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Save Points

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Which save route should we take?

36.8% (86 votes)
58.5% (137 votes)
4.7% (11 votes)
Originally posted by AxemJinx
...I'll just stay out of this.

Probably a good idea. I don't want to argue with you, and I have a feeling neither of us is going to persuade the other. #w{=P}

Originally posted by MrDeePay
If lives are saved this time around, no matter which saving method we go with, a patch could be made so that Mario will always have at least five lives.

Very true. On another note, what I said about lives can actually extend beyond lives, as well. Careful consideration should be taken into what is saved and what's not.
In my opinion, lives should always reset to 5 after you beat a level regardless of how many lives you had beforehand (e.g. you could have 1 live or a 99 lives but beating a level will automatically reset the lives counter to just 5).

EDIT: Maybe we should create a new thread for lives, it's starting to derail this thread.
Originally posted by vinnyboiler
EDIT: Maybe we should create a new thread for lives, it's starting to derail this thread.

We already had one of those. The posts were quite...thought-provoking and amusing, to say the least. We ultimately voted to keep lives.
If we went with Matt's idea, what would the purpose of lives in the level be? Something like that also doesn't encourage the use of the shop, it just makes things annoying. If a person gets fed up enough with having to trek back to the shop, wherever it is, they're going to just take the game over and keep playing, unless they have a midpoint in which case they have to go back for lives anyway. I think we're trying to get too fancy here. Can't we just put a save spot on the overworld that pops up the save prompt when you walk over the tile? I know I've seen hacks do that. Then the player can save at their leisure, whenever they want, even in the middle of a level, instead of having to beat one to get a save.
Originally posted by FirePhoenix
Can't we just put a save spot on the overworld that pops up the save prompt when you walk over the tile? I know I've seen hacks do that. Then the player can save at their leisure, whenever they want, even in the middle of a level, instead of having to beat one to get a save.

Yeah I think this is probably the best way to go. I do think that these save points should be unlocked along by a normal exit a couple levels into a world, or perhaps you pay at the inn at the hub, but if you get the one of secrets in each world there will be a free OW save point unlocked by the event.
I've realized this was outdated.
A save prompt after every level makes lives useless and irrelevant.

Having a "save hub" you can save at whenever you want is practically the same thing as an autosave except much more annoying for the player, having to walk over there every time. Making saving have a fee would give it a bit more of a point, but someone could still farm lives then spend time collecting the needed amount of coins with their extra lives, which would then also be the same thing except even more than even more tedium.

Saving only after castles/ghost houses makes it a lot more difficult to save, giving lives a bit of a purpose, but of course there is still possible life-grinding. And if life-grinding isn't an option, getting a game over makes you have to replay levels you've already played, which not only is boring, but also frustrating.

As you can see, the option here that I dislike least is autosaving. Also for those of you complaining about the game automatically saving when you don't want it to, SMW had a "Continue Without Saving" option.

Being able to save at your own leisure is pretty much the same as saving after each level, except making lives even more useless. And also having to walk over to the tile takes unnecessary extra time. We live in a society with some very impatient people, you know.

The "lives per level" idea is like combining the tedium of the save hub and the game over.

tl;dr we wouldn't be having this argument if we had gotten rid of lives earlier.
May we meet again outside the battlefield.

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Originally posted by Forty2
Also for those of you complaining about the game automatically saving when you don't want it to, SMW had a "Continue Without Saving" option.


1.) There are ways to have the game save suchandsuch progress without even given you the option of whether you want to save or not.
2.) Beating a save-enabled level a second time may not bring up the save prompt again, which can lead to some trouble when you do wish to save using that method, especially if you have to beat a level to do so, which brings its own troubles to the table.

Originally posted by MrDeePay
1.) There are ways to have the game save suchandsuch progress without even given you the option of whether you want to save or not.

I can't say I recall that ever happening in the original SMW. If it did, then disregard that I suppose.

Originally posted by MrDeePay
2.) Beating a save-enabled level a second time may not bring up the save prompt again, which can lead to some trouble when you do wish to save using that method, especially if you have to beat a level to do so, which brings its own troubles to the table.

True.

Eh, I still believe the simplest way to resolve the issue is by removing lives altogether (and maybe even replacing them with a neat little death counter). If that's definitely not an option then I'm going with autosaving/standard save prompt.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm stating my views anyway since I don't particularly care. Oh well.
May we meet again outside the battlefield.
I like the idea of having savepoints somewhere on the overworld. The player can save whenever they want, there'd be no need to have a level reserved for saving, it'd be simple to implement and it shouldn't be frustrating for the player compared to the other alternatives. We could probably just scatter a few across the entire map, or just have one on each submap. If we aren't going to go with that, then I'm going to go with the original save method. Autosaving after each level is pointless in my opinion.
Autosaving - Personally it's a bit annoying when I want to go back and check on a certain part of a game, which ends up closed after random events... but that's an RPG. For platformers wouldn't it seem a bit harsh to save right after each level? I mean, some levels might drop your lives from 99 to 45 while you attempt to find the coin. (That just reminded me of the three coins in 9-7 of NSMBWii...) A prompt after each level might be better.

Save Hubs - I've always liked save hubs for some reason. Hubs were like a little calm in the eye of the storm. Would it be possible to modify the midpoint patch or use level asm to warp to different screens of a level? If not, the first screen could be a generic entrance to the hub. A warp could be used to check which map the player is on, and change screens that way.

You could also avoid the whole mess by using a friendly airship as a hub.... or the Toad Brigade's space ship.

Original SMW Save: Never been a fan of this one, becuase I usually went and saved via replaying a castle/ghost house. (thus a deadly save hub... in a sense) Considering SMWCP's difficulty, manual saving would be a tedious task.

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A bit offtopic: Wouldn't showing the percentages for votes after people voted or after the voting time span make the results more accurate?
Save hubs are best for me. In every world there is a save hub. It will be good.
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I think the Mega Man 8 contains pretty nice save system (if we have Spare Charger).

Details: Game saves automatically with prompt, and if you have less than 5 lifes after beating level, you automatically get restored to 5 lifes. There are still infinite continues, but if you will use continue, you will lose any Midway Points which you got in level.

I don't like Save Hut idea, because you might have to walk high distances every time you'll beat level. The "fee" isn't usually problem, the walking IS.
Autosave, it's not only more efficient, but easier to program.
I no longer have interest in SMW Hacking as I did when I first started several years ago.

I'll be voting for the save hub. ;)
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I vote for the save hub. I think it's the best idea.
Originally posted by Forty2
We live in a society with some very impatient people, you know.

And just why should we cater specifically to those people? Just because SOME people abuse savestates and rewind and SOME people are too "impatient" to wander the map doesn't mean we should change mechanics to where they don't have to do any of that stuff. Whether or not we remove lives, people will abuse savestates. Whether or not we autosave after each level, some people will STILL be too lazy to wander the map.

But not everyone. Also, it takes more effort to play a level than it does to wander the freaking map- so why are people too lazy to wander the map, but not play the levels?


Quote
The "lives per level" idea is like combining the tedium of the save hub and the game over.

Good point. I guess, then it could be a "buy the lives at any time, directly from the overworld" thing? And for the difficulty, I guess there could be something on the map that tells you how difficult the level might be overall. I dunno. I honestly would love to see this system used in a hack, period, not just this one...
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Hub saves are the way to go.
Yeah, if you guys aren't going to use Matt's life system in production 2, I'm going to steal it for one of my personal projects. I'm probably going to steal it anyway even if P2 does end up using it (because really, I'm absolutely floored that someone actually had an idea to give lives a point in a system with saving).

I would post this in the thread about lives systems that was made before, but it was locked, so I'll just drop it here where everyone is paying attention anyway. Here's some other suggestions to sort of "bolster" the effect of this system, which may be good or bad.

Suggestion 1: Lives function like heart containers. You begin the game with 5 lives, and you have 5 lives to clear any given level without losing your midpoint progress. You can buy more life mushrooms from the store for a high, but not extraordinary price, judging by the coin pacing in P1, about 250 to 500 coins (at most) per life shroom would be fair. Life shrooms are saved with your file, up to 99, of course.

Suggestion 2: Buying the amount of lives you would like to have in a level from the overworld, perhaps as you select to enter the level. A bit more awkward than suggestion 1, because you kinda have to "guess" how many lives you need to beat a level, and overshooting makes you waste money while undershooting causes you to game over. If this system was used, lives should be extremely cheap; 10 coins at least, 50 coins at MOST (50 coins is still honestly way too much for this system, 10-25 is probably best). The "gambling" aspect could be fun, or annoying.

Personally I prefer suggestion 1.

As for saves, I'm sticking with my original suggestion that we should generally stick with the way vanilla SMW did it for reasons I already described prior in the thread, though using that "save tile" sprite is fine too as long as there's copies of it.
Originally posted by Tatrion
Suggestion 1: Lives function like heart containers. You begin the game with 5 lives, and you have 5 lives to clear any given level without losing your midpoint progress. You can buy more life mushrooms from the store for a high, but not extraordinary price, judging by the coin pacing in P1, about 250 to 500 coins (at most) per life shroom would be fair. Life shrooms are saved with your file, up to 99, of course.


YES
Originally posted by NameUser
Originally posted by Tatrion
Suggestion 1: Lives function like heart containers. You begin the game with 5 lives, and you have 5 lives to clear any given level without losing your midpoint progress. You can buy more life mushrooms from the store for a high, but not extraordinary price, judging by the coin pacing in P1, about 250 to 500 coins (at most) per life shroom would be fair. Life shrooms are saved with your file, up to 99, of course.


YES

What he said.
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