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Save Points

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Which save route should we take?

36.8% (86 votes)
58.5% (137 votes)
4.7% (11 votes)
Yes, SMB is regarded as just about mind-numbingly hard (mostly the post-story or optional stuff), though at the same time, it's quite accessible because the difficulty curves so well.

The only segments in SMB that have lives are retro zones (optional, spans over 3 small stages), and the glitch levels (which strangely enough, are just one longer, tougher level, with no penalty for a game-over other than having to view the intro cutscene again, making it just kind of stupid). Other than that, there is a death counter, and recorded replays of a stage show all the failed attempts moving simultaneously - a neat effect actually.

Though, this isn't an SMB thread, so I'll shut up now!
Originally posted by Forty2
Probably the only reason VVVVVV wasn't the most frustrating game ever was the number of checkpoints and the lack of lives/game overs. With a checkpoint in just about every room, failure wasn't any kind of major setback, and that's what made the game fun to play. If the game had contained lives/game overs and reduced the number of checkpoints by even half, I would've given up halfway into the second level.

This proves that higher difficulty and lower frequency of checkpoints/lives are not necessarily linked at all. (In games like Touhou, there's a correlation, but in games like VVVVVV and IWBTG, it's the complete opposite.)

Anyway, in the case of most Mario platformers (including SMW), frequency of checkpoints and frequency of save points are two different things. The main difference is convenience (something that hasn't been brought up that often, yet).

Do you want this to be the sort of endurance challenge intended only for the people who have hours of consecutive time to play games (the way most games in the NES and early SNES era were)? What about the people who like to play one game for 30 minutes or less then stop (either to switch to a different game or because that's all the time they have)? Do you want to force them to either leave the game running, lose their progress, or possibly pay a fee or replay a random ghost house?

(Of course, this seems sort of pointless when we're discussing something that nearly every player will be playing on an emulator... but there are always people who are opposed to using savestates at any time, even to stop playing. Although I don't think the majority of SMW hack players fit into this category, these people are the only ones save point frequency is directly relevant to, so they're the ones we should be considering.)

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Advynia: a Yoshi's Island editor - Alyssa's Unlikely Trap demo 3
Originally posted by Vic Rattlehead

Though, this isn't an SMB thread, so I'll shut up now!

No, it's okay. That's just what I wanted to know. VVVVVV and SMB have very high difficulty- SMWCP2 will NOT. Sure, it'll get difficult at the end, but not frustratingly hard. I do not believe that your comparison between those two and SMWCP2 is a very good one- they don't really prove your point because the former two are made to be extremely difficult.

EDIT: note that I won't claim that it destroys your argument- far from it. I'm just saying, I don't think you should use it to back up your argument since the intentions and difficulty for each are vastly different. You can't really say that SMWCP2 would be better off without lives or with autosaving just because a much more difficult game has them, right? Although, I admit, for all we know, SMWCP2 really COULD be better with both. No way to know until it all happens, right? Besides, couldn't we easily switch mechanics if the one we go with ends up making the game feel a little worse off? :D
<Adam> I feel like smwc is a prostitute now, because we put up a porn ad for money
VVVVVV was possible enough to be frustrating. Cant SMWCP2 do the same?

I ALMOST doubt it.
Originally posted by Riolu180
No, it's okay. That's just what I wanted to know. VVVVVV and SMB have very high difficulty- SMWCP2 will NOT. Sure, it'll get difficult at the end, but not frustratingly hard. I do not believe that your comparison between those two and SMWCP2 is a very good one- they don't really prove your point because the former two are made to be extremely difficult.


I can't say it's an apples to apples comparison, not at all; the games have very different intentions, design philosophies, and target audiences. SMB and VVVVVV are short bursts of video game cruelty, whereas (I think I can be pretty safe in saying this) the average level of SMWCP2 will be considerably longer than the plain SMW levels, and a lower grade, but longer duration of challenge than the mentioned indie games. Though I have to say, "difficult" and "not frustratingly hard" are very subjective terms. For people like us, who have been around the block more than a few times when it comes to SMW and its hacks, it probably won't reach the latter. Someone much newer to the scene will probably find what a lot of us take as a simple maneuver, to be a mountain to overcome. I hope SMWCP2 will try to provide a reasonable challenge for our demographic, though.

Anywho! The main point to my argument, which I still think SMB can compare to very well (and VVVVVV, though I wasn't the one to bring it up), is that instead of trying to put emphasis on the punishments of a game over or lost lives, the levels yet-to-be-conquered should be the only worry. Obviously, with autosave or a hub that has unrestricted access, lives become moot points, with a maximum penalty of a few lost midpoints. I don't think that's a bad thing at all, as there is a distinguishable difference between a game over and a regular death then, but by no means is it cruel.

Originally posted by Riolu180
EDIT: note that I won't claim that it destroys your argument- far from it. I'm just saying, I don't think you should use it to back up your argument since the intentions and difficulty for each are vastly different. You can't really say that SMWCP2 would be better off without lives or with autosaving just because a much more difficult game has them, right? Although, I admit, for all we know, SMWCP2 really COULD be better with both. No way to know until it all happens, right? Besides, couldn't we easily switch mechanics if the one we go with ends up making the game feel a little worse off? :D


I ain't sayin' what I'm sayin' simply because they're harder games. It's just that I agree with what they entail, and that these features allow a game to be harder, but retaining accessibility, which I greatly enjoy.

I suppose when level design rolls around is when all of this will truly unfold, and if we'll have wanted the catch-all of no lives or autosaves and whatnot. I have confidence that we won't need either this time around, with the degree of scrutiny I'm sure the levels will be under. As hard as SMWCP was, it probably coulda done with an update in that regard! Especially after watching raocow's LP of it, which really got me thinking just how pointless lives are when there's a place like Weeaboo Manor to go back to any time you're nearing a game over.

I think I've said about all I can say on the subject at this point; take it for what you will.
Riolu, if you've been paying close attention...

Originally posted by Mineyl
- death sends the player back to the last checkpoint
- death sends the player back to the start of the level
- game over erases the player's progress in the current level
- game over sends the player back to the start of the overarching "segment" (or world, in Mario's context)
- game over sends the player back to the beginning of the game

What you should observe here is that ALL of these levels of punishment are fundamentally the same thing: loss of progress as motivation to avoid failure.


Originally posted by VicRattlehead
SMB ain't a game that holds hands, and while the punishment for dying is very little, almost nonexistent for most stages, it still manages to be a very rewarding experience because the levels themselves are a challenge; not a life counter.


...this is really the meat of the argument against lives in SMW on top of the death system; game comparisons like SMB and VVVVVV are just there to help you digest.

Looking at Mineyl's argument, it's really just a matter of (a)what form punishment takes and (b)the degree of punishment. If you take away lives, SMW still has a perfectly functional punishment system called "death," its nature is that of lost progress and forced repetition, and its degree is a checkpoint, i.e. stage start or midpoint. If you add a lives and infrequent saves system, now you're adding more layers of punishment, of the same type, that extend the degree of punishment. But if you really want to understand our arguments, then instead of asking "why not add those extra layers of difficulty?" you have to candidly ask yourself "why add those extra layers of difficulty?"

My reason is that levels can be hard without having lives, but just the death system. That's essentially it. Occam's Razor. You can accomplish difficulty without lives, so lives aren't necessary. And if you nonetheless include them, you introduce the possibility of complications or errors in judgment or what have you.

Now if you removed and did not replace the death system, that would be a completely different story. Completely different.
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Originally posted by AxemJinx
But if you really want to understand our arguments, then instead of asking "why not add those extra layers of difficulty?" you have to candidly ask yourself "why add those extra layers of difficulty?"

I still don't understand. I can't answer your question at all because I really see no point at all in removing lives, because I do not mind them being there. I just don't really think that loss of progress for a game over is harsh at all. Why should the only risk be "restart this one level at this one part"? Honestly, I believe that the lives and the death system work hand-in-hand in Mario.

In any case... Why don't some of us just build a hack with the risks that Kirby's Epic Yarn has? That is to say, no dying whatsoever, getting hit or falling in a pit would just make you lose coins, and yes, I'm completely serious about this. It would be able to better explore your point, and who knows, it could be fun...
<Adam> I feel like smwc is a prostitute now, because we put up a porn ad for money
I think more existing examples of games that use different philosophies are in order, just to expand into the functionality of lives a bit more.

Have any of you ever played Mario Adventure, that one Mario 3 hack by DahrkDaiz? One thing Dahrk did that I've yet to see in any other Mario hack is that he completely removed the lives system altogether (should impress upon you how rare this is). This was a deliberate move on his part so that he could jack up the difficulty as he saw fit: most of the games stages are extremely hard, and a Mario style game over in a tough game like this can only serve to frustrate the player. The difficulty was over the top in many locations even in the earliest worlds, but by tweaking the engine to keep all coins, implementing a shop system into the Toad Houses with unique and WORTHWHILE power-ups, a save system, and by giving 1-up mushrooms an alternate function in rewarding the player with 50 coins per each collected, the author was able to create a game with a very different system from what is seen in a typical Mario title and make it work.

The Klonoa series (particularly the console variants) are another example of a different philosophy. These games allow the player to save after every level, but they also have lives systems. What keeps the abundance of saves from overriding the functionality of lives, however, is that the grand majority of the games' stages are very long. Really, each one can be like playing several stages in a row in a Mario title, so the potential punishment of game over is still severe even if you would only have to restart from the beginning of the current stage. Of course, these games are notoriously easy, but that doesn't change the idea here: lives and abundant saves can go hand in hand.

So yeah, I'm just posting this here to help get people thinking about lives and saves at something a bit more complex than their basic levels. Think of how the two work together and influence each other.
Those are great examples of alternate systems, Mineyl, but those weren't the systems that were being widely advocated a few days ago, I feel.

Don't get me wrong, though- I really appreciate those examples and think they can work just fine in the proper context. Hell, if we went in one of those directions for this project I would be far less concerned...

Originally posted by Riolu180
Why should the only risk be "restart this one level at this one part"?

Again, Occam's Razor. All else equal, you can achieve the same level of difficulty without using lives. Of course, when you consider alternate systems, and when you consider the enjoyment people get from collecting 1ups and being awarded 1ups, it becomes harder to take an absolute stance on it. Still, as far as a difficulty/punishment device, in SMW, lives really aren't needed. And when you introduce extraneous elements you can inadvertently cause complications. It's like using five calculations to reach an answer instead of two: more room for error.
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Oh, I'm not proposing anything. I'm just trying to give people ideas. :) I want people to think about this decision long and hard because it's going to affect the entire course of the game.
It's funny how we've all been using normal Mario style save systems in hacks for years and only with this collaboration are we all starting to come out with our dislikes for the system along with propositions for new ones. I dunno, maybe because I end up playing hacks with rewinds so I can experience more of them in my limited time I'm not qualified to comment on a save system since mine consists of not dying that much because of rewinds and using savestates to halt my progress. It's just funny that it's taken 10 years of hacking the game to get this much of a public opinion on the game's save system.
Originally posted by FirePhoenix
It's funny how we've all been using normal Mario style save systems in hacks for years and only with this collaboration are we all starting to come out with our dislikes for the system along with propositions for new ones.

I think one reason people are discussing new systems here is that since this is a collaboration project, it's far more likely that someone with the ASM skill to code a new system into SMW will actually create it. Most of us don't have that sort of skill, and so are forced to use the existing system (or the no-ASM-required variation of adding a save prompt after every level, or applying a currently available patch such as SRAM expand and/or autosave). (By the way, the autosave patch (which was a request of mine for use in my own hack) is not even 2 months old, meaning it hasn't been an option for long.)

Also, since the majority of hacks don't modify the save system, some of us (maybe most of us) have developed our own savestating rules (depending on the person, savestates when about to stop playing, or only on the overworld, or any time at all) to compensate for any issues we might have with SMW's save system... resulting in a sort of "what's the point?" feeling regarding modifying the system in a hack.

Though I do agree-- this collaboration is bringing out quite a lot of discussion about just about every aspect of SMW hacking.

Originally posted by Mineyl
The Klonoa series (particularly the console variants) are another example of a different philosophy...

Actually, that sounds to me like the same system as in Yoshi's Island... though YI is one of those games that gives the player an insane number of lives, making lives nearly pointless other than as the sense-of-accomplishment random collectible. (YI is more about reaching each checkpoint safely, though then there's the additional challenge of collecting all red coins and flowers.)

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Advynia: a Yoshi's Island editor - Alyssa's Unlikely Trap demo 3
Originally posted by Zeldara109
Actually, that sounds to me like the same system as in Yoshi's Island... though YI is one of those games that gives the player an insane number of lives, making lives nearly pointless other than as the sense-of-accomplishment random collectible. (YI is more about reaching each checkpoint safely, though then there's the additional challenge of collecting all red coins and flowers.)

It's true, and I debated on mentioning Yoshi's Island as well. The big difference between the two is that Yoshi's Island allows the player to acquire far more lives (Klonoa's lives cap at 99) and it is far easier to amass them in Yoshi's Island as well (even if Yoshi's Island is a much tougher game). Klonoa games also have collectibles...specifically, there are six objects in every stage that go toward unlocking a ridiculously challenging bonus level in the postgame for both titles, and there are exactly 150 dream stones in every level (the Klonoa equivalent to Mario's coins, and much like Mario, 100 = extra life). Even if Klonoa levels tend toward the easy side of things, players seeking these collectibles will find themselves MORE than adequately challenged.

So yeah, I know what I just wrote sounds off-topic, but use what is here to think about what else can go toward challenging the player other than simple survival. There's huge potential in SMWCP2 to cater to both casual and hardcore gamers alike.
Let's face a fact right now- Now matter how hard we try, the difficulty is probably going to be too high. A bunch of people are going to jump me and go "NO WAY WE HAZ UPPED TEZTING", but no matter how much we test, it will probably be either to hard or too easy, and the first game suggests the direction it will lean. Reading Mineyl's post made me realize how bad the
consequence" is in many games. Taking progression? If the person wanted to play the level a second time, they would. Therefore you're making the game less fun. Obviously there must be some consequence, but I don't think progress should be it.
Originally posted by NameUser
Let's face a fact right now- Now matter how hard we try, the difficulty is probably going to be too high. A bunch of people are going to jump me and go "NO WAY WE HAZ UPPED TEZTING", but no matter how much we test, it will probably be either to hard or too easy, and the first game suggests the direction it will lean.

Except SNN is going to outright reject levels that are too hard or too easy for the worlds they're in. There's really no reason to worry, because we are NOT going to have a repeat of SMWCP1's difficulty. You can count on that.

Zeldara: I honestly don't think it's because this is a collab hack, because no one brought it up for SMWCP1 until after the levels were finished and the hack was found to be too hard. And even then, all people wanted was autosave.
<Adam> I feel like smwc is a prostitute now, because we put up a porn ad for money
Is it OK to make sure were certain on a few things, mainly if we using a Save Hub to save our progress and if we are re-working the lives system?
Originally posted by Riolu180
...I honestly don't think it's because this is a collab hack, because no one brought it up for SMWCP1 until after the levels were finished and the hack was found to be too hard.

If it weren't for the fact that I completely lost motivation with SMWCP right before beta testing began, I would have definitely made it known that the game's balance was practically non-existent. I blame myself for becoming too complacent and trusting of others.
Originally posted by Riolu180
Originally posted by NameUser
Let's face a fact right now- Now matter how hard we try, the difficulty is probably going to be too high. A bunch of people are going to jump me and go "NO WAY WE HAZ UPPED TEZTING", but no matter how much we test, it will probably be either to hard or too easy, and the first game suggests the direction it will lean.

Except SNN is going to outright reject levels that are too hard or too easy for the worlds they're in. There's really no reason to worry, because we are NOT going to have a repeat of SMWCP1's difficulty. You can count on that.

Zeldara: I honestly don't think it's because this is a collab hack, because no one brought it up for SMWCP1 until after the levels were finished and the hack was found to be too hard. And even then, all people wanted was autosave.

That's exactly what I mean about everyone saying "oh, SNN is upping the testing so the difficulty will be perfect". While I'm sure it won't be the disaster that SMWCP was difficulty-wise, it will likely still be too difficult. But eh, prove me wrong.
Originally posted by NameUser
That's exactly what I mean about everyone saying "oh, SNN is upping the testing so the difficulty will be perfect". While I'm sure it won't be the disaster that SMWCP was difficulty-wise, it will likely still be too difficult. But eh, prove me wrong.


You wound me... @_@

Honestly, if I end up moderating levels, I won't be afraid to use the equivalent of Smithy's "Sledge" attack on egregious offenders. Liberally. Repeatedly. Until it's done right.
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Nothing is perfect, but it'll at least be "right" this time, so to speak.

Also, I'm going to close this now. It looks like the majority have agreed upon the hub in each world (using the same level of course, to save space), so we'll do something like this in each world and bring up more details once we have actual forward progress on the levels.

Thanks for your input everyone.
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