Misused: Save Scumming

^Exactly. The game doesn't put a save before the boss so you can save scum. It is there so you can double back and Level Grind without losing your progress in case you are in over your head.

@Duck

"Save Scumming is what players do. It's not a trope used by developers. It's not inherent in the games."

So is Shoot the Medic First and lots of other tropes in Videogame Tactical Index. (And Video Game Culture as well)

edited 15th Jan '15 3:36:29 PM by DAN004

Shoot the Medic First includes a lot of non-video game examples, as well as instances of it being the specifically intended tactic or actually coded into the AI. It's a bad comparison. It's not just "what players do". If it would be just that, it would also be an Audience Reaction. And there are a lot of tropes that really should be catalogued as that that currently aren't.

It is a tactic that is caused by what I listed above and encouraged or discouraged by other design decisions. It doesn't matter if the player uses it or not but the fact that those tropes cause Save Scumming to be an option and that is a very objective trope right there. If we divide up those bullet points into tropes, which they really should be somewhere, then this is really a supertrope.

edited 15th Jan '15 8:03:18 PM by Memers

^Now that makes no sense whatsoever. Save Scumming is not the supertrope to Some Events In Videogames Are Based On Random Chance. If there is a supertrope to that it is Random Number Generator or Random Number God.

Again, this is a reaction to that random chance. No one says you have to roll 100 times to get [[Munchkin perfect stats]]. No one says you have to fight the boss 50 times to get the rare drop for the Infinity +1 Sword.

I think the issue here is assuming that the majority of players are "gamers". I don't think that is true. I think a good portion of the gaming market are people who just like to play video games. They don't care about 100% completion, they aren't poring over gamefaqs to make sure they got every little thing. And, they aren't save scumming. I haven't save scummed a game since probably the mid 90s. I decided I was doing too much work that it was interfering with my fun. So I stopped.

In my opinion, something that a percentage of the audience does that is in no way required by the game or part of the narrative is Not A Trope. I don't think the back and forth is going anywhere at this time. Does this need a crowner?

If you're going to demand cutting, then Yes, we need a crowner. Not A Trope means we cut the page. Audience Reactions are still tropes.

That's not what a supertrope is. "Random stat rolls" is in no way a subtrope of Save Scumming. Neither is failing something that doesn't give a game over. If one trope causes another trope, then they're not super- and subtropes to each other. Not any more than The Reveal is a subtrope to Fan-Disliked Explanation, just because some reveals causes fans to dislike said reveal.

What you're talking about as a supertrope is Potential Save Scumming Causes or something like that, not Save Scumming in itself. A cause to something is not that thing in itself.

For the wider definition of trope (including trivia and other trope-like concepts), yes. For the narrower, more correct definition, no. More specifically, I don't think this should be cut. I just think it's an Audience Reaction because it's one way players react to game mechanics they encounter in a game.

I don't think cut, I do think Audience Reaction. Maybe I am a little confused. The first line of The second paragraph of Audience Reactions says it an opinion, Not A Trope.

edited 15th Jan '15 9:44:57 PM by Daefaroth

I find Audience Reaction is a confusing term to use for video game tropes. Mostly becasue, while yes, the players are an audience for the game, the players are also an integral part of actually making the game happen.

By the nature of the medium, video games aren't just a product of the dev team, they're also a product of how each individual player plays the game. The experience of watching a video game isn't just based on the input of the dev team, it's also based on the input of the player. In some way, the player also has a role in the creation of how the video game unfolds.

Because of this, I think the term I would use for video game tropes would be Interactive Tropes, or something of that nature. It's not just that people are reaction to a video game, it's that a video game requres they interact with it to even tell the story.

x5 Just because a Save Point exists does not mean you have to use it but it still is a trope. And P So C does not mean that, P So C means that it has no effect on the work itself however Save Scumming and the reasons why have a huge effect on the game itself if you do not use it then you are missing out on a piece of the work, if you do use it you will not miss it but using it can affect the enjoyment of it in a positive or negative way depending on the person.

I really can not argue with that.

By the strictest definition, any time you load a savegame for any reason other than quitting the game and continuing later, that's Save Scumming (that's why roguelikes delete your save when you die). So yes, game developers do put savepoints before bossfights specifically to enable Save Scumming.

~Daefaroth — As the duck explained, Audience Reactions is a YMMV-trope, instead of a trope-trope. I thought you were referencing the first heading of Not A Trope, which is basically "we don't need pages for these concepts".

Games are variable in the amount of interactivity included. Some games require players to be Creators within the game, some ask for Audience Participation-levels of interaction, and a relative few ask for only enough interaction to end the scene.

Regaurdless of how much interaction a game requires, the audience can still modify their interaction. Save points can be ignored entirely, they can be used to only save-and-continue, or they can be used to replay portions of the game for different outcomes. Most popular is of course to retry after dying.

Well, I am going to drop out of this. I have said everything I have to say and it seems to me that the argument is starting to go in circles. I just don't see that player choices that are not an inherent part of the game aren't tropes. No one has to save scum, no one has to Level Grind. I disagree with the save point analogy above because the save points exist in the game and were programmed in, regardless of if the player uses them or not. In fact, I would say that refusing to use save points is the part that is not a trope.

I find that a watered out, decayed, and meaningless definition of what it actually is. It's ignoring the spirit of the trope while following the letter.

It... wasn't an analogy. Save Scumming is one use players make of save points.

Yes, but it's not necessarily their intended purpose.

Yeah, I agree. Neither Ground Hog Day Loop nor Reset Button really capture the non-video game examples well.

If Save Scumming must only be video game only examples, there should be a separate trope for the non-video game examples (which really are quite different from the video gameplay trope anyway).

Sticking all examples of that under Ground Hog Day Loop or Reset Button doesn't really cut it. Perhaps as a sub-trope, but it's pretty distinct IMO, while those are very general tropes.

What exactly is the "spirit" of the trope then, if not "using savegame to reset after an undesired result?"

It's about abusing, not using.

Doing it once counts as abuse to some people. Doing it a thousand times does not count as abuse to others.

YMMV

Yup.

Then "the spirit" you're talking about is Not A Trope. Tropes Are Not Subjective. Your "the spirit" can be safely ignored.

I've already said I think it's an Audience Reaction, because it's a player behaviour. That's not a trope. That's an Audience Reaction, or YMMV thingy, or whatever you want to call it. Saying you can just ignore it only holds water if you think it's a proper trope to begin with.

I still think that this trope should be objective as it is on the developers side to enable it and any need for save scumming is considered a design failure by most.

The objective enablers.

• Need: there has to be some objective to the scumming, Random Drops or One Time Only achievements such as take no damage vs X non-repeatable boss, non-obvious dialog choices with very tangible rewards and exploitable gambling mini-game, have to exploit gambling, Non-game over failure states, percentage based crafting.
• Ease: The developers have to make it easy to do. most of the time this is done via easily accessible conspicuous save points 1 foot away or Save Any Time Anywhere. And you do not have to reset the game to reload your save IE a Soft Reset feature (PS 1 and 2 era) or a load game option in the menu (current gens)
• No anti-Save Scumming features like constant auto-save, save as you craft or save points far away.

edited 9th Mar '15 9:22:03 AM by Memers

There are objective enablers and objective measures to prevent them. I would state that they can be troped separately from Save Scumming.

I was talking about ignoring your insults, now that the tangent has been clarified to show that you and ~Diamond Weapon are in agreement. I don't care why would felt the need to insult it, nor do I care. Can we just fix this?