Opt Out for Auto-Save?

[SealieP]

I know they are planning on putting in an autosave for entering vehicles and bases and quitting. Will there be an option for opting out of this? I know why you want to impliment it and I am all for that. But for those of us who like to have the possibility of not saving and going back to a save where you know you didn't screw up, could we have an opt out?

I'm playing another game currently that auto saves when you enter a vehicle, base, or quit. I find I hate it. I have had to abandon so many games because I got myself into a place where it completely changes the game and you're done for.

I like having that fall back of not saving so I can take more risks knowing I can rollback if need be. That has saved me so much in this particular game. Since we can't chose to make backup saves in game what it will force those of us like me to do is to make copy of our save game folder before playing each session and then restore it if we really get our cyclops stuck in the deep grand reef trying something out. Then you've lost all the progress you made up to that point. It will become tendious and unfun after a while or you will never take risks or try anything new.

During this early release period it has saved me so much. When my PRAWN lost it's ability to thrust and would just fall, all I had to do was load from my save and I was fine as the prawn was back in the moon pool and I could leave the game and restart it without losing the prawn to the depths to the unknown. I realize that in the final game their shouldn't be bugs and this situation theoretically wouldn't happen, but if you just cleaared out the aurora and start to head back to your base on your seamoth and die to a reaper, you lose an item you can't get back and your game is screwed. There are times when if you die you can really screw up your game unless you delete the cache files and have everything respawned, which is a form of cheating which some people are very much opposed to.

So, while I fully support auto save for those who forget to manually save, can those of us who prefer the manual option have that as well?

[IndieBob]

Presumably there will be a save feature as well as an autosave? So you can have the save to go back to which you save at a time you choose or just use the autosave.

[SealieP]

Originally posted by IrritableJohnRust:

Presumably there will be a save feature as well as an autosave? So you can have the save to go back to which you save at a time you choose or just use the autosave.

That's really a question we need answered. Currently the game is saved in one location only. All progress goes there. If auto save is a different file, then it's no big deal and you can choose which to load. But I don't think that's how it's going to be. I think auto-save will just act like a manual save that the game does for you. Since the comment from the devs said the coding will be just a line (or something like that and I might have misunderstood it) I'm going to assume that they are going to do it like you just manually saved over your last and there is still just one save file for the character.

[Jade Crab]

Originally posted by SealieP:

Originally posted by IrritableJohnRust:

Presumably there will be a save feature as well as an autosave? So you can have the save to go back to which you save at a time you choose or just use the autosave.

That's really a question we need answered. Currently the game is saved in one location only. All progress goes there. If auto save is a different file, then it's no big deal and you can choose which to load. But I don't think that's how it's going to be. I think auto-save will just act like a manual save that the game does for you. Since the comment from the devs said the coding will be just a line (or something like that and I might have misunderstood it) I'm going to assume that they are going to do it like you just manually saved over your last and there is still just one save file for the character.

I'd think the save game slots are going to be implemented based on their development roadmap - while they do list it in "after 1.0" - "Quality of life update (save game slots, 10 things from the community)", it seems consistent with their plans to reduce save file size in the April column.

[margalus]

I certainly hope they have a way to disable. Autosaves are stupid for single player games. They are only need on mp server games, imo.

[Zefnoly]

Originally posted by margalus:

I certainly hope they have a way to disable. Autosaves are stupid for single player games. They are only need on mp server games, imo.

I agree. Sometimes autosaving can be quite destructive for your save in many ways. Especially in games like this. In some other games I dont mind and rather want it on but in other games I rather dont want autosave.

[404_Not_Found]

Originally posted by Zefnoly:

Originally posted by margalus:

I certainly hope they have a way to disable. Autosaves are stupid for single player games. They are only need on mp server games, imo.

I agree. Sometimes autosaving can be quite destructive for your save in many ways. Especially in games like this. In some other games I dont mind and rather want it on but in other games I rather dont want autosave.

Same, I also would like to be able to disable autosaving.

My friends have disabled it for minecraft before though on MP, usually when we're about to do something that has a 90% chance of making everything totally FUBAR. :D

So it's pretty useful for MP games too.

[Zefnoly]

Originally posted by 404_Not_Found:

Originally posted by Zefnoly:

I agree. Sometimes autosaving can be quite destructive for your save in many ways. Especially in games like this. In some other games I dont mind and rather want it on but in other games I rather dont want autosave.

Same, I also would like to be able to disable autosaving.

My friends have disabled it for minecraft before though on MP, usually when we're about to do something that has a 90% chance of making everything totally FUBAR.

Hehe wish ARK survival evolved could have that feature. Sometimes the game glitches out and the next thing you remember is everything in your entire base get messed up totally because of one thing... Seriously you dont know how many times I've ragestopped playing ark totally for the sole reason of an entire base getting frelled by one sole glitch.

[crigcrag]

>Cyclops sinks with prawn inside
>Gets eaten by Reaper
>Autosaves
We don't really need autosaves, at least a way to toggle them.

[Zefnoly]

Originally posted by jonesin31:

>Cyclops sinks with prawn inside
>Gets eaten by Reaper
>Autosaves
We don't really need autosaves, at least a way to toggle them.

That is exactly why I dont want autosaves for this game. But im not selfish. what I really want is ability to turn it on off since there is people that actually wants this feature as well... (until they probably experience the problem with your cyclops getting stuck on the seafloor and then autosave kicks in and ruins the savegame)

[crigcrag]

Originally posted by Zefnoly:

Originally posted by jonesin31:

>Cyclops sinks with prawn inside
>Gets eaten by Reaper
>Autosaves
We don't really need autosaves, at least a way to toggle them.

That is exactly why I dont want autosaves for this game. But im not selfish. what I really want is ability to turn it on off since there is people that actually wants this feature as well... (until they probably experience the problem with your cyclops getting stuck on the seafloor and then autosave kicks in and ruins the savegame)

If turned on, when its ready to auto-save, it should pause your game and ask you if you want to.

[Zefnoly]

Originally posted by jonesin31:

Originally posted by Zefnoly:

That is exactly why I dont want autosaves for this game. But im not selfish. what I really want is ability to turn it on off since there is people that actually wants this feature as well... (until they probably experience the problem with your cyclops getting stuck on the seafloor and then autosave kicks in and ruins the savegame)

If turned on, when its ready to auto-save, it should pause your game and ask you if you want to.

That is like automenu instead... Who wants the game to pause every second? lol.

[crigcrag]

Originally posted by Zefnoly:

Originally posted by jonesin31:

If turned on, when its ready to auto-save, it should pause your game and ask you if you want to.

That is like automenu instead... Who wants the game to pause every second? lol.

I mean you could set the time between autosaving with a range of 1 minute to 3 hours.

[Demolition414]

i like NOT having an autosave, ive lost count where ive made a costly mistake on autosave games, tried to exit the game it autosave's so i'm stuck with the mistake, i like to use the save button, do what i want, if its wrong, exit and reload.

[404_Not_Found]

I'd like to make a note, in case a dev replies here, that we are not specifically concerned with whatever bugs you might, in future, fix breaking our game and causing us to need to load a backup.

Because I know from too much experience on these types of topics that usually a dev's defense for forcing autosave is "Well when the game no loger does those things, you won't need to disable autosave at all!" And this is not the case.

We need to disable it for user error, you can't account for that.

I'm a bit of a straight-shooter so I'll just come out and clarify: We aren't asking for turning off autosave solely to deal with when YOU screw up.
We're asking for that option for when WE screw up, and want a do-over function.

Speaking as someone who's broken enough Minecraft servers screwing around with forces I didn't understand and couldn't control (WorldEdit mostly), I can tell you even finished games with some sort of backup function or ability to just have the game NOT remember totally wrecking half your map are appreciated.

Yes, we want a fail safe.
Yes, by some people's definitions, that might be cheap.
But I don't think any of us really care, some of us remember a time when saving in a game before you were about to do something stupid was a valid way to play that game. Even people in LPs do that, and cheating in an LP is some kind of cardinal sin far as I can tell, so if it's legit there, it's not really that bad.

Or maybe it is to some people, bugger to them though.

[SealieP]

Originally posted by 404_Not_Found:

I'd like to make a note, in case a dev replies here, that we are not specifically concerned with whatever bugs you might, in future, fix breaking our game and causing us to need to load a backup.

Because I know from too much experience on these types of topics that usually a dev's defense for forcing autosave is "Well when the game no loger does those things, you won't need to disable autosave at all!" And this is not the case.

We need to disable it for user error, you can't account for that.

I'm a bit of a straight-shooter so I'll just come out and clarify: We aren't asking for turning off autosave solely to deal with when YOU screw up.
We're asking for that option for when WE screw up, and want a do-over function.

Speaking as someone who's broken enough Minecraft servers screwing around with forces I didn't understand and couldn't control (WorldEdit mostly), I can tell you even finished games with some sort of backup function or ability to just have the game NOT remember totally wrecking half your map are appreciated.

Yes, we want a fail safe.
Yes, by some people's definitions, that might be cheap.
But I don't think any of us really care, some of us remember a time when saving in a game before you were about to do something stupid was a valid way to play that game. Even people in LPs do that, and cheating in an LP is some kind of cardinal sin far as I can tell, so if it's legit there, it's not really that bad.

Or maybe it is to some people, bugger to them though.

I mentioned bugs as an example, but that's not why I asked for it. Back when I was playing X-Com UFO Defense (when it was originally released on many floppy disks) you'd save before going to a crash site, then create new saves for each turn for four times and then repeat saving over them going back occasionally when you moved someone too far without saving moves, lost your best guy, or just couldn't shoot to save your life. Or, if all things went really bad, you started the whole thing over again during the daylight. It's just how we did it.

Over the years saving in games has changed, some have check points, some don't allow for multiple save locations only one, some save constantly. Depending on the game really depends on which style is best. When you have a case where if you die you lose items, or you have so much leeway that you can get your sub stuck and never be able to use it again, or have your vehicles destroyed because you weren't paying attention and went too far east in search of loot, it's nice to rollback.

We have a finite amout of resources and a small selection of areas to find loot and blueprints. This means that you can screw up massively. If the game is autosaving, you have no recourse, just start a new game. I like having that safety net of being able to roll back. I've done it a lot, not just when I die because honestly I do that rarely, but when I start on a path and suddenly I change my mind. Maybe building a new base and then realizing it's a spot a warper loves to come to, or while exporing the Aurora I realize I took too much stuff in my inventory and I'd rather do it with more open slots.

This request isn't about bugs, it's about a playstyle. For those of us who are old and remember the days before personal computers, cell phones, ipads, heck even cable wasn't available in most locations, we might have a different playstyle. One of the best things about this game was that it allowed for different playstyles. You don't get that with a lot of games. You have to follow the path, the weapons, the map, the progression the way the developers wanted you to or else you didn't finish the game. This is different. Read the boards and you will find so many giving different advice on how to accomplish the same task. That's great. Having an opt out for auto-saves would just help those of us who are different from those who love it being saved automatically.