Sometimes it is fun to quicksave just before you try and steal a shiny sword from a shop, then get caught by the guards without enough money to pay the fine, then end up going on a huge rampage throughout the town, killing everything in your path, only to reload and undo all the carnage you did a few moments ago.

But does anyone else ever get annoyed by this save "cheat", where you simply save before trying something or making a decision and then reload over and over again, "testing" all the potential outcomes? My problem with this is that it is quite unrealistic in a sense that it robs your decisions of some of their finality and consequences, unlike in the real world where time is linear and irreversible. That is why I think some of us may like to see a limited save system in order to prevent such abuse of the quicksave function. What do you guys think?

Yes, I realize that you can always mod something like this in easily, but that isn't the point. The point is to have a system implemented across the entire board for every Skyrim player, thus giving everyone an equal formula by which to judge each other's characters, achievements, and letting everyone know that whoever played Skyrim made decisive actions rather than "testing" every path their character could have taken.


Basically it's this:

"I've just joined the Dark Brotherhood and I'm carefully sneaking behind this man, about to assassinate him, knowing that whatever happens is final and absolute. This is it - there is no turning back now."

VS

"Well I'll just stroll up to this guy and stab a couple times, see what happens. If it doesn't go my way, not a big deal, I'll just reload"

What do you think is more thrilling?

Look, if people can′t restrain themselves from saving then that′s fine, but it should not affect those who want to be able to save whenever they like.

Not being able to save at any point would also most likely have a bad influence on the design of the game, if you look at fast travel Bethesda scrapped A LOT of good features from Morrowind because they felt that they should not bother with them with fast travel around, and I predict if we had limited saves they would make the game easier in stead to make up for it.

I′d rather have a hard game and be able to choose when to save than have a easy game because Bethesda designed the game around limited saves.

Why do you care how often other people save?
Who's going to bother looking up someone's Skyrim stats and comparing?

I am all for challenging gameplay, but a TES game is so open and diverse there's no point to that kind of thing - it's not about how effective your character is, you're not completing timed levels or anything.

A timer on saving would also just be annoying, sometimes you want to save because you have to quit playing for some reason, do you really want to be forced to lose progress over that?

And I can guarantee a large % of players would just mod something like that out.


The best they can do is make dealing with consequences an interesting part of the game - some people will still "cheat" by reloading but who cares?

I don't see anything here that needs to be "solved". Save if you want, don't if you don't. I didn't know any more really needed to be said.

if you want to challenge yourself just save only at certain points

Crashes. Freezes. Stuck in rocks. Need I go on?

Interesting topic.

It would be kind of dumb if they imposed something like this on everyone, but I think an option of this sort that you can toggle might be interesting.

Hello, my name is Glorious, and I am a save-oholic.

Yes I do save cheat, and sometimes I wish I didn't, but I don't think Bethesda should try and limit our saves. You play the way you want to play, and this is a matter of willpower. I'm going to try and not save cheat at all in Skyrim, but it should be my choice to do that, rather than having it forced upon me.

No change is necessary. If you don't like to "cheat" with save games, just don't.

Messing around is fun, especially in a game like this. The current save system is perfectly fine, if you don't want to use it to "cheat" then that's fine by me, what you do in your game isn't my business. Nor is what I do in mine your business.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, self control is all you need in cases like this. If your fun is ruined because you can't restrain yourself that's your problem, don't make it mine.

No, I enjoy having fun in my video games. Players should not be forced to do anything.

The player should have the freedom to be able to save where they want, where they want. If you don't want to be able to save constantly then don't save constantly, but it shouldn't be enforced on everyone else.

I can definitely see the problem with stealing, and in Morrowind I remember doing the same with enchanting as it was a skill back then, simply saving the game and loading until it succeeds because it was a huuuuge bummer to waste your grand soul gem with a golden saint on a 50% risk of failure... But I do not think it possible to solve actually, not by removing the option to save the game at all times anyway... And I haven't got a better idea myself so... bliviongate:

Really? That many of you are opposed to this

Sometimes, trying all options in order to get the 'perfect' solution is fun. Not tense or dramatic, but satisfying . I agree that it can be tempting to get svcked into saving often, at the expense of engagement with the game, but if that's how people prefer to play then fair enough. For those who want a more restrictive system then possibly a time-limited or single-saveslot option could be part of a hardcoe mode. And just pray that you don't get a corrupted savegame - even with a time-limited system that could be infuriating.

For modders a save-anywhere-anytime system is an absolute necessity.

Not too sure about the 'anything'... Games developers seem so afraid to ever actually punish a player for making a stupid decision these days.

But to the whole saving issue, I chose 'no', basically because learning self-restraint is a useful life skill and evidently something that a lot of people need. Make a rule about reloading - whatever works for you - and stick to it.

Also, timed saves would be a pain in the bottom when some real-life issue means that you have to stop playing.

Also, these games occasionally crash. I save often, but mostly as a crash-guard... I prefer to stick to my decisions, even if they svcked.

Basically it's this:

"I've just joined the Dark Brotherhood and I'm carefully sneaking behind this man, about to assassinate him, killing him permanently, knowing that whatever I do is final and absolute. This is it - there is no turning back now."

VS

"Well I'll just stroll up to this guy and stab a couple times, see what happens. If it doesn't go my way, not a big deal, I'll just reload"

No, [censored] limited saves, even if they're on timers. I want to save whenever and wherever. I dunno about you, but games on the PC do crash, and nothing would be more annoying than having the game crash, only because you had 1min left to be able to save. Also, there are times when I feel like going back to previous saves or if my more up to speed saves became corrupted.

Preetty much what I wanted to say.

Death to all tyrants!
:whistling:

Besides, my life is hard. Don't judge me! :rofl:

I just wanna be able to play on other offline profiles but with my live accounts dlc like oblivion before my box rrod and I wanna be able to transfer saves if that happens again (must have something to do with licensing), And I wanna be able if not edit save Numbers then at least have a way to not go 4oo+saves or something even though I only have like 14 fallout and oblivion suffered this the only work around wasn't really a workaround but anyway I like saving often but I would also like the saves to be numbered by time and how many you currently have not how many you've made including those deleted that just frustrates me really badly.

And if you have to reload, you'll have to do it again, so what's the problem? The one that has to reload doesn't get ahead, because strolling up to an enemy is generally not a good way to stay alive. Second is that you can do the first scenario by just not reloading, has been done several times in TES by people I believe. The thrill of killing someone silently is generally just more satisfying, regardless of being able to reload.

I don't quite understand the first part of your argument. I don't think it's about getting ahead in terms of the game, or saving play time. I'm talking about the pure thrill and satisfaction here, and when you claim "the thrill of killing someone silently is generally just more satisfying, regardless of being able to reload", I'm afraid I have to disagree. I believe that, if one could somehow measure thrill, that in a scenario where you don't have a second chance carries with it much more gravity, and thus, success in this case will result in much greater thrill and satisfaction.

saving is OPTIONALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Just like fast travelinggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg.

But seriously. If you can't restrain yourself from quicksaving before you try to steal something, there's something wrong. It's a single player game, so I don't really think any part of your argument is valid. Save or don't save, it's your game. Don't limit what other people want to do. :shrug:

I think one of the big problems (apart from the conservative fondness for the traditions of the series ) is the very practical one of what sort of system would you use for limiting saves. You can't use checkpoints in a freeform game like Skyrim; where on earth would you put them? Timed saves are a nuisance for anyone who might have to stop playing at short notice - i.e. almost every advlt gamer (exiting a game in order to save is generally a pain in the proverbial ). Single saveslots are prone to corruption, especially in a complex game like Elder Scrolls, and especially if using mods. Limited saveslots mean you can't go back later to see how things would have panned out if your character had made a different choice; in some cases it would be entirely in character for your character to have chosen either way.

It's a nice idea, if done as an optional mode, and it could probably be done well - but it would be a really tricky feature to implement right.

No, I like the save system as it has been in previous games. If you ruin your game by your save habits how is that my problem? I don't have a problem with saves ruining my gaming experience. The only problem I've ever had is when games crash and I lose play time. Saving whenever you want helps lose less play time (if I remember to save often enough) so I'd hate to give it up.