There are people that savescum in stealth games but DON'T consider themselves a casual

Do you even know what the fuck you are talking about?

2's overall level design is more boring than Invisible War, and that game is literally nothing but corridors. Way to squeeze all of the interesting ideas into two fucking levels and have the rest be boring as fuck.

Depends on the game. Hitman is linear as fuck, for example, so you're always going to have the same entry points and exit points, the stealth in that game involves getting past specific scenarios that are exactly the same every time. Hell, most stealth games are like this. If you're a perfectionist and you want to ghost the whole level, then you're going to have to do this very thing. That is, you're going to have to repeatedly play through the game's identical scenarios and figure out how to get past the guards or cameras or whatever without being seen. Whether you do this by playing through the level to its entirety and then starting over or you start over from the beginning after you've been detected makes no difference.

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Good for them. You know what really doesn't make sense? These "I'm gonna go pull an entire group of people out of my ass and complain about them" threads.

Aliens versus Predator did it right.

Depending on difficulty, it gave you a limited number of saves you could do per level.

Or be a real man and dont save at all.

Use saves only for what they were intended: if you stop playing and need to save your progress.

Oh and another thing, fuck whoever wrote the story to Thief 2.

vs

I'm convinced Thief 2 is incomplete. A lot of levels felt quite empty when the map and other things imply they wouldn't be.

With something as trial and error as hurrcore stealth games where getting spotted is pretty much the end, how do you even make the game bearable without quicksaves?
You can't. That shit would get boring very quickly.

It really does. Compare Life of the Party where there's all kinds of neat little things for you to experience on the way to the tower that help convince you that you're in a living world. The two groups of archers irl shitposting about eachothers masters, eventually sperging out and leading to a battle to the death. The Rothschild guy throwing a hissy fit because he wasn't invited to mush-mouthed retard's big ball, and his wife consoling him like a child. Running into two other thieves breaking into someone's apartment. Reading the book in the necromancer tower and summoning zombies.

Where the fuck are all of the things like that in the rest of the levels? They're so fucking empty it's pathetic.

You are not autistic enough, get out.

Even Life of The Party feels a bit unfinished, first time I looked at the map I thought "holy shit so many things to enter and loot" but then only about 40% of the named areas on the map were actual ingame areas and they were mostly tiny rooms with one or two collectibles.

Grammar, motherfucker.

The GMDX mod for deus ex did saving pretty well imo on realistic difficulty. The game would autosave like normal at the beginning of a new level(although it could be abused with area transitions) but if you wanted to save somewhere else there were save spots located throughout the level that cost money to use.

Save scumming is cancer. Ghosting is also cancer.

Both of these just turn stealth games into tedious shitfests and are why the vast majority of stealth games suck. It'd be like playing any action and dying to one hit to the leg while the enemy takes normal damage. Devs can't even go full ghosting router and water it down so the game is piss fuck easy but you don't get a good goy score if you get caught or kill anybody. The only way stealth games can be done well is if getting caught makes it severely harder, fighting is basically suicide unless the situation drastically favors you, and you can't save to take 50 shots at the same segment.

I learned this first hand when I tried applying the ghosting meme to Thief 1. It was fucking tedious and boring. Then I played it normal and treated saves like checkpoints. It as boring as fuck. Then I just played the fucking game normally but only saved inbetween levels and ever since then I literally have never been able to look at stealth games the same way again.

Spotted the Dishonored shill.

No. It was just bad.

Stop expecting good games out of Bethesda.

Non-lethal playthroughs in games always felt exactly like lethal playthroughs in that you shot an enemy and they fell down it's just the game would say the npc was dead or unconciouss.
Ghosting although can be boring it made you look for guard patterns and ways to abuse the shit out of a game. You discover what made a game work and it's limitations.
To each his own though.

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Let people enjoy games however they want, except for savescummers.

This is the correct method.

Look at the buttmad savescum normalfag.

The definition of what constitutes savescumming in stealth game is already incredibly vague as developers are too scared themselves to regulate saving in order to prevent players from savescumming all the fun away. Instead they either rely on some vague pact of honor like the Vidmaster's Challenge in Marathon where you have health charges in each level you can always go back to and heal up fully so you are never completely at risk of being low on health, but a real vidmaster only uses them 'sparingly', whatever that means. The other option is linear levels with checkpoints, but nobody really prefers those, so devs opt for unlimited quicksaving and let the player decide how they will go about with their saving ethics. One of the obvious results of that is players savescumming the game to death and saying it's too easy, while the game does nothing to discourage such behavior.

the final option is obviously limited quicksaves like in Hitman

Limited saves is the way to go, and the hardest difficulty for a game should allow no saving at all (except when you beat a level of course).

I wish more games

I think Deus Ex did non-lethal best. You could knock people out with the Tranq dart, but it needed to be a headshot, you needed to be maxed in pistols, they still ran around for a few seconds making noise and the ammo was rare as fuck. There was also the prod which had rare ammo. The police baton fucked it all up though because you could just go surprise police brutality on people with no ammo cost.

Thief 2 had better non-lethal gameplay than 1 on account of the fact there where machines that couldn't be knocked out everywhere and water arrows where limited.

Idc how people play the game. I just feel the ghosting mentality is starting to bleed into games. You either have to choose killing everything in sight or ghosting. The inbetween is gone.

Hitman 2 did something cool where if you played on Pro you had no saves, but I remember on some levels they'd award you a save if you got past an entire section of the level. Like a russian level where half the level was sneaking into the base. If you got in you got a save, then the rest of the level was sneaking through the base.

Saving often isn't savescumming if the game was designed around saving often.

Is that what you tell yourself at night, Jimbo?

I don't play games designed around saving often.

Sounds like a shit game.

Name some games and how they are designed around that mechanic

Okay.

All games that have quicksave and autosave features.

In the 80s we used to bitch about kids who would use cheat codes and shit like the game genie. Scrubs are scrubs, and ain't nothin' ever gonna change that.

I don't see the correlation or the developers' intentions in this

When you're still a shit player who memorized the level. As soon as you get to a new level, again you will restart to die over and over like an idiot.

It's only your first run through a stealth game, that counts. And we both know you sucked shit in that one.

How are they designed around saving constantly? I mean in-game like a game mechanic/gimmick.

How can the case for this not be made for every single video game level out there? Activate your brain a little.

Stay on reddit if you're going to moo like a bovine whenever you hear something you don't understand. Of course repeating the same level to learn stealth does not apply to a platform game, are you a cretin? It's an argument about stealth itself, not performance.

It does, never heard of memorizers? Games like R-Type, Metal Black, DustForce or Super Meat Boy?

What is?

you save constantly (even multiple saves) and reload your save if you get caught. Casual games love games like Thief, Desu Sex & Baulders Gate because its core design revolves around catering to save-scumming. In fact most CRPGs are notorious for catering to the savescum casual gamer. Its a shame really. So many savescummers confuse quantity for quality. In stead of being talented at a game because they developed a skill set they assume playtime is a suitable replacement for genuine skill. A person like boogie2988 who invest hundreds of hours into Skyrim but still can't beat Super Mario bros or Mega Man 2.

Quicksaves or being able to save anywhere isn't just muh stealth games problem, it applies to all games. It takes the risk of dying or whatever is a threat in the game you're playing. The only games where i think it didn't matter that much were strategy games.
stop with these bait threads, you nigger.

So casual gamers love Doom and Descent too given their ability to quicksave at any time?

Essentially yes in theory but qucksaving dosen't help them too much with games like Doom.

If I was a Dishonored shill, I'd have unironically used the term verticality at least three times. I do think Dishonored is the better game, though :^)

Fuck you, verticality is a great term.

Why not?

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there are two problems with most stealth games
a) the game is actually easier to complete with guns blazing
b) you're punished for not having perfect stealth meaning you're forced reload as soon as you're noticed

Playing without saves forces you to git gud. Knowing if you die you need to start over keeps you focused, concentrated and helps build your improvisational and survival skills.

All of that flies out of the window when you get in the habit of saving before every difficult part. You are using saves as a crutch and you will never improve as a player.

I bet you use emergent gameplay in regular conversation.

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When you say ghost run, do you mean True Ghost run with leaving no evidence behind and touching nobody, or just the simple "ghost" run with knockouts and minimal evidence?

Yeah. There's no gray area. You either can't make mistakes or have to give no fucks.

Yikes.

Because stealth games are not that complex. Why waste time go through the parts of a level you already went through?

if you are not using every tool at your disposal to eek out every possible advantage then you are not taking it seriously
if you choose to forgo an advantage on purpose, then so be it, this is whats known as a "challenge run"
if you are not "save scumming" in games that have such a feature built in, you are either doing a challenge run or playing casually

Steath game are essentiall all casual games since you remeber the level when you get caught, if it was a real non casual game you would need to start a new game along with all the levels change so you can not relay on your memory to help you beat the level, because how else is that any different from save scumming besides the fact that it is subconsciously done and you cant do anything to prevent it. Even then you get used to the tricks, mechanics of the games, so each time the game needs to be a brand new game, new controls, new mechanics etc for it to really prevent save scumming or memory scumming.

If I alarm anyone then I just restart the game, so yeah usually true ghost as in not firing a single shot or knocking anyone.

You had one too many words in that sentence. This is the correct statement.
Stop playing RNG shit. It's meant to be cancer.

Eke*

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I played Deus Ex and I save scummed a lot not only because I suck at stealth games and am a casual in it, but because I also want to know what will happen if I attack this/do that. Having said that, stealth games are fun, yet not my type. I am also trying to burn through my catalog as fast as possible thus I don't want to invest more time in one game Supreme Commander is fucking my time up. It is too fucking good and I usually waste the evening on playing it instead of the catalog.

user that's BS
You see how easy it is even on strategy games? Savescumming is the worst

What makes stealth games good tho?

literally all rooms in all games are:

sure sometimes you will pull some nice shit but the moment one guard spots you the whole mission is lost at least any hopes of a good score or stealth bonus, and it doesn't help these games encourage stealth over guns blazing but at the same time give you very few tools for it.

In Thief the guards can take alternate paths/change their route and there are so many + the level is so huge that it's impractical to figure out a guards path.

I remember I savescummed hard in spellforce but it was because that game cheated and went to complete shit at the end. I literally only played to see if it would get good again.

All the levels, minus the final one, where like this. It went from an RTS where the AI has a hefty advantage to, you literally cannot fight the enemy at all and your army only serves to crawl you through the level if you can even do that.

whenever a game lets me savescum i do it and there is nothing you can do to stop me

A big problem with stealth games is getting caught often isn't that big of a deal. You can quickly dispatch the guard who found you or quickly run and hide. Then you just have sit and stare at your screen for about a minute so the guard AI resets and you carry on like nothing happened. We need a stealth game where getting caught results in completely different guard routes, more guards, areas lit up, objectives practically blocked off because if a guy in a cloak and mask gets seen sneaking around, they will assume he is going for the VIP/safe/vault etc.

So you're damn right I savescum, it avoids that immersion shattering aspect of stealth and prevents fatigue with playing entire levels all over again. I don't savescum too hard though. I try to go for the checkpoint system.

Then you are a casual. Sorry.

If you want to stop players from save scumming, then the Postal 2 method is best. Let them save as much as they want, but if they save lets say 5 times in 5 minutes, make the character mock the player. The fact an inanimate game is mocking their insentient saving will hurt their ego, and either cause them to gitgud, or ignore it. Either outcome is fine, because the end result is the player enjoying the game the way they want to.

Quick save & Auto save are features, not a game design encouraging saving. If your games nolonger had quick save, but *gasp* just manual saves, would the levels instantly not be designed around saving alot? It's like saying every game with 3d person camera is designed around a 3d person camera. While it supports it, this could just be a shoe horned in feature.

Going to disagree.

He gets it!

No! Please, god no! normalfags, just let the term roguelike die!

From a XP, or reward standpoint, you can't reward the player for not getting caught. There reward is an easier time, not XP, not gold.

Come to think of it… no wonder i dont really like shooters when i play like that…

What if you reward them with more lore/plot routes/better waifus?

I don't do it but I'll always fault the game for not having a better save system implemented.

I dont get it, as far as I know they only resist knockout if they are already alert and searching for you

I've used it once to describe poking my boner when my hand's already in my pocket.

Sengoku rance would like to have a word with you.

They did this in the first Thief specifically in the Assassins level. If you got caught but escaped then you couldn't finish the level just by exiting the mansion instead you had to exit the neighbourhood as well. There's one other game that did this but I can't remember what it was.

They did this in the first Thief specifically in the Assassins level. If you got caught but escaped then you couldn't finish the level just by exiting the mansion instead you had to exit the neighbourhood as well. There's one other game that did this but I can't remember what it was.>>13561398

Pretty much this. Ghost (perfect stealth and no kill or knockouts), every objectives done, rank S; or restart. No exception. They will never know that I exist.

Roguelikes are the only genre that should have them but don't. I agree with . Quicksaving takes the fear of death away from the player. It's only justified in unpredictable games, or ones that require a lot of trial and error.

The difference you are overlooking is the existence of healthbars in shooters.

Success/Failure is not the only factor to be considered after the fight in a shooter, the amount of health you lost during the fight also plays a role. As such there are two ways of quicksaving in shooters, one way involves going forward regardless of the amount of damage you took. And that is a less helpful version of quicksaving because you're still paying for your incompetence for the later fights.

The second way involves using quicksaving to minimise the amount of damage taken during a fight, and while that is much more scummy in a way it does also mean you're pushing yourself to master a fight at a level you would not be normally expected to.

There's also the factor of when you can save, quicksaving in shooters tends to be done before and after fights instead of during them, because you're less inclined to want to risk a save in the middle of combat. Stealth games are much slower paced, so quicksavers tend to find they can comfortably save every severa; seconds.

because the games are not designed that way you massive autist?

if they wanted that they made a checkpoint system

Exactly. That's the only way to play unless you're a casual faggot bitch.

Try playing the Styx games.
Ghosting is the actual most fun way to play in those games because you always have multiple ways to move while staying hidden if you're clever and pay attention to the environment. You don't have to be constantly waiting for openings in guard routes, there's always some trick or maneuver that will get you past quickly and it makes the game flow very smoothly, really makes you feel like a clever sneaky little fucker.

The game was not designed for this. You know how I can tell? Because it's not fucking fun when you do it. It's a useful crutch when you are playing a level that has a particularly shitty part (i.e. chaingunner spam on low health) but that is usually the fault of the level designer. Doom 1 demonstrates this optimally because the levels were better designed and you don't have to quicksave. You can also start from any level with just a pistol and win without unreasonable difficulty.

while I always tried to do a ghost playthrough in every stealth game I've played, I agree with you, it the end the in-between is gone. I realize that I've started doing that shit since Chaos Theory, which was one of the first (if not the first) stealth games to rate you based on stealthiness at the end of levels. Ever since stealth games have gone down the dark path and ended up as lite roleplaying experiences. Before all that, I used to play throughout the game accepting my errors and try my best with any given situation instead of restarting to get that pointless score.

But that doesn't matter anyways, the genre is dead

>I don't like the concept of save scumming because it show everyone how much of a casual I am but I use Save scumming all the time
jej

shows*
much*

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