Autosave issue

[DruidX]

Let's talk about the auto-save issue

 

Right now it auto-saves AFTER you enter an area, rather than before

 

Thoughts?

[Rahelron]

Does it also autosave before or after important events?

Sometimes you don't see an important conversation or story moment coming and you don't save. It would be refreshing to know that the system always saved before important events, so you had a place to fall back to if you screwed up during an important dialogue.

[TrueMenace]

Either way guys, a rule of thumb that should be ingrained in your brain is to...SAVE OFTEN. 

 

Bind a comfortable key to Save and Quick Save. Love that key. That key will be your friend.

 

Save often boys...

 

#saveofteninrpgsofthismagnitudebecauseyouwillregretitifudont

 

Edit: My only MAJOR gripe at the moment concerning the save system is that you can't NAME your saves which is ludicrous for a cRPG.

Edited March 19, 2015 by TrueMenace

[GreyFox]

Yea like I said in another thread it seems like a bad idea...especially for conflicts or dialogues that start up upon arrival at a new location.

 

 

Either way guys, a rule of thumb that should be ingrained in your brain is to...SAVE OFTEN. 

 

Multiple saves. 

 

Bind a comfortable key to Save and Quick Save. Love that key. That key will be your friend.

 

Save often boys...

 

#saveofteninrpgsofthismagnitudebecauseyouwillregretitifudont

 

Edit: My only MAJOR gripe at the moment concerning the safe system is that you can't NAME your saves which is ludicrous for a cRPG.

 

 Didn't know that lol....really? I don't know if I own a single game where you can't name your save file.

Edited March 19, 2015 by GreyFox

[TrueMenace]

 

Yea like I said in another thread it seems like a bad idea...especially for conflicts or dialogues that start up upon arrival at a new location.

 

 

Either way guys, a rule of thumb that should be ingrained in your brain is to...SAVE OFTEN. 

 

Multiple saves. 

 

Bind a comfortable key to Save and Quick Save. Love that key. That key will be your friend.

 

Save often boys...

 

#saveofteninrpgsofthismagnitudebecauseyouwillregretitifudont

 

Edit: My only MAJOR gripe at the moment concerning the safe system is that you can't NAME your saves which is ludicrous for a cRPG.

 

 Didn't know that lol....really? I don't know if I own a single game where you can't name your save file.

 

 

Yea, I'm not sure if the devs are even aware of this. It's a pretty big Quality of Life improvement they need to address in the post-release patches. 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2015 by TrueMenace

[Voss]

Let's talk about the auto-save issue

 

Right now it auto-saves AFTER you enter an area, rather than before

 

Thoughts?

It is incredibly moronic, needs to be fixed and the devs are aware that it exists.  

What needs to be discussed?  Fix it.  

[Havelok]

Either way guys, a rule of thumb that should be ingrained in your brain is to...SAVE OFTEN. 

 

Bind a comfortable key to Save and Quick Save. Love that key. That key will be your friend.

 

Save often boys...

 

#saveofteninrpgsofthismagnitudebecauseyouwillregretitifudont

 

Edit: My only MAJOR gripe at the moment concerning the save system is that you can't NAME your saves which is ludicrous for a cRPG.

 

It would help if I could bind quicksave to my Mouse5 button. 

 

I mean, I can if I download an external utility, but that's one of my biggest pet peeves with Unity! Extra Mouse Buttons are useful and should be supported...

 

But yes, Obsidian please make autosave occur before area transition if possible. It is completely sensical. 

[Silent Winter]

I agree - autosave before new area, not after.

The autosave saves me most in the event of an unscheduled crash - which is usually loading an area (referring here to experience with other crpgs, I don't have the beta).

 

I'd also second the suggestion of autosaves before big battles / critical events - but then at least it's my own fault if I screw those up

 

Save often, yes - but it's the one time I forget that s**t happens

 

Naming saves - why not?  That's like a no-brainer - I may have more than one character going at the same time and want an easy way to spot "Donald 1 / 2 / 3" vs. "Mickey 1 / 2 / 3"*

 

 

*names not representative of actual in-game characters I may play.  Any likeness to actual cartoon characters, living or dead, under trademark, is purely coincidental.

[Sensuki]

Bester and I reported this as a bug in v435

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70832-435-autosave-isnt-doing-what-its-supposed-to/?hl=autosave

 

Hasn't been acknowledged though

Edited March 20, 2015 by Sensuki

[Voss]

Well BAdler specifically mentioned it when closing the 'I'm a bit worried' thread, so they can't pretend that they don't know.

[Sensuki]

"Acknowledged as an issue" is more what I meant. They may think it's fine.

[Roby Atadero]

It is intentional that the autosave is after the load. That being said, should be easy enough for you to mod that Autosave() call in GameState to happen in the ChangeLevel function rather than in the FinalizeLevelLoad function if that's what you prefer.

 

Naming save games is something that has been logged in our system. It's something that may be added in a future patch or the expansion.

[Voss]

I don't get this.  The point of an autosave is to prevent loss of progress when you hit a stress point, which loading a new area always is.  Doing it after a likely crash point defeats the entire purpose of having an autosave in the first place.

[Havelok]

I don't get this.  The point of an autosave is to prevent loss of progress when you hit a stress point, which loading a new area always is.  Doing it after a likely crash point defeats the entire purpose of having an autosave in the first place.

 

Unless of course they designed each area to have a buffer zone between the party and any stress-point. Which is quite possible, considering modern area design. If the party can leave the area and isn't immediately ambushed by enemies, it wouldn't be a problem in practice. In short, there might not be any ambushes.

[Silent Winter]

^computer crash is not the same as 'ambushed by enemies' (and I sincerely hope there's an ambush somewhere)

[Voss]

 

I don't get this.  The point of an autosave is to prevent loss of progress when you hit a stress point, which loading a new area always is.  Doing it after a likely crash point defeats the entire purpose of having an autosave in the first place.

 

Unless of course they designed each area to have a buffer zone between the party and any stress-point. Which is quite possible, considering modern area design. If the party can leave the area and isn't immediately ambushed by enemies, it wouldn't be a problem in practice. In short, there might not be any ambushes.

 

Huh?  I don't give a dead possum about ambushes. This has nothing to do with gameplay and all about memory leaks, errors loading assets and everything under the hood.  Loading assets for a whole new area is often a problematic stress point for games- literally why autosave-on-area-transition exists.  Doing the autosave after the new area loads defeats the primary purpose of having them.  Much like having airplane baggage scanned after takeoff.

 

And given 'Bugsidian's' track record in this area, I will be beyond shocked if CTDs don't happen.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Voss

[dorkboy]

What is the reason for not auto-saving both before and after level transition? Takes too much time or something?

[Sensuki]

It is intentional that the autosave is after the load. That being said, should be easy enough for you to mod that Autosave() call in GameState to happen in the ChangeLevel function rather than in the FinalizeLevelLoad function if that's what you prefer.

We may do that. Why does it occur after level load though?

Edited March 20, 2015 by Sensuki

[PrimeJunta]

Stability issues aside, I prefer autosave after area transition. Avoids the loading screen... which is, at least in the BB, still a teensy-bit longer than I'd ideally like.

 

P:E just shouldn't crash so frequently that auto-save before transition becomes more attractive than avoiding the loading screen that comes from after transition.

Edited March 20, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[Roby Atadero]

Autosaves are a convenience feature so you have something to reload to if you have a party wipe, a bad decision is made, or you just quit without manually saving. We didn't want players to have to load into a prior scene just to transition back into it.

 

Devs don't usually put auto-saves in their games to protect themselves from crashes. I understand that saving prior to the transition does protect you from a load catastrophe but, it was implemented more for convenience rather than as a fail-safe.

 

The autosave does end up taking some time so doing it in both places would pad load times more.

[Sensuki]

I liked auto-saves before area load because in the Infinity Engine games a party wipe sometimes meant that you had to back-track anyway to get the right tools for the job (or in Kangaxx case - come back later yo), and I think saving before transition was good for this.

 

Also in many levels in the BGs and IWDs, enemies were there right inside the door or whatever.

[Messier-31]

^

This, so much this. New aread loaded and *BAM*, swarms of enemies, right in the kisser.

[PrimeJunta]

Hm true, that's a good point. There aren't any such ambushes in the BB so I didn't think of that. Consider my opinion changed.

 

Edit: Kangaxx... haha Sensuki, I gotcha there. You actually gotta go kick Kangaxx in the sarcophagus before he shows up, so autosave before or after transition doesn't actually matter there. 

Edited March 20, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[CaptainMace]

So we can statuate that saving before transition was well-thought for IE games design specifically then. Anyway no big deal, I'll save-spam as I always did.

[Sensuki]

I just meant that you don't have to go back outside as it saved before the transition.