This is 100% how I play “difficult” games with permadeath ( at least those that allow it). It probably started with the original X-COM UFO Defense. The stakes are too high when you have a well...
This is 100% how I play “difficult” games with permadeath ( at least those that allow it). It probably started with the original X-COM UFO Defense. The stakes are too high when you have a well trained, seasoned squad and everything goes to pot after a point blank 90% shot misses and then your rookie gets mind controlled and frags his company. That’s some game ending bullshit. ESC -> LOAD.
It also has to due with the scope of the game and time committed though. In FTL , I learned to embrace the RNG and it led to many surprising outcomes- ended up beating runs where I was on the brink of defeat, which led to a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Of course I also lost a ton of runs, but it was easy enough to start a new FTL session; starting a new x-com squad is something different entirely.
For a lot of games, I don't bother to save scum. But when it's a game where your character can somehow miss a shot at 99% accuracy and then be instantly killed from full health on the next turn,...
For a lot of games, I don't bother to save scum. But when it's a game where your character can somehow miss a shot at 99% accuracy and then be instantly killed from full health on the next turn, it's warranted.
I used to play games like this, and I will occasionally if I just want to complete a game. But as others have pointed out, it eliminates any tension in the game and everything starts to feel like...
This is 100% how I play “difficult” games with permadeath ( at least those that allow it). It probably started with the original X-COM UFO Defense. The stakes are too high when you have a well trained, seasoned squad and everything goes to pot after a point blank 90% shot misses and then your rookie gets mind controlled and frags his company. That’s some game ending bullshit. ESC -> LOAD.
I used to play games like this, and I will occasionally if I just want to complete a game. But as others have pointed out, it eliminates any tension in the game and everything starts to feel like a chore because it just becomes a rote task to progress to the end of the game. I think I've realized I'd much rather read a book than press buttons of no consequence for a (usually) medium story.
I've always enjoyed full loot PvP MMOs, because there is a great deal of inherent tension when another player can wipe your progress. Non-PvP games can't quite get there because they lack the ability to repay in kind but they can get close in ironman modes and similar. I have been playing WoW Hardcore and so far haven't made it past level 25 but I've had a great deal of fun trying.
I have a threshold. Things go unexpectedly in XCOM and I lose a character I liked? Well, that happens sometimes and I'll press on. Things go very badly and my entire elite squad is wiped out? Time...
I have a threshold. Things go unexpectedly in XCOM and I lose a character I liked? Well, that happens sometimes and I'll press on. Things go very badly and my entire elite squad is wiped out? Time to restart from the beginning of the mission. I'm even worse in the Battle for Wesnoth. Sometimes I'll save before every individual attack to make sure I get the outcome I want. (IIRC, XCOM, much as it's denigrated for not succeeding 100% of the time on a 99% chance, does still fudge its numbers towards the center of the probability distribution. Wesnoth is just brutally numeric. If you try an 80% attack ten times in a row, you'll very likely fail at two of them.)
But I have to say I've ended up with a very different outlook when playing Wildermyth. The game will build a narrative out of every thing that happens, and various ailments, maimings, and deaths are just part of the story. I've had so many Wildermyth playthroughs where I've lost an important character and I've just gone, "Well, guess that's it for them." Maybe it helps that you can bring old characters back in subsequent playthroughs, but I think it's really the whole roguelite narrative environment the game has going on.
I've ironmanned the orginal xcom a few times. Soldiers are pretty expendable and you're using a skyranger for most of the game which isn't crazy expensive to replace. Your awesome veteran soldier...
I've ironmanned the orginal xcom a few times. Soldiers are pretty expendable and you're using a skyranger for most of the game which isn't crazy expensive to replace. Your awesome veteran soldier has better stats but outside of psy stuff, they can't really do anything a rookie can't.
The remake through. Completely different story. Start losing experienced soldiers too much in the mid-late game and it can be next to impossible to recover.
I think it's absolutely fine to play games however you want. That being said, I think for most people, save scumming, at least as the author describes it, is not the best way to play RPGs. For...
I think it's absolutely fine to play games however you want. That being said, I think for most people, save scumming, at least as the author describes it, is not the best way to play RPGs.
For one, you spend way too much time in the BG3 loading screen and not enough time playing the game. If you re-roll infinitely, then in 5e's bounded accuracy system, and especially in BG3 because they added critical successes for skill checks (not a thing in 5e btw, it's only for attack rolls), you basically just always succeed, so why even go through the ceremony? Just install cheat engine and force roll 20 on all checks, or lower the difficulty.
Secondly, it takes away from abilities in the game like Portent, which is one of the best subclasses abilities in 5e because it can save you from devastating failures. If you do it enough, it takes away from almost every ability. What's the point of Reliable Talent if everyone de facto has Reliable Talent?
I was suprised at how much time the author spent talking about save-scumming to avoid failure and only talked about save-scumming to explore the different narrative paths at the end. I've...
I was suprised at how much time the author spent talking about save-scumming to avoid failure and only talked about save-scumming to explore the different narrative paths at the end. I've certainly found myself doing it a lot in Baldur's Gate 3, but it's almost entirely down to places where I didn't like a narrative choice rather than combat or a skill check going badly.
Yeah there are some dialogue options that my character wouldn't say, that I wouldn't say, but are intriguing enough that I want to give them a click. Sometimes I wanna just see what would happen...
Yeah there are some dialogue options that my character wouldn't say, that I wouldn't say, but are intriguing enough that I want to give them a click. Sometimes I wanna just see what would happen if I called someone a moron, or killed this npc. Sometimes I'm surprised and the result is better than my initial choice. Sometimes it's predictably a fiasco and I want to just undo it.
The difference between BG3 and an actual tabletop is the ability to just undo things or try other paths with the save system. It provides a lot more freedom of experience.
That is my use for saves, most of the time. In FNV sometimes it's cathartic to save and just go kill an annoying NPC that's talking trash to you or treating you like you're a moron. "Who are you...
Yeah there are some dialogue options that my character wouldn't say, that I wouldn't say, but are intriguing enough that I want to give them a click. Sometimes I wanna just see what would happen if I called someone a moron, or killed this npc. Sometimes I'm surprised and the result is better than my initial choice. Sometimes it's predictably a fiasco and I want to just undo it.
That is my use for saves, most of the time.
In FNV sometimes it's cathartic to save and just go kill an annoying NPC that's talking trash to you or treating you like you're a moron.
"Who are you insulting here, bub? Do you have any idea who I am? I just killed House, singlehandedly took out Caesar's Legion, bent the Boomers to my will, destroyed the Brotherhood and the NCR only exist because I allow it. GTF outta here with your insults to my intelligence while asking me to take this package to the mailbox.."
It is a great time to unleash all of the horded special items, but it's not really playing the game. More like, day dreaming before snapping back to reality. I certainly have saved to go wild a...
It is a great time to unleash all of the horded special items, but it's not really playing the game. More like, day dreaming before snapping back to reality. I certainly have saved to go wild a few times but it's mostly fun in games where you can do anything to anyone.
I'm not gonna yuck someone's yum but I agree. Outside of combat you just gotta roll with what the dice give you. That's the spirit of most D&D tables, the dice are part of the story telling....
I'm not gonna yuck someone's yum but I agree. Outside of combat you just gotta roll with what the dice give you. That's the spirit of most D&D tables, the dice are part of the story telling. Inspiration is handed out pretty liberally at least in comparison to the tables I've played at.
I'm just in the goblin camp now and already excited to replay the game to see what other ways I can solve challenges.
This is where I was blown away by the original Dragon Age. Your actions and choices wouldn't always have immediate effects. They may have serious consequences, 2/10/30 hours of gametime later, so...
This is where I was blown away by the original Dragon Age. Your actions and choices wouldn't always have immediate effects. They may have serious consequences, 2/10/30 hours of gametime later, so it'd be impossible to just reload your save and choose a different path instantly. It made me consider my decisions very carefully, and I similarly loved that it had a companion character who would chastise you and even leave the party if you went around picking up every single minor "save my kitten in a tree" sidequest you came across.
Save scumming, in the XCOM sense, is "I failed a 95% chance to hit? Bullshit. Reload last save." or "My best squaddie got hit with a random crit on that over watch shot and died? Reload save."...
Save scumming, in the XCOM sense, is "I failed a 95% chance to hit? Bullshit. Reload last save." or "My best squaddie got hit with a random crit on that over watch shot and died? Reload save."
Saving in JRPGs is often more like "Big bad guy coming, rest and save."
Nowadays though it might also be "to get 100% completion on this 100 hour JRPG you must always answer the random side conversations correctly, including the one at hour 60 where you have literally no way of knowing the answer at the time." Reloading to get that conversation 'correct' would technically be save scumming but at the same time, I'd scoff at the idea of calling someone out for that.
That said, I prefer not to save scum in shorter games like FTL. The randomness is part of the game! Even Disco Elysium has alternate paths to explore down those failures. Yes, I won't get Kim to wear the jacket but that's the only way to hear him disappointingly shut me down in that downright silly situation.
The difference between "save scumming" and good old "saving your progress" is that with save scumming, a player manually reloads the game when they get an outcome they don't like, rather than the...
The difference between "save scumming" and good old "saving your progress" is that with save scumming, a player manually reloads the game when they get an outcome they don't like, rather than the game state being forcibly reloaded by dying/"game over"/etc. With regular saving, you save often so that when you hit a hard fail state and the game rolls you back to your last save, it's not a big setback. With save scumming, players choose to roll back because they didn't like what happened.
Those are the understandings I've come to of those terms, at least!
Interesting. I save scum for dwarf fortress, and I just finished my first deathless Pikmin 4 run. It comes down to how we each want to have fun, and I am on the side of the author: let us play the...
Interesting. I save scum for dwarf fortress, and I just finished my first deathless Pikmin 4 run.
It comes down to how we each want to have fun, and I am on the side of the author: let us play the way we want to play.
Save scumming is perhaps the most ancient form of game modding: remember those old Choose Your Own Adventure books? When you got to one ending do you restart from the very beginning, re-reading every word? Or do you skip the setup and pick and choose through alternatives based on what you remember and not necessarily in order? You are save scumming.
Games should be played the way that is fun if it doesn't harm other players. Single player monopoly, mods, offline MMORPG, cheat codes, having lights on, having lights off, not listening to the spooky music, taking mind alternating substances.....it's a game. Have fun.
For games where "luck" is involved as a basic mechanic for storytelling I am slightly more hesitant to reroll.....but for sad things happening to cute things, like Pikmin dying, I most definitely do. To their credit Pikmin 4 has a "time roll back" feature built into the game itself for fast save scumming!
It's the difference between being able to do 100% deathless runs for Pikmin, vs my never even making it to the first ending for Loco Roco, because I couldn't deal with the sad sounds and their tiny bodies turning grey.
Life itself has so many challenges for us old folks. Let us have fun in our own ways.
One aspect I'm surprised not to have read yet is utilizing save scumming to clarify mechanics. Like right now I'm playing Divinity Original Sin 2, I'll quick save at the start of a turn if I'm...
One aspect I'm surprised not to have read yet is utilizing save scumming to clarify mechanics. Like right now I'm playing Divinity Original Sin 2, I'll quick save at the start of a turn if I'm about to take an action where I'm not clear what the interaction is, how the stack resolves, or what some ambiguous text on a skill actually does.
I shamelessly save scummed my way through Dark Souls by backing up the save file. I don't have time to waste playing a game and only having "negative" progress to show. Or having to repeatedly make a whole journey just to try a boss fight again! I really enjoyed the game, but for me, the difficulty and playtime felt artificially inflated by the save system.
I am also guilty of save scumming disco elesium. Most of the time I only play through a game once, and the idea of not achieving the goal or outcome I want is giving me a lesser experience. I...
I am also guilty of save scumming disco elesium. Most of the time I only play through a game once, and the idea of not achieving the goal or outcome I want is giving me a lesser experience. I tried in disco to let the cards fall and accept the rolls, but a few important ones, like the climactic confrontation toward the end, I just couldn't accept a bad result. Same with the encounter under the boardwalk. I just really wanted things to work out okay, so I reloaded and rerolled (with all appropriate buffs) until I got a result I could live with. Similar to the author, when I build for a particular skill, it's really frustrating to have a bad roll kill an interaction.
If I have time for a second playthrough, then I'll take it easier, but with a job and kids it's hard.
I'd say Disco Elysium is truly one of those games where you don't want to save scum, because losing never leads to a "bad" (game-wise) outcome. You'll almost always get interesting situations or...
I'd say Disco Elysium is truly one of those games where you don't want to save scum, because losing never leads to a "bad" (game-wise) outcome. You'll almost always get interesting situations or dialogues, whatever your roll.
Except for when you die as a direct result… But I don’t know if that really counts as save-scumming or not. The only time I reloaded a save was after I died & needed to redo that confrontation...
Except for when you die as a direct result…
But I don’t know if that really counts as save-scumming or not. The only time I reloaded a save was after I died & needed to redo that confrontation rather than completely restarting the game.
Reloading a save after a death in Disco Elysium doesn't really count as save scumming IMO, since it's literally a game-ending event. "Save scumming" is loosely defined though. I've only really...
Reloading a save after a death in Disco Elysium doesn't really count as save scumming IMO, since it's literally a game-ending event.
"Save scumming" is loosely defined though. I've only really seen the term used in the context of roguelikes (and lites), where the game doesn't really allow you to load a previous save. OP extends the definition as "reloading after an event that punishes me too harshly, (but doesn't end the game)". Reloading a save after a game ending event is ok for most players I think.
Or when the game ends because of a successful roll, as in one conversation that can take place somewhere near a certain hanging corpse. Spoilers Ahead! If you manage to convince yourself to shoot...
Or when the game ends because of a successful roll, as in one conversation that can take place somewhere near a certain hanging corpse.
Spoilers Ahead!
If you manage to convince yourself to shoot Cuno, the game ends. Because you shot a kid. Why did you shoot a kid, detective?
I want to go back and do another playthrough with different decisions and less save scumming, but I finally un-installed DE yesterday to make room for Stray. I had a second DE playthrough in my...
I want to go back and do another playthrough with different decisions and less save scumming, but I finally un-installed DE yesterday to make room for Stray. I had a second DE playthrough in my head for months after the first, but there's so much else I've been wanting to play...
Idk. I'll probably reinstall and give it another try soon. Let Harry really go wild. But losing Kim's respect, or losing Kim himself, or the lady trucker. Those were things I really didn't want to happen in my first experience with the story. Even though the game doesn't explicitly call those fail states, it felt that way to me.
For red rolls, sure, but not for white. Failing a white almost always results in nothing happening and failing a white multiple times in a row can be a frustrating barrier, particularly if you're...
For red rolls, sure, but not for white. Failing a white almost always results in nothing happening and failing a white multiple times in a row can be a frustrating barrier, particularly if you're building for that very skill and just keep getting bad rolls.
Save scumming in the forms I’ve encountered is basically me as a player performing recon. Maybe something that game designer can take advantage of. I’ll use Darkest Dungeon as an example. I have...
Save scumming in the forms I’ve encountered is basically me as a player performing recon. Maybe something that game designer can take advantage of.
I’ll use Darkest Dungeon as an example. I have an A team of characters that steamroll through anything and everything. I also have a B team for when that A team needs a break. But when I need to take on a new dungeon and difficulties, I’m sending in my C and D teams. If they die, they’re more easily replaced, if they survive then they tend to graduate to B team level.
In a game like Slay the Spire, when I save scum out of a hallway fight or an event, I’m basically doing recon. I’m learning what situations occur later in a fight, so I know what cards would be best played early in a fight. But it doesn’t feel like an intended mechanic since I’m using Save & Quit to do it.
I try not to savescum as much as possible because I want to live with my choices but sometimes the disaster is so bad or I just plain lose, I reload. Like if a main character permanently dies or...
I try not to savescum as much as possible because I want to live with my choices but sometimes the disaster is so bad or I just plain lose, I reload. Like if a main character permanently dies or leaves the party forever, that takes too much of my experience away. Yesterday though, I fought a giant spider, and then tripped into another boss fight right afterwards and was surprised, my main avatar died died and I thought about reloading, but I stuck it out and a few critical hits later by my barbarian and somehow I 2v5'd a room with my cleric doing some clutch buffs.
Unexpected, I surprised myself, I was tapped on resources and spell slots from the previous boss and somehow I defeated another one.
I've kept other decisions though like if kill someone I wasn't supposed to, or accidentally put down a dog, of anger a hag, things like that.
To a lot of people having the game go a certain way can save time and be far more fun than always accepting the consequences. I know some hate it and do not want it to be part of the game because...
To a lot of people having the game go a certain way can save time and be far more fun than always accepting the consequences. I know some hate it and do not want it to be part of the game because it's too tempting for them. For those types, all games should just have a mode to turn off constant saving. Games that allow quick saving often still have autosave, checkpoints and/or saving on exit so it seems like a simple toggle to change modes on a difficulty screen would work. Wanting to get rid of it so other players can't do it is just selfish, it's bad mojo forcing players to play a single player game your way.
My main reason is due to time. I don't have time to play again and again so I'll use save scumming to maximize the experience. I still often accept negative consequences, but in nearly every game there are times when you don't want a random roll to waste your time or make it not as fun. I'll even go so far as use cheats to save time. It's a compromise and if you don't limit yourself to only doing it to save time or in very specific places, it can make the game less fun. Save scumming to win slot machines or get better drops is a no go to me, that's just an exploit at that point.
Also, I'm in it for the role playing. Quite often poor luck or badly done dialog options require restarting or else your character is turned into something you didn't intend. Imagine playing a lawful good character and for some reason the dialog ends in you killing an innocent puppy rather than petting it like it said you would. Maybe you're pure evil, but for some reason the dialog leads to saving the puppy that you normally would have just killed for funzies. Maybe you're neutral but stepped too close and got forced into dialog with no way out other than choosing good or evil when it doesn't concern you and all you want to do was walk away. I've had more than a few games decide they'd try to force things on your character and sadly not all of them can be scummed out of.
Honestly if save scumming feels like an optimal way to play I'd say that points to a failure of encounter or interface design. They've either not calibrated difficulty properly or they've made it...
Honestly if save scumming feels like an optimal way to play I'd say that points to a failure of encounter or interface design. They've either not calibrated difficulty properly or they've made it feel like the game is doing stuff you didn't intend as you play.
This was an issue with Divinity I had where I frequently would have combat encounters go sideways due to misclicks or poor pathing or NPCs would decide they hate you because you meant to talk to them and accidentally tried to pickpocket them or something.
I back up my saves occasionaly in certain games simply due to random bugs that have happened in various games in the past where saved data can get corrupted. I'm not compulsive about it or...
I back up my saves occasionaly in certain games simply due to random bugs that have happened in various games in the past where saved data can get corrupted. I'm not compulsive about it or stressed if I don't but I don't like losing hundreds of hours in some cases because of a bug or glitch.
I usually don't savescum unless its for testing something or I lose too much. But I find losing some things like a character part of the story. Especially for games like rimworld
I usually don't savescum unless its for testing something or I lose too much.
But I find losing some things like a character part of the story. Especially for games like rimworld
Well, everyone should play however way they like, but, me personally, I don't abuse save games like that. In games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance, I enjoyed the heightened thrill and danger that...
Well, everyone should play however way they like, but, me personally, I don't abuse save games like that. In games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance, I enjoyed the heightened thrill and danger that comes with the (self-imposed) inability to just turn back time to 30 seconds ago. Made key decisions and moments of danger quite exciting.
Depends on the game, I guess. Many Fire Emblem players treat losing any unit as a Game over and restart, and modern games even have built in reset mechanics to correct small movements. In fact, FE...
Depends on the game, I guess. Many Fire Emblem players treat losing any unit as a Game over and restart, and modern games even have built in reset mechanics to correct small movements. In fact, FE fans have an entire challenge category out of NOT save scumming, the Ironman challenge.
As an FE fan, I respect the Ironman players but I will never be one of them. Turtling and striving to make optimal decisions on each turn of a battle can be fun in short bursts, but it exhausts me...
As an FE fan, I respect the Ironman players but I will never be one of them. Turtling and striving to make optimal decisions on each turn of a battle can be fun in short bursts, but it exhausts me maintaining that level of tension.
Restarting when losing a character or missing an event totally ruined FE for me. I can barely play it because of the FOMO anxiety! In Awakening I think it was they added no-permadeath built in as...
Restarting when losing a character or missing an event totally ruined FE for me. I can barely play it because of the FOMO anxiety! In Awakening I think it was they added no-permadeath built in as a difficulty setting, but still you can miss new characters if you don't take the right person to talk to the green NPC or enemy to "turn" them to your side. Exhausting is the word.
I loved Desperados 3 for this reason. Save scumming is built into the system with both quicksave and quickload hotkeys by default. And you were taught about them early as part of the tutorial. One...
I loved Desperados 3 for this reason. Save scumming is built into the system with both quicksave and quickload hotkeys by default. And you were taught about them early as part of the tutorial. One wrong move really could be the end. And with so much going on on screen, with NPCs moving around all over the place, it could be super easy to miss one NPC who spotted you and starts a shootout unexpectedly.
There are some games like Final Fantasy 13 where save scumming is practically required, which is why FF13 was one of the first FFs to have save spots everywhere. Going into most boss fights, I often had no idea what to expect. In particular, what party comp was needed. Which felt super important to these fights, as parties were built around specific character classes. I couldn't just barge in with my favorite or regular lineup as is often done in JRPGs. So often the first attempt at a boss was recon, to determine the party comp, while subsequent attempts were the actual attempts. I did that think was a waste of time and poor design, but at least with all the save spots, it wasn't as much of a waste of time. I wasn't having to backtrack large distances with all that sometimes entails.
I save scum in Jagged Alliamce 2. I made it my oe game, kinda - trying to overcome RNG and make enemies do different actions or in different order. I also save scum gameslike oiginal X-COM, as...
I save scum in Jagged Alliamce 2. I made it my oe game, kinda - trying to overcome RNG and make enemies do different actions or in different order.
I also save scum gameslike oiginal X-COM, as somebody already said. That game kinda needs it.
Recently I played Divinity: Original Sin EE and while I loaded a few times it was mainly because I fucked up the fight big time and got wiped out. I didn't feel the need to actually load through the fights, even though sme charatcers died here and there a few times (got resurrected in or after he fight).
So it really depends on the game and what player expects from playing it.
This is 100% how I play “difficult” games with permadeath ( at least those that allow it). It probably started with the original X-COM UFO Defense. The stakes are too high when you have a well trained, seasoned squad and everything goes to pot after a point blank 90% shot misses and then your rookie gets mind controlled and frags his company. That’s some game ending bullshit. ESC -> LOAD.
It also has to due with the scope of the game and time committed though. In FTL , I learned to embrace the RNG and it led to many surprising outcomes- ended up beating runs where I was on the brink of defeat, which led to a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Of course I also lost a ton of runs, but it was easy enough to start a new FTL session; starting a new x-com squad is something different entirely.
For a lot of games, I don't bother to save scum. But when it's a game where your character can somehow miss a shot at 99% accuracy and then be instantly killed from full health on the next turn, it's warranted.
Yeah, I'm still bitter about XCOM.
I used to play games like this, and I will occasionally if I just want to complete a game. But as others have pointed out, it eliminates any tension in the game and everything starts to feel like a chore because it just becomes a rote task to progress to the end of the game. I think I've realized I'd much rather read a book than press buttons of no consequence for a (usually) medium story.
I've always enjoyed full loot PvP MMOs, because there is a great deal of inherent tension when another player can wipe your progress. Non-PvP games can't quite get there because they lack the ability to repay in kind but they can get close in ironman modes and similar. I have been playing WoW Hardcore and so far haven't made it past level 25 but I've had a great deal of fun trying.
I have a threshold. Things go unexpectedly in XCOM and I lose a character I liked? Well, that happens sometimes and I'll press on. Things go very badly and my entire elite squad is wiped out? Time to restart from the beginning of the mission. I'm even worse in the Battle for Wesnoth. Sometimes I'll save before every individual attack to make sure I get the outcome I want. (IIRC, XCOM, much as it's denigrated for not succeeding 100% of the time on a 99% chance, does still fudge its numbers towards the center of the probability distribution. Wesnoth is just brutally numeric. If you try an 80% attack ten times in a row, you'll very likely fail at two of them.)
But I have to say I've ended up with a very different outlook when playing Wildermyth. The game will build a narrative out of every thing that happens, and various ailments, maimings, and deaths are just part of the story. I've had so many Wildermyth playthroughs where I've lost an important character and I've just gone, "Well, guess that's it for them." Maybe it helps that you can bring old characters back in subsequent playthroughs, but I think it's really the whole roguelite narrative environment the game has going on.
I've ironmanned the orginal xcom a few times. Soldiers are pretty expendable and you're using a skyranger for most of the game which isn't crazy expensive to replace. Your awesome veteran soldier has better stats but outside of psy stuff, they can't really do anything a rookie can't.
The remake through. Completely different story. Start losing experienced soldiers too much in the mid-late game and it can be next to impossible to recover.
I think it's absolutely fine to play games however you want. That being said, I think for most people, save scumming, at least as the author describes it, is not the best way to play RPGs.
For one, you spend way too much time in the BG3 loading screen and not enough time playing the game. If you re-roll infinitely, then in 5e's bounded accuracy system, and especially in BG3 because they added critical successes for skill checks (not a thing in 5e btw, it's only for attack rolls), you basically just always succeed, so why even go through the ceremony? Just install cheat engine and force roll 20 on all checks, or lower the difficulty.
Secondly, it takes away from abilities in the game like Portent, which is one of the best subclasses abilities in 5e because it can save you from devastating failures. If you do it enough, it takes away from almost every ability. What's the point of Reliable Talent if everyone de facto has Reliable Talent?
I was suprised at how much time the author spent talking about save-scumming to avoid failure and only talked about save-scumming to explore the different narrative paths at the end. I've certainly found myself doing it a lot in Baldur's Gate 3, but it's almost entirely down to places where I didn't like a narrative choice rather than combat or a skill check going badly.
Yeah there are some dialogue options that my character wouldn't say, that I wouldn't say, but are intriguing enough that I want to give them a click. Sometimes I wanna just see what would happen if I called someone a moron, or killed this npc. Sometimes I'm surprised and the result is better than my initial choice. Sometimes it's predictably a fiasco and I want to just undo it.
The difference between BG3 and an actual tabletop is the ability to just undo things or try other paths with the save system. It provides a lot more freedom of experience.
That is my use for saves, most of the time.
In FNV sometimes it's cathartic to save and just go kill an annoying NPC that's talking trash to you or treating you like you're a moron.
"Who are you insulting here, bub? Do you have any idea who I am? I just killed House, singlehandedly took out Caesar's Legion, bent the Boomers to my will, destroyed the Brotherhood and the NCR only exist because I allow it. GTF outta here with your insults to my intelligence while asking me to take this package to the mailbox.."
It is a great time to unleash all of the horded special items, but it's not really playing the game. More like, day dreaming before snapping back to reality. I certainly have saved to go wild a few times but it's mostly fun in games where you can do anything to anyone.
I'm not gonna yuck someone's yum but I agree. Outside of combat you just gotta roll with what the dice give you. That's the spirit of most D&D tables, the dice are part of the story telling. Inspiration is handed out pretty liberally at least in comparison to the tables I've played at.
I'm just in the goblin camp now and already excited to replay the game to see what other ways I can solve challenges.
And that's why I don't play D&D.
This is where I was blown away by the original Dragon Age. Your actions and choices wouldn't always have immediate effects. They may have serious consequences, 2/10/30 hours of gametime later, so it'd be impossible to just reload your save and choose a different path instantly. It made me consider my decisions very carefully, and I similarly loved that it had a companion character who would chastise you and even leave the party if you went around picking up every single minor "save my kitten in a tree" sidequest you came across.
Save scumming?
I learned this playing RPGs (especially JRPGs) as "Save, and save OFTEN."
... did no one else get that memo in the '90's and 2000s?
Save scumming, in the XCOM sense, is "I failed a 95% chance to hit? Bullshit. Reload last save." or "My best squaddie got hit with a random crit on that over watch shot and died? Reload save."
Saving in JRPGs is often more like "Big bad guy coming, rest and save."
Nowadays though it might also be "to get 100% completion on this 100 hour JRPG you must always answer the random side conversations correctly, including the one at hour 60 where you have literally no way of knowing the answer at the time." Reloading to get that conversation 'correct' would technically be save scumming but at the same time, I'd scoff at the idea of calling someone out for that.
That said, I prefer not to save scum in shorter games like FTL. The randomness is part of the game! Even Disco Elysium has alternate paths to explore down those failures. Yes, I won't get Kim to wear the jacket but that's the only way to hear him disappointingly shut me down in that downright silly situation.
The difference between "save scumming" and good old "saving your progress" is that with save scumming, a player manually reloads the game when they get an outcome they don't like, rather than the game state being forcibly reloaded by dying/"game over"/etc. With regular saving, you save often so that when you hit a hard fail state and the game rolls you back to your last save, it's not a big setback. With save scumming, players choose to roll back because they didn't like what happened.
Those are the understandings I've come to of those terms, at least!
Interesting. I save scum for dwarf fortress, and I just finished my first deathless Pikmin 4 run.
It comes down to how we each want to have fun, and I am on the side of the author: let us play the way we want to play.
Save scumming is perhaps the most ancient form of game modding: remember those old Choose Your Own Adventure books? When you got to one ending do you restart from the very beginning, re-reading every word? Or do you skip the setup and pick and choose through alternatives based on what you remember and not necessarily in order? You are save scumming.
Games should be played the way that is fun if it doesn't harm other players. Single player monopoly, mods, offline MMORPG, cheat codes, having lights on, having lights off, not listening to the spooky music, taking mind alternating substances.....it's a game. Have fun.
For games where "luck" is involved as a basic mechanic for storytelling I am slightly more hesitant to reroll.....but for sad things happening to cute things, like Pikmin dying, I most definitely do. To their credit Pikmin 4 has a "time roll back" feature built into the game itself for fast save scumming!
It's the difference between being able to do 100% deathless runs for Pikmin, vs my never even making it to the first ending for Loco Roco, because I couldn't deal with the sad sounds and their tiny bodies turning grey.
Life itself has so many challenges for us old folks. Let us have fun in our own ways.
One aspect I'm surprised not to have read yet is utilizing save scumming to clarify mechanics. Like right now I'm playing Divinity Original Sin 2, I'll quick save at the start of a turn if I'm about to take an action where I'm not clear what the interaction is, how the stack resolves, or what some ambiguous text on a skill actually does.
I shamelessly save scummed my way through Dark Souls by backing up the save file. I don't have time to waste playing a game and only having "negative" progress to show. Or having to repeatedly make a whole journey just to try a boss fight again! I really enjoyed the game, but for me, the difficulty and playtime felt artificially inflated by the save system.
I am also guilty of save scumming disco elesium. Most of the time I only play through a game once, and the idea of not achieving the goal or outcome I want is giving me a lesser experience. I tried in disco to let the cards fall and accept the rolls, but a few important ones, like the climactic confrontation toward the end, I just couldn't accept a bad result. Same with the encounter under the boardwalk. I just really wanted things to work out okay, so I reloaded and rerolled (with all appropriate buffs) until I got a result I could live with. Similar to the author, when I build for a particular skill, it's really frustrating to have a bad roll kill an interaction.
If I have time for a second playthrough, then I'll take it easier, but with a job and kids it's hard.
I'd say Disco Elysium is truly one of those games where you don't want to save scum, because losing never leads to a "bad" (game-wise) outcome. You'll almost always get interesting situations or dialogues, whatever your roll.
Except for when you die as a direct result…
But I don’t know if that really counts as save-scumming or not. The only time I reloaded a save was after I died & needed to redo that confrontation rather than completely restarting the game.
Reloading a save after a death in Disco Elysium doesn't really count as save scumming IMO, since it's literally a game-ending event.
"Save scumming" is loosely defined though. I've only really seen the term used in the context of roguelikes (and lites), where the game doesn't really allow you to load a previous save. OP extends the definition as "reloading after an event that punishes me too harshly, (but doesn't end the game)". Reloading a save after a game ending event is ok for most players I think.
Or when the game ends because of a successful roll, as in one conversation that can take place somewhere near a certain hanging corpse.
Spoilers Ahead!
If you manage to convince yourself to shoot Cuno, the game ends. Because you shot a kid. Why did you shoot a kid, detective?
I want to go back and do another playthrough with different decisions and less save scumming, but I finally un-installed DE yesterday to make room for Stray. I had a second DE playthrough in my head for months after the first, but there's so much else I've been wanting to play...
Idk. I'll probably reinstall and give it another try soon. Let Harry really go wild. But losing Kim's respect, or losing Kim himself, or the lady trucker. Those were things I really didn't want to happen in my first experience with the story. Even though the game doesn't explicitly call those fail states, it felt that way to me.
For red rolls, sure, but not for white. Failing a white almost always results in nothing happening and failing a white multiple times in a row can be a frustrating barrier, particularly if you're building for that very skill and just keep getting bad rolls.
Save scumming in the forms I’ve encountered is basically me as a player performing recon. Maybe something that game designer can take advantage of.
I’ll use Darkest Dungeon as an example. I have an A team of characters that steamroll through anything and everything. I also have a B team for when that A team needs a break. But when I need to take on a new dungeon and difficulties, I’m sending in my C and D teams. If they die, they’re more easily replaced, if they survive then they tend to graduate to B team level.
In a game like Slay the Spire, when I save scum out of a hallway fight or an event, I’m basically doing recon. I’m learning what situations occur later in a fight, so I know what cards would be best played early in a fight. But it doesn’t feel like an intended mechanic since I’m using Save & Quit to do it.
I sometimes do this in games; quicksave or hard save, then do something reckless just to see if it's a path worth taking or just a waste of time.
I try not to savescum as much as possible because I want to live with my choices but sometimes the disaster is so bad or I just plain lose, I reload. Like if a main character permanently dies or leaves the party forever, that takes too much of my experience away. Yesterday though, I fought a giant spider, and then tripped into another boss fight right afterwards and was surprised, my main avatar died died and I thought about reloading, but I stuck it out and a few critical hits later by my barbarian and somehow I 2v5'd a room with my cleric doing some clutch buffs.
Unexpected, I surprised myself, I was tapped on resources and spell slots from the previous boss and somehow I defeated another one.
I've kept other decisions though like if kill someone I wasn't supposed to, or accidentally put down a dog, of anger a hag, things like that.
To a lot of people having the game go a certain way can save time and be far more fun than always accepting the consequences. I know some hate it and do not want it to be part of the game because it's too tempting for them. For those types, all games should just have a mode to turn off constant saving. Games that allow quick saving often still have autosave, checkpoints and/or saving on exit so it seems like a simple toggle to change modes on a difficulty screen would work. Wanting to get rid of it so other players can't do it is just selfish, it's bad mojo forcing players to play a single player game your way.
My main reason is due to time. I don't have time to play again and again so I'll use save scumming to maximize the experience. I still often accept negative consequences, but in nearly every game there are times when you don't want a random roll to waste your time or make it not as fun. I'll even go so far as use cheats to save time. It's a compromise and if you don't limit yourself to only doing it to save time or in very specific places, it can make the game less fun. Save scumming to win slot machines or get better drops is a no go to me, that's just an exploit at that point.
Also, I'm in it for the role playing. Quite often poor luck or badly done dialog options require restarting or else your character is turned into something you didn't intend. Imagine playing a lawful good character and for some reason the dialog ends in you killing an innocent puppy rather than petting it like it said you would. Maybe you're pure evil, but for some reason the dialog leads to saving the puppy that you normally would have just killed for funzies. Maybe you're neutral but stepped too close and got forced into dialog with no way out other than choosing good or evil when it doesn't concern you and all you want to do was walk away. I've had more than a few games decide they'd try to force things on your character and sadly not all of them can be scummed out of.
Honestly if save scumming feels like an optimal way to play I'd say that points to a failure of encounter or interface design. They've either not calibrated difficulty properly or they've made it feel like the game is doing stuff you didn't intend as you play.
This was an issue with Divinity I had where I frequently would have combat encounters go sideways due to misclicks or poor pathing or NPCs would decide they hate you because you meant to talk to them and accidentally tried to pickpocket them or something.
I guess it isn't save scumming, but even on the linear console RPGs of the past people often were told to keep back up save files.
I back up my saves occasionaly in certain games simply due to random bugs that have happened in various games in the past where saved data can get corrupted. I'm not compulsive about it or stressed if I don't but I don't like losing hundreds of hours in some cases because of a bug or glitch.
I usually don't savescum unless its for testing something or I lose too much.
But I find losing some things like a character part of the story. Especially for games like rimworld
Well, everyone should play however way they like, but, me personally, I don't abuse save games like that. In games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance, I enjoyed the heightened thrill and danger that comes with the (self-imposed) inability to just turn back time to 30 seconds ago. Made key decisions and moments of danger quite exciting.
Depends on the game, I guess. Many Fire Emblem players treat losing any unit as a Game over and restart, and modern games even have built in reset mechanics to correct small movements. In fact, FE fans have an entire challenge category out of NOT save scumming, the Ironman challenge.
As an FE fan, I respect the Ironman players but I will never be one of them. Turtling and striving to make optimal decisions on each turn of a battle can be fun in short bursts, but it exhausts me maintaining that level of tension.
Restarting when losing a character or missing an event totally ruined FE for me. I can barely play it because of the FOMO anxiety! In Awakening I think it was they added no-permadeath built in as a difficulty setting, but still you can miss new characters if you don't take the right person to talk to the green NPC or enemy to "turn" them to your side. Exhausting is the word.
I loved Desperados 3 for this reason. Save scumming is built into the system with both quicksave and quickload hotkeys by default. And you were taught about them early as part of the tutorial. One wrong move really could be the end. And with so much going on on screen, with NPCs moving around all over the place, it could be super easy to miss one NPC who spotted you and starts a shootout unexpectedly.
There are some games like Final Fantasy 13 where save scumming is practically required, which is why FF13 was one of the first FFs to have save spots everywhere. Going into most boss fights, I often had no idea what to expect. In particular, what party comp was needed. Which felt super important to these fights, as parties were built around specific character classes. I couldn't just barge in with my favorite or regular lineup as is often done in JRPGs. So often the first attempt at a boss was recon, to determine the party comp, while subsequent attempts were the actual attempts. I did that think was a waste of time and poor design, but at least with all the save spots, it wasn't as much of a waste of time. I wasn't having to backtrack large distances with all that sometimes entails.
I save scum in Jagged Alliamce 2. I made it my oe game, kinda - trying to overcome RNG and make enemies do different actions or in different order.
I also save scum gameslike oiginal X-COM, as somebody already said. That game kinda needs it.
Recently I played Divinity: Original Sin EE and while I loaded a few times it was mainly because I fucked up the fight big time and got wiped out. I didn't feel the need to actually load through the fights, even though sme charatcers died here and there a few times (got resurrected in or after he fight).
So it really depends on the game and what player expects from playing it.