The guy in the video are wrong, we allready have failures in real life, in the game? we want the perfect game without any failures! Long live the save game!
@@sophiastephannievvl8311 Failure is measured differently in this. For instance, you get interesting outcomes from failing roles. The people who save scum aren't getting the "perfect game". They are getting a game where all the conversations come out favorably which means they are missing out on all the writing and story that was written for those who fail the rolls. If you don't want to experience that story then so be it. But that story isn't a failed state in the game. It is the game as much as the successes are the game.
I think a major reason for save scumming is not just wanting to get the best outcome but also a fear of missing out. Not knowing what kind of content we might be getting locked out of if we fail certain rolls or not have enough companion approval.
You don't miss out on nothing, bro. You just keep some content for later playthroughs. You're not missing out on paladin while chosing to play bard, for example
@@Andreus9733 you don't understand. By failing a roll, you have content to explore because of that failed action. What turn will the story take because of that? Why? How will you handle the next encounter, will it have changed because of that one thing you failed 2 hours ago? Thats content my guy.
Sid Meier, the designers behind Civilization, is famous for a pair of quotes: “Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game”; therefore, “One of the responsibilities of designers is to protect the player from themselves.”
And the other half of this principle is Henry Ford’s “if I asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. People object to these sentiments, but the fact is that they don’t really know what they’ll actually enjoy most, and their first instinct will very often result in a worse experience. Every broken build, every cheese strat, every easy mode proponent, every statement of “let people enjoy things”, they all result from these phenomena and the failure to understand them.
Baldur's Gate is a game that (like many From Software games), that embraces the chaothic nature of Table Top RPG campaigns. And if you play it with friends that experience gets multipled, something many studios and games do not do a lot.
not really I save scummed a lot when doing Sekiro and it was my 1st From software game too so didnt know what to expect. I was also going for the platinum too. So after genichiro fight im like f that im dying a lot and losing all my lives. So i started save scumming (i didnt even know save scumming existed then, i just had an idea to save before each boss by myself feeling like i figured out a cheat by myself that no one else has LOL) @@mbrochh82
@@mbrochh82 Save scumming in (for example) Elden ring doesn't do anything for you though, and you CAN still do it; Just because it's tedious doesn't mean you can't. Part of the gameplay loop in souls-like games is supposed to be dying, the worst you lose for doing so is some souls which are easy to regain. Fromsoft games aren't popular because "it protects the player from itself"; You can optimize the shit out of your builds. Both games are popular because they're GOOD. Simple as.
Some people like playing with a guide, some people don't. Some people like to play with save scum, some don't. I already lose enough in life, with entertainment I only want to win.
There's this trilogy, The Banner Saga, in which some story choices end up in party members getting killed and permanently lost. I've played throughout the whole trilogy without loading even once. When I lost a character, it hurt not only emotionally, but I also had to use another one as replacement, which meant learning to use different skills and finding a different approach to combat. This was the most immersive gaming experience I've ever had. This trilogy became a part of me. I'll remember it forever.
It truly is a masterpiece of a trilogy. The basic premise is just so cool to me, especially when considering a race like the Varl. To anyone reading who hasn't played at least the first one, go play the first just to see the worldbuilding. It's a nordic setting done just perfectly. My brother is 99% done all achievements across all 3 games. From what I've heard, the 'endless mode' in the 2nd game is damn near impossible to beat it in hard mode without anyone getting wounded.
The Banner Saga became better to me for every playthrough of it that I did. Phenomenal game, and I've been wanting people to do a "copy paste" of it ever since it came out, just as I've been wanting with Planescape Torment for 20 years, and now Disco Elysium. Like a "caravan type of game", turn-based, RPG, with a bunch of characters, decision makin both in and outside of combat but without the complexity of those city strategy survival games or kings of dragons pass, and focus on continuation upon failure, failure opening upon as much as closing down, etc.
I think the reason why it should be optional is that people play things differently and what is fun can be a very different thing, If I lose one of my favourite characters in a perma-death situation, I will stop playing. I don't feel immersion, I don't have that ability, to me playing a game is like reading a book, I'm seeing someone's story, so I just chose what I think will have the best outcome to get to the ending.
I was halfway through act 1 and was save scumming a LOT. It got to the point where I would save scum every conversational roll, every skill check, everything. I got bored, so bored I stopped playing it for a few days. I kept seeing reviews about how amazing this game was and I was like "yeah, I mean it's alright" It wasn't until I thought about why I was bored, that I figured out what the problem was. There was no risk, there was no threat of things turning out badly because I knew if I failed a check, I could just load a previous save from 5 minutes ago. This led to a few different things. I had to replay a lot of the game back to back, which killed my interest and really broke my immersion, I also never had to deal with an adverse outcome. That is what made the game boring to me. So I started up a brand new save a few days ago, and after getting past my previous point, I've been enveloped in this story and game.
I can definitely respect that in similar games I try to do it only if something felt cheap or contrived. Ie not normally fair play if you get my drift.
@@adriankamt3261 theres really no point in playing if you savescum in a game like this just go with the flow and replay it after you beat it way more replay value like that
By the way this is why I can't play Skyrim with mods cause I inevitably optimize the fun out of the game and ruin it, kudos if you can do it I envy you
@@kyellebantog7720 You know the irony is I've probably wished I could go back in time more than most until I realized what I've learned, who I am, and my outlook on life are all lessons from my failures. I'm saying that as someone who randomly gets mental attacks of remembering embarrassing, guilty, or regretful things from a decade ago, but I realize without hardship you don't grow.
My PC takes 5 minutes to load every time I try to save scum, which is enough incentive for me to not do it so that when I do save scum, it doesn't feel as bad. I think I will stop save-scumming after watching this video.
My personal issue is that if I ever feel like my choices are fucking me over because of the limitations of the game rather than being a natural consequence, I'll start save scumming to compensate. A small example is "oh that's not what I thought that dialogue option would mean". But a bigger one is "Oh I made a fuck ton of choices, under the impression that they COULD lead to X, but I'm getting the impression that X was never even considered as a potential outcome. If it were possible and i failed, that would be one thing, but now that I feel like it could have been possible but simply isn't, I feel cheated out of my own consequences." I'm not advocating for or against it, just pointing out that with a game like Baldur's Gate, it's a very complicated scenario to look at and talk about.
i 100% agree with your first point had this a few times where i wanted to say something neutral or nice, but it was actually hostile then i reload or if you missclick obviously
Yes, Mass Effect was especially bad because the dialogue choices on screen were shorter and worded differently, so sometimes they were really misleading. In this aspect the game needs to be trustworthy to not mess with one's expectations like that. But I think BG3 is pretty good in this aside from the terrible romance options.
Someone will probably make a mod that shows you the potential outcomes for dialog. Such as next to the option shows when origin npcs approve or disapprove. that would be wildly helpful, but I also understand why that wouldn't be a feature in the base game.
Yeah. Though, I do recommend saving a lot. And there is a caveat I might add: sometimes you might "save scum" to avoid bad communication. Basically, sometimes there are dialogue options presented to you that you think you understand and then when you click the button they turn out differently than you intended. This might sound similar to what was mentioned in the video, but I dont think it is. Larian doesnt really tell you if a response will have further options down the dialogue tree or what tone they are spoken in. I once clicked an option thinking it would open the possibility for a deception roll, but wasnt given that option whatsoever... Which means my character would NEVER have said the first option. But I couldnt go back. I dont really see that sort of thing as the same at all. Though obviously, if you're tempted to actually save scum if you do this, then dont.
I thought about this too. I haven't played BG3 yet, but I have experienced this in other games, especially ones that have those vague dialogue options that just kind of hint at the actual line (Mass Effect, Witcher 3, Fallout 4). I don't generally like save scumming, but I don't mind "scumming" in order to prevent stuff like this.
You you aren't content when you click a dialogue option that looks like "I'm not comfortable with this and I think we should stop" that actually turns out to be "I'm going to burn your house down and all your pets with it and get with your jealous ex-lover!"? I can't believe it. Those reloads are acceptable I think.
This is an easy one to implement!...save scum as afton as you want but only load when a dialogue option was not clear and you feel cheated...in other cases, remain with the consequences
i did this only once so far but it’s because i’m trying to romance astarion and i picked an option that sounded like a cheesy compliment to me but i accidentally ended up insulting him… i felt so bad 😭
in addition to bad communication, it's also good to save you from input errors. Like, no, I didn't intend to have all my party members run through a mine field, I just forgot to ungroup them. The kind of thing that happens in CRPG D&D but never tabletop D&D where the intent of your action is clearly verbalized before any dice are rolled.
To me, as I mentioned in my separate comment, this was more about consequences of free will, maybe even questioning if that's good or bad. Your point is of course valid as well.
Only stupid hedonism, maybe. Like in the item duplication example, "let them play however they want" was actually still correct, just "the way they want" meant being restricted by a patch/mod etc. For example, I refuse to play Morrowind without an alchemy and potions rebalance mod, but I'm also going to customize that mod for my preferences. I want to be limited, to best enjoy myself, but I also wouldn't enjoy it, if I didn't have full control over the rules governing those limits.
Meta gaming ruined peoples mind when it comes to games, everything MUST BE PERFECT, every build must the optimized and we must play only the strongewst option possible, in competitive seetings i understand that feeling, but people have this dumb ass view in singleplayer games.
Your opinion is valid. I think for me I save scum because I like making choices not suggesting something or hoping it comes across as I intended or works out. I want to see what happens if I do this or that not if I try to. I think there’s a spectrum between simulation and choose your own adventure, I prefer the choose your own adventure end of things. No way to play is better or worse, I’ll probably play this badass game both ways. Enjoyable video man! :D
Choose Your Own Adventure is the exact kind of thing Save Scumming gets for me... I'm a child of the 80s, so I remember actually holding a CYOA book in my physical hands and reading it...and then being able to pick it up again later and reread it to see something different - usually using what I already learned from the last time I read through it. The functional difference between a CYOA novella and BG3 is that it won't take me 200 hours to read the novella once and it doesn't have 17,000+ endings that I will never be able to see in one lifetime.
I have a similar outlook on this. I have played more choose your own adventures than I have played Dungeons & Dragons. So for me when I save scum it is allowing me to choose the option I want. I'm having fun because I have a pre determined mindset on how I want my character, and what I think skill checks that they should be able to pass. Now I don't do it on absolutely everything, but a lot of major choices I do! Because it makes me feel like the outcome is justified because of the choices I made. Plus, while I don't mind the random role of the dice, And I love it when playing with friends! When playing Solo in BG3 I want to see the decisions I make have meaning and see the outcome. I've restated from the beginning 3 times because I didn't like the outcome, or it didn't make sense how random to role was. And after finishing act 2, it took some of the fun away because I had to start over and play hours worth of the same walkthrough to get where I originally was. Though I will play random playthroughs as well, for the first few I really like to have a bit more control over it.
i completely agree, on my first playtrough i want to play the story MY WAY, and nothing will change that, so, if i have to save scum like crazy just to get that one dialogue that fits MY character and MY story, so be it. BUT, i know that i'm missing a lot of the fun of the game by doing so, that's why i will do a 2nd playtrough after i'm done with the one i'm rn, but this time i will just roll with whatever happens, unless it's a super important dice roll that decides wether or not an NPC goes to your camp, an NPC that you REALLY want or need in your team
I think that the best solution to this issue is to create an Ironman mode. Simply creating a (technically worthless) achievement for playing without save scumming is enough to overcome the psychological obstacle of "If I can do this, I should, or I'll feel like I'm wasting my potential." Anyways, great take from Ratatoskr, love the respectful and thoughtful way they approach differing perspectives.
Yeah, I kinda missed an ironman mode. I want a mode that auto-saves after important choice, action or event and disables manual saves. And I want it to be separate from difficulty, so you can get this experience on any difficulty.
@@realmarsastro No, just blocking manual saves is enough except for exiting the game. Auto-saving at every choice & diceroll could potentially lock you into a really unbalanced fight just by triggering a cutscene at the wrong time etc.
I'd also like an Ironman mode, not because I can't control myself, but because it removes any doubt of having save scummed something. Maybe even a "dead is dead" mode, where you can't reload after a full wipe.
And what would be wrong with that. Some people like excel spreadsheets. It's usually how the people who don't like excel spreadsheets know what the meta is. And also how we get nifty things like wikis.
@oskamunda Because optimizing your games doesn't necessarily results in a more enjoyable experience. Did you even listen to the video? I know that I'm eager to save scum in games were RNG is involved or even Bannerlord. I don't feel bad about it, but I will readily admit that doing it IS boring. It makes me wish those games were less buggy, that way I could just do an Ironman campaign.
I know that this is nitpicking but "don't save scum in baldur's gate 3" is absolutely a command. "You shouldn't save scum in baldur's gate 3" is a suggestion
Had an amazing experience actually related to "Save Scumming". At the point in the story where a partner NPC has to make a huge choice there's a 30 dice check, meaning for my character for this check I had to get a nat 20. I lost the initial roll of this after using 5 inspiration points and was really sad but at peace with it. After the encounter, I had to revive La'ezel and went over to Withers to do that, and then fast traveled to where I needed to go. Lae'zel had bugged and wasn't reviving and when going back to camp, was not showing up, perma dead because of a bug. So, I reloaded my save, and promised myself, I would just go through the decision and not use my inspiration points to reroll as I was heartbroken but had already gotten over the grief, and at the first and only roll I used, I got a nat 20. I sat staring at the screen debating whether to reload again or go with it, but it felt like such an out of body experience like a dead friend had come back from the dead, so I went with it. Absolutely amazing experience, will always recommend trusting the roll.
I think it's best to abandon the interpretation of a missed dice roll (or anything equivalent to that) as a failure. In my opinion Disco Elysium did that exceptionally well, so well in fact that the missed rolls sometimes lead to way more interesting situations.
Yep. Sadly most interactions are quite the opposite in video games in general: You failed a roll? "I guess you arent getting any money for this quest and Oh you are not getting any further interaction either" The most notorious illusion of choice in cRPGs is : pick this person up for the party or not. If you dont that pretty much means you lost a bunch of quests, some of which might have a reward that would specifically your PCs class would benefit from and failure to see such quests pretty much means less xp and depending on the difficulty you play that extra level a few encounters earlier might have done wonders.
CONCUR. For all the things that Larion has gotten praise for, they haven't earned any for developing sincere inroads to alternative outcomes FROM check "fails" or created other ways to "succeed" after the first roll. No, going back to camp and getting a whole new roster to pass a previously-"failed" Survival check on the map doesn't count....and how would that be different from save scumming, anyway?
The only times ive save scummed are when I go to take an action a little too quickly and the camera moves a tiny bit at the last second and moves me in such a way that fucks up my intended actions.
For me, it's when I feel like I legitimately missed or misunderstood something the game seemed that it intended me to see, such as a dialogue that I missed reading or misinterpreted.
I've played through Act I at least six times now with different characters and roleplaying scenarios. Every experience has been different. This game is SO massive. You don't realize it until you start making mistakes.
My entire adventure was a mistake. I screwed up so much in the game. I’m naturally lazy so I never even considered about loading up a previous save and repeating stuff. It’s only recently watching my daughters boyfriend play that I realised people did this
News flash: Not everyone is gonna replay a 100 hour game multiple times, some just play the story once and save scumming provides a way to make sure you experience every outcome.
People who play the same game over and over for hundreds of hours scare me. Same as people who continue playing a game for thousands of hours once they've beaten it because "endgame farming". Weird asf
I don’t think what you’re describing is save scumming. If you’re playing out every outcome so you can see them all (which in a game with this many branching paths is actually not possible even with save a lot), that’s different than only choosing to see only the “positive” outcomes.
@@Kintaku I know I'm late, but what *IF* some people only wanted to see the positive outcomes? I'm not saying it's the better way to play or the worse, but that's just how some people prefer playing.
This is the video I needed. I have been save scumming, not in battle - but mainly just to see different outcomes of all of the different choices. It's a testament to how great this game is that I even care. But part of me thinks its wrong to save scum, and it may take away from the replay value of the game
Same, though I'm nearing the end of the game rn, only time I seriously save scummed was after killing the goblin leaders. Somehow I pissed off Mol (idk how I saved the kid from harpies, then left when she told me to sod off because I failed a persuasion check and let a kid get hit by a guard). She told the guards I had been attacking the children and had to roll 4 20s FOR EACH MEMBER IN MY PARTY, to get into emerald Grove again.
Maybe first choose what opption you would pick if it was tabletop, check out all the other ones via save scum and then go back to the first option you would choose and play it through even if it doesn't go your way
Tbh I only save scum if I’m on the verge of getting tpk. Other than that I let the dice leads my way and if I miss out on a side quest because the Absolute decided to fuck with me, so be it
I’ve saved scummed in CRPG’s for over 15 years. But Baldurs Gate 3 was completely different. For some reason, I felt like I was in an actual D&D story and couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I think it's because in BG3 failure feels like a part of the story rather than a punishment. In an RPG, it's important that both success and failure are rewarded with interesting narratives, otherwise, you'll just reload and take the less punishing option.
You’re totally right. The one time I’ll save scum is when I select a dialogue option whose vibe I can’t quite gage. If I want to be nice and charitable but the response I get tells me that the option was meant to be more harsh, I undo that IMMEDIATELY. IRL I have a lot more ways to navigate a conversation. In-game I have to manually figure out what responses lead me to the message I want to convey
I like the diplomatic tone of the video, I normally don't even finish similar videos, but your argument is well structured. I think, at the very least, everyone should try 1 run where they don't save scum. Having played DnD for years, my argument is that a lot of the fun is finding out different routes for navigating any given ruleset you're given for playing a game. And having a game like BG3 gives us a similar freedom to try various paths and various mentalities regarding the rulesets. It some ways, it's like playing different games, just by changing the rules.
As one of those people who is "exactly like you", who was planning on aggressively save-scumming in BG3, I really needed to hear this. I know you're right, I've ruined so many games for myself in this exact way, and the less a game lets me 'meta-game' the more I end up enjoying it, regardless of what I think I want in the moment. This is a great take, thank you.
I make a lot of saves, and scumm some roles. But I also can not. I had this whole plan to infiltrate the goblin camp and lure them into a trap/reverse ambush at the druid grove (with oil barrels everywhere). But I ran afoul of priestess Gut, and after went into the underdark. By the time I realized that the situation with Gut had turned the whole goblin camp hostile, it was a decision between two whole story paths (roll back and eliminate the Gut interaction and everything after?) and chose to just follow the consequences and proceed as a murder hobo lol. I understand his point is that people are different and not everyone can avoid compulsion. Just figured if he can convey his experience, I can convey my own.
Well the good news is that its not just dialog dice rolls. Winning and losing fights with conditions on them lead to some serious consequences if failed to accomplish your mission. Just had that happen to me, and the will power to not scum is hanging on by a thread and the fact that I pushed myself through another story moment and combat encounter after. So I have progress to keep me choosing that save file over going back. Its kind of great though, because I had made it through the story so far without any real casualties or consequences, and BOOM a freaking massive one lands in my lap. There is now tragedy in my story, fueling new motivations for my PC and origin companions.
@@15thobserver yea same. I fought the hag and I won't go into details but a couple of things happened that I definitely didn't plan or want lol. I still won the encounter, but between my choices and some roles, it's kind of an "at what cost" situation. I did have a save from the start of entering her house, the dungeon, and the last fight. But I just let it play out and moved forward.
There is a much simpler point to this imho: Games often dont acknowledge failure, which goes double in a system which features a d20 and doesnt allow you to take 10 ( which you can often do in actual RPGs ) even though you would succeed the check with a roll of a 2. I played like 5 hours of BG3, but there is a specific example where failure didnt result in less content: Your encounter with Astarion. Whether you fail or succeed in the hidden perception roll, gives a completely different encounter with him: thats amazing, because i wasnt gated away from content because of that die roll. Obviously most choices wont be like that and maybe that was just a 1 of in the game, but it highlights that BG3 deserves a chance to not save scum social encounters, because unlike choices in many other games ( i dont mean crpgs here those are mostly doing fine) are an illusion, so failure always meant less content there.
Yeah, a lot of games, even ones with permanent effects on your file following mistakes, don't actually invest much in making it worth your while, and the culture around gaming trends very much the opposite, where even small mistakes are treated as unacceptable. It's still better to have some kind of a choice in how you play a game because (1) time can be a problem for some players, (2) games are far from perfection, and sometimes a situation might just be badly designed or explained, and (3) games also bug out and crash sometimes, but it's really the lack of value in negative continuity and peer pressure to succeed that leads people away from accepting mistakes.
Yeah!! Baldur's Gate is a game that (like many From Software games), that embraces the chaothic nature of Table Top RPG campaigns. And if you play it with friends that experience gets multipled, something many studios and games do not do a lot.
Yep. This topic keeps coming back because while we were right to put societal breaks on shaming and overmoralisation of things (especially aesthetic things like games or art), we've now ended up identifying literally any kind of judgment, or claim to know anything about what other people will like, as tantamount to shaming, bullying, or even physical force (somehow, even though no one ever actually 'forces' anyone to like anything). We need to be able to say these things without shaming, and we need to be able to hear them without conflating them with shaming.
Save scumming feels like you're getting one over on the game and getting better outcomes, which feels great. The truth is that you spend far more time replacing replayability with repetition while feeding your own worst obsessive compulsions.
I can definitely understand how some people could feel this way in reference to both save scumming and the dupe glitch. As someone that's been save scumming in these types of games since KoToR and DA, It's personally never ruined my experience with the game since I don't view it with the same lens that those do where they feel like it ruined their experience with the game as a whole. I simply want to experience all of the reactions the character has to offer, then I decide which response they give personally suits me. I can definitely see how this could feel transactional and hollow to some, I just personally don't view it that way.
I like this take. It all just boils down to a fundamental difference in how people enjoy their games. From their perspective they feel like they’re cheating themselves or robbing themselves of an experience…and I simply don’t feel the same way. I think some people just can’t wrap their heads around it, thus we have this conversation rearing it’s head again, and again.
@@treeokk as a disclaimer, I'm not really sure who you referred to as _"some people"_ in your last sentence, but assuming it's referring to people who doesn't find enjoyment in save scumming then, shouldn't it really be the other way around? I think the people who want to avoid save scumming know full well about the allure of doing it; the optimization from doing it, to quickly see all the outcomes from different actions, to avoid undesired outcome, everything @veliona8920 has eloquently described, etc. From what I've seen, it's usually the people that aren't bothered by such things who, for the most part, can't wrap their heads around why someone would care so much about the immersive experience itself. Although overall, I do agree with your comment, other than the iffy last part. While this next part of my reply isn't necessarily directed at your specific post, but since it's related I'll just put it here anyway (hopefully you won't mind). To make yet another case for people who doesn't find much enjoyment from skimming over or making some of a game's elements irrelevant (save scumming, easy mode, etc), as if this video hasn't made a compelling case already; sometimes, people have an urge to "respect" a game. There are many dimension this sentiment can come from, first is the pragmatic perspective; someone has paid for the game, so they are compelled to see everything that it has to offer for their money's worth. Second is out of respect for the devs perspective, the devs has meticulously designed the game and it drives the player to engage with the game's mechanics as closely as the devs possibly intended. Third is just from an escapism point of view, some people want to get as immersed as possible and get lost in the fantasy. If everything works out, the game is good and the player is enthralled, this is one of the most powerful ways a video game can affect someone; it'll leave an impression that one will remember for years long after they've finished playing.
@@treeokk People also have this same mentality against those that mod their games, I'll personally never understand it. It's fine if people want to play the game a certain way, Just as long as they don't impose their personal way of playing on others and demeaning them for playing the game differently from them.
I agree with not save scumming for the general narrative or for player choices, but to me it doesn't count as "save scumming" when your NPC companion walks a bad path and blows up barrels or triggers traps that were visible by the lead PC. For example, my lead PC was looting some boxes that were surrounded by firewine barrels, and my rear NPC companion finally caught up, he was carrying his torch, and for some reason walked ON the firewine barrels. Blew everything up and did 75% damage to all party members. Had to waste a short rest and some potions. Or another instance, walking along a cliff side, the lead couple party members rolled perception and noticed a trap. Kept walking around it, but for some reason the rear NPC companion walked right into it, triggered the floor trap, and went flying off a cliff. Had to waste a scroll. In situations like that, I don't consider it save scumming, since it was the NPC simply walking wrong that made me have to waste significant resources.
In the vault in act one my companions kept phasing through walls and triggering the pressure plate. Shit like that shouldn't happen, and I can't say it's my fault for needing to reload due to a billion bugs and glitches. The game *really* needs polish.
So something I do want to bring up is in response to you mentioning Cohh and his stream. I've watched him for years, and his Tweet (or uh... X-Post? what the hell are they now?) is more directed at how people often come into his chat while he's playing games like BG3, DA:O, Divinity 2, etc, and they say something to the effect of "How can you find this fun?" or "This can't be fun". I don't feel his post was meant to insinuate that there's anything inherently good or bad about save scumming. What he's saying is that if someone is doing something and the end result is that they do, in fact, enjoy it - it's a little ridiculous to tell them that doing it a different way is "more fun" or that they "aren't having fun" because if they weren't, a sane person would just... not do it anymore. On the topic of the Legend of Zelda thing: it's a similar case. Some people love duplication glitches because the systems they subvert are systems that person doesn't necessarily enjoy. A similar example; I'm playing a game right now where I thoroughly enjoy the characters and the story and I want to play it to experience that. But the combat is just... bad. It borders on unfair. And if I COULD use a glitch to make combat less of a pain in the ass, I would - even if the end result was making it a breeze. Because the combat isn't what I enjoy about the experience. For duplication - a lot of people probably hate the weapon degradation mechanics and just want to not have to worry about that because that removes their enjoyment. Circumventing it makes it a better experience. You bring up a good point that sure, until you try it you won't KNOW if it really enhances your fun. But the specific person you referenced feels more like the issue is not the duplication glitch, but his own self control. He repeatedly does something that actively hurts his experience simply because he can. I feel like that isn't really going to be the experience for the average person. Typically something that puts a bad taste in your mouth is something you won't continue to do unless the end result DOES make you happy. For example, I could see repeatedly duplication even if you don't like it if the end result is that you are finding combat more fun. I just feel like it's a case where you're going to have people who prefer either option always at each others throats because it's a fundamental difference in preference that can't really be explained or understood unless you have that same preference.
tl;dr for this text wall: I actually enjoy the risk of failure, but not when it's consistently more often than my successes I personally don't reload from a previous save unless I've walked myself into a situation that I can't get out of (a specific indestructible environmental hazard comes to mind). That *said*, I do in fact have an issue that pretty well applies to most digital dice in general: While the raw dice rolls across a session or a game may or may not average around about 10 on a d20 (before modifiers), in practice, the way it plays out is by far not very conducive to "fun," at least for me. Most of the time, rather than having most rolls land between 6-15 on a d20, you'll get a *lot* more rolls landing between 3-8, "balanced" by just enough rolls between 15-18 to bring the average back up to expected levels. I'll roll with a failure, *sure*, but I start to see it as an actual, unresolved issue when the rolls resolve into something like a 1:3 success rate. As a D&D player who's used digital dice extensively, most of the tables I run with settle on the band-aid fix of "refreshing" the dice roller by asking it to roll a polyhedral of any kind if it's been allowed to sit idle for more than 5 minutes. But while I'm sure that solution *would* also work in games like Baldur's Gate, it's not something that the devs allowed for.
3:30 Well there's your first problem. Arguably, this isn't really 'doing what he wanted'. If anything, his comment suggests that he didn't want to do it, but functionally fell into something that modern game markets would exploit in a form of predatory design. That's unfortunate, and as the replies to that post demonstrate, is a rather unpopular perspective. I object to stuff like this because there's just as many people who will try it and regret it. I took someone's advice on my first Elden Ring playthrough of going a naked hobo run instead of the predetermined build I had planned on making. Was it an interesting experience? Sure. Was it as fun as what I planned to do? No. Going back, I wouldn't do it, because there are long term consequences regarding level optimization and starting class. I get the intent behind messages like this, but I don't think you've properly addressed the arguments you're meaning to respond to. What you CAN do is ask people to consider the value of the failed result and whether or not it is narratively interesting enough for them to run with, or if the inconvenience of savescumming is really work trying to optimize every single roll that could or couldn't go in their favor. It's legitimately something worth thinking about. Your mileage may vary on that. And that's the thing. Your mileage may vary on that. Simply put, there are plenty of people who don't buy this, for good reason, and you aren't really making a compelling case for people who don't already agree with you.
I disagree with and want to push back on the idea that any feelings of shame for save scumming must come from within, as you were suggesting. Back when Jade Empire was relevant, I save scummed to see all the endings to the game and my friends' replies to that were "ahh so you cheated." It was clear to me, in the eyes of my friends, I had done something wrong by playing the game how I wanted. Maybe you, Ratatoskr, won't judge me for it but there are people who absolutely will. I do agree a person can save scum the fun out of a game, but I don't think this is a situation where one size fits all. For me, I enjoy reloading when I fail a dice check because a natural 1 decided to rear its ugly head on DC 5 challenge. Accepting what I feel as a bullshit result kills the enjoyment for me, so I reload those and move on.
@@dustyvb11 Yes because you would know it's a dice roll at the core. You should be able to pass at least one of multiple dc 10 checks. You can just die though.
So you don't like chance and that is ok, but bare in mind others do like that real world aspect and d&d is highly evolved around it, so you are in the minority.
The only time I save scum is to not get accidentally stuck. Take for example a dialogue option that I assume would end in combat. If I can't beat that scenario then I would be stuck there and would get frustrated. It's only happened a couple of times luckily. Sticking with your decision is the way to. You don't need to be an omnipotent god to fully enjoy a game and saving interactions makes for an interesting second playthrough later.
Big meta gamer myself here. Played hundreds of hours on Divinity Original Sin 2, and one of my favorite parts of the game was playing solo and building my character around being able to handle everything I wanted both inside and outside of combat. This isn’t exactly hard to do past act 1 when you can respec whenever for free, but routing a character to pass specific speech checks in act 1 while not sacrificing too much elsewhere was legitimately fun. I’m completely fine with save scumming in Baldur gate 3, Especially as a character specced into charisma. I’ve built my character this way partly because I want to explore those specific choices in this playthrough. Sure I could just fail the check and fight everything like any other character would, but the game has 100+ hours of content I want to explore, especially on my first playthrough. I don’t much like the idea of waiting potentially 100 hours to maybe pass a check I failed before, but this time on a character less likely to do so. I personally don’t think the dnd style of rolling for everything and leaving it to chance is a good system for video games. A tabletop with a good DM can branch out your failed persuasion or deception checks to more options than if you failed go kill everyone now. I want to be rewarded in a much more tangible sense outside of combat for the way I build my character. Simply giving me a bit of a better chance to do something doesn’t reward me the same way that meeting certain combat and social skill requirements by certain levels did in DO2, especially when you can just roll a 1 and fail a check that was otherwise impossible to.
The really good point here is the presence of the DM; you can give your DM feedback. "Hey, I was really surprised this went that way, I'm really interested in seeing something like THIS," and they can craft that in, even with failed checks. To your point, that doesn't really exist in a decision-tree system that video games would be limited to. In terms of speccing into Charisma? Homeslice, I passed on an ASI so I could take the feat which allows me to speak to the dead and talk to animals as rituals for the specific purpose of being able to explore even more of everything.
Your opinion is too well made and makes too much sense, has nothing to do under a video of this degeneracy. Like really, you tell all this to people who clearly cant even think with their own head, not to mention someone elses
I don't think your case is what was being discussed in the video. It sounds like you have a specific goal in mind and a path you want to explore. Exploring a path of what-ifs would actually require a certain amount of save scumming, by definition. Go for it. But the point here is you're willing to take the consequences of your actions, to see what is on the other side of that successful persuasion roll, no matter what. That's not really save scumming, that choosing a path. I think there is a difference.
The dice rolling could be a better system if it was actually implemented as the tabletop expects it to do so, which is deciding who does the roll. The current implementation limits possibilities to the character doing the interaction, which encourages save scumming. I’m fine with failing dice rolls. I’m not fine with having my options limited to a single, essentially random, character, when the whole point of a DnD party is solving problems as a group
I think using a Zelda duplication glitch as a reason why people shouldn't save scum is a bad argument. The duplication glitch is exactly what it is, a glitch. The save and load feature on the other hand was an intentional feature and implemented in a special way to give players the freedom of choice. I think disregarding how people want to play the game as "bad argument" doesn't help anyone. You do you and experience the game how you want to, and I'll do me. At the end of the day, the games a game. It's meant to be fun and personal to the gamers no matter how they played it.
Exactly! It’s silly to compare an intended aspect of play to a glitch just because some in the community have arbitrarily decided they don’t like it. If Larian considered saving anywhere to be against the rules they could have easily put in a save point system like a lot of other games have, but they didn’t.
Anytime that I would want to save scum is just when I do something that makes everyone want to kill me and then they kill me and I have to load anyway lmao
What I've always done in these games is write a little backstory for my character, including their morality. Most old crpgs kind of expected this out of you anyway. I haven't played bg3 yet since I'm going through 1 and 2 again first, but doing this helps me think harder about what decision my character would make in dialogue, letting me be satisfied with it regardless of the outcome. Disco elysium deals with this as well by making failures often just as fun as successes.
The challenge that I've found - through save scumming, btw - is that there can be dialogue choices that would really fit my characters backstory which are front-loaded by dialogue choices that my toon WOULDN'T make...unless they were having a bad day, or something. If the dialogue choice that best fits your toon is hard gated behind a dialogue choice that you would not have chosen at first glance, and then you end up taking a different choice that dead-ends you from ever seeing it (or even knowing that it is there)....did your roleplay benefit from NOT save-scumming?
A failed roll in the D&D campaign I played ended up being my favorite one. I need to set up some backstory: 800 years ago, the world had been fundamentally changed by the Sheperds, a group of wizards. They partitioned off a small cluster of islands within a barrier which contained all of the planet's magic, leaving it highly concentrated with magic and the remainder of the planet mundane. This was done in an effort to separate the material plane from the other planes, as a way to hold back demon incursions which had ravaged the planet with war after war. The dwarves were separated from their mountain homeland by this event, and in the present their zealots are on our asses to undo this barrier. The wizards prepared a many faceted gemstone with 110 Djinn trapped in it, which can only be used by a first-born of the plane; someone without any kind of past lives. My character was intentionally made to be such a person, so I wished on the Djinn for this knowledge of the world and its structure, to get additional information which could counteract my indecision. In particular, I learn for sure that the demons are an inevitable force, and our silly little barrier will just prolong their invasion whilst leaving the majority of the planet's population unaware of magical forces such as them, ready to be blindsided. After this, me, my party, and a more level-headed dwarf we have befriended named Yakut got to work writing up a wish didact to officiate this planar reunion (the wizards created such didacts as a bit of legalese to get the Djinn to perform exactly the wish they wanted with no catch). We decide to do a small bit of gaslighting by including that the wish will broadcast a message saying it's Silgar, the head Sheperd, who is enacting this massive world change as a failsafe. This lets us skirt by in anonymity instead of potentially being demonized as the people who threw the world into chaos. We set up the afterlife of one of the island's denizens to extend its purpose to any warrior's death, regardless of nationality, so that those warriors will return to fight the demons when they eventually return. This idea further sways me into thinking that we're doing the right thing for long term survivability. It all comes down to this: since I had wished on the Djinn before, I need to roll a D100 to determine whether I can wish upon Djinn again. 1-33 it's a no-go. I roll my favorite red with black speckle and silver letter dice, and... 00, 7. No wish for me. Me and my party look around, and we turn to Yakut. He is given the large gemstone, and begins making the wish. He is a first-born of the plane. The single goal his entire culture had been working towards for 800 years, and he was fulfilling it. Our DM plays "The Lesser of Two Evils" from the Witcher 1 soundtrack through the music bot, and our characters' world is fundamentally changed. I know I did not have a deep investment in making this second wish like I felt when I wished for knowledge, so that failed role brought about a far more fitting character moment which was a great conclusion. As far as I can remember, those were the last dice any of us rolled for this campaign.
@@luskira to remove the barrier separating Chie-Yen from Shen and to restore magic to the entire planet. The particular didact was made by the Shepherds as a failsafe in case their plan went awry--we merely used it because we thought their entire scheme was bad for the peoples of Shen and saw fit to reverse course. Now the dwarves set sail from the pitiful hill they were consigned to in Chie-Yen to their true mountainhome. My character watches from the tower formerly owned by shepherd who wished Chie-Yen into being, seeing if he made the right choice for the world afterall...
@@luskira ah, what happened was that I was going to wish for that, and then the dice rolled that I was no longer able to wish on a Djinn, so Yakut made the wish in my stead.
I usually only save scum when I'm like "lol what happens if I pick this option", and occasionally for lockpicking when I happened to be low on lockpicks. Otherwise, I stick to my choices.
For me personally the biggest problem with BG3 that personally drove me (and I'm assuming a lot of people when they realized it) to save scum is that HUNDREDS of checks lead to absolutely nothing if you fail them and anything from minor loot to entire questlines if you succeed. You could be walking around in the city when suddenly a random perception check fails - with all four characters. So you look around for a second, then notice a wall that is out of place and clearly supposed to be a hidden door, but the game won't let you interact with it in any way. No hitting the wall (well sometimes you can but most of the time you simply cannot target clearly hidden doors), no manual investigate checks (which seriously how is that not in the game), no cooldown or waiting a day to retry, and most importantly - NO OTHER WAY TO GET THROUGH THE DOOR. It is enormously annoying to have this happen and the game is absolutely riddled with these kinds of situations. If you just happen to be unlucky with rolls then you're constantly feeling like you're missing out on content. I'm just not the kind of person who sees their 500th failed check in a 150-hour campaign on an obvious trap or hidden door or major monumental character moment and says to themselves - "Welp, see ya in the next playthrough! Why would I want to try again?! Sure I know that something is hidden right here but the gods have decided that I will never find it so, oh well!." Somebody in the comments here said they need to do like Disco Elysium and make failed checks interesting and I agree in that there are an astronomical amount of checks where it's just like, "oh you failed... anyway." when it could be much more interesting, but fixing the problem is more than just adding goofy failure moments. There is a serious lack of alternative options in this game, despite all of the talk that this is the most immersive sim CRPG ever that the online hype machine has been calling it. Like I mentioned, there are a lot of situations where there is only one way in to a place, but there's also a freaking truckload of single check moments between you joining a faction, doing a ton of quests for them, possibly getting new companions - and it just deteriorating instantly into a fight to the death for really flimsy reasons. This isn't really an issue of a player not grasping the consequences of their words or actions - just straight up bad writing and design.
i think the idea is that you play it again indeed. and yeah failing is part of life and exactly what they want you to feel. i think the best game i played was kingdom come, which gives you multiple and different tries at solving a problem
If the game is rigged and my luck even with positive modifier is constant nat 1s... *inhales* im gonna fucking rig it back so that i am able to play it. This is a game, not a torture simulator. Save scumming ia good for single player.
I have the same problem. I've constantly save scummed and restarting with new characters 8 times because I feel I'm "missing out" on content, opitimal results and party comp. And I'm having a hard time picking up the game again. It's something I've always struggled with RPGs like this. Wish I could just think less and enjoy how the dice rolls. 😮💨
it’s impossible to see everything in a single play-through by design. so trying to get the replay value in the first play-through is counterproductive imo.
The irony is that you're missing out on content by not going with the failure options. Some scenarios and experiences can literally not be accessed by always succeding in dice rolls.
The problem for me is that, like the Zelda guy, if save scumming is possible in the game it’s really difficult for me, personally, to not use it at all. I’d really like a ‘consequences matter’ game mode, one that will stop you from save scumming. One where, say, the game will automatically save when you do something with consequences and erase your old file. Obviously hardcore modes already do this, but they also make it so that one failure in the gameplay means you have to start from the beginning, and that’s something I’m not interested in.
@@daunted232 Well, I’ve been an alcoholic for long enough to know that sometimes the best way to make good decisions is to make good decisions easy to make. My sobriety is safer when I choose not to purchase alcohol at all, rather than having the option available on my fridge and expecting myself to resist the temptation every time I I get an apple. Note that I’m not asking for alcohol to be banned, or for save scumming to be made impossible. I just want an ability to make a commitment to not save scumming (or not drinking) that the game is willing to honor. So, I’m that respect, it’s just the same thing as all those hardcore modes that delete your saves when you die, just used for a different purpose.
I know DoS II had an "Honor" mode that had some things like that. There were some ways around it to an extent. Also if your party wiped it deleted your save. So it is possible they might add that if they have not already. (I have not gotten the game yet, though I plan to at some point).
The Zelda narrative is just one data point on a single game for a single person. I've ruined games in the past by doing exploits and save scumming, but over the years of trial and error and learning from those mistakes exactly how much and what kind of exploits will ruin the experience for me, and I can now apply that knowledge in order to create a balance between exploits and letting the story play out naturallu that maximizes my own personal enjoyment. Once I realized I was able to achieve that balance, I was able to even go back to games I had previously ruined for myself and start over and still get enjoyment out of it. But if you aren't given the opportunity to fail at maximizing enjoyment, you'll never be able to learn from that failure. BG3 might not be the best game to start that learning process with because it's such an exquisite game to have the experience ruined for it, but in general, I encourage people to go out and ruin games for themselves so they can learn how to achieve that balance.
I played a game that approaches this topic in an interesting way, it's called Fear & Hunger: Termina. You have 3 in-game days to finish it and every time you save, time passes by 1/3 of a day, so you have these long periods where you have to play without relying on saving that make the experience really exciting, especially as there are events related to story that happen during different times of the day depending on which day you're on. It's really cool and challenging.
If you don't save scum you'll never complete the game. ever. I don't care what anyone claims, it's stupidly rigged against you in every way on every difficulty
I play together with a buddy. Its our first playthrough and we have no idea whats about to come. And its just so much fun if you have to live with your mistakes. Yeah, I accidentally broke my Paladin oath very very very VERY early. And we also murdered two potential companions and a bunch of innocemt people. It just feels really intense if things can actually go wrong. And overcoming challenges feels so rewarding this way. We only reload after we get all killed or if the game crashes. And if we have to replay some parts because of that we make the same decisions that we made the first time. I can only talk for myself but save scumming would just kill our great experience.
It's so hard to break my save scum soul. It's hammered in so deep I literally found myself at the reload menus before I even registered what I was doing. I found the best way to play is to genuinely think up a character, their personality all of it then genuinely just act as this person and ride out every consequence and it's so rewarding. I also had to stop myself from looking up all the different ways a situation plays out to ensure I get the best item. The hag hair and the lightning staff so far have been the only must have items I have found. It's best to just look up the key items for your build and just be ready for those and ride everything else out. Your going to want to do this game 3 times min and this isn't like DOS2 where sure the story is kinda different for each origin character but it's just a variation on the same story with a bit more back story...no this is like playing a totally different quest line depending on what personality or origin character..like a fresh dlc or something.
I save scum to preserve the rpg experience that I wanna have. If there is a speech check that I want to pass because I feel like my character would pass it then I’m going to reload a save. I also think that saving before fights is ok just due to the fact that you can get really unlucky and lose encounters that you really have no business losing. Lastly, failing perception checks can lock you out of content and I don’t want to have to replay 20 hours of content because my party couldn’t see a button on the wall. What I do like about this game is that save scumming is an option that lets you get the most out of the game. I will be doing a dark urge play through once I’m done with my current one and I’ll definitely try a more classic dnd experience with that one.
The problem is that you'll never get a "classic dnd experience". Dungeon masters are there to make sure that, even if you fail tons of rolls and roll tons of critical failures, the game will continue as interestingly as possible. There's no "content to be missed" in tabletop since the content is literally generated as you go. As much as I've been having a blast and adore what they did with BG3, some things are impossible to recreate. I don't want to be locked out of content, I surely won't have the time to replay the game and pray to the Gods that I make the rolls I missed the first time, it's just as simple as that.
@@rdf274When you think about it though, you are locked out of content regardless of what you do. There is content created by the developers for a successful roll/"good" decision, and there is content for a failed roll/"bad" decisions. What it seems like your saying is that you want the favorable outcome content vs the non-favorable outcome content...which by the way is fine. Just presenting a different way to view things.
@@thejokebrandt3810 Completely agree, at some point dice stops being fun and becomes a shackle, i have +14 modifier on persuasion, i should be able to pass 99% of skill checks, so how is that possible that my lvl 10 bard, eloquent as a god, failed to persuade a lvl 1 village bozo
@@TheSteakSammich yeah I understand that, and it's definitely one of the many great aspects of this masterpiece. However, you can be sure, a lot of times, unfavorable outcomes won't produce the same depth of content as favorable ones, apart from some exceptions. Which is not a criticism, it would be asking too much of a game. You can test it yourself.
@@GreenMonkey0 Actually your chance is 95% because there is always a 5% chance to roll a 1. But yeah i get your point but first of all narratively while your character may be super charming wordsmith even a genius can have a bad day or slip up some times and it also depends what you are trying to tell people even if they are super dumb. So its kinda fair that there is always a chance the other person for whatever reason just doesnt respond the way you want. And while you may not like the fact that you can still lose your skillcheck when you have invested that much into your character, which is a fair point, there is also an argument to be made that if the nat 1 roll wasnt a thing it would be kinda boring to always know for absolute certain what the outcome of an event will be. I think alot of people would also agree with that and i hoonestly dont know whats better. Btw i also save scummed quiet a bit to lead the game into certain directions or just to see different outcomes. But my character (criminal halfling warlock chick) is simularly as charming as yours and actually i already find it kinda op anyway because really i never have any problem just talking my way threw things and i also cant remember ever having been hit with a really bad nat 1 that ruined something major. If i roll bad which rarely ever happens anyway i usually simply keep talking and thing become good again. The one thing that really screwes me over which also lead to a bunch of reloads (which i kinda feel bad about) is when i do something like stealing, murdering or simply entering a new area and because they are closest to the NPC who starts talking to us some of my other partymembers have to lead a critical conversation. I really hate it whenever that happens.
This video was really well written. I'm one of those people who don't particularly feel ashamed of save scumming and doing so when it is about critical moments of character dialogue and interaction, I feel like I MUST save scum because, when I don't and I misclick or something completely out of my control happens when I feel like it should be within my control, then, attempting to roll with what I'm given results in me losing interest in this new path that has appeared before me since it has locked me out of the rest of the game, which was something I was enjoying it. One moment where that happened to me in spades (without spoilers) was when my character was infiltrating the enemy's camp and was waiting for the right opportunity to strike when an NPC was killed mid-cutscene. That moment prompt me to load my game because, out of character, I could tell it was about to happen. My character was close enough, I felt like I should be able to stop it, I NEEDED to be able to stop it, but that just wasn't available to me. So I loaded the save, drastically reduced the number of enemies that I had to deal with so the boss fight would be manageable before the cutscene and I attacked the boss before the NPC was killed. However... I did feel a bit of regret. Instead of loading the save and preparing an ambush, I later realized I would prefer to have engaged combat before prepping the battlefield. It was a horribly difficult situation where we were surrounded and outnumbered, but I didn't give a shit. It is what felt right to do. Maybe that would be a complete checkmate, and I'd have to resort to the battlefield prepping, but I wanted to have at least tried. However, I knew for a fact that I would've stopped having fun if I went on with the game knowing the NPC died for nothing. I would constantly be reminded of them and tempted to load again until I'd be 10 hours later into the game and decided that I needed to go back, or I'd quit the game. That, in a nutshell, summarizes my feelings on the matter. I save a lot, but I don't load every single time someone doesn't go how I plan. I ONLY do it when I think it is utmost necessary for the story I want to tell through my character. SPECIALLY if this game-changing scenario was caused by a misclick or a misunderstanding of what the dialogue meant to say.
Great video! In defense of save scumming, a lot of people are only going to play it once, so I can understand wanting to try to get it (near) perfect in one go. Personally I'm letting some things go, reloading for game-changers like failing to rescue a key NPC - even though admittedly that would make my first playthrough more organic. I think the inspiration mechanic is a nice balancer. If it's something you really feel strongly about, you can use a reroll or two. Of course, if I waste multiple inspiration charges and still don't succeed, I'm probably just going to load...
Yeah, but if you're manipulating who is in your party to specifically stock up on inspiration for the purpose of getting rerolls....isn't that just a different type of save scumming?
@@oskamunda well, you cap at 4 charges, so personally I’m usually maxed out and haven’t felt the need to game it like that. What I mean is if you fail at a roll and you really wanted to succeed at it, inspiration provides a built-in system for retrying instead of just quick loading. Maybe there’s purists out there who think any reroll is a form of cheating, but at least it’s a finite resource.
@@oskamunda besides, depends how you manipulate your party. It’s good judgement if you bring characters relevant to the task at hand with the hope of inspiration. It’s scumming if you load _after_ finding out what backgrounds it could have given inspiration to.
save scumming in bg3 Is Simply a way to access more content offered by the game, bg3 doesn't really add interesting new options if you fail, It only locks you into others, an example i think Is the one persuasion roll you can do after lae'zel finds out of the artifact shadowheart has, if you fail the persuasion roll to convince shadowheart not to kill lae'zel it's not like you'll be given a quest or something to fix their relationship, no you just choose which one of them dies and oh look at that one less npc you'll have to discover in your next play trough or by savescumming, now if you enjoy the act of repeating the same processes to get to the same point you were before only to hopefullly get another chance, good for you, it's not most people's kind of fun.
> Humans don't control their emotions in that way. You don't get to decide what it and is not fun Some people, sure... but you're painting with a rather large brush here. The person from the reddit quote didn't have the self-control to not use a glitch. I would say most people do. Saying that humans don't control their emotions in that way is a weird jump to make from that...
I think if I savescummed a lot, I would be ruining quite a few future playthroughs for myself. Infact I said on the first week of release to my friend that "You know it's a great RPG when you're already thinking of your future playthroughs and what you'll do different during your first one..." I wouldn't have that, if I savescummed around checking every option and going with the best one. So I can only imagine people who play like that are only ever planning to play the game once. Which, I guess is more understandable. But it also makes the game a lot more simple and a lot more linear in a way, as - like you said, you entirely eliminate any path where something went wrong, but you can remedy it or work around it in some way... and I'd argue that kind of a thing is more satisfying, finding a solution to something that went wrong afterwards. One of my memorable fights is when my entire rest of the team by my custom main character rogue went down and I just had to run like the wind to save myself, retreat and go buy revive scrolls, then managed to only afford one, sneaked back in there, revived the person who had an option to revive with a spell and went from there. So much more interesting than pressing F8 would have been imo.
There's a weird middle ground for combat when you simply misunderstand a game mechanic and do something with drastic consequences because you assumed logic would apply, but logic in these games is overwhelming for a newcomer given all the systems one has to consider. I do agree though, I have taken some of the excitement out of the dialogue options by assuming I know what I want and so I choose something else first just to see how different the outcome can be from my preferred choice. I have to take my time playing games like this because every aspect of the game feels like a grind when you want to appreciate it all at once.
Damn man, this hit home. I save scummed all they way up to moonrise, and especially so when I tried to complete a quest to save two parties. Save for something catastrophic, I think you converted me, thank you.
God bless you and this vid. I really needed to watch this because I have been save scumming and my enjoyment has lessen because of it, for the very reasons you have cited in this video. Going forward I'm just going to trust the dice play whatever and wherever it lands.
My main reason for save scumming: Not all dialogue options are as fleshed out as they should be. Example. Shadowheart is about to kill the nightsong and you say "please dont do this" she immediately wants to kill you. You either have to kill her, or find out through reddit or w.e that she would have not killed the nightsong if you chose "trust her." You really have no choice but to load here. Its also inaccurate to compare blatant duping of items in a game like legend of zelda - to something like a blatantly unfair and world crushing RNG roll creating a tidal wave of misfortune that makes you lose your entire party, or makes you lose an important character in a plot forming fight like rescuing isobel. Sometimes loading is ok, if you're being objective in your reasoning for it.
I want to sniff in every option and choose with whats best in my opinion. and therefor I will reload the game. I am that kind of guy who opens up every chest and infignificant item in the hope of recieving something unnoticed.
As someone who frequently used to save scum and also used cheats and glitches on old games to get through that content I loved way back then.... Try it, not save scumming. It's not the end of the world if you do or don't. I also started to not overthink the consequence of a choice in game, especially when I knew the results of choosing option A or B. Who knew living in the moment, while in a video game, could be fun.
I save-scummed a little bit in Dead Cells and don't regret it. I don't think I did it in other CRPGs much, but then again I probably haven't had to much. For BG 3 I think I won't be doing it much in the first playthrough, but then do it more (if necessary) in my second playthrough.
The guy in the video are wrong, we allready have failures in real life, in the game? we want the perfect game without any failures! Long live the save game!
Thank you for this video @Ratatoskr ! I'm encountering some tough areas at the end of act 1 and put down the game out of frustration. I was watching videos trying to find ways to get through these areas (as I was save scumming and still failing lol) and found your video. You inspired me to pick up the game with a new mindset :) halfway through act 2 now and already dreaming about a second playthrough XD Thank you!
I think safe scumming to minmax the stats part of the game is kinda whacky, because it takes away so much enjoyment from the story and how the world will create itself But if you safescum because you want your character to go with one specific check because it fits your characters vision more? Or because you RP as a chronomage? Do it! Have fun! Just dont fall prey to the mindset of "I need to minmax my stats", because that most likely will ruin your enjoyment of the story.
Man... I needed this video. I've struggled with ruining games for myself in this way for years. The one saving grace for me was Dark Souls 2, where I wasn't able to ruin it with a duplication glitch. I finished the game. No cheats, no mods, vanilla. It was great. I'm currently playing through BG3, and finding myself with a hefty mod load order. Just started a fresh install on a new drive so that I can capture the beauty of this game without mods or save scumming.
So as someone who's very addicted to F5 + F9ing (or in BG3's case F8ing), I definitely had an issue with this when I first started playing the game solo. The rolls I was getting would repeatedly frustrate and irk me into reloading, and I caught myself getting annoyed because I felt I was missing out on roleplaying the exact type of character I wanted. But then I realized there was content behind failed speech checks, similar to Disco Elysium. I pretty much never reload conversations now, unless a bungled dice throw makes me say or do something completely out of character (which is rare even on fails). I do still save scum for lockpicking and disarming, though I don't feel that takes me out of the experience as much, because it feels pretty much the same as consuming another one of my Thieves' Tools. Part of me does still wish that this game handled conversation checks the same way a game like New Vegas would (you are proficient in certain skills and can use your expertise with them in conversations as long as you match the number required, no RNG), but I recognize & respect the DnD source material Larian is drawing form. It's just something a lot of players, even seasoned RPG fans, will have to get used to.
I'm so happy you're playing BG3! Your past video on the pitfalls of easy modes stayed with me and influenced me to play the Balanced setting with this game. Boy was that the right decision. Thank you. Trying to trust the dice in this game, but I'm not used to it so my decisions seem a bit random and I feel...awkward. It's an interesting feeling. Immersion is definitely more. I'm going to keep trying
The only character related savescumming I feel comfortable with is the kind that directly precedes a battle. Usually it's necessary because I'll die and not have enough revive scrolls/spells available. That way I get to see some of the other dialogue paths but I don't have to feel bad about redoing specific ability checks, since they usually just lead to the same fight anyway. It feels like I'll have to play the entire game twice if I want to experience half the options out there.
Would agree with this. Revive scrolls don't grow on trees. You do get the spell in the cleric branch but if you don't build Shadowheart that way you won't receive it. I like to at least finish each battle with people I can give a hand up but aren't dead. I took on Balthazar and Meat with the three medic ghouls and only finished with two people standing but nobody was dead. A pro tip is to go back into turn based mode to revive your characters after the battle. It gives you a bit more time to get to them before they fail their dice rolls.
He speaks from a position of privilege. Of someone that has irl free time to playthrough the game multiple times at leisure. I had a niggling feeling that through the video, he always sounded just a touch holier then thou. Even though he tried to play it off by frontrunning the accusation: "Im not just judging you if you want to do it, I'm just saying you might be like me and ruin the experience." The fact is that this game has certain checks that will hard lock you through pure chance down a path that your chosen character would never allow. Your character would fight tooth and nail against letting it run it's course. A path that would be adjusted by a competent dungeon master in an actual D&D game. After all, an RPG that doesn't let to player role play to their enjoyment is not worth playing. But this is a video game which doesn't allow adjustments post dice fall, so by a roll of the dice your character is now locked into doing something completely out of sync with their values or vision. There is no second check if you're out if inspiration points, there's no "hold up guys, okay you got me. Let's try to compromise or have some consessions." This dude is so sneaky with his front running, "maybe you're not like me" and dream vistor style illusion that it was so hard for me to spot his absolute bullshit condescension. He even used a strawman example of actual cheating, to draw a parallel to "save scumming" to circumvent the limitations of the ROLE PLAYING game. Not everyone has the privilege of time or the patience to ironman, don't let him sneakily press his view on to you with this strong persuasion check. Let him fail the roll. "Save scum" the shit out of the game if it hard locks Tav (story wise) on to something your character would never allow.
I save scum to avoid *gamey* consequences. When mechanics don’t work the way I *expected* , because they are abstract interpretations of a game lexicon. I agree that you will probably have more fun if you *live with the expected consequences when you take reasonable risks*
Thank you, really enjoyed this video. Thank you for bringing such a measured tone to topic that is sadly 'taboo' - this personally resonated with me, I think so few trust game designers and what they visioned for an experience. Elden Ring, Remnant 2 and now BG3 recently. Great video!
Ratatoskr you are a blessing on the gaming community. Your attitude towards your audience and matter-of-fact way of putting things gets your points across very well. I am a habitual save scummer. I am a save scumming addict but every time I do it I'm not actively thinking "I am ruining the game for myself." I do get that off feeling though. Like the experience I'm getting is somehow shallow. The facade is being lifted and Idk why. It's because the game isn't challenging me with failure or consequence anymore. It's just handing me what I want and I get addicted. Like when you eat too much of a food you like and it becomes unappetizing. DnD is improv. No matter what happens, you deal with the consequences. You roll with it. You roll the dice and see what happens. Your well-laid plans might work, or they might blow up in your face. If they blow up, you improvise and adapt to your situation. That is a core part of DnD and BG3 is DnD.
I’ve played so many games I learned to understand most of them inside and out. It’s hard for me to truly immerse myself because I know that it’s constructed it’s not real. Because of my knowledge of how games work however I know how to reach that fun zone. For BG3 I love the world building so much I feel like it’s a disservice not to see everything possible. Save scumming allows me to explore every option and opens much more avenues to side quests and interactions with the characters. There’s so much you can miss by selecting one line of dialogue, it’s wild. I applaud larian for taking such a risk. Once I have explored most of the game I’ll likely play again without save scumming just to see how a natural progression of the game would look like. It’s a wonderful game.
Imo you're spoiling yourself for your future runs. I'm on my first run and i know i'm missing a lot of things already (Lae'zel is dead, and Astarion's out, to give a couple examples). But that's ok, it adds to the replayability. I'm planning to play this game for the years to come, so I purposefully try to restrain myself et and let the game flow naturally. Just like in a TT RPG session, where you have to live with your decisions. That's what the game tries to emulate, after all.
@@theslay66 I don't plan on doing more than 1 or 2 runs tbh. It's simply too big of a game for me to enjoy playing through more than that. There's too many elements that I would find not as enjoyable on the 2nd or 3rd run. If you enjoy doing multiple playthroughs that's cool, I'm happy for you. I do understand that this game tries to recreate the D&D experience but it's still lacking that "random" element. A lot of the experience will remain the same even on the 2nd run. There is no dungeon master tailoring the experience day by day. It's all set in stone. Yes some things can be missed, skipped, and stopped altogether but it's still mostly the same. So I wouldn't play this just like I would play tabletop. At it's core it's a different experience. Don't get me wrong though that's not necessarily a bad thing. This game is great, I'd almost call it a masterpiece. It's a game I wanted to see done for a long time. Larian out did themselves, and I hope they keep it up. I loved Divinity Original Sin 1&2 and absolutely love this game too.
"I’ll likely play again without save scumming just to see how a natural progression of the game would look like" That wouldn't be a natural progression anymore because you already know the consequences for different choices.
@@SaHaRaSquad just because I know where things are and how the game is structured doesn’t mean I can’t progress naturally through it. There’s quite a bit you miss by failing rolls regardless of how much you know about the game. Also the game is so massive I won’t be able to remember every little detail about it. Especially if I decide to take a break after my first play through.
Save scrumming is like having the power to do a Quantum leap and jump back into yourslef and change the outcome while having knowledge of your failed actions. .
The problem with this perspective is that many outcomes are not interesting and are often sequence breaking because theyre impossible to get accounted for. For example let's say you are going to a base of goblins and you talk to the guards so they let you through. Now you try to persuade them and they get pissed off and attack you. It doesn't matter what you do, they will be permanently hostile to you even if you don't fight back and just run away. You can't even disguise yourself and try again, you and your party will have to murder every single goblin in sight. This is obviously very shallow, and will lead you into missing out on a ton of content. These kind of situations where theres literally pass the skill check or kill 50 people is one of the reasons people save scum.
I think there's different levels of save scumming... I think in this video he's talking about people that do it nearly all the time for every dice roll, not just for very inconvenient situations like the one you outlined, that don't happen all the time
I'm doing a campaign save scumming as a paladin in tactician and another one as a paladin in balanced letting the story go the way it goes. I'm also running a campaign with my best friend where we are not allowed to save scum at all. We only load when we get killed. All three of the experiences are very distinct and running multiple campaigns at once allows me to see some of the multiple possibilities that can come from this. I'm probably going to end up running many more campaigns with this game. I finished dragon age inquisition 3 times and the variety of the story was nowhere near this one.
During Early Access, my cousins and I had a multiplayer campaign where we agreed not to save scum or reload (unless we all wiped or broke the game). It resulted in one of the most hilarious, exhilarating, and memorable gaming experiences we've had because we simply just accepted the consequences and watched how our choices played out.
I felt this when I was playing Pikmin 4 a couple weeks ago. I was fighting the final boss and I lost all of my Red Pikmin, after which a prompt spawned offering me a rewind to a point before I had lost them. I took it. And when it happened again, I took it again, and again, and again. By the time I actually beat the final boss (which I had a lot of trouble with), I wasn't satisfied or happy, I was annoyed and frustrated. That rewind feature is far and away the worst feature of Pikmin 4 (which had made a couple other decisions which I think harmed the game), and it diminished my enjoyment of other parts of the game because I relied on it way too much when the game got difficult. Frankly I think it was a big mistake for Nintendo to add that rewind feature. It's far too generous, and presenting it to the player after something bad happens to them is an awful decision. I hope that when Pikmin 5 comes out in 2037, they have the good sense to remove the rewind, or at least make it *way* less generous.
Thanks for telling your experience. I haven’t played Pikmin 4 yet but I was very disappointed in Nintendo when I heard they had added that kind of rewind feature with no penalties. I think Pikmin has always been about planning and improvisation and dealing with bad outcomes, and the rewind feature undermines all of that.
While I agree with your point, wasn't the rewind also present in the past games? You could literally go back to a previous day since Pikmin 1. I agree that it's better not to use it but it's not something that Pikmin 4 added. This is my impression without having played the game yet though, if this feature is different in some way to the ones in previous games I could be missing an important distinction!
@@tomaselizondo92 No, it wasn’t in the previous games. Being able to redo a day or a cave sublevel is not the same as being able to literally undo any mistake instantly by going back in time a bit. In Pikmin 1 for example planning out days can be really challenging if you try to beat the game in 10 days or less, and lots of things can go wrong during a day. There seems to be some limitations in the Pikmin 4 rewind though, but I’m not sure since I haven’t played it.
It's a great QoL option for casuals. This is why self control is important. Makes me think of the people that want food removed/limited in BotW/TotK because they can't control themselves, despite saying how it makes the game too easy...
I think this discussion is a case by case situation. When it's a legitimate will of discussing the game mechanics and all, I agree 100% with you. But it is undeniable that most interactions of this kind comes from people that are indeed gatekeepers. I usually like to lurk and watch first playthroughs of people in Elden Ring, and I've seen so many chatters gatekeepers saying things like "using summons is cheating", "don't use magic, you cheater", "oh, I see you are not a real gamer with that shield up", etc, and many times they make that streamer stop streaming the game altogether. And this gatekeeping culture is more numerous than the people that wants to discuss the things you pointed out in your video and it is what makes everyone be defensive and use the argument of just let people play whatever always when this issue is brought up.
My friends and I, after about 15 hours in our campaign, have decided to not save scum unless it's something bugged etc. It makes those rolls so much more powerful or random occurances so much more dangerous and rewarding.
As another has mentioned (or copy and pasted from an article) the quote by Soren Johnson “Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game” I think this also has some similarity to the fast travel problem, not just that it's an easy way out of an experience for convince sake, but that when a game is built with it in mind it's hard to just not use the system. Outward is a great example of a game that actually avoids a desire or need to save scum that plagues TES, since when you reach 0 health you don't die, but instead it has defeat scenarios based on what did you in, from being lucky and getting brought back to town by a stranger, to being robbed and left somewhere, to even being imprisoned in a bandit camp and forced to work that you have to escape from. It's not perfect, but I really want to see the idea explored more in place of 100% always having fights to the death like in Skyrim and such.
save scumming helped me a lot as someone new to this genre. but maybe i will try to ease off it as i’ve gotten more familiar. i did end up taking the fun / surprise out of a recent quest by looking up the solution, i ended up exploring a lot trying to figure it out
Sometimes spoiling yourself, can be a good thing. I recently spoiled myself on the Goblin Camp portion of the game. But because of that, I got to experience content I no doubt would have missed. Imagine a guy who goes in "guns blazin". Shooting, stabbing, slicin every goblin, on sight. That person would miss out on a lot of great content. Sure, you get a result from that. Perhaps even a unique result that few others would. But you'd still be missing out on other great content. So I am okay when I find myself googling "should I kill _x"_ or "what happens if _y_ dies" or "what does _z_ sell?"
I found myself feeling a similar feeling when I switched from console to PC. The amount of mods and the ability to edit save files and such has made some games, like Skyrim, completely unplayable because I KNOW I can just console command something I want whenever I want it. The freedom of mods and console commands has made the game no fun at all. And yeah, I know I can CHOOSE to not use them. But there will always be that voice to suppress.
As a lowly console gamer myself I've also had this problem. I can't play Fallout 4. And it's because it's mod supported on console. When I first played it I downloaded a god mode mod. I told myself I would only use it in extreme Circumstances. But as I played I found myself dropping some caps whenever I wanted to buy something, Giving myself resources whenever I built or crafted, Bumping up my skills to pass checks. I quit playing real early in. Sure I could just not use it. But when there's basically an instant win button in the menu it eats into the back of my mind the whole time.
@@tevenpowell8023 Yeah, that’s one thing I forgot to mention: that even on console, Skyrim and fallout had the cheat rooms and such which did the same thing as I described in my switch to pc. It killed the game.
not only does this type of thinking tie into game difficulties, immersion of games, and gaming philosophy in general. This is a philosophy for our lives. recognizing what is insecurity, shame, envy, or vanity and looking deeper into these effects in our day to day life can definitely help us find more enjoyment out of our lives in general.
I wouldnt have to save scum if 90% of my rolls werent nat 1s. The amount if critical misses i get when attacking WITH advantage is genuinely infuriating. Edit: in case someone doesnt understand to get a critical miss would mean both rolls were a 1. They need to fix the dice percentages because it feels like the 1 is at 50% instead of 5%
![Can the WORST Party Survive Baldur's Gate 3 TACTICIAN? Act 1-3 [FULL SERIES]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xCesSHqah-4/mqdefault.jpg)
The best solution imo is to make 'failing' dice rolls just as interesting as passing them.
Disco Elysium did this phenomenally.
agreed, and BG3 does that well, as well, just maybe not as fine tunely as Disco, but I prefer BG3's method personally more
The guy in the video are wrong, we allready have failures in real life, in the game? we want the perfect game without any failures! Long live the save game!
I agree, though I do wish Disco had a seed system to discourage scumming in the first place.
@@sophiastephannievvl8311 Failure is measured differently in this. For instance, you get interesting outcomes from failing roles. The people who save scum aren't getting the "perfect game". They are getting a game where all the conversations come out favorably which means they are missing out on all the writing and story that was written for those who fail the rolls. If you don't want to experience that story then so be it. But that story isn't a failed state in the game. It is the game as much as the successes are the game.
@@sophiastephannievvl8311 the fact that we have failures in real life is precisely why they should be there in video games
I think a major reason for save scumming is not just wanting to get the best outcome but also a fear of missing out. Not knowing what kind of content we might be getting locked out of if we fail certain rolls or not have enough companion approval.
real i failed romance with one of the characters its too late
But if you miss a roll, there is content for that too. You miss out no matter what you do. Just like real life
The thing is there is content you will only see by failing though.
You don't miss out on nothing, bro. You just keep some content for later playthroughs. You're not missing out on paladin while chosing to play bard, for example
@@Andreus9733 you don't understand. By failing a roll, you have content to explore because of that failed action. What turn will the story take because of that? Why? How will you handle the next encounter, will it have changed because of that one thing you failed 2 hours ago? Thats content my guy.
Sid Meier, the designers behind Civilization, is famous for a pair of quotes: “Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game”; therefore, “One of the responsibilities of designers is to protect the player from themselves.”
And THAT is why From Software is so successful.
And the other half of this principle is Henry Ford’s “if I asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. People object to these sentiments, but the fact is that they don’t really know what they’ll actually enjoy most, and their first instinct will very often result in a worse experience. Every broken build, every cheese strat, every easy mode proponent, every statement of “let people enjoy things”, they all result from these phenomena and the failure to understand them.
Baldur's Gate is a game that (like many From Software games), that embraces the chaothic nature of Table Top RPG campaigns. And if you play it with friends that experience gets multipled, something many studios and games do not do a lot.
not really I save scummed a lot when doing Sekiro and it was my 1st From software game too so didnt know what to expect. I was also going for the platinum too. So after genichiro fight im like f that im dying a lot and losing all my lives. So i started save scumming (i didnt even know save scumming existed then, i just had an idea to save before each boss by myself feeling like i figured out a cheat by myself that no one else has LOL) @@mbrochh82
@@mbrochh82 Save scumming in (for example) Elden ring doesn't do anything for you though, and you CAN still do it; Just because it's tedious doesn't mean you can't.
Part of the gameplay loop in souls-like games is supposed to be dying, the worst you lose for doing so is some souls which are easy to regain.
Fromsoft games aren't popular because "it protects the player from itself"; You can optimize the shit out of your builds.
Both games are popular because they're GOOD. Simple as.
We save scum in games because we would like to save scum in real life, and we can't
Some people like playing with a guide, some people don't. Some people like to play with save scum, some don't.
I already lose enough in life, with entertainment I only want to win.
There's this trilogy, The Banner Saga, in which some story choices end up in party members getting killed and permanently lost. I've played throughout the whole trilogy without loading even once. When I lost a character, it hurt not only emotionally, but I also had to use another one as replacement, which meant learning to use different skills and finding a different approach to combat. This was the most immersive gaming experience I've ever had. This trilogy became a part of me. I'll remember it forever.
It truly is a masterpiece of a trilogy.
The basic premise is just so cool to me, especially when considering a race like the Varl. To anyone reading who hasn't played at least the first one, go play the first just to see the worldbuilding. It's a nordic setting done just perfectly.
My brother is 99% done all achievements across all 3 games. From what I've heard, the 'endless mode' in the 2nd game is damn near impossible to beat it in hard mode without anyone getting wounded.
thats beautiful
The Banner Saga is legitimately one of my favorite games of all time for this very reason
The Banner Saga became better to me for every playthrough of it that I did. Phenomenal game, and I've been wanting people to do a "copy paste" of it ever since it came out, just as I've been wanting with Planescape Torment for 20 years, and now Disco Elysium. Like a "caravan type of game", turn-based, RPG, with a bunch of characters, decision makin both in and outside of combat but without the complexity of those city strategy survival games or kings of dragons pass, and focus on continuation upon failure, failure opening upon as much as closing down, etc.
I think the reason why it should be optional is that people play things differently and what is fun can be a very different thing, If I lose one of my favourite characters in a perma-death situation, I will stop playing.
I don't feel immersion, I don't have that ability, to me playing a game is like reading a book, I'm seeing someone's story, so I just chose what I think will have the best outcome to get to the ending.
I was halfway through act 1 and was save scumming a LOT. It got to the point where I would save scum every conversational roll, every skill check, everything. I got bored, so bored I stopped playing it for a few days. I kept seeing reviews about how amazing this game was and I was like "yeah, I mean it's alright" It wasn't until I thought about why I was bored, that I figured out what the problem was. There was no risk, there was no threat of things turning out badly because I knew if I failed a check, I could just load a previous save from 5 minutes ago.
This led to a few different things. I had to replay a lot of the game back to back, which killed my interest and really broke my immersion, I also never had to deal with an adverse outcome. That is what made the game boring to me. So I started up a brand new save a few days ago, and after getting past my previous point, I've been enveloped in this story and game.
deep the problem was not the game was the play style i enjoy discovering all the alternatives of my decisions but i will stop
This comment alone, is the only reason I’ll stop save scumming. I’ve been doing it since BG1 back in the 90’s
I can definitely respect that in similar games I try to do it only if something felt cheap or contrived. Ie not normally fair play if you get my drift.
@@adriankamt3261 theres really no point in playing if you savescum in a game like this just go with the flow and replay it after you beat it way more replay value like that
I am starting my game over and I will not save scum for games going forward.
Why do I have a feeling that this lesson applies to general reality not just game enjoyment
Teach me how to save scum irl
By the way this is why I can't play Skyrim with mods cause I inevitably optimize the fun out of the game and ruin it, kudos if you can do it I envy you
Save scumming in real life would make the world a better place 😂. F around and you will find out applies 😆
Because it does!
@@kyellebantog7720 You know the irony is I've probably wished I could go back in time more than most until I realized what I've learned, who I am, and my outlook on life are all lessons from my failures. I'm saying that as someone who randomly gets mental attacks of remembering embarrassing, guilty, or regretful things from a decade ago, but I realize without hardship you don't grow.
My PC takes 5 minutes to load every time I try to save scum, which is enough incentive for me to not do it so that when I do save scum, it doesn't feel as bad. I think I will stop save-scumming after watching this video.
I’m scumming my way to the end. No point in finishing the play through if the vast majority of checks fail which they do.
My personal issue is that if I ever feel like my choices are fucking me over because of the limitations of the game rather than being a natural consequence, I'll start save scumming to compensate.
A small example is "oh that's not what I thought that dialogue option would mean".
But a bigger one is "Oh I made a fuck ton of choices, under the impression that they COULD lead to X, but I'm getting the impression that X was never even considered as a potential outcome. If it were possible and i failed, that would be one thing, but now that I feel like it could have been possible but simply isn't, I feel cheated out of my own consequences."
I'm not advocating for or against it, just pointing out that with a game like Baldur's Gate, it's a very complicated scenario to look at and talk about.
i 100% agree with your first point
had this a few times where i wanted to say something neutral or nice, but it was actually hostile
then i reload
or if you missclick obviously
Yes, Mass Effect was especially bad because the dialogue choices on screen were shorter and worded differently, so sometimes they were really misleading. In this aspect the game needs to be trustworthy to not mess with one's expectations like that. But I think BG3 is pretty good in this aside from the terrible romance options.
Someone will probably make a mod that shows you the potential outcomes for dialog. Such as next to the option shows when origin npcs approve or disapprove. that would be wildly helpful, but I also understand why that wouldn't be a feature in the base game.
"Glass him"
Your second scenario is a bit too vague for me to really gauge. Can you give an example?
Yeah. Though, I do recommend saving a lot.
And there is a caveat I might add: sometimes you might "save scum" to avoid bad communication.
Basically, sometimes there are dialogue options presented to you that you think you understand and then when you click the button they turn out differently than you intended. This might sound similar to what was mentioned in the video, but I dont think it is.
Larian doesnt really tell you if a response will have further options down the dialogue tree or what tone they are spoken in. I once clicked an option thinking it would open the possibility for a deception roll, but wasnt given that option whatsoever... Which means my character would NEVER have said the first option. But I couldnt go back.
I dont really see that sort of thing as the same at all. Though obviously, if you're tempted to actually save scum if you do this, then dont.
I thought about this too. I haven't played BG3 yet, but I have experienced this in other games, especially ones that have those vague dialogue options that just kind of hint at the actual line (Mass Effect, Witcher 3, Fallout 4).
I don't generally like save scumming, but I don't mind "scumming" in order to prevent stuff like this.
You you aren't content when you click a dialogue option that looks like "I'm not comfortable with this and I think we should stop" that actually turns out to be "I'm going to burn your house down and all your pets with it and get with your jealous ex-lover!"? I can't believe it.
Those reloads are acceptable I think.
This is an easy one to implement!...save scum as afton as you want but only load when a dialogue option was not clear and you feel cheated...in other cases, remain with the consequences
i did this only once so far but it’s because i’m trying to romance astarion and i picked an option that sounded like a cheesy compliment to me but i accidentally ended up insulting him… i felt so bad 😭
in addition to bad communication, it's also good to save you from input errors. Like, no, I didn't intend to have all my party members run through a mine field, I just forgot to ungroup them. The kind of thing that happens in CRPG D&D but never tabletop D&D where the intent of your action is clearly verbalized before any dice are rolled.
I am impressed that you managed to turn a video on Baldur’s Gate 3 into a philosophical argument against unbridled hedonism
To me, as I mentioned in my separate comment, this was more about consequences of free will, maybe even questioning if that's good or bad. Your point is of course valid as well.
These days any argument that's not in favor of unbridled hedonism seems to turn into an argument against it.
Only stupid hedonism, maybe. Like in the item duplication example, "let them play however they want" was actually still correct, just "the way they want" meant being restricted by a patch/mod etc. For example, I refuse to play Morrowind without an alchemy and potions rebalance mod, but I'm also going to customize that mod for my preferences. I want to be limited, to best enjoy myself, but I also wouldn't enjoy it, if I didn't have full control over the rules governing those limits.
And addiction
Meta gaming ruined peoples mind when it comes to games, everything MUST BE PERFECT, every build must the optimized and we must play only the strongewst option possible, in competitive seetings i understand that feeling, but people have this dumb ass view in singleplayer games.
Your opinion is valid.
I think for me I save scum because I like making choices not suggesting something or hoping it comes across as I intended or works out. I want to see what happens if I do this or that not if I try to. I think there’s a spectrum between simulation and choose your own adventure, I prefer the choose your own adventure end of things.
No way to play is better or worse, I’ll probably play this badass game both ways. Enjoyable video man! :D
Choose Your Own Adventure is the exact kind of thing Save Scumming gets for me...
I'm a child of the 80s, so I remember actually holding a CYOA book in my physical hands and reading it...and then being able to pick it up again later and reread it to see something different - usually using what I already learned from the last time I read through it.
The functional difference between a CYOA novella and BG3 is that it won't take me 200 hours to read the novella once and it doesn't have 17,000+ endings that I will never be able to see in one lifetime.
I have a similar outlook on this. I have played more choose your own adventures than I have played Dungeons & Dragons. So for me when I save scum it is allowing me to choose the option I want. I'm having fun because I have a pre determined mindset on how I want my character, and what I think skill checks that they should be able to pass. Now I don't do it on absolutely everything, but a lot of major choices I do! Because it makes me feel like the outcome is justified because of the choices I made. Plus, while I don't mind the random role of the dice, And I love it when playing with friends! When playing Solo in BG3 I want to see the decisions I make have meaning and see the outcome. I've restated from the beginning 3 times because I didn't like the outcome, or it didn't make sense how random to role was. And after finishing act 2, it took some of the fun away because I had to start over and play hours worth of the same walkthrough to get where I originally was. Though I will play random playthroughs as well, for the first few I really like to have a bit more control over it.
I was about to comment this so instead I'll just leave my sign here
i completely agree, on my first playtrough i want to play the story MY WAY, and nothing will change that, so, if i have to save scum like crazy just to get that one dialogue that fits MY character and MY story, so be it.
BUT, i know that i'm missing a lot of the fun of the game by doing so, that's why i will do a 2nd playtrough after i'm done with the one i'm rn, but this time i will just roll with whatever happens, unless it's a super important dice roll that decides wether or not an NPC goes to your camp, an NPC that you REALLY want or need in your team
I save scum because if you unlucky conversation leads to a battle even with a peaceful people. Garbage game design
If i didn't save scum. I wouldnt know you can save the brain or that spells other than magic missle can hit
I think that the best solution to this issue is to create an Ironman mode. Simply creating a (technically worthless) achievement for playing without save scumming is enough to overcome the psychological obstacle of "If I can do this, I should, or I'll feel like I'm wasting my potential."
Anyways, great take from Ratatoskr, love the respectful and thoughtful way they approach differing perspectives.
Yeah, I kinda missed an ironman mode. I want a mode that auto-saves after important choice, action or event and disables manual saves. And I want it to be separate from difficulty, so you can get this experience on any difficulty.
@@realmarsastro That'd be great!
BG3 is too buggy ATM for Ironman Mode
@@realmarsastro No, just blocking manual saves is enough except for exiting the game. Auto-saving at every choice & diceroll could potentially lock you into a really unbalanced fight just by triggering a cutscene at the wrong time etc.
I'd also like an Ironman mode, not because I can't control myself, but because it removes any doubt of having save scummed something. Maybe even a "dead is dead" mode, where you can't reload after a full wipe.
This reminds me of a quote I once heard: "If players are left to their own devices, they will optimize the fun out of a game.".
And what would be wrong with that.
Some people like excel spreadsheets.
It's usually how the people who don't like excel spreadsheets know what the meta is.
And also how we get nifty things like wikis.
Even in Souls game some will unplug their consoles...
@@oskamundaId say it is generally bad when you trade fun for optimization in a VIDEOGAME
@@kiwd-dynamic Im sure people who like optimize have just as much fun as people who play casually, everyone have their preferences.
@oskamunda Because optimizing your games doesn't necessarily results in a more enjoyable experience. Did you even listen to the video?
I know that I'm eager to save scum in games were RNG is involved or even Bannerlord. I don't feel bad about it, but I will readily admit that doing it IS boring. It makes me wish those games were less buggy, that way I could just do an Ironman campaign.
It doesn't count as save scumming if I keep dying
The only thing I wish for save scumming would’ve been not to do it and instead to use a mod that just sets my dice to 20
I know that this is nitpicking but "don't save scum in baldur's gate 3" is absolutely a command.
"You shouldn't save scum in baldur's gate 3" is a suggestion
Had an amazing experience actually related to "Save Scumming". At the point in the story where a partner NPC has to make a huge choice there's a 30 dice check, meaning for my character for this check I had to get a nat 20. I lost the initial roll of this after using 5 inspiration points and was really sad but at peace with it. After the encounter, I had to revive La'ezel and went over to Withers to do that, and then fast traveled to where I needed to go. Lae'zel had bugged and wasn't reviving and when going back to camp, was not showing up, perma dead because of a bug. So, I reloaded my save, and promised myself, I would just go through the decision and not use my inspiration points to reroll as I was heartbroken but had already gotten over the grief, and at the first and only roll I used, I got a nat 20. I sat staring at the screen debating whether to reload again or go with it, but it felt like such an out of body experience like a dead friend had come back from the dead, so I went with it. Absolutely amazing experience, will always recommend trusting the roll.
"There are no accidents"
- Master Oogway
@@sodecdash9336
"I am THE big fat panda"
-Panda the Panda
I think it's best to abandon the interpretation of a missed dice roll (or anything equivalent to that) as a failure. In my opinion Disco Elysium did that exceptionally well, so well in fact that the missed rolls sometimes lead to way more interesting situations.
Yep. Sadly most interactions are quite the opposite in video games in general: You failed a roll? "I guess you arent getting any money for this quest and Oh you are not getting any further interaction either" The most notorious illusion of choice in cRPGs is : pick this person up for the party or not. If you dont that pretty much means you lost a bunch of quests, some of which might have a reward that would specifically your PCs class would benefit from and failure to see such quests pretty much means less xp and depending on the difficulty you play that extra level a few encounters earlier might have done wonders.
CONCUR.
For all the things that Larion has gotten praise for, they haven't earned any for developing sincere inroads to alternative outcomes FROM check "fails" or created other ways to "succeed" after the first roll.
No, going back to camp and getting a whole new roster to pass a previously-"failed" Survival check on the map doesn't count....and how would that be different from save scumming, anyway?
Disco Elysium is literally more fun the more skill checks you fail.
@@evrimenustun9548I mostly agree, but spin-kicking the racist on my double sixes was one of my most hype moments in gaming
@@finlaymckeown2891 Aye fuck Measurehead.
The only times ive save scummed are when I go to take an action a little too quickly and the camera moves a tiny bit at the last second and moves me in such a way that fucks up my intended actions.
Lol this happens to me all the time when I accidentally move one of my characters into my own AOE spells. Damn you Cloud of Daggers!!
Roleplay it as your character having rushed, like you did, and messed up and suffered consequences
@@HaykInWonderland nah.
For me, it's when I feel like I legitimately missed or misunderstood something the game seemed that it intended me to see, such as a dialogue that I missed reading or misinterpreted.
@@masque9446 well you just roleplayed as if someone was talking to you, so good job!
I've played through Act I at least six times now with different characters and roleplaying scenarios. Every experience has been different. This game is SO massive. You don't realize it until you start making mistakes.
My entire adventure was a mistake. I screwed up so much in the game. I’m naturally lazy so I never even considered about loading up a previous save and repeating stuff. It’s only recently watching my daughters boyfriend play that I realised people did this
News flash: Not everyone is gonna replay a 100 hour game multiple times, some just play the story once and save scumming provides a way to make sure you experience every outcome.
Or at least as close as one can get, given the number of potential outcomes....
stfu that point is irrelevant use your tiny brain
People who play the same game over and over for hundreds of hours scare me. Same as people who continue playing a game for thousands of hours once they've beaten it because "endgame farming". Weird asf
I don’t think what you’re describing is save scumming. If you’re playing out every outcome so you can see them all (which in a game with this many branching paths is actually not possible even with save a lot), that’s different than only choosing to see only the “positive” outcomes.
@@Kintaku I know I'm late, but what *IF* some people only wanted to see the positive outcomes? I'm not saying it's the better way to play or the worse, but that's just how some people prefer playing.
This is the video I needed. I have been save scumming, not in battle - but mainly just to see different outcomes of all of the different choices. It's a testament to how great this game is that I even care. But part of me thinks its wrong to save scum, and it may take away from the replay value of the game
Me too man, I'll try to stop save scumming from now on
One thing you learn if you play a lot of classic WRPGs is that you're just killing your replay value if you do that.
Same, though I'm nearing the end of the game rn, only time I seriously save scummed was after killing the goblin leaders. Somehow I pissed off Mol (idk how I saved the kid from harpies, then left when she told me to sod off because I failed a persuasion check and let a kid get hit by a guard). She told the guards I had been attacking the children and had to roll 4 20s FOR EACH MEMBER IN MY PARTY, to get into emerald Grove again.
Maybe first choose what opption you would pick if it was tabletop, check out all the other ones via save scum and then go back to the first option you would choose and play it through even if it doesn't go your way
Tbh I only save scum if I’m on the verge of getting tpk. Other than that I let the dice leads my way and if I miss out on a side quest because the Absolute decided to fuck with me, so be it
I’ve saved scummed in CRPG’s for over 15 years. But Baldurs Gate 3 was completely different. For some reason, I felt like I was in an actual D&D story and couldn’t bring myself to do it.
This comment makes me excited to play it.
I think it's because in BG3 failure feels like a part of the story rather than a punishment. In an RPG, it's important that both success and failure are rewarded with interesting narratives, otherwise, you'll just reload and take the less punishing option.
Same.
you wont regret it @@vernontk
@@WPharolin This. In older CRPG's you are usually locked out of the best content, in Baldur's Gate III you sometimes unlock even better content!
Baldur's Gate is so free and you are able to enjoy it in any way you can!!!!
You’re totally right. The one time I’ll save scum is when I select a dialogue option whose vibe I can’t quite gage.
If I want to be nice and charitable but the response I get tells me that the option was meant to be more harsh, I undo that IMMEDIATELY.
IRL I have a lot more ways to navigate a conversation. In-game I have to manually figure out what responses lead me to the message I want to convey
I like the diplomatic tone of the video, I normally don't even finish similar videos, but your argument is well structured. I think, at the very least, everyone should try 1 run where they don't save scum. Having played DnD for years, my argument is that a lot of the fun is finding out different routes for navigating any given ruleset you're given for playing a game. And having a game like BG3 gives us a similar freedom to try various paths and various mentalities regarding the rulesets. It some ways, it's like playing different games, just by changing the rules.
As one of those people who is "exactly like you", who was planning on aggressively save-scumming in BG3, I really needed to hear this. I know you're right, I've ruined so many games for myself in this exact way, and the less a game lets me 'meta-game' the more I end up enjoying it, regardless of what I think I want in the moment.
This is a great take, thank you.
I make a lot of saves, and scumm some roles. But I also can not. I had this whole plan to infiltrate the goblin camp and lure them into a trap/reverse ambush at the druid grove (with oil barrels everywhere). But I ran afoul of priestess Gut, and after went into the underdark. By the time I realized that the situation with Gut had turned the whole goblin camp hostile, it was a decision between two whole story paths (roll back and eliminate the Gut interaction and everything after?) and chose to just follow the consequences and proceed as a murder hobo lol.
I understand his point is that people are different and not everyone can avoid compulsion. Just figured if he can convey his experience, I can convey my own.
Well the good news is that its not just dialog dice rolls. Winning and losing fights with conditions on them lead to some serious consequences if failed to accomplish your mission. Just had that happen to me, and the will power to not scum is hanging on by a thread and the fact that I pushed myself through another story moment and combat encounter after. So I have progress to keep me choosing that save file over going back. Its kind of great though, because I had made it through the story so far without any real casualties or consequences, and BOOM a freaking massive one lands in my lap. There is now tragedy in my story, fueling new motivations for my PC and origin companions.
I only do it in combat when i get a BS roll. Im not about to allow the AI cheese me to death
@@15thobserver yea same. I fought the hag and I won't go into details but a couple of things happened that I definitely didn't plan or want lol. I still won the encounter, but between my choices and some roles, it's kind of an "at what cost" situation. I did have a save from the start of entering her house, the dungeon, and the last fight. But I just let it play out and moved forward.
How did you "ruin it," though....?
There is a much simpler point to this imho: Games often dont acknowledge failure, which goes double in a system which features a d20 and doesnt allow you to take 10 ( which you can often do in actual RPGs ) even though you would succeed the check with a roll of a 2. I played like 5 hours of BG3, but there is a specific example where failure didnt result in less content: Your encounter with Astarion. Whether you fail or succeed in the hidden perception roll, gives a completely different encounter with him: thats amazing, because i wasnt gated away from content because of that die roll. Obviously most choices wont be like that and maybe that was just a 1 of in the game, but it highlights that BG3 deserves a chance to not save scum social encounters, because unlike choices in many other games ( i dont mean crpgs here those are mostly doing fine) are an illusion, so failure always meant less content there.
Yeah, a lot of games, even ones with permanent effects on your file following mistakes, don't actually invest much in making it worth your while, and the culture around gaming trends very much the opposite, where even small mistakes are treated as unacceptable.
It's still better to have some kind of a choice in how you play a game because (1) time can be a problem for some players, (2) games are far from perfection, and sometimes a situation might just be badly designed or explained, and (3) games also bug out and crash sometimes, but it's really the lack of value in negative continuity and peer pressure to succeed that leads people away from accepting mistakes.
Yeah!! Baldur's Gate is a game that (like many From Software games), that embraces the chaothic nature of Table Top RPG campaigns. And if you play it with friends that experience gets multipled, something many studios and games do not do a lot.
Yep. This topic keeps coming back because while we were right to put societal breaks on shaming and overmoralisation of things (especially aesthetic things like games or art), we've now ended up identifying literally any kind of judgment, or claim to know anything about what other people will like, as tantamount to shaming, bullying, or even physical force (somehow, even though no one ever actually 'forces' anyone to like anything).
We need to be able to say these things without shaming, and we need to be able to hear them without conflating them with shaming.
Save scumming feels like you're getting one over on the game and getting better outcomes, which feels great. The truth is that you spend far more time replacing replayability with repetition while feeding your own worst obsessive compulsions.
This is stealth discourse on difficulty in dark souls.
I can definitely understand how some people could feel this way in reference to both save scumming and the dupe glitch. As someone that's been save scumming in these types of games since KoToR and DA, It's personally never ruined my experience with the game since I don't view it with the same lens that those do where they feel like it ruined their experience with the game as a whole. I simply want to experience all of the reactions the character has to offer, then I decide which response they give personally suits me. I can definitely see how this could feel transactional and hollow to some, I just personally don't view it that way.
especially on a first playthrough, i want to see as many outcomes and options as possible.
I like this take. It all just boils down to a fundamental difference in how people enjoy their games. From their perspective they feel like they’re cheating themselves or robbing themselves of an experience…and I simply don’t feel the same way. I think some people just can’t wrap their heads around it, thus we have this conversation rearing it’s head again, and again.
@@treeokk as a disclaimer, I'm not really sure who you referred to as _"some people"_ in your last sentence, but assuming it's referring to people who doesn't find enjoyment in save scumming then, shouldn't it really be the other way around? I think the people who want to avoid save scumming know full well about the allure of doing it; the optimization from doing it, to quickly see all the outcomes from different actions, to avoid undesired outcome, everything @veliona8920 has eloquently described, etc.
From what I've seen, it's usually the people that aren't bothered by such things who, for the most part, can't wrap their heads around why someone would care so much about the immersive experience itself. Although overall, I do agree with your comment, other than the iffy last part.
While this next part of my reply isn't necessarily directed at your specific post, but since it's related I'll just put it here anyway (hopefully you won't mind).
To make yet another case for people who doesn't find much enjoyment from skimming over or making some of a game's elements irrelevant (save scumming, easy mode, etc), as if this video hasn't made a compelling case already; sometimes, people have an urge to "respect" a game. There are many dimension this sentiment can come from, first is the pragmatic perspective; someone has paid for the game, so they are compelled to see everything that it has to offer for their money's worth.
Second is out of respect for the devs perspective, the devs has meticulously designed the game and it drives the player to engage with the game's mechanics as closely as the devs possibly intended.
Third is just from an escapism point of view, some people want to get as immersed as possible and get lost in the fantasy. If everything works out, the game is good and the player is enthralled, this is one of the most powerful ways a video game can affect someone; it'll leave an impression that one will remember for years long after they've finished playing.
no, seeing all the dialogue taking up all that damn space isnt a bad habit lol
@@treeokk People also have this same mentality against those that mod their games, I'll personally never understand it. It's fine if people want to play the game a certain way, Just as long as they don't impose their personal way of playing on others and demeaning them for playing the game differently from them.
I agree with not save scumming for the general narrative or for player choices, but to me it doesn't count as "save scumming" when your NPC companion walks a bad path and blows up barrels or triggers traps that were visible by the lead PC.
For example, my lead PC was looting some boxes that were surrounded by firewine barrels, and my rear NPC companion finally caught up, he was carrying his torch, and for some reason walked ON the firewine barrels. Blew everything up and did 75% damage to all party members. Had to waste a short rest and some potions. Or another instance, walking along a cliff side, the lead couple party members rolled perception and noticed a trap. Kept walking around it, but for some reason the rear NPC companion walked right into it, triggered the floor trap, and went flying off a cliff. Had to waste a scroll.
In situations like that, I don't consider it save scumming, since it was the NPC simply walking wrong that made me have to waste significant resources.
In the vault in act one my companions kept phasing through walls and triggering the pressure plate. Shit like that shouldn't happen, and I can't say it's my fault for needing to reload due to a billion bugs and glitches. The game *really* needs polish.
So something I do want to bring up is in response to you mentioning Cohh and his stream. I've watched him for years, and his Tweet (or uh... X-Post? what the hell are they now?) is more directed at how people often come into his chat while he's playing games like BG3, DA:O, Divinity 2, etc, and they say something to the effect of "How can you find this fun?" or "This can't be fun".
I don't feel his post was meant to insinuate that there's anything inherently good or bad about save scumming. What he's saying is that if someone is doing something and the end result is that they do, in fact, enjoy it - it's a little ridiculous to tell them that doing it a different way is "more fun" or that they "aren't having fun" because if they weren't, a sane person would just... not do it anymore.
On the topic of the Legend of Zelda thing: it's a similar case. Some people love duplication glitches because the systems they subvert are systems that person doesn't necessarily enjoy. A similar example; I'm playing a game right now where I thoroughly enjoy the characters and the story and I want to play it to experience that. But the combat is just... bad. It borders on unfair. And if I COULD use a glitch to make combat less of a pain in the ass, I would - even if the end result was making it a breeze. Because the combat isn't what I enjoy about the experience. For duplication - a lot of people probably hate the weapon degradation mechanics and just want to not have to worry about that because that removes their enjoyment. Circumventing it makes it a better experience.
You bring up a good point that sure, until you try it you won't KNOW if it really enhances your fun. But the specific person you referenced feels more like the issue is not the duplication glitch, but his own self control. He repeatedly does something that actively hurts his experience simply because he can. I feel like that isn't really going to be the experience for the average person. Typically something that puts a bad taste in your mouth is something you won't continue to do unless the end result DOES make you happy. For example, I could see repeatedly duplication even if you don't like it if the end result is that you are finding combat more fun.
I just feel like it's a case where you're going to have people who prefer either option always at each others throats because it's a fundamental difference in preference that can't really be explained or understood unless you have that same preference.
tl;dr for this text wall: I actually enjoy the risk of failure, but not when it's consistently more often than my successes
I personally don't reload from a previous save unless I've walked myself into a situation that I can't get out of (a specific indestructible environmental hazard comes to mind). That *said*, I do in fact have an issue that pretty well applies to most digital dice in general:
While the raw dice rolls across a session or a game may or may not average around about 10 on a d20 (before modifiers), in practice, the way it plays out is by far not very conducive to "fun," at least for me.
Most of the time, rather than having most rolls land between 6-15 on a d20, you'll get a *lot* more rolls landing between 3-8, "balanced" by just enough rolls between 15-18 to bring the average back up to expected levels. I'll roll with a failure, *sure*, but I start to see it as an actual, unresolved issue when the rolls resolve into something like a 1:3 success rate.
As a D&D player who's used digital dice extensively, most of the tables I run with settle on the band-aid fix of "refreshing" the dice roller by asking it to roll a polyhedral of any kind if it's been allowed to sit idle for more than 5 minutes. But while I'm sure that solution *would* also work in games like Baldur's Gate, it's not something that the devs allowed for.
3:30
Well there's your first problem. Arguably, this isn't really 'doing what he wanted'. If anything, his comment suggests that he didn't want to do it, but functionally fell into something that modern game markets would exploit in a form of predatory design. That's unfortunate, and as the replies to that post demonstrate, is a rather unpopular perspective.
I object to stuff like this because there's just as many people who will try it and regret it. I took someone's advice on my first Elden Ring playthrough of going a naked hobo run instead of the predetermined build I had planned on making. Was it an interesting experience? Sure. Was it as fun as what I planned to do? No. Going back, I wouldn't do it, because there are long term consequences regarding level optimization and starting class.
I get the intent behind messages like this, but I don't think you've properly addressed the arguments you're meaning to respond to.
What you CAN do is ask people to consider the value of the failed result and whether or not it is narratively interesting enough for them to run with, or if the inconvenience of savescumming is really work trying to optimize every single roll that could or couldn't go in their favor. It's legitimately something worth thinking about. Your mileage may vary on that.
And that's the thing. Your mileage may vary on that. Simply put, there are plenty of people who don't buy this, for good reason, and you aren't really making a compelling case for people who don't already agree with you.
I disagree with and want to push back on the idea that any feelings of shame for save scumming must come from within, as you were suggesting. Back when Jade Empire was relevant, I save scummed to see all the endings to the game and my friends' replies to that were "ahh so you cheated." It was clear to me, in the eyes of my friends, I had done something wrong by playing the game how I wanted. Maybe you, Ratatoskr, won't judge me for it but there are people who absolutely will.
I do agree a person can save scum the fun out of a game, but I don't think this is a situation where one size fits all. For me, I enjoy reloading when I fail a dice check because a natural 1 decided to rear its ugly head on DC 5 challenge. Accepting what I feel as a bullshit result kills the enjoyment for me, so I reload those and move on.
Jade Empire needs a remake!
If you are ashamed of something because somebody tells you so, it means you are being insecure, not because you are being ashamed.
If the game didn't tell you the DC and you still failed would you change your mind?
@@dustyvb11 Yes because you would know it's a dice roll at the core. You should be able to pass at least one of multiple dc 10 checks. You can just die though.
So you don't like chance and that is ok, but bare in mind others do like that real world aspect and d&d is highly evolved around it, so you are in the minority.
The only time I save scum is to not get accidentally stuck. Take for example a dialogue option that I assume would end in combat. If I can't beat that scenario then I would be stuck there and would get frustrated. It's only happened a couple of times luckily. Sticking with your decision is the way to. You don't need to be an omnipotent god to fully enjoy a game and saving interactions makes for an interesting second playthrough later.
Big meta gamer myself here.
Played hundreds of hours on Divinity Original Sin 2, and one of my favorite parts of the game was playing solo and building my character around being able to handle everything I wanted both inside and outside of combat.
This isn’t exactly hard to do past act 1 when you can respec whenever for free, but routing a character to pass specific speech checks in act 1 while not sacrificing too much elsewhere was legitimately fun.
I’m completely fine with save scumming in Baldur gate 3, Especially as a character specced into charisma. I’ve built my character this way partly because I want to explore those specific choices in this playthrough.
Sure I could just fail the check and fight everything like any other character would, but the game has 100+ hours of content I want to explore, especially on my first playthrough. I don’t much like the idea of waiting potentially 100 hours to maybe pass a check I failed before, but this time on a character less likely to do so.
I personally don’t think the dnd style of rolling for everything and leaving it to chance is a good system for video games. A tabletop with a good DM can branch out your failed persuasion or deception checks to more options than if you failed go kill everyone now.
I want to be rewarded in a much more tangible sense outside of combat for the way I build my character. Simply giving me a bit of a better chance to do something doesn’t reward me the same way that meeting certain combat and social skill requirements by certain levels did in DO2, especially when you can just roll a 1 and fail a check that was otherwise impossible to.
Exactly this. Fuck every single VITAL character moment that required a nat 20 to succeed unless you went all out into persuasion.
The really good point here is the presence of the DM; you can give your DM feedback. "Hey, I was really surprised this went that way, I'm really interested in seeing something like THIS," and they can craft that in, even with failed checks.
To your point, that doesn't really exist in a decision-tree system that video games would be limited to.
In terms of speccing into Charisma?
Homeslice, I passed on an ASI so I could take the feat which allows me to speak to the dead and talk to animals as rituals for the specific purpose of being able to explore even more of everything.
Your opinion is too well made and makes too much sense, has nothing to do under a video of this degeneracy. Like really, you tell all this to people who clearly cant even think with their own head, not to mention someone elses
I don't think your case is what was being discussed in the video. It sounds like you have a specific goal in mind and a path you want to explore. Exploring a path of what-ifs would actually require a certain amount of save scumming, by definition. Go for it. But the point here is you're willing to take the consequences of your actions, to see what is on the other side of that successful persuasion roll, no matter what. That's not really save scumming, that choosing a path. I think there is a difference.
The dice rolling could be a better system if it was actually implemented as the tabletop expects it to do so, which is deciding who does the roll. The current implementation limits possibilities to the character doing the interaction, which encourages save scumming.
I’m fine with failing dice rolls. I’m not fine with having my options limited to a single, essentially random, character, when the whole point of a DnD party is solving problems as a group
I think using a Zelda duplication glitch as a reason why people shouldn't save scum is a bad argument. The duplication glitch is exactly what it is, a glitch. The save and load feature on the other hand was an intentional feature and implemented in a special way to give players the freedom of choice. I think disregarding how people want to play the game as "bad argument" doesn't help anyone. You do you and experience the game how you want to, and I'll do me. At the end of the day, the games a game. It's meant to be fun and personal to the gamers no matter how they played it.
Exactly! It’s silly to compare an intended aspect of play to a glitch just because some in the community have arbitrarily decided they don’t like it. If Larian considered saving anywhere to be against the rules they could have easily put in a save point system like a lot of other games have, but they didn’t.
Anytime that I would want to save scum is just when I do something that makes everyone want to kill me and then they kill me and I have to load anyway lmao
What I've always done in these games is write a little backstory for my character, including their morality. Most old crpgs kind of expected this out of you anyway. I haven't played bg3 yet since I'm going through 1 and 2 again first, but doing this helps me think harder about what decision my character would make in dialogue, letting me be satisfied with it regardless of the outcome.
Disco elysium deals with this as well by making failures often just as fun as successes.
This is the way! This also makes bad outcomes feel part of your character's arc and makes you wanna ride it out to see where he ends up
I need to do this for my second playthrough!
The challenge that I've found - through save scumming, btw - is that there can be dialogue choices that would really fit my characters backstory which are front-loaded by dialogue choices that my toon WOULDN'T make...unless they were having a bad day, or something.
If the dialogue choice that best fits your toon is hard gated behind a dialogue choice that you would not have chosen at first glance, and then you end up taking a different choice that dead-ends you from ever seeing it (or even knowing that it is there)....did your roleplay benefit from NOT save-scumming?
A failed roll in the D&D campaign I played ended up being my favorite one. I need to set up some backstory: 800 years ago, the world had been fundamentally changed by the Sheperds, a group of wizards. They partitioned off a small cluster of islands within a barrier which contained all of the planet's magic, leaving it highly concentrated with magic and the remainder of the planet mundane. This was done in an effort to separate the material plane from the other planes, as a way to hold back demon incursions which had ravaged the planet with war after war. The dwarves were separated from their mountain homeland by this event, and in the present their zealots are on our asses to undo this barrier. The wizards prepared a many faceted gemstone with 110 Djinn trapped in it, which can only be used by a first-born of the plane; someone without any kind of past lives. My character was intentionally made to be such a person, so I wished on the Djinn for this knowledge of the world and its structure, to get additional information which could counteract my indecision. In particular, I learn for sure that the demons are an inevitable force, and our silly little barrier will just prolong their invasion whilst leaving the majority of the planet's population unaware of magical forces such as them, ready to be blindsided.
After this, me, my party, and a more level-headed dwarf we have befriended named Yakut got to work writing up a wish didact to officiate this planar reunion (the wizards created such didacts as a bit of legalese to get the Djinn to perform exactly the wish they wanted with no catch). We decide to do a small bit of gaslighting by including that the wish will broadcast a message saying it's Silgar, the head Sheperd, who is enacting this massive world change as a failsafe. This lets us skirt by in anonymity instead of potentially being demonized as the people who threw the world into chaos. We set up the afterlife of one of the island's denizens to extend its purpose to any warrior's death, regardless of nationality, so that those warriors will return to fight the demons when they eventually return. This idea further sways me into thinking that we're doing the right thing for long term survivability.
It all comes down to this: since I had wished on the Djinn before, I need to roll a D100 to determine whether I can wish upon Djinn again. 1-33 it's a no-go. I roll my favorite red with black speckle and silver letter dice, and... 00, 7. No wish for me. Me and my party look around, and we turn to Yakut. He is given the large gemstone, and begins making the wish. He is a first-born of the plane. The single goal his entire culture had been working towards for 800 years, and he was fulfilling it. Our DM plays "The Lesser of Two Evils" from the Witcher 1 soundtrack through the music bot, and our characters' world is fundamentally changed.
I know I did not have a deep investment in making this second wish like I felt when I wished for knowledge, so that failed role brought about a far more fitting character moment which was a great conclusion. As far as I can remember, those were the last dice any of us rolled for this campaign.
What was Yakut's wish/??????
@@luskira to remove the barrier separating Chie-Yen from Shen and to restore magic to the entire planet. The particular didact was made by the Shepherds as a failsafe in case their plan went awry--we merely used it because we thought their entire scheme was bad for the peoples of Shen and saw fit to reverse course. Now the dwarves set sail from the pitiful hill they were consigned to in Chie-Yen to their true mountainhome. My character watches from the tower formerly owned by shepherd who wished Chie-Yen into being, seeing if he made the right choice for the world afterall...
@@minerman60101 But then wasnt your wish also to remove the barrier? I'm confused between what you wanted your wish to be vs his wish
@@luskira ah, what happened was that I was going to wish for that, and then the dice rolled that I was no longer able to wish on a Djinn, so Yakut made the wish in my stead.
@@minerman60101 OHHHHHHHH now I get it, nice, so he got to save his people
I usually only save scum when I'm like "lol what happens if I pick this option", and occasionally for lockpicking when I happened to be low on lockpicks. Otherwise, I stick to my choices.
Really love this game though, can't wait until my friends get it so we can do a multiplayer playthrough
For me personally the biggest problem with BG3 that personally drove me (and I'm assuming a lot of people when they realized it) to save scum is that HUNDREDS of checks lead to absolutely nothing if you fail them and anything from minor loot to entire questlines if you succeed. You could be walking around in the city when suddenly a random perception check fails - with all four characters. So you look around for a second, then notice a wall that is out of place and clearly supposed to be a hidden door, but the game won't let you interact with it in any way. No hitting the wall (well sometimes you can but most of the time you simply cannot target clearly hidden doors), no manual investigate checks (which seriously how is that not in the game), no cooldown or waiting a day to retry, and most importantly - NO OTHER WAY TO GET THROUGH THE DOOR.
It is enormously annoying to have this happen and the game is absolutely riddled with these kinds of situations. If you just happen to be unlucky with rolls then you're constantly feeling like you're missing out on content. I'm just not the kind of person who sees their 500th failed check in a 150-hour campaign on an obvious trap or hidden door or major monumental character moment and says to themselves - "Welp, see ya in the next playthrough! Why would I want to try again?! Sure I know that something is hidden right here but the gods have decided that I will never find it so, oh well!."
Somebody in the comments here said they need to do like Disco Elysium and make failed checks interesting and I agree in that there are an astronomical amount of checks where it's just like, "oh you failed... anyway." when it could be much more interesting, but fixing the problem is more than just adding goofy failure moments. There is a serious lack of alternative options in this game, despite all of the talk that this is the most immersive sim CRPG ever that the online hype machine has been calling it. Like I mentioned, there are a lot of situations where there is only one way in to a place, but there's also a freaking truckload of single check moments between you joining a faction, doing a ton of quests for them, possibly getting new companions - and it just deteriorating instantly into a fight to the death for really flimsy reasons. This isn't really an issue of a player not grasping the consequences of their words or actions - just straight up bad writing and design.
i think the idea is that you play it again indeed. and yeah failing is part of life and exactly what they want you to feel. i think the best game i played was kingdom come, which gives you multiple and different tries at solving a problem
If the game is rigged and my luck even with positive modifier is constant nat 1s...
*inhales* im gonna fucking rig it back so that i am able to play it.
This is a game, not a torture simulator. Save scumming ia good for single player.
I have the same problem. I've constantly save scummed and restarting with new characters 8 times because I feel I'm "missing out" on content, opitimal results and party comp. And I'm having a hard time picking up the game again. It's something I've always struggled with RPGs like this. Wish I could just think less and enjoy how the dice rolls. 😮💨
it’s impossible to see everything in a single play-through by design. so trying to get the replay value in the first play-through is counterproductive imo.
The irony is that you're missing out on content by not going with the failure options. Some scenarios and experiences can literally not be accessed by always succeding in dice rolls.
Make a barbarian and just remind yourself "What would my character do here?" and you'll never have to think again.
And the irony is now you're missing out on the game. You should tell yourself your solution results in even less content for you.
The problem for me is that, like the Zelda guy, if save scumming is possible in the game it’s really difficult for me, personally, to not use it at all.
I’d really like a ‘consequences matter’ game mode, one that will stop you from save scumming. One where, say, the game will automatically save when you do something with consequences and erase your old file. Obviously hardcore modes already do this, but they also make it so that one failure in the gameplay means you have to start from the beginning, and that’s something I’m not interested in.
just don't press the load save button. why do the devs have to physically stop you pressing the button?
@@daunted232 Well, I’ve been an alcoholic for long enough to know that sometimes the best way to make good decisions is to make good decisions easy to make. My sobriety is safer when I choose not to purchase alcohol at all, rather than having the option available on my fridge and expecting myself to resist the temptation every time I I get an apple.
Note that I’m not asking for alcohol to be banned, or for save scumming to be made impossible. I just want an ability to make a commitment to not save scumming (or not drinking) that the game is willing to honor. So, I’m that respect, it’s just the same thing as all those hardcore modes that delete your saves when you die, just used for a different purpose.
I know DoS II had an "Honor" mode that had some things like that. There were some ways around it to an extent. Also if your party wiped it deleted your save. So it is possible they might add that if they have not already. (I have not gotten the game yet, though I plan to at some point).
@@jamesvonderhaar2553 You are still equating video games and drinking compulsively. If that is the case then gaming may be bad for you.
The Zelda narrative is just one data point on a single game for a single person. I've ruined games in the past by doing exploits and save scumming, but over the years of trial and error and learning from those mistakes exactly how much and what kind of exploits will ruin the experience for me, and I can now apply that knowledge in order to create a balance between exploits and letting the story play out naturallu that maximizes my own personal enjoyment. Once I realized I was able to achieve that balance, I was able to even go back to games I had previously ruined for myself and start over and still get enjoyment out of it. But if you aren't given the opportunity to fail at maximizing enjoyment, you'll never be able to learn from that failure. BG3 might not be the best game to start that learning process with because it's such an exquisite game to have the experience ruined for it, but in general, I encourage people to go out and ruin games for themselves so they can learn how to achieve that balance.
I played a game that approaches this topic in an interesting way, it's called Fear & Hunger: Termina. You have 3 in-game days to finish it and every time you save, time passes by 1/3 of a day, so you have these long periods where you have to play without relying on saving that make the experience really exciting, especially as there are events related to story that happen during different times of the day depending on which day you're on. It's really cool and challenging.
If you don't save scum you'll never complete the game. ever. I don't care what anyone claims, it's stupidly rigged against you in every way on every difficulty
I play together with a buddy. Its our first playthrough and we have no idea whats about to come. And its just so much fun if you have to live with your mistakes. Yeah, I accidentally broke my Paladin oath very very very VERY early. And we also murdered two potential companions and a bunch of innocemt people. It just feels really intense if things can actually go wrong. And overcoming challenges feels so rewarding this way. We only reload after we get all killed or if the game crashes. And if we have to replay some parts because of that we make the same decisions that we made the first time. I can only talk for myself but save scumming would just kill our great experience.
It's so hard to break my save scum soul. It's hammered in so deep I literally found myself at the reload menus before I even registered what I was doing.
I found the best way to play is to genuinely think up a character, their personality all of it then genuinely just act as this person and ride out every consequence and it's so rewarding. I also had to stop myself from looking up all the different ways a situation plays out to ensure I get the best item. The hag hair and the lightning staff so far have been the only must have items I have found. It's best to just look up the key items for your build and just be ready for those and ride everything else out. Your going to want to do this game 3 times min and this isn't like DOS2 where sure the story is kinda different for each origin character but it's just a variation on the same story with a bit more back story...no this is like playing a totally different quest line depending on what personality or origin character..like a fresh dlc or something.
I save scum to preserve the rpg experience that I wanna have. If there is a speech check that I want to pass because I feel like my character would pass it then I’m going to reload a save. I also think that saving before fights is ok just due to the fact that you can get really unlucky and lose encounters that you really have no business losing. Lastly, failing perception checks can lock you out of content and I don’t want to have to replay 20 hours of content because my party couldn’t see a button on the wall. What I do like about this game is that save scumming is an option that lets you get the most out of the game. I will be doing a dark urge play through once I’m done with my current one and I’ll definitely try a more classic dnd experience with that one.
The problem is that you'll never get a "classic dnd experience". Dungeon masters are there to make sure that, even if you fail tons of rolls and roll tons of critical failures, the game will continue as interestingly as possible. There's no "content to be missed" in tabletop since the content is literally generated as you go. As much as I've been having a blast and adore what they did with BG3, some things are impossible to recreate.
I don't want to be locked out of content, I surely won't have the time to replay the game and pray to the Gods that I make the rolls I missed the first time, it's just as simple as that.
@@rdf274When you think about it though, you are locked out of content regardless of what you do. There is content created by the developers for a successful roll/"good" decision, and there is content for a failed roll/"bad" decisions. What it seems like your saying is that you want the favorable outcome content vs the non-favorable outcome content...which by the way is fine. Just presenting a different way to view things.
@@thejokebrandt3810 Completely agree, at some point dice stops being fun and becomes a shackle, i have +14 modifier on persuasion, i should be able to pass 99% of skill checks, so how is that possible that my lvl 10 bard, eloquent as a god, failed to persuade a lvl 1 village bozo
@@TheSteakSammich yeah I understand that, and it's definitely one of the many great aspects of this masterpiece. However, you can be sure, a lot of times, unfavorable outcomes won't produce the same depth of content as favorable ones, apart from some exceptions. Which is not a criticism, it would be asking too much of a game. You can test it yourself.
@@GreenMonkey0 Actually your chance is 95% because there is always a 5% chance to roll a 1. But yeah i get your point but first of all narratively while your character may be super charming wordsmith even a genius can have a bad day or slip up some times and it also depends what you are trying to tell people even if they are super dumb. So its kinda fair that there is always a chance the other person for whatever reason just doesnt respond the way you want.
And while you may not like the fact that you can still lose your skillcheck when you have invested that much into your character, which is a fair point, there is also an argument to be made that if the nat 1 roll wasnt a thing it would be kinda boring to always know for absolute certain what the outcome of an event will be. I think alot of people would also agree with that and i hoonestly dont know whats better.
Btw i also save scummed quiet a bit to lead the game into certain directions or just to see different outcomes. But my character (criminal halfling warlock chick) is simularly as charming as yours and actually i already find it kinda op anyway because really i never have any problem just talking my way threw things and i also cant remember ever having been hit with a really bad nat 1 that ruined something major. If i roll bad which rarely ever happens anyway i usually simply keep talking and thing become good again.
The one thing that really screwes me over which also lead to a bunch of reloads (which i kinda feel bad about) is when i do something like stealing, murdering or simply entering a new area and because they are closest to the NPC who starts talking to us some of my other partymembers have to lead a critical conversation. I really hate it whenever that happens.
Play how you want. this is the third baldur's gate and this series is super punishing.
This video was really well written. I'm one of those people who don't particularly feel ashamed of save scumming and doing so when it is about critical moments of character dialogue and interaction, I feel like I MUST save scum because, when I don't and I misclick or something completely out of my control happens when I feel like it should be within my control, then, attempting to roll with what I'm given results in me losing interest in this new path that has appeared before me since it has locked me out of the rest of the game, which was something I was enjoying it.
One moment where that happened to me in spades (without spoilers) was when my character was infiltrating the enemy's camp and was waiting for the right opportunity to strike when an NPC was killed mid-cutscene. That moment prompt me to load my game because, out of character, I could tell it was about to happen. My character was close enough, I felt like I should be able to stop it, I NEEDED to be able to stop it, but that just wasn't available to me.
So I loaded the save, drastically reduced the number of enemies that I had to deal with so the boss fight would be manageable before the cutscene and I attacked the boss before the NPC was killed.
However... I did feel a bit of regret. Instead of loading the save and preparing an ambush, I later realized I would prefer to have engaged combat before prepping the battlefield. It was a horribly difficult situation where we were surrounded and outnumbered, but I didn't give a shit. It is what felt right to do. Maybe that would be a complete checkmate, and I'd have to resort to the battlefield prepping, but I wanted to have at least tried. However, I knew for a fact that I would've stopped having fun if I went on with the game knowing the NPC died for nothing. I would constantly be reminded of them and tempted to load again until I'd be 10 hours later into the game and decided that I needed to go back, or I'd quit the game.
That, in a nutshell, summarizes my feelings on the matter. I save a lot, but I don't load every single time someone doesn't go how I plan. I ONLY do it when I think it is utmost necessary for the story I want to tell through my character. SPECIALLY if this game-changing scenario was caused by a misclick or a misunderstanding of what the dialogue meant to say.
Great video! In defense of save scumming, a lot of people are only going to play it once, so I can understand wanting to try to get it (near) perfect in one go. Personally I'm letting some things go, reloading for game-changers like failing to rescue a key NPC - even though admittedly that would make my first playthrough more organic.
I think the inspiration mechanic is a nice balancer. If it's something you really feel strongly about, you can use a reroll or two. Of course, if I waste multiple inspiration charges and still don't succeed, I'm probably just going to load...
Yeah, but if you're manipulating who is in your party to specifically stock up on inspiration for the purpose of getting rerolls....isn't that just a different type of save scumming?
@@oskamunda well, you cap at 4 charges, so personally I’m usually maxed out and haven’t felt the need to game it like that. What I mean is if you fail at a roll and you really wanted to succeed at it, inspiration provides a built-in system for retrying instead of just quick loading. Maybe there’s purists out there who think any reroll is a form of cheating, but at least it’s a finite resource.
@@oskamunda besides, depends how you manipulate your party. It’s good judgement if you bring characters relevant to the task at hand with the hope of inspiration. It’s scumming if you load _after_ finding out what backgrounds it could have given inspiration to.
@@oskamundajust let people play
save scumming in bg3 Is Simply a way to access more content offered by the game, bg3 doesn't really add interesting new options if you fail, It only locks you into others, an example i think Is the one persuasion roll you can do after lae'zel finds out of the artifact shadowheart has, if you fail the persuasion roll to convince shadowheart not to kill lae'zel it's not like you'll be given a quest or something to fix their relationship, no you just choose which one of them dies and oh look at that one less npc you'll have to discover in your next play trough or by savescumming, now if you enjoy the act of repeating the same processes to get to the same point you were before only to hopefullly get another chance, good for you, it's not most people's kind of fun.
OMG MY FAVORITE FERRET UPLOADED A BG3 VIDEO
> Humans don't control their emotions in that way. You don't get to decide what it and is not fun
Some people, sure... but you're painting with a rather large brush here.
The person from the reddit quote didn't have the self-control to not use a glitch. I would say most people do. Saying that humans don't control their emotions in that way is a weird jump to make from that...
I think if I savescummed a lot, I would be ruining quite a few future playthroughs for myself. Infact I said on the first week of release to my friend that "You know it's a great RPG when you're already thinking of your future playthroughs and what you'll do different during your first one..."
I wouldn't have that, if I savescummed around checking every option and going with the best one. So I can only imagine people who play like that are only ever planning to play the game once. Which, I guess is more understandable.
But it also makes the game a lot more simple and a lot more linear in a way, as - like you said, you entirely eliminate any path where something went wrong, but you can remedy it or work around it in some way... and I'd argue that kind of a thing is more satisfying, finding a solution to something that went wrong afterwards.
One of my memorable fights is when my entire rest of the team by my custom main character rogue went down and I just had to run like the wind to save myself, retreat and go buy revive scrolls, then managed to only afford one, sneaked back in there, revived the person who had an option to revive with a spell and went from there.
So much more interesting than pressing F8 would have been imo.
There's a weird middle ground for combat when you simply misunderstand a game mechanic and do something with drastic consequences because you assumed logic would apply, but logic in these games is overwhelming for a newcomer given all the systems one has to consider. I do agree though, I have taken some of the excitement out of the dialogue options by assuming I know what I want and so I choose something else first just to see how different the outcome can be from my preferred choice. I have to take my time playing games like this because every aspect of the game feels like a grind when you want to appreciate it all at once.
Damn man, this hit home. I save scummed all they way up to moonrise, and especially so when I tried to complete a quest to save two parties. Save for something catastrophic, I think you converted me, thank you.
God bless you and this vid. I really needed to watch this because I have been save scumming and my enjoyment has lessen because of it, for the very reasons you have cited in this video. Going forward I'm just going to trust the dice play whatever and wherever it lands.
My main reason for save scumming:
Not all dialogue options are as fleshed out as they should be.
Example.
Shadowheart is about to kill the nightsong and you say "please dont do this" she immediately wants to kill you. You either have to kill her, or find out through reddit or w.e that she would have not killed the nightsong if you chose "trust her."
You really have no choice but to load here.
Its also inaccurate to compare blatant duping of items in a game like legend of zelda - to something like a blatantly unfair and world crushing RNG roll creating a tidal wave of misfortune that makes you lose your entire party, or makes you lose an important character in a plot forming fight like rescuing isobel. Sometimes loading is ok, if you're being objective in your reasoning for it.
I want to sniff in every option and choose with whats best in my opinion. and therefor I will reload the game. I am that kind of guy who opens up every chest and infignificant item in the hope of recieving something unnoticed.
As a chronic save-scummer, this is maybe the first game that actually made me feel guilty for doing it, so I'm trying to avoid it.
As someone who frequently used to save scum and also used cheats and glitches on old games to get through that content I loved way back then.... Try it, not save scumming. It's not the end of the world if you do or don't.
I also started to not overthink the consequence of a choice in game, especially when I knew the results of choosing option A or B. Who knew living in the moment, while in a video game, could be fun.
I save-scummed a little bit in Dead Cells and don't regret it. I don't think I did it in other CRPGs much, but then again I probably haven't had to much. For BG 3 I think I won't be doing it much in the first playthrough, but then do it more (if necessary) in my second playthrough.
The guy in the video are wrong, we allready have failures in real life, in the game? we want the perfect game without any failures! Long live the save game!
Thank you for this video @Ratatoskr ! I'm encountering some tough areas at the end of act 1 and put down the game out of frustration. I was watching videos trying to find ways to get through these areas (as I was save scumming and still failing lol) and found your video. You inspired me to pick up the game with a new mindset :) halfway through act 2 now and already dreaming about a second playthrough XD
Thank you!
I think safe scumming to minmax the stats part of the game is kinda whacky, because it takes away so much enjoyment from the story and how the world will create itself
But if you safescum because you want your character to go with one specific check because it fits your characters vision more? Or because you RP as a chronomage? Do it! Have fun! Just dont fall prey to the mindset of "I need to minmax my stats", because that most likely will ruin your enjoyment of the story.
You know what it never was? That serious.
Man... I needed this video. I've struggled with ruining games for myself in this way for years. The one saving grace for me was Dark Souls 2, where I wasn't able to ruin it with a duplication glitch. I finished the game. No cheats, no mods, vanilla. It was great. I'm currently playing through BG3, and finding myself with a hefty mod load order. Just started a fresh install on a new drive so that I can capture the beauty of this game without mods or save scumming.
So as someone who's very addicted to F5 + F9ing (or in BG3's case F8ing), I definitely had an issue with this when I first started playing the game solo. The rolls I was getting would repeatedly frustrate and irk me into reloading, and I caught myself getting annoyed because I felt I was missing out on roleplaying the exact type of character I wanted.
But then I realized there was content behind failed speech checks, similar to Disco Elysium. I pretty much never reload conversations now, unless a bungled dice throw makes me say or do something completely out of character (which is rare even on fails).
I do still save scum for lockpicking and disarming, though I don't feel that takes me out of the experience as much, because it feels pretty much the same as consuming another one of my Thieves' Tools.
Part of me does still wish that this game handled conversation checks the same way a game like New Vegas would (you are proficient in certain skills and can use your expertise with them in conversations as long as you match the number required, no RNG), but I recognize & respect the DnD source material Larian is drawing form. It's just something a lot of players, even seasoned RPG fans, will have to get used to.
I'm so happy you're playing BG3! Your past video on the pitfalls of easy modes stayed with me and influenced me to play the Balanced setting with this game. Boy was that the right decision. Thank you. Trying to trust the dice in this game, but I'm not used to it so my decisions seem a bit random and I feel...awkward. It's an interesting feeling. Immersion is definitely more. I'm going to keep trying
The only character related savescumming I feel comfortable with is the kind that directly precedes a battle. Usually it's necessary because I'll die and not have enough revive scrolls/spells available. That way I get to see some of the other dialogue paths but I don't have to feel bad about redoing specific ability checks, since they usually just lead to the same fight anyway. It feels like I'll have to play the entire game twice if I want to experience half the options out there.
Would agree with this. Revive scrolls don't grow on trees. You do get the spell in the cleric branch but if you don't build Shadowheart that way you won't receive it. I like to at least finish each battle with people I can give a hand up but aren't dead. I took on Balthazar and Meat with the three medic ghouls and only finished with two people standing but nobody was dead. A pro tip is to go back into turn based mode to revive your characters after the battle. It gives you a bit more time to get to them before they fail their dice rolls.
He speaks from a position of privilege. Of someone that has irl free time to playthrough the game multiple times at leisure.
I had a niggling feeling that through the video, he always sounded just a touch holier then thou. Even though he tried to play it off by frontrunning the accusation: "Im not just judging you if you want to do it, I'm just saying you might be like me and ruin the experience."
The fact is that this game has certain checks that will hard lock you through pure chance down a path that your chosen character would never allow. Your character would fight tooth and nail against letting it run it's course. A path that would be adjusted by a competent dungeon master in an actual D&D game. After all, an RPG that doesn't let to player role play to their enjoyment is not worth playing.
But this is a video game which doesn't allow adjustments post dice fall, so by a roll of the dice your character is now locked into doing something completely out of sync with their values or vision. There is no second check if you're out if inspiration points, there's no "hold up guys, okay you got me. Let's try to compromise or have some consessions."
This dude is so sneaky with his front running, "maybe you're not like me" and dream vistor style illusion that it was so hard for me to spot his absolute bullshit condescension. He even used a strawman example of actual cheating, to draw a parallel to "save scumming" to circumvent the limitations of the ROLE PLAYING game.
Not everyone has the privilege of time or the patience to ironman, don't let him sneakily press his view on to you with this strong persuasion check.
Let him fail the roll. "Save scum" the shit out of the game if it hard locks Tav (story wise) on to something your character would never allow.
I save scum to avoid *gamey* consequences. When mechanics don’t work the way I *expected* , because they are abstract interpretations of a game lexicon. I agree that you will probably have more fun if you *live with the expected consequences when you take reasonable risks*
Thank you, really enjoyed this video. Thank you for bringing such a measured tone to topic that is sadly 'taboo' - this personally resonated with me, I think so few trust game designers and what they visioned for an experience. Elden Ring, Remnant 2 and now BG3 recently. Great video!
Ratatoskr you are a blessing on the gaming community. Your attitude towards your audience and matter-of-fact way of putting things gets your points across very well.
I am a habitual save scummer. I am a save scumming addict but every time I do it I'm not actively thinking "I am ruining the game for myself."
I do get that off feeling though. Like the experience I'm getting is somehow shallow. The facade is being lifted and Idk why. It's because the game isn't challenging me with failure or consequence anymore. It's just handing me what I want and I get addicted. Like when you eat too much of a food you like and it becomes unappetizing.
DnD is improv. No matter what happens, you deal with the consequences. You roll with it. You roll the dice and see what happens. Your well-laid plans might work, or they might blow up in your face. If they blow up, you improvise and adapt to your situation. That is a core part of DnD and BG3 is DnD.
I’ve played so many games I learned to understand most of them inside and out. It’s hard for me to truly immerse myself because I know that it’s constructed it’s not real. Because of my knowledge of how games work however I know how to reach that fun zone. For BG3 I love the world building so much I feel like it’s a disservice not to see everything possible. Save scumming allows me to explore every option and opens much more avenues to side quests and interactions with the characters. There’s so much you can miss by selecting one line of dialogue, it’s wild. I applaud larian for taking such a risk. Once I have explored most of the game I’ll likely play again without save scumming just to see how a natural progression of the game would look like. It’s a wonderful game.
Imo you're spoiling yourself for your future runs.
I'm on my first run and i know i'm missing a lot of things already (Lae'zel is dead, and Astarion's out, to give a couple examples). But that's ok, it adds to the replayability.
I'm planning to play this game for the years to come, so I purposefully try to restrain myself et and let the game flow naturally. Just like in a TT RPG session, where you have to live with your decisions. That's what the game tries to emulate, after all.
@@theslay66 I don't plan on doing more than 1 or 2 runs tbh. It's simply too big of a game for me to enjoy playing through more than that. There's too many elements that I would find not as enjoyable on the 2nd or 3rd run. If you enjoy doing multiple playthroughs that's cool, I'm happy for you.
I do understand that this game tries to recreate the D&D experience but it's still lacking that "random" element. A lot of the experience will remain the same even on the 2nd run. There is no dungeon master tailoring the experience day by day. It's all set in stone. Yes some things can be missed, skipped, and stopped altogether but it's still mostly the same. So I wouldn't play this just like I would play tabletop. At it's core it's a different experience. Don't get me wrong though that's not necessarily a bad thing. This game is great, I'd almost call it a masterpiece. It's a game I wanted to see done for a long time. Larian out did themselves, and I hope they keep it up. I loved Divinity Original Sin 1&2 and absolutely love this game too.
"I’ll likely play again without save scumming just to see how a natural progression of the game would look like"
That wouldn't be a natural progression anymore because you already know the consequences for different choices.
@@SaHaRaSquad just because I know where things are and how the game is structured doesn’t mean I can’t progress naturally through it. There’s quite a bit you miss by failing rolls regardless of how much you know about the game. Also the game is so massive I won’t be able to remember every little detail about it. Especially if I decide to take a break after my first play through.
@@roddy_doddy Knowing the outcome influences the choice whether you want it or not.
Save scrumming is like having the power to do a Quantum leap and jump back into yourslef and change the outcome while having knowledge of your failed actions. .
This ancient wisdom goes way beyond video games too... what you think you want and what you truly want are often two different things.
The problem with this perspective is that many outcomes are not interesting and are often sequence breaking because theyre impossible to get accounted for.
For example let's say you are going to a base of goblins and you talk to the guards so they let you through. Now you try to persuade them and they get pissed off and attack you. It doesn't matter what you do, they will be permanently hostile to you even if you don't fight back and just run away. You can't even disguise yourself and try again, you and your party will have to murder every single goblin in sight. This is obviously very shallow, and will lead you into missing out on a ton of content.
These kind of situations where theres literally pass the skill check or kill 50 people is one of the reasons people save scum.
I think there's different levels of save scumming... I think in this video he's talking about people that do it nearly all the time for every dice roll, not just for very inconvenient situations like the one you outlined, that don't happen all the time
@@mynameisawesomeman They happen very frequently, pass the skill check and get the cool interaction or kill. That's very common in bg3
I'm doing a campaign save scumming as a paladin in tactician and another one as a paladin in balanced letting the story go the way it goes. I'm also running a campaign with my best friend where we are not allowed to save scum at all. We only load when we get killed. All three of the experiences are very distinct and running multiple campaigns at once allows me to see some of the multiple possibilities that can come from this. I'm probably going to end up running many more campaigns with this game. I finished dragon age inquisition 3 times and the variety of the story was nowhere near this one.
During Early Access, my cousins and I had a multiplayer campaign where we agreed not to save scum or reload (unless we all wiped or broke the game). It resulted in one of the most hilarious, exhilarating, and memorable gaming experiences we've had because we simply just accepted the consequences and watched how our choices played out.
May we play how we want, may we play how we need, but may we never play how we deserve.
You incidentally made some good philosophical points about freedom and shame that can apply to life in general
I felt this when I was playing Pikmin 4 a couple weeks ago. I was fighting the final boss and I lost all of my Red Pikmin, after which a prompt spawned offering me a rewind to a point before I had lost them. I took it. And when it happened again, I took it again, and again, and again. By the time I actually beat the final boss (which I had a lot of trouble with), I wasn't satisfied or happy, I was annoyed and frustrated. That rewind feature is far and away the worst feature of Pikmin 4 (which had made a couple other decisions which I think harmed the game), and it diminished my enjoyment of other parts of the game because I relied on it way too much when the game got difficult.
Frankly I think it was a big mistake for Nintendo to add that rewind feature. It's far too generous, and presenting it to the player after something bad happens to them is an awful decision. I hope that when Pikmin 5 comes out in 2037, they have the good sense to remove the rewind, or at least make it *way* less generous.
Thanks for telling your experience. I haven’t played Pikmin 4 yet but I was very disappointed in Nintendo when I heard they had added that kind of rewind feature with no penalties. I think Pikmin has always been about planning and improvisation and dealing with bad outcomes, and the rewind feature undermines all of that.
While I agree with your point, wasn't the rewind also present in the past games? You could literally go back to a previous day since Pikmin 1. I agree that it's better not to use it but it's not something that Pikmin 4 added. This is my impression without having played the game yet though, if this feature is different in some way to the ones in previous games I could be missing an important distinction!
@@tomaselizondo92 No, it wasn’t in the previous games. Being able to redo a day or a cave sublevel is not the same as being able to literally undo any mistake instantly by going back in time a bit. In Pikmin 1 for example planning out days can be really challenging if you try to beat the game in 10 days or less, and lots of things can go wrong during a day. There seems to be some limitations in the Pikmin 4 rewind though, but I’m not sure since I haven’t played it.
@atmatey oh so you can go back partially within a same day! Gotcha. Yeah that's very generous haha
It's a great QoL option for casuals. This is why self control is important.
Makes me think of the people that want food removed/limited in BotW/TotK because they can't control themselves, despite saying how it makes the game too easy...
I think this discussion is a case by case situation. When it's a legitimate will of discussing the game mechanics and all, I agree 100% with you. But it is undeniable that most interactions of this kind comes from people that are indeed gatekeepers. I usually like to lurk and watch first playthroughs of people in Elden Ring, and I've seen so many chatters gatekeepers saying things like "using summons is cheating", "don't use magic, you cheater", "oh, I see you are not a real gamer with that shield up", etc, and many times they make that streamer stop streaming the game altogether. And this gatekeeping culture is more numerous than the people that wants to discuss the things you pointed out in your video and it is what makes everyone be defensive and use the argument of just let people play whatever always when this issue is brought up.
People are extremely stupid about autonomy. "Let people do X," is something you say to someone with authority over X, not a youtuber.
"Let people do X," is the exact same as "Stop complaining when people do X"
It just comes across as whining, in any case.@@daunted232
My friends and I, after about 15 hours in our campaign, have decided to not save scum unless it's something bugged etc.
It makes those rolls so much more powerful or random occurances so much more dangerous and rewarding.
As another has mentioned (or copy and pasted from an article) the quote by Soren Johnson “Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game”
I think this also has some similarity to the fast travel problem, not just that it's an easy way out of an experience for convince sake, but that when a game is built with it in mind it's hard to just not use the system. Outward is a great example of a game that actually avoids a desire or need to save scum that plagues TES, since when you reach 0 health you don't die, but instead it has defeat scenarios based on what did you in, from being lucky and getting brought back to town by a stranger, to being robbed and left somewhere, to even being imprisoned in a bandit camp and forced to work that you have to escape from.
It's not perfect, but I really want to see the idea explored more in place of 100% always having fights to the death like in Skyrim and such.
save scumming helped me a lot as someone new to this genre. but maybe i will try to ease off it as i’ve gotten more familiar. i did end up taking the fun / surprise out of a recent quest by looking up the solution, i ended up exploring a lot trying to figure it out
Sometimes spoiling yourself, can be a good thing. I recently spoiled myself on the Goblin Camp portion of the game. But because of that, I got to experience content I no doubt would have missed.
Imagine a guy who goes in "guns blazin". Shooting, stabbing, slicin every goblin, on sight. That person would miss out on a lot of great content. Sure, you get a result from that. Perhaps even a unique result that few others would. But you'd still be missing out on other great content.
So I am okay when I find myself googling "should I kill _x"_ or "what happens if _y_ dies" or "what does _z_ sell?"
I found myself feeling a similar feeling when I switched from console to PC. The amount of mods and the ability to edit save files and such has made some games, like Skyrim, completely unplayable because I KNOW I can just console command something I want whenever I want it.
The freedom of mods and console commands has made the game no fun at all.
And yeah, I know I can CHOOSE to not use them. But there will always be that voice to suppress.
As a lowly console gamer myself I've also had this problem.
I can't play Fallout 4. And it's because it's mod supported on console.
When I first played it I downloaded a god mode mod. I told myself I would only use it in extreme Circumstances.
But as I played I found myself dropping some caps whenever I wanted to buy something, Giving myself resources whenever I built or crafted, Bumping up my skills to pass checks.
I quit playing real early in. Sure I could just not use it. But when there's basically an instant win button in the menu it eats into the back of my mind the whole time.
@@tevenpowell8023 Yeah, that’s one thing I forgot to mention: that even on console, Skyrim and fallout had the cheat rooms and such which did the same thing as I described in my switch to pc.
It killed the game.
not only does this type of thinking tie into game difficulties, immersion of games, and gaming philosophy in general. This is a philosophy for our lives. recognizing what is insecurity, shame, envy, or vanity and looking deeper into these effects in our day to day life can definitely help us find more enjoyment out of our lives in general.
I wouldnt have to save scum if 90% of my rolls werent nat 1s. The amount if critical misses i get when attacking WITH advantage is genuinely infuriating.
Edit: in case someone doesnt understand to get a critical miss would mean both rolls were a 1. They need to fix the dice percentages because it feels like the 1 is at 50% instead of 5%
It's nice to see someone else has the same "affliction" I do
It’s overwriting playing how you want to play optimally. You picked the way you wanted to play, now you’re picking the outcome you want.