This has probably been asked before. I''ve been trying to think of the best method for allowing the player to save their game in an RPG. I want the player to have limited saving ability, as I totally believe it enhances the game. I know there is always the "allow the player to choose to not save" option, but it is crap. I think just having the ABILITY to save anytime degrades the game. The accomplishments that are made in the game don''t feel as great when you know you could have just reloaded and tried again and again. Flashpoint is a good example. That could become quite scary at times. Especially when you''ve played through 20-30 minutes of game, done things you wouldn''t believe you could do again, and the situation gets nasty. It almost turns realistic; You DONT want to die. You hide in a bush, you crawl into a ditch and hide, whatever it takes. And when you win, you really feel it. I want to prevent the "save before a fight" saves, but I want to keep the "I need to go to work" saves. I would even like to restrict hacks from people as devious as myself who can go in and make backups of save files (yep, I did that a few times in Flashpoint) or hex edit the files. How often do you think the player should be able to save his game, allowing them to restore their death? Or could other ideas be included, such as preventing them from really dying, sending them to a hospital or such, and have them lose money / experience / items? Any ideas?

the distance between two save points should not be long.

quote:Original post by alnite
the distance between two save points should not be long.

Especially if you''re going to have random encounters. I hate, I hate, I hate it when I am playing a game and the phone rings and my buddy says, "Hey, we''re going bowling. We''ll be by your place in ten minutes if you wanna come along," and I can''t get to a save point in time. Ten freaking minutes! Final Fantasy X, with it''s damn cut scenes, frequent battles and long, slow areas, had me wandering for twenty minutes one time looking for a save point before I could go to bed. That sucks.

Modern RPGs aren''t really concerned with actually dying in the course of the game. Sure, it happens, but it''s always a fluke or a boss fight, and you go into those at full health anyway. So let the player save frequently, or else structure the game so they can get to a save point in three minutes or less from anywhere except the boss''s throne room.

Here''s my suggestion: Have random encounters be more common on the overworld map, but let players save wherever they like. Dungeons should have puzzles and traps, but relatively few monsters, so you can get through them in a hurry. So, you use a tent and save at the mouth of the cave, and then you can go through it it about five or ten minutes, if you''ve got the items, strength and strategy. If you can''t make it through, your failure will take the form of a locked door or a death at the hands of a major enemy, not a long erosion via a hundred cave-dwelling bears.

If you don''t like that, then give the player an item or spell that will warp them to the last save point or something.

That''s my 2¢.

Simple: Make it like Beyond good and Evil.

They have save points in the game so that when you LOAD your game you go to those points.

BUT!!!

If you die, you go to a checkpoint, not where you saved the game. This means that if you go into a room, watch a huge cutscene, then die fighting the boss, you dont have to spend 10 minutes fighting to get back to the boss again, then watch the movie, then freaking die again (aka, final fantasy 7 and the chick dying part). If you die it just reloads it to where you started fighting the boss.

Best save system ever.

You guys brought it to my attention that I''m not so much concerned about where they save, but when and how often. Saving before a tough boss is okay in my opinion, especially when you usually have to fight through a large area before you encounter them.

There are no random battles in the game. Some enemies will regenerate in certain locations in some form or another, though. So I guess the same principles apply.

I would rather not limit the number of times you can save, as that would limit the total time you could play the game at all. Something that just limits how often they save.

Also, I would like to allow them to exit the game at any time, any number of times. When starting it again, they could return to that location, deleting that temporary save when they return. This also allows them to copy the file and restore it if they screw up But it is a must, for the reasons Chef points out. Any way this could be countered? I could just complicate it by adding info in another file, but that would get messy. I could also choose to store all saves in a single file, but that could also get messy.

Sorry to blab and blab about a meger problem.

Zelda OoT is good in my opinion. You can save anytime (items everything is saved), but when you load your game you go to save point you last visited.

What about literally letting real time be the limiting factor. If you haven''t saved in the last 20 minutes, you can save, but you can''t go saving every time you go through a door unless you want to wait around for 20 minutes of real time.

You could vary the real time variable by the area they are in - depending on how cruel you are, they can save every 15s in an easy area, but in a place you want tension to be high, they can''t save for 30 minutes. However, you''d need to make it clear to the player that they are in a place where they need to concentrate on the game a for a while.

''things to do'' saves, can be a mixture of normal saves and temporary saves. Ie. It saves your progress up to the last respawn point (if you have them), and saves the game up to where you are when you quit. If you lose when you play it, it deletes the temporary save, and puts you back at the last savespot?