[POLL] Should save rooms be a feature in FMs moving forward?

[Goldwell]

10 hours ago, STiFU said:

Consider it a special challenge for those who want it. The others can just pick an easier difficulty, so what's the problem here?

Dark Souls would not have worked as well as it did if it was easier and allowed for quicksaves. It is the tension of being able to lose "everything" within seconds when you're not careful enough that makes players come back to the game again and again. It is exhilarating!

Catering not only to casual players, but also to the hardcore-stealth players (like most Thief players think they are), who want a bit of a challenge, is a commendable thing to do in my book. So @kingsal, thank you for that!

Please don't get discouraged by this minor backlash.

 

I think the best solution would be if we could add an extra difficulty level, although that might be hard or impossible depending on how the GUIs are broken down. But something like a normal, hard, expert and then save limit would be great.

 

Given the current system of three difficulty settings, as I have suggested before you could do something like normal, expert and save limit (which is just expert but with save limits in place). The only downside I have seen searching in between the different threads is that a couple of people feel that is sacrificing a difficulty level, but personally I think that's just grasping at straws.

 

If a mission is designed around only having two difficulty settings, normal and expert. Nothing is sacrificed. It's just the way the mission is designed.

[peter_spy]

Kind of a tangent, but modern developers also use this approach, where they ditch the whole concept of difficulty levels and relegate it to level design; players can choose the difficulty by taking or not taking a certain path in the game: https://youtu.be/iNEe3KhMvXM?t=1515

Perhaps such approach could move the focus away from difficulty levels to something like gameplay types or challenge modes, to experiment further with interesting concepts.

Edited February 5, 2022 by peter_spy

[Dragofer]

3 minutes ago, peter_spy said:

Kind of a tangent, but modern developers also use this approach, where they ditch the whole concept of difficulty levels and relegate it to level design; players can choose the difficulty by taking or not taking a certain path in the game: https://youtu.be/iNEe3KhMvXM?t=1515

Perhaps such approach could move the focus away from difficulty levels to something like gameplay types or challenge modes, to experiment further with interesting concepts.

A prominent example of this is one of Springheel's missions (Score to Settle or Reputation to Uphold), where the "difficulty" settings are actually used to define different gameplay modes, for example one being that you cant hide perfectly in darkness if an AI is close enough. That kind of stuff is more interesting than just "more guards, higher loot goal, no killing".

[Goldwell]

44 minutes ago, Dragofer said:

A prominent example of this is one of Springheel's missions (Score to Settle or Reputation to Uphold), where the "difficulty" settings are actually used to define different gameplay modes, for example one being that you cant hide perfectly in darkness if an AI is close enough. That kind of stuff is more interesting than just "more guards, higher loot goal, no killing".

Yeah I am not a fan of the no killing/no knockout objectives as well. I have played with it in the previous missions but moving forward I don't do that anymore. There's nothing worse than finishing a mission and realizing you have to find another 500 loot or whatever. The only exception with the no ko/kill rule I think is if you have a critical NPC that the mission cannot function without. If you have to go meet Alfred to discuss some deal and kill Alfred before you meet him.. well the mission is doomed right?  It makes sense really only in specific cases like that.

 

Plus creatively it's just a lot more fun to just think up more difficult tasks for higher difficulty levels, or to change the locations of key items in the level based on difficulty.

 

 

[madtaffer]

6 hours ago, Goldwell said:

Plus creatively it's just a lot more fun to just think up more difficult tasks for higher difficulty levels, or to change the locations of key items in the level based on difficulty.

I like how you did expert difficulty in Shadows of Northdale. It added more guards. I knockout the guard on the street and run toward the inn when suddenly another guard with plague mask scared me since I wasn't expecting him. I played on Normal first.

I would like that the inn first floor would have 2 guards and second floor 3 guards on Expert.

[gokudo]

If it adds more time to development it's not worth it IMO. Time could be better spent elsewhere, like in the amazing work with 2.10 and textures/images/etc that I've been seeing in recent missions. 

[Daft Mugi]

I think save rooms should be an option toggle (in the menu) for all difficulties.

So far, if someone wants to increase tension and challenge themselves without saving, they "ironman/iron mode" the mission. A great thing about Thief's open design is that it has led to players creating their own play styles and challenges: ghost, supreme ghost, iron mode, or a mix.

So, why the added restriction on the player and constraint on the game system?

I don't see a reason why save rooms shouldn't be available in a mission author's toolbox, since save rooms are a way for a mission author to set up and control the flow of tension and challenge – a good thing. But only a good thing if the player can opt in or out.

A player may want to play on a lower difficulty level to reduce the loot goal or another reason, but they want to opt in to save rooms for the added tension designed by the mission author. Playing on the hardest difficulty is a requirement for supreme ghost, so those players need to play on the hardest difficulty without save rooms. Well, I least cannot imagine supreme ghosting a level without being able to save at any moment.

[CountMorillonite]

I save before a jump. Because I'm very bad at it. So when I die I can reload exactly where the jump is. Also, I'm not the best at rope arrow placement. It's much better to save/reload repetitively until you get the arrow where you need it, than to reload back to a save room and find your way to that spot. It would get very annoying very fast and I would probably stop playing the game.

That's assuming the save room is exclusive, there is no manual autosave, and no save slot offered.

I'm reminded of Far Cry: Blood Dragon, where you have to play through a lengthy opening sequence completely before being allowed to save. I love Far Cry and Blood Dragon was fun in its own way, but I've never played it a second time because of that opening act.

Venting over (that felt good)

[thebigh]

5 hours ago, CountMorillonite said:

I save before a jump. Because I'm very bad at it. So when I die I can reload exactly where the jump is.

TDM can be a bit finicky about jumping off objects with sloping edges anyway. If the lip of the object slopes off downwards sometimes you just can't jump even though you hit the key in time. It can be frustrating.