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

  • Poggervania@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Bigger question is who gives a crap?

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

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

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

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

    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

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

    • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
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      1 year ago

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

      • Poggervania@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

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

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

      • Hairyblue@kbin.socialOP
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        1 year ago

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

        • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
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          1 year ago

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

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

  • Bobert@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Is only game. Why you heff to be mad?

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

  • futureman@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

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

  • Sparkega@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

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

  • BigFig@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    What debate? I will save scum and there’s nothing anyone can do about it lol.

  • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

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

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

  • Glide@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

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

  • sebinspace@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

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

  • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
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    1 year ago

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

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

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

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

  • throwsbooks@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

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

    • lemick24@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

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

  • CIWS-30@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

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

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

    • BadlyDrawnRhino @aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

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

      • DV8@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

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

        • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

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

          • Nepenthe@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

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

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

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

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

  • jpj007@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    My philosophy on it, specifically for this game, is that the game is so damn huge to start with it’s impossible to see and experience all the content in one or even several playthroughs. I’d rather just put my completionist impulses aside, think of the game more as “D&D” than a video game, and just go forward, no matter what happens in game.

    But that’s just my thought for this specific game. As has been stated several times - it’s your save file, do what you want with it. No wrong way to play.

    • happyspark@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I would get bored of a D&D session that started the exact same way every time I fucked up and died though. I’m not great at these games and I am embarrassed to say I was killed more than once on my first playthrough before even leaving the crash site.
      Hoping mods or expansions (which seem unlikely) open the world up a lot more and allow for other starting scenarios.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      The only two times I’ve truly save scummed are

      1. I literally restarted the entire game when Dark Urge chopped off Gale’s hand on the option “fantasize about chopping the hand off”, that’s not the sort of gas lighting experience I want, I’ll just play the normal custom character first then maybe play that later
      2. I approached some goblins by a windmill and combat started with the narrator saying “you were warned to stay away”. Nobody said anything about that, so I reloaded my save and stayed away. The goblins let me into their camp even, why would I suspect these ones wouldn’t let me talk to them?
    • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I’m doing mild save scumming, not to have a flawless playthrough but because like you say it’s a huge game and I don’t have a million spare hours so odds are I’m only going to do one good serious playthrough then take a break and maybe do a evil play through or something later.

      It’s not like I’m going to see everything so I might as well use the magic of time manipulation to explore alternate realities - the characters talk about that sort of weirdness all the time so for me I don’t even feel it’s world breaking.

      Though honestly the only mistake I wish I could go back and fix is completing pretty much the whole first area with only two characters because I missed talking to all the NPCs who’d join me - did make it more challenging tho which was fun I guess.