What's the point of Save Points; a discussion -

I think that's actually the point of that mechanic, and it's why I think it's pretty okay to use. The alternative is a hard dump back at the title screen with all progress lost, so at least losing half of your gold to keep your progress gives the player a choice.

Exactly why I decided on that model for my continue function. And also why, as I just noted, it is important to frequently cross-check spawn balance against loadout balance (a spear-class weapon that's overpowered as [EXPLETIVE] for when it becomes feasible to buy one is just not cool, let alone what you get when dealing with spawns that themselves could use re-balancing after a major change to the flow of your game... and any skill effect calculations by extension thereof).

I know that that is the point, but is it a real choice for the player if it potentially puts them into an unwinnable spiral? Both in games and in RL, I am never pleased to be given a false choice, one where in fact a particular option is non-viable. It can be done well (though rarely, in my experience) if, as I said, the dev has looked carefully at their economy and taken into consideration the cost of gear, and the level of its necessity, before deciding to take 50% of a player's money.

Which is exactly what I ran into when I realized that I had such overpowered weapons and armours in the first place. That being said, I do have a game centre mechanic that somewhat counterbalances this fact, although it's obviously not always gonna be available. In fact, the first big plot twist in my third chapter basically cuts loose in the streets at one point to where there's so much in terms of neighbourhood mayhem that nobody wants to do business. And not just the game centre, but it essentially affects the whole township as they either shut down or bolt the doors, and in both cases literally.

I'll admit, most of the time when I've faced that choice in games, I opt to reset because MUH GOLD! Well, and because I tend to be a chronic saver in the first place. There have been times though when I've already spent most of my gold, done a fair amount of leveling only to encounter the "bos in mook's clothing" that wipes the floor with me. During those times, I take the gold hit because I'm not losing much in the first place so it's not that much of a setback.

What bugs me more about that system, primarily in Dragon Quest games, is that you not only lose half of your gold, but you also have to pay to resurrect your dead party members which can often total more than what you can afford after paying the death tax. In those cases, even when you want to just continue with the gold penalty, you might decide to reload anyway because grinding to get the rest of your party back is atrocious and unfun in nearly every regard.

Which for simplicity is the only part of the penalty I decided against. Basically rough immediate actually... I don't think in my case that I want to go that far and have everyone else still ringing like they're knocked out of play just because you had to pay the price to go back to the last checkpoint you saved at. In other words, my design has the full recovery included in the cost of continuance - no further actions required, nor any questions thereof.

EDIT: And now I know why this approach works best for me. I just got my [expletive] wiped playtesting my way through to my next objective in the current workload, and had I not popped a checkpoint marker at the very start of the underground access road I'd have been sent back to the forest where the fourth member of my crew gets involved (and where I'd absolutely have to pay the healing cost if I wasn't including it at no extra charge upon the player's already-inconvenienced progression setback).

EDIT 2: On a semi-related note, if you discover that you overpriced a necessary upgrade in the process (as I just did) then you have even more of a problem than it's worth meaning you have to dial back even more.

I could absolutely see this being problematic, but then it doesn't have to be half gold, it could be any cost. Maybe you buy "life mushrooms" (of super mario fame) ahead of time and it saves you from game overs, teleporting you to your last save on death. Maybe it only costs 25% of your gold. Dragon Quest is actually very nice about it in a few regards, all of which I'd take after;
1) Exp is definitely worth it. Most of the series is already built around getting enough gold to buy everything at the new shop, which nicely hides the fact you are grinding (I find grinding to a known goal far less tedious than level grinding, and often it actual is less work). Further upside, if I made it 90% through a hard dungeon before dying, then I'll have higher levels and stats for the second time around. Plus, I'll get all that gold back going through a second time.
2) There are loads of ways it blatantly helps the player get around the loss. Gold can be stored in banks (and other games use a similar Gold Bar system). Iron Cage (Vault?) keeps you from losing the gold. As stated above, going through the dungeon a second time makes you end up with more gold (you lost half of what you got there, then got the whole amount a second time). Loot still sticks around, so you don't lose the Staff of Awesome.
3) In some games (maybe just 4?) you have a wagon of back up members. Party wipe suddenly? If it's not a boss, run away and cast those Outsides and Returns.

(This is quite ironic, since it's the main series I think of that does it well) Yeah, the death tax sucks. I've never seen it cost more than my leftover money to fully pick up the party, but it's already enough of a cost to "require" you to come back to town to remove death, the cost doesn't itself need to be high. In fact, if I was going to use the same church system of DQ, I'd have it so you go up, tithe (say 10%? Or maybe an amount based on level or progression with a max of like 50%?), then everything the churches do in DQ would happen; remove poison, revive people, remove cursed equipment, etc. But I'll add;
2.5) At least two party members learn Revive (and one often learns Vivify early on). This saves money by pushing the death tax from money to MP. Then the much cheaper inn in town OR by Returning to Firston* you can often revive for free effectively.

*Yes it's a pun.


Stepping away from DQ, I know some rpg (FF6?) has no loss of stuff on death, but you do lose time and story progression (Airship Glitch, anyone?). That's not a bad idea. Considering all the exp and gold you got, death basically makes the dungeon you died in easier and/or it's a point in the game of being more open and maybe you should go to another dungeon. I guess I really like the idea of death not equaling game over, regardless of save points. I think how party wipe is handled really helps figure out how saving should be handled.

Three things:

1. LOL that was hilarious ;)
2. I follow a similar model in my project, save that for a number of reasons I gave up on tracking individual crew members and made enlightenment, purification and restoration stack upon each other into an all or nothing. Tithes are still per service, but you have to pay in bulk for everyone on your crew that's dealing with the effects you're targeting. In other words, a tithe for purification is for everyone who's dealing with the effects of venomous infusions.
3. XP and ranks also affect this in what I have, and as a side note I have my project set up to where quick assist medicine for anyone on your crew that gets knocked out (think "phoenix down" and the like) can only be used while in active combat (with the obvious exception of my "tree of life" mechanic which grants its obligatory, one-at-a-time super recovery that can be used whenever), thereby making this into a case of risk/reward gone well over 9,000. Skills that provide healing aren't affected by this so once the revitalizing powers are unlocked in my configuration you can tend to knocked-out allies whenever necessary.

Save points can be used as part of providing subtle clues to the player as to upcoming fights (save points right before a boss battle for example). They can be used to remind the player to save or that they can save. Having save points does not mean you have to restrict where players can save. I've seen games with both save points and being able to save anywhere. Sometimes, save points are even used to heal the player.

I assume that the question is asking only about RPG games?

Save points mostly serve to add tensions to the game, to let the player know they have reached either a safe zone, or something important is coming up. My opinion on this depends on the genre we are talking about. Non-RPG games usually have checkpoints and designated save points. Some RPG games have save anywhere option, but I think most don't. :confused: This might depends on other game mechanics as well.

Let's say for example: Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2. If I recall correctly, your party's HP recovers after battle. Healing items and the likes aren't used very frequently, so you don't have to worry about resource management as much. Even if you lose a battle, you can restart it with no penalty. Save station is also very frequent. So, even if you can't save anywhere, it still won't affect the game. Now, what if you do have the option to save anywhere? There would be no tension left, and might even feel unnecessary.
Battle Network lets you save anywhere, but you have to deal with random encounters and manage your resources carefully. If you somehow screw yourself so badly that you have no healing items or healing chips (you really have to try hard to screw yourself this bad), then you will need to escape the internet to recover Mega Man's HP. Now, if the game features save points instead, it might become more frustrating.

Some games don't have the option to save for the sake of realism and immersion.
The old SOCOM games have you go through the entire mission without checkpoints, and you can only save your progress after you return to the main menu. But now we are talking about non-RPG games. Horror games, like Resident Evil or Corpse Party use save points to tell the players that they have entered a safe zone. It's more immersive to tell the players they have earned their break and can save their progress this way (well, I think...).

I think Tales of Xillia handles this well. You have designated save points every time you enter a new area or before a major story event. You have the option to quicksave anytime and anywhere as well, but you can only have one save slot for this. Next time you quicksave again, your previous save data will be overwritten. This is very handy as there might be instances when you need to leave due to some emergencies and your character is nowhere near a save point. If I recall correctly, Half Life 1 has a similar feature as well. You can quicksave or quickload anytime and anywhere, but you still have designated checkpoints/save points when a new chapter starts. This solves the problem of having to restart your progress in case you have an emergency and can't save. :cool: In case you accidentally save during a boss fight and you don't have enough health, there's still the option to restart the chapter again.


I find it really hard to imagine anyone oblivious enough to put themselves in such situation. :rolleyes:
"Hm. I have 1 HP and 1 MP left, and I used up all my resources. There's a boss fight coming up, and it takes a while to go back to town. Let's save and replace my previous save data just in case."
Um... Tough luck? Unless the game is for children under 10 years old, you shouldn't expect developers to hold your hand and babysit you throughout the entire game. Of course, your suggestion is very nice, but I question how practical it is because I can't imagine players to screw themselves into such situation. o_O

If the game has a long dungeon or section with enemies that can kill you by some cheap attacks, and you have to restart again, then that's clearly bad game design. Of course, having the option to save anywhere remedies the rage, but think about it: are you really going to save after every single battle? What if you are about to save, then run into a cheap enemy, then lose and have to start from the last time you save, which could be 10-15 minutes ago? It's still rage inducing, right? In this instance, it's the game balance that's the issue, more than save points. I think I have ran into this issue in FFX HD. I was in this desert area and I was close to a save point. I ran into this giant sand worm that devoured my whole party and I have to start my 30 minute progress. I am still going to curse that sand worm, save points or not. :eek: Balance your game as well, not just worry about save points.

This is very important. Basically, figure out how you want the game to play, balance it out, then designate saving around that.

It's always Wakka. Always. Everyone I know has seen the worm target Wakka first and foremost. I don't even use Wakka in the desert, I don't know how it happens.

I've only scanned the second half of this discussion, but just wanted to get in a word about games where you lose half (or all) your money instead of a true GO. It's not usually the big penalty that it might be perceived as.

In games where the economy is not finite (i.e. you can make infinite amounts of money if you play/grind for infinite amounts of time, capped only by the game's Max Gold limit), you can always earn back everything you lost and more. If you're in a "spiral" where you are losing a lot of fights, you can simply spend your money as you earn it and you'll still be getting stronger/gaining resources over time.

The only way it becomes "unwinnable" (or even truly punishing) is if the player also loses a significant portion of their items/equips upon defeat, or of course where the economy is limited (all sources of income are finite).

This is written from a pure design standpoint - the other side of the coin is the player's perception of this penalty, which may be bigger than the actual impact on their gameplay/balance. Because of that perception, I can't think of a lot of game designs where the juice is worth the squeeze - I just wanted to say that I don't find this to be a particularly destructive design choice, either.

The point of save points is to build immersion, tension and give the player the feeling that they're actually on an adventure. Ideally, the save point should make sense - what are you using to save, and where are those things in the world - and should be spaced just far enough apart that the player has to put in a little bit of work to get to it, but never more than around 10~15 minutes away. There needs to be SOME penalty for dying. Dungeons should be undertaken with at least a modicum of trepidation or else what exactly is the point of them?

Here's the problem: games will have so many concessions to "casual players" that they might as well be a movie instead. If you have an item that warps you out of a dungeon, and an item that warps you back to town, why would you also need to save everywhere? In fact, if you CAN save everywhere, what is the point of those two items? Do your characters' heal their HP and MP when they level up? Do they heal after every battle? It stops even being a matter of holding the player's hand. You're now holding their pocket, like in prison. It's your job to serve up a compelling game, and that includes making it difficult. Not impossible, but difficult. If anyone could save the world, what would be the point?

That would be one of those situations where the developer doesn't understand the tools. DQ has Outside and Return because saving is far and few between. Yes, you can escape, but then you have to go through the whole thing again. Something like Pokemon* actually can still be difficult with all the above; Dig and Fly exist, and you can save anywhere, but it's not dungeons that are the real difficulty, it's individual battles and trainers. And that can work, it's entirely possible to make a thoroughly difficult and fun for being difficult game by putting all the challenge in individual battles and doing things like fully healing between them.

*Yes, Pokemon games have gotten easier and easier, but I'm not going to blame the makers for doing that on a series that intentionally focuses on children. I still remember when Gym Leaders were hard when you had type advantage.

This part is a sad concession that is being made for one simple reason; If only (say) 1% of people can save the world, then only 1% or less of people will play your game. That's 99% of people you're basically telling not to play your game. Now, that's reductionist, but at least I get the idea of wanting to make things easier, just not liking what tends to happen in practice.

However, certain forms of punishment aren't necessarily "difficult". Unrelated to rpgs, having limited lives or continues doesn't really make a game hard, it just forces you to restart. Super Meat Boy shows use we can have hard platformers with infinite continues, because otherwise the game would be maddenly difficult and would turn off all but the most hardcore. Considering that checkpoints are effectively saves, that's not unreasonable to port to rpgs. If you die and get a game over, the game is telling you "The last 10 or 15 or 60 minutes of your life were wasted" and even though that isn't actually true, that's often the perception and many people do stop playing when that happens.

Obviously, going too hard in either direction is bad. The idea of save points being not especially close and only showing up in already safe areas (like DQ having them only in towns) but then making it so death only means going back to the last saved area, not last save, can let a game be difficult without it being horribly costly. The real difficulty then comes from "Can I beat this dungeon and boss without dying and thus not have to restart, lose time, and face something easier" instead of "Can I do it at all" which works well with "in game difficulty" where it's basically up to the player to know what goals they want in the context of the game and how difficult those goals are. The same thing happens, you have to get through an entire dungeon and to the next "checkpoint", but your only real punishment for dying is time loss, nothing else.

Is that the most ideal? Probably not. I'm certain there are better options. Bloodborne costs you all your money on death, but that's the game's way of saying "play better, grind, and spend your money before you go so you don't care if you lose it". That can be fun, but then I also generally dislike grinding.

That idea sounds good, but is that what they actually do in practice? I'm surprised I haven't heard much of save points breaking suspension of disbelief, but then that might be because they are such a boon that it's easy to look the other way. Imagine playing a long rpg without being allowed to save. Then there's also the "death warp" many games use, when dying is so costless that it becomes a way to teleport easily...

I'm not going to go too much into this (it's off topic but if you want to open a thread to somewhere else, we can discuss it there), but it surprises me how much some games do feel like they are just movies and yet still I haven't seen a great adaptation of a game to movie. Maybe we just need the people with the right priorities and wants in the right places?

Perception really does matter. I learned pretty quickly that losing half your money is merely that; losing money. It's a cost, similar to buying new equipment, and it quickly became apparent that when you go into a dungeon without any need left for money that dying is thus much less costly. But, even with how costly it can seem, options are options, and choosing between money (reload) and exp (continue) instead of being forced into one sounds overall better, as @Aesica pointed out.

What I mean by "not everyone can save the world" isn't about "every player" it's about everyone in your game world. What's stopping the king's guards from saving the king if those Orcs that are trying to kill him are complete pushovers. There's no "adventure" without adversity. If everyone (in the game world) can walk through the dungeon like it's nothing, why don't they? I look at dungeons like a mountain climbing expedition. You need to be prepared for it. There's no stopping for taquitos every couple minutes. Yes, you should have save points handy, as I said, every ten minutes is generous enough. If you can save on the overworld map, then yeah, maybe someone would have to warp out to it if they can't find the save point and they really really have somewhere else to be. It needs to be a tough decision. The fact is, if the player is struggling to get through the enemies in a dungeon to make it to a save point, they probably need to grind a few levels. Or they're doing something wrong and need to rethink their strategy. Games need to have that feeling of fighting against the tide.

My main point is that the developer has to balance things like "save point vs save anywhere," warp/return?, and whether and how/where the party's HP and MP is restored (as in, when they level up, at a save point, before a boss fight). Those are all design decisions that require careful consideration, but they're thrown around willy nilly half the time. If you just make concessions for ease of use, you end up with a game that isn't fun and that anyone can skate through. Have you played the first Final Fantasy on easy mode? There's NO REASON to play it, for the simple reason that it is really easy and the whole point of that game is the challenge. Instead of drawing in more people, you'll alienate your core audience.

Definitely, your battles should be strategic in some way, and most of the challenge should come from the actual gameplay and not artificial limits like save point placement. But some games have their save points baked into their gameplay, making finding and using save points part of the strategy. Persona 5, for instance, couldn't have a "save anywhere" system and be the same game.

If Persona games let you save anywhere, it'd cut down on the number of people who lose hours of progress because a random enemy they just encountered hits a party member's weakness or an enemy's instant-death spell just happens to targets the wrong character.

If saving is scarce and encounters have the potential to end your game if a player isn't already familiar with the enemies or are just plain unlucky, then that's terrible game design.

(Frankly, Persona game design is terrible game design, even if it did let you save every five seconds.)

Firstly, you're conflating "ease of use" with easy difficulty, and those are completely separate. Save-anywhere doesn't make the battles or the bosses any easier; it just means that if you get a gameover (or have to end play abruptly) it's less time and effort needed to get back to where you were. Restoring HP/MP after battle doesn't make battles easier either; it just changes the balance in the resource-management aspect of the game.

Secondly, I haven't played FF1 on easy so I can't talk about that game in particular, but I have played Touhou games on all difficulties. Difficulty levels have two main reasons to exist: they offer players more choice about how to experience the game, thus making it accessible to a wider range of players. "Alienating your core audience" isn't going to happen unless you remove normal difficulty when you add easy. (The other main reason for difficulty levels is that individual players who've completed one can try the next one up, adding replay value.)

I have to agree with @Seirein here. If I emulated Persona's game design in my game, I'd get ripped for it. As it is, that series is often made fun of for constantly falling into the tropes of Lazy Backup, Hopelessly Behind, and RNGGoodess and they refuse to fix any of that. I mean, what is the point of MC is ko'd you get a game over because the RNG hated you that turn? It has no plot reason and really only exists so that the RNG can mess you over and needs to go away like 2 persona games ago.

Well, that's similar to the "poison problem" in rpgs. See, as a game mechanic, poison is extremely easy to deal with; You can often buy antidotes anywhere and the damage per turn is quite small (at most 1/8 damage and 1 damage per step). But can you imagine what that actually is like in character? In eight turns, you are dead. The game just happens to have a way that with clear and logical thinking divorced from the pain and fear, it's easy to deal with.
Easy monsters fall in a similar situation. Sure, gameplay-wise the enemies in the overworld might be easy to beat. It might be easy to get through a specific dungeon. So why don't NPCs do it themselves? Because they might be worse than a level 1 character. What could be boringly easy for a party of superpowered protagonists might be impossible for even the strongest of guards. This is an actual plot point in what might be one of the easier Dragon Quests; In 4, Ragnar is one of the party members. He's the only guard who can solve the problems of the first chapter against some of the weakest enemies in the game. And he only gets better. Regular guards don't stand a chance, especially as time goes on and the real monsters start showing up.
I agree, that falls into "stories need conflict" area.
Correct. Then again, that's also why there aren't that many good rpgs, and more generally speaking, that many good games. "90% of everything is bad" is still one of my favorite critic quotes (can't remember if swears are allowed on site so I did change it).
Which did happen. On the PS1 version of FF, Easy Mode was added. On the GBA version, Normal was removed. FF2 was also on the same cartridge, but it was also made significantly easier. It's sad that it's basically unplayable. This is a bad idea.
I entirely agree but it might have happened for a good reason; some games and game styles, without artificial difficulty that comes from the game being hard to play instead of hard to beat, it ends up showing us it's quite easy. Look at Castlevania 1. That game is extremely hard and yet is only 30 minutes long. Yet if it had infinite lives/continues/whatnot, you'd only restart at places you die and can easily retry and reiterate your attempts, making it pretty quick to getting better and thus making it actually fairly easy. Yet, if it did have those, even if just at the beginning of each level, the game isn't actually easier, it just seems so.
Final Fantasy has never been that difficult of a series (okay, FF4 can in some versions be absurdly difficult). FF1 seems difficult, though, due to it;
Requiring grinding
Save points costing money (through inns or tents) and quite rare*
Tents and friends being bugged and thus not actually healing you if you reload
Has problems from being both open world (hard to know where to go or what to do) and linear (sometimes you only know where to go through trial and error, event flags have to be hit in order)
Unnecessary backtracking (one dungeon basically has to be done twice because you need to leave to open the boss door)
Death removes all progress whatsoever, resulting in full Game Over
Take out that entire list in later games and suddenly everything feels like a breeze (note that Death = GO isn't taken out, rather that GO is actually quite rare). That's because ease of use made it apparent the game is easy. Even FF4 is difficult more for the game getting in your way; The atb system is bad (as much as I like it), counters are not at all obvious (took me looking online to realize they even existed), and very little is told to you about the mechanics of your characters. Even scan isn't your friend; It'll tell you what an enemy's weakness is but not if that's the correct element to use on that enemy.

You know what else Save Points are for? Characterization of the game world. More and more I see save points being an in world device and not something unrelated and often it makes it better. Bravely Default has a wandering merchant that just happens to be in handy places for you to save. The Most Stupidest Game Ever uses the save point to further mock the protagonist. Chrono Cross has NPCs using the save point. Dragon Quest has always had it as either telling a king about your grand adventure or the church about your sins (and since the church is literally raising you from the dead to continue your journey, saving becomes a divine power instead of a game mechanic). Sure, some can be silly (Resident Evil had you use a typewriter and you need the proper ingredients to save), but you can, as the developer, use save points to tell the player more about the world. If I don't have "save anywhere" (and sometimes even when I do), I love making save points a part of the world, whatever that means.

You have an average gamer's interesting opinion of "basically unplayable."