stealth fantasy. But that's getting outside the scope of this topic.
So, to answer the question, quicksave restrictions are a trade-off, a tool to force a particular experience and to increase the challenge. Whether stealth necessarily benefits from the increased challenge is a separate question.
ZylonBane on 23/9/2022 at 02:36
Quote Posted by marbleman
Basically, the topic of save restrictions has been gaining prominence lately
Lately? Restricted saving has been a topic of debate for decades.
I'm still annoyed by the limited saves in AvP 2000.
Phantom0914 on 23/9/2022 at 05:01
I really don't think there's any reason behind it except that it might look more impressive. It would take more skill, practice and patience to ghost without quickloads. I used to be against it too. I didn't know why everyone just quick loaded when they got caught, but it now makes sense to me after actually trying to ghost without quickloads. You're not going to do the entire level over with so many unpredictable things and glitches that happen in the game, even for a veteran. They aren't worth your time starting over. It's just tedious and will become unfun to most people. I would say yes, if you've ghosted a huge amount of times barely getting caught then go for it. The people against quickloading probably just don't understand why its necessary just as I used to. Unfortunately I'm for quickloads now, so I can't actually argue for the people against it. I can only speculate what they think.
marbleman on 23/9/2022 at 11:01
@Starker: I don't think the question of consequences of getting caught is that far out of scope. It's pretty logical to follow "It's just too easy to reload when you get caught" with "Why don't you continue playing and try to fix the mistake you made?" It's pure speculation on my part, but it often seems like the reasoning behind this is not to enhance the stealth experience but to ensure that the player also experiences the thrill of the chase. To me, however, it doesn't matter how fun the chase is because I'm a perfectionist when it comes to stealth, and I would rather reload or restart the entire mission/section of the game until I get through it undetected, and at some point stealth becomes tedious rather than tense. But I did, and do, acknowledge a possible bias on my part since my playstyle is so niche, so I appreciate this answer a lot. Having experienced this myself, I can definitely agree that the very first playthrough is, indeed, more tense when you cannot rely on quicksaves.
Darkness_Falls on 24/9/2022 at 02:07
Quote Posted by marbleman
Hey all,
I just want to see and understand all possible reasons against quicksaving.
Because Demon's Souls being unforgiving was deemed kewl and so all games since then that want to be kewl should definitely do it. ;)
Yes, it happened before Demon's Souls, but I feel a copy-cat fad has ensued where there has been a noticeable uptick in preventing manual saves since then (quantities and frequencies)