KickStarter Mechajammer (formerly Copper Dreams) - cyberpunk RPG from Whalenought Studios

[gaussgunner]

Is the fact that the devs never answered me on Discord due to them being aware of this thread, and now they think I'm the worst kind of shithead?

When they were here they wouldn't talk to me, only big kickstarter donors or asskissers or a members of their tribe. I offered very sound advice about their savegame system and its ramifications, I tried to warn them off the path they were taking, and what did I get? No thank you, no acknowledgement, not even a go fuck yourself. And I only started shitting on them after that. Fucking losers.

Before anyone says citation needed https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-from-whalenought-studios.103709/post-5065128

 

[agentorange]

Is the fact that the devs never answered me on Discord due to them being aware of this thread, and now they think I'm the worst kind of shithead?

When they were here they wouldn't talk to me, only big kickstarter donors or asskissers or a members of their tribe. I offered very sound advice about their savegame system and its ramifications, I tried to warn them off the path they were taking, and what did I get? No thank you, no acknowledgement, not even a go fuck yourself. And I only started shitting on them after that. Fucking losers.

Before anyone says citation needed https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-from-whalenought-studios.103709/post-5065128

"dont try to implement the save system you want to, implement the casual save system i like" yeah why would they not listen to your sage advice. i have more respect for them crashing and burning terribly by trying to design their own save system rather than going with the save anywhere style which completely trivializes all need to plan ahead in a game. more games need to get away from save anywhere.

 

[Ladonna]

Is the fact that the devs never answered me on Discord due to them being aware of this thread, and now they think I'm the worst kind of shithead?

When they were here they wouldn't talk to me, only big kickstarter donors or asskissers or a members of their tribe. I offered very sound advice about their savegame system and its ramifications, I tried to warn them off the path they were taking, and what did I get? No thank you, no acknowledgement, not even a go fuck yourself. And I only started shitting on them after that. Fucking losers.

Before anyone says citation needed https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-from-whalenought-studios.103709/post-5065128

"dont try to implement the save system you want to, implement the casual save system i like" yeah why would they not listen to your sage advice. i have more respect for them crashing and burning terribly by trying to design their own save system rather than going with the save anywhere style which completely trivializes all need to plan ahead in a game. more games need to get away from save anywhere.

When I was younger, with plenty of spare time, maybe I could crap around for hours until the next save point. These days, with a family and business, if I have to get away from a game, then that is what has to happen. Any game that enforces a "tough guy" save system goes out the window. They could have easily had a system where you can choose what level of saving is allowed at the start of a game, which would have made everyone happy.

 

[Dhaze]

I'm with Ladonna on this one. I don't have a business nor lots of familial obligations, but when I have to leave a game now, I have to leave a game now, rather than when the game decides to save my progress.

Besides, between nasty bugs and updates that corrupt save files I'm wary of any 'save & exit' system; and backups of those are basically manual saves with extra steps.

More: imagine Mechajammer as it is now but with such a save system the devs once envisionned. I'm certain that game could have been actually impossible to finish. You acquire an essential key, then while you make your way to the door it unlocks—on the opposite side of the city, so it takes a couple of minutes during which the game overwrites your save—the key disappears from your inventory. Bricked playthrough.

 

[Saduj]

I'm with Ladonna on this one. I don't have a business nor lots of familial obligations, but when I have to leave a game now, I have to leave a game now, rather than when the game decides to save my progress.

Besides, between nasty bugs and updates that corrupt save files I'm wary of any 'save & exit' system; and backups of those are basically manual saves with extra steps.

More: imagine Mechajammer as it is now but with such a save system the devs once envisionned. I'm certain that game could have been actually impossible to finish. You acquire an essential key, then while you make your way to the door it unlocks—on the opposite side of the city, so it takes a couple of minutes during which the game overwrites your save—the key disappears from your inventory. Bricked playthrough.

What you said is 100% correct. But even if there were no bugs, they didn't make the kind of game that works with a limited save system. Limited saves work best with straightforward, combat oriented games. Here's a dungeon: Fight your way through it. In proper RPGs, it only makes sense as an option for people who have already completed the game, probably more than once, and have extensive meta knowledge.

You definitely shouldn't make a game where players have to experiment and figure things out in order to progress and then implement a save system that punishes experimentation. Aside from the developers, the people who think "muh hardcore" would have been a good save system for Mechajammer have never played it. And keep in mind, the developers released this game with a character system where levelling up a skill actually makes it less likely to succeed at times (going from 5 pips to a new dice) so their design decisions are hardly above question.

As an aside, I would bet the developers only played this game in sections using cheats. I can't imagine they did even one start to finish playthrough considering the state of the game.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Is the fact that the devs never answered me on Discord due to them being aware of this thread, and now they think I'm the worst kind of shithead?

When they were here they wouldn't talk to me, only big kickstarter donors or asskissers or a members of their tribe. I offered very sound advice about their savegame system and its ramifications, I tried to warn them off the path they were taking, and what did I get? No thank you, no acknowledgement, not even a go fuck yourself. And I only started shitting on them after that. Fucking losers.

Before anyone says citation needed https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-from-whalenought-studios.103709/post-5065128

"dont try to implement the save system you want to, implement the casual save system i like" yeah why would they not listen to your sage advice. i have more respect for them crashing and burning terribly by trying to design their own save system rather than going with the save anywhere style which completely trivializes all need to plan ahead in a game. more games need to get away from save anywhere.

When I was younger, with plenty of spare time, maybe I could crap around for hours until the next save point. These days, with a family and business, if I have to get away from a game, then that is what has to happen. Any game that enforces a "tough guy" save system goes out the window. They could have easily had a system where you can choose what level of saving is allowed at the start of a game, which would have made everyone happy.

typical cheater cope, nobody is advocating for getting rid of being able to suspend the game and resume where you left off

 

[gaussgunner]

When I was younger, with plenty of spare time, maybe I could crap around for hours until the next save point. These days, with a family and business, if I have to get away from a game, then that is what has to happen. Any game that enforces a "tough guy" save system goes out the window. They could have easily had a system where you can choose what level of saving is allowed at the start of a game, which would have made everyone happy.

Looking back at those old posts I realize Joe and Hannah have always been obsessed with retardedly obsessed with bring a tabletop experience to CRPGs, even in Serpent. What a fucking fool's errand. I don't know what I ever saw in them. I bet they even post on RPG.net! Disgusting! (Which means they might be into polyamory, so maybe you degenerates hoping for an Onlyfans _or more_ may get your wish....)

typical cheater cope, nobody is advocating for getting rid of being able to suspend the game and resume where you left off

What the fuck Rusty? There's no such thing as cheating in a single player RPG. Maybe I want to save and try something stupid just to see what happens without having to start over if I die. I don't have time for that. Maybe there's a random glitch. Maybe there's a difficulty spike for an otherwise interesting build and it takes a few tries to get past it. It's not fucking cheating. If I end up savescumming too much I quit the game or start over with a better build. If I wanted to cheat I would just edit the savefile.

That ironman/permadeath shit takes all the fun out of RPGs. There's a roguelike type of fun in it, but it's not a very rpglike type of fun.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

What the fuck Rusty? There's no such thing as cheating in a single player RPG. Maybe I want to save and try something stupid just to see what happens without having to start over if I die. I don't have time for that. Maybe there's a random glitch. Maybe there's a difficulty spike for an otherwise interesting build and it takes a few tries to get past it. It's not fucking cheating. If I end up savescumming too much I quit the game or start over with a better build. If I wanted to cheat I would just edit the savefile.

That ironman/permadeath shit takes all the fun out of RPGs. There's a roguelike type of fun in it, but it's not a very rpglike type of fun.

games are designed around their save system, it's not something that's bolted on afterwards. A large part of the reason games are the way they are right now is cheating enabled by default.

 

[gaussgunner]

games are designed around their save system, it's not something that's bolted on afterwards. A large part of the reason games are the way they are right now is cheating enabled by default.

Copper Dreams was designed around a normal save system, if I remember correctly...

 

[Ladonna]

games are designed around their save system, it's not something that's bolted on afterwards. A large part of the reason games are the way they are right now is cheating enabled by default.

Funny, I could save anywhere in the Goldbox games (except for combat).

Kids say the darndest things.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

games are designed around their save system, it's not something that's bolted on afterwards. A large part of the reason games are the way they are right now is cheating enabled by default.

Funny, I could save anywhere in the Goldbox games (except for combat).

Kids say the darndest things.

games that required you to go back to the inn to save were obviously much more difficult though...

 

[Ladonna]

games that required you to go back to the inn to save were obviously much more difficult though...

I don't remember it making a huge difference to be honest. Phantasie series had the Inn system and it wasn't any more difficult (except for the start at level 1). Some games you could only save in the "overworld" but not in dungeons, and so on. Dungeon Master could be saved any time and it was a difficult game (especially Chaos). Ultima games could be saved anywhere, and they were difficult at later stages. It was really more of an inconvenience. "Tedious" probably covers it better.

Mind you, many of the older games had some form of "rest" needed to replenish spells/spell points, HP, fatigue and so on, and this couldn't be done any old time. They didn't really NEED save hobbling to make things challenging. This is a lot better as it allows you to get out of the game any time you need to.

Deathlord was stupidly difficult. It had a save anywhere system, but whenever one of your characters died, it saved the game automatically, so maybe that is a game that is up your alley.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

games that required you to go back to the inn to save were obviously much more difficult though...

I don't remember it making a huge difference to be honest. Phantasie series had the Inn system and it wasn't any more difficult (except for the start at level 1). Some games you could only save in the "overworld" but not in dungeons, and so on. Dungeon Master could be saved any time and it was a difficult game (especially Chaos). Ultima games could be saved anywhere, and they were difficult at later stages. It was really more of an inconvenience.

Mind you, many of the older games had some form of "rest" needed to replenish spells/spell points, HP, fatigue and so on, and this couldn't be done any old time. They didn't really NEED save hobbling to make things challenging. This is a lot better as it allows you to get out of the game any time you need to.

Deathlord was stupidly difficult. It had a save anywhere system, but whenever one of your characters died, it saved the game automatically, so maybe that is a game that is up your alley.

Many of these games also had very little choices beyond "kill next monster" that a save system would interfere with.

 

[Ladonna]

Many of these games also had very little choices beyond "kill next monster" that a save system would interfere with.

They had traps that could fuck up your party, holes in dungeons you could explore, puzzles that would only allow one attempt, levers, etc. Many of them weren't required to get through the game. What choices are you talking about?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

They had traps that could fuck up your party,

When I was developing The Great Gaias I had placed save points for dungeons and towns but on the world map you can save anytime. During testing though people found the game to be too difficult and got aggravated having to replay parts over again, so I implemented the save anywhere feature.

The crazy thing is that once I had some friends test the game with the ability to save anywhere, I found they were saving before trivial things like traps just to make sure that they disabled the trap each time even though taking the hit doesn’t kill you it just causes some damage and maybe a status effect. I still looked past this though thinking maybe it was just my friends doing it and released the game with save anywhere. Now I’ve seen multiple people play it on Twitch and YouTube and each person did the same thing, saving before traps and reloading when they failed a disable check.

Now, I do think people should be able to play however they like but as a developer it makes me wonder why should I even make a system like traps and disable device when everyone is just going to bypass it with save scumming?

These features impact how games are designed.
Why do games have so few things in them like this anymore? Because people love their save-cheat system too much.

 

[Ladonna]

Why do games have so few things in them like this anymore? Because people love their save-cheat system too much.

As I said before, there were already systems in place with older CRPG's that made the save system a convenience and not a cheat, because even though you can save the game on the 8th level of a dungeon, you still need to find a place to rest to get back those spell points and HP, have enough food, etc.

If this guy wants to make games with limited saving, I think he should do that. I won't be interested, but it is his game, and I think he should do what he wants. Tell him to be an Elon and follow his dreams, don't listen to these adult SJW's with families and responsibilities outside of gaming. Let me know what he says.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Why do games have so few things in them like this anymore? Because people love their save-cheat system too much.

As I said before, there were already systems in place with older CRPG's that made the save system a convenience and not a cheat, because even though you can save the game on the 8th level of a dungeon, you still need to find a place to rest to get back those spell points and HP, have enough food, etc.

If this guy wants to make games with limited saving, I think he should do that. I won't be interested, but it is his game, and I think he should do what he wants. Tell him to be an Elon and follow his dreams, don't listen to these adult SJW's with families and responsibilities outside of gaming. Let me know what he says.

What's the point of implementing something most people will skip through using something else you also implemented in the game?
It's like implementing Morrowind's travel system in Skyrim. Cool, but it serves no purpose as long as fast travel exists.

 

[Ladonna]

What's the point of implementing something most people will skip through using something else you also implemented in the game?

How can you "skip though" requiring food, spell points/spell memory, etc with limited rest options?

It's like implementing Morrowind's travel system in Skyrim. Cool, but it serves no purpose as long as fast travel exists.

I haven't played Skyrim, but I have played Oblibion, and if Skyrim is the same, with chests at the bottom of dungeons holding one apple because of leveled RNG, then there is the real reason for the fast travel; there is nothing to see or find in between. Dev laziness.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

What's the point of implementing something most people will skip through using something else you also implemented in the game?

How can you "skip though" requiring food, spell points/spell memory, etc with limited rest options?

It's like implementing Morrowind's travel system in Skyrim. Cool, but it serves no purpose as long as fast travel exists.

I haven't played Skyrim, but I have played Oblibion, and if Skyrim is the same, with chests at the bottom of dungeons holding one apple because of leveled RNG, then there is the real reason for the fast travel; there is nothing to see or find in between. Dev laziness.

We're talking right past each other.
I was discussing traps, which you mentioned, then pointed out many players simply abuse save systems to obviate the feature to the point where a developer questioned why even bother adding them.

 

[Ladonna]

We're talking right past each other.
I was discussing traps, which you mentioned, then pointed out many players simply abuse save systems to obviate the feature to the point where a developer questioned why even bother adding them.

Because in CRPG's often traps could be made easier with spells, items and so on. With these being limited, with limited rest potential to replenish them or item scarcity, the challenge is retained with traps. All it takes is devs with brains, which seem to be the missing ingredient here. No need to force people to keep playing your game because of an autistic save system built for kids and basement dwellers with no life.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

We're talking right past each other.
I was discussing traps, which you mentioned, then pointed out many players simply abuse save systems to obviate the feature to the point where a developer questioned why even bother adding them.

Because in CRPG's often traps could be made easier with spells, items and so on. With these being limited, with limited rest potential to replenish them or item scarcity, the challenge is retained with traps. All it takes is devs with brains, which seem to be the missing ingredient here. No need to force people to keep playing your game because of an autistic save system built for kids and basement dwellers with no life.

*quicksave*
*walk into trap*
*quickload*
*walk around trap*

how do you fix this

 

[Ladonna]

*walk around trap*

Get rid of this.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

*walk around trap*

Get rid of this.

*quicksave*
*walk into trap*
*quickload*
*disarm trap*

how do you fix this

even in the case where disarming it uses some resource, they're still presumably better off than having walked into the trap.

 

[Ladonna]

even in the case where disarming it uses some resource, they're still presumably better off than having walked into the trap.

Then that player is rewarded by having the resources needed to get past the trap. Well done! Some other tard that instead memorised another stinking cloud/didn't bother buying tools/didn't care about leveling his skill will pay the penalty. Meanwhile, one of your kids just threw up and you have to go and look after them *save*.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

even in the case where disarming it uses some resource, they're still presumably better off than having walked into the trap.

Then that player is rewarded by having the resources needed to get past the trap. Well done! Some other tard that instead memorised another stinking cloud/didn't bother buying tools/didn't care about leveling his skill will pay the penalty. Meanwhile, one of your kids just threw up and you have to go and look after them *save*.

so why not just automatically deduct the resources from the player if they have them and remove the trap altogether?