What are the merits of a checkpoint-based game save system?

For the gamer, practically none. If automatic checkpoint saves are combined with save anywhere options, THEN the gamer has the best of both worlds.

None really boss. How else did avg players beat harder PC games in the 90's. Quicksaving was almost an artform to itself. Time it right and you had the best respawn advantage.

Outside of just ignoring 60 % of imps and zombies in DOOm it was the only way you could beat NIGHTMARE mode.

in past hardware, technology was a factor. it took up more memory to save anywhere.

still, it has some gameplay benefits that translate to today. there's more tension when you have to go back a ways if you die (we play games in our free time so losing some time can be a suitable punishment). yes, there is the option for the player to space out manual saves themselves but having the game space the saves appropriately is always better. if it's my first time through the game, how do i know where is a fair spot to place the saves? plus, speaking for myself at least, i have moments of weakness and would likely save too often without the game doing the work of balancing out short and long term rewards (the short term reward of the safety net provided by the save and the potentially much more satisfying long term reward of completing a section without saving too often)

the other thing is that some games lend themselves to checkpoints based on their systems. a lot of the older jrpg's were based around dice rolls and rationing supplies for the length of a dungeon. saving after each battle in case you suffered a critical hit or had to use a potion would hurt the game.

plus there is always presentation. i've always preferred confessing my sins to save in dragon quest to going through computer-like menus of saving and loading. in the same vein, checkpoints can be done behind the scenes so you never know the saving process is happening.

the souls games have the best of both worlds in this regard. everything is saved automatically so you can't cheat yourself. death sends you back to a checkpoint so failure is punished. however, you can quit anytime you want and jump back in right where you left off so you play in whatever chunks of time are available to you.

however, that's not to say one system is inherently better for all types of games. some games are more relaxing and benefit from being able to save anywhere. bethesda's games are often so buggy/unstable that frequent saving increases the playabiity by a lot.

For me, it's really the ability to not think about remembering to save which I do feel like it kind of ruins the immersion for me at times. I also like how it does punish for you for failure which is a good thing because it will encourage you to play better while having a "save anywhere" feature will only punish you for forgetting to save, but that's not what I call a real punishment for dying in video games. Dying to lose progress and being forced to get back where you died can be a good thing. It builds replay value and if you're like me who likes to get good at games or have a lot of knowledge about them; this is basically helping you to be more familiar within the game.

Sense of challenge. Being able to save anywhere and save scum or whatever makes a game a lot easier.

I don't mind the so much as long as the checkpoint is not spaced to far "away".

It can actually be kind of fun if the game gives you various options during combat.  Maybe you start a battle in position A, but get killed right away.  So next time you try position B, then C, until you find something that works.  Or maybe you discover it's best to sneak past the first three guys so you can get to a position with really good cover, and then instead of attacking the machine gun emplacement from the right it's a lot easier to try from the left, etc.

Even the best games tend to screw it up though.  Maybe you absolutely need grenades to take out some mini-boss but you don't happen to have any and you can't go back to your save from 15 minutes ago before you wasted them.  Or my favorite, when you finish a battle and you're all proud of yourself, then 5 minutes later you get killed by some random guy and now you've got to do that whole battle over again :roll:

Checkpoint systems are fine for linear progression games if they are done well.

When checkpoint systems are done well, they...

• Aren't spaced too far apart or too close together.
• Are based on progress through the game, not necessarily map location.
• Save everything (enemies killed, inventory, etc)
• Have some mechanism by which you can replenish your health/ammo if the checkpoint happens to trigger while you are low on either/both.

When they are done poorly, they...

• Are too close together (removing all challenge or tension).
• Are too far apart (losing 20 minutes worth of progress because of one death is unnecessarily punishing).
• Do not persist between play sessions. I know a lot of people who nearly ragequit Hitman Absolution because of that stupid hotel level early on in the game.
• Are based on map points (in Deadpool I backtracked to lure some strong enemies out during a fight. The result was that when I died I now respawned with all the enemies resurrected but I had no ammo now).
• Force you to watch unskippable cutscenes over and over (Max Payne 3).

I don't agree with the idea that every game should have a quicksave. While there's nothing wrong with the idea of a quicksave itself, game developers use it as a crutch for poor game design elements like trail and error stealth sections or imbalanced combat. I also don't agree with the player just doesn't have to quicksave all the time if they don't want to, partially because of my previous point (that games that let you do this almost necessitate it due to broken balance) but also because I as the player shouldn't have to impose arbitrary restrictions on my own playstyle in order to make the game challenging unless it's part of some metric or achievement (i.e. a no-kill playthrough). If the game has a quicksave feature, there should be at least -some- restrictions on how and when it can be used (like not letting the player use it in combat).

-Byshop

Checkpoint systems are fine for linear progression games if they are done well.

When checkpoint systems are done well, they...

• Aren't spaced too far apart or too close together.
• Are based on progress through the game, not necessarily map location.
• Save everything (enemies killed, inventory, etc)
• Have some mechanism by which you can replenish your health/ammo if the checkpoint happens to trigger while you are low on either/both.

When they are done poorly, they...

• Are too close together (removing all challenge or tension).
• Are too far apart (losing 20 minutes worth of progress because of one death is unnecessarily punishing).
• Do not persist between play sessions. I know a lot of people who nearly ragequit Hitman Absolution because of that stupid hotel level early on in the game.
• Are based on map points (in Deadpool I backtracked to lure some strong enemies out during a fight. The result was that when I died I now respawned with all the enemies resurrected but I had no ammo now).
• Force you to watch unskippable cutscenes over and over (Max Payne 3).

I don't agree with the idea that every game should have a quicksave. While there's nothing wrong with the idea of a quicksave itself, game developers use it as a crutch for poor game design elements like trail and error stealth sections or imbalanced combat. I also don't agree with the player just doesn't have to quicksave all the time if they don't want to, partially because of my previous point (that games that let you do this almost necessitate it due to broken balance) but also because I as the player shouldn't have to impose arbitrary restrictions on my own playstyle in order to make the game challenging unless it's part of some metric or achievement (i.e. a no-kill playthrough). If the game has a quicksave feature, there should be at least -some- restrictions on how and when it can be used (like not letting the player use it in combat).

-Byshop

Byshop

I can see how it is a problem but to me it just adds excitement. Knowing you are a few minutes away from a checkpoint with hardly any health left and a sh!t ton of baddies in a room is exhilerating ha

I can see how it is a problem but to me it just adds excitement. Knowing you are a few minutes away from a checkpoint with hardly any health left and a sh!t ton of baddies in a room is exhilerating ha

Ilovegames1992

It depends on the kind of game. In an action game like Halo knowing that you have to fight everyone in the room again isn't a bad thing, but in a slower paced stealth game where you methodically creep around the map for an extended period of time because you are trying to completely avoid detection or a sandbox objective-style game like Hitman it can be maddening. When knocking a guy out, taking his clothes and hiding him in a dumpster all within 10 feet of a group of witnesses is something that you can only pull of one out of every five times you try it, then it's nice to be able to save your progress and not have to start over from scratch when the -next- objective goes awry.

-Byshop

[QUOTE="Ilovegames1992"]

I can see how it is a problem but to me it just adds excitement. Knowing you are a few minutes away from a checkpoint with hardly any health left and a sh!t ton of baddies in a room is exhilerating ha

Byshop

It depends on the kind of game. In an action game like Halo knowing that you have to fight everyone in the room again isn't a bad thing, but in a slower paced stealth game where you methodically creep around the map for an extended period of time because you are trying to completely avoid detection or a sandbox objective-style game like Hitman it can be maddening. When knocking a guy out, taking his clothes and hiding him in a dumpster all within 10 feet of a group of witnesses is something that you can only pull of one out of every five times you try it, then it's nice to be able to save your progress and not have to start over from scratch when the -next- objective goes awry.

-Byshop

I guess that is true. I guess i've just gone without the ability to save anytime for so long i don't see it as a problem. Recently i refinished Chaos Theory, which is a stealth game. I kept forgetting to save regularly because i am so used to checkpoints ha. So that game actually cost me a lot of progress due to not having checkpoints ha. Although in RPG games like KOTOR I save scummed all the time so I like a save feature.

As some users have said it works for linear games but not really for open world games. Metro in particular is a survival type game. It is broken up into specific chapters and further subdivded into sections. Being able to save anywhere would ruin it, like if you could save anywhere in a Dead Space game there would be no sense of atmosphere or tension.

Not having to remember to save is the only legitimate benefit I can see. I hate not having the option. Give us both checkpoints and saves.  People who don't like manual saves can just ignore them.

It's kinda like setting room temperature. You can always put more on if your cold, but you can't always take off more if you're hot.  You can always ignore the manual saves if you don't like them.

As some users have said it works for linear games but not really for open world games. Metro in particular is a survival type game. It is broken up into specific chapters and further subdivded into sections. Being able to save anywhere would ruin it, like if you could save anywhere in a Dead Space game there would be no sense of atmosphere or tension.

firefox59

Dead Space 3 is actually a game that I would describe as having a broken checkpoint system. Some of the checkpoints are obnoxiously far apart and the side missions have no checkpoints at all besides the checkpoint that triggers when you start the mission, so you have to finish the mission in one sitting. The earlier Dead Spaces weren't nearly as bad.

A bad save system can certainly ruin the tension in a horror game, but a checkpoint system isn't the only system that works. Dark Souls/Demons Souls are both extremely tense games (arguably they are "horror" games through their play mechanics rather than by trying to be overtly horror titles). These games both autosave constantly. Literally every time you pick up an item or kill a monster the game autosaves, but it only maintains one save slot per character and you cannot revert to an earlier save. I accidentally attacked a friendly NPC that I had mistaken for a monster. Realizing what I had done, I immediately flipped the power switch off on my PS3 maybe 2 or 3 seconds after he went agro to try to undo my mistake but it was too late. When I reloaded the game he was still hostile and I had to spend the next hour collecting enough souls to pay for absolution to make him friendly again. These games are filled with consequence like this and it makes them very tense, moreso than most mediocre survival horror games I've played.

The Amnesia games allow you to save anywhere and they are regarded as some really great horror games, but these games also do not have any combat so you can't use the saves to cheat the stress of combat.

Earlier survival horror games like RE and Silent Hill used fixed save locations and (in the case of RE) actually limited the number of times you were allowed to save. All the REs used fixed save locations until RE5 when they changed it up because they tried to shoehorn sh!tty co-op gameplay in and they've been like that ever since. Similarly with Silent Hill, the point at which they switched to a checkpoint system coincided with the decline in quality for the series.

The Last of Us had a decent checkpoint system. The length was enough to make you feel the loss of death but not so far that you'd ragequit at having to play the last 30 minutes all over again. Still, some reviews criticized the game because it popped you right back into the action immediately after death which took some of the sting out of getting killed after it happened a few times.

-Byshop

Like some people have said, you sometimes forget to save, and it allows you to focus on the game more instead of worrying about when you should save. Personally I don't mind either way, saving hasn't really been a problem for me in games.