Question to the Developers about the save system.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Well, we know it's an RPG not a platformer. Chances are you'll get a checkpoint just before any dialog anyway, so if you want to reload the dialog just blow youself up with a grenade or something. Another issue is what happens if my one and only checkpoint gets corrupted, that's a horrible problem in some games.

[Tigranes]

Yep, rolling checkpoint autosaves of three should be the standard, surely. Or at least IWD2-style saves where autosaves at key spots are made into unique slots.

[lasthearth]

From the videos from e3, it looks like the checkpoints are right *after* the dialogues, to ensure you can't replay the dialogue choices.

Edited June 10, 2009 by lasthearth

[Wrath of Dagon]

I guess that'll work if you can't quit out of the dialog, which would mean you have to leave your machine on if you have to leave suddenly. I can't help feeling I'm being treated like a small child.

[Enoch]

I guess that'll work if you can't quit out of the dialog, which would mean you have to leave your machine on if you have to leave suddenly. I can't help feeling I'm being treated like a small child.

You will have the option of pausing or skipping through dialogue.

[Matthew Rorie]

Just so we're all clear on this, you can make manual saves in this game; just open up the menu, select save game, and you'll create a save game at the last checkpoint. So you're not going to have to play through the entire game on one checkpoint save or anything crazy like that. This is, at any rate, how things work right now.

 

The E3 level has a dialogue at the very beginning of it, and then you're thrown into battle. The checkpoint is placed after the dialogue so that, in case you get killed by an errant grenade or something as soon as the battle begins, we don't ask the player to sit through the dialogue again. Nothing prevents you from reloading a save in the safehouse to try the dialogue again, though, if you wish.

 

However, there's really not much point to reloading saves and playing through dialogues multiple times to find the "right" way through it. Sometimes there might seem to be an immediate benefit to one course of responses to a character, but the real negatives don't show up until later on in the hub, or in the game. Or vice versa; killing someone might seem to be a disadvantage to the player right away, but will reap benefits later on that aren't immediately clear. If players really insist on trying to replay dialogues multiple times to get a "good" result, there's nothing structurally that will prevent you from doing so with savegames, but obviously it's going to be somewhat disruptive to your experience of the story. And in the end, you're probably going to need to play through the game a few times to see all the ways your choices affect the game, so you might as well save yourself some trouble and enjoy the game naturally when you're playing it. But we're not going to make it impossible for people to game the system if that's what you want to do.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Why not give the player some credit for being smart enough not to ruin the game for himself?

lol

[Oner]

Why not give the player some credit for being smart enough not to ruin the game for himself?

You mean like this?

Freespace came bundled with FRED (FReespace EDitor), the same development tool the designers used to create the main game's missions. They included a rather amusing response to one attempt at crashing the program. FRED has an autonaming feature: when a new ship is placed, before the user renames it, it is called "<class-of-ship> 1" or "2", or whatever. It was discovered that attempting to fool FRED's autonamer by renaming a ship to the next ship name in line (for instance, naming a ship "Ulysses 2" and then placing a second Ulysses) would result in the new ship being autonamed "URA Moron 1".

[genci88]

Just so we're all clear on this, you can make manual saves in this game; just open up the menu, select save game, and you'll create a save game at the last checkpoint. So you're not going to have to play through the entire game on one checkpoint save or anything crazy like that. This is, at any rate, how things work right now.

 

The E3 level has a dialogue at the very beginning of it, and then you're thrown into battle. The checkpoint is placed after the dialogue so that, in case you get killed by an errant grenade or something as soon as the battle begins, we don't ask the player to sit through the dialogue again. Nothing prevents you from reloading a save in the safehouse to try the dialogue again, though, if you wish.

 

However, there's really not much point to reloading saves and playing through dialogues multiple times to find the "right" way through it. Sometimes there might seem to be an immediate benefit to one course of responses to a character, but the real negatives don't show up until later on in the hub, or in the game. Or vice versa; killing someone might seem to be a disadvantage to the player right away, but will reap benefits later on that aren't immediately clear. If players really insist on trying to replay dialogues multiple times to get a "good" result, there's nothing structurally that will prevent you from doing so with savegames, but obviously it's going to be somewhat disruptive to your experience of the story. And in the end, you're probably going to need to play through the game a few times to see all the ways your choices affect the game, so you might as well save yourself some trouble and enjoy the game naturally when you're playing it. But we're not going to make it impossible for people to game the system if that's what you want to do.

OK let me see if I understand this correctly: we can save manually at anytime, but reloads happen at the last checkpoint.

 

Will the enemies we killed after passing through that particular checkpoint but before manually saving stay dead when we reload?

 

Will the stats and inventory be saved as well after reloading that manual save?

[lasthearth]

I'm going to guess that you get to keep your inventory etc, but that the enemies you killed will be alive.

[Guest PoziomyPion]

I understand it's just like saving system in Tomb Raider Legend. You make a progress trough the level, reach 1st checkpoint, continue playing, but you just noticed your cat is on fire running around your apartment, so you save your game and help the cat.

 

After not being able to help Mr. Twinkles you leave his scorched body alone and load up your save game. You start playing at your last checkpoint you reached, not in the place you saved your game(between checkpoint 1 and 2). Enemies killed after the checkpoint are still there, but achievements and secrets you unlocked/found are saved and there is no need to collect them again.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Pretty sure what you save will be the checkpoints. So you can have multiple saves, but they will all be at the various checkpoints.

[213374U]

Ah, first it was "Only RPGs that are on PCs" and when I found a little loophole it becomes "only traditional RPGs."

 

 

Why don't you just say "RPGs that I like?"

No true scotsman...

 

AvP allowed NO saving whatsoever (this was rectified in a patch later, though). It was frantic, it was atmospheric, it was great. Just let go of the urge to press F6 every five seconds and all will be well.

[Oner]

Pretty sure what you save will be the checkpoints. So you can have multiple saves, but they will all be at the various checkpoints.

+1

[Oblarg]

I'm pretty sure you'll be able to save whenever you're at a safehouse. If not, I'll be pretty disappointed.

[Slowtrain]

in case you get killed by an errant grenade or something as soon as the battle begins, we don't ask the player to sit through the dialogue again.

 

 

Thank you. I still have nightmares about the save in the Witcher that forces you to page through a huge dialogue/cut scene sequence just to get to the really hard battle with The Beast, which almost always get you killed. Forcing you to sit through the entire dialogue sequence ALL OVER AGAIN, because the autosave is before the sequence.

 

Autiosaves should always be AFTER dialogue sequences/cutscenes, especially ones that are really drawn out.

 

Thank you again. SIncerely.

[genci88]

If I kill an enemy, it should stay dead after I save.

 

I am not going to kill the same guy over and over and over to get past a point (which is further down the road and has nothing to do with the guy I am killing over and over) just because the game is defective by design.

 

Sorry, but I have never heard anyone complain about the save anywhere in an RPG. On the other hand, I have heard a crapload of complaint about checkpoint save systems. And I wholeheartedly agree with those complaints.

 

You console gamers who are used to checkpoints have fun with this game. I, on the other hand, will play one the thousands of other games out there; something that doesn't assume the player is a little kid.

[Oblarg]

If I kill an enemy, it should stay dead after I save.

 

I am not going to kill the same guy over and over and over to get past a point (which is further down the road and has nothing to do with the guy I am killing over and over) just because the game is defective by design.

 

Sorry, but I have never heard anyone complain about the save anywhere in an RPG. On the other hand, I have heard a crapload of complaint about checkpoint save systems. And I wholeheartedly agree with those complaints.

 

You console gamers who are used to checkpoints have fun with this game. I, on the other hand, will play one the thousands of other games out there; something that doesn't assume the player is a little kid.

 

Don't slam the door on your way out.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

I think it's a valid criticism, though usually I just try to plow through checkpoint games effectively enough that the save system becomes a non-issue.

[Enoch]

Thank you. I still have nightmares about the save in the Witcher that forces you to page through a huge dialogue/cut scene sequence just to get to the really hard battle with The Beast, which almost always get you killed. Forcing you to sit through the entire dialogue sequence ALL OVER AGAIN, because the autosave is before the sequence.

Sorry, but I have never heard anyone complain about the save anywhere in an RPG. On the other hand, I have heard a crapload of complaint about checkpoint save systems. And I wholeheartedly agree with those complaints.

This sequence of consecutive posts is pretty entertaining.

 

People do complaining about a save-anywhere systems-- it just gets phrased differently. I.e., they complain about minigames that are easily bypassed by save-reload abuse, or about poor skill design because higher levels of a particular skill offer no benefit other than making the player have to reload fewer times to get a successful result. They're not intending to complain about save-anywhere, but developers reading those complaints can recognize that their game's save-reload system is undercutting their other gameplay mechanics.

Edited June 12, 2009 by Enoch

[genci88]

Don't slam the door on your way out.

Oh, you shouldn't have said that.

 

*SLAM*

 

Damn, I think I cracked it a little.

 

:D

[Oblarg]

Really, assuming you can save when at a safehouse (if you can't, I'll be extremely aggravated), the only problem with a checkpoint save system is having to repeat some fights when you die, because you can't save at any time in the middle of a mission. Really, this doesn't bother me at all.

[Matthew Rorie]

You can save at a safehouse. You have a checkpoint that's made when you first return to a safehouse in between missions, but if you then go off and buy a bunch of weapons and send a bunch of emails, you can make a save after that, quit and reload, and all the stuff you did in the safehouse will be saved.

[mkreku]

This isn't about me "disliking" people who take advantage of metagaming. Metagaming of the sort we have been discussing (using save/reload or uncontested re-tries before any given single-check obstacle) actually ruins whatever enjoyment or risk/reward was intended to be created by the systems it circumvents. This is why threshold checks for things like dialogue options and lockpicking are usually more enjoyable/less frustrating than random chance: they remove the save/reload metagame from the equation entirely. The key factor for success is how much the player invested in Skill A or Skill B and what temporary buffs the player has to expend, not what a single virtual die roll (which can be re-tried, uncontested, from a reload) haphazardly determined.

 

I don't have a problem with telling other people how they're supposed to play their game because it's the entire point of my vocation. The goal is to create a spectrum of choice and constraint that people find enjoyable. The constraints create the challenge, and using the choices available gives the player the enjoyment of overcoming the challenge. But giving options for absolutely everything, on the absurd end of the spectrum, creates a game environment with uneven challenges that can never be balanced. A lot of these mechanics hinge and move with each other. Altering one can have a cascading effect through many others -- especially something as significant as save/load.

Hmm, wordy. And I disagree.

 

If the game had been PC only, do you think you'd still have opted for the savepoints system?

[Oblarg]

You can save at a safehouse. You have a checkpoint that's made when you first return to a safehouse in between missions, but if you then go off and buy a bunch of weapons and send a bunch of emails, you can make a save after that, quit and reload, and all the stuff you did in the safehouse will be saved.

 

Well then, I'm satisfied.