manual saves - whats the point

[its a secret]

OK so I am just starting chapter 3, just exploring and do a manual save because I see a old mission with a fire going - no idea if there are people around or not , friendly or not. Turns out they are a gang and immediately start shooting me. I die. I load the manual save- NOPE !! now I am not even close to where I saved and stuff/money is missing , etc. SO why do the save? it does not help in any way . I guess the game is just about killing/shooting everybody and assume every person outside of a town are all trying to kill you. IS this the entire game? = kill everyone and rob/steal everyone? Seems kinda dumb. Love the visuals, and the combat is pretty good, love the old west setting, etc. But if the game is purely about killing/robbing others only- no real story other than with Dutch nor ability to recruit friends allies, etc - then I am hard pass. Never played a Rockstar game before - maybe I know why now.

[DargonBlak]

Manual saves work perfectly fine - you will be reloaded to the same game point from when the manual save was made - the same game state, but usually a slightly different location.

You are probably doing something wrong or misinterpreting information.

Save in an alternate slot and be sure to leave a slot for the autosave.

To remove all risk, use 2 backup saves, switching between them on a regular basis in case of unnoticed problems with the previous save.

And save early and often.

[SimranZenov]

There is an autosave feature. It keeps saving in the background. When you die, the autosave is typically the latest save, so it loads that up instead of your manual save. You have to reload your manual save after the autosave is finished loading (it's a bit annoying, i know)

[its a secret]

I actually thought of that - and it still placed me in a different spot from where I saved - I did not really look around so maybe I was not too far away. If its close and it doesn't take assets away, etc. - that will be less irritating anyhow. Can you tell if the entire game is truly just kill or rob everyone outside of a town and missions require you to kill inside of a town. There does not seem to be anyway to knock out someone - each time I have tried to use my fists - I kill the opponent, Is there really no way to actually be nice or help strangers outside of the missions? An example of this is close to the second camp I was going into that town and saw a prisoner walking - I tried to talk to him and was planning on setting him free , but that would not work, then I pulled my gun and he did not stop, then I tried to lasso him- and that failed ( maybe my poor skill) so hit him with a fist thinking I would knock him down and then shoot the leg irons to free him- but he died after one hit. So, I left, only to find the chain gang work detail 100 yards away from where I first saw the guy. So apparently - he escaped by walking away with leg irons on and they didn't notice? How ridiculous.

[ChasingCoyote]

As SimranZenov stated, you will likely always reload the latest savepoint (usually the autosave slot) you can disable autosave in general settings! I ALWAYS disable autosave, then reload the saveslot of my choosing! and yes, one of the biggest gripe I have with the game is that you Always respawn quite a distance from where you saved! If you've reached a difficult place and don't want to attempt that again, you save there, right? NOPE, you'll respawn a 1/2 mile away and have to make that difficult travel again, too bad! It's always the way, sorry!