To Save Scum Or Not To Save Scum (The Jimquisition) 

Save scumming imo encourages experimentation and mixing up strategies without having to slog through whatever comes before the boss/enemy you keep losing to.

To save scum or not to save scum? Answer: who gives a shit. Play how you want

People who don't want to save scum are welcome to never do it, but it truly makes one a boob to try and hold it up as a moral imperative.

I have to say, as someone who watched your content years ago but for some reason just got distracted and missed a few years, it’s wonderful to see you so clearly happier and more comfortable in yourself.

More games should acknowledge and encourage save scumming as an integral part of the gameplay, IMO. I'm still blown away at how Undertale managed to make the practice of save scumming an absolutely integral part of its plot and characterization.

Fun Sierra Fact! One reason Sierra games were so notoriously evil with its puzzles and consequences, according to Al Lowe, was that they realized they sold more hint books than copies for said games at times, so it became a backup income where copy protection had failed.

Related to save scumming due to failing a check: I recommend checking out the game Hard West. There is an interesting mechanic where if you miss an attack with, say, 70% chance to hit, you get 70 points in a luck pool. You can spend those points on any roll to increase your success chance one-for-one. The end result is I'm not too upset about missing a shot that I had a good chance of hitting because that means later on I'll be able to boost a wild pot-shot into a certain hit.

Lets not forget that D&D itself does not always need to be played by the books. There is an unspoken rule/agreement that DM's can use to make actions or choices that should not have worked still happen: The Rule of Cool Sometimes you can bend the rules a bit or allow for somethint to happen because it is thematic or would have made the story better. In D&D its a matter of the DM just saying "Sure, I'll allow it" but in things like BG3 its called Save Scumming. Enjoy what you purchased, enjoy the story you are creating with your character.

I haven't seen a video from Stephanie for a while (thanks RU-vid & my memory?) but holy hell I have to say she looks absolutely amazing. Thank God for you for being an inspiration to us who are struggling with identity and acceptance.

I absolutely love Project Zomboid, a game notoriously difficult, where it takes hours of real-life time to grind one skill up a single level, and ONE SINGLE MISTAKE will see you bitten by a zombie and that character lost forever, without even the option to savescum and undo that error. I also absolutely love Rimworld, a game where I can savescum when my favorite colonist loses her eye and redo the fight until she comes out of it as pretty as I want her to be by the time my colony has become a self-sustaining metropolis. I play games on their own terms, unless I'd have more fun playing them on my own.

I thought a lot about this recently with the genie at the fair. they even hyped up this encounter pre-release, how you can catch him cheating and he can turn you into cheese, or you can steal his cheating ring. but the first time I did it I didn't see him cheat. just failed a perception check (with a +8 to perception checks lol). it can be fun to lose. but it's not fun to just not experience something at all

Stephanie, your idea of braglins is simply brilliant. I was so mesmerized by the sheer ingenuity I had to rewatch that clip several times just to process the mere thought of it. Truly one of the fashion-forward minds of the century 🍷🧐🧠

Save scumming is an ancient and noble tradition

I remember save scumming so much in Abe's exodus that I was stuck in a loop. I do not regret it at all.

Those Hero Forge stills were wonderfully done!

11:53 Man, I loved police quest, but jeez in the first one If you take the woman's phone number instead of giving her a ticket you don't realise you screwed yourself until a few hours later. In PQ3, I messed up by not taking the batteries for the torch in the first part of the game, and 4 hours later, it came back to haunt me.

Also the point about your character being purposefully specced for something and wanting them to succeed at a basic task (aka strong character should be able to bust down a standard door, thief should be able to succeed with basic lockpick etc), is why i think so many newer tabletops have removed a lot of the excess 'useless' rolls for something ur character should actively be able to do. Something like Monster of the Week has a lot of steps in place to ensure if your character can shoot a gun good, and has no pressure put on them in the moment, then god damn they shoot a gun good, no need to roll. If your character can pick a lock good, then by god they do it. The game is focused more on outcomes, rule of cool, and roleplay over dice rolls.

My main reason for save scumming in a game like BG3: it helps my severe decision paralysis and fomo to know i can literally watch every scene play out in different ways. I'll ACTIVELY make bad decisions on purpose, so save scumming doesn't mean me trying to get the 'best' results (altho if that's why you do it, live your best life and more power to you, quing). For me it's just like "damn i wonder how it would have gone if i'd chosen x instead" and save scumming allows me to just watch that first hand without having to looking up 500 youtube playthroughs, find one that doesn't talk over the top of it all, skip through the videos and find the one that makes exactly the same diagloue choices i wanted to see.

Definitely a non issue. I’ve played BG 1 and 2 a hundred times each and I’m an expert on all the best times to save

Was NOT expecting the "The Government Knows" cameo shot…

That's the thing about trpgs. The dice make things uncertain but in theory the consequences of your actions are based on the actions, not the dice results. As an example, you need to get past a guard you have several ways to do so. You could intimidate the guard. Sneak past the guard. Bribe the guard. Etc. Now, the dice will decide whether or not you succeed or fail, but the approach you took decides what the consequences of that success or failure will be. A failed intimidation might lead to combat. A failed bribe check might lead to suspicion and make subsequent stealth attempts harder. A failed stealth check might lead to the infiltration taking a long time or force a persuasion check to explain why you're hanging around. The idea is that the approach you take isn't just going to be determined by what your characters are best at, but also by the consequences that approach will have. You could genuinely get an interesting game experience out of a system where failure is impossible, just by accounting for the fact that even success has consequences. Successfully intimidating the guard means he might be coming back in the future with backup. Sneaking means the guard is still there, unaware of your presence, but remains an obstacle on the way out. Bribery leaves a trail that could see investigators pursuing you days after the event. And this is something that a video game is much worse at handling than a GM at the table.

The easiest antidote to savescumming is to make failure as interesting as success. Getting the bad outcome shouldn’t hate you off from a story, it should be the entry point to a different one. More than a few games like, say, The Fist of Mars have a dark timeline branch that is more compelling and better-written than the success one. Ironman works in XCOM and co because I’m losing things for good keeps the game challenging and lets a story emerge. My preferred story path in Mass Effect is bleak timeline, where every story has to go the worst and you have to let each companion die unless they can die later in a more sad way, and that takes MORE work and care to set up than a win-the-most run. If failure just means you get to sit outside the gate watching the good story happen, forget it.

Skeleton Warrios gag happened in this video. Nice

As a heavy modder for making games as immersive and usually as difficult as possible, I still think this is some genius take on the subject. The best take, in fact! I sure hope you dont need to switch up the channel subject matter. The insight and comedy is kinda unrivaled!

I GET why ‘save scumming’ is a topic of conversation with this game and not others. It sticks closer to its roots as a tabletop game. And it’s remarkably well designed (like Steph mentioned) show you the big consequences of your actions down the line after you’ve committed to the choice. If they wanted you to live with the consequences of a beefed roll they wouldn’t include saves anywhere or the whole ‘Karmic Dice’ setting. It’s fine! Reload if need be!

Yes, Steph, you are correct. DMs of D&D or any TTRPG do like to make their players deal with the consequences of their actions and their dice rolls. We're evil like that. bwaahahaha.

I save scummed a lot in bethesda games before I even knew the term. Mostly because you never know when the game is going to crash lol. People want a safety net when either the stakes are really high and losing progress really sucks, or there's a balancing/other issue. It's a case by case play. Heck sometimes I'll nuzlocke myself in a game to raise the stakes if it's too easy/safe. I nuzlocked myself last night. Just have fun with it.

So heres an interesting thing. I play lot of D&D. I love living with my consequences. I often go in with a character thats set up to get worse consequences, by making a detailed backstory that intentionally gives my gm tools to hurt me with (aka npc friends and family). That said, I love save scumming, ESPECIALLY in story heavy games. I have been save scumming constantly for tiny shit. Why? Because I want to see different outcomes and fun details and pick. And I'm not necessarily picking the optimal or "best" choice. I'm picking the choice I think will give me the most entertaining outcome. I whiped warg shit on my face and let Volo stick a needle in my eye (actually, that kinda worked out mechanically speaking, much to my surprise). Yesterday I accepted subpar loot over a quest reward because I thought the quest giver was a dick and decided it'd be more fun to murder the shit out of him. When it comes down to it, no matter how closely BG3 approximates playing D&D, a pve game and playing D&D with your friends just arent the same thing. So tl:dr, YES fully agree. Also, I see you also wiped worg shit on your face YOU STUPID IDIOT. Excellent choice. Would do again.

Right as I was thinking "why didn't Steph call them Braglins," Steph says it. Also, I've been save scumming for ages. I didn't even realize there was a moral debate over it. There's already a situation where I have to live with the consequences of my actions. It's called real life.

It's like Civvie says, "It's not how much you save, it's how much you load."

The little cameos of the Amiel du Hardcore chracter makes me want Commentocracy to come back. Bonus points if the character too transitions, I wanna see steph in like. A big dress and stuff.

I don't play RPGs, but one thing I can say is that for many arcade games, save states are a necessity for many to complete them faster without repeating the first few stages over and over again or spamming continues all the way through. Their difficulty is masochistic to serve their primary function of burning 100 yen coins as quickly as possible. It's good for business, but it often prevents the best games from having a chance for their design to be fully appreciated. For this reason, I think saving games could be useful for newcomers wanting to get a grip on a game without dragging themselves through mud as much. Save states will void the legitimacy of a run, at least specifically for arcade games, but the experience one can acquire from using them is invaluable in eventually clearing the whole game in one clean run without continues. Essentially, they don't make the games easier, but they help you get better. And when you do, that's when these games shine at their brightest!

I didn't know Withers in your camp will just resurrect any of your main characters that died in battle for like 200 gold

In case someone wants to access age gated videos, there are tools that let you do that without having to hand your personal information over to Google!

Ya know, I finally got around to playing Disco Elysium and at first I tried just going with it, but then I was like, "what if I save-scummed to get even the 3% chance things?" and I very quickly got so tired and bored. And, I may have accidently bounced off the game as a result lol That, and I just didn't know where to go, what to do, and was getting very tired of the contant tsunami of dialogue... which I guess is the whole point of the game but still 😅😅😅 I guess the game just isn't for me.

When I was a kid, I played Need For Speed: Most Wanted and wanted to do a game where I won every Blacklist Racers Car. The reward was hidden behind a 3 choice "hidden reward" feature after beating said boss. I SHAMELESSLY saved, raced and switched off my PS2 if I didn't pick the pinkslip, having to redo the race over again 😂

Honestly the only times I save scummed in BG3 was when the game decided all the friendly NPCs I just helped in a fight want to kill me now because one of them walked into the firewall I summoned and it counted as me attacking them.

I try not to save scum on my first run through an RPG but after that it's no holds barred. Same thing with console commands and game altering mods

I do think BG3 does a good job of *usually* not just absolutely ruining the game because you got a bad dice roll, but there are definitely still instances where I felt compelled to save scum because something happened as a result of a phenomenally low roll (e.g. my friend failed the wisdom check to free shadowheart on the nautiloid, which had a difficulty class of 2, lol)

Those are indeed fabulous Bogs Steph. ;P Also as a fellow disaster dom, that was quite impeccable work on that front too.

When it comes to CRPGs/CRPG-adjacent adventure games, I think some people want to be an actor, playing out the story and just seeing what's in store, and others want to be the director, actually telling the story through their actions. Save scumming gives me the ability to control what story the game tells, which is my preferred way of interacting with story-based games. If I fail the Authority check in the church when playing Disco Elysium, there is no negotiation to be had, I'm loading my game, because *my* story of Disco Elysium is one in which Harry gets *one* unambiguously good time where not only does he not ruin it, but he actually gets Kim to goddamn dance.

I'm of the old school opinion that the term "savescumming" only applies when the game itself it not supposed to allow you to save and retry when you fail, but you use some technical means to bypass that restriction. The concept seems to have originated with the old school roguelikes such as NetHack that delete your save file if you die. In that game, copying and renaming the save beforehand so you can retreive the lost run is savescumming. I would consider the Dark Souls design to be comparable as well despite not being a roguelike. In any game that permits you to save at any time, and reload when it doesn't go the way you want, savescumming is not a thing. That's an artificial extension of the term to include any saving/loading in any game (the way the "hardcore gamers" might describe it), despite the fact that they are factually wrong and imposing an arbitrary standard on the enjoyment of a game, whether it be their own or anyone else's. I consider it toxic to shame people for using game features as designed. But that's enough about that. Your curls are super cute, and always a pleasure to see as much tatas as possible. Fuck youtube for their double standards and transphobia.

In our D&D game we roll with what happens but if something happened someone particularly didn’t like and they weren’t having fun because of it, we just retcon so everyone is happy cause it’s just a game ya know

I saved-scummed a lot in Fallout 4 since I couldn't tell what my character would say based on the dialogue options. I've also saved-scummed to see different endings or join with varying factions in RPGs if I don't have time to replay the game and explore options naturally (which is more often as I get older). Suppose an RPG gives meaningful consequences or unique experiences to success and failure (beyond more/less loot or easier/more brutal fights). In that case, I'll generally avoid save-scumming - Disco Elysium is a good example of that!

I remember an old PnP Game of DnD when my character was killed in about 20 minutes.. I shrugged and watched the rest of the crew die miserably. Its part of the game.

I'm fucking 43, I've been playing RPGs since I could read. Savescumming is just how you play a damned game and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. Tabletop is one thing as I'm sitting down and playing with others, but computer games are a different animal especially RPGs that are predominantly single player, who really gives a shit if I reload a save or use an editor to give myself better starting stats.

Simple answer in my view, however it feels best is right. Do you want to be the hero who passes every hurdle? Sure, save & reload. Do you want to try and salvage every outcome? Don't. No skin off of anyone else's back.

Technically, I realize one of my favorite games was not meant to be cleared with a score as high as one can get through save-scumming. But the fact that people went out of their way to find out that it was possible didn't feel unfair to me, it felt like a really tedious but ultimately rewarding challenge. But hey- I play games the way I feel like; without negative or positive thoughts on points like save-scumming. Except that it will ultimately be tedious and perhaps bore me into wanting to continue because I'd rather fight a new fight instead of the same one I've already tried to perfect for the umpteenth time.

Sometimes, you NEED to save. Not just for the sake of playing it safe, but sometimes, the devs made a bad design choice and it's a way of restoring some balance to the game. For example, Thieves Guild radiant quests in Skyrim. You need to do a number of them in every city (4 total cities) before you get a special mission in each city to get the title of Guild Master. BUT the game gives you these missions randomly and you might get 10 missions in places you don't want, before you get 1 in a city you want. So save, see what city you get and go from there, reload if it's not what you need or do it if it is. This could have all been solved with an extra question from the quest giver: "Hey, where do you want to go?" So, I see save scumming as a noble fix to this issue, not even an exploit or a cheat.

"Without Karlach I am nothing" They're like me fr fr.

Wait, wait, wait... are you saying I made hundreds of saves in mass effect 2 in order to get the entire crew survive the suicide mission? Well I never (ok I did but shut up, I dont want to face consequences ok).

Big boss fight, end of act 2. My first go around, went absolutely shit. I was all over the place, I made some bad calls, and my party got rocked. In a real D&D that would probably mean rolling up a new character. Or at least dealing with the fallout of not stopping the bad guys. Baldur's Gate three doesn't have mechanics for that, and I felt like continuing my play through, so I loaded up one of my 3 or 4 pre boss saves and gave it another go. Knowing what the enemies had in store, and what I needed to do to win, made the second attempt really quite easy. That doesn't feel that far from save scumming to get the option you want, and seems to me an intended way of playing the game (outside of Honour Mode (which I am not playing (because sometimes my entire party die)))

16:07 I wouldn't expect any less from the bard main.

I rarely save scum, falling into either of two categories: - Help if I don't get to redo this I'm softlocked - Help I did do it but I didn't do it *perfectly* The second type tends to be detrimental to my enjoyment of a game, so I try to do it as little as possible. The first is a welcome get-out-of-jail-free card for hard mode.

The term "save scumming" is too general because you can't tell whether it means just saving a lot, just loading a lot or doing both a lot. I like to save a lot because sometimes the game is being a game and things bug out, and occasionally I even get wiped and have no choice but to load and don't want to go back to 1 hour ago. As for reloading just because I can, I try to do it as little as possible, usually only because I am not sure what exactly the lines mean that I am supposed to choose, or because something is absolutely intrinsic to my character's identity, like the Necromancy of Thay when I'm RPing as the mightiest necromancer on the planet, for example.

Thanks to my party being constantly wiped, the decision was made without my input

save scumming is great when you're just playing games for some escapist fantasy. if I wanted to go around saying the wrong thing and ruining all my relationships I wouldn't play a video game, I'd go outside and live my life.

Honestly reloading saves makes the game more bearable when I have significantly less time to play, and don't want to fumble around in the menial stuff or have all the good experiences spoiled for me before I can get to them.

How is this even a question? Save scumming all the way! If someone believes in a set of strict, arbitrary rules, they are free to follow them, I guess.

In the end I agree, player should have the choice, and aim to whatever give them the more fun. Although let's be honest, sometimes we will go the unfun way if it's possible. So I can understand devs who would force us to do some things just to avoid their seemingly unfun path.

Desert Bus or the Beat-A-Game Button.

Depends on how you do it i guess? If you're reloading fights after every miss you're doing something wrong.

Games that kill off party members permanently are fine, but when you need high level party members to advance the story then you're now faced with a long grind to get them back to level 30 or whatever they were. Now if I could recruit a new player who was already level 25, that's different. That's an inconvenience but doesn't ruin 40hrs worth of playtime. Unfortunately some games make you start from zero on a party wipe and basically play the entire game again. No thanks.

My opinion: the point of a video game is to tell the story that you want to tell. If you want to save scum in order to tell the correct story in your mighty and considered opinion, oh infallible gamer, then do so. If you do not, then do not. My favorite time I save scummed was when I was playing Pillars of Eternity the one with the boats and I was picking who to ally with. I wanted to keep everyone in my group happy, and ensure they did not leave (as my Watcher has a crippling fear of loneliness)...which meant reloading a save prior to selecting my ally about three times before finding the one path that meant no one left. In case you were wondering, it was the path where my Watcher allied with no one. And yes, I did consult a wiki. I also need to actually sail forth...but we'll get there.

Dear Steph, I'm a GM who utilizes Pushed Rolls in every game I run. Everything outside of most combat, I allow for re-rolls of failed checks. Let's play sometime!

Personally, my logic with Baldur's Gate 3 and "save scuming" is rather simple. My first playtrough solo? I'm save scuming all the fucking time to see all the options! But I'm also playing multiplayer, and there we just keep going foward no matter how bad we fuck up.

I never understood why it bothers some people what others do with their games. Sure, tell your stories of awesome experiences without save scumming, but why do people feel the need to judge and berate others for save scumming? What does it deduct from others if someone save scums? I save scum. A lot. Always have. I've also played tabletop RPG:s a long time without feeling the need to have a save feature and I remember some truly epic adventures that never would have happened if the GM had allowed us to "go back" when things got hairy. Even more recently I've been playing BG3 with a friend without save scumming and we've been having a blast. Will I stop save scumming when I play alone? Nope. And it's nobody's business.

I’ve been playing a lot of Fear & Hunger lately and I’ve been save scumming a lot, due to deliberately unfair and frustrating it can be

For me if there's a major consequence that I felt was a little unfair in that it didn't/wasn't conveyed to me that there would be consequence to that *degree* then I might save scum; esp. when there's interactions that turn everyone in the town hostile, esp. when its buggy as fuck to try to break free/escape the combat.

Game developers will create whatever save system they feel fits their game the best. With Dark Souls, it makes sense to not save scum. With Elder Scrolls, it makes sense to be able to. With Final Fantasy, it makes sense to have to complete an entire section before being able to save again. All that being said, it might be cool to have an option of how you want to go about it, so if you want to play without save scumming, you can check a box before the play-through in order to disable it so you aren't tempted. This could lead to things like achievements, etc. Also, I feel like people don't talk about the difference between single player games and social games like D&D. In a single player game, who the hell cares? Save scum for all I care. In D&D? The inability to save scum is counterbalanced by the social element of the game (working together towards a common goal), and the way that the game is designed around characters dying and being replaced within the story. This is also why I don't like multiple difficulty levels in a game like WoW, but for Skyrim, SURE. Why not?

I'm just too curious not to save scum to be honest. I just say "for science!" then choose something I even know I wouldn't probably want to roll with just to see what happens. Then I make a mental note and will go that path on a different play through if it's not a route I was expecting or wanted for this play through.

I think it's a similar question with whether you use wikis and guides for playing through an RPG - effectively, do you want the 'right' answer or do you want a more 'realistic' playthrough where you leave yourself open to making mistakes and letting the game hit you for your "poor" judgements? Where I tend to fall on this spectrum depends a lot on how much information and clarity the game gives you in regards to the consequences of your actions - if a game either is badly written (so you can't reliably guess the likely consequences of your actions) or hyper-complex, then having that safety net of being able to check what the consequences of the actions might be is useful if (for example) there's a chance of a favourite character dying or a massive game changing state coming which you can't reasonably expect, and where the decisions which underly that don't are seeded much earlier in the game. Depending on the game, I tend to try and do a first playthrough with as little information as possible and feel the way myself, both in terms of characters and decisions, but also in terms of builds and abilities, but for subsequent ones I tend to use guides to ensure the best outcomes for the playthrough I want - Dragon Age Inquisition is an obvious example because a lot of the canon decisions for the end-game state aren't entirely obvious and the counters are hard to track, and following my first playthrough, I found that the choice of Divine my world state had produced was the complete opposite of what I actually wanted, so playing through a second time, I used the guides to inform my choices and work out what the game wanted from me. Again, that doesn't preclude people from doing it 'the old fashioned way' and learning from experience, but when a playthrough has the potential to be several games long, it's useful to know in advance what the consequences of certain actions might be across 2-3 games before you make them.

I started gaming in the 80s. BG3 is a lot like those older games. If you make the wrong choices, there are lots of chances that your entire party gets wiped out. No matter what, type going to have to save-scum. What's the alternative? Starting the entire game over and over from scratch every time you have a party wipe?

Save Scumming is the only way to reliably get Colossus armor for entire squad in ME1. I will always be pro-save scumming. It doesnt effect anyone but the person playing the game.

Is Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever some guilty pleasure of yours? It keeps popping up and I very much approve!

Something Something Cleavage. Something Something Game Mechanics. Great video as always, Commander.

I save scum so frequently in BG3 I don’t care what other people think. There are no rules to when I save scum. Sometimes I allow catastrophic consequences, sometimes I don’t, it’s vibes based. Great game.

LOOK AT THE BOGLINS ON THAT!

I mean, if you don't want to save scum, that's what ironman mode is for.

I cannot help but think about Undertale and the morals and lessons that game addressed... Sure, save scum all you want. I do, and I'm a bloody perfectionist, so that Load button gets a lot of milage. It is our games, so who's to tell us how to play them? But then, what about consequences that the game can remember despite our save scumming? Are they fine? It is, after all, still the developer's game, so who's to tell them that they can or cannot tell us that we cannot run from our consequences forever?

Has anyone ever played Fallout 3 without saving before a speech check?

I remember before _Half-Life 2,_ save scumming was the norm. _HL2_ added autosave checkpoints _on top of_ the usual save features. Also most old games were made so that a bad run (say, getting seen in a stealth bit) could otherwise end the game or ruin hours of work. So yes, if you feel the need to save scum, bang on that [F5] key. Later games would just reduce the consequences of dying, though multi-ending games wanted to make sure we regretted hitting on the wrong characters, or having an opinion different than the blacksmith's. I look forward to a time when I can just hit back with an apology and a round of drinks at the tavern, and the Blacksmith will give me his buddy discount after all. That said, I'm not only on Team-Scum, but also Team-Cheat (at least when it comes to single-player games) but this emerged from banging my head against _Borderlands 2_ Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode (UVHM) which _required_ finding exploits in order to make fun. Of course, as an old man now (who's also left-handed), there's a gray-zone between cheating and fixing accessibility problems.

Pathologic 2 has the best approach to save scumming; you're more than welcome to do it, but the game tracks player deaths outside of the save system and the game itself flat out tells you you can't escape the punishments for failure (which are for the most part not significant factors in playing the game anyway)

I've saved scum my whole way through baldurs gate 3 sometimes I'm happy I've done it and some times I'm not. Next playthrough I'm gonna go through without any just to see what happens

for anyone who needs to hear it: ITS YOUR GAME YOU BOUGHT IT PLAY IT THE WAY YOU WANT TO thank you

Savescum? That's called being clever and playing cleverly. If you can save there, you should. Cheesing? Also good strategy. Winning whilst being cool and dashing and suave and debonair is all that matters.

I never even considered "saving the game" was bad so I was surprised even hearing that "save-scumming" was a term, at a time it was like a decade after quicksaves stopped being a thing and digitally messy programming created the need to make a basic accessibility and user-friendliness function look.. bad??? All "survivor" games would benefit from a save feature.

Playing BG3 on an ageing PC forced me to minimise save-scumming since it takes too long to reload.

Ngl, BG3 is the first console game I've played in over a decade and I did not know that this was a term. That said I've been doing this the whole time I've played it (after my friend showed me how to quicksave).

Oh! A H.O.L. reference. Very cool.

Being an adult with a full time job leaves very little time for video games, and I know it's even worse for people with kids who still want to play games. Being forced to keep shitty outcomes or work with only a single save file for an entire playthough isn't fun, it's just a waste of valuable time. Because for a lot of people that first playthough may very well be their ONLY playthough. Especially if they get near the end of the game and realize they got screwed out of the ending they really wanted because they turned left instead of right at random fork 15 hours ago.

I think it's a weird thing that some people get really angry about the way other people play single-player games

I don't want braglins I NEED THEM!

Save scumming objectively lets you enjoy exponentially more of a RPG playthrough. I don't really see it any differently than loading a save after dying to a boss's BS

As an old, old man who was a teenager in the 8-bit era, I grew up with adventure games in which "scum-saving" wasn't just normal but vital (you couldn't solve a lot of Infocom classics without learning from your numerous deaths). A debate around this seems as ludicrous to me as a debate about what the best colour is. Oh, so you like orange? You're NOT TRYING TO LIKE GREEN HARD ENOUGH, get good at green.

Save scumming, in single player games, is on the same level as the difficulty select, using exploits and glitches, or using pro strats. A matter of personal choice.

there's an item in the frog temple that you need 25 athletic to get....freaking 25!!! i scummed the hell out of that bullshit.

It’s your gameplay. You decide to play for fun (or for other reasons). Therefore, whatever means brings you that, as long as it’s not hurting anyone, is fair play! Want to skip the puzzles? Luckily there’s solutions on online forums. Have more fun cracking them yourself? Ok, don’t search those forums! Hard, easy, save scumming or not, whatever!

This is honestly why I play with a trainer. Anything non-combat related, I succeed in from the get-go. You could argue that I'm depriving myself of fun outcomes by not allowing myself to fail, but having played my fair share of CRPGs, I've come to realize that there's something really fun about knowing every angle I could want to try is the right one. It's also reassuring to know that whenever I'm done tearing the game's attempt at verisimilitude to shreds, I can delete these heavily-edited saves and play normally! It's my copy of the game, these are my save files; they're mine to do with as I please! In some genres, it's the only way I honestly get anywhere. Did No Man's Sky honestly think I'd spend hours digging up data caches to unlock the bare-bones basics of the base-building system? Fuck no! I work a nine-to-five, I get home and I'm tired and I want some *dopamine*, not a checklist!

Ever since I read instruction book for Fallout 1 they got it ingrained in my brain: "save constantly, save often, save some more and keep saving" is what they've said 😁