Limited Saved Game VS Checkpoints

[George Younes]

Hy guys,
In the Game "X-Avenger" (a 2D Action Shooter game) that we are developing we've faced a game balance problem due to the constant save/load the player do. So we thought about applying Limited save game scheme. But we got mixed opinions from our beta testers.(some loved it, some hated it...) what do you think is better to apply?
1- Limited save games (say the player can save once during each level) besides the auto-save at the beginning of the level.
2- Limited save game for "Normal" Difficulty but unlimited for "easy" difficulty. (not very much appreciated because this will give an incentive to play the easy difficulty).
3- Checkpoints Saves. (carefully distributed in each level, the user can only save when he reach that point)

[mot]

Yes, one of these three.
Seriously though, for #1 you would need an extra indicator to show that the one save position has already been used up. For #2 you would need an extra explanation telling the player why they cannot save even though last time they played the game they could save.
So #3 is best.

[George Younes]

hehehe true,
well even with explanation, some says that it's frustrating to have a limited number of saves. I am in favor of the third too but still since it's a personal taste question, I would like to have as much opinions as I can :) so it's some sort of a poll.

[Anthony Flack]

My instinctive reaction is that a lot of people would find limited numbers of saves to be an arbitrary and unfair punishment, and they would resent it. I know you're doing it for gameplay reasons, but you have to be careful not to do anything that gives the impression that you're a player-hating sadist.

[George Younes]

My instinctive reaction is that a lot of people would find limited numbers of saves to be an arbitrary and unfair punishment, and they would resent it. I know you're doing it for gameplay reasons, but you have to be careful not to do anything that gives the impression that you're a player-hating sadist.

:D yeap, that's why I am trying to make the minimum negative impact to the player, and which is why I am in favor of #3.
BTW Anthony I really admire your creativity in Platypus, it is one of the unique games that made me wanna get into the indie game industry. (besides the sad fact that you didn't get your royalties from...)

[GolfHacker]

Let me ask you this - why would you want to limit the player with any of these options?

As a player, I just want to play the game and progress through it to the end. Anything that blocks that path is a source of frustration for me. It is especially annoying if I've paid for the game but I can't get to the end of it - because maybe the final challenges are too insanely difficult for my particular reflexes or skill level, and the game is limiting me in how I can save my progress. Personally, I'm much happier with a game where I can immediately save my progress as soon as I have overcome a particularly difficult obstacle.

Just because you provide an unlimited save option doesn't mean the player has to use it. It's their choice.

[George Younes]

Well GolfHacker,
I know that it is not very pleasant to be limited by the saves. But as I watched carefully the beta testers, I noticed that everyone keeps on saving every-now and then. No matter how much balance I try to put in the game. they keep defeating that and make the game very easy and lame (they keep on collecting weapons and upgrades to the point that nothing stops in their way). I know that I can make the maximum upgrades of the weapons not that much powerful. but the beauty of the game is to have certain places where you can just shoot and kill everything in your way. I want the player to have that feeling but for a brief time, and if he keeps on saving and loading he will be able to have that feeling during the whole game, which will make it lame :(. That's what I am trying to fix with this limited save game thing. So what do you think?

[whisperstorm]

There is nothing more annoying than having to reach some checkpoint in a game to save. I may not be your target audience, but I only get 15-30 minute swatches of time to play a game, and there is nothing more frustrating than going through an entire area of a game only to have to re-do it later since I didn't quite make it to the save point. I think it comes down to what you perceive your audience to be. Hardcore gamers who like the challenge of having to reach the save point, or more time-challenged folks who just enjoy the fun of blasting stuff and seeing what the next level contains.

You could hedge your bets - place save points when player chooses "hard" mode. And save anywhere when player chooses "easy" mode...

BTW this splash screen (http://www.divisionstudios.com/products/2dgame/2DGameScreenshot1.jpg) looks way too much like Stargate SG1 - you might want to modify that somewhat...

[GolfHacker]

Not having played your game, it is hard to give specific ideas. But there could be other options for achieving balance than limiting saves.

In our recent Dirk Dashing game, for example, we added a secondary weapon that turned out to be too powerful initially. So to balance that, we added a recoil effect to the weapon. Now players couldn't just shoot repeatedly and mow down everything in sight... they had to be careful how and where they used the weapon.

Maybe you could try adding some kind of penalty for players who collect too many powerups and get too much power. Players can use the power, but they have to decide if it is worth paying the penalty. The penalty might be health-related, or it might impact their mobility, or whatever might make sense for your game. Be creative. In the end, a creative solution might make your game more interesting and enjoyable than just limiting saves.

[Adrian Lopez]

I agree with Anthony: imposing a limit on the number of saves is a horrible idea.

As I said in this thread (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=8619), I think the key to a proper save system is to separate the game's saving mechanism from the game's failure response. In other words, you should turn the saving mechanism into an interface element rather than a gameplay element.

Ask yourself the following: If your player had an infinite amount of time, no need for sleep, and decided to play through the entire game in one go without ever saving the game, how would your game respond to player failure? If the answer is anything other than "the same as it always responds", you should consider changing the way your save system works.

[Rainer Deyke]

First off, you absolutely have to support quit-and-resume anywhere. By that I mean that you can quit the game anytime, anywhere, and then resume the game exactly where you left off. If the game doesn't support that, it's broken.

With quit-and-resume in place, you need some sort of system to handle player death. The basic options are: The player loses and has to restart the game from the beginning. The player has to restart the level. The player has to restart from the last checkpoint within the level. The player is revived where she is and can continue playing immediately without restarting anything.All four are valid options. I can't tell you which one is the right one for your game without knowing more about your game.

[George Younes]

Okay guys,
First of all I want to thank you for your great replies, and honestly I do not disagree with anything I read.

but let me then explain what do I have already implemented in the game.
First off all, the player starts with a health bar and a set of lives. When he dies, he will immediately re-spawn in the same place he died, and the number of lives is reduced. When the total number of lives is 0 the game is over, he would have to reload a previously saved game.
The game auto-saves his progress each at the end of each level, in an auto-save slot no mater what level of difficulty he has selected for his game.
Each level takes approximately 10 to 15 minutes to be completed.

Now what I am considering is to put different limitation on save based on the level of difficulty he chooses (And explain that when he starts a new game and selects that level of difficulty).
- So if he selects “easy”. He has unlimited in-game saves. He can save and load as much as he wants. After all this level is made for people who just want to blast some units off and have fun, then stop and get back to work or do something else. This might apply to casual gamers who do not have much time to spend on the game.
- if he selects the “hard” level. He will be probably the hardcore gamer type, he likes the challenge and he wouldn’t mind re-playing a certain part in the game. In addition to that, hard core gamers will hate the game if it was lame or easy, that’s why a limited save game would apply well here. And one save game in each level, in addition to the auto-save should be applied.
Now the question is should I limit the in-game save games of the “normal” level of difficulty to 3 saves per level, or not? Because any type of gamers might select “normal” difficulty…
what do you think?

One more thing whisperstorm, about my splash screen, do you think it might put us in trouble? we have created the graphics for that based on stargate movie, but didn't think that it will infringe any-one's copyrights...

[Pallav Nawani]

I think your problem is that you have lives in the game _and_ you are allowing in-game saves. They don't seem necessary to me at all.

(a) Reduce the level time to 5 minutes, and the number of lives to 1. When the player dies, he playes the level again.

(b) Leave the game as it is, no save games are necessary. When the player looses all the lives, reset score to zero, allow him to restart the level with full lives etc. AutoSave after each level, or make a map like thing/or a thumbnailed level selection dialog. Also, you could shorten each level to about 10 minutes to make it easier on the player if he dies.

In-game saves seem totally unnecessary here, unless the game is too hard even on the normal/easy mode. In the hard mode, you don't want in-games saves anyway.

[zoombapup]

I think the convention is to allow save anywhere, but it saves at the START of a level.. i.e. in a hush period just before the level begins.

So after each complete level, you add the auto-save and start the level.

I really dont see a problem with having players save anytime, but if you do the "start saves the start of the level" you'll need to balance the levels a bit, by making them shorter, which has the side effect of increasing your level count (presuming your 15 minute levels become 3x5minute ones).

I like the "level unlock" route, which basically means that once you have played through any given level, you can always go back and replay it. I also have the "named save" option where you save your current progress (to the start of the last level you got to) in a named save file.

Your issue of people being overly powered up is probably more to do with the level design and less with the save system. Save systems just let you "redo" a bad level and are good for that reason. The too powerful thing means you need to redress the balance. Perhaps you are piling on the weapons too early? Or you arent restricting the player to a strict number or subset of weapons? Usuually you are only allowed a single "powerful" weapon for a short time. Put a time limit on anything silly powerful and only place it within usage distance (distance on the time axis) from the things you want to use the weapon against.

Here's a scenario. At the start of the level, you place a "smart bomb" pod, with 3 uses. Throughout the level, you spawn 3 huge waves of enemies. Clearly the point is to expend the smart bomb against the waves. The smart bomb is usage-limited, so the player CAN be better and save one of his bombs.

A powerful gun, should have either an ammo or time limit. Place it in a level just a minute or so away from where it should be most used. Have it expend its energy etc.

[Rainer Deyke]

If you really want to have lives in the game, I would say: If the player loses a life, she is revived where she is. If the player loses the last life, revive at the start of the level with full lives. Quit-and-resume anywhere is still required, and cannot be limited in any way. If I want to quit-and-resume a thousand times in the same level, that's my business, and it's your job to support that. I may not have the time to play your game for more than a minute or so at a time.

My actual preference would be not to have extra lives at all. Extra lives are usually found in games that either don't have health bars or don't allow infinite retries. Since this game has both, it's not clear what roles extra lives should play. I generally don't like extra lives because they break suspension of disbelief. I can accept resets because they are outside the fiction of the game, but it seems ridiculous that the player character should be able to return to life after dying.

[Ronkes]

I agree with people who say that you shouldn't limit the player's ability to save the game. If players really save too much, you could make saving a game slow. When people know saving takes five seconds instead of less than one they are less likely to use it when it isn't strictly necessary.

[George Younes]

Well you got me convinced guys, save games should not be a game play element, and zoombapup gave me the great idea of limiting my upgraded primary weapons with time. This way, no matter what the player does, he will not have those ultimate weapons for a long period. And that will bring back the balance to the game. So we can let the player save and load whenever he wishes.
Since I have 5 levels of upgrades for each primary weapon, I will give a relative time for each upgrade. Say the first upgrade (the weakest) will last 15 minutes, the second upgrade will last 10, then the next will last 7 minutes, and the last upgrade (the most powerful one) will last 5 minutes max. When the 5 minutes are up, the weapon downgrades to the level before, and so one…. (Of course there should be a time indicator next to the weapon’s display in the HUD).
You all got great ideas guys; this one seems to be the most suitable. What do you think about this solution :D ?

[zoombapup]

One slightly more punitive example I've seen, is to simply place an incredibly difficult level in the game just a bit after youve given them the silly weapon. Make it so that the weapon is removed if you get below a certain health or energy level. Then make sure they get to that level (by repeat spawning for instance) until you let them progress.

The sort of rewards you want for a powerful weapon (lots of sparkly visuals and sounds) should generally be short lived, but given them little bits of that experience throughout the game.