Where did my save go? Are saves deleted if you die?

[The Rabid Otter]

I saved my game manually at least once. There was at least one autosave in the first settlement. I didn't flee the wraith in the graveyard, and died. I thought I could just reload my game. However, I cannot see the option to Load Saved Game.

Am I missing something? Are saves deleted when you die? IF so, that feature seems more like a flaw.

[Valden21]

It sounds like you're playing on Insane difficulty, which is the highest one. What makes it so difficult is that it doesn't allow you to load a game if you die. The other ones allow you to load a save if you die, but "Insane" difficulty doesn't. However, I think it's one of those situations where that difficulty only unlocks if you beat the game on the others first.

[Trinity]

Insane difficulty is in The Witcher 2. In the Wither 3 you can load a game after dying on any difficulty level all you want.

[cheshirm]

saves are in folder
Documents\The WItcher 3\gamesaves

using steam cloud? should be a log in folder ...\steam\logs that will tell you if/when saves were uploaded/downloaded
file system problems, pc crashes, powering off pc before steam uploaded save file, many others.

using windows One Drive? One Drive moves files out of your Documents folders. look in the One Drive folders. the game does NOT read One Drive.

[The Rabid Otter]

@Valden21 & @Trinity: Thank you all for your feedback. I am a big wuss, so I ran it on the 'Tell Me A Story I Am a Big Wuss' level. I almost never run games in Ironman modes. Nonetheless, I will experiment with the other game difficulty levels to see see if doing so lets me see a Load Saved Game option.

@cheshirm: I'll also root around amongst the Documents directory to see if that is where the save directory is housed. I'm not using OneDrive. I set up my own directory structure, so perhaps my deviations from the standard vanilla Windows 10 directory structure is causing problems.

By any chance are there two levels of death in the game? For instance, is there a sort of "'Tis only a flesh wound" which lets you reload a save, but also a "You are really ducking dead. Start over, ducker!" for when you don't run away or something?

[The Rabid Otter]

Update: So another user noted that the customary save directory is:
C:\Users\MY_COMPUTER_NAME\Documents\The Witcher 3

When I look there, I find a steam_autocloud.vdf file and a sub-directory named \gamesaves , and it also contains a file named steam_autocloud.vdf . Both of the .vdf files are 1kb, which seems small.

After work today, I will fiddle with this and report back in case other people have had the same problem.

[cheshirm]

checked my documents folder and steam installation of over 50 games. there is no
steam_autocloud.vdf file.

does this sound familiar:
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/cloud

[Valden21]

Originally posted by The Rabid Otter:

@Valden21 & @Trinity: Thank you all for your feedback. I am a big wuss, so I ran it on the 'Tell Me A Story I Am a Big Wuss' level. I almost never run games in Ironman modes. Nonetheless, I will experiment with the other game difficulty levels to see see if doing so lets me see a Load Saved Game option.

@cheshirm: I'll also root around amongst the Documents directory to see if that is where the save directory is housed. I'm not using OneDrive. I set up my own directory structure, so perhaps my deviations from the standard vanilla Windows 10 directory structure is causing problems.

By any chance are there two levels of death in the game? For instance, is there a sort of "'Tis only a flesh wound" which lets you reload a save, but also a "You are really ducking dead. Start over, ducker!" for when you don't run away or something?

No. If you die in the game, you should always be able to reload a save; perma-death isn't something the game does, AFAIK. The difficulty levels in the game affect how much health enemies have, how much damage they do, how much XP you get from killing them, and how much of your coin is confiscated if guards knock you out. Saves aren't affected in any way. The saves are stored in your Directory folder, so I would advise checking there to see if you actually have any saves. If you don't, then something's screwy on your end.

[Bandy]

Originally posted by The Rabid Otter:

Update: So another user noted that the customary save directory is:
C:\Users\MY_COMPUTER_NAME\Documents\The Witcher 3

When I look there, I find a steam_autocloud.vdf file and a sub-directory named \gamesaves , and it also contains a file named steam_autocloud.vdf . Both of the .vdf files are 1kb, which seems small.

After work today, I will fiddle with this and report back in case other people have had the same problem.

I always disable steam cloud and steam overlay, seems to cause more problems that its worth.

Also, if your computer is new, OneDrive can also cause a problem if you uninstall the OenDrive app before unsyncing the drive. Then you are stuck with games that save to C:\Users\Documents\ folder instead saving to C:\Users\\Documents\OneDrive folder

[💗 TinyAnnie 💗]

Well its 99.9% Steam Cloud problem. Witcher 3 dont have any perma-death mechanics etc. I spend 2 100 h in this game. Now im on my 14 th playthrough... and i NEVER have this problem. NEVER. But i dont use Steam Cloud :) Its buggy and can delete your saves etc. So yeah...if u use Steam Cloud make sure to disable it.

[The Rabid Otter]

I am happy to announce that the LOAD SAVE function is now working. After confirming that I have a save directory, I then made sure to save frequently. This time I could see the files saving.

FWIW, Steam Cloud is enabled. I also moved the games files (using the PROPERTIES feature in Steam) to the C:\.

I don't think this was a Windows Defender problem, but who knows.

Thank you all for your kind assistance!

@TinyAnnie wow, your 2,100 hours even beats my ca. 1,100 hours on RimWorld!