Save during campaign.

[eXistenZ]

It's possibly a stupid question, but is there, or will there be an option to save during stages of the campaign? If you start from level 1 it takes around 45-60 minutes to finish it, which can be a bit much to stay focused this long.

I know you can start on level 9, but you miss out on a lot of upgrades/cash/xp from the early easier levels

[MondoBondo]

If you close the game in the regular campaign (closing the window) you can pick up from the beginning of the stage you were on, but it sadly won't work for campaign plus.

[Max Is Back]

There isn't an explicit save option and there are no plans for this at the moment. Allow me to explain the reasoning behind this in a bit more detail. The game is designed with a strong focus on "rogue-like" elements such as permadeath and the concept of being completed (successfully or unsuccessfully) in a single playthrough. Of course, every playthrough should earn you XP that can be used to buy permanent upgrades in the XP tree, so every playthrough should make the next one a little easier.

The addition of a save option would undermine these rogue-like aspects; for example, permadeath wouldn't be permanent at all because you could always go back to your last save game and retry the level you died on with all the shop upgrades you'd purchased up until that point. For better or worse, this isn't how the developers intended the game to be played.

I would also add that in my opinion, a save option would introduce the risk of encouraging people to play the game in a way that only makes it more difficult to progress and much more frustrating overall. The reason I say this is because dying is a fundamental part of the game, especially during the early days of playing. Dying is actually progressing, because it's only when you die that you have the opportunity to spend your XP on permanent upgrades that will make subsequent playthroughs that much easier. If a save option were available, some players would be encouraged to use it in order to replay levels they're having trouble with, instead of just accepting death and reaping the rewards that it brings in terms of building up their XP tree. If they're repeatedly replaying a difficult level from a save game instead of dying and spending their XP on upgrades that will make that level easier on the next run, they're going to have a very frustrating experience overall.

I know I've focused quite heavily on permadeath here and I totally understand that you're not asking for a save option so you can restart from a save game after dying - you simply want to be able to take a break from the game during a single run. I can appreciate that because you're quite right, a single run can easily take 45 to 60 minutes of hardcore gaming that takes a lot of focus. That can be pretty tiring! So I understand exactly what you're saying but I wanted to give you an explanation as to why a save feature isn't present and the permadeath/progression aspect is a big part of that.

I know this doesn't help with your scenario but I hope it at least gives you a bit of insight into why the game has been designed this way.

Cheers, good gaming!

[eXistenZ]

I understand the reasoning, but can't you introduce a form of ironman saving? Here the savegame is constantly overwritten, making it impossible to use it for farming.

For example the game Renowned explorers international society also features permadeath, but after the encounters you get the "save and exit" option. If you die, your savegame is basicly destroyed as well, you can't load it cause it isnt there anymore.

So here it would work that in a way that as soon as you have finished one of the stages, your earlier savegame gets overwritten, making it impossible to load an earlier stage

[Max Is Back]

I think that's a perfectly reasonable request that would allow you to take a break from the action without undermining the rogue-like aspects of the game. I don't see any problem with this - actually, I think it's a very good idea. I'll make sure it gets flagged up to the devs.

Cheers, good gaming!

[eXistenZ]

glad to help. I bough this game like two yeas ago, so happy its still being worked on, cause you didnt hear much about it. Assassin level is pretty hard though, especially if you fail, you have to do it again with less weapons and nitro...


Is campaign+ just the campaign with less health/ more damage receiving?

[Max Is Back]

Originally posted by eXistenZ:

Is campaign+ just the campaign with less health/ more damage receiving?

Well, there's a bit more to it than that. The randomisation is much less forgiving, for example you'd never get something like car rain on level 1 of the regular campaign but it's entirely possible in Campaign+. The regular campaign ensures that, despite the randomised aspects, you'll never be overwhelmed too early in terms of game modes, enemy skill, enemy weapons and so forth.

In Campaign+ this largely goes out the window and you truly never know what to expect next. It still plays through the same three territories and each of the three biker clans gets progressively stronger just as you'd expect. But the safeguards that ensure you don't get a bad hand from the randomiser during the earlier stages of a regular Campaign are effectively removed in Campaign+, so it's much less predictable and definitely more of a challenge than simply dealing with less health, more damage and that sort of thing.

Hope this helps, cheers!

[Neo Supreme]

Yes, I do enjoy the Road Rash element bumped up by 100, but I really do desire a save during campaign feature. So tantalizingly frustrating to make it to the final stage in campaign, with no health. I had weapons out the yang, but not one flipping health pack in sight. Of course I died, thus resetting my progress. Great job.

[Caldor]

Originally posted by Neo Supreme:

Yes, I do enjoy the Road Rash element bumped up by 100, but I really do desire a save during campaign feature. So tantalizingly frustrating to make it to the final stage in campaign, with no health. I had weapons out the yang, but not one flipping health pack in sight. Of course I died, thus resetting my progress. Great job.

Well, as I see it, this game takes about an hour to finish, maybe less depending on how fast you are at the kill levels. So while it is very annoying when that happens, if you could save at that point... how would that work in a way thats not extremely unbalanced? So maybe you should lose all the XP if you save the game? It would make the game WAY too easy as I see it if you could just save the game.

Play the game, it takes around an hour. If you fail, try again a while later. Sometimes the random factors in the game will make it harder for you, but I found some of the strategy is to adapt to the rider you pick. If your rider starts with very little health... you probably want to focus on maximizing max health and health gain.

Would be nice with a save function, but it should be a "save and quit" option, not a "save game so I can just reload if I die". Doing this you might as well find some trainer that gives you unlimited health instead, or unlimited of that item that gives you extra lives.

[eXistenZ]

Thats indeed what I want. I don't mind dying, i play a lot of games like that: xcom for example. Its the full hour focus that bugs me

[Max Is Back]

Originally posted by Caldor:

Would be nice with a save function, but it should be a "save and quit" option, not a "save game so I can just reload if I die".

Yes indeed, when I was discussing this earlier in the thread with eXistenZ this is exactly the conclusion we came to. I don't think the game will ever have a standard save mechanism, but a "save and quit" option simply so you can carry on your current run at a later time is a decent proposal and doesn't compromise the rogue-like elements of the game. The idea is not to be able to load your previous save when you die and carry on from where you left off, it's merely to give you a means to exit mid-run and continue from where you left off the next time you play.

Cheers, good gaming!

[eXistenZ]

Any word on this?

[Max Is Back]

Hi eXistenZ, I'm sorry to say I haven't had any futher information on this suggestion but I'll do my best to find out more and report back. My apologies, I'll follow up as soon as I can (or it's quite possible one of the devs will leave a quick note - they watch the forums closely, even though they're posting quite rarely at the moment).

Cheers, good gaming!

[=Axton=]

Would also like to see this added. thanks Max.

[GROpwel]

This is somewhat related I think:

Maybe I'm doing something wrong but the only way I found to quit the game without losing all my XP was to detonate bombs in my hand repeatedly until I die. Perhaps include a "kill yourself" option?

I don't mind having to restart and be unable to reload a game, but I think it makes more sense to be able to quit easily without losing all XPs, since you're able to do it anyway the way I just described.

[Caldor]

Thing is, as soon as you add a reload game option and such, you become able to cheat by making a "backup" of the current save state. You can try to avoid this with the game... but yeah.