Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Murphy's been a bad boy ...

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Tillerman
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by Tillerman »

Soulless-Shadow wrote:I don't mind if it's save points or checkpoints. However, I like checkpoints/autosaves more than I do save points. Save points disrupt gameplay and take me out of the game, whereas checkpoints are barely noticeable (other than a little flashing icon).
I would agree with you, but I don't feel like checkpoints make sense for non-linear games. The whole idea of checkpoints is that they save your forward progress, but in a non-linear game progress isn't always forward, so the effect instead is to just have your game save itself randomly. Plus, what if you are experimenting with something and don't want to save your game? Open world games tend to favor experimentation and exploration, and if the game takes away control from the player and forces you to save at specific invisible points, I just think that's gonna annoy a lot of people.

Save points also have the slight advantage of giving the player something extra to look for, which is a plus for exploration games, and they also allow you to have the option to challenge yourself to get through a game with a minimal amount of saves, like you could with previous Silent Hills.

I do agree that checkpoints are often the ideal form of saving for linear games, though.
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KiramidHead
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by KiramidHead »

I have no problem with save points, as long as there are enough of them. I don't care for pure auto save, since I generally stop playing once I get to a save point, and only having auto save will leave me playing far longer than intended to. I still think checkpoints can be useful, like in between major sections of an area. That way you can still be penalized for dying, but not too much.
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Tillerman
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by Tillerman »

KiramidHead wrote:I have no problem with save points, as long as there are enough of them.
Y'know, a good idea that I don't think I've ever seen implemented is to restrict the amount of save points based on difficulty level. So tons of them on easy, and very few on hard. Why don't more games do this?
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Trauma_
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by Trauma_ »

Because maybe someone has to get away from the game and go to class or work or something like that and if they're hustling around looking for a save point instead of doing that thing more important it kind of defeats the purpose. Then they'll have to do everything all over again from the last save point.
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by Soulless-Shadow »

Tillerman wrote:
Soulless-Shadow wrote:I don't mind if it's save points or checkpoints. However, I like checkpoints/autosaves more than I do save points. Save points disrupt gameplay and take me out of the game, whereas checkpoints are barely noticeable (other than a little flashing icon).
I would agree with you, but I don't feel like checkpoints make sense for non-linear games. The whole idea of checkpoints is that they save your forward progress, but in a non-linear game progress isn't always forward, so the effect instead is to just have your game save itself randomly. Plus, what if you are experimenting with something and don't want to save your game? Open world games tend to favor experimentation and exploration, and if the game takes away control from the player and forces you to save at specific invisible points, I just think that's gonna annoy a lot of people.
Checkpoints/autosaves can be and have been implemented in non-linear games. They don't just work by walking through a door or reaching a special area. For example, you pick up an important item and BAM! Auto save. You can still explore and do as you please, but that tiny bit of progress (picking up the important item) has been saved. Another example would be GTA4. After finishing a mission it auto saves. Progress is saved, but exploration hasn't been hampered.
Tillerman wrote:Save points also have the slight advantage of giving the player something extra to look for, which is a plus for exploration games, and they also allow you to have the option to challenge yourself to get through a game with a minimal amount of saves, like you could with previous Silent Hills.
I hate being restricted by number of saves. It was a pain in the arse with the first RE games, and it's a pain in the arse for any other game. I'm a cautious person, so no matter how many times I've finished a game and defeated a boss, I feel better if I save first. Never know when something might go horribly wrong.
KiramidHead wrote:I have no problem with save points, as long as there are enough of them. I don't care for pure auto save, since I generally stop playing once I get to a save point, and only having auto save will leave me playing far longer than intended to. I still think checkpoints can be useful, like in between major sections of an area. That way you can still be penalized for dying, but not too much.
Yeah, that's the only downside to autosaves. When I save manually, I'm more likely to turn the game off as soon as I can. But with autosave I lose track of time, and continue to play for longer than I should. But at the same time waiting to manually save can be just as time consuming. For example, when playing Bayonetta I usually turned off after manually saving which only happens in-between levels (even though it also had autosave). Doing that made me play the game for longer than I wanted. I guess it all depends on the game and person though.
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by SHF »

It won't be too casual. Think about it. Murphy can only carry one weapon at a time, not to mention the weapons break eventually.
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by Kenji »

Tillerman wrote:Y'know, a good idea that I don't think I've ever seen implemented is to restrict the amount of save points based on difficulty level. So tons of them on easy, and very few on hard. Why don't more games do this?
I Wanna Be the Guy does that. Hard Mode has the default number of save points. Medium doubles the save points, but all of the extra ones are labelled "Wuss." Very Hard halves them. Impossible has one save point... I think (or zero).
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by angelofROOM302 »

^^
:lol:

Silent Hill casual?
No way!
Casual games are like BeJewled and Mahjong. :roll:

If I'm not mistaken I think that SH: Homecoming had Save Points and a couple of checkpoints. I'd rather have a ton of saves, than to make it halfway through the game only to run into a glitch and have to start back from some unknown area. Game consoles are more complex now and sometimes the hardware just bugs out. That's probably why there's so much autosave in games today.

The only thing we can do it wait for the game to be released. If you want to play yours on hard, that's awesome. There's the difficulty in that. I like mine on Easy and with tons of save points. 8)
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by Kenji »

^ Using "Mahjong" and "casual" in the same sentence betrays a lack of understanding of Mahjong...
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by Tillerman »

Soulless-Shadow wrote:Checkpoints/autosaves can be and have been implemented in non-linear games. They don't just work by walking through a door or reaching a special area. For example, you pick up an important item and BAM! Auto save. You can still explore and do as you please, but that tiny bit of progress (picking up the important item) has been saved. Another example would be GTA4. After finishing a mission it auto saves. Progress is saved, but exploration hasn't been hampered.
Yeah, that's certainly all true. Maybe they work better for mission based games like GTA4, where it makes sense to autosave after every mission. But in a horror game there aren't "missions," (hopefully) and if you autosave after everytime the player picks up an item, that's way too often. If you only autosave after important items, then it makes the game frustrating. I would think the better way to do it is just to have clearly marked save points, and then let the player decide when they save their game. But that's just me.
Soulless-Shadow wrote:I hate being restricted by number of saves. It was a pain in the arse with the first RE games, and it's a pain in the arse for any other game. I'm a cautious person, so no matter how many times I've finished a game and defeated a boss, I feel better if I save first. Never know when something might go horribly wrong.
I hear you. But I meant as more of a personal challenge then a game enforced challenge.
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by Mephisto »

Kenji wrote:^ Using "Mahjong" and "casual" in the same sentence betrays a lack of understanding of Mahjong...
My thoughts exactly. . .
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by Skele »

Kenji wrote:
Tillerman wrote:Y'know, a good idea that I don't think I've ever seen implemented is to restrict the amount of save points based on difficulty level. So tons of them on easy, and very few on hard. Why don't more games do this?
I Wanna Be the Guy does that. Hard Mode has the default number of save points. Medium doubles the save points, but all of the extra ones are labelled "Wuss." Very Hard halves them. Impossible has one save point... I think (or zero).
apparently Dead Space 2 does this as well. on a certain difficulty, i think you get like 3 saves for the whole game.
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by saevitia »

Some of us suck at video games, and yet still want to be able to play through them. *grumble grumble*
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Tillerman
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by Tillerman »

Well, that's why it makes sense to restrict saves based on difficulty. If you wanna be able to save a lot, it only makes sense you should be playing on easy mode. Though, if I were the designer, I would still make it so that you could save semi-often even on hard difficulty. Say maybe once every half hour. Only getting 3 saves in a game is overboard, unless that's "insane" difficulty, in which case it makes sense.

But yeah, one of my favorite feelings in video games in the tension that comes with knowing that you havent saved in awhile, and if you die you lose a lot of progress. That's also one of the reasons I loved the original Tomb Raider, but didn't really care for any of the sequels.
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by KiramidHead »

I just hope we don't have to collect specific items to save, *cough* ink ribbons *cough*. Saving is a simple game mechanic which should probably be as simplistic as possible.

Restricting save points per difficulty level is a good idea. I remember playing Code Veronica, and there was no choice of difficulty. I ended up having to backtrack over half of the map every time I wanted to save. Grrrrr, annoying.
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by jdnation »

An autosave or save anytime function may come in handy for other reasons. I know I've had moments where I'm in the middle of playing Silent Hill and I then have to leave to go somewhere or do something, and there's no friggin save point anywhere. So it'd be nice to halt your progress and save and continue later. I'd hate to go through some difficult thing or run back and forth getting items and have to do it all over again. Good game design will make it not feel like a chore, but in case such things crop up then ease of saving adn continuing will make things less frustrating.
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by Tillerman »

^I think a combination of save points and autosaves can make a great deal of sense... after all, other Silent Hill games have done this. I believe some of the original games (at least SH1) allows you to continue if you die to a boss... that's a good example of complimenting a save system. But I just don't want to see them overuse autosaves, if it gets to the point where you can't lose any progress from dying, I'm gonna be depressed.
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by Mr. E. Nygma »

Yeah but I don't like having to restart entire levels at the end its annoying.
I love the Silent Hill Series. The Games: Homecoming, Origins, and Shattered Memories, did nothing wrong whatsoever, they were developed well, and did things different. Just because they were not by Team Silent doesn't mean that they're bad games. I believe in this series. I Believe that one day, we can have a game that will make all Silent Hill fans Happy. I believe that Silent Hill Downpour can achieve this.
Team Silent may be gone, but their Series isn't. Instead... it's here, it's alive.
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by KiramidHead »

We know for sure that the subway will be used to move between different areas in the town. Perhaps this will where autosaves could be implemented, like how it's done in Bioshock.
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Re: Worried that Downpour will be too "casual."

Post by Tillerman »

TNAJeffHardy13 wrote:Yeah but I don't like having to restart entire levels at the end its annoying.
I hear you. There's a balance that needs to be achieved. If dying causes someone to lose too much progress, that's very frustrating... but if you lose no progress, it removes all the tension from the game. That's why I think it's a good idea to limit save points based on the difficulty level. Even on hard though, I'd still want the player to be able to save at least every hour or so. And there could still be autosaves for bosses, and other places where you are expected to die a lot.
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