Don't Save Scum In Baldur's Gate 3

I know that you can do what you want let's get that out of the way first I know that you paid sixty dollars for this game or any game and that you have the right to play it however you like and that I can't force you to play otherwise and so you should know that this video and videos like this are not commands they're suggestions their advice and they are in fact solicited advice since you saw the title of this video you read why you shouldn't save scum in Baldur's Gate 3. and having read that you decided to click on this video hopefully because you're curious about what I have to say so if at any point during this video you feel the Temptation the urge to type in the comments that you can play how you like I just want you to know I know that I really do all right whenever this topic comes up about the value or potential costs of safe scumming or things like it the very first arguments that crop up are things like just let people play how they want people are different they have fun in different ways one way of playing is not inherently more legitimate than another and you're weird for trying to control how other people play their game I'm paraphrasing of course but it's always something along those lines it's always a call to let people play how they want and an accusation that you're trying to police how other people have fun tacked on to that first statement now let me start by saying that this is a complicated topic there's a lot of caveats that I'm not going to be able to give while I'm talking about this and there are important exceptions to what I'm saying but in general I don't think this argument is very good because it presupposes some things that it shouldn't the first one being that the way to maximize a player's fun is to let them do what they want that player Freedom as a principle is an unmitigated good and it's to that idea that assumption that I object because it's not true in The Legend of Zelda tears of the Kingdom there was on release a duplication glitch that was very easy to pull off you could duplicate any five items in your inventory by holding them and then dropping them in a specific way including things like monster materials that had the strongest attack values in the game normally to get these kinds of materials you'd have to kill one of these difficult monsters that carry them which would be time consuming and would probably consume at least some of your weapons to do it so it's not the easiest thing to farm and you're not exactly encouraged to farm them anyway but with this duplication glitch you could just have an infinite number of whatever powerful weapon item you want circumventing the need to engage with the weapon breaking mechanic in the first place now I want you to look at something that I found very interesting this is a comment posted on Reddit on a topic relating to that duplication glitch let me just read it for you it says what I learned about the dupe glitch tonight is that I don't have the willpower to not use it tried it once a couple days ago just to confirm that it works then I found myself duping everything to buy and upgrade all the armor I could find I've completely ruined the game for myself gonna wait until they patch it and start all over again so disappointed in myself so this guy he did what he wanted he wanted to try the duplication glitch and then he couldn't stop he kept doing it and he used it so much that he feels that it ruined his game for him and he feels disappointed in himself he did what he wanted and yet he's not happy in fact doing what he wanted has made him unhappy the unrestricted freedom to duplicate the items however much he wanted has caused him to stop playing until this glitch gets patched out because the knowledge that it's still there and that he could duplicate it is interfering with his ability to have fun now there's another interesting part to this if you look at the upvote to downvote ratio this guy is getting downvoted which is odd because he's not insulting anyone he's not trying to tell people that they shouldn't play this way he is relating his personal experience he's expressing his disappointment in himself and nobody else and yet he's getting downvoted like he's casting judgment on anybody that uses the duplication glitch it's so interesting it's like people are personally affronted at the idea that doing whatever you want at any given time is not going to lead to immediate fulfillment the most upvoted comment in reply to that guy starts out by saying the game is so free and you are able to enjoy it in any way you can Exclamation point Exclamation point Exclamation point Exclamation point and I just think that's amazing because the guy just got through telling you that he can't have fun in any way he just explained to you a situation where the freedom caused him to not be able to have fun and yet the reply is still a variation of this Mantra of let people play how they want you can have fun in playing however you like no no you can't because humans don't control their emotions in that way you don't get to decide what you consider fun or not fun let's take this guy as an example again why did he duplicate those items if they were just going to make him unhappy and not enjoy the game well because he didn't know he did not know that duplicating those items would tempt him to duplicate more he didn't realize that duplicating items in this way would make a lot of the game systems irrelevant and he probably didn't know that this would bother him so much that the game becomes unenjoyable of course not everybody is like that a lot of people can duplicate to their hearts content they can save scum they can exploit glitches they can look at Guides Online and their enjoyment of these products doesn't actually go down they can do what they want to some degree some greater degree and that will bring them enjoyment they will have fun doing that and that's great but some won't a lot of people are like this guy and if you give them the opportunity they'll optimize the fun out of the game if you let them do what they want then they stop having fun my point is that there are trade-offs there are costs to these things I used to play Dragon Age Origins it's similar to Baldur's Gate in that you can romance several of your party members and they'll like you more or less depending on how you talk to them the answers that you give and what you do in the world the first time I played it I wanted to romance one of the female party members but I got worried that I was making too many choices that they didn't like whenever I made a dialogue option or made a decision that they didn't like I would reload and make a decision that better suited them and this was an awful decision on my part it ruined the game for me and I almost stopped playing a lot of the fun of these interactions with the NPCs is that they weave an illusion that they're real people they have a lot of dialogue they're well voice acted your character can talk to them extensively so interacting with them and seeing how they respond to your interactions with the greater world is interesting it's fun but the more you save scum for optimal results the more the illusion of their personality breaks down the more you do it the more you see them for what they are in your relationships with them and your interactions with the wider World become very transactional it becomes weird to me and it takes me out of the adventure I feel similarly about Baldur's Gate 3. in fact I feel more that way because border Skate 3 seems to be designed around letting you fail skill checks and dealing with the results of those failures constantly reloading when something doesn't go optimally for me not only breaks my immersion it also means there's a whole subsection of the game that I'm not getting access to Michael Dows from larion Studios has been quoted as saying trust the dice trust yourself and Trust the dice it reacts to your successes and failures I feel a strong temptation to save some I'm a min max kind of player by heart it's in my nature it's my strongest instinct when it comes to these kind of games but from experience I know that if I do that I will very quickly lose interest in this game the more I reload for favorable results with the NPC relationships the less I'm able to enjoy their personalities and the more the illusion of their personality breaks down similarly if I'm unwilling to let the game put me in a [ __ ] situation because of my continuous bad decisions then making those decisions loses all tension since I know I'm just going to reload to my last save point if things don't go my way the important Point here is that I want to save scum I have a deep seated urge to save scum to play optimally to use meta builds but I know that if I do I won't have fun if I let myself do what I want I won't have fun now again I know that not everybody is like that for many safe scumming won't have that deleterious effect but a lot of people are like that a lot of people are exactly like me and I think it's good for me to convey my experience and explain the potential dangers of doing what you want especially since there's a lot of people like that Zelda guy that may not know they're that type of person yet and my advice and the advice of layering Studio could prevent them from losing interest in a game they would otherwise enjoy if they had played Without saves coming if you're not one of those people then what I'm saying doesn't apply to you fine saves come to your heart's content I have no problem with how people choose to enjoy their games would I have a problem with is this discussion the way that this discussion always unfolds here's an example this is a tweet by a large streamer it says what do I think about safe scumming I think it's absolutely Bonkers that some people try to force their own version of fun on others in video games don't want to save scum don't do it it's that easy but to try and convince others that they aren't having fun ludicrous this is a really good example of how every single argument about this conversation goes it's always some version of the let people play how they want argument and tied to that is always an insult that there's something ludicrous or weird about people like me who want to talk about the trade-offs of player Freedom that by pointing out problems and giving advice we're trying to force other people to play how we want them to play that were ludicrous which I find weird because I don't think I'm saying anything different than what Michael Dows said in his IGN interview he advised players to trust the dice that the game is designed to react to your success and failures I assume he said that I assume he gave that advice for the same reason that I give the same advice because he genuinely believes that most people will have more fun if they play that way that seems fairly innocuous to me an undeserving of the controversy this topic always comes with people are always saying that you shouldn't be ashamed of saves coming don't feel any shame for doing it but I say if you are feeling shame it's certainly not because I'm shaming you if you're feeling shame it's not from people like me that advise against saves coming no no that shame is coming from within don't get defensive and attack me for pointing out that saves coming could reduce your enjoyment of the game that's just a fact it's certainly possible it happens to a lot of people maybe what's really going on is that you're actually one of us and you haven't realized it yet you're one of my people that doesn't feel comfortable safe scumming and their enjoyment is reduced by doing it and that shame isn't coming from an outside Source it's from within and the only way to get rid of it is to not do it and that's the end of this video please unsubscribe and unclick the bell notification I'd appreciate if you leave comments trying to get each other angry it's always good to remind me that you paid for the game and you can play it however you like I think there will be some people that haven't heard that I don't know call each other names or something just try to write comments that get other people to be angry enough to reply to you hopefully this video has alienated you enough to do that and if it hasn't I will get to you in a future video until then thank you very much for watching

Channel: Ratatoskr

Views: 101,469

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Id: DNYguSrqC90

Length: 12min 51sec (771 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023