Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost

As I'm playing Dragon Quest VII, with its archaic system of save points, I've been thinking a lot about saving the game recently. I have to admit that I'm not a fan of auto-saving: I want to be in control of when I save, be that anywhere or at save points. I can see the value in all three set-ups, so I thought it might be a fun question to pose to the forum. That's where you come in.

Finally, if you pick 'Other' in the poll

DIGRESSION ALERT: As a maths teacher, I have to include 'Other' or something like it in every questionnaire, to avoid being a hypocrite.

let us know what your preferred saving system is.

Other for me, I hate playing games without autosave, too many times a game has crashed/there's some sort of non-restartable game over and I've not saved for hours, however I hate quitting a game without making a manual save. Always leaves me on edge!

I'm glad the days of save points are behind us, as being able to stop at short notice and save anywhere, plus knowing the game is saving regularly and giving me options if I die, is invaluable. I'm with Andy in that even when a game auto-saves, I like to have a manual option as well. Breath of the Wild was pretty much perfect.

Here's a thing: even though it's irrelevant now, I always like to save in a Pokémon centre. And in most other games, I like to save somewhere meaningful; "a good place to stop", if you will.

I like being able to save anywhere though I don't dislike auto-saves as long as it makes it clear when it is saving.

Drunka wrote:

And in most other games, I like to save somewhere meaningful; "a good place to stop", if you will.

I always took this approach when playing the Souls games, either stopping at a newly discovered bonfire or what I believe to be an upcoming boss.

Like most people, I appreciate the freedom of being able to save everywhere. It worked especially well for BotW, and indeed does for any handheld game, allowing a quick stop when getting off the bus, e.g.

However, there are exceptions. I quite liked that the Metroid Prime games had defined save points. That way a journey out into the unknown felt more dangerous, knowing that death would wipe off progress. So it's not quite so cut and dried as 'save anywhere is best' (even though that's what I voted for ).

Balladeer wrote:

However, there are exceptions.  I quite liked that the Metroid Prime games had defined save points.  That way a journey out into the unknown felt more dangerous, knowing that death would wipe off progress.  So it's not quite so cut and dried as 'save anywhere is best' (even though that's what I voted for ).

This is why, and I know you're not necessarily a fan of them, Dark Souls and Shovel Knight style spawn points work in a world where saving can be done anywhere. Forcing players to wait before they can stop playing and do something is intrusive into real life, but as you say that safe area is a big part of exploration games.

My issue with that death-punishment system is that you can lose more and more every time you die, getting to the point where you're worse off than when you got to the save point/checkpoint in the first place. After the third death without regaining your stuff, it becomes less tense and more irritating. But I can see why people like them.

SK is worse than DS in that regard, as the bonfire in DS is where you spend your souls. If you didn't have enough to spend when you set out, you don't have that much to lose. In SK you can't do much until the end of the level, so there's a chance of losing all your treasure before you've had a chance to use it.

I'll stick up for save points but won't be voting for them. I like the tension of not knowing where the next one is going to be - provided they're regularly spaced. Also, definitively not the right way to go for a mobile game. You have got to be able to save anywhere on a mobile game, for sure.

Tough to answer as I feel this is very dependant on genre and whatever the developer was trying to achieve. Take the Grand Strategy or Turn based tactics genres. Both can benefit from 'Iron Man' modes to ratchet up the tension and make every decision special, but I usually play them without iron man on and like the ability to save anywhere, in or out of battle. Choose your own adventure games like Life is Strange definitely benefit from constant autosaves and in Sports games I prefer an autosave as I'm often forgetting to save. Open world games suffer without save anywhere options, while some JRPGs might be designed around a more rigid checkpoint system as a form of balancing or whatevs.

I tend to play a lot of different genres, so it's hard to point to a favourite. Mandatory checkpoints can feel a bit archaic, but in some circumstances they're fine. I guess I preference save anywhere, if I had to choose an option that wasn't, other.

There are definitely arguments to be made in terms of saving and going back to earlier saves not being appropriate for some games, but I think saving and suspending a game should be possible at any time in every game. It's just disrespectful to a player's time to try and dictate when they can stop playing, and there's no excuse with modern technology.

I let the game Autosave but then save at important points like before or after a Gym in Pokemon.

Whilst playing Persona 5 that doesn't have an autosave and you only save anywhere outside of a dungeon but in a dungeon, you can only save in rooms, I would save in every room.

The problem here was I was using one save file which was fine as I finished the game but had the issue with a trophy popping that, I had to either New Game+ or load an older save via the cloud (which I done), which was 88hrs in of a game that took me 95.

I've had several games crash on me and lose hours of progress, so I've grown to be very rigorous with my saves. If a game auto-saves, I'll make a manual save in addition to the auto-saves. Manual saves only? Then I'm using multiple save slots to back up my progress. You can never be too careful!

I voted for auto-saves - though I agree with the comments above that point out that it does depend on the game itself. I'm basically lazy now; also stupid, as a lot of the time I wait for a game to auto-save, and treat that as an instruction that it's a good place to manually save the game before stopping.

I feel a distinct lack of control with auto saves, and I've played a few auto savers that saved in places that weren't where I would have saved. Unsettled me, so it did. I want to be able to save myself... unless the game is improved by the tension between save points.