What's your opinion about saving?

[nname]

Do you save your game in the middle of a map to keep your weapons and stuff if you die? I don't like doing it, since it seems like 'cheating' to me. Anyways, I'd love to hear your opinion!

[seed]

I always play with saves, even when I pistol start every now and then.

[nname]

1 minute ago, seed said:

I always play with saves, even when I pistol start every now and then.

Interesting, I thought that pistol starts are supposed to be the most hardcore way of playing the game. So naturally saving would seem forbidden to me. But, I don't pistol start anyways. (Not until I go through the games again one more time.)

[Gothic]

It's a feature, it's on the main menu, so why not use it?

[nname]

7 minutes ago, Gothic said:

It's a feature, it's on the main menu, so why not use it?

I get your point, but still as I said it makes the game feel too easy for me. I can basically save my progress every time I kill a demon on nightmare, which makes the whole thing a lot more simple. But don't take it too seriously, I don't want to start another controversial conversation about features in Doom, lol.

[Hisymak]

Without saving, I would not be even able to finish some hard levels at all. And if I decide to play without saving and die after 30+ minutes of playing a level, I grant you I will ragequit and never try to play without saving again. Sometimes I simply forget to save and when I die, replaying long part of map is pretty much annoying and not fun at all.

So saving is pretty essential thing I could not imagine playing without.

Edit: If there were levels with checkpoints, I would much more likely play without saving manually, but taking advantage of those checkoints, which I consider fair and fun style of playing.

[dmslr]

To try survive 20 chaingunners ambush multiple times after 20 min of playthrough? I'll pass.

[Thorogrimm]

If I didn't save, there would be times where I'd straight up give up. There are wads that'll catch you out and you'd have to start all over again which can get especially monotonous if it's a long map.

[Asking4Id]

It couldn't be cheating. What cheat code do you enter to save? It's a great feature.

[Job]

Save early, save often. When in doubt, quicksave. 

[Scorpius]

Quicksave often, full save after each episode completed. I hate replaying stuff many times.

[Juza]

I do it because I value my time, and savestates cut the unnecessary loss of it. No reason to waste it replaying something I just got through from start to finish again and risk having no fun doing so. Why waste your time with something that might not even be fun to replay?  You'll lose more than you gain. It's not like it'll be the end of the world because you used a feature in a video-game. By using savestates, you're saving time.

 

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.

[HAK3180]

It depends. I save more when I'm recording, but I generally only save when there's not much going on, i.e. not in the midst of a big fight. This is about economy of time more than anything. Some maps, even iwad maps, are very long, so I end up using them more as checkpoints. 

 

I understand saving can introduce a certain mentality shift. If you die, you have to start over, so playing saveless can cause you to improve faster and/or play more carefully. It's hard to ignore your knowledge of where you will have to pick up if you die. However, assuming this phenomenon is real and significant, I'm not interested in improving and I prefer to play more recklessly. I often see lmp runs, for example, that involve a lot of door camping and cautious gameplay that looks boring to me. Maybe they get a rush from surviving and a sense of success from the saveless run, but I would much rather play the style I prefer and die. This is also why I like when maps mix it up and sometimes actually punish a more conservative play style. There's a balance for me though. I'm not looking to die, so it's not like I just rush the encounter to see what it is, take the death, and then do it again equipped with foreknowledge. I try to beat every encounter on "FDA mode"; even if I just loaded after dying, I often try it the exact same way, pretending I don't know what's coming. I just prefer not to do the whole map over if I die. Now if your gameplay is to the tune of die-load-die-load-die-kill an imp-save-die-load-die-load-kill a revenant-save-etc., that to me means it's time to play something else or change the difficulty setting.

 

To me, pistol starting is not really in the same realm as saveless. I pistol start simply because mappers often set up encounters quite carefully based on the ammo and weapons you have. Dis does not have a BFG. Other Inferno levels do. Dis is insultingly easy if you carry over a BFG and 40+ cells.* Dis is pretty interesting on pistol start. So for me, pistol starting is about experiencing the level "properly" (assuming it's not actually intended for continuous); it just happens that in most cases it also makes it harder. 

 

^{*EDIT: actually, just the weapon itself, as the map has plenty of cell pickups.}

Edited February 1, 2020 by HAK3180

[unerxai]

I'm not against saving in games sometimes, like when a level is way too large or difficult, but in Doom's case saving (and then loading) makes monsters inactive so I don't use it at all.

[Loud Silence]

When i play WAD for first time and i'm in very very long, hard level and made a lot of progress.

[666shooter]

I agree with the above points, and frankly find the idea that saving is "cheating" more than a little ridiculous. It is a feature in the main menu, and unless you're playing a Wad through in one sitting (which I don't think I've ever done), you still need to load games unless we want to avoid that feature as well? You know what- let's go back to console commands, mandatory. Starting, loading... no more saves. Just console commands. Now I'm going to go play something else, ha ha.

In seriousness, though, if I know there's a big fight coming, or if I just finished killing a large swarm of demons and gotten that blue key, yes, I'm going to save, because if I fall into an inescapable pit or get killed by the next ambush I had no idea was going to teleport in when I crossed linedef 107, I'm going to be pretty pissed off if I have to replay the last ten or twenty minutes of that map. In general, to improve my Doom skills, I've taken to heart not saving in the middle of combat, so unless its a very long encounter or I've died five times already, I try to avoid "scumming" if at all possible, and even then limit the amount of saves I'll allow myself during a longer encounter.

Now, one thing I have tried to do, assuming its not a long level, is complete the first map of any new Wad without saving, to get a feel for the flow of the combat and see what the rest of the Wad might be like. If this is doable and isn't too constraining, chances are I'm going to be in for a good experience.

And on that note, ALT was a very, very bad example of that practice earlier this evening...

[Plasmatic]

I save between levels, that's all.

 

Well, I occasionally save in puzzle levels, difficult levels, and other levels of those sorts.

[Beginner]

Whatever. In my opinion what matters is not how many times you save, but how many times you load.

[Maggle]

If you weren't able to save in the middle of a level, then say goodbye to Eternal Doom or Hellbound, or any other mapset full of really long levels. Because I don't think anyone will want to subject their player-base or themselves to a 30+ min map when you run the risk of having to do the whole thing all over again when you die.

 

On another note, I don't get it when people conflate lack of saves and checkpoints in games with difficulty. That has no effect on difficulty, all that affects is making more shit you have to repeat, which I grant, isn't fun at all. Celeste has checkpoints everywhere. Every time you enter a new room, the game autosaves. Does that make it easy? Hell, no. Even the Castlevania games had a relatively lenient checkpoint system for their time, as well as infinite continues (which wasn't common back then) and were still some of the hardest games on the NES, especially 3. 

[KillPixel]

IMO saves are a mechanic and should be treated as such.  That would entail 1) integrating saves thematically into the game, and 2) balancing them so they can't be exploited to subvert the game itself.

[RonnieJamesDiner]

I think HAK3180 put it best, and those are basically my thoughts on the subject. I certainly don't consider it cheating, but I try not to abuse it (if that makes sense).

[Super Mighty G]

Saving during down time in the level is expected. Saving after every significant movement in a fight is excessive. And if the map is well balanced you should never need to do that.

[Doom_Dude]

3 hours ago, xzotikk said:

I don't like doing it, since it seems like 'cheating' to me.

 

I have never considered that as cheating. Your just saving your progress and I don't mind doing it as often as I feel I need to. I don't like having to replay everything because I failed and ended up dead. haha.

[famicommander]

I play with saves (except on Doom 64, which doesn't support in-level saves). 

 

Generally I will save 2-3 times during a difficult map. If it's a map I know I'm not going to die in, I don't bother.

[kaleb.]

im a horrible save scummer lol. im reaching for F6 every room pretty much. its just a reflex at this point

[Spectre01]

1 hour ago, Beginner said:

Whatever. In my opinion what matters is not how many times you save, but how many times you load.

Exactly. As far as I'm concerned, if you saved but never loaded or died during the map, you beat it "saveless".  Also, good to see reasonable replies so far. 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, which I highly doubt.

 

My rule is to save outside of combat when I am not in any eminent danger. I like beating encounters single-segment, with some exceptions for long and grindy macro-slaughter, where I occasionally save before the cleanup phase.

[apollyon094]

I usually save. Still less of a cheat than using resurrect.

[HAK3180]

1 hour ago, unerxai said:

I'm not against saving in games sometimes, like when a level is way too large or difficult, but in Doom's case saving (and then loading) makes monsters inactive so I don't use it at all.

 

This is vanilla behavior that doesn't apply to most source ports. Go load up Entryway in anything but Chocolate, shoot, save, and load. The former humans will still come around the corner. Nevertheless, I think "don't save if it would have been cheap in vanilla" is a good start.

[jazzmaster9]

My view with any feature made for regular play:

 

"you control the buttons you press" - iD Software

[Dr. Toboggan]

I save between levels.

 

..Unless i'm playing Plutonia Experiment, in which case I'll save every 15 seconds lol.