Baldur’s Gate 3’s huge launch has reignited the age-old debate about save scumming.
Bigger question is who gives a crap?
It’s a single-player game, let people enjoy things the way they want to. I personally don’t save-scum the skill and ability checks, but I will save-scum on a tough fight if I’m in a losing position - and I ain’t gonna knock on people who do and don’t do that in a single-player game.
For multi-player, I would discourage it since dealing with your friend’s fuckups is like, half the fun of a tabletop session.
I think reloading a difficult fight you’re losing isn’t necessarily savescumming. What’s the alternative, letting it play out until you get a TPK and then starting over with a new level 1 character because “that’s what would have happened in pen-and-paper”?
I think this is the challenge for some who don’t want to reload a save. But random dice --with 1 always failing and 20 always hitting are just that random. No play skill involved.
I agree. But hey, people do permadeath no-reload challenges of XCOM, too. Some folks are crazy.
I just don’t think reloading a save after losing a fight counts as savescumming. That functionality is such a core part of games that we had to invent an entire genre to design around not doing that (Roguelikes).
Yeah, and that’s an extreme take I’ve seen some people take on games in the past - basically treating every game as if they had an Ironman mode.
I personally don’t even see reloading the game after losing as “save-scumming”, but there are the rare individuals who would consider it as such.
Yeah, I have to agree. When it’s a single player non competitive environment, who gives a fuck? Even if it ruins the game for the person doing it, that’s all their are hurting, their own experience.
There’s no debate. Mind your own business.
Save summing is enjoyable. If I wanted to live with my horrible decisions I’d turn the game off and engage with reality. Anyone debating how someone else enjoys something they paid for is a muppet.
I love that not a single one of us has a controversial take on this matter. Sounds like it’s not really a debate and just a trash editorial from a trash media outlet.
Attention everyone! MEH! Thank you and have a nice day.
They didn’t put quick save and quick load on single-keys in easy reach because they expect you to live with the consequences of what happened. Anyone who doesn’t recognize that save-scumming is part of the design intent is lying to themselves.
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Is only game. Why you heff to be mad?
Play video games the way YOU want to and stop worrying about how other people play. This is a major problem in MMOs/Multiplayer games, I don’t know why we should open the door for people to be upset about someone else’s Singleplayer experience.
My philosophy on it, specifically for this game, is that the game is so damn huge to start with it’s impossible to see and experience all the content in one or even several playthroughs. I’d rather just put my completionist impulses aside, think of the game more as “D&D” than a video game, and just go forward, no matter what happens in game.
But that’s just my thought for this specific game. As has been stated several times - it’s your save file, do what you want with it. No wrong way to play.
I’m doing mild save scumming, not to have a flawless playthrough but because like you say it’s a huge game and I don’t have a million spare hours so odds are I’m only going to do one good serious playthrough then take a break and maybe do a evil play through or something later.
It’s not like I’m going to see everything so I might as well use the magic of time manipulation to explore alternate realities - the characters talk about that sort of weirdness all the time so for me I don’t even feel it’s world breaking.
Though honestly the only mistake I wish I could go back and fix is completing pretty much the whole first area with only two characters because I missed talking to all the NPCs who’d join me - did make it more challenging tho which was fun I guess.
Save scumming is the only way I can tolerate games like this. For as awesome as the game is (very awesome) sometimes consequences fall within the range of acceptability and sometimes they don’t. When they don’t, save scumming is what keeps me from putting the game down for good.
I try to think of it in terms of how it would go at a D&D session.
For example, if i roll perception well, seeing a tile is trapped, and tell the DM i avoid it, he’s not going to have some NPC trigger it because i forgot to tell them to stop following me, so i feel justified in reloading a save in that case.
Yeah, absolutely reloading after I click on a barrel to search but it’s not that kind of barrel so my character smashes it and explodes us all.
What debate? I will save scum and there’s nothing anyone can do about it lol.
