suggestion Survival autosave system should be updated

[Ghurcb]

In survival mode, the game saves only under these conditions

• Sleeping
• "Passing time" for at least an hour
• Entering an indoor location
• Getting a negative affliction

I understand the last one. You shouldn't be able to simply undo a bear mauling or frostbite by loading a previous save.
But what if you simply got lost in a forest? The game can't detect it. It won't save because of it. So let's say, you can't find your way out. You're desperately trying to locate anything familiar, but you can't, and it goes on for a long time now. Miraculously, you kept your needs in check, didn't sprain even a single ankle, and weren't attacked by any wildlife.
Let's say, there's some irl thing you have to do. Now you can either pause the game and keep your PC/console running for an unknown amount of time, or you can exit the game. And if you choose the second option, the next time you play, you'll continue from the last time you slept/rested/were inside a building.

In other words, when you were safe.

Why? Why doesn't the progress save when you're exiting the game, or just from time to time? Wouldn't it make more sence for none of your actions to be undone?

Anyway, here are other conditions, that should trigger a save.

• Exiting the game
• Pausing the game
• Opening the inventory
• Exiting an indoor location
• Starting a fire
• Failing to start a fire
• Updating the map
• Entering another region
• Finding a new location
• Wolf/bear/moose close encounters (the game already keeps track of them)
• Being attacked by a wolf/bear/moose, but the game should save in the beginning of the animation, not the end.
• And an autosave every 30 minutes

Edited May 15, 2022 by Ghurcb

[Leeanda]

I'm afraid I have to disagree on this!!! I'd hate an auto save feature on survival. I get it works on story and most other games but heck no!!🙂

[Ghurcb]

1 hour ago, Leeanda said:

I'm afraid I have to disagree on this!!! I'd hate an auto save feature on survival. I get it works on story and most other games but heck no!!🙂

But why? The more often the long dark saves, the more permanent your mistakes are. Why can't I exit the game without losing my progress (good or bad)?
Seriously, one time I had to purposefully sprain my survivor's ankle just so that the game would save and I could go to bed. Isn't it  ridiculous?!

Edited May 15, 2022 by Ghurcb

[Leeanda]

I always leave Astrid somewhere I can either sleep or rest or has a save feature already.   And the Xbox has enough save issues already, and an auto save would just make the problem worse.   I would like multi saves though same as PC users get. 

You should move your PC to the bedroom so you can play all night🙂

[Andy_K]

Exiting the game and being attacked by wildlife I can see the value of adding. Most of the others seem somewhat superfluous. Opening the inventory or pausing? 

[Mistral]

Maybe a mechanic where it automatically saves the game every 3-5 IRL minutes, if no other saving has occurred in between. That would also help with some peoples save scumming tactics?

Edited May 16, 2022 by Mistral

[Ghurcb]

50 minutes ago, Andy_K said:

Exiting the game and being attacked by wildlife I can see the value of adding. Most of the others seem somewhat superfluous. Opening the inventory or pausing? 

It's just that on the weaker systems The Long Dark might lag when saving. But if it happens when you paused the game, it shouldn't be that big of an issue.

Basically, I'd like the game to save as often as possible without causing technical problems.

[Leeanda]

I suppose it could be optional in the settings. Seems ok on other games.

 

[James Hickok]

On 5/15/2022 at 8:15 AM, Ghurcb said:

In survival mode, the game saves only under these conditions

• Sleeping
• "Passing time" for at least an hour
• Entering an indoor location
• Getting a negative affliction

I understand the last one. You shouldn't be able to simply undo a bear mauling or frostbite by loading a previous save.
But what if you simply got lost in a forest? The game can't detect it. It won't save because of it. So let's say, you can't find your way out. You're desperately trying to locate anything familiar, but you can't, and it goes on for a long time now. Miraculously, you kept your needs in check, didn't sprain even a single ankle, and weren't attacked by any wildlife.
Let's say, there's some irl thing you have to do. Now you can either pause the game and keep your PC/console running for an unknown amount of time, or you can exit the game. And if you choose the second option, the next time you play, you'll continue from the last time you slept/rested/were inside a building.

In other words, when you were safe.

Why? Why doesn't the progress save when you're exiting the game, or just from time to time? Wouldn't it make more sence for none of your actions to be undone?

Anyway, here are other conditions, that should trigger a save.

• Exiting the game
• Pausing the game
• Opening the inventory
• Exiting an indoor location
• Starting a fire
• Failing to start a fire
• Updating the map
• Entering another region
• Finding a new location
• Wolf/bear/moose close encounters (the game already keeps track of them)
• Being attacked by a wolf/bear/moose, but the game should save in the beginning of the animation, not the end.
• And an autosave every 30 minutes

No no no no.... I strongly disagree on this. It would make the game too easy. In fact i would add:

Game should save after ice breaks and u fall in the water same like it does when u fall down, get bit/mauled, get a sprain, get sick. Now you can just load the game after u fall in the ice and be ok.

What i would like to see is a cooldown on last save - say one hour. That way you couldnt abuse the game by loading when you want if something bad is about to happen.

I play on xbox X and when i have to do something or i have a visitor at my house when im playing i just pause and turn off the TV. The console goes to sleeping mode anyway and this is not that energy consuming. You can easily leave it fro hours if needed.

On 5/15/2022 at 8:56 AM, Ghurcb said:

Seriously, one time I had to purposefully sprain my survivor's ankle just so that the game would save and I could go to bed. Isn't it  ridiculous?!

When this happens to me i just make a fire put some water on and pass one hour. Even when ther is blizzard you can find a spot where u can start a fire and it only takes a few sticks to make it last for one hour. Match spawns are still huge even on loper mode that i play.

[Ghurcb]

24 minutes ago, James Hickok said:

No no no no.... I strongly disagree on this. It would make the game too easy.

How would the ability to leave the game whenever you want make it easier? The way the long dark's save system works is that every new save overwrites the previous one and you can only ever load the last save. All I'm proposing is for this last save to happen when you exit the game.

Admittedly, there's no use to many save conditions I've listed here. If the game saves when you leave it, the only times when it should autosave is when something bad happens. Something, that would make you want to press alt+F4.

24 minutes ago, James Hickok said:

When this happens to me i just make a fire put some water on and pass one hour. Even when ther is blizzard you can find a spot where u can start a fire and it only takes a few sticks to make it last for one hour. Match spawns are still huge even on loper mode that i play.

Yes, and that's an extremely backwards way of doing it. Why can't I just leave and pick up where I left off later?

[James Hickok]

2 hours ago, Ghurcb said:

How would the ability to leave the game whenever you want make it easier? The way the long dark's save system works is that every new save overwrites the previous one and you can only ever load the last save. All I'm proposing is for this last save to happen when you exit the game.

Admittedly, there's no use to many save conditions I've listed here. If the game saves when you leave it, the only times when it should autosave is when something bad happens. Something, that would make you want to press alt+F4.

I just think that beeing able to save the game whenever you want would open doors to somehow cheat/escape bad things that could happen to you while playing. If you would be able to save the game on each pause or opening your inventory that would allow you to escape every danger there is it this game - something like in the movie with Tom Cruise with the time travel/respawn thing after ur dead. For example: You got struck in a blizzard and all you have to do is press pause or open inventory to save the game at that point thus providing urself a lot of respawns if you get lost which imo breaks the whole idea of survival mode.

That is why there should be at least a hour cooldown for every save just to prvent from abusing it like i mentioned. Nowdays the game save everytime you enter indoors and you can lure animals like bears or deer near the doors and voila ! unlimited lives to kill the bear or moose without a scrath. That is abusive imo.

So in my solution when you enter an interior or save in any other way possible you are safe for the time beeing. but keep in mind that if you leave you wont be able to save the game again for an hour just to prevent stuff that i mentioned. And even when you want to leave the game an hour progress in survival mode is nothing - even if you loose it it only takes a bit time to gt back where u were at.

2 hours ago, Ghurcb said:

Yes, and that's an extremely backwards way of doing it. Why can't I just leave and pick up where I left off later?

Even if you feel like it's an extremely backwards way of doing it it only takes one minute tops.

[Leeanda]

There is just the option of passing time more frequently. 

[Jotunheim]

I think it works alright at present, as Leeanda says, you can always pass an hour to save. That being said, considering the extensive custom options in difficulty, perhaps there could be a section with saving options.

[javijungle]

On 5/15/2022 at 8:15 AM, Ghurcb said:

In survival mode, the game saves only under these conditions

• Sleeping
• "Passing time" for at least an hour
• Entering an indoor location
• Getting a negative affliction

I understand the last one. You shouldn't be able to simply undo a bear mauling or frostbite by loading a previous save.
But what if you simply got lost in a forest? The game can't detect it. It won't save because of it. So let's say, you can't find your way out. You're desperately trying to locate anything familiar, but you can't, and it goes on for a long time now. Miraculously, you kept your needs in check, didn't sprain even a single ankle, and weren't attacked by any wildlife.
Let's say, there's some irl thing you have to do. Now you can either pause the game and keep your PC/console running for an unknown amount of time, or you can exit the game. And if you choose the second option, the next time you play, you'll continue from the last time you slept/rested/were inside a building.

In other words, when you were safe.

Why? Why doesn't the progress save when you're exiting the game, or just from time to time? Wouldn't it make more sence for none of your actions to be undone?

Anyway, here are other conditions, that should trigger a save.

• Exiting the game
• Pausing the game
• Opening the inventory
• Exiting an indoor location
• Starting a fire
• Failing to start a fire
• Updating the map
• Entering another region
• Finding a new location
• Wolf/bear/moose close encounters (the game already keeps track of them)
• Being attacked by a wolf/bear/moose, but the game should save in the beginning of the animation, not the end.
• And an autosave every 30 minutes

I disagree partially on this too.

In my modest opinion,  not only it would make the game too easy, when you can't save before your incursion or your planned travel to another area, you play with tension, many factors could surprise at your path, this make more immersive the experience.

The only problem I have is when suddenly I need to leave play the game, go out home or go to bed, in that case I use passing time option or leave the laptop in sleep mode normally. In the case of other diapositives, like consoles or them with the worst hibernation systems, maybe useful to save game when needed, could be the difference.

[Ghurcb]

14 minutes ago, javijungle said:

I disagree partially on this too.

In my modest opinion,  not only it would make the game too easy, when you can't save before your incursion or your planned travel to another area, you play with tension, many factors could surprise at your path, this make more immersive the experience.

The only problem I have is when suddenly I need to leave play the game, go out home or go to bed, in that case I use passing time option or leave the laptop in sleep mode normally. In the case of other diapositives, like consoles or them with the worst hibernation systems, maybe useful to save game when needed, could be the difference.

I don't get it... I really don't get it. The more often the game saves, the LESS you can exploit it. Right?! Let's say, there's a bear charging at you. Right now, you can press esc, exit the game, and continue from the last time you slept/rested/were indoors. The way I want it to work, the bear is charging at you, you quit the game, it saves. And the next time you launch it, the bear is still charging at you. Because it saved when the bear was charging at you.

 

Honestly, scrap all that nonsense.

On 5/15/2022 at 12:15 PM, Ghurcb said:

• Pausing the game
• Opening the inventory
• Exiting an indoor location
• Starting a fire
• Failing to start a fire
• Updating the map
• Entering another region
• Finding a new location
• Wolf/bear/moose close encounters (the game already keeps track of them)
• Being attacked by a wolf/bear/moose, but the game should save in the beginning of the animation, not the end.
• And an autosave every 30 minutes

There's no need for all these conditions if the game autosaves whenever you quit.
But if it saves whenever you quit, no progress is lost and no mistakes are undone. You pick up where you left off, just as if it's one continuous playing session.
How is that exploitable?

 

3 hours ago, James Hickok said:

If you would be able to save the game on each pause or opening your inventory that would allow you to escape every danger there is it this game - something like in the movie with Tom Cruise with the time travel/respawn thing after ur dead. For example: You got struck in a blizzard and all you have to do is press pause or open inventory to save the game at that point thus providing urself a lot of respawns if you get lost

Yes... And then you quit the game to reload that older save and... It saves. Overwriting the older save. And then it continues from where you were lost.
Sure, you can use alt+F4, but
1) It's cheating.
2) You can do it already. You get lost in a blizzard, you quit the game, you load it again and you're not in a blizzard anymore. Stonks? I guess so...

AM I GOING MAD? Do I not see something obvious?

[ManicManiac]

  Some of my thoughts on the subject from previous treads (contents edited exclude bits not relevant to this discussion):

On 12/10/2020 at 4:35 PM, ManicManiac said:

The thing is, if a player wants to subvert what seems to be Hinterland's intentions... the player can  choose to "Save Scum" if they they really want to.  Besides, I don't really think Hinterland could stop folks from abruptly crashing the game to interrupt a save process, any more than they could stop a person with a console from hitting the power button in order to cheat death (or a mauling). 

On 9/26/2020 at 10:01 AM, ManicManiac said:

I would say it's a mater of player choice.
I think that since it's a single player game, there is no harm in folks playing the game how they want to. 
...Personally I choose not to play that way, but there is nothing wrong with you doing that if you want to.
All that impacts is how you play/experience the game...

I think another thing to consider, if the game autosaves as often as has been suggested by OP...  I think that would likely result in performance issues. 

In the past the game would freeze up for sometimes two (or more) seconds each time the player got a sprain (subsequently triggering a save).  We used to be able to know the instant before we were getting a sprain because the game would chug and freeze for a moment just before the effect.  I don't know if that's still a thing or not (I don't tend to get sprains very often).  I also remember that in story mode it auto-saves every 5 minutes or so... and much the same, the game would chug and pause momentarily every time the auto-save triggered.  My point is, I just don't think that such frequent auto-saves would be practical from a performance stand point.

Personally I think the save system is fine as it is... I think Hinterland's game design choices have all been for good (and very specific) reasons.  Some of those they've shared with us, and some I'm sure are due to more purely technical "under-the-hood" kinds of reasons.

If the main reasoning for such frequent save triggers is to try to stop save scumming...  Then as I mentioned before, I think that's a matter of player choice and I think it ought to remain that way.  Folks who don't like save scumming, don't have to do it.  

If the main reason for such frequent save triggers is from the frustration of loosing progress because the game crashed and it had been a long time since the last save... then I'd say that's another issue entirely, rather than any kind of problem with the save system.

To be clear, I'm not judging/condemning/attacking anyone's point of view... I'm just trying to share mine.  

Edited May 19, 2022 by ManicManiac

[odizzido]

I personally would want to be able to save at any time. If I get asked to drive someone to the hospital I am not going to tell them to wait 5mins while I find a door or try to build a fire or something which means I end up picking up from wherever the game decided to save last.

[Ghurcb]

19 hours ago, ManicManiac said:

  Some of my thoughts on the subject from previous treads (contents edited exclude bits not relevant to this discussion):

I think another thing to consider, if the game autosaves as often as has been suggested by OP...  I think that would likely result in performance issues. 

In the past the game would freeze up for sometimes two (or more) seconds each time the player got a sprain (subsequently triggering a save).  We used to be able to know the instant before we were getting a sprain because the game would chug and freeze for a moment just before the effect.  I don't know if that's still a thing or not (I don't tend to get sprains very often).  I also remember that in story mode it auto-saves every 5 minutes or so... and much the same, the game would chug and pause momentarily every time the auto-save triggered.  My point is, I just don't think that such frequent auto-saves would be practical from a performance stand point.

Personally I think the save system is fine as it is... I think Hinterland's game design choices have all been for good (and very specific) reasons.  Some of those they've shared with us, and some I'm sure are due to more purely technical "under-the-hood" kinds of reasons.

If the main reasoning for such frequent save triggers is to try to stop save scumming...  Then as I mentioned before, I think that's a matter of player choice and I think it ought to remain that way.  Folks who don't like save scumming, don't have to do it.  

If the main reason for such frequent save triggers is from the frustration of loosing progress because the game crashed and it had been a long time since the last save... then I'd say that's another issue entirely, rather than any kind of problem with the save system.

To be clear, I'm not judging/condemning/attacking anyone's point of view... I'm just trying to share mine.  

I 100% agree with you about save scumming. If someone wants to do it, there's no use in trying to stop them. And all of those save conditions are more for the sake of not losing progress accidentally. All except for these two

On 5/15/2022 at 12:15 PM, Ghurcb said:

• Wolf/bear/moose close encounters (the game already keeps track of them)
• Being attacked by a wolf/bear/moose, but the game should save in the beginning of the animation, not the end.

But... You know... No need to tempt the player. Sometimes, when I watch a bear mauling my character it takes a lot of willpower not to alt+F4.

And yes, the game might lag when saving. That happens. Maybe it could be made optional. Like, if your system is week, saves are way less frequent. 
But I don't see a technical problem in making a save when a player quits the game. It can't be disruptive in any way. Even if it freezes for 10 seconds (which would happen on switch, not sure if Hinterland fixed it) it makes no difference, 'cause you're done with the game, you quit. 

I just find it silly that when I'm doing something indoors and decide that I'm done playing for today, the most effective way to save my progress is to step outside and then get back in. Watching two loading screens back to back, because the game won't just autosave. 

[Leeanda]

Pass an hour instead🙂. But a save to end the game would be good. 

[UpUpAway95]

I hate exit saves... they usually wind up corrupting the save file for some unknown reason... and I'd be infinitely more upset at losing a save to corruption than losing even a lot of forward progress due to my own failure to simply pass an hour of time before exiting the game.

An option to toggle on manual saves for those players who want to have that privilege would be even better.  Players who feel they can't play a game with manual saving without cheesing things would still have the ability to leave the manual saving disabled... something for everyone.

Edited May 20, 2022 by UpUpAway95

[Leeanda]

Just now, UpUpAway95 said:

I hate exit saves... they usually wind up corrupting the save file for some unknown reason... and I'd be infinitely more upset at losing a save to corruption than losing even a lot of forward progress due to my own failure to simply pass an hour of time before exiting the game.

Can't say I've noticed that problem.. but it's a better solution than continuous auto saves ,in my opinion anyway.   Bit late in the game to change them anyway I should think.🙂

[UpUpAway95]

14 minutes ago, Leeanda said:

Can't say I've noticed that problem.. but it's a better solution than continuous auto saves ,in my opinion anyway.   Bit late in the game to change them anyway I should think.🙂

You haven't played Fallout 4?  I can't even begin to count the number of runs I've lost due to corrupt auto exit saves.  Fortunately, I now have that "feature" turned off... and only have to remember to turn it off again whenever I happen to reset things.  in its default mode, it was also notorious for doing autosaves at every blink... and then usually freezing or throwing up a CTD (crash to desktop) while doing them... resulting in corrupted files.

However, it's not just limited to FO4... I just recently lost of long-time Minecraft Bedrock world that corrupted as I exited the game (during the autosave).

I think it has an issue with uploading the exit save to the cloud... If my internet is particularly slow, it's possible that I wind up turning the console off before that save and upload is done.  With a manual save before exiting the game, it slows that double process down... i.e. the manual save to the console is completed before I start to exit the game and the upload to the cloud starts.

Edited May 20, 2022 by UpUpAway95

[Leeanda]

Just now, UpUpAway95 said:

You haven't played Fallout 4?  I can't even begin to count the number of runs I've lost due to corrupt auto exit saves.  Fortunately, I now have that "feature" turned off... and only have to remember to turn it off again whenever I happen to reset things.  in its default mode, it was also notorious for doing autosaves at every blink... and then usually freezing or throwing up a CTD (crash to desktop) while doing them... resulting in corrupted files.

However, it's not just limited to FO4... I just recently lost of long-time Minecraft Bedrock world that corrupted as I exited the game (during the autosave).

I think it has an issue with uploading the exit save to the cloud... If my internet is particularly slow, it's possible that I wind up turning the console off before that save and upload is done.  With a manual save before exiting the game, it slows that double process down... i.e. the manual save is completed before I exit the game and the upload to the cloud starts.

I played it for about twenty minutes. Not my thing🙂. Sounds like a load of agro.maybe I've just been lucky.. maybe just an optional save  to exit. It might lessen the chance of data loss?

[UpUpAway95]

5 minutes ago, Leeanda said:

I played it for about twenty minutes. Not my thing🙂. Sounds like a load of agro.maybe I've just been lucky.. maybe just an optional save  to exit. It might lessen the chance of data loss?

Optional is fine... I'd turn it off... and vote for a manual save that doesn't eat up 1 hour of in game time (which is really what the passing time feature is - a manual save that penalizes the player by costing them an hour in game).

I'm fine with the game autosaving upon an injury, but believe they should eliminate the autosave when going through a loading screen since it is inconsistent and, therefore, unreliable (e.g. Blackrock prison).  Those should be replaced with the ability to manually save at any time and anywhere.

Edited May 20, 2022 by UpUpAway95

[Leeanda]

Just now, UpUpAway95 said:

Optional is fine... I'd turn it off... and vote for a manual save that doesn't eat up 1 hour of in game time (which is really what the passing time feature is - a manual save that penalizes the player by costing them an hour in game).

Sorry I meant a manual save.   I'm happy with that and passing time really but I get not everyone is .