Save Game For Survival

[Ice Hole]

When I played story mode the game was able to save anywhere.  I enjoyed that.   For survival this is not an option and game progress is only saved after an injury or transition to indoors or sleeping. 

The Custom Level should have the same save game feature as the Story mode and make it a toggle.  Players can then explore in a Custom Survival mode and not be tied to a save game leash.

[omoon66]

This would make the game less challenging, and make it too easy to avoid death. In story, the devs want you to experience the story, not as much of a survival experience. With saving anywhere in survival, you could attempt something risky, see it fails, and just reload a better save. They want you to have better planning and learn from your mistakes. Saving anywhere kinda negates it.

[Ice Hole]

1 hour ago, omoon66 said:

With saving anywhere in survival, you could attempt something risky,

That is why I recommended it to be apart of the Custom Level settings so that odd and unusual things can be tried without having to go through a bunch of hoops.  Currently I am ascending TWM without using ropes and ten months ago I would just exploit sprains to make save game points (In custom level settings sprains and other nuisances can be turned off giving the explorer a chance to explore).  The ability to save anywhere should be up to the player especially on Custom Level setting.

[Wormer]

If it's save on quit I'm all for it. But you can't load: once dead you dead -- should remain.

[Doc Feral]

Not saving when you quit can actually save your hide if you find yourself unexpectedly surrounded by wolves, miss too many shots when hunting, get lost or something like that.

[Wormer]

On 5/10/2018 at 5:13 PM, Doc Feral said:

Not saving when you quit can actually save your hide if you find yourself unexpectedly surrounded by wolves, miss too many shots when hunting, get lost or something like that.

True.

[StandardFare]

I never understood why the save system isn't straighforward roguelike style:

Save on exit, Load on Resume, Delete on Death (Permadeath).

It's so simple, why isn't this used in TLD?

[henroe32]

It breaks the immersion. A system like that can be exploited if a player is approaching say a wolf or bear or something. The player saves then immediately quits the game before the animal encounter before reloading and evading it. The save system with buildings can still allow for this but not without often losing significant progress in the distance travelled and jobs done etc. Also, the non-save system adds a greater layer of difficulty to regions such as TWM or FM where buildings and interiors are (fairly) rare (more so on FM). This forces players to find shelter and rest to save progress which is certainly a more immersive save system. 

[Riotintheair]

On 5/21/2018 at 5:21 AM, StandardFare said:

I never understood why the save system isn't straighforward roguelike style:

Save on exit, Load on Resume, Delete on Death (Permadeath).

It's so simple, why isn't this used in TLD?

That works a lot better in games that don't have 3d terrain navigation. Killing a character because they got hung on terrain that would definitely not pose a problem to a real person would be awful (like the spot you can get stuck next to the log barriers near the DP church, or myriad places 3 low rocks come together).

[Ice Hole]

The mechanic of save game anywhere already exist in the Story mode game.  The simple method is have the option available to the player to decide.  Have you never played on Pilgrim just to roam around and see the sights.  Sometimes I just mountain goat around the map.  The method I choose was getting sprains on purpose to make a save point just so another hour of daylight did not have to be wasted.

Save anywhere just as in story mode with out having to reprogram anything. 

Have the option for Ironman mode limiting saves for those who need extra immersion.  The Ironman mode only saves after an eight hour rest.

[TheEldritchGod]

No.

[MarrowStone]

If you put that save option in custom settings, a vast majority of players will use it, and once they do, they wont share those wondrous stories anymore of learning how to live the hard way by dying. Or narrowly surviving a huge mistake they made by the skin of their chattering teeth. Because they'd just load back and forget about it.

The whole game world would change, it wouldnt revolve around the unfaltering apathy Mother Nature has towards humans and our struggle to balance surviving and living (one being just staying alive, the other being the human quality of exploring, learning, pushing boundaries etc.) Tld's sandbox is a game about one man/womans story of defiance against nature while also being forced to once more be part of it and ultimately die like all other things within the balance.

Instead, it would just become a winter wonderland that's welcoming and inviting and encourages human exploration and exploitation of nature by giving them the power to undo any mistake so that they can live and keep looting and killing.

Most Players dont have the will to not accept those godlike powers offered to them. And the game will grow boring and stale because of it. 

I dont mean to sound mean, these ideas are also another self-sustaining part of our community, I just hope you see how limited saves and permadeath help create the stories we share here. Im just ranting about how that one simple change would more drastically transform the game than almost any major update hinterland could throw at us.

[Doc Feral]

Just yesterday evening I was playing, I'm trasporting all looted stuff from the Broken Railroad to Forlorn Muskeg and then I'll go back to ML. It was mid-afternoon in game, I was near the transition tunnel and I needed to quit playing, with no indoor zones nearby and it was definitely not time to rest yet. As ridiculous as it may be, my character tripped on a rail and hurt her wrist. The game autosaved in the middle of nowhere so I could quit. Never before I felt happy for a sprained wrist.

[D.Hicks]

I created an account here just to say that I would also like an optional free save setting in Explorer mode.  

I'm a very casual gamer, and have been all of my life.  Mostly I play turn-based RPGs.  I have crappy reflexes, and a computer that groans a bit during auroras.  I am 90% here to explore a beautiful subarctic wilderness.  I would be more than happy to forego certain Steam achievements and TLD Feats in exchange for free saving.  

Today, 43 hours into TLD and 11 days into my first Explorer game (on Voyager), I died for the first time.  I had built a fire next to a deer carcass on the side of the slope just north of the ML headquarters.  This was my first successful kill in this game, and it likely would have prevented me from starving to death around day 13; and, on day 16, it would have provided me with the final deer skin that I needed to replace the h*cking jeans that kept me confined indoors until noon each day.   In this game, I had already survived almost freezing to death crossing Mystery Lake in heavy snow on day ~5, and 3 consecutive wolf attacks on day ~7.  Two very good near-death stories!  This time, on day 11, I apparently misjudged how far I was from the fire — difficult to do on a slope — and died instantly from a burn.  This wasn't a dramatic story or a useful lesson about survival.  This was a frustrating quirk of the graphics engine causing a frustrating, anticlimactic death.  It's so frustrating that I will probably take a break from TLD for a week or two, until I'm ready to run around frantically in sneakers and a light vest again.  

Beyond reversing this kind of stupid death, a free save system would also allow someone like me to practice with the game mechanics.  How close should I let a wolf get before I throw a torch at it?  Do I have time to fire my rifle at a charging wolf?  How tolerant is the rifle's aiming mechanic?  How warm do my clothes need to be before I can safely spend a night outdoors with a bedroll and no fire?  Investigating these things requires first investing 3+ days in a game, which is enough time to want to avoid risky things.  

[D.Hicks]

On 6/2/2018 at 2:28 AM, MarrowStone said:

Most Players dont have the will to not accept those godlike powers offered to them. And the game will grow boring and stale because of it. 

Almost all RPGs have free saving systems.  This by no means make RPGs easy, unchallenging, boring, or stale.  If anything, they allow developers to include extremely difficult challenges in the game, because players are free to attempt challenges repeatedly until they're finally successful, exploring different strategies and tactics on repeated attempts.  In TLD, the new bear cave scenario in Episode 2 is a great example of a difficult challenge that basically requires repeatedly playing and reloading to learn the bear's pathing, the location of the spear, and so on.  

[UpUpAway95]

I'm all for allowing players to save when they want to save.  For me, I am frequently interrupted while playing and it's just safer to save quickly before leaving my console unattended for even a short time.  Pausing the game to deal with the interruption without a save has caused me to lose progress when things like little power or internet fluctuations have happened.  These blips can, of course, also occur while I'm actually playing, so saving frequently is something I prefer to do whenever I can.  

More and more games are coming out with systems that seem to want to prevent the player from saving with the excuse the players will exploit it.   Sure, some players might exploit it, but this is also a single-player game.  If they want to ruin their own experience by save scumming, I say let them.  Their "misbehavior" shouldn't be an excuse to unnecessarily inconvenience other players.

[NardoLoopa]

1 hour ago, D.Hicks said:

Beyond reversing this kind of stupid death, a free save system would also allow someone like me to practice with the game mechanics.  

It may be helpful to point out that other than a couple obvious exceptions, nothing in TLD is instantly fatal to the well prepared.  You can be mauled by a bear and survive.  You can play fetch with wolves, who don't quite have the idea, and survive.  You can even boop Bullwinkle on the nose and live to tell the tail.  The only things you cannot do are things that if you think twice about it, shouldn't be a surprise (such as leaping off a cliff, or dancing on the electric wires).

So, the game gives you plenty of slack to experiment with the mechanics.  What it does not give you is a consequence-free way to do so.

[Ice Hole]

2 hours ago, NardoLoopa said:

It may be helpful to point out that other than a couple obvious exceptions, nothing in TLD is instantly fatal to the well prepared.  You can be mauled by a bear and survive.  You can play fetch with wolves, who don't quite have the idea, and survive.  You can even boop Bullwinkle on the nose and live to tell the tail.  The only things you cannot do are things that if you think twice about it, shouldn't be a surprise (such as leaping off a cliff, or dancing on the electric wires).

So, the game gives you plenty of slack to experiment with the mechanics.  What it does not give you is a consequence-free way to do so.

That was well written.  The 'jump off a cliff' scenario can be done without dying as long as you do not hit the ground; press escape key and voila no death. 

The idea for achievements being disabled while in a custom setting is perfectly acceptable.  In fact I would say leave them off until Voyageur.

The save anywhere mechanic is already in the game just use it in Custom game and Story only.  Maybe add the 'Save feature is disabled' text during Survival game mode selection to offer a warning and make it feel like a more ominous decision.

 

edit

Another way to use the save feature is by having it as an option that when save is turned off another bonus kicks in.

I just found out that feat progression is disabled in custom already. Was this always this way?

[stratvox]

Yes, achievements are completely disabled in custom mode. AFAIA there is no option to permit saving in a custom game either.

Personally, I think permadeath is a core feature of this game, and getting rid of it would be a bad idea.

[UpUpAway95]

26 minutes ago, stratvox said:

Yes, achievements are completely disabled in custom mode. AFAIA there is no option to permit saving in a custom game either.

Personally, I think permadeath is a core feature of this game, and getting rid of it would be a bad idea.

I don't think that allowing the player to save at anytime eliminates the permadeath feature.  That feature is associated with the fact that your entire character's save file is deleted automatically upon death.  For anything short of death, you can currently exit and then reload at your last sleep or pass time save.  As I envision it, all it would do is allow the player it initiate a sleep or pass time save without actually sleeping or passing time.  That save would overwrite previous saves the same way a sleep save or pass time save does now and, if the player dies, that save file would be automatically deleted.  All the anytime save would do is mean that the player might lose less progress if they need to exit the game (for example, for some IRL interruption).  If a player, sensing that they are about to die, does a save, they would wind up reloading at the point they saved... in trouble and already dying.  In that case, they would be smarter to exit without saving and lose some progress but get back to a point where they were not in trouble.

[Ice Hole]

19 hours ago, stratvox said:

I think permadeath is a core feature of this game, and getting rid of it would be a bad idea.

The idea is not to eliminate permadeath just provide options.  The idea that you can already cheat death by pressing escape is already 'abused'.  In my previous post I mentioned adding a bonus if you choose the permadeath feature.  For example with permadeath enabled extra loot becomes available by adding a cache; or maybe NPC's are unlocked or buffer memories are expanded to provide additional lore; or alternate critters that are legendary trophy.  No I do not want to remove permadeath just enhance it and make the decision for choosing permadeath have further impact on the game.

[fortis_validus]

I would welcome the option within custom survival settings to save and re-load previous saves. I have completed Wintermute stories to date, I don't particularly enjoy repeating over an over and it is unlikely i will go through the story again (at least this year), thus i started playing survival with custom settings for a bespoke challenge. The feature i don't like is starting again when i die. I could play safe and survive, but it gets boring, i want to venture, explore and develop my character. After the progress i have just lost, i have no interest in starting again currently and will probably wait for the release of chapter 3, or an update to survival?! which is a shame as i do enjoy what this game offers, but i am bored of starting over.

With a save feature i would invest hours, curing hide, birch and maple to become an accomplished survivor, mechanics similar to those in Subnautica and ARK, where i (and many others) have invested hundreds of hours and still more can be put into them. The survival experience evolves from just surviving to adapting to thrive.

I do acknowledge that gamers play for their own experiences, but current functionality are excluding gamers like myself for a casual non-repetitive experience, it's a game i would indulge and invest many more hours in if the feature was available by choice and agree with other comments regarding achievements being removed, i don't play for that, but for my own enjoyment and experiences.

[peteloud]

I make a back up of my save files every now and again, so that I can restore such a backup if I am killed.  I assume a great many others do the same.

Hinterland should accept this function and incorporate it into the Survival game. 

[Guest kristaok]

I have to agree, the save anywhere function should be optional for those who want it. I see nothing wrong with having that option, I’m all for letting people play how they choose. 

[Jigsawn]

I want to be able to savequit survival games because of my tight gaming schedule I often accidentally lose out on a lot of time. Just yesterday I lost nearly an hour of play because I quit out the game the previous day but it hadn't autosaved the whole time. Really annoying. Delete the save once you load it up, just let the player save and quit for when life gets in the way.

Other than that I have no objection to making full save/loads a custom option for the players who want it.