I genuinely felt bad about running John Marston and his horse off a cliff in a spectacular leap in the first Red Dead Redemption, but only after I finished laughing hysterically at their combined ragdoll into the desert brush. It certainly isn't the worst save scum, but that'll stick with you.
Play an Ace Attorney game for long enough and at some point you'll enter the loop of "save, present the first piece of evidence in the court record, reset, present, reset, present, reset, present- OH, that did it! ...WHY did that do it???"
SPOILERS FOR TELLTALE BATMAN: I save scummed because I felt horrible for not saving Harvey and letting him become two face... Didn't know the other option had cat women getting shot and didn't know Harvey still becomes insane anyway but at least I felt 0 guilt in him becoming that way.
Every game of Civilization that I play, I laugh at all the other foolish civs that aren't led by a time wizard. I always tear open a portal in time when I start work on a World Wonder, so that if someone finishes before me, I can return to the past where I have no shame.
Not really "foul", more... stupid. I'm currently doing a Shiny-only run of Pokemon Crystal, which requires tens of thousands of resets until I get the right RNG.
To play devils advocate, one of the thinga that elevates a fantasy to thenext level is that feeling of acomplishment that only comes when there is a contrasting possability of failure. That said, some people go overboard with the negativity, and a lot of games really benefit by letting players save scum. Personally I feel like games that make both failing and succeeding interesting and meaningful are neat, but games like pathologic 2 proves that doesn't mean a little bit of save scumming can't still work fine, as long as they make some consiquences permanent (you can reload from frequent checkpointa but if you die you suffer a permanent penalty).
Exactly. Anyone trying to tell me that I'm enjoying my game "wrong" because I use a previous save, when something goes horribly wrong, can sod off. When I want to play casually and just experience a game, I save scum. When I want the challenge and enjoy that, I crank XCom to its hardest difficulty in Iron Man or play a Roguelike.
My cat ran away earlier this summer, and when she was gone I literally had a dream that I save scummed reality in order to get her back. (In real life she came back on her own after a week and was fine!)
@@polygon to access real life’s option menu, you have to mentally imagine three horizontally-aligned grey orbs briefly shrinking-then-growing twice in a row, like “click click”
@@AuntBibby and something lots of players forget to do because accessing the menus are not strait forward is distributing their talent points and skill points each time they go up a level. hint, levels are gained automatically every 365 cycles give or take a few hours. very odd leveling system but it keeps players from falling behind or getting ahead. the rest of the game play loop is leveling up the skills and talents unlocked. such a grind. also, players tend to ignore the patch notes for the server Earth and then are surprised when a disruptive event activates.
I think this game actually broke any hesitation I had about save scumming. It was my second playthrough and I so dearly wanted to be an eldritch being incapable of being perceived!
this is what videogames is all ABOUT. the filthy moment that got Adult Me back into games was in Undertale! i'm a save scummer by nature and after I fucked up and killed Toriel, I reloaded to try again! having the internal monologue in the battle change slightly spooked me good, but it wasn't until Flowey mocked me for save scumming afterwards, AND revealed he still knew that I killed her once, that I fully lost my mind :) what a good video!! this is that video game commentary i love to see!!!
Save scumming can take the fun out of some games but also, how else would you be able to keep playing after accidentally selecting a rude dialogue option.
"fun" is subjective. Save scumming might have that effect on game x for you, but may be a vital reason another person is about to enjoy the same game. For instance I save A LOT when I play resident evil games, but there's also people who enjoy no save runs. Something that would purely infuriate me.
Oh man, Dragon Age Inquisition has the worst implementation of the dialogue wheel of all time. In fact the consensus among the community is to quick save before every conversation because sometimes the dialogue option has absolutely nothing to do with what the character says. For example I would pick an option like: "Why did your son leave for the city?" And my character would say: "I bet your son left because you are a garbage human. This is all your fault. You deserve to suffer." And I'm like "Whoa whoa whoa hold your horses. I didn't want to say that. I was just asking a question!".
I can see that when especially the real life logic just does not apply in ace attorney. Like I can make it unreasonable to even suspect my defendent, but unless I find proof of someone else, dude is still guilty, So you damn right im gonna save scum my way out of those situations.
There's one case where you have one chance to present the right evidence. The first few response lines are identical, just to punish you for 'scummin'.
was just coming to the comments to see if someone had brought up the ace attorney games! savescumming the trials is honestly part of the culture surrounding the games, whether capcom intended it to be or not. the little bar saying that i only get so many chances to present the wrong evidence is a figment of my imagination and it will not stop me
I love the idea behind just rolling with the punches, but what always dissuaded me from Ironman/Hardcore mode in games is if there is a bug/glitch and through no fault of my own has something gone wrong, ending my run. No program is perfect, there is almost surely going to be some edge case bug, I like to have a save so that if something not intended by the game goes wrong I don't have to completely restart or worse simply give up on that game.
I'm very similar. During a game like XCOM, I tend to just roll with what the game gives me. When I do scum it up, it's because I accidentally right clicked the map and now my heavy is about to be put on the casting couch by approximately every Mechtoid
This is why I use mods to re-enable auto-saves and some manual saving when playing Fallout 4 Survival Mode. The number of times that having a manual save of a known good game state has saved my character from a game-breaking glitch is beyond my ability to keep track of.
Yeah I don't get why players always get all the blame. Sometimes I feel it's not my fault: 1. Sometimes the checkpoint system is terrible - I'm redoing a mission 10 times and every time the checkpoint plays an unskippable dialogue over and over again. Then I have to drive the same route to the mission, and initiate another dialogue. Oh my God just load me at mission start please. 2. NPC bugs out - The quest giver failed to spawn. I can't continue the game. This is not my fault, this is the game's fault. 3. Checkpoint is too far back - Need to go to the supermarket. That's just life calling. I barely survived that mission, hell no I'm not doing that again. Why can't I save my progress?
I think it's wild that some people take a hard line on savescumming as if there is one right mechanic that applies to all games--there are SO many different kinds of games, that are made to be enjoyed in different ways, and while some people may only like to play one "kind" of game, there's room for every sort. some ways of playing are more fun with savescumming, some are more fun without, and you can like whichever ones you please--the important part is for devs to put thought and care into matching the mechanics to the game's natural playstyle(s).
I'm sympathetic to this POV, but the issue here is that often games are balanced around the ability to savescum. So a lot of the times people run into a wall of frustration and resort to savescumming ... it's because that's what the playtesters did. So the bitter irony is that savescumming can end up making games more frustrating for those who elect not to, and make savescumming mandatory for those who want it to be optional. There are ways to satisfy everyone, and these will vary game-by-game, but one of the best solutions to it is simply obviate the need for savescumming - and I think that's telling.
@@fraudcakes Yep. I don't hate savescumming per se, but I absolutely hate it when it feels like a game was designed around the assumption that the player will be savescumming.
I wish you'd also brought up Fire Emblem: Three Houses a little more. Their "go back in time system" was a super inventive narrative way to dodge around save scumming. You didn't have to quickload (although you could restart a battle I believe) and instead you could go back as far as you wanted, but only a limited number of times, due to a power that the main character has. It was a very interesting way to integrate that in. (Also, you could just turn off Permadeath, because, lets be real, you don't ANY of those characters to die haha)
@@Gestaltzerfall and way more interesting in that game because improving the turnwheel was part of the gameplay. You could find (or ignore) the wheels during the game, rather than just upgrading it at the statues like in 3H.
@@harryscott2955 I think the real point for this is that some players already reset maps anyways, and goes for every FE game. They created a casual mode for this, but maintained a classic permadeath mode which still caused frustration like before. With Mila’s Turnwheel and Divine Pulse people are allowed to have that option whenever they want instead of committing into a either camp.
@@Senordisastermaster Im more on board with the either or I gotta say. I think the problem with this game mechanic is that it is a tool they give you and you cant refuse it, yes you could ignore it but is harder when the game automatically uses it once youre main dies, and also if you have a perfectionist heart, there is the leveling up tweeks, you can control and reset level ups, witch for me as a perfectionist is too much to ignore, so I would prefer if they let me choose no I dont want any help, I want classic mode and no turn back time.
The problem with this system is that it makes the game less strategic, since dying becomes preventable, it becomes more dependent on brute strength on the enemys for it to be any kind of hard, the scenarios become simpler and longer, because the player can play more since you can un-screw something, so its not so much of controling the map and adapting to the enemy forces, but you just go on fighting until you die, and refusing to use the time travelling system means beginning the longest scenarios once again. also the ai has lost some of their programming and modes in this new title. I love the game but I hate the turning back time system, and how the entire game has been shaped arround it.
I'm certainly going to *try* to reconcile the outro's subtle low-fi music with needing to live with everything I've ever done wrong, forever -- but if it doesn't work, I'll just start the video over and try something else. Maybe a nice choral piece in another tab.
Too much freedom in saving can also come back to bite you when you accidentally quick save right before you get killed with a single blow/shot. Then, every reload is instant death.
I’m surprised Clayton didn’t talk about Pathologic when it came to the embedding of save points into not only a game’s plot, but its themes. Time and limited time are major concepts in the games, and having the save points be clocks that are often hidden in hard to find places makes the game that much harder-and realistic to fighting against time in a pandemic scenario. Not only does it make the game harder, it enforces the player’s focus on the passage of the limited time that you have in-game. It also forces you to explore a vast and confusing map that most players would normally not bother to learn, and instead focus on the main streets. So it also helps you to encounter plot points. It works really smartly, honestly
I only like permadeath and harsh saving systems if the game is short like a few hours but if a game is a epic long game of 30 or more hours then I will save every time I can to reap the benefits I want. Losing like 30 minutes to 5 hours in a run or whatever is fine with no death runs, permadeath on. But if the game is way way longer and I lose one of my best bois. That's it.
@@maxrona137 sometimes getting gud just isn't enough, when the game is hardcore enough you can prep your ass off but still get bad RNG having one of your guys get bombarded with crits by NPC, nothing you can do about it you can prep to minimize the chance but if that chance still happen you just gotta get a can of 'suck it up' and move on
@@therranolleo468 And this is why I only opt-in on the permadeath after I'm extremely familiar with a game Once I've already seen the whole thing six times, the idea of losing hours of progress at a random moment doesn't hit so hard; on a first playthrough, losing anything more than maybe 30-40 minutes to something out of my control is ungodly frustrating. Kills immersion really hard, too. There's a reason I never finished Battletech's campaign ^^;
I’m not a sociopath, but I loved saving in New Vegas, downing all of my Chems, and seeing how long it’ll take the casino guards to take me down. I legit did this almost every time I was done playing.
One interesting example that didn't come up in the video is the first Life is Strange, where save scumming is effectively the core mechanic. At least in the beginning, it also serves as a sort of mechanical metaphor for working through Max's indecision, though the game does go a little...off the rail by the end.
Making use of manual saving is only called "save scumming" by those who are projecting their purity scum upon players of any game. Give players the freedom to choose what they want to do, and give them interesting outcomes regardless of how they play.
The only time I've seen scumming as a pejorative is less about the act of saving, and more about the game being so difficult/rng reliant you *have* to frequently save/reload to have a chance. So more stuff like older Kaizo Mario hacks assuming you make and load save states after _every_ jump.
idk, I save scum and call it that lol. It's kinda like house rules on a board game. It feels "wrong", but if it makes the game more fun for the people playing, very few people care. I feel what I'd describe as "play guilt" when I do it. It's not real guilt, but almost a roleplaying guilt that adds to the experience a bit. idk what point I'm trying to make anymore lol
@@Maxx__________ that's a symptom of not knowing exactly what conditions trigger the desired result. If a player knew exactly what was needed then they likely wouldn't bother to get it perfect.
@@effleurager probably, but it's not always so clear cut. Maybe you were forced to use an item that you were saving to pass it and redo it a few more times to keep the item. Will that item be more useful later? Nobody knows for sure, but item hoarding is a similar OCD trap in gaming.
The best (suspension of disbelief) save mechanics are more nuanced. I like how Into the Breach allows you to redo your turn by "time travel". Pretty smart and doesn't make me feel like an idiot haha
Save scumming is a very enjoyable way to feel like you have control over the game. A feeling of getting one over on the game's systems. Imo, a good game will give you this feeling organically, without going outside the game's own contents. On the flip side, it's a mechanism that tends to bring out the worst OCD-like behavior in players. Players will obsessively replay the same ten seconds over and over until they brute force whatever minor outcome they've become obsessed with. It's an utterly substandard experience compared to playing though a game with a sense of pacing and flow.
I think the "scumming" part is from games like nethack and rogue where there _wasn't_ a visible save. You could quit and come back, but only to exactly where you left off. Players had to manually copy files around to different directories/folders, breaking the "rules" like SCUM in order to SAVE. For games that _do_ have a save feature, I think the neutral/positive phrase "save farming" is more appropriate.
I came here for the Nethack comment. And yeah, first time I completed Nethack was save scummed. But later, finished with permadeath. It can be brutal, when you fall in a pit and you are turned to stone by the cocktrice corpse you were wielding.
You mean the Dark Souls community? (well, you CAN play it multiplayer if you choose, but at least half of the nerd rage in that particular pool is directed at the single players)
It's understandable when a game about immersion and living in a world with rewards as well as consequences in mind. But quick saving and attacking or killing an npc then load back is what's most frustrating to me, especially whenever I'm interested in watching someone else playing one of my favorite games. Unless it's Braid, with the main idea of rewinding time, that's all fine and dandy. Checkpoints are more in favorable to me because it's automatic and I don't have to press esc and click through menus to save.
Even Fire Emblem introduced the turnwheel and divine pulse to make resetting happen less often, but those also introduced ambush spawns that make Ironmanning almost impossible without looking up the map data on the wiki
Ambush reinforcements existed in Fire Emblem before the turnwheel/divine pulse mechanic, but they were either dependant on difficulty mode (like Shadow Dragon and Awakening) or in games that didn't come out of Japan (like FE6) - that does make ironmanning some of these games... interesting, if you don't look up the right info @@
@@lumehaash8926 what I meant to say is that in 3 houses the ambush spawns are placed in a way that makes divine pulse almost required in order to better position your units around them or avoid them, and when you iron man 3 houses that becomes a bigger problem
totally agree, they also made the scenarios longer, that makes the fight less about controlling the map and more a move youre whole army in turtle position and kill all the time, the ai has lost some of its programming and become simpler. And reloading before the fight means having to go through a super long and sometimes boring map, so you don´t really have a "classic mode" option. I think the games before had a more this is your map, and this is how enemys spawn try to come up with a strategy and a functional formation, witch I think was more fun to play. There is also the ability to reroll level ups and that is too much temptation for a perfectionist like me.
I will savescum stealth games and tactics games until the cows come home, but narrative RPGs are where I draw the line. If the game _relies_ on me savescumming and can't make failure interesting, I'm bound to drop it sooner rather than later...
Not entirely sure why stealth games are put with tactics games here. The reason I'm confused is that obviously desperados or commando is based on saving. But saving in splinter cell indeed completely ruined the game for me when I was young, to the point I had to do it again with no save other than the automatic ones to finally enjoy it. And I enjoyed it a lot more this way. So I think it's more the 'puzzle' aspect of a tactical game more than the stealth itself that justifies why it feels ok to save. Said differently I think saving is good to come up with a working plan, but not so much to retry every single step because you failed a small bit of execution when the game is indeed focused on executing properly the planned actions? Just my 2 cents here, not sure it's my definitive position on this. But basically it would be like saving in the middle of a scene in Celeste, you loose the point. Also, for those who remzmber: project IGI did not allow any save in crazy long stealth missions... That gave this game the whole charm!
Nah dude, you're looking at this the wrong way. You savescum the moment your parents had the sex that made you, until you get your preferred chromosomal make up. RNG baby!
It's also how the random rolls in the grand campaign mode of the Total War games (at least the recent ones, not sure when it was first implemented) work. The results of all of your hero actions, auto-resolves, etc. are saved unless you go back to a previous turn.
I was so shocked when i first learned that people consider saving “a scum” because i, not being inside gamer-culture, always thought saving was a pro-gamer move and i was playing game wrongly by not constantly saving...
Let me tell ya, Clayton: any chance you might have lost even the slightest respect for admitting to save scumming was immediately recouped by the joke referencing "Full-life Consequences"
Absolutely vital in stealth games, nobody wants to sneak takedown 27 guards all over again because one dude did a 360 after standing still the rest of the time
This video triggered a memory of me playing Desperados as a 7 year and being absolutely terrible at it and ferociously crying about it, thus burying it deep into my subconscious. I forgot about it. Till now. This video shook me to my core. I felt I needed to say this. Thank you, Polygon. Also, great video, 10/10
I really like the approach of having extremely difficult games that save all the time. It puts the focus solely on overcoming the challenge while not being so punishing that you quit after some bad luck.
Mentioning Daggerfall; in Morrowind, savescumming is technically a canon power of the player character, since one of the characters (Vivec) directly mentions it - he refuses to fight you because he knows that you will just keep coming back until he dies
You go around a blind corner. There are enemies. They get a free reposition. You were at the end of your movement so now your soldier is wide fucking open and flanked. The next turn they die. THANKS X-COM Of course you CAN use only half your movement every turn. And take four hours to do every fucking mission. That's real exciting.
5:47 Hilarious that you used 3 Houses as an example of a roll with the consequences game, when it's the Fire Emblem fates game where you can basically save scum within a turn without having to save. You can't back out of the critical hit that took out a unit, but if you realize after they took their action that it wasn't the best position to leave them in, you can roll back the clock within your turn a limited number of times each battle.
I always appreciate how darkest dungeon does permadeath well as it gives you many chances before a character actually dies. You're encouraged to keep them alive with various sources of healing, given a second chance with death's door and virtuous, and only then do they die if the luck really really really isn't in your favor. Or you run into a cartel of spiders and your vestal dies instantly.
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No different then saving before a gym battle or legendary Pokémon in the games to be sure you don't loose money from loosing a battle or killing a legendary you get once in the game.
@@mitkitty exactly. Had no clue its bad I don't know anyone not doing nuzlok that douse not save before everything in Pokémon games and restart at the save if they loose, Pokémon faints, or like you said run out of balls.
I can’t help but feel like the ability to save and load irl would end up unknowingly trapping you in an infinite loop of the same mistake because you wouldn’t learn or remember anything from the deleted reality
One of my cats in Minecraft walked into a lava pillar that I set up and died. I panicked and closed out of Minecraft for like 15 minutes and after I opened Minecraft up again, my cat was back. This was how I found out what save scumming was. Another time, I rage-quited and deleted my world, and then regretted it later on. But about two months afterwards, xbox live screwed up my version of Minecraft and I chose the right save and it brought back the old world that I deleted. Because I thought that I let the system reformat and delete the world, I made a copy and then let it reformat.
excellent video! avoiding save scumming has always been a thought process of mine -- but alternatively, losing lots of time because I FORGOT to save has made me stop playing games. I lost six hours in Final Fantasy 8 back in the day and dropped the game, and didn't pick it back up over a decade later. Also, examining save systems *might* be the inspiration for rogue-type games.
IMO, I would feel like highly consequential tactical games like XCom would be more rewarding if save scumming was a mechanic in the game. Such as, you the commander has been giving limited precognition, and you can reverse a number of turns over a particular amount of time. Like Prince of Persia, but turn based. Turn up the difficulty a lot and just let me deal with twice the baddies, but with the ability to take risks. I am so loss averse, I find myself making the safest, boringest choices in these games, rather than being able to figure stuff out, and I usually quite the game entirely at some point only to pick it up again a month later with a new save.
95% to hit is still a 1 in 20 chance to miss. It's slim odds, but not really that slim. Play dnd. Get a d20. Roll it a bunch of times. You will eventually miss. Just how the dice roll.
Valkyria Chronicles' DLC where you play as the baddies practically requires scumming. The enemies may as well all be masters in the Matrix, they dodge bullets so expertly. Then, you throw in limited actions per turn and the enemies just having better stats and equipment and its annoying.
The problem with being able to save and reload is that burning rng is really difficult. You have to load back long enough to have time to throw a few punches before you initiate the same encounter again.
Also it takes time and is boring. I love save scumming but not for like, excessive things like rare drops or whatever. But if things go belly up then yeah I’m reloading.
In some cases, save scumming actually points out a flaw in a game, such as excessively limited items handed out by RNG from excessively limited sources (looking at you, Borderlands boss fights). Save scumming can sometimes be the only way to obtain build-defining items, and thus players do it because they have to for the build they are going for.
Im surprised the lack of mentioning of Returnal, specially because it’s one of the most recent save debacles, and it has a hybrid model of save vs punishment
Imo one of the only ways to get a Clean Hands, Ghost, Mostly Flesh and Steel run in Dishonored is save scumming. Any one of those is difficult, but combining the 3 is insane. I’ll never forget finishing mine on the top difficulty and watching all 3 achievements pop at the same time as the credits song played
Playing XCOM 2 made me realize how much I play video games to actually escape from crushing consequences for my actions, or the random whims of fate ruining everything. Like maybe I'm playing this entertaining simulation because I want something in my life to be predictable and stress-free!
I do a lot of savescumming in Ace Attorney games where the logic the game wants you to use has no relation to human logic used by humans. Also, in Final Fantasy 12 it is absolutely possible to go into a plot-restricted area, save, and...not be high enough level to complete the area, nor able to leave it. Whoops.
FF12 was one of those games I tended to keep two save files for. One for when I'm not in a dungeon, one for when I am. There weren't a lot of times when I'd have to fall back on the other one, but it's always nice to have a safety, especially when you should know pretty quickly if you weren't ready really to go into that dungeon when you did.
@@gorimbaud I absolutely *should* have done that, but...I didn't. I got through Draklor eventually, but there was a lot of ducking out of the save crystal room, fighting like three enemies, and ducking back in.
I quite like Kingdom come: deliverance's system, there are autosaves and you save when you sleep but you can also use saviour schnapps to save whenever you want but you're slightly drunk afterwards, and it is expensive. I really dislike the Ironman mode, especially in paradox games, as it locks achievements behind it and I've nearly had games ruined because I misclicked, or misread an event, realised seconds afterwards before it had any effects, but the game had already autosaved.
some of my best memories of xcom 2 are of save scumming over and over to beat an insurmountable challenge, treating it almost like a puzzle. it's the sensation of overcoming the impossible, not accepting defeat and that no game is ever unwinnable. hard work paying off - it's the best way to discover new tactics and strategies because if you're forced to save scum in order to stand a chance you *have to* search for different solutions and approaches. same thing with total war. beating an army of 12 000 strong soldiers with a weak 4000 is impossible on paper. but if you try long enough you can find a solution. *save scumming is at it's best when it's used as a way to take on more challenge rather than to avoid it.* which isn't to say that save scumming is bad but that it gets a bad rep for being cowardly while encompassing the exact opposite. in such cases the people who don't save scum play more cowardly than those who do, as they're the ones backing down from a challenge that just defeated them. or straight up avoid missions etc. that are likely to fail. in this way save scumming actually unlocks whatever may be holding you back from taking a risk. ironic as save scumming has the exact opposite reputation as something that avoids risk.
Personally, I think every game should let you save at any time. Life happens, and games are supposed to be recreation. There's also no technical barrier keeping this basic QoL thing from us anymore. If you don't like save scumming...Don't do it. It's like difficulty settings. Do you think "easy mode" is for filthy casuals? Don't use it. Simple.
yeah but that's just because the game is completly linear on his narrative, you can only go Genocide or Pacifist to milk the story, you go in between and you get a neutral where you barely understand anything, and the games put you in your last save every time you die
Had to come back a day after watching this and say thank you for introducing me to Desperado. I don't think I've played that style game in almost 20 years, and almost forgot it existed. So many thanks again for that.
When I was a child, restarting my Gamecube every time a Pikmin died was called save scumming. Now on UA-cam this is called doing a deathless run. Trial and error sure, but the end result is perfection.
Raft is extremely brutal in regards to this, if you die you lose all the items and armor you had equipped on you when you died. There is no loading back a few minutes ago, not even restoring the game to a prior save file fixes this, you're just screwed.
With how misleading dialogue options can be it's almost necessary to save scum to actually get your character to respond the way you want them to. Looking at Bethesda and Bioware.
Games are meant to be an escape from true reality I feel. Save scumming should be an option in most games. Hardcore/Ironman modes are for competing against ones self.
I prefer having the option to save scum rather than having perma punishments. I usually won't save scum unless its a new genre to me and I'm constantly making dumb mistakes. Not having that option makes the game 20,000x more frustrating and usually causes me to rage quite after I die or fail 5 times in a row.
I am amazed, I always felt conflicted about this but didn't know there was an actual term for it. Makes it much easier to understand. I experience this a lot with Skyrim or RPG in general, where I make a choice I don't like and feel indifferent about whether I should reload or not.
Clayton's joke always make me laugh more coz I'm never expecting them. The 'eyy that's a nice run you've got going there' took me *out*, impeccable work
8:01 I save scum in Heroes of Might and Magic 4 to get specific skills when leveling up, and it has this same kind of fixed RNG. In order to change the random new skills you have to move an army and reload to get a new RNG seed.
I have OCD so unlimited manual saves and quicksaves are the best thing in video games that ever happened. Achievements and Trophies are the worst thing in video games that ever happened. (Well maybe after loot boxes, and microtransactions.)
Slay The Spire, which is a roguelike card game, has that fixed-seed randomness which means if you generate cards in an order you always get the same ones. It also autosaves at the start and end of fights. If I'm on a run I really care about (because I've found that magic combo, or I think I'm learning something) I can retry fights as many times as I like, but I can't necessarily turn a loss into a straight win. I'm glad they did that rather than reset the random every fight like Griftlands, which does, and means I can literally retry fights forever unless my build is garbo. I think it shows the devs noticed that, or serendipitously didn't!
I'm extremely, extremely proud of my original San Andreas run, specifically when I got to the big casino zone and managed to win millions built off the backs of under $100,000, entirely through smart betting. I played odds, built my cash up slow, and worked hard for multiple real-time days developing and implementing systems to increase my money time and time again. One time, it failed me, and I went back to betting on horses in Los Santos to make some cash back before trying again, a little more experienced in how far I could push the system. And I ended up hitting a big payout to the tun of pushing myself over $54 million. Now, I never resorting to reloading an older save, no matter what, which is why I'm still immensely proud of that run to this day. But I don't disparage any players who did; it's a personal choice, and I think (especially in a game like that) it's all about player agency, freedom, and empowerment. In fact, Red Dead Redemption 2 and even GTAV before it went SO FAR out of their way to prevent easy save scumming money that these systems were absolutely gutted. Even in single player--a mode divorced in every metric for cash flow from the multiplayer Shark Card selling pyramid scheme they've been pushing--gambling is dead, and it's impossible to really game the system. That's worse, in my opinion, than any number of players abusing the option.
Glad to see I'm not the only person who created the Empire of Alba in CK3. Mine (coincidentally) was in Ironman, so it wasn't quite so vast, but I've imported it into EU4 so I now know the joys of fighting with the Pope (and my biggest rival: Lothgaringia)
I went to look up Desperados as I like that attitude, I see my curators like it too. I think I'll add that to my wishlist Also, I keep meaning to try the Crusaders series, I have 2, but last time I tried I got partway into the intro campaign and married a celibate XD
Learnt the hard way many years ago with the horribly hollow feeling of a major league or Cup win, or promotion in football manager achieved with a quit and reload after an initial loss in a big game....
I mainly play a MMO these days so this video was a nice reminder that saves exist. And specifically that one Skyrim save I created just a few seconds before the Alduin battle starts, where my dragonborn is a vampire. Haven't gotten further than that one save for a long, long time. Loved the video, Clayton!
What's the worst, most foul save scum you've ever done?
I genuinely felt bad about running John Marston and his horse off a cliff in a spectacular leap in the first Red Dead Redemption, but only after I finished laughing hysterically at their combined ragdoll into the desert brush. It certainly isn't the worst save scum, but that'll stick with you.
Play an Ace Attorney game for long enough and at some point you'll enter the loop of "save, present the first piece of evidence in the court record, reset, present, reset, present, reset, present- OH, that did it! ...WHY did that do it???"
SPOILERS FOR TELLTALE BATMAN:
I save scummed because I felt horrible for not saving Harvey and letting him become two face...
Didn't know the other option had cat women getting shot and didn't know Harvey still becomes insane anyway but at least I felt 0 guilt in him becoming that way.
Every game of Civilization that I play, I laugh at all the other foolish civs that aren't led by a time wizard. I always tear open a portal in time when I start work on a World Wonder, so that if someone finishes before me, I can return to the past where I have no shame.
Not really "foul", more... stupid. I'm currently doing a Shiny-only run of Pokemon Crystal, which requires tens of thousands of resets until I get the right RNG.
I play video games as escapism, and one thing I want to escape is the crushing, linear permanence of time.
well-said
Seriously! Idk why a basic game function is so demonized. That’s what it’s there for! If I wanted lasting consequences I wouldn’t be playing a game
To play devils advocate, one of the thinga that elevates a fantasy to thenext level is that feeling of acomplishment that only comes when there is a contrasting possability of failure.
That said, some people go overboard with the negativity, and a lot of games really benefit by letting players save scum.
Personally I feel like games that make both failing and succeeding interesting and meaningful are neat, but games like pathologic 2 proves that doesn't mean a little bit of save scumming can't still work fine, as long as they make some consiquences permanent (you can reload from frequent checkpointa but if you die you suffer a permanent penalty).
Exactly.
Anyone trying to tell me that I'm enjoying my game "wrong" because I use a previous save, when something goes horribly wrong, can sod off.
When I want to play casually and just experience a game, I save scum. When I want the challenge and enjoy that, I crank XCom to its hardest difficulty in Iron Man or play a Roguelike.
Escape to the soft relaxing void of endless hyper focused repetition!
My cat ran away earlier this summer, and when she was gone I literally had a dream that I save scummed reality in order to get her back. (In real life she came back on her own after a week and was fine!)
In college my friends and I would joke about savescumming for good food RNG in the cafeteria.
Ngl, I was really invested in that outcome when I started reading that comment and I'm relieved that she came back.
Who asked?
Whos to say you didn't literally find a cheat code in your dream and break reality just to do this.
WAIT ARE YOU NEO?
This is so cute
i quicksave before i drink chocolate milkshakes so i can go back & drink them again
drop the strats
@@polygon to access real life’s option menu, you have to mentally imagine three horizontally-aligned grey orbs briefly shrinking-then-growing twice in a row, like “click click”
But that begs the question: If you go back to a point before you drink it the first time, will you remember that first time if it never happened?
@@YoYoBobbyJoe Of course. Player knowledge is not reset by saves.
@@AuntBibby and something lots of players forget to do because accessing the menus are not strait forward is distributing their talent points and skill points each time they go up a level. hint, levels are gained automatically every 365 cycles give or take a few hours. very odd leveling system but it keeps players from falling behind or getting ahead. the rest of the game play loop is leveling up the skills and talents unlocked. such a grind.
also, players tend to ignore the patch notes for the server Earth and then are surprised when a disruptive event activates.
Dishonored ghost runs be like:
I already fucked mine first mission, too lazy to go back lol
Dont call me out like this
I think this game actually broke any hesitation I had about save scumming.
It was my second playthrough and I so dearly wanted to be an eldritch being incapable of being perceived!
Save scumming makes ghost runs in games like that actively more fun no shame in that
The flooded district remains an eternal nightmare.
this is what videogames is all ABOUT. the filthy moment that got Adult Me back into games was in Undertale! i'm a save scummer by nature and after I fucked up and killed Toriel, I reloaded to try again! having the internal monologue in the battle change slightly spooked me good, but it wasn't until Flowey mocked me for save scumming afterwards, AND revealed he still knew that I killed her once, that I fully lost my mind :)
what a good video!! this is that video game commentary i love to see!!!
Save scumming can take the fun out of some games but also, how else would you be able to keep playing after accidentally selecting a rude dialogue option.
literally tho. i wont reload fallout if i fail a skill check but i absolutely will reload if i was accidentally mean
"fun" is subjective. Save scumming might have that effect on game x for you, but may be a vital reason another person is about to enjoy the same game. For instance I save A LOT when I play resident evil games, but there's also people who enjoy no save runs. Something that would purely infuriate me.
How can it take away the fun?
Oh man, Dragon Age Inquisition has the worst implementation of the dialogue wheel of all time. In fact the consensus among the community is to quick save before every conversation because sometimes the dialogue option has absolutely nothing to do with what the character says.
For example I would pick an option like:
"Why did your son leave for the city?"
And my character would say:
"I bet your son left because you are a garbage human. This is all your fault. You deserve to suffer."
And I'm like "Whoa whoa whoa hold your horses. I didn't want to say that. I was just asking a question!".
@@Iron_Soil because it makes it too easy or redundant. Why get lockpicking skill if you can just reload your fails?
i think the only game i've ever save scummed in is Ace Attorney when I present the wrong piece of evidence at a critical point in the trial
i get that so hard, sometimes i really just wanna present my badge in court
some of the failure text is really funny too
I can see that when especially the real life logic just does not apply in ace attorney. Like I can make it unreasonable to even suspect my defendent, but unless I find proof of someone else, dude is still guilty, So you damn right im gonna save scum my way out of those situations.
There's one case where you have one chance to present the right evidence. The first few response lines are identical, just to punish you for 'scummin'.
was just coming to the comments to see if someone had brought up the ace attorney games! savescumming the trials is honestly part of the culture surrounding the games, whether capcom intended it to be or not. the little bar saying that i only get so many chances to present the wrong evidence is a figment of my imagination and it will not stop me
@@EGRJ That's actually the final case in the entire original trilogy.
good use of Half Life :Full Life Consequences in here, because when I see a polygon notification it makes me go FASTER LIKE THE SPEED OF SOUND
I have to click fast, and trackpad too slow.
I wasn't expecting to suddenly remember John Freeman this early in the morning, but i thank Clayton dearly for the reminder
@@timedwards7338 NOT SO FAST MR GORDON
ells101 I CANT GIVE YOU MY LICENSE OFFICER
I love the idea behind just rolling with the punches, but what always dissuaded me from Ironman/Hardcore mode in games is if there is a bug/glitch and through no fault of my own has something gone wrong, ending my run. No program is perfect, there is almost surely going to be some edge case bug, I like to have a save so that if something not intended by the game goes wrong I don't have to completely restart or worse simply give up on that game.
I'm very similar. During a game like XCOM, I tend to just roll with what the game gives me. When I do scum it up, it's because I accidentally right clicked the map and now my heavy is about to be put on the casting couch by approximately every Mechtoid
This is why I use mods to re-enable auto-saves and some manual saving when playing Fallout 4 Survival Mode. The number of times that having a manual save of a known good game state has saved my character from a game-breaking glitch is beyond my ability to keep track of.
Yeah I don't get why players always get all the blame. Sometimes I feel it's not my fault:
1. Sometimes the checkpoint system is terrible - I'm redoing a mission 10 times and every time the checkpoint plays an unskippable dialogue over and over again. Then I have to drive the same route to the mission, and initiate another dialogue. Oh my God just load me at mission start please.
2. NPC bugs out - The quest giver failed to spawn. I can't continue the game. This is not my fault, this is the game's fault.
3. Checkpoint is too far back - Need to go to the supermarket. That's just life calling. I barely survived that mission, hell no I'm not doing that again. Why can't I save my progress?
I think it's wild that some people take a hard line on savescumming as if there is one right mechanic that applies to all games--there are SO many different kinds of games, that are made to be enjoyed in different ways, and while some people may only like to play one "kind" of game, there's room for every sort. some ways of playing are more fun with savescumming, some are more fun without, and you can like whichever ones you please--the important part is for devs to put thought and care into matching the mechanics to the game's natural playstyle(s).
I'm sympathetic to this POV, but the issue here is that often games are balanced around the ability to savescum. So a lot of the times people run into a wall of frustration and resort to savescumming ... it's because that's what the playtesters did. So the bitter irony is that savescumming can end up making games more frustrating for those who elect not to, and make savescumming mandatory for those who want it to be optional. There are ways to satisfy everyone, and these will vary game-by-game, but one of the best solutions to it is simply obviate the need for savescumming - and I think that's telling.
@@fraudcakes Yep. I don't hate savescumming per se, but I absolutely hate it when it feels like a game was designed around the assumption that the player will be savescumming.
Ohhh it is glorious how easily that thumbnail could be manipulated.
Yep
i had this horrible realization when i was making it - simone
@@polygon I’m sure you were past the point of no return when it happened
i don’t get it
@@haysdixon6227 just remove the s from "scumming" and...
I wish you'd also brought up Fire Emblem: Three Houses a little more. Their "go back in time system" was a super inventive narrative way to dodge around save scumming. You didn't have to quickload (although you could restart a battle I believe) and instead you could go back as far as you wanted, but only a limited number of times, due to a power that the main character has. It was a very interesting way to integrate that in. (Also, you could just turn off Permadeath, because, lets be real, you don't ANY of those characters to die haha)
The turn reversal mechanic was introduced in the previous game Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia under the name “Mila’s Turnwheel”.
@@Gestaltzerfall and way more interesting in that game because improving the turnwheel was part of the gameplay. You could find (or ignore) the wheels during the game, rather than just upgrading it at the statues like in 3H.
@@harryscott2955 I think the real point for this is that some players already reset maps anyways, and goes for every FE game. They created a casual mode for this, but maintained a classic permadeath mode which still caused frustration like before. With Mila’s Turnwheel and Divine Pulse people are allowed to have that option whenever they want instead of committing into a either camp.
@@Senordisastermaster Im more on board with the either or I gotta say. I think the problem with this game mechanic is that it is a tool they give you and you cant refuse it, yes you could ignore it but is harder when the game automatically uses it once youre main dies, and also if you have a perfectionist heart, there is the leveling up tweeks, you can control and reset level ups, witch for me as a perfectionist is too much to ignore, so I would prefer if they let me choose no I dont want any help, I want classic mode and no turn back time.
The problem with this system is that it makes the game less strategic, since dying becomes preventable, it becomes more dependent on brute strength on the enemys for it to be any kind of hard, the scenarios become simpler and longer, because the player can play more since you can un-screw something, so its not so much of controling the map and adapting to the enemy forces, but you just go on fighting until you die, and refusing to use the time travelling system means beginning the longest scenarios once again. also the ai has lost some of their programming and modes in this new title. I love the game but I hate the turning back time system, and how the entire game has been shaped arround it.
I'm certainly going to *try* to reconcile the outro's subtle low-fi music with needing to live with everything I've ever done wrong, forever -- but if it doesn't work, I'll just start the video over and try something else. Maybe a nice choral piece in another tab.
thanks for watching to the end :D - Simone
Too much freedom in saving can also come back to bite you when you accidentally quick save right before you get killed with a single blow/shot. Then, every reload is instant death.
This is why my hard save folderr is so bloated that the game itself starts to stutter
happened to me and my brother with desperados 2 way back in the day, somewhat fittingly.
That's why you do tactical saves, like when you're near an important battle, or when you're safe and near your objective or near an important NPC
Fallout 3 AF
I’m surprised Clayton didn’t talk about Pathologic when it came to the embedding of save points into not only a game’s plot, but its themes. Time and limited time are major concepts in the games, and having the save points be clocks that are often hidden in hard to find places makes the game that much harder-and realistic to fighting against time in a pandemic scenario. Not only does it make the game harder, it enforces the player’s focus on the passage of the limited time that you have in-game. It also forces you to explore a vast and confusing map that most players would normally not bother to learn, and instead focus on the main streets. So it also helps you to encounter plot points. It works really smartly, honestly
That Cyberpunk Red clip reminded me that I need to watch it again for the fourth time.
I only like permadeath and harsh saving systems if the game is short like a few hours but if a game is a epic long game of 30 or more hours then I will save every time I can to reap the benefits I want.
Losing like 30 minutes to 5 hours in a run or whatever is fine with no death runs, permadeath on. But if the game is way way longer and I lose one of my best bois. That's it.
Or you could, ya know, get gud 😜
@@maxrona137 Oof
@@maxrona137 sometimes getting gud just isn't enough, when the game is hardcore enough you can prep your ass off but still get bad RNG having one of your guys get bombarded with crits by NPC, nothing you can do about it
you can prep to minimize the chance but if that chance still happen you just gotta get a can of 'suck it up' and move on
@@therranolleo468 And this is why I only opt-in on the permadeath after I'm extremely familiar with a game
Once I've already seen the whole thing six times, the idea of losing hours of progress at a random moment doesn't hit so hard; on a first playthrough, losing anything more than maybe 30-40 minutes to something out of my control is ungodly frustrating. Kills immersion really hard, too. There's a reason I never finished Battletech's campaign ^^;
I’m not a sociopath, but I loved saving in New Vegas, downing all of my Chems, and seeing how long it’ll take the casino guards to take me down. I legit did this almost every time I was done playing.
It's so cathartic
@@GamerMGO Literally.
One interesting example that didn't come up in the video is the first Life is Strange, where save scumming is effectively the core mechanic. At least in the beginning, it also serves as a sort of mechanical metaphor for working through Max's indecision, though the game does go a little...off the rail by the end.
Making use of manual saving is only called "save scumming" by those who are projecting their purity scum upon players of any game. Give players the freedom to choose what they want to do, and give them interesting outcomes regardless of how they play.
The only time I've seen scumming as a pejorative is less about the act of saving, and more about the game being so difficult/rng reliant you *have* to frequently save/reload to have a chance.
So more stuff like older Kaizo Mario hacks assuming you make and load save states after _every_ jump.
idk, I save scum and call it that lol. It's kinda like house rules on a board game. It feels "wrong", but if it makes the game more fun for the people playing, very few people care. I feel what I'd describe as "play guilt" when I do it. It's not real guilt, but almost a roleplaying guilt that adds to the experience a bit. idk what point I'm trying to make anymore lol
I think it's also the implication that you're spending your time obsessively fixing minor mistakes that will almost certainly end up not mattering.
@@Maxx__________ that's a symptom of not knowing exactly what conditions trigger the desired result. If a player knew exactly what was needed then they likely wouldn't bother to get it perfect.
@@effleurager probably, but it's not always so clear cut. Maybe you were forced to use an item that you were saving to pass it and redo it a few more times to keep the item. Will that item be more useful later? Nobody knows for sure, but item hoarding is a similar OCD trap in gaming.
The timing of that "reload" with the gun reloading was just A++++ editing
The best (suspension of disbelief) save mechanics are more nuanced. I like how Into the Breach allows you to redo your turn by "time travel". Pretty smart and doesn't make me feel like an idiot haha
Save scumming is a very enjoyable way to feel like you have control over the game. A feeling of getting one over on the game's systems. Imo, a good game will give you this feeling organically, without going outside the game's own contents. On the flip side, it's a mechanism that tends to bring out the worst OCD-like behavior in players. Players will obsessively replay the same ten seconds over and over until they brute force whatever minor outcome they've become obsessed with. It's an utterly substandard experience compared to playing though a game with a sense of pacing and flow.
I mean, it is literally a mechanic in Undertale
I think the "scumming" part is from games like nethack and rogue where there _wasn't_ a visible save. You could quit and come back, but only to exactly where you left off. Players had to manually copy files around to different directories/folders, breaking the "rules" like SCUM in order to SAVE.
For games that _do_ have a save feature, I think the neutral/positive phrase "save farming" is more appropriate.
“save spam” also works too I think
I came here for the Nethack comment.
And yeah, first time I completed Nethack was save scummed. But later, finished with permadeath.
It can be brutal, when you fall in a pit and you are turned to stone by the cocktrice corpse you were wielding.
Imagine being the kind of person who gets mad about the way other people play single-player video games...
You mean the Dark Souls community? (well, you CAN play it multiplayer if you choose, but at least half of the nerd rage in that particular pool is directed at the single players)
I'm the kind of person who gets mad about the way other people design single-player video games.
It's understandable when a game about immersion and living in a world with rewards as well as consequences in mind.
But quick saving and attacking or killing an npc then load back is what's most frustrating to me, especially whenever I'm interested in watching someone else playing one of my favorite games.
Unless it's Braid, with the main idea of rewinding time, that's all fine and dandy. Checkpoints are more in favorable to me because it's automatic and I don't have to press esc and click through menus to save.
Even Fire Emblem introduced the turnwheel and divine pulse to make resetting happen less often, but those also introduced ambush spawns that make Ironmanning almost impossible without looking up the map data on the wiki
Ambush reinforcements existed in Fire Emblem before the turnwheel/divine pulse mechanic, but they were either dependant on difficulty mode (like Shadow Dragon and Awakening) or in games that didn't come out of Japan (like FE6) - that does make ironmanning some of these games... interesting, if you don't look up the right info @@
@@lumehaash8926 what I meant to say is that in 3 houses the ambush spawns are placed in a way that makes divine pulse almost required in order to better position your units around them or avoid them, and when you iron man 3 houses that becomes a bigger problem
totally agree, they also made the scenarios longer, that makes the fight less about controlling the map and more a move youre whole army in turtle position and kill all the time, the ai has lost some of its programming and become simpler. And reloading before the fight means having to go through a super long and sometimes boring map, so you don´t really have a "classic mode" option. I think the games before had a more this is your map, and this is how enemys spawn try to come up with a strategy and a functional formation, witch I think was more fun to play. There is also the ability to reroll level ups and that is too much temptation for a perfectionist like me.
I will savescum stealth games and tactics games until the cows come home, but narrative RPGs are where I draw the line. If the game _relies_ on me savescumming and can't make failure interesting, I'm bound to drop it sooner rather than later...
Disco Elysium nailed this. Failure is a fundamental part of the experience, probably even moreso than successful rolls.
Not entirely sure why stealth games are put with tactics games here.
The reason I'm confused is that obviously desperados or commando is based on saving. But saving in splinter cell indeed completely ruined the game for me when I was young, to the point I had to do it again with no save other than the automatic ones to finally enjoy it. And I enjoyed it a lot more this way.
So I think it's more the 'puzzle' aspect of a tactical game more than the stealth itself that justifies why it feels ok to save. Said differently I think saving is good to come up with a working plan, but not so much to retry every single step because you failed a small bit of execution when the game is indeed focused on executing properly the planned actions? Just my 2 cents here, not sure it's my definitive position on this.
But basically it would be like saving in the middle of a scene in Celeste, you loose the point.
Also, for those who remzmber: project IGI did not allow any save in crazy long stealth missions... That gave this game the whole charm!
> The best ability for my money is save and reload
us trans folks would like to present
_the character creator_
You wouldn’t be able to keep that character without a save button
Nah dude, you're looking at this the wrong way. You savescum the moment your parents had the sex that made you, until you get your preferred chromosomal make up. RNG baby!
The XCom thing is hilariously similar to how burning rng works in Three Houses. Interesting.
It's also how the random rolls in the grand campaign mode of the Total War games (at least the recent ones, not sure when it was first implemented) work. The results of all of your hero actions, auto-resolves, etc. are saved unless you go back to a previous turn.
I was so shocked when i first learned that people consider saving “a scum” because i, not being inside gamer-culture, always thought saving was a pro-gamer move and i was playing game wrongly by not constantly saving...
Let me tell ya, Clayton: any chance you might have lost even the slightest respect for admitting to save scumming was immediately recouped by the joke referencing "Full-life Consequences"
Surprised at no mention of Undertale, the first game that comes to my mind that incorporates saving - and save scumming - directly into its narrative.
Clayton, you are such a joy to watch. I just had to pause after "BIG MOOOOOOOOD" to wipe away tears of laughter
Absolutely vital in stealth games, nobody wants to sneak takedown 27 guards all over again because one dude did a 360 after standing still the rest of the time
180° - you mean.
I would love a series exploring different video game's speedruns, I know some rely on quick saving/quick loading a lot
This video triggered a memory of me playing Desperados as a 7 year and being absolutely terrible at it and ferociously crying about it, thus burying it deep into my subconscious. I forgot about it. Till now. This video shook me to my core. I felt I needed to say this. Thank you, Polygon. Also, great video, 10/10
Hi Gráinne! Cool to see you "guest-appearing" in a Polygon video & making my UA-cam world a little smaller... Good luck with your Fringe show!
Having a minute long loading screen every time when i loaded my last save file on my ps4 sure was a discouragement, but it did not stop me. 😅
On the upside, it made me get up and stretch or do push ups
I appreciate that Half Life Full Life Consequences reference. I love that old video
I almost gasped when I heard it. I barely know anyone who's seen those videos. True classic.
I really like the approach of having extremely difficult games that save all the time. It puts the focus solely on overcoming the challenge while not being so punishing that you quit after some bad luck.
Mentioning Daggerfall; in Morrowind, savescumming is technically a canon power of the player character, since one of the characters (Vivec) directly mentions it - he refuses to fight you because he knows that you will just keep coming back until he dies
"Unacceptable Consequences" Yea, like playing X-Com.
97% chance to hit enemy, you're standing right next to it point blank. You fire 30 shots and all of them miss.
You go around a blind corner. There are enemies. They get a free reposition. You were at the end of your movement so now your soldier is wide fucking open and flanked. The next turn they die. THANKS X-COM
Of course you CAN use only half your movement every turn. And take four hours to do every fucking mission. That's real exciting.
5:47 Hilarious that you used 3 Houses as an example of a roll with the consequences game, when it's the Fire Emblem fates game where you can basically save scum within a turn without having to save. You can't back out of the critical hit that took out a unit, but if you realize after they took their action that it wasn't the best position to leave them in, you can roll back the clock within your turn a limited number of times each battle.
I always appreciate how darkest dungeon does permadeath well as it gives you many chances before a character actually dies.
You're encouraged to keep them alive with various sources of healing, given a second chance with death's door and virtuous, and only then do they die if the luck really really really isn't in your favor.
Or you run into a cartel of spiders and your vestal dies instantly.
This could be nothing but Clayton saying "Full Life Consequences" and I would love it just as much
If you want save scumming to be a core part of gameplay, you could just make a Sands of Time style rewind feature a part of the basic controls.
He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
I truly agree with you on that,
Because I see Bitcoin as ultimately becoming a reserve currency for banks, playing much the same role as gold did in the early days of banking. Banks could issue digital cash with greater anonymity and lighter weight, more efficient transactions
Some peopLe are ignorant of profitability in forex investment
and that has been the major issues Limiting their investment
Investment is that tiny Line that separates the rich from the Poor
As a beginner who don't understand how forex trade really works and you really want to make profit from it. I will advise you to first start working with a professional broker
No different then saving before a gym battle or legendary Pokémon in the games to be sure you don't loose money from loosing a battle or killing a legendary you get once in the game.
Especially when the Legendaries take several hundred pokeballs and STILL DONT GET IN THERE
@@mitkitty exactly. Had no clue its bad I don't know anyone not doing nuzlok that douse not save before everything in Pokémon games and restart at the save if they loose, Pokémon faints, or like you said run out of balls.
I can’t help but feel like the ability to save and load irl would end up unknowingly trapping you in an infinite loop of the same mistake because you wouldn’t learn or remember anything from the deleted reality
polygon, never make me listen to a toilet flush with my headphones ever again.
One of my cats in Minecraft walked into a lava pillar that I set up and died. I panicked and closed out of Minecraft for like 15 minutes and after I opened Minecraft up again, my cat was back. This was how I found out what save scumming was.
Another time, I rage-quited and deleted my world, and then regretted it later on. But about two months afterwards, xbox live screwed up my version of Minecraft and I chose the right save and it brought back the old world that I deleted. Because I thought that I let the system reformat and delete the world, I made a copy and then let it reformat.
I love save scumming, at least in stealth games and harder games like stalker, but rolling with your mistakes are really fun sometimes
excellent video! avoiding save scumming has always been a thought process of mine -- but alternatively, losing lots of time because I FORGOT to save has made me stop playing games. I lost six hours in Final Fantasy 8 back in the day and dropped the game, and didn't pick it back up over a decade later.
Also, examining save systems *might* be the inspiration for rogue-type games.
IMO, I would feel like highly consequential tactical games like XCom would be more rewarding if save scumming was a mechanic in the game.
Such as, you the commander has been giving limited precognition, and you can reverse a number of turns over a particular amount of time. Like Prince of Persia, but turn based. Turn up the difficulty a lot and just let me deal with twice the baddies, but with the ability to take risks.
I am so loss averse, I find myself making the safest, boringest choices in these games, rather than being able to figure stuff out, and I usually quite the game entirely at some point only to pick it up again a month later with a new save.
So… Fire Emblem Three Houses. That would be great though.
Xcom discouraging save scumming whilst also having you miss on a 95%+ hit chance shot is so shitty
95% to hit is still a 1 in 20 chance to miss. It's slim odds, but not really that slim. Play dnd. Get a d20. Roll it a bunch of times. You will eventually miss. Just how the dice roll.
Valkyria Chronicles' DLC where you play as the baddies practically requires scumming.
The enemies may as well all be masters in the Matrix, they dodge bullets so expertly. Then, you throw in limited actions per turn and the enemies just having better stats and equipment and its annoying.
To be fair that games tutorial does tell you to save during battles
The problem with being able to save and reload is that burning rng is really difficult. You have to load back long enough to have time to throw a few punches before you initiate the same encounter again.
Also it takes time and is boring. I love save scumming but not for like, excessive things like rare drops or whatever. But if things go belly up then yeah I’m reloading.
nice one clayton but no discussion about narrative consequences of saving the game is complete w/out an undertale reference
Or on the PC side of things, savescumming was basically the norm thanks to adventure games being so popular in the 80s-90s.
In some cases, save scumming actually points out a flaw in a game, such as excessively limited items handed out by RNG from excessively limited sources (looking at you, Borderlands boss fights). Save scumming can sometimes be the only way to obtain build-defining items, and thus players do it because they have to for the build they are going for.
Im surprised the lack of mentioning of Returnal, specially because it’s one of the most recent save debacles, and it has a hybrid model of save vs punishment
Imo one of the only ways to get a Clean Hands, Ghost, Mostly Flesh and Steel run in Dishonored is save scumming.
Any one of those is difficult, but combining the 3 is insane.
I’ll never forget finishing mine on the top difficulty and watching all 3 achievements pop at the same time as the credits song played
Playing XCOM 2 made me realize how much I play video games to actually escape from crushing consequences for my actions, or the random whims of fate ruining everything.
Like maybe I'm playing this entertaining simulation because I want something in my life to be predictable and stress-free!
I do a lot of savescumming in Ace Attorney games where the logic the game wants you to use has no relation to human logic used by humans.
Also, in Final Fantasy 12 it is absolutely possible to go into a plot-restricted area, save, and...not be high enough level to complete the area, nor able to leave it. Whoops.
FF12 was one of those games I tended to keep two save files for. One for when I'm not in a dungeon, one for when I am. There weren't a lot of times when I'd have to fall back on the other one, but it's always nice to have a safety, especially when you should know pretty quickly if you weren't ready really to go into that dungeon when you did.
@@gorimbaud I absolutely *should* have done that, but...I didn't. I got through Draklor eventually, but there was a lot of ducking out of the save crystal room, fighting like three enemies, and ducking back in.
@@cygnahoshiko4629 Sounds rough! Did you manage to grind your way through t?
@@gorimbaud I did! Eventually. Which is good, because it would have sucked to have to start over from there.
Definitely save scummed in the Phoenix Wright series lmaoo
I quite like Kingdom come: deliverance's system, there are autosaves and you save when you sleep but you can also use saviour schnapps to save whenever you want but you're slightly drunk afterwards, and it is expensive. I really dislike the Ironman mode, especially in paradox games, as it locks achievements behind it and I've nearly had games ruined because I misclicked, or misread an event, realised seconds afterwards before it had any effects, but the game had already autosaved.
some of my best memories of xcom 2 are of save scumming over and over to beat an insurmountable challenge, treating it almost like a puzzle. it's the sensation of overcoming the impossible, not accepting defeat and that no game is ever unwinnable. hard work paying off - it's the best way to discover new tactics and strategies because if you're forced to save scum in order to stand a chance you *have to* search for different solutions and approaches.
same thing with total war. beating an army of 12 000 strong soldiers with a weak 4000 is impossible on paper. but if you try long enough you can find a solution.
*save scumming is at it's best when it's used as a way to take on more challenge rather than to avoid it.* which isn't to say that save scumming is bad but that it gets a bad rep for being cowardly while encompassing the exact opposite. in such cases the people who don't save scum play more cowardly than those who do, as they're the ones backing down from a challenge that just defeated them. or straight up avoid missions etc. that are likely to fail. in this way save scumming actually unlocks whatever may be holding you back from taking a risk. ironic as save scumming has the exact opposite reputation as something that avoids risk.
Personally, I think every game should let you save at any time. Life happens, and games are supposed to be recreation. There's also no technical barrier keeping this basic QoL thing from us anymore.
If you don't like save scumming...Don't do it. It's like difficulty settings. Do you think "easy mode" is for filthy casuals? Don't use it. Simple.
2:50 WOW that looks amazing, like a modern Commandos 🤩
I just said "I love a Clayton video" out loud, to no one
Surprised you didn't talk about Undertale, the most anti-save scumming game of all time, I would think!
yeah but that's just because the game is completly linear on his narrative, you can only go Genocide or Pacifist to milk the story, you go in between and you get a neutral where you barely understand anything, and the games put you in your last save every time you die
Had to come back a day after watching this and say thank you for introducing me to Desperado. I don't think I've played that style game in almost 20 years, and almost forgot it existed. So many thanks again for that.
Clayton is such a great member of the team, hope to see your content for a long time!
When I was a child, restarting my Gamecube every time a Pikmin died was called save scumming.
Now on UA-cam this is called doing a deathless run.
Trial and error sure, but the end result is perfection.
Raft is extremely brutal in regards to this, if you die you lose all the items and armor you had equipped on you when you died. There is no loading back a few minutes ago, not even restoring the game to a prior save file fixes this, you're just screwed.
Thank you for letting me know about a game I would have to be paid to play, then. :)
With how misleading dialogue options can be it's almost necessary to save scum to actually get your character to respond the way you want them to. Looking at Bethesda and Bioware.
Games are meant to be an escape from true reality I feel. Save scumming should be an option in most games. Hardcore/Ironman modes are for competing against ones self.
One of the cool things Life is Strange did was using save scumming as an in-universe plot point
Spoilers: so when the game takes that ability away from you, suddenly all the conversation decisions become much, much more impactful as a result
I prefer having the option to save scum rather than having perma punishments. I usually won't save scum unless its a new genre to me and I'm constantly making dumb mistakes. Not having that option makes the game 20,000x more frustrating and usually causes me to rage quite after I die or fail 5 times in a row.
I am amazed, I always felt conflicted about this but didn't know there was an actual term for it. Makes it much easier to understand. I experience this a lot with Skyrim or RPG in general, where I make a choice I don't like and feel indifferent about whether I should reload or not.
My runs on the first entries of Splinter Cell ended up being a cascade of save scumming
I both learned about saving design *and* felt attacked about my anxiety towards the inevitability of real life consequences. Thanks, Clayton!
That Full-Life Consequences reference takes me back.
Yikes folks, I almost read that title as something totally different
the alien moaning face really didn't help...
Clayton's videos are always so smart and funny. Love this!!!
Clayton's joke always make me laugh more coz I'm never expecting them. The 'eyy that's a nice run you've got going there' took me *out*, impeccable work
Literally just started playing Desperados 3 yesterday. Right as I saw this video it was the first thing I thought of, and I’m happy it’s in here.
8:01 I save scum in Heroes of Might and Magic 4 to get specific skills when leveling up, and it has this same kind of fixed RNG. In order to change the random new skills you have to move an army and reload to get a new RNG seed.
I have OCD so unlimited manual saves and quicksaves are the best thing in video games that ever happened. Achievements and Trophies are the worst thing in video games that ever happened. (Well maybe after loot boxes, and microtransactions.)
Slay The Spire, which is a roguelike card game, has that fixed-seed randomness which means if you generate cards in an order you always get the same ones. It also autosaves at the start and end of fights. If I'm on a run I really care about (because I've found that magic combo, or I think I'm learning something) I can retry fights as many times as I like, but I can't necessarily turn a loss into a straight win. I'm glad they did that rather than reset the random every fight like Griftlands, which does, and means I can literally retry fights forever unless my build is garbo. I think it shows the devs noticed that, or serendipitously didn't!
I'm extremely, extremely proud of my original San Andreas run, specifically when I got to the big casino zone and managed to win millions built off the backs of under $100,000, entirely through smart betting. I played odds, built my cash up slow, and worked hard for multiple real-time days developing and implementing systems to increase my money time and time again. One time, it failed me, and I went back to betting on horses in Los Santos to make some cash back before trying again, a little more experienced in how far I could push the system. And I ended up hitting a big payout to the tun of pushing myself over $54 million.
Now, I never resorting to reloading an older save, no matter what, which is why I'm still immensely proud of that run to this day. But I don't disparage any players who did; it's a personal choice, and I think (especially in a game like that) it's all about player agency, freedom, and empowerment. In fact, Red Dead Redemption 2 and even GTAV before it went SO FAR out of their way to prevent easy save scumming money that these systems were absolutely gutted. Even in single player--a mode divorced in every metric for cash flow from the multiplayer Shark Card selling pyramid scheme they've been pushing--gambling is dead, and it's impossible to really game the system. That's worse, in my opinion, than any number of players abusing the option.
Saving frequently makes it easier to satisfy the completionist/perfectionist urge, infrequent saving satisfies the challenger/gambler urge.
Glad to see I'm not the only person who created the Empire of Alba in CK3. Mine (coincidentally) was in Ironman, so it wasn't quite so vast, but I've imported it into EU4 so I now know the joys of fighting with the Pope (and my biggest rival: Lothgaringia)
I went to look up Desperados as I like that attitude, I see my curators like it too. I think I'll add that to my wishlist
Also, I keep meaning to try the Crusaders series, I have 2, but last time I tried I got partway into the intro campaign and married a celibate XD
i really like clayton's shirt. rad as hell.
Learnt the hard way many years ago with the horribly hollow feeling of a major league or Cup win, or promotion in football manager achieved with a quit and reload after an initial loss in a big game....
10/10 for the Full Life Consequences reference. John Freeman still lives in all of us... As a zombie ghost.
bruh a half life full life consequences reference in 2021 is not what i was expecting
I mainly play a MMO these days so this video was a nice reminder that saves exist. And specifically that one Skyrim save I created just a few seconds before the Alduin battle starts, where my dragonborn is a vampire. Haven't gotten further than that one save for a long, long time. Loved the video, Clayton!