What's your opinion about saving?

i use saves allll theee time.

I think they're not that useful in Doom I since you can beat every episode in less than an hour, excluding Thy Flesh Consumed I guess

And they make me feel safer in Plutonia, even when I don't load them at all

I save the second I start each level

I used to savescum all the time, but ever since I stopped doing it I found the game generally more enjoyable and exciting to play. I'll save whenever I feel the time is right. 

The save system provides a wonderfully convenient way to break up a map for routing, and to isolate important sections for practice. It is much more flexible than a checkpoint system would be. 

If I'm not playing a map with an arbitrary challenge -- a saveless FDA, a speedrun, a difficult max -- I prefer the option to use saves so that I can play more Doom in less time. Whether it's honing skills or staying in shape, at this point I get more out of prepping and no-saving a single Sunlust-like map than doing no-save FDAs of a few dozen normal maps. So it doesn't make sense for me to no-save everything, which just reduces the amount of casual playing -- playtesting, reviewing, etc. -- I might do. On stream, ZZul will do casual playthroughs with saves. Even DotW saves in FDA from time to time, which says enough. There are only 24 hours in the day. 

While I can definitely relate to the fact that playing Doom with saves is much more productive, especially when it comes to one's free time, I usually don't bother with it unless I'm playing a really long map or I'm having difficult with a specific map that causes me to replay it at least a couple of times. There is nothing more exciting than to encounter a surprise Cyberdemon fight toward an end of a level knowing that if you fuck it up, it's all the way back to the start. It gets your adrenaline going when everything is at stake and I find it to be an exciting way to play Doom after hundreds if not thousands of hours poured into this 27-year old game.

Why you would feel like it's cheating to use save/load, when the functions were provided by the makers of the game?

You get to make up the rules on how you play your single player games to derive the most enjoyment from them. You don't require anyone else's input for this. There is no right/wrong way.

Whether or not to use save/load is usually situational:

1. Want to submit a demo to doomedsda. The rules don't permit it, don't save.
2. Want to see if you can complete an entire map/wad without saves. Don't save.
3. Want to play a map, don't have a lot of free time and don't give a toss how many times you save/load. Use saves.
4. Want to analyze and practice a difficult segment of a map in preparation for a uvmax, say. Save and reload like crazy during practice and then don't save when on your uvmax attempts.
5. Want to play doom with help from your youngster sitting on your lap. Maybe flip on IDDQD. Maybe it doesn't even matter.

But however you decide to do it, have fun!

I only save when I have to leave the game, and I only load when returning. If I lose the game, then I'm always back to the pistol start of the level, overwriting the same save if I have to leave again.

I just don't use saves to help my progress because it removes all excitement for me. After a long time of playing without saves, I tried to save again, but didn't find it fun, so I went back to no-saves. The DOOM monsters are all very easily manageable, you can survive all of them without getting hit, so with good reflexes you don't need saves. Also DOOM levels tend to have repeating patterns useful for survival: such as safe backtracking routes, which rarely ever get repopulated, and I can use them to retreat. Or I can spin to evade the projectiles. Or I have the plasma gun ready to mow down any repeat-fire monsters. And if I die, it just means I have to repeat the same thing tomorrow, with more care. It's not like I'm wasting more time today, and it's not like I'll be able to finish all WADs in my lifetime anyway, to have any good time reference to beat.

On older levels I often play through without saving.

On new levels I save every time before opening a door, entering a teleporter or picking up any important item - who knows what trap awaits...

I only start saving in long levels after I've become too frustrated restarting them from scratch. And of course I do save at the beginnings of levels. If I'm not specifically playing pistol-starts I usually don't tend to take the "lose everything at first death" mechanic. Though when I die I usually take a little break before I retry a level.

Generally I'm definitely in the camp that thinks constant saving removes the excitement of the game because dying barely affects you, and I prefer my games to be more of a tense and exciting experience than just some combat puzzle you solve step by step. Replaying levels after death actually comes out to be a much better use of my time because at least the gameplay is exciting, instead of a shorter, but completely pointless and emotionless experience when you save before every bit of danger and destroy the tension.

I detest the sort of games that are BS enough to practically force savescumming before difficult situations because they make stuff difficult in all the wrong ways, like traps you can't really be expected to avoid without foreknowledge or enemies that can quickly kill you before you even understand where they are, or enemies with attacks that require more luck/preset strategy than skill to avoid. If I tell someone a game is unreasonably hard and their reply is "just save a lot" I treat that as an admission that the game is very badly designed at its core.

I never save, only when practicing certain sections in a difficult level if recording afterwards. I used to savescum but it removed all the enjoyment from the game to me, beating hard/long levels felt like routine instead of an accomplishment. Nowadays I play everything without saves (even if I have to drop the difficulty to not die as often), it's a lot more fun and dying just means you have to implement a better strategy to persevere.

I like the fact that we can choose to save whenever we want. But at the same time, I try not to abuse it too much. I personally refuse to use saves when keeping gear from previous levels outside of when I quit the game. Death results in pistol start and any relevant save is overwritten. If the level was pistol (re)started, I allow myself to use saves in the middle of the level. I usually try to limit myself to midlevel saving up to three times max, though I will make exceptions for levels that are in the hours in length. I also make absolutely sure that I only save when I'm not currently in combat, as otherwise I find that can potentially turn a skill-based fight into a luck-based one due to carelessness on my part.

I do not hesitate to savescum without restraint or shame. :p

I probably need to save more often.

19 hours ago, Juza said:

Edit: I also do not believe in the "sense of pride and accomplishment by beating a video-game". Video-games are not that important. For anything that matters, you've gained nothing by beating a video-game on the hardest difficulty, or what other examples there could be, such as finishing a level really fast.

Ditto. Unless you're taking gaming very seriously (like being a professional gamer, making a living from it, etc), I've started seeing this attitude as laughable at best and upsetting at worst.

I have very limited time and when I want to sit down and play something, I want to play, not die a million times on the way and go back to square one by forcing myself into a play style that I can't handle just to attain some insignificant ego gratification. I am aware of where my skill is, and I've got nothing to prove to anyone or myself when it comes to something as insignificant as being good or bad at vidya gaems. Being good at them doesn't get me a job or pays the bills.

Well, at least now I know that saving isn't considered a wimpy move.

Edit: 

Quote

There was a poll thread some time back along the lines of "Do you use saves?" and people took it as an opportunity to flex about how they play every map blind with no saves

I'm not trying to do that, just saying :b

I save quite frequently, usually at the start and end of a level, and before and after completing an important passage of gameplay.  Saving at the end of the level enables me to hunt around for secrets before exiting, knowing that if I die I won't have to replay parts of the level.  I find that this strikes the best balance for maximising immersion, saving infrequently enough to avoid a disjointed gameplay experience based around savescumming, and frequently enough to avoid the frustration of repeatedly having to re-do gameplay that I had already completed beforehand.  I also like to experiment and to explore, and find that not saving tends to discourage me from doing this because I know that if it goes wrong I will have to re-do a fair chunk of gameplay.  The most frustrating aspect of not saving is completing an objective but failing to remember to save (or hit a checkpoint, in checkpoint-only games), dying due to something stupid and having to re-do it again.

I tended to do this when I played the first Doom for the first time because I was unaware of the quicksave option and so saving required the slightly less convenient practice of bringing up the menu and creating a save game slot.  When I first discovered quicksave I savescummed too much for a time, notably when playing the original Half-Life when hitting F6 repeatedly was too big a temptation, but I think I have subsequently gone back to a more balanced approach even with the option of quicksaving with the hit of a button.

My preference is to save only after death or if I need to leave the game mid level. That way there are the stakes of losing weapons if I die, which adds an I intensity to trying to survive.

Whether or not I play that way of course depends on the difficulty and lengths of the level as if they are too long or hard playing this way too much of a time sink and an excersize in frustration.

21 hours ago, Juza said:

Edit: I also do not believe in the "sense of pride and accomplishment by beating a video-game". Video-games are not that important. For anything that matters, you've gained nothing by beating a video-game on the hardest difficulty, or what other examples there could be, such as finishing a level really fast.

I forgot modern life was so full of similarly straightforward ways to get this feeling. 

Nothing wrong with it, but I usually don't like to commit to it, so I try to go as long as I can saveless.

I've drifted away from liking the traditional Save/Load system in Doom and other games like it, because I think that checkpointing in games like Halo is a much superior design.  Well-placed checkpoints mean that you never get sent all the way back to the beginning of a level as punishment for dying, while simultaneously preventing you from savescumming your way through a difficult encounter.  Assuming that checkpoints are placed properly, it's the best of both worlds.

In Doom, I try to beat a level without saving.  However, if I am a good way into a level and I come to a stopping point, I save my game.  But every time I have to, I wish a checkpointing system had done it for me.

Hallo,

'nuff said. Saving the game isn't cheating anyway.

I always hated getting sent back in games that were older than Doom. The ability to save anywhere, any time is an amazing feature.

Despite being one of my favourite consoles, I never liked how most NES games wanted me to replay the same section of stage over and over because I dared to be less-than-godly in the skill department.

Saving is not cheating. That is a pretty silly thing to say. Save whenever and wherever you like, honestly who cares?

god bless freesaves! gaming is supposed to be fun, and i can't see alot of fun in restarting a level again and again and again ad infinitum, just because some dumbass put checkpoint too far away or something. also, i'm ok with using "resurrect" cheat too -- i don't want to do it all again just because i forgot to press "quicksave".

if somebody's saying to you that freesave is "cheat", then they are free to play without saves. but there is no The Only Right Way To Get Fun, it is very personal thing. if you're having more fun with saves, and even with savescuming (aka "saving after each step" ;-), then so be it. you don't have to adhere to some "standards", the only thing that matters is getting fun out of a game.

The only scenario in which I do not save is playing the Knee-Deep in dead episode. Also I do that very often.

Me personally I use saves on my first time or few playing through a new megawad until i get more familiar with it or sometimes just use them when i want a more chill playthrough somedays.

Saves can also help when I want to look/play through maps I like in various wads to get inspiration for making my own maps.

I do really like Doom's saving system though, it reminds me a lot of emulator save states.  

If people only saved the questions they asked here, we would have had less of these questions in general. :P

''It seems like cheating to me'' - Because this only applies to your personal experience. Try playing any other game without using the save feature - Its a modern trope and for good reasons. :) and i am glad that the option is there in Doom.

I save tons. I never see at cheating but as utilising a feature thats intended to be used. Besides, if you save too often you can save yourself into a death anyway so there's strategy as to when to save not just how much.

I avoid saving mid level, because I am a Vanilla purist and that means monsters get unalerted when loading a save. I feel this creates an unfair advantage.