New 'n tasty save system is not good

[Oddipus]

Hey guys. Sorry if there's already a thread about the new 'n tasty save system. The search function is not working on my phone.

I wanted to play some oddworld this week, and experienced again the awkward way of saving in this game. My problems:

• quicksave and quickload on the same button. This way you can accidentally save on a bad spot when you actually wanted to load.
• when you die, you should automatically start from your last (quick)save. Now you return to the latest checkpoint, so you can then quickload.
• sometimes the 'reload from last checkpoint' isn't there, and you only can restart path. That can be a very long part to replay.
• the limitation of 3 saveslots is weired.

I hope soulstorm will have a better system.
A game that handles saving perfectly in my opinion, is 'shadow tactics, blades of the Shogun'.

[Oddey]

Funny enough, two save systems that works perfectly, in my opinion, are Abe's Exoddus and Abe's Oddysee. I know they're a little obscure, but maybe you oughta give them a try.

[Oddipus]

true!

[Nepsotic]

It says you joined in 2001, have you not already played them?

[Wil]

Hi Oddipus!

[Varrok]

New 'n tasty save system is not good

Now, hope that helps.

[Oddipus]

Hey Nepsotic. That's true, I joined long time ago. Lifetime fan off Oddworld. So of course I played the original games, and yes their save system was good (especially AE with the quicksave). I wanted to compare new 'n tasty with a recent, modern game. In shadow tactics your last 3 quicksaves are listed, with a screenshot. And you can hardsave anywhere. Very straightforward.

And Varrok, I agree that new' n tasty was also not what I was hoping for. Too clean. I 'm pretty sure soulstorm will be better. Hopefully OWI still read the forums, and hereby know I (we) want a good save system.

[Nepsotic]

Hopefully they do still read the forums.

suck a dick, owi

[Yokai]

Hopefully they do still read the forums.

suck a dick, owi

Wow, that totally is gonna make them wanna listen to you.

[Varrok]

Hey Nepsotic. That's true, I joined long time ago. Lifetime fan off Oddworld. So of course I played the original games, and yes their save system was good (especially AE with the quicksave). I wanted to compare new 'n tasty with a recent, modern game. In shadow tactics your last 3 quicksaves are listed, with a screenshot. And you can hardsave anywhere. Very straightforward.

And Varrok, I agree that new' n tasty was also not what I was hoping for. Too clean. I 'm pretty sure soulstorm will be better. Hopefully OWI still read the forums, and hereby know I (we) want a good save system.

To be quite honest, despite me having AE in high regards as a game, I disagree about its save system being good, as I think quiksave is quite abusable to get past hard sections without understanding how the puzzles work, and I don't think the player should be responsible for how hard the game should be during gameplay, as he'll choose the easiest way, and the easiest way doesn't help you truly overcome a challenge - grow as a player.

I do agree that NnT's save system is much worse than AE, because AE puzzles were made with some consideration of the feature, whereas NnT is just copy pasted AO levels, for the most part.

A good example of how you can abuse the mechanic is UXBs in NnT. I've beaten the game on hard saving all of the mudokons, but to this day I don't get the horribly unintuitive timing needed to defuse those. Here's what I had done: quiksave, press the defuse button at any random time, if Abe blew up, quikload, repeat. Does it seem fun to you? It really isn't. Why did I do it? Because it seemed to be less of an effort.

Now, if you say UXBs weren't well designed in NnT in the first place, and the timings should correspond to the visuals, I'll agree. But, it's just an example, and there are many people who'd use this sort of cheese tactics to skip genuinely well thought puzzles, ending up having no fun at all. This is bad.

Having all of this in mind, I don't consider what you'd constitute a good saving system a lot better than what we have. If anything, the current save system discourages you to quiksave, relying on using checkpoints, which I consider better. Or at least I would, if the game wasn't so utterly broken, so you die for stupidest reasons.

[childish nonsense of someone who's hardly a teenager anymore]

Grow up.

[Oddipus]

I like your argumentation.

The way AO was designed, with only the checkpoints, gave you a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. Step by step getting further in each segment. Experimenting with different methods for getting past the puzzles. Not only to save yourself but also your fellow mudokons.

The quicksave in AE can indeed be called a cursed gift. Makes you stop timing your actions properly. You're right.

NnT gives you the same cursed gift (but executed worse) , for puzzles that didn't need it. You're right again.

While I was playing Alf's escape, I ran into a kind of frustration I hadn't experienced before. I was not mad because it was difficult to figure out what to do, I was mad because I hardly could get my timing right. Deactivate bombs, evade meat grinders, slipping through electric zappers. Pfff. I dare to say it wasn't because I lost skill... I blame the design. I don't think I can get past those parts without quicksave. That's not ok. After so many reloads, fun was vanishing. Again, you're right.

Now, AO proved to be a hard game to beat for many. But maybe that's what we want? And I still prefer playing 'one shot kills' on top of that.

[Varrok]

You wouldn't believe how glad I feel someone here can share my sentiments, the folks at our Discord seem to look at me like at someone crazy when I present my opinion on the matter

I've never played Alf's Escape, so I can't say anything constructive about it. Other than that I take your word for it, as after using NnT's UXBs it's reasonable expect more of unfair stuff like this in the DLC.

[Oddey]

It's not that you're wrong about quicksave being easy to abuse, it's that you're wrong about players exclusively taking the easiest route and that AE is designed with quicksave in mind, which makes many of the puzzles require considerably more precise timing than in AO.

[Yokai]

Tbh, the best save system would be better checkpoints. That was the only problem I had with AO's save system. If you so much as breathed wrong, you would have to restart the last 3 save areas you worked hard on. That felt sadistic!

[Nepsotic]

[childish nonsense of someone who's hardly a teenager anymore]

You know that you stop being a teenager after 19, right?

I don't think the player should be responsible for how hard the game should be during gameplay, as he'll choose the easiest way, and the easiest way doesn't help you truly overcome a challenge - grow as a player.

Stop projecting, I know loads of people who go out of their way to find extra challenge in games. It's fine if you're not one of them, not everybody wants a challenge, and a challenge is not the same thing as repeating 10 minutes of gameplay for the third time. This is not challenging, this is time wasting. Kind of like this whole discussion.

Grow up.

You don't even know what a teenager is

[Oddipus]

It 's OK to have quicksave as an option. Turn it off, or don't use it if you want. But please don't design the levels with too tight timing, so playing without quicksave is actually doable.

[Varrok]

You know that you stop being a teenager after 19, right?

So you do know that?

Stop projecting, I know loads of people who go out of their way to find extra challenge in games. It's fine if you're not one of them, not everybody wants a challenge, and a challenge is not the same thing as repeating 10 minutes of gameplay for the third time. This is not challenging, this is time wasting. Kind of like this whole discussion.

Not everyone wants to play Oddworld. Or games. Oddworld isn't for everybody, no game is. Excessive time wasting is an indicator of badly placed checkpoints/bad design. Quiksave isn't a good cure for that.

You don't even know what a teenager is

Someone who screams at a company to "suck a dick" fits the category perfectly.

It 's OK to have quicksave as an option. Turn it off, or don't use it if you want. But please don't design the levels with too tight timing, so playing without quicksave is actually doable.

If quiksaving was an optional choice added later in development as an addon for the Easy modes, I wouldn't really mind. It's like Automatic mode in Devil May Cry. It's for people bad at games and/or game journalists.

[Nepsotic]

So you do know that?

I know you are, said you are, so what am I?

Excessive time wasting is an indicator of badly placed checkpoints/bad design. Quiksave isn't a good cure for that

Why?

Someone who screams at a company to "suck a dick" fits the category perfectly.

SUCK

[Varrok]

Why?

Even teenagers can read to some capacity.

[more stupidity]

Maybe I should've used the word "toddler".

[OddjobAbe]

Lovely to see Nep mellowing in his old age!


I was ok with the save system in NnT, although if the saws and UXBs weren't difficult to deal with, I'd have preferred a checkpoint system like AO's (but maybe a bit more forgiving...). I don't think Quicksave is a terrible idea, but I do notice that because of it I tend to be a little less cautious in AE, although some sections are hard to pull off even when I've figured them out and I think they do warrant the QS.

[Varrok]

May I ask what difficulty did you play NnT on?

[OddjobAbe]

The hardest one - I didn't like the idea of having "health", it seemed a bit too forgiving for a game that I felt was about precision. I struggled to come to terms with the lack of a grid for the same reason, because I felt that it made my movements less reliable/predictable, but I might just be a bit old-fasioned.

[Nepsotic]

I struggled to come to terms with the lack of a grid for the same reason, because I felt that it made my movements less reliable/predictable, but I might just be a bit old-fasioned.

You're not- well, you might be but NnT's design is massively flawed throughout because of the lack of any grid.

Even teenagers can read to some capacity.

I say they face off with the pollacks and see who's worse

Maybe I should've used the word "toddler".

Why stop there? The burn will be even sicker if you call me a baby or even a sperm.

[STM]

The hardest one - I didn't like the idea of having "health", it seemed a bit too forgiving for a game that I felt was about precision. I struggled to come to terms with the lack of a grid for the same reason, because I felt that it made my movements less reliable/predictable, but I might just be a bit old-fasioned.

I get this, I played the game on the hardest setting for the same reason. It felt wrong that you could get shot a few times and survive on lower difficulties, but I really loved that they gave a variety of options more than anything.

[OddjobAbe]

Yeah, it was good that it offered the player a choice. I knew a few people who played AO on PS1 and they never got past Rupture Farms (in fact, one of them gave me the game for that reason...), so I've often wondered how many people were turned off the originals thanks to be being dropped straight in at the deep end (which is actually something I enjoy, but maybe I'm a masochist!).

[Varrok]

I was ok with the save system in NnT, although if the saws and UXBs weren't difficult to deal with, I'd have preferred a checkpoint system like AO's (but maybe a bit more forgiving...). I don't think Quicksave is a terrible idea, but I do notice that because of it I tend to be a little less cautious in AE, although some sections are hard to pull off even when I've figured them out and I think they do warrant the QS.

The hardest one - I didn't like the idea of having "health", it seemed a bit too forgiving for a game that I felt was about precision. I struggled to come to terms with the lack of a grid for the same reason, because I felt that it made my movements less reliable/predictable, but I might just be a bit old-fasioned.

To me the fact that even after getting through a section it's similarly as hard, is a sign of little to no player progression The lack of satisfaction that you've gotten better at the game and it no longer possess a challenge for you, even though it seemed hard at first.

[OddjobAbe]

To me the fact that even after getting through a section it's similarly as hard, is a sign of little to no player progression

To be fair, in AE, some of the puzzles leave essentially zero room for the slightest error - I'm thinking of the secret where you have to trap the scrab behind a barrier, lead the mudokons onto the lift and then free everybody before the meat saws on the next screen kill them (I think that's one of the secrets in the scrab vaults?). I always need to practice a few times to nail the timing of those sorts of puzzles, especially since I play them maybe once every few years.


In the case of NnT though, I find things like saws challenging because succesfully rolling under some of them feels like a fluke which I can't easily replicate - I think it's a combination of there being a slight delay between my action and Abe's animation and the lack of a grid. I liked Nnt, but I always found this a bit tiresome.

[Varrok]

To be fair, in AE, some of the puzzles leave essentially zero room for the slightest error - I'm thinking of the secret where you have to trap the scrab behind a barrier, lead the mudokons onto the lift and then free everybody before the meat saws on the next screen kill them (I think that's one of the secrets in the scrab vaults?). I always need to practice a few times to nail the timing of those sorts of puzzles, especially since I play them maybe once every few years.

What you describe is very true, but it's a consequence of having a feature that can numb down the difficulty significantly. A workaround of sorts. I don't personally consider that good design philosophy. Think of the concept of quiksaving frequently in the middle of a puzzle just so you don't die from overly tight puzzle timings.

In the case of NnT though, I find things like saws challenging because succesfully rolling under some of them feels like a fluke which I can't easily replicate - I think it's a combination of there being a slight delay between my action and Abe's animation and the lack of a grid. I liked Nnt, but I always found this a bit tiresome.

Well, in the initial release, meatsaws were tied to the framerate, so they were literally impossible under some circumstances.

[OddjobAbe]

What you describe is very true, but it's a consequence of having a feature that can numb down the difficulty significantly. A workaround of sorts. I don't personally consider that good design philosophy. Think of the concept of quiksaving frequently in the middle of a puzzle just so you don't die from overly tight puzzle timings.

I take your point on that - the sense I get from those sorts of puzzles tends to be one of relief rather than satisfaction. It can be quite fun to finally nail it down, but the repetition does quite quickly transform into tedium in a few instances, so maybe that's not an exceptional design decision.

Well, in the initial release, meatsaws were tied to the framerate, so they were literally impossible under some circumstances.

This quite possibly accounts for the endless, monotonous quicksaving I remember having to do in the Paramonian temple secret - easily the worst part of the game.

[Gunnr]

My precious grid...why did you go?
Yeah, with em it makes controling Abe feel clunky, slide . And I can usually find some kinda trick to using wonky controls but each jump or leap seems to have that unpredictably even when I time it and that kinda sucks

The saving system does get agitating were I accidently save when I wanted to load..leading to perpetually trying to get out of a bad spot sometimes. Or after I think I quick save then quit, only to come back and find muds I already saved. Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong