Please add option to SAVE game in Survival

[Holden]

Guys, this is killing me.  I like this game a lot, and I like to play in a less than sober state - a LOT.  Sometimes I just wanna see a bear rip me apart while I laugh then reload - and I can't because ironman mode is enforced, which is ridiculous.

 

Just let some of us lesser, drug addled peasants save our game so we can reload after doing something dumb for laughs please.  Pretty please?

[Serenity]

It's not difficult to save scum if you want to

[peteloud]

I agree with your basic point.   It is not good that someone is killed off and has to restart a new game when they put a considerable effort into a great many hours of a game.

I make a backup of my save file every now and again so I don't have to restart from the beginning.

 

[Holden]

Yeah, but how?  I should note that I play on Linux Mint 19.3

[Holden]

1 hour ago, Serenity said:

It's not difficult to save scum if you want to

Wait, are you saying that saving your game is now called "scumming?"  Really?

 

A standard gaming feature since I started playing computer games in the early 80's is now called "scumming?"  That's nuts!

[Mistral]

It is called scumming because it is cheating the intended way of playing.

I wouldn't mind them adding save option for Pilgrim/Voyager/Stalker, just leave Interloper out of it (and Deadman if they ever make official mode of it). And for Custom run a choice of yes or no for saving, that should be the first line in the options

I believe that in Green Hell, this is basically already what happens with perma-death, in terms of comparative difficulty levels 

Edited January 5, 2021 by Mistral

[Holden]

Cheating.  In a single-player game.

 

So saving your game is now considered cheating - in a single-player game.

 

Ok.

Edited January 5, 2021 by Holden

[mayimbe]

If you could save your game, it would not be so much fun to know that you could die if you take a wrong step.It is the good thing about the game preparing a strategy and having to change it if a blizzard or if a pack of wolves surround you that if you risk a lot you can die is the essence of this game. I prefer that they do not touch that because to my liking if you die you die nothing of loading games because otherwise the surprise factor or the risk factor would not be worth anything.

[Holden]

4 minutes ago, mayimbe said:

If you could save your game, it would not be so much fun to know that you could die if you take a wrong step.It is the good thing about the game preparing a strategy and having to change it if a blizzard or if a pack of wolves surround you that if you risk a lot you can die is the essence of this game. I prefer that they do not touch that because to my liking if you die you die nothing of loading games because otherwise the surprise factor or the risk factor would not be worth anything.

I respectfully disagree.  I play games differently than you, and often in "enhanced" mental states (maybe "stunted" is a better word, lol)  - Wouldn't it be preferable to have a game where both our preferred play styles are optional?  Wouldn't that appeal to a larger player audience?

 

I'm not speaking about anything other than adding an optional save-game feature - so no red-herring's please.

 

Peace.

[Dr. S.]

1 hour ago, Holden said:

Wait, are you saying that saving your game is now called "scumming?"  Really?

A standard gaming feature since I started playing computer games in the early 80's is now called "scumming?"  That's nuts!

Save scumming is a standard gaming term that has been around at least since ... the early 80's, e.g. as discussed here.

[peteloud]

I would be interested to see what % of survival players back-up their save file.

Similarly I would be interested to see what % of Interloper players have edited their save file.

I back-up saves but do not edit the save file.

[Holden]

1 minute ago, peteloud said:

I would be interested to see what % of survival players back-up their save file.

Similarly I would be interested to see what % of Interloper players have edited their save file.

I back-up saves but do not edit the save file.

Would you be so kind as to explain how you make a backup of your save file?  That would really give me peace of mind before my next binge

[peteloud]

1 minute ago, Holden said:

Would you be so kind as to explain how you make a backup of your save file?  That would really give me peace of mind before my next binge

The save file with a PC is saved under,

Users/yourname/AppData/Local/Hinterland/TheLongDark/

I rarely use the backup.  If I die early in games, i.e. before day 15 I am usually happy to start afresh.  I rarely die after that.

 

[Holden]

3 minutes ago, peteloud said:

The save file with a PC is saved under,

Users/yourname/AppData/Local/Hinterland/TheLongDark/

I rarely use the backup.  If I die early in games, i.e. before day 15 I am usually happy to start afresh.  I rarely die after that.

 

On Linux it appears the save games are located here:

 

/home/<myusername>/.local/share/Hinterland/TheLongDark

 

I've documented the location for other Linux users in the future.

Many thanks kind sir.

[peteloud]

 

5 hours ago, Holden said:

. . . and I like to play in a less than sober state - . . .

 I have to smile at your mentioning that you play games in a less than sober state. I suspect that all of the waits for fire-lighting, saving when entering a new area, and a million other reasons means that I pick up my glass and have a quick drink.  TLD will make me an alcoholic if I'm not careful.  I suspect many others are in the same position as I am.

 

"I started playing computer games in the early 80's"

So you're a newbie?  Some of us played the original Scott Adams Adventures when they were hot out of the cassette recorder.

Edited January 5, 2021 by peteloud

[Dr. S.]

22 minutes ago, Holden said:

On Linux it appears the save games are located here:

/home/<myusername>/.local/share/Hinterland/TheLongDark

I've documented the location for other Linux users in the future.

Many thanks kind sir.

It's probably best to point people to the Hinterland support page that documents the location of the save files on all platforms, because it does change. (It was different for the recent test branch, for example.)

[UpUpAway95]

3 hours ago, Mistral said:

It is called scumming because it is cheating the intended way of playing.

I wouldn't mind them adding save option for Pilgrim/Voyager/Stalker, just leave Interloper out of it (and Deadman if they ever make official mode of it). And for Custom run a choice of yes or no for saving, that should be the first line in the options

I believe that in Green Hell, this is basically already what happens with perma-death, in terms of comparative difficulty levels 

I'd just put it into Custom... leave Pilgrim, Voyageur, Stalker and Interloper out of it... and enable feat progression in Custom games.  Since feat progression accumulates over multiple file saves anyways and since many PC players are making backups of their file saves anyways, it's really become pointless to reserve feat progression to "standard" difficulty modes... and the forced exclusion of saving has become rather pointless for any mode; but I'd leave it out of all the standard difficulty modes to avoid ruffling the egos of the players who insist on scaling everything to those standardized modes.

Edited January 5, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[peteloud]

3 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

I'd just put it into Custom... leave Pilgrim, Voyageur, Stalker and Interloper out of it... and enable feat progression in Custom games.

Why not in the plain standard levels?

I normally play Stalker and sometimes Voyager, so that I can compare my experiences, on a level playing field, with others, and I want back-up saves in those.

[UpUpAway95]

15 minutes ago, peteloud said:

Why not in the plain standard levels?

I normally play Stalker and sometimes Voyager, so that I can compare my experiences, on a level playing field, with others, and I want back-up saves in those.

So as to not ruffle the egos of those players who seem to hold those standardized levels on a pedestal... that continually imply that playing an Interloper standard run is universally superior to playing a custom run regardless of which options are changed in the custom run, how many options are changed, and whether or not they are changed to scale things to the right or left (i.e. whether or not that change has an effect of making the game easier or harder in that single aspect... and then failing to consider the overall effect of the combination of changes made).  The "standard" is set.. it shouldn't be changed just because some players find it convenient.  Let them get around things how they've always done... save scumming and backing up their saves.

Personally, I would eliminate the standardized difficulties entirely.

Edited January 5, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[gotmilkanot]

I doubt they'd add this feature to Survival mode as Raph himself is strongly against save scumming in his game (you can do a quick search on his tweets about this). Having said that, nobody can stop you from save scumming even if they want to because it's impossible for games with local saves.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend save scumming unless it's really something stupid that's not under your control like getting stuck in the terrain. Save scumming negates risks, and having zero risks in a permadeath game is just not fun IMO. But it's a single-player game after all so to each his own.

[Dr. S.]

The more I think about it, the more I think there should be an option to start a run in "explore mode" or "goof-off mode" or "relax-o mode" or whatever you want to call it, where you could choose to die or not. (This is how explore mode in nethack works; if you  play in explore mode and you die, you get the prompt "Really die? [y/n]".)

Of course you can start separate throw-away runs (or save scum) to test things or experiment, but it would be fun to have a run simply for testing and exploration, like if you feel like taking on four wolves bare-handed or jumping off things of different heights to see how much damage you take, or whatever.

[UpUpAway95]

4 minutes ago, gotmilkanot said:

I doubt they'd add this feature to Survival mode as Raph himself is strongly against save scumming in his game (you can do a quick search on his tweets about this). Having said that, nobody can stop you from save scumming even if they want to because it's impossible for games with local saves.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend save scumming unless it's really something stupid that's not under your control like getting stuck in the terrain. Save scumming negates risks, and having zero risks in a permadeath game is just not fun IMO. But it's a single-player game after all so to each his own.

As you say... there is no stopping those who want to save scum.  There is also no stopping people from backing up their saves.  Manual saves, however, are not just used to save scum.  They are used to save progress when, for example, you're called away from your game suddenly by an IRL event.  I can't tell you have many times I've lost significant progress because I got called away from my game and, being unable to save, came back to it to find that my power had been disrupted or someone had decided they wanted to use the TV (I'm on a console BTW) and/or my device simply times off due to whatever called me away taking too long.

[gotmilkanot]

9 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

As you say... there is no stopping those who want to save scum.  There is also no stopping people from backing up their saves.  Manual saves, however, are not just used to save scum.  They are used to save progress when, for example, you're called away from your game suddenly by an IRL event.  I can't tell you have many times I've lost significant progress because I got called away from my game and, being unable to save, came back to it to find that my power had been disrupted or someone had decided they wanted to use the TV (I'm on a console BTW) and/or my device simply times off due to whatever called me away taking too long.

Then I guess a simple "Quit to save" feature should suffice? Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

[UpUpAway95]

14 minutes ago, gotmilkanot said:

Then I guess a simple "Quit to save" feature should suffice? Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

It has some pitfalls as well, particularly in the event of a power outage.  Some games with exitsaves that I've played have been particularly susceptible to file save corruption... often caused by the player shutting down the device too quickly after exiting the game... but sometimes also due to interruptions with the internet, since that's generally when the consoles also upload saves to the cloud.

My preference is to put it in the hands of the player... and if they are inclined to cheat in a single-player game, that's their issue, not the responsibility of the devs to try to police them into playing a game by their definition of "properly."  If my grandchildren want to use my Monopoly board game to play "store" instead, I say "kudos" to them for exhibiting some imagination.  I don't expect Hasbro to show up at my door to try to force them to play the game how it should be played.

[Dr. S.]

24 minutes ago, gotmilkanot said:

Then I guess a simple "Quit to save" feature should suffice? Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

They could add a "Save" button to the current "Confirm" and "Go Back" buttons that appear when you use the "Quit" menu item.