I hate getting kicked back to my last save when I die

[Sami+]

So I'm playing NieR Automata and loving it so far, but I had a realization yesterday- the way the game handles death is really frustrating to me. I don't really have as much time as I wish I did to sit down and play single player console games most of the time between work, school, extracurricular stuff, and just generally not spending much time at home.

When I set time aside to sit down to play Automata for about 2-3 hours, I found that the Normal is too easy, and Hard is a really enjoyable challenge, but because of the way the game punishes the player for dying, if I lose to a boss I not only have to go back to find my corpse and get my shit back without dying (think bloodstains in Souls), but I also lose about 15 minutes of progress because I have to go all the way back to what is pretty much the beginning of the mission. It's really frustrating because I really love games that challenge me and make me die a lot if I can get right back in the action, but punishing me by wasting my time just sucks the fun out of it and instead pushes me to just play on an easier mode so that I'll actually finish the game in a reasonable timeframe.

Does anyone else get annoyed by this?

 

[shnurgleton]

Nier does it intentionally for story reasons.

Generally I agree though. More games are handling it by just autosaving often, like BotW

 

[Cubas]

Play games that let you save anywhere, then. Or settle for Normal/Easy.

The way the game handles death is a design choice and part of the experience.

 

[Falk]

I remember thinking quicksave F5 and quickload F9 with a 3 second load time was the greatest thing ever.

And then I quicksaved right before a nade went off in COD4.

 

[DeathoftheEndless]

When I set time aside to sit down to play Automata for about 2-3 hours, I found that the Normal is too easy, and Hard is a really enjoyable challenge, but because of the way the game punishes the player for dying, if I lose to a boss I not only have to go back to find my corpse and get my shit back without dying (think bloodstains in Souls), but I also lose about 15 minutes of progress because I have to go all the way back to what is pretty much the beginning of the mission.

Eww. I was interested in the game, but that's giving me second thoughts.

 

[Sami+]

Play games that let you save anywhere, then. Or settle for Normal/Easy.

The way the game handles death is a design choice and part of the experience.

I do. Am I not allowed to voice my opinion on this design choice if I disagree with it? Hard is a lot more fun than Normal, but dying is bullshit and ruins the experience for me.

 

[JimmyRustler]

I actually like it. It's a good punishment and makes the fight more exhilarating as you know you have to do everything again in case you did. It's something that makes Souls so special.

 

[hom3land]

Back in my day if you died you'd have to start the game from the beginning.

 

[VeryGooster]

This has happened to me in Horizon Zero Dawn a few times where I have to traverse all the way back from somewhere because I got rekt by a beast.

I'm like 50/50 on it, but what's worse for me is dying in a game when reloading back takes fucking forever like the last few Assassin's Creed games. THAT feels like more a punishment.

 

[Kyzer]

I kind of like the arcade feel of it but it does drive me crazy when im an hour into stealthing through a level in mgs and collecting everything along the way and then i have to start over. Horizon is similar to mgsv in many ways

 

[Imp the Dimp]

I realized games where death has virtually no meaningful drawbacks like Uncharted 4 or The Last Guardian just bore me. I managed to finish TLG despite that, but I just flat out dropped Uncharted because I felt like nothing was at stake, with "checkpoints" in absurdly short intervals.

I understand the loss of time upon dying can be frustrating but it sure is one way to keep the tension up and one I really appreciate most of the time. It's definitely rare outside of Japanese games these days though.

 

[lvl99 Pixel]

And then I quicksaved right before a nade went off in COD4.

Original Half Life in a nutshell

 

[Shari]

I remember thinking quicksave F5 and quickload F9 with a 3 second load time was the greatest thing ever.

And then I quicksaved right before a nade went off in COD4.

Losing progress in a level because you play yourself is an acceptable trade for not having to access any menus/wait to save your progress.

F5/F9 is effectively the greatest thing ever. If consoles would implement that somehow I would be so happy. It would be a gamechanger, like the rest mode, I love the rest mode.

Edit: Oh and I fully agree with OP. I would play many more games in harder difficulties if they would be more respectful with my time.

 

[Falk]

Original Half Life in a nutshell

Thanks for the trench flashbacks. :| :| :|

 

[Nocturnowl]

Nier Automata has puzzled me because the two times I've died had different punishments.
The first was me being one of the prologue victims due to the opening boss where the game boots you right back to starting a new game upon death (and a little joke ending of sorts).
Okay I get that, yet the boss I fought in the amusement park area beat me and then let me retry immediately from the start of the battle as opposed to where I'd left my last quicksave, some consistency would've been nice.
It also felt odd since they dropped the whole spiel about recovering my body souls style, in this case that was a 3 second job.

 

[Sami+]

I realized games where death has virtually no meaningful drawbacks like Uncharted 4 or The Last Guardian just bore me. I managed to finish TLG despite that, but I just flat out dropped Uncharted because I felt like nothing was at stake, with "checkpoints" in absurdly short intervals.

I understand the loss of time upon dying can be frustrating but it sure is one way to keep the tension up and one I really appreciate most of the time. It's definitely rare outside of Japanese games these days though.

On the flip side I think it gives developers the option to make encounters a lot more engaging and/or difficult. I died like a million times in DOOM because I suck at FPS but it was suuuuper fun because death have the opportunity to review my strategy and try again immediately.

 

[Hairsplash]

Why is hard alot more fun than normal... obviously you should realize that on hard there are more chances of getting killed than on normal... which then leads to the question if you play on normal, you probably wouldn't have to save as much and the design wouldn't bother you as much...

Play on normal... know your capabilities, and enjoy the Game (IMO, on normal)

OTOH, use the AUTO-chip functionality... that should allow you to get out of tough spots.
BTW, why hard?, and not SUPER DEATH mode (one touch, it is over...)

I believe that the Auto-chip mode is the "auto-save LIKE functionality" in the game...

 

[Bending_Unit_22]

Saving in general is becoming an issue for me in games these days, I really need to be able to save anywhere, keep multiple saves, and preferably have an auto-save function. There are not many games I will continue to play if I lose and hour or more of progress due to forgetting to save or not being able to. Zelda is one so TP HD is lucky after I lost 2 hours of progress near the end of the desert dungeon due to a couple minute wind storm power outage.

I remember thinking quicksave F5 and quickload F9 with a 3 second load time was the greatest thing ever.

And then I quicksaved right before a nade went off in COD4.

That's why keeping the last few instances is the greatest thing ever. Not enough games do it though. When they don't I pretty much always end up in your situation in one way or another.

 

[Eumi]

This argument is often more a venting of frustration than anything (because boy do I start to make it when I die a lot).

The problem is where exactly should a game put you when you die? N:A doesn't undo progress, it just puts you back at a spawn point. So should each spawn be closer to the boss? How close? Should the game set a checkpoint at each phase of the boss, or should it only set one at the start? What about bosses that are in fact multiple fights in a row? What amount of progress is acceptable to reset upon death?

It's a problem with no real answer. The best solution is the N:A or Souls system where games reset the area as if you had reloaded it, but don't undo quest or item progression. But even then it's still up to the devs to design checkpoints in a way that feels fun and fair in each situation.

Like, having to redo the shmup segment of a boss on death feels much better than having to redo the shmup segment of the level leading to a boss. Even though in abstract they're the same thing.

 

[tommycronin]

I like games that punish me harshly for dying, but also being fair about it. I tend to actually die a lot less in games that do that type of thing, not just out of fear of losing progress but out of stubbornness on my part that I refuse to let the game beat me.

 

[Sami+]

Nier Automata has puzzled me because the two times I've died had different punishments.
The first was me being one of the prologue victims due to the opening boss where the game boots you right back to starting a new game upon death (and a little joke ending of sorts).
Okay I get that, yet the boss I fought in the amusement park area beat me and then let me retry immediately from the start of the battle as opposed to where I'd left my last quicksave, some consistency would've been nice.
It also felt odd since they dropped the whole spiel about recovering my body souls style, in this case that was a 3 second job.

What

I just did that boss and wished I could have done it on hard, how the fuck does this game work

Why is hard alot more fun than normal... obviously you should realize that on hard there are more chances of getting killed than on normal... which then leads to the question if you play on normal, you probably wouldn't have to save as much and the design wouldn't bother you as much...

Play on normal... know your capabilities, and enjoy the Game (IMO, on normal)

OTOH, use the AUTO-chip functionality... that should allow you to get out of tough spots.
BTW, why hard?, and not SUPER DEATH mode (one touch, it is over...)

I believe that the Auto-chip mode is the "auto-save LIKE functionality" in the game...

Fighting enemies on Hard is more fun because it requires more skill and is generally more engaging. Normal is too easy- I haven't died at all yet. I want to have a fear of dying, not of having to lose my progress, waste my time, and not have beaten the game until next year.

 

[DeathoftheEndless]

The problem is where exactly should a game put you when you die? N:A doesn't undo progress, it just puts you back at a spawn point. So should each spawn be closer to the boss? How close? Should the game set a checkpoint at each phase of the boss, or should it only set one at the start? What about bosses that are in fact multiple fights in a row? What amount of progress is acceptable to reset upon death?

There should always be an auto-save right before a boss fight. If there are multiple bosses, put it before the first one.

 

[Sami+]

There should always be an auto-save right before a boss fight. If there are multiple bosses, put it before the first one.

^^^^^^^^^^

Even Souls basically does this with the shortcuts, with very few exceptions

 

[Imp the Dimp]

^^^^^^^^^^

Even Souls basically does this with the shortcuts, with very few exceptions

Souls doesn't do it. Not even sure how you made that connection.

 

[Infest]

I haven't encountered a passage ( after the prologue) in Nier Automata where you could lose 15 minutes.Traversing is so fast, you can usually just run to the point where your body lies in ~2 minutes.

 

[Eumi]

Souls doesn't do it. Not even sure how you made that connection.

I think he's using 'save' kinda loosely, since he's made a thread about being kicked back to the last save and then proceeded to talk about a game that doesn't do that.

 

[Tain]

I like the sense of tension that comes from being sent somewhat far back on death. If the experience of replaying whatever I have to replay is enjoyable enough, I vastly prefer this to simply rewinding a few seconds. Many games wouldn't hold up under that level of scrutiny.

Intelligently-placed spaced-out checkpoints (don't make me replay long empty traversal, and lord help me if your cutscenes are unskippable) are good in otherwise good action games.

 

[fredrancour]

Nier does it intentionally for story reasons.

Generally I agree though. More games are handling it by just autosaving often, like BotW

BotW has been great about placing saves at points where I never lose real progress but also never saving me in a position where I already feel doomed.

 

[Lothar]

I realized games where death has virtually no meaningful drawbacks like Uncharted 4 or The Last Guardian just bore me. I managed to finish TLG despite that, but I just flat out dropped Uncharted because I felt like nothing was at stake, with "checkpoints" in absurdly short intervals.

Agreed, with nothing at stake, there's no tension, there's no reason to care. You should be wanting death not to happen in a game and do what you can to avoid it happening. So I think it's good to be kicked back to last save.

 

[shira]

Sweet summer child . . .

 

[Sami+]

Souls doesn't do it. Not even sure how you made that connection.

When you lose to a Souls boss it takes like two minutes before you're fighting it again. With very few exceptions.

 

[Raven117]

Oh, its usually okay, but for some reason it really irritates me in Horizon.

I guess its because there are some drops that are RNG (like a heart of something), you get it..but on your way back somewhere you get trampled by something...and now you don't have that RNG drop. Its usually not a HUGE set back, but it can be frustrating.

 

[*Splinter]

Depends on the game for me, as well as how death is handled.

In Soulsborne games, for example, I generally don't mind death. I expect them to be reasonably difficult and will be giving them the required attention, and death is usually my own fault. I also know I dont lose everything on death, and it's at most a few minutes from the nearest bonfire back to my corpse.

Currently playing the Witcher 3 however and death is nothing but a chore. The game is so easy for long stretches that I just kind of stopped caring about combat, so when I do die it's intensely frustrating. You can only lose 10 minutes at most, but when you reload your last save you know you'll be spending the next few minutes doing the exact same thing you already did, its a complete waste of time. Basically I don't "respect" the games combat enough to take it seriously, so when I die I'm not excited by the prospect of a challenge to overcome.

 

[Imp the Dimp]

Agreed, with nothing at stake, there's no tension, there's no reason to care. You should be wanting death not to happen in a game and do what you can to avoid it happening. So I think it's good to be kicked back to last save.

Or any kind of penalty like losing money, experience (like in Path of Exile) or whatever. Naturally, death should definitely be something you absolutely want to avoid. Said games completely fail to build any tension on the back of their game mechanics. You die, it doesn't matter. Might as well instead watch a Marvel move with protagonists with impenetrable plot armor.

 

[Mechazawa]

Wait, wut. Nier has a corpse run?

Interesting...

 

[arts&crafts]

Or any kind of penalty like losing money, experience (like in Path of Exile) or whatever. Naturally, death should definitely be something you absolutely want to avoid. Said games completely fail to build any tension on the back of their game mechanics. You die, it doesn't matter. Might as well instead watch a Marvel move with protagonists with impenetrable plot armor.

Yea Path of Exile / Diablo 2 do it well. You lose 10% of experience which is a significant amount after level 90, but you also dont lose your character! (Like hardcore) I am too much of a wimp to play hardcore with my internet connection.

 

[DeathoftheEndless]

Even Souls basically does this with the shortcuts, with very few exceptions

Most games manage to do it alright. Having to go through a long ordeal after dying makes me give up on a game really quickly. The Church of Latter Day Souls people love it though.

 

[Bastos]

I do. Am I not allowed to voice my opinion on this design choice if I disagree with it? Hard is a lot more fun than Normal, but dying is bullshit and ruins the experience for me.

Don't die then. :>

 

[EGM1966]

It doesn't bother me too much if the design makes sense - although I prefer save options that minimise unnecessary loss but f time.

What I actually dislike is huge time consuming bosses - that's the real time waster for me. Anything that's merely repeat/rinsing a sequence of attacks for a long time to wear down a huge health bar turns me off.

That said you might want to avoid Alien Isolation. I love it but if you go about it the wrong way you can loose huge chunks of progress.

10/15 min I can accept as a learning punishment: but there better not be a boss who takes 30 minutes or more to whittle down each time!

 

[Dougieflesh]

Nier has quick save spots everywhere though.

 

[Mr Git]

I remember thinking quicksave F5 and quickload F9 with a 3 second load time was the greatest thing ever.

And then I quicksaved right before a nade went off in COD4.

I learnt that lesson in Alone in the Dark 2 - had to restart the game once I'd got stuck in an accidental quicksave death loop.

I think the problem with these kind of games is when you don't have an ability to quickly save the game - if it's a slow console game with laborious menus for example I'll probably be less inclined to save often and then reap redoing hours of progress like an idiot.

 

[Sami+]

Nier has quick save spots everywhere though.

Am I missing them? I played the desert and amusement park yesterday. Closest save spots to the bosses were both relatively far away.

 

[Hentailover]

I want to have a fear of dying, not of having to lose my progress,

What? This sentence makes no sense to me. How else do you punish death? The reason we fear death is BECAUSE we lose progress. There's literally no other meaningful consequence unless they wire us to some shock machine and inflict actual physical pain...

 

[danmaku]

Following the same reasoning, I could ask: why do I have to restart a boss fight from the beginning when I die? I don't want to lose progress, I took 50% of his health bar and now he's back at 100%! Arcade games didn't do that, if you died you usually respawned instantly (though some games still used checkpoints, like Gradius or R-Type), but you had limited lives and you had to pay for continues. In a console game you have infinite lives so they need some other kind of threat.

 

[Sami+]

What? This sentence makes no sense to me. How else do you punish death? The reason we fear death is BECAUSE we lose progress. There's literally no other meaningful consequence unless they wire us to some shock machine and inflict actual physical pain...

When you die at the end of a level in a game like Super Meat Boy, you grit your teeth and do it again and again until you finally beat the level after like 20-30 tries. It feels immensely satisfying, especially since that particular game shows you the replay of all the times you died happening concurrently with your final run.

Can you imagine how much that game would have sucked if after every death you had to waste 15 minutes before you could try again?

 

[Rezae]

Back in my day we didn't have ......


I will say now that I'm older and have time constraints with my gaming (and a lot of other things I could be doing), restarting from a previous save can be annoying, but it's also a good deterrent to try to ... not die. There has to be some challenge/consequences.

 

[SatoAilDarko]

I love how the Xenoblade games send to the nearest landmark with all your progress (items, finished quests, discoveries) up to the point of your death maintained

Allows for exploration to feel less scary.

 

[RubberLuffy]

Am I missing them? I played the desert and amusement park yesterday. Closest save spots to the bosses were both relatively far away.

There's a vending machine in the Desert Housing Complex in the left entrance to the zone, and there's one in the Park near the broken ride that you side scroll platform on. Both of those are reasonably close to the bosses, did you use them? Like 2 minute runs at best.

 

[Tigress]

Back in my day if you died you'd have to start the game from the beginning.

Same here. And I don't miss those days one bit. I mean I love fallout survival but if you die the game doesn't stay the exact same when you have to redo so it stays interesting. Having to redo the same stuff you already did before just gets boring.

Basically having to redo a lot of the game if you die is only fun if the game isn't something that will throw the exact same stuff at you all over again. Stuff like angband for example (where the dungeon changes every time).

 

[reson8or]

Love it or leave it, in N:A that's done intentionally. Toughen up OP!