I noticed that there is are a few topics about "hardcoe Mode" availability in Skyrim. However I feel like my proposal is a topic in of itself.

Saving in the Elder Scrolls games can be a serious hindrance to true difficulty. You are allowed to save your game virtually any time, anywhere and make multiple saves per character. This is good for most players, and I wouldn't recommend to remove it from the series. However, if you are truly going to play the game with higher difficulty what happens when you actually end up dieing has a profound effect on how you play your character.

Here are a few popular saving methods that could be employed:

Limited Saving Areas:

Games like the Final Fantasy series only allow saving in certain areas. So you couldn't save in dungeons whenever you wanted unless you were at a "save spot" or limited location to save. This made fighting in dungeons more difficult.

Dynamic and Static Checkpoint System:

Many games have used the checkpoint system in the past. Most of them use a system where you automatically save at certain checkpoints.

Few games use a truly dynamic checkpoint system that reacts to how you as the player are performing, but one that does this very well is the Halo franchise. How it works in Halo is there are certain static checkpoints that you reach where it forces a checkpoint. These however are usually not close to each other, and when playing on Legendary Mode (the highest difficulty) it is not uncommon to have 'hard checkpoints' be 20, 30 or 60 minutes from each other. The dynamic part though is really nice, it will give you a checkpoint if you have killed all of the enemies in a certain "wave" of enemies and there are also no other enemies around. The way this would work is if you have killed all the enemies in your immediate area you would checkpoint (and if you played Halo 2 or later with skulls on this is very important. Because if you died you always went back to a checkpoint whether you were in co-op or not).

Proactive Saving:

There are only a few games that have done this, and to implement something just like it in Skyrim might not sit well even for those that want a dynamic saving system. But the way this would work is, like in Diablo 2 or even Minecraft the game is always saving. So if you die you can't say, "well I can go back to my checkpoint", or "well I can back to my last save". Your only option is to press forward from there (and in past Elder Scrolls games there really isn't a way to return to your corpse so you it would be a classic "Game Over").


I know that this system won't appeal to many people. But what I am proposing isn't the idea that this would replace the old system, only have it be optional if there is a so-called "hardcoe Mode" implemented. Because when I see that people want a harder game it isn't just about adding harder enemies, its about how you feel when you die. If I know that I can reload a save game not 30 seconds from my death (as is so often the case with most of us) than the game isn't necessarily harder, is it?

Please post your thoughts and opinions, even if you feel they are not lengthy.

There are many, many players of Bethesda's games that are in it to explore and roleplay, rather than experience a "difficult" game. Limited save points would be counter productive. I like being able to save whenever and wherever, and as many times as I feel I need to.

As was the case of fast travel in Oblivion - if you want to limit yourself, you are able to.

I HATE anything less than being able to save when I want and how many times I want.

This is an RPG full of choices. Being able to save the game when, where, and how I want is essential. Anything less would be a terrible idea.

The thought of clearing a dungeon, only to accidentally fall off a cliff and having to restart the whole cave would end up being very annoying, following with a lot of cursing, and a feeling of not wanting to play for a while due to my frustration. If anything, Bethesda needs to have separate saves for characters, instead of a giant menu with EVERY SINGLE SAVE FOR ALL CHARACTERS!

I completely agree with you, however I did try to note that this would be an optional extra. I hope that the voters notice this. I would like this to be implemented into a harder "mode", but yes I wouldn't recommend removing the old system altogether. It would make even me mad because I'm not always interested in playing the game "hardcoe" style, just sometimes.

I had a problem in Oblivion an it was that I saved too often. I just couldn't relax and just let go. And there's a small possibility you accidentally save when too low on life (Iwas close once) so dynamic savepoints could be in place.

But it should of course be optional.

Full scale riots at BGS if they take away a save-anywhere feature. Never gonna happen. Even most casual people would be royally pissed.

Electricity cuts, toilet breaks, game crashing, need to save when you please, been doing it since Ocarina of Time.

That pretty much sums it up for me.

I hated that you couldn't save all the time in Fable...
Really bothered me.

I want to be able to save at any time.
I think otherwise would just end up being really annoying later.

I save to prevent stupid things from happening. Like if i died from some stupid collision ledge getting me stuck while running away from something, or I try jumping a pit only to find the ledge i was aiming for is blocked by an invisible wall, then I will revert back and redo. But if its an unfavorable outcome of a quest, I live with that.

No. Most methods of making it more difficult to save backfire when you need to quit quickly and you are a long ways away from one of the allowed save points. A player can easily limit saving to whatever situation they choose. Plus, at least in Oblivion I would occasionally need to load a save after the Mage Apprentice that you can have follow would throw (him/her)self onto my sword. Also Oblivion is not entirely stable, at least on the Xbox 360, and being able to save when needed can help with those situations. What if my only allowed save happened just after the game crashing bug started?

I am happy with the curent save system. I do play games with limited saves and it can be enjoyable but in a game like TES I would find annoying. I think people can roleplay it themselves or they can make an option that if you die, then you die permanelty ( there are some games that have this - never used it). Another game that I have with limited saves is Demons Souls (PS3). If you die during a level (including boss fight) you start at the start of the level with all enemies respawning. All your money is left as a blood stain at the point at where you died and your maximum health is dropped by half. If you die again before collecting your mone - it is lost permanently. It is a beatiful game to play but I scream at my TV a lot when playing (well not so much now as I have pretty good at it) but it would kill TES if a system like this was implemented.

the saving system is perfectly good as it is (in past tes games). only thing about saving i want to be better is the directory whcih saves are put in. id like it to be more systematic

I like limited saving areas, because sometimes I would quicksave and then immediately die, that could help prevent it

you should do full saves as well.

Like other posts I would like to save different saves for different characters

I like the idea of saving a game whenever I want to. It fits more this kind of game.
Your ideas are good for other kinds of games.

In regards to how saved games are handled, I have only one wish for Skyrim.

LET ME NAME MY SAVES!

you can if you play on PC

Fixed.

Limited saves in a typical feature in early console games, part of the reason was probably that memory sticks to save on had very limited storage and was expensive so it was easier to save after finishing an level so you only had to save level last level number and things like health points and inventory. This let you get away with 100 bytes savegames while a complete level snapshot would easy be 100KB.
The other reason is to make the game harder so it last longer in a cheap way, limited saves are also far easier to program.

Has nothing to do in advanced modern games outside special settings typically sports game where you do a short task: in a snowboard game you don't expect to save in the halfpipe, here loading and continue would also be pretty hard.

Not from within the game. You push "New Save" and you automatically get "Save 4" or whatever. I want a dialog box asking me what I want to call it.

Checkpoints. *shudder*

And to all saying "It could be optional," that is terrible thinking! BGS are making a game not a survey!

I like save anywhere system. It works great because I know when I should save. There is already an automatic save system in place whenever you enter or exit another area. This autosave has saved me a few times and I think that coupled with quicksaves work fine.

being allowed to save anytime is a given, but I do agree that alternatives to death&reload would be refreshing. there should be some kind of penalty to dying so that people actually try to stay alive. way more fun when you're running for your life with some bear chasing you... you would actuallt be scared

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

For me, roleplaying should be abaout making choices and facing the consequences of these. I would like a mix between limited saving areas and a system where the game saves for you.
For example, if you do a quest where you have to choose between killing or helping a criminal, when you have done your choice the game saves that choice so you have to live with the consequences. Fine tuning your world by doing a ctrl-z like save file loading eliminates the gameplay of roleplaying!