Save Scumming - The Game Design of Save Systems - Extra Credits

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Let's talk about how game saving works, the different types of saved-game systems, and which types of game designs encourage the practice of "save scumming"--which we don't think is inherently a bad thing, but it can feel frustrating to players if they feel like that's their only guaranteed chance of success at a difficult gameplay situation.
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#Shorts #SaveScumming #Gaming

[@extrahistory]

Let’s do away with the idea that save scumming is inherently bad or makes you a bad person for doing it, and focus on the designer question of how to keep your game engaging if it encourages this type of behavior!

[@adama7752]

The game isn't released perfect, sometimes you're dead due to 'unplanned bug' and it breaks the experience. Seems reasonable to allow a reload, and if people abuse it, that's fine, they paid for it.

[@joelsasmad]

I feel that the tactical rpg series Fire Emblem deserves a mention on this video. Throughout most of the games they feature permadeath but you have the ability to restart and do the level over. A battle can take quite a bit of time so it can be insanely frustrating when a unit is killed by an unexpected critical hit or a moment where you were paying attention. You are perhaps meant to continue on with the champions who managed to survive your journey but if you liked a lost unit or if you don't feel like you've won if you don't have all the units, you don't have a choice. Some later games introduced a casual mode that didn't have permadeath but fans felt as if they were being babies if they used it. Then they introduced a mechanic in Fire Emblem: Echos called Mila's Turn Wheel. This allows one to go back to previous turns and make diffrent decions. It was a perfect middle ground allowing players to avoid resetting maps without preventing units from dying. Because it was a limited resource it also felt like a mark of skill to maintain and manage these turn resets. Unfortunately they gave you far to much of this resource so that it became easily abused in the late game but that simply means that future iterations just need to limit it more.

[@abdurrahmanalp9195]

hi extra credits

[@Mr_Case_Time]

This video reminded me of the game The Outer Wilds for some reason. Can you PLEEEEEEASE commit a whole episode to that game? It's such a differently styled game and I'm really glad to have stumbled upon it.

[@KaiserAfini]

Pathologic 2 incorporates save scumming and reloading into its game design in a very cool way, I recommend taking a look. Plus it has a massively creative amount of worldbuilding, storytelling and symbolism.

[@esaielyger5193]

"Dormammu, I'm here to make a bargain" (quicksaves)

[@smutnejajo5149]

I've come to bargain*

[@antigrav6004]

Quicksaves before saying this*

[@NoNameAtAll2]

Dormamu, I've come to bargain

[@dddmemaybe]

Speech 8/100. 1% chance. Ah shit. Here we go again.

[@danielsjohnson]

Dr. Strange quicksaved before he said that. Not after.

[@jimmyc.491]

Phoenix: "Your Honor, this evidence proves the witness is lying!" The Judge: "...Mr. Wright, what are you waiting for?" Phoenix: "Just give me a moment to save first, Your Honor."

[@RF-Ataraxia]

PRESENT BADGE

[@MaJuV]

Prosecutor: "Make the punishment harsher, judge, I do not want to waste my time." Judge: "Okay, insta-kill punishment is active." Phoenix: "Okay, save-scumming is active."

[@AzuriteCoast]

+

[@konstantinkunz2256]

Yeah did this in Spirit of Justice too. I whas hillarious to finally so those fail answers.

[@mrf4ncyp4nts]

Save scumming is great right up until the protagonist walks right up into your face, looks you in the eye, and quicksaves

[@estrico6298]

"Oooh let me guess someone stole your sweetroll ?"

[@npc6817]

I am honored too see you consider me a treat you cant defeat without bending the rules of space and time sir greatass96

[@agihammerthief8953]

Do you go to the Cloud District very often? Oh, what am I saying, of _course_ you don't.

[@agihammerthief8953]

@@npc6817 Nah, if it's Skyrim, the player probably just doesn't wanna pay the fine at the end of the killing spree.

[@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat]

I have come to bargain

[@joshschilmeister1934]

One thing I'd like to add is that, at least from my experience, save scumming can act as a sort of pseudo-tutorial for complex games. Paradox games seem to be getting quite a few mentions, and that's no surprise. Paradox games are legendarilly complex. For my first maybe 30 runs of eu4, I didn't play on ironman, because I was still learning so much that restarting every time I made a painful mistake would have killed it for me. But save scumming lets you try out risky actions to better understand a system without risking 10+ hours of gametime.

[@cageybee7221]

i never play ironman mostly because my computer has the stability of a meth addicted alcoholic raccoon 5 years after a divorce and 200k$ in debt.

[@AdhvaithThurvas]

Facts. I don't like playing ironman mode because I'm notorious for savescumming games, and I'm still technically a beginner. The last attempted ironman run that I tried was with Poland, but I made the mistake of DOWing on Hungary, my rival, and splitting my army, which allowed Hungary to consolidate and destroy nearly all of my army.

[@AdhvaithThurvas]

@@cageybee7221 maybe try the fast universalis mod?

[@jamesdeaton267]

Ngl i scummer the heck out of ace attorny

[@benismann]

Ironman don't restrict savescamming ;)

[@francesco8000]

If you listen closely you can hear all the EU4 players that "accidentaly" left the game and had to go back 1 month before losing a battle uler while playing ironman.

[@Andre-gn4sj]

hardcore save scumming is when you leave the game go to the game files make a backup of the saves folder then continue playing :D IRONMAN I AM BEYOND YOU!

[@nathanaelmack7533]

@@Andre-gn4sj You mean you haven't made your save folder a git repository that auto commits whenever a file is changed?

[@akhragee]

Stellaris ironman only saves once a quarter. Close enough.

[@asasas9146]

In Ck2 i usually closed the game with the task manager however. His power was a dark temptation.

[@nebulastaralex]

I think you mean my game "crashed"

[@martijndekok]

Don't forget that the ability to save anytime anywhere is also used just for fun. Trying some silly risky moves that'll probably kill your character or kill a friendly NPC that angers you with silly dialogue or unresponsive followers in RPGs. As a player I believe that (in single player games) the player should have as many options to play it as (s)he wants it. It feels a bit like the butcher telling me how to eat the ham I just bought from him. This also goes for being able to skip cut scenes, or kind of the reverse, the ability to play a story driven game on such easy difficulty that it becomes more like a semi-interactive walk-through graphic narrative. I understand the need for limits to still have the "intended" experience, but maybe give the player an informed choice.

[@solinvictus6562]

Yea exactly,imagine if,for example in skyrim,You coud never just trow that fury spell in the middle of a croud,try to pickpocket a guard,go figth a giant,kill that annoing NPC ecc because of the costant threat of having to redo a lot of things if you fail.The quicksave-quickload system they have is a godsend

[@danieladamczyk4024]

@@solinvictus6562 You fricking fricks, when do you learn, that your actions have consecvences!!

[@drakan4769]

@@solinvictus6562 I did that with pickpocketing in particular (stupid 95% cap... thank god for mods) And of course: "you don't get to the cloud district very often, do y- FUS RO DAH!!"

[@tomjackal5708]

>(s)he *_they_*

[@danieladamczyk4024]

@@solinvictus6562 But Skyrim is a gigant open PLAYGROUND intended to experiment instead to play with the rules.

[@sethrogers8473]

Nothing beats an auto-save load where you have little to no health/magic/ammo/etc... and are right in front of a major boss or enemy segment. Don't make auto-save the only option

[@Invisifly2]

Or the save gets corrupted and you can't choose any others.

[@andremilanimartin3338]

Anything automated regarding save files needs a backup to access things manually. Games are notoriously bad at judging if a situation is good or not. Just look at TotalWar Autoresolve features that make no sense at all.

[@mooman1017]

Always have a backup.

[@LordTrashcanRulez]

I still don't understand why games don't give you more than one autosave

[@Alkis05]

@@LordTrashcanRulez many games do, but I guess you meant something like "why won't every game give you more than one autosave?"

[@rmsgrey]

There are at least three different use cases for savegames - and it's important to consider the impact of your intended system on each of them: There's the "interrupt" save - also known as the extended pause, or the doorbell save - where you need to take a break from playing, but it's impractical or unwise to leave the game paused for that period. There's the archival save - where you save before a particular moment in the game so you can come back to it later without having to replay the entire game. A key cutscene or story moment, or a one-time minigame, or a favourite level or gameplay sequence. And then there's the precautionary save - where you save before something risky or challenging so you can retry easily if things go badly. The video already covered this one.

[@seanrea550]

I keep a save in skyrim just as soon as I can so I can jump right in to character creation with out the cart ride.

[@franklinz8098]

What about the save you make when you accomplish something?

[@NatetheNintendofan]

Especially if you're playing on a handheld the first one is risky because when my friends told me in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon explorers of Sky their DS died when it was on in zero Island South

[@Crocogator]

When the NPC ticks you off. *quick save*

[@LordRavensong]

Fable 1 made this so freaking fun.

[@cristaltophat]

I did this, when I bombed the lady's flower field in "breath of the wild"

[@mollywantshugs5944]

HummerTop what happened?

[@64bitAtheist]

Save and load would be my chosen super power of choice, with knowledge preserved.

[@deamon6681]

Save scumming real life? That's probably one of the most overpowered ones I can imagine. You start with winning the lottery and then go from there.

[@64bitAtheist]

It's a kind of immortality all in it's own right, but imagine what could be learnt with infinite tries.

[@Zwiebel4]

Re:Zero has shown us that you don't want this superpower...

[@deamon6681]

@@Zwiebel4 Can you gave a short tl;dw ?

[@mongocom1735]

Jürgen Hans you are getting slowly insane

[@zmanjace1364]

Save scumming? You mean the default way to play X-Com for plebs like me?

[@pointlesspaperclip2365]

Fire Emblem too

[@Erinyes1103]

XCOM is so much more fun if you role with the punches and accept casualties throughout the campaign. XCOM2 in particular slightly adjusts the difficulty after a run of particularly tough missions so that you have the breathing room to train up new rookies without them instantly dying. I know those games can be frustrating though, especially when you miss that 95% shot.

[@Nuggette]

@@Erinyes1103 that's why I forced myself into using the ironman mode

[@Erinyes1103]

@@Nuggette Ironman is the best way to play those games, but the save system isn't completely reliable. I've had a few runs ruined hours in by corrupted saves, which is the absolute worst. So make sure you back them up every now and again.

[@Malos_]

Nuzlocke runs

[@joevahle2321]

Save and load power is fascinating, especially from the a philosophical stance. I as a player, never thought about it until undertale came along; but after I could never think of it the same. The power to undo any mistake or try any outcome is perhaps the most overpowered ability in existences. I mean imagine if bowser knew mario had this power, he literally can't win; we as players have literally infinite tries to win. Undertale did a great job of exploring the question of what that power could do too someone, what with players killing everyone just to see what would happen because they felt there was no consequence, and they were right of course it was just a game, but it was fascinating to explore that part of the human mind, what that kind of power would do too someone. Also don't think I didn't see that Walpole joke! ;)

[@readsomebooks666]

Go play Morrowind sonny. Get deep enough there and your brain will melt.

[@quietdignityandgrace]

Alternate timelines in an existentialist game? Neat. Never played.

[@viniciusqueiroz2713]

Pretty much like Izanagi (from Naruto)

[@Theriot6592]

You're describing the plot of Edge of Tomorrow.

[@aurebal8023]

*declares war on the Ottomans as Byzantium*

[@thomasderp8434]

Eu4 player?

[@ryanmassie448]

Totally legitimate strat

[@henrijayy]

*Forgets to save*

[@HerodotusVon]

*Calls in Hungary* *Gets fort in Selanik for free because Ottomans didn’t maintain fort maintenance*

[@CSunny_]

medieval total war 2

[@martianpudding9522]

I never even considered the idea that you weren't supposed to save before something like a boss fight. I thought that was the intended way to play at all times tbh.

[@AaditDoshi]

Not all the time. Boss fights might be OK. But I would prefer an auto save system handle those moments. The main problem would be stealth games. Where the minute u mess up, u reload a previous save to try again.

[@tomekvilmovskiy6547]

It's not the situation he talked about. Just saving before bossfight isn't cheating. But if you have one spell scroll that with 10% chance instantly kills the boss and you reload till this spell works out - that's cheating.

[@johnuferbach9166]

@@AaditDoshi Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is a stealth game... and it has a timer to remind you to quicksafe often (after a minute it turns red btw)^^ (the missions take like 3h on first try but the speed run achievement is for 20min btw^^)

[@screamingcactus1753]

If you're saving before a challenge that has a good chance of a hard game over, that's not an issue. If you're facing a challenge or random chance that won't end your game if you fail it, but you're still reloading until you get the optimal outcome, then that can be an issue.

[@Halosty45]

There's a hilarious part in BGII where some random low level dudes go on a quest for you. When they return, they are like "Naw, we can take em"- followed by a cutscene of them losing horribly because they're level 1 or so. Then they reload and give you the thing you wanted. It's a weird fourth wall breaking moment, but hilarious.

[@deusex2005]

That game sounds fun, what is BGII?

[@GGorsty]

@@deusex2005 It's Baldurs Gate 2, i guess there.

[@gemsdirtykitchen3658]

@@deusex2005 I think this particular scene is in Throne of Bhaal expansion pack for Baldur's Gate 2, however. :-)

[@MaZeW1]

Yes, that is Baldur's Gate 2. In its expansion pack Throne Of Bhaal. Which makes this in context even more funny. That poor Lv2 party going against you, you being well into the epic level range where even gods would think twice about attacking you.

[@vizthex]

BG II?

[@HantaleMedia]

Just to add on: Players are also encouraged to save scum when the story the player wants to go through is hidden behind some non-obvious choice method. Imagine Mass Effect if you just had to guess every time which was the 'good' or 'bad' option to get the right ending. Or if dialogue options aren't very clear about what result they'll have. This probably falls under the reward category but is a bit less determinate than optimal times or game items/victory.

[@brandonalsop1281]

omg the dialogue thing. I can't tell you how many times option B will be like " I don't know, Sounds weird" and the character says, "You lieing son of a bitch, I challenge you to a duel!"

[@nekoimouto4639]

@@brandonalsop1281 Hello, L.A. Noire. Also Fallout 4 to some extend.

[@earlknit5372]

@@nekoimouto4639 Fallout 4 was awful for that kind of thing if you wanted to go with the sarcastic dialogue options. I found myself quicksaving a lot in that particular run.

[@matthewthelastnohrian6621]

3:00 Oh boy, I love fire emblem games

[@berserkboi1217]

Anytime Dorcas or any of my units die

[@Zer0kx]

Ohhhhhhh you didn't anticipate the army of knights that suddenly appeared behind you? You thought a big ocean was safe enough? TOO BAD ITS FLYING KNIGHTS By the way they all get to move before your next turn so uh oooooops now your main character permanently died oopsie woopsie

[@CodeMarbles]

Genealogy has a really good save system

[@Aristaeus89]

I had been waiting for this sort of episode, because of Fire Emblem particularly. Their save system honestly ruined the series for me. No permadeath mode isn't as engaging, and permadeath mode has a crappy, but unavoidable in practice save system.

[@renookami4651]

"noone wants to lose because of an error made a couple of turns ago, in the middle of the game" No, that was NO error, that was a 98% hit that missed followed by a 1% crit from the enemy! I want a refund of my 3 hours! Now! -every FE players ever xD

[@PANCAKEMINEZZ]

I prefer having the option to save scum, mainly because I like testing out different scenarios and outcomes. One of the best examples I can give is during my first run of Divinity Original Sin 2. I loved how the dialogue is written, and it has a bunch of branching dialogues you can have witb different characters, so I'd often just save before talking with someone just to hear all of the dialogue that would get cut off if I picked a dialogue option that leave out the others. Not to mention, there are some fights in that game that would have made me stop playing entirely if I was not able to save mid fight, and restart from certain points. The final fight in the game wreaks of this. It suffers from some bad RNG (and unknown knowledge of how the fight works with certain NPCs). If I had to restart that fight from the beginning, I don't know if I would have done it. The fact I was able to save when the right thing happened, and then I was able to carry on from there increased my fun in the game exponentially.

[@NightmareBlade10]

This is exactly how games shoild be played! The devs spent so much of their time and effort crafting an endearing world, so save scumming is a great way to explore and experiment without consequence. I feel like most games should give the player that extent of control with how they experience the game. Especially in terms of RNG, I feel it should never be a deciding factor to a battle or to make loot tedious, but the game should harness player skill as the main determining factor for the outcome of the battle.

[@thakillman7]

Given that certain choices can screw you out of personal quests (e.g. the fire trainer dude in the prison), i'd say savescumming is very intended in Divinity Original Sin 2, at least for initial playthroughs. You can't know that if your assassin talks to this dude she kills him, but that your dragon dude also needs to talk to him, and that he's also related to the cook quest chain. Not unless you savescum to figure out those paths. Or play like 5 different 60+ hour games.

[@infrabread]

As a speedrunner, Save-scumming is my life, mostly. For practice, I have save/ load bound to single keys (or macros if the game doesn't allow that). But for actual runs, I play the entire game in 1 sitting.

[@snekula5353]

@@brandonsteele2826 In many games, save-scumming is essential for cancelling momentum or skipping dialogue for speedruns.

[@maximsavage]

If you didn't do your real runs in 1 sitting, you wouldn't be a speedrunner.

[@Gnidel]

@@maximsavage Unless you do TAS.

[@729MendicantTide]

Max Savage Do runs that allow S/Q fall under this category?

[@randomawsome]

Max Savage Breath of the Wild 100% speedruns, all I have to say about that

[@shirosenshiesq]

I have zero issues with saving regularly - I refuse to call it 'save scumming,' because the term implies you are a bad player. I work 50 hours per week not including an additional 7.5 hours of travel to and from work per week, and I don't have time to sink two hours into a game on my personal time to just wind up getting knocked out and returned back to the start. I will save regularly and often to optimise my time so I get the most out of a game.

[@thakillman7]

I think it's less "this game/bug/RNG fucked me over, let me reload in stead of restarting" and more "i didn't hit my 50% chance shot let me reload until i hit it"

[@duchi882]

*We all know that moment* When your game autosaves on the worst time and place

[@SuperDeadzombeh]

We all know that moment when you save and then die a second later

[@TrueFlameslinger]

A game I played broke it's safe file like that. I QTed to a point during a timed mission, and when I reloaded I couldn't QT back nor could I run the distance in enough time.

[@andyb1653]

Creeper: **blows up my goddamn house** Minecraft: **now is a good time to autosave** Me: "FFFFFFFFFFfffFFfFFfFffffFFFFFF"

[@MoeAji]

I'm getting Half-Life flashbacks.

[@ilovethelegend]

It's really nice that more modern games keep like three or four autosaves. I remember almost getting borked in Morrowind because I drowned like three frames after tripping a quicksave door (or something similar)

[@GabeSweetMan]

The best example of the bad kind of save scumming is the SMT/Persona series and how one of the MAIN mechanics left so much up to chance it was inevitable that players would have to save scum it. For those who have played the series you already know what I'm talking about: Fusion In the SMT series you fuse your collected demons together to create more powerful demons, great in theory but in practice the way they used to implement it before 5 was that your demon's movelist was RANDOMLY SELECTED from your existing movelist of both demons and once fused you could not retry it. You were stuck with a demon that now lacks the best recovery move in the game when previously you had it with your "weaker" demon because the RNG said "No. You do not get to have this fantastic move anymore." Save scumming those fusions became a necessity because it could result in having something WORSE than what you started with when the entire purpose of the mechanic was to power up your abilities for battle. It ultimately ran counter to the intended purpose of the mechanic! Sure your demon's stats might be great but what's the point of a demon that only has 3 variations of the same stat boosting ability? Boy I'm sure glad the RNG decided my moveset needed all of them simultaneously!

[@thebravegallade731]

Actually I think p4 let you choose.

[@JojOatXGME]

An important reason why I like Life is Strange is actually that they build the possibilities of Save Scumming directly into the gameplay. In turn, they had more control over the mechanic.

[@danilooliveira6580]

I wish more games did that actually, where you are badass because you have the ability to turn back time. because as a player, that is usually why you kick so many ass in the game.

[@Darkbirdy]

Unfortunately, a lot of developers seem to counter it by eliminating manual saving entirely. The problem is that they tend to forget that players don't always consume their games in the ideal situation they planned for - hours on end to play until they decide to stop. In the real world, players (like myself) have responsibilities. We have kids, we have wives, we get phone calls from relatives needing help, we have houses that need cleaned before it is time to get the kids from school, and so forth. Nothing is more frustrating than finally getting 40 minutes free before having to quit again, sitting down to play, and discovering that all of the games you have going require longer periods than you have to make progress. More than once I've had to walk away without playing anything because I couldn't risk getting into an hour-long mission where having to quit halfway through would reset it.

[@CarbonRollerCaco]

@Danny BRITZMAN Those are called "suspend points".

[@adambebb99]

Oh, a video on that thing I have definitely never done, especially in EU4

[@koenbobeldijk]

What do you mean save scumming in eu4, i always press the alt f4 button by accident on in hindsight exactly the right moment

[@DasNetzwerk]

Surely not, not even for 'the three mountains' achievement ;-)

[@netbotcl586]

@@koenbobeldijk Why do you press Alt+F4? My game always automatically crashes on that moment

[@sledgemann6683]

Damn bro why'd my game crash right when my 6-6-6 hier died and I got a 0-1-2? Weird.

[@tonigym3061]

Oh look a bird! Oh no, my game crashed while I wasn't looking.

[@Ryuko-T72]

EU4: Heres a new 6/6/6 Heir Me: Nice Eu4: Oops a hunting accident haha... ALT+F4 Me: Not so fast...

[@hiddentreasure2161]

EU4: "Noble demand recompensation!" Me: *Oops my game "crashed"*

[@benismann]

CTRL+ALT+DELETE Coz alt+F4 dont work for everyone

[@Kapin05]

Save scumming is super useful in bad Half-Life mods where the visuals aren't always reliable. Sometimes you never know if that barrel really _is_ explosive and you just gotta quicksave and check.

[@PlebNC]

I'm imagining Gordon Freeman cautiously sneaking up on a barrel, slowly giving it the mostly gingerly tap with his crowbar, then it cuts to stock nuclear bomb detonation footage before the camera pans back to reveal Gordon flinching and the barrel unharmed. Then the barrel explodes.

[@Isolanporzellator]

As a player, I prefer to be able to choose how to enjoy my games. If that includes savescumming or cheating, so be it.

[@dynamicworlds1]

Ironman modes to optionally make a game autosave only and permadeath are great for this.

[@talongreenlee7704]

This is how I feel towards using commands in games like Minecraft that really let you tweak how the game works, or in Morrowind, where I can use “cheats” to skip over boring parts of the main quest line (like the part where you stop adventuring and questing to slog through a whole bunch of politics right before the game gives you a powerful artifact and lets you fight the big bad).

[@theseabassi9638]

Heck, save scumming is practically a design feature in Fire Emblem - do I let the cute anime unit die, or play the last half hour again? Were they that important to my army? Can I deal with the slog that was this chapter a second time? Good times.

[@sajanpatel4956]

Fire emblem was designed so that you wouldn’t initially. They have a surplus of characters so that you can still continue after some of them die.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Yeah, that's why I can't get into FE games. I legitimately hate being put into situations where I would have to replay large chunks of gameplay to avoid poor outcomes. (And that's not to even speak of games like the original Homeworlds, where your failures stack up over time and you can easily get into legitimately unwinnable situations after hours and hours of play.)

[@michaelkeen7274]

Three Houses invented a new mechanic to incorporate this tactic. You get 1-3 or so (depending on map I bet) times you can rewind time to any point of the battle and try again. Pretty cool

[@sajanpatel4956]

MR. K This mechanic isn’t new. Mila’s Turnwheel in FE Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. I’m pretty sure the divine pulse in Three Houses will function the same, where you have the same number of uses every battle, with the player being able to expand the number of uses.

[@CarmsCelestia]

@Omar Valentini And here is me, playing an older game which means reloading the entire chapter every time a level up has a bad roll.... Reason I stopped playing tbh

[@interstellarsurfer]

I didn't even know Save Scumming was frowned upon, by anyone. I *love* the mechanic. As long as I have enough save slots available, I'll play through a game once as intended, then go back and replay numerous times via saves. Makes the game into a meta-game, and adds a lot of entertainment value for me.

[@bennemann]

Many games: "save-scumming will ruin your fun" Life is Strange: *hold my beer*

[@shino4242]

"Oh, I didn't realize YOU get to decide how I have fun mr. game dev"

[@Iron_Soil]

Nah uh it makes the game more fun

[@hoid8069]

@@shino4242Exactly! If I'm in a boss fight, saving every time I make progress is a much more enjoyable experience for me than dying and having to start all over. No one gets to tell me otherwise. That's why I've never understood the argument that save scumming ruins the experience.

[@JaxHolo]

Story of seasons: Hold My Weather.

[@mcdrums87]

For games like Dishonored, I like doing the 100% non-lethal playthrough, but sometimes there’s an accident. Save-scumming is how I get through these playthroughs, but I don’t think that’s necessary. So as a suggestion: Custom failure states. Basically, if you want a nonlethal run, you flip a switch and the game will autosave and game-over when you kill a character. Want to do a “ghost” run? Add a switch for that. It somewhat solves the save-scumming “issue”, but by opening up new ways of building the game, and possibly offering additional modes and challenges for players.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Has there ever been a stealth game that didn't effectively require savescumming? They're just so semi-random, and usually with too many enemies outside of the player's view that they realistically cannot handle without multiple attempts and memorization.

[@zpinn8242]

And maybe add a stat for how many times you got the game-over state too. Because if I'd do a Ghost run that way, I could always just run out in the open if I felt like reloading for some other reason. Just showing the number could discourage players from quick-loading by intentionally failing.

[@kebabremoveth5257]

Save scumming helped me get good at eu4 so I think its fine

[@raymarquardt5157]

Please never take manual saves away from the player - I understand the desire, but it the real world, where you might have to jump of from the game at any time, or your computer might crash, or your electricity could go out... having to replay 30 min, or even 5 min, of a game just because you couldn't say "Hey! I'm sticking a bookmark right here for later." isn't fun for anyone. Is punishing ALL your players because you are afraid some of them might enjoy save scumming a good design choice?

[@shino4242]

Agree 100%

[@Ninjamanhammer]

Plenty of games don't have manual saves. If your computer crashes during a Dark Souls boss you go back to your last bonfire. Why does strategy games have to be different?

[@sabbathjackal]

@@Ninjamanhammer and those games are frustrating as hell. One of the great triumphs of modern gaming is the save anywhere feature. I cant tell you how many RPGs I've quit just because I couldn't find a ave spot and had to lose hrs of my games. Oh wait I can Final fantasy 4-12.

[@funkyenby5794]

Ray Marquardt it’s like if books didn’t let you insert bookmarks until the ends of chapters

[@yosha2467]

You're replaying 5 minutes over and over anyways out of sheer entitlement. If your PC crashes / electricity goes out so damn often the game is the least of your concerns.

[@CruzaComplex]

Great video. You guys touch on a lot of great points, and I'd like to offer an opinion on a couple that I consider relevant: 1. RNG inherently favors the AI. Outcomes of RNG are more potentially damaging to the player and less potentially beneficial to the player because AI difficulty is often balanced around it being fundamentally worse at decision making than a player. This is compensated for by giving the AI more stats in such a way that any player with the same advantages would never lose. As such, chance-based bonuses or maluses are more beneficial to the side with higher base numbers and more units on the ground to roll the dice. A group of 20 kobolds is pretty likely to get at least one crit, while a group of four player-units isn't. Just the same, a player doing 15 damage instead of 10 isn't as impactful as an enemy doing 23 damage instead of 15, despite the percentage increase being the same. The bigger you make these numbers, the more likely it is you'll hit a break point. You guys pretty obviously hinted at Fire Emblem being the poster child of this. The enemy getting a 3% crit proc means I permanently lose a character. Generally speaking, it's impossible to "play perfectly" and prevent this chance from ever happening. However, if *I* get that same 3% crit, I get...nothing. A trivial amount of exp? I was probably attacking with a unit that couldn't be retaliated against anyway, or one I felt could survive if it did. The AI gets way more out of RNG than the player. 2. This all assumes the game runs well and doesn't have performance issues, and that it does a good job explaining its mechanics. I absolutely always save-scum in situations where I identify a glitch interfering with progress, or where the game's poor performance resulted in my death, or where an AI companion does something bat-shit insane and gets *itself* killed.

[@hockeater]

There's another option to combat common information based save scumming. Give the info that would be obtained by save scumming on the first attempt. Otherwise known as the mark of the ninja method. Similarly if we RPG boys and I have to pick between two mutually exclusive things, TELL ME MY OPTIONS SO I CAN MAKE AN INFORMED DECISION DAMMIT! I'mma learn it anyways so cut out the middleman.

[@Darkbirdy]

And don't do a Bioware where you have a character-defining or world-changing decision, but only give the players three-word summaries that don't convey what those options actually represent. When you do, saving and reloading is the only way to actually say what I intended to say.

[@hockeater]

@@Darkbirdy That's a lucky day at Bioware. Actually having the option you want to say.

[@DanVzare]

Exactly, this right here is what I'm talking about! Having to abuse the save system for trial and error, is bad game design. Literally everyone in the adventure gaming community have been saying that for decades!

[@Alex-wo1bs]

sometimes save scumming can do good, like in shiny hunting on pokemon ps: I'm a spanish native speaker and let me tell you that you did well on 6:28

[@Theraot]

y Jaslo lo más posEtivo posible para el jugador

[@drakan4769]

yup, only real mistake was the H (always silent), but we're used to people tripping there

[@Theraot]

@@drakan4769 Cha che chi cho chu

[@Jebbtube]

I'm always for more control in my games. Being able to reload previous saves is never a bad thing, but if you design your game well, players will never need to.

[@bificommander7472]

I never finished Valkyria Chronicles because I didn't like how it handled hidden information, and was kind of encouraging save scumming, except without a save system. See, as the game progresses the battles become not just harder, but start including surprises that weren't in the mission briefing. At first that's fine, it makes for a nice difficulty curve to be asked to improvise. But towards the end of the game the surprises keep getting bigger and harder to improvise around as they happen, which leads to having to restart the whole level (as there's no in-battle saves) with knowledge of the surprise in mind. The last level I finished actually starts with an insignificant enemy force on the map and an allied invulerable super unit. Once the enemy has been beaten you lose the super unit, and two enemy supertanks with long range weapons and a big support army appear from off map at two locations. The only way to beat that with any reasonable statistics in losses and turn count is to have your forces pre-placed at those two spawn points. After that, I lost my enthousiasm for the next mission. My immersion was gone. I didn't feel like a battlefield commander responding to an enemy. I was just seeing how the next mission would screw me so I could restart the whole thing and pre-emptively screw the game back.

[@PittBullBytes]

god i hated that mission. worst mission design in the game in my opinion. even i had to take a break. luckily, i accepted the game as a puzzle game at that point, using trial and error tactics to see what worked. but i totally understand why you quit. i don't think my way of thinking is what the developer had in mind

[@Karanthaneos]

I think it should be particularly emphasized that save scumming as a mechanic should be treated with extreme care, because using it as a justification of bad design can be lethal. "Oh, it's not that the game intentionally presented you with a situation that you couldn't win unless you failed at least once, it was inteded that way" Of course, that can be subverted if the whole narrative of that section or the whole game compliments that behaviour. Braid comes to my mind, because you can manipulate time and it has a quick restart system, you can go and watch the pieces of the puzzle unfold before trying to work out a strategy to solve it. Watching things unfold towards its "fail state" is what makes the whole game. Making what it's usually considered a mistake into something great requieres thorough understanding and study of that topic in order to know how to subvert it. Great video as always, thank you very much.

[@SergioBobillierC]

Save Scumming taken to the next level: Having your save game folder sync to Dropbox. You can restore to whatever version of the file you want. And I'm proud of it.

[@jadechrysalis8428]

As someone who suffers from high anxiety, permadeath can be super stressful for me. Roguelikes have become super popular and a lot of them are games I would play and enjoy if they didn't have permadeath. So to get around this I use save scumming, usually with online save backups, and this has allowed me to play through and enjoy a decent amount of games I never would have been able to play.

[@dragonfell5078]

I feel you man, the very real risk of permanent death in a game just makes you more anxious

[@user-ri8ps6cl4w]

@@dragonfell5078 same but why tf people feel the need to explain themselves when liking saving, if that is how to enjoy the game then no one is allowed to shame you

[@NA-mg2eb]

Same here. One of these days I'm finally gonna fo the homework and figure out how to set up a virtual machine so I can arbitrarily create save states in anything I run

[@lars0me]

Now i want to see a time travel themed game where save scumming is the main mechanic with a million different options and conditions on when and how to use them - classic reload - keep your items, boni, mali, injuries - old you is still there, things happen if you interact - unintended consequences (e.g. RNG gets worse each time) - save scum mana, cooldowns, places, currencies, items, ... - save limits (e.g. trapped in a bossfight, no save across this timeframe, save duration, save window, save decay, one take condition, number of saves...) - irrevocable actions (e.g. perma deth if you don't protect the time machine, voluntarily giving it away) - lasting effects (e.g. reload to save a character but their death stays on the score, reload but dead npcs stay dead) - others remember - absolute time limit, ability to fast-forward

[@meganinja456]

Those are great ideas!

[@tyraelarchangel183]

So you want a way more robust/lasting Prince of Persia game?

[@wsgthebg]

As someone who mods their games (sometimes) over the line of instability, I appreciate save systems that allow me to save/load anytime, with unlimited save slots, autosaves and quick way to make new saves. (Not overriding old saves saved me so many times.) Also if the saves thamselves are easy to edit/corect that is big plus. Curently my favorite save format is from Rimworld, it is basically easy to read xml, it makes altering saves easy even without much knowledge of the game / game code and you don't even need third party software, notepad is all you need.

[@wsgthebg]

Just want to add, that if you like me, check your saves folder size from time to time. I have around 15GB of Skyrim saves, had to move older saves to another folder because Skyrim had heartattack everytime it tried to display saves list. Honestly it was little entertaining being able to scroll faster than the saves ware buffering, like "Hey, Skyrim do I have selected save #6456?" "Just wait, I am still on save #6789." and then 15 seconds later finally buffer the names of curently selected save.

[@NightmareBlade10]

@@wsgthebg Jesus christ I cannot recommend this enough. I have so many bethesda games in my library, each with over a thoudand saves (force of habit due to crashes and the like) and holy crap do they take up tons of space.

[@thanatosdriver1938]

I will say that this can be ESPECIALLY aggravating when you were supposed to savescum but never did and didn't know you should have. Xcom 1 I'm looking at you

[@s4nti127]

Thanatos Driver but, you aren’t supposed to savescum in xcom, the point of the game is to react and adapt to your failures

[@dddmemaybe]

that's why we also need good autosaves

[@KuraIthys]

By Xcom 1 are you talking oldschool or remake? Because those things are very different from one another...

[@sametea3597]

Saving the game should be as convenient and controllable by the player as possible. Spoiler warning: Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a game I play with two of my friends. My brother is a hardcore win-maxer and my other friend seeks emersion in that game. So when a Spidergirl decides to rob my brothers Tank 2 Constitution, one would argue that he fall into a trap and emersion whise he should suffer that malus. He would want to reload the save so he doesn't have a scar on his win-maxed tank. The game should allow save scumming so both players have the opportunity to play the game in a for them enjoyable manner. If it's an option, everyone has the choice to use it. (Just like difficulty in dark souls.) To rob a fraction of the player base from the option via autosaves can't be right.

[@supercables251]

This reminds me of the stelth episode. Likewise, i would say: *If you don't want people to save scum; avoid permanently punishing the player for a decision they made. Allow many other ways to recover besides reloading.* In mark of the ninja, being spotted once in the entire level means less honor and less upgrades. In Invisible INC, you could get spotted a few times, and still get a good haul.

[@DaikoruArtwin]

Me saving in front of every single trainer in Pokemon games. Bad childhood habits. But honestly, I only do Save scumming because I don't want to face the penalty of death. If there's litterally no penalty, or it's ignorable, then I pretty much only save when I need to stop playing.

[@addisonrahn7984]

One thing I think leads to save scumming is actually time constraints. Y’all talked about it ages ago, but Fire Emblem has been a bit notorious in the past for sending in random enemy reinforcements *behind* you halfway through an hour-long battle. Well, I appreciate the designers’ intent of making your decisions matter through permadeath (at least for Classic FE titles), but there’s nothing quite like losing a favorite character, or worse yet, losing the entire *hour long match* because of randomness and having to restart. So for another example, the first Dark Souls has a 5-minute trek to the final boss arena. I wouldn’t want to save scum dark souls because it destroys the atmosphere the devs were intending to make, but I also longed for save states so I didn’t have to waste 5 minutes of my life just to try again. So situations like that lead to save scumming too, because people don’t want to face the time penalty of failure. I guess you could always encourage that sort of try-retry save scumming like Prince of Persia in a 4th wall breaking setting where you’re encouraged to reload at all times if something doesn’t go right. That could actually be pretty cool, especially if the game straight up made it a mechanic.

[@BootsThaRareBirb]

That ending is perfect! Wait, let's try that again.

[@KarolaTea]

Molten floppy disk looks cool, just as cool as save scumming can be. Let people save scum if they wanna. PushingUpRoses made a great video on why save slots are super useful (particularly in adventure games, but can be applied to several genres). If you don't want people to save scum then make 'losing' fun. Pretty sure there's a video on that subject on this channel. Just removing the option to save, even if it doesn't come with having to replay hours, or other frustrations, just feels like something is missing, to me at least. I play a lot of point & click adventure games and pretty much all of them have generous save slots, so that's what I expect. If a standard p&c game just doesn't have them... it feels lacking. And those are often games without a fail state. All you're losing is the ability to replay a scene, see what other dialogue options would've resulted in for example. I recently played one where the dev wanted to encourage people to replay the game whole with different options, and take their choices more seriously (one of those meaningful decisions and multiple paths games), which is fair... but not all people have the time to replay the whole game several times, but might still be interested in the different paths you put in there. Inscentivise people to replay several times with achievements instead. I recently started playing (?) visual novels and I looooove that they let you scroll back through the dialogue and try different options (or at least the one I played haha). Although in some games it bothers me less, mainly if there actually is something to scum about, actually are wrong options or dead ends. The Red Strings Club comes to mind. It felt ok to just keep on playing with my mistakes, re-loading kinda tempting in a way, but it actually would've felt a bit scummy, instead of just curious. And there's absolutely games where I never reload, despite having the option to do so. So yanno, just give players the option, they'll know how they best enjoy your game ^_^ I guess a save-scumming puzzler would be Life is Strange?

[@lively2774]

save scumming is... inevitable AND I AM IRON MAN

[@ariefachmadi5027]

is this paradox references

[@Phil9874]

hold on let me reload the save Iron man wasn't supposed to survive that last turn.

[@Inogat]

I see what you did here ^^

[@leaftune4427]

That... that was a really clever stealth pun.

[@philippemarcil2004]

I use save scumming when I am learning a new complex strategy game. When I began playing Europa Universalis I used save scumming to learn about what happen when I go to war against an opponent or I messed my diplomatic approach when I was trying some options. I found the more complex the game, the more I need to learn and the more I use save scumming at the beginning. I think to reduce save scumming further, it would be nice to have more information on the possible outcome of an action (ex.: sticking with EU: what will likely happen if you attack Venice?).

[@jonnunn4196]

On let's play videos, I actually see a lot of screens with info on this. On the war declaration screen, there's who they'll bring in vs who you'll bring in. And on one of the screens is military strength broken between army and navy along with other stats.

[@brockmckelvey7327]

I'm really excited for the new Fire Emblem (three houses) because it has a feature that lets you rewind turns (even up to the beginning of the level). It's the quality of life improvement that's gonna get me back into the series. P.S. I think another title also had this feature, but I didn't hear about it until 3 houses.

[@seqka711]

I can and have read a book by starting in the middle, reading to the end, and then going back to the beginning. That kind of freedom in a game is basically unheard of.

[@lorehunter3182]

Sometimes Saving is necessary because when you play games like fallout that tend to crash you might lose a lot of items or have to redo some quest.

[@moosemaimer]

Tool-assisted speedrunning is this concept, crystallized. Every game becomes a puzzle game where the metagoal is finding the minimum number of steps (i.e. frames) to complete the goal.

[@HandmadeGoose97]

Imagine selling quick saves in real life. "Hey I got some quick saves, you buying?"

[@beskamir5977]

I'd pay infinite money for such a feature since the power to save and load would grant me with everything.

[@enoughofyourkoicarp]

Prince of Persia had a built-in save scumming system, the fact that you'd screw up a jump and plummet to your inevitable death then need to reload was handled in a fashion that didn't break immersion or ruin the flow of the game-play, where-as having to go through a menu and a loading screen just to rewind a few seconds can sometimes feel clunky and frustrating, especially if it's a tricky sequence of jumps designed to take a few seconds and winds up taking five minutes and requiring half a dozen reloads. I sometimes find that that kind of thing can make what is supposed to be a fun, dynamic, badass experience feel frustrating. I can't think of any examples off-hand but there have been a few games I sat down to play through a second time, thought about a particularly torturous section or level and decided to play literally anything else, a few of those times it has been down to something like this and could have been resolved through an integrated "whoops" mechanic.

[@VarenRoth]

Prince of Persia is a great example of how to implement checkpoints and the control of "quick saves" without actually adding quick saves. Would've been a great example to bring up in the vid!

[@markeos7753]

For a specific example you could have talked about paradox interactive.

[@DasNetzwerk]

comet sighted!

[@markeos7753]

Reply noticed

[@bananatassium7009]

Save scumming is perfectly fine IMO. I think this is ingrained into the brains of many people who played Pokemon (or another game that has some sort of save-scum like behaviour) growing up, and I think it's important. The term "Save scumming" really diminishes the method, honestly, as I think the player should have total liberty to play with or without the methodology, and the sort of puzzle things become when you can save scum is great.

[@thebakerofbananabread3237]

I said the word XCOM aloud, at least 70 times throughout the video

[@Kwjehehebebb]

That's roughly an xcom every 7 seconds. Coincidentally, I save my xcom games about every 7 seconds.

[@johnuferbach9166]

Shadow Tactucs: Blades if the Shogun... it has a timer that shows the time since your last safe and reminds you every minute that you haven't saved for a long time^^

[@thakillman7]

Also very much intended for XCOM i think. High rewards for successful missions, high punishment for unsuccessful missions, generous save system? Ticks all the boxes for "intended save scumming". Especially missing 99% shots.

[@SpacedFrank5551]

The comparison to puzzle games is 100% accurate. Using each save as an opportunity to gather more information until you have a complete picture to “solve” the encounter. Very insightful as always guys ❤️

[@NightmareBlade10]

Freaking love save scumming as it gives the player more control in general with how they want to play the game. Frankly I see it as a way to explore so many choices I wouldn't normally have considered to take without stressing over whether or not the choice was best. I play tons of bethesda games, and I read a fair bit of choose your own adventure books (or I guess they're called "game-books" or something) when I'm not, so save scumming makes the experience much more enjoyable to me!

[@LordTrashcanRulez]

"Without stressing over whether the choice was best or not" the problem is that the whole point of the choice is to make you stress yourself. Reloading basically fucks up that stress, and makes you feel like a god regardless of where you are in the game.

[@Iron_Soil]

​@@LordTrashcanRulezand feeling like a god is fun? And the games are suposed to be fun?

[@LordTrashcanRulez]

@@Iron_Soil Fun comes in different kinds. There's fun for playing as a god, like in sandbox games. Then there's the fun that comes from challenging yourself, which doesn't work with save scumming.

[@laterkater4213]

The note at the end about making save scumming the point of the game turning the game into a puzzle game is why I see the Hitman series as puzzle games. I flipping love them for that reason.

[@thakillman7]

The hitman series isn't considered a puzzle game? Isn't that like the main appeal, figuring out creative ways to kill the enemy?

[@George_M_]

You skipped Xcom2's solution: putting the choice in player hands and having some of the coolest stuff happen in non optimal outcomes.

[@magus2342]

As an avid HOI4 player, let me tell you: Ironman mode autosaves do NOT prevent save scumming. Look, I can Alt-Tab out and copy over a save file. Been doing that kind of crap since windowed Roguelikes.

[@CarbonRollerCaco]

You not only cheated the blah, but yada

[@benismann]

In eu4 u don't even need to manipulate files. Game has %save_name%_backup for u:)

[@DakotaScott42]

That moment when you realize that the protagonist from Katana Zero literally has the power of save scumming.

[@diegelbeseegurke2116]

Re Zero?

[@DakotaScott42]

@@diegelbeseegurke2116 Yeah, Zero.

[@Dice-Z]

Re:Zero =/= Katana Zero But they do both get something like that.

[@aberomoa5149]

Monster Hunter World in a nutshell: Save scumming to Snipe a decoration at the Elder Melder. Save scumming your Gold reward investigations to try to Snipe a Large/Small crown. InB4: "i GoT aLl mY sTuFf lEgItImAtElY". Good for you, good for being the right person at the right time at the right place.

[@KaiTenSatsuma]

Gotta wait for those Lavasioth events mate.

[@jarredingersoll2772]

Thats a cursed image if i have ever seen one

[@BigTuk]

If you don't want players to savescum.. design your game better. Give them the information and tools they need.

[@MarouaneTF]

In ace attorney T&T in case 2 or 5 if you save scum even if you choose the right evidence but reseted when you chose the wrong answer you will always get as if you chose the wrong answer

[@Sayvonite]

Into the Breach solved save scumming by making it a gameplay feature. The mech pilots are time travelers so going back in time to get the perfect outcome is actually the goal of the game. The rounds load quickly and there are turn limits with a single-use "reset turn" button. That way, you wont feel like you wasted a lot of time only to fail and make the player think whether or not it is a good idea to reset a turn because there is only one use.

[@YondaMoegi]

As someone who likes interactive stories, a huge amount of saving slots is my life. Saving is especially useful when the results of your choices depend on the skills system and the text itself fails to deliver what kind of skill will be used. And when there's no save system at all, I'll just drop the game when the story gets too anxiety inducing (looking at you, Choice of Games!)

[@kevmclarty]

I think you nailed it with the puzzle game comment. I played Dishonored 2 on hard going for a non lethal ghost run. The entire game felt like a puzzle. Quick saving and reloading was integral for me to complete this run. Every level was a puzzle of how to take out which characters in what order to avoid all detection

[@varana]

It's 2019. We should let people save wherever and whenever they want and reload whatever savegame they wish, by now. Really. "Let me choose a save for you" - how about hell no?!? I want to play my game as I want to, so please don't meddle with that, thank you very much. Pre-determined save points are a crutch for developers who can't figure out how to save their game state at any given moment; there's no other valid reason, in my opinion. Being able to sayve and reload at any given time, should be the standard, really. Also, bonus points for a save format that lets me tinker with the save.

[@Stettafire]

Agreed

[@DragoniteSpam]

Given the chance, players will optimize the fun out of a game, Soren Johnson. Just food for thought!

[@chakatfirepaw]

One thing that encourages me to save scum is when the AI is blatantly cheating in a strategy game. For instance, when the AI always 'just knows' the one exact route it needs to take to kill the wounded unit I moved away from it¹, or when the combat odds are not honestly presented. If the game is going to cheat against me, I have no qualms in cheating right back. Another, perfectly OK, time to save scum is found in some porn games: You save, intentionally lose to get the 'game over' scene, then reload to search for the next sexy loss. 1: I actually tested this one once in FreeCIv. The AI had to guess right from the very first step for its ship to attack mine, but needed to move two tiles with that one unit before it could see which space I had moved it to. It 'guessed' right a dozen times in a row, no matter which space I retreated to, before I said fsck this and went into edit mode.

[@danieladamczyk4024]

Dude most porn game have gallery mode.

[@CarbonRollerCaco]

Sonic Shuffle. The AI CHOOSES how far to move AND knows your cards.

[@TodayLifeIsGoood]

i save scum when the alternative is needlessly frustrating. When that actually is, depends much on the game and the moment.

[@Hanesboi]

So many missed opportunities to mention the GBA Fire Emblem games or Genealogy of the Holy War. Also good one that the save file is a recreation from FF1's SCUM enemy

[@Kiederen]

TearRing Saga, a 2001 turn based strategy game developed by early Fire Emblem designer Shouzou Kaga, had a weapon called the "Memory Staff" that, when used, gave the player a mid-chapter save point. I always found it a fascinating solution to save scumming in that kind of game because it turns creating a mid-chapter save point into finite resource (it also required that you commit your staff user's action for that turn). The Memory Staff had 18 uses and iirc, you got three of them, total. Even spread out over the whole game, it's a pretty generous number of uses, but the fact that it's still a limited number did discourage repeated abuse.

[@MorbidEel]

Eh ... I don't see the big deal with this. On the other hand games that stick checkpoints right before some long unskippable cut scene can DIAF. =_=

[@MorbidEel]

@Danny BRITZMAN yes

[@CarbonRollerCaco]

Would you rather they be after long unreplayable cutscenes?

[@roverbernhard4489]

tHeR'S nO waY yoU'Re taKiNG KaiRi'S heaRT

[@firox6559]

Katana Zero is all about reloading so that you can try that level again without dying. It turns save-scumming into a gameplay mechanic and a narrative component of the story. Enemies die in one hit, and so do you, so you are bound to have to reload a level over and over until you can dodge weapons, reflect bullets, and slice every last enemy in "one go", and move onto the next screen. The story implications are less meta than in Undertale though, since it's in the game's lore that the protagonist is on this drug that enables him to rewind time when he dies. There's also no save feature in the game. It simply auto-saves at the beginning of the screen, and you just go through the game one screen/area at a time. There is a chapter select however, where the story-altering choices you make by going back to previous chapters override the ones you have already made. You start to think about the story the same way the protagonist does, where you can just rewind the entire story, make a change, and then fast-forward to the end to see that change realized. Most of the bosses know about the protagonist's power and fear him for it, since they know that he has died to them countless times, and has mastered their attacks already. Basically, no one can kill the protagonist, 'cause he'll just save-scum until he emerges victorious "first try".

[@cloudbloom]

I'm an unapologetic save-scummer with single player games

[@DanVzare]

Isn't everyone? I mean, name five multiplayer-only games where you can save scum? I personally can't even name one!

[@lonesenpai3390]

I loved listening to "The dead drink first" by Dale Maharidge. It is non-fiction about a journalist whom goes about trying to find and bring home a soldier that died it WW2 whilst fighting the Japanese on Okinawa. It was an emotional read at times and I loved it far more than anything else that I listened too.

[@hrvojekelemenic3590]

I liked the theory behind Link's true power as a wielder of a piece of the Triforce. While Zelda had the knowledge to predict the future and Ganon had incredible power of creation and destruction - Link had received the greatest power of all and was called the hero of time for a reason, for he had the courage to rewrite the future... by reloading the save file.

[@ve2dmn]

While in the KSP community, I heard this a lot :"There is no wrong way to play". It's a single-player game. You are the agent of your enjoyement and if that means installing 25mods that give you super powers or total information awareness.... It's your game. Enjoy! This rule apply to ANY single player experience in my opinion.

[@thatjeff7550]

"Save Scumming?" Sounds like a term used by players who say things like, "If you haven't played [X] then you're not a REAL gamer..." and the like.....

[@feudela4357]

I love that Morrowind freely allowed savescumming and rationalized it as being part of the “threads of fate.” One of the game’s Tribunal, Vivec, will outright refuse to fight you because he knows he can never defeat you if you try hard enough through save-loading due to his understanding of the “dream.”

[@ariefachmadi5027]

*Play as Byzantium* *Copy Autosave* *Lose first war agaisnt ottomans* *ALT-F4* *Load Autosave*

[@MrCount84]

Cough cough Roman Empire cough

[@benismann]

Why? Way easier to just restart lol, u played 5 years max

[@funniguy5482]

Which game

[@yankychannels]

@@funniguy5482 eu4

[@lawrieward4471]

HITMAN (2016) and HITMAN 2 are designed with save scumming as an intended pillar of the experience and they are both, indeed, puzzle games. Spot on analysis.

[@MrAnonyM00SE]

Honestly I didnt know this was ever a "bad" thing to do. I always thought thats how you play video games. Big boss battle? well I better save.

[@thakillman7]

Saving before a bossfight isn't savescumming.

[@ruthswann88]

It's more like saving after every move during battle and reloading if you take damage/don't get a crit

[@TheCreepypro]

not just a good video but I also love how that last bit perfectly emphasizes your point

[@Asteroid_Jam]

You all know doing this for the elite four and champion in any Pokémon game. Also FireEmblem.

[@hallowacko]

boy i still love the half life system. i had the headcannon that Gordon Freeman's powers (to contrast with the G-man's powers) was to save and reload. allow saving everywhere, and craft your story sooooo perfectly, that people dont wanna reload, because it would break the flow of the story events.

[@wastedspam385]

Who doesn't hate watching the same 30+ seconds long unskippable cutscene 20 times because the game autosaves BEFORE the cutscene instead of after.

[@danieldeak9141]

Save scumming in an animated video. You absolute legend.

[@MrGregory777]

Save scumming is a legitimate strategy.

[@favioferreira8921]

Me and my brother used to play Civilization II together growing up. Our empire always had this mystic device called "The Orb of a Time". With it you can return time to any date you input into it. Before any mass scale invasion, he would always declare "Input this date into the orb of time!" It's how we tied save scumming into the games narrative so it wouldn't eject us from the experience.

[@sactus_the_cactus88]

Every time both a problem and solution came up,I could only think of Rimworld

[@peggyliepmann5248]

I had one experience with a game where save scumming was the only way I could get through a section of a game, and it made one of the characters feel like a badass. Years ago, I got the Game Boy Advance version of Final Fantasy 1&2 Dawn of Souls. During the Souls of Rebirth dungeon, I ended up with two characters KO'd after using all their available magic to keep them alive that far, with the one surviving party member, who didn't have magic or healing items, forced to make his way through a cavern full of monsters to reach the eventual fourth party member. Literally the only way I could get through that section was to inch forward, save, inch forward, save, inch forward, random encounter, instantly dead, restart, inch forward, save. It was incredibly nerve wracking, but also really fun, because it gave me the mental image of these characters going through a stealth section/gauntlet of trials, desperately trying not to die. To this day, that's how I envision that whole section of the story, like if I had the chance, that would be in a movie adaptation. I know I still have that game and my old GBA SP. I should try and dig them up sometime...