suggestion Survival autosave system should be updated

[UpUpAway95]

52 minutes ago, Leeanda said:

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

That's OK.  I just realized that I forgot to specify that I hate AUTO exit saves in my first post.  😀

To the OP:  I am really against having so many autosave triggers going on.  At most, the game should autosave at 30 minute intervals (and hourly would be my preference) and upon an injury or attack only.  Otherwise, players should re-acquaint themselves with the habit of making their own manual saves whenever they feel they've progressed along the game far enough that they don't want to chance losing that forward progress and whenever they exit a game. 

As I stated in an earlier post, FO4, in its default state, tries to autosave at every blink... and it causes a LOT of corrupt file saves.  Losing forward progress is nothing compared to losing an entire run to a corrupted autosave just because your internet lagged.... or getting stuck in an never-ending death loop because the game chose to autosave at a very bad time.  Think about how you would feel if you got your 500-day characterr stuck in some janky terrain in a new zone just before the game autosaved you in that impossible position... and you had no choice but to delete the file.  It happened to me in TLD, but fortunately the game did not autosave and I was able to just forfeit my forward progress to that point.  I was grateful to redo that hour's worth of gameplay.

Edited May 20, 2022 by UpUpAway95

[UpUpAway95]

Also to the OP:  I find it ironic that the focus is on tripping up the player who might exit rather than get attacked by an onrushing bear... forfeiting whatever amount of forward progress they've made in the process in a single-player world... when there are those here who claim to be playing permadeath when, in reality, they've made spare copies of their file saves that they can just reactivate after they die... thereby also only forfeiting whatever forward progress they've made since making the copy.  Personally, I don't see the difference between these two types of "save scummers."

Playing permadeath is a mindset... a commitment made by the player to allow the file to delete or to delete it manually themselves upon any death.

ETA:  I also wanted to add that not playing permadeath is not a crime... it's simply not playing permadeath.  I do believe people should be able to set their own level of challenge in any single-player game and take their own responsibility for that... playing it in any way that satisfies themselves without all this judgment from others... and thereby without the devs continually adding in features to "police" such things with autosaves to the detriment of game stability.

Edited May 20, 2022 by UpUpAway95

[Ghurcb]

23 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

That's OK.  I just realized that I forgot to specify that I hate AUTO exit saves in my first post.  😀

To the OP:  I am really against having so many autosave triggers going on.  At most, the game should autosave at 30 minute intervals (and hourly would be my preference) and upon an injury or attack only.  Otherwise, players should re-acquaint themselves with the habit of making their own manual saves whenever they feel they've progressed along the game far enough that they don't want to chance losing that forward progress and whenever they exit a game. 

As I stated in an earlier post, FO4, in its default state, tries to autosave at every blink... and it causes a LOT of corrupt file saves.  Losing forward progress is nothing compared to losing an entire run to a corrupted autosave just because your internet lagged.... or getting stuck in an never-ending death loop because the game chose to autosave at a very bad time.  Think about how you would feel if you got your 500-day characterr stuck in some janky terrain in a new zone just before the game autosaved you in that impossible position... and you had no choice but to delete the file.  It happened to me in TLD, but fortunately the game did not autosave and I was able to just forfeit my forward progress to that point.  I was grateful to redo that hour's worth of gameplay.

Well, in that case, the best way to go about saving the progress would be "would you like to save before exiting" prompt when you quit the game.
I just don't think adding a manual save option (like in wintermute) into a mode where you cannot reload your saves makes sence. 

50 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Also to the OP:  I find it ironic that the focus is on tripping up the player who might exit rather than get attacked by an onrushing bear... forfeiting whatever amount of forward progress they've made in the process in a single-player world... when there are those here who claim to be playing permadeath when, in reality, they've made spare copies of their file saves that they can just reactivate after they die... thereby also only forfeiting whatever forward progress they've made since making the copy.  Personally, I don't see the difference between these two types of "save scummers."

Playing permadeath is a mindset... a commitment made by the player to allow the file to delete or to delete it manually themselves upon any death.

ETA:  I also wanted to add that not playing permadeath is not a crime... it's simply not playing permadeath.  I do believe people should be able to set their own level of challenge in any single-player game and take their own responsibility for that... playing it in any way that satisfies themselves without all this judgment from others... and thereby without the devs continually adding in features to "police" such things with autosaves to the detriment of game stability.

As I said before, people can play as they wish. I do believe that "save scumming" should be discouraged, though, because it often takes away from the gaming experience and lowers the stakes.

But again, most of those save condition I described in the first post are for making sure no progress is lost if the game crashes. And, to be frank, I don't believe that they are too frequent. For example, starting a fire or finding a new location isn't something you do that often. (saving every time you open the inventory is definitely an overkill, though)

[Cr41g]

I, personally, don't honestly think an expanded autosave system benefits anyone or needs any change at all... all the ways you can save now should be ample enough

[UpUpAway95]

52 minutes ago, Ghurcb said:

Well, in that case, the best way to go about saving the progress would be "would you like to save before exiting" prompt when you quit the game.
I just don't think adding a manual save option (like in wintermute) into a mode where you cannot reload your saves makes sence. 

As I said before, people can play as they wish. I do believe that "save scumming" should be discouraged, though, because it often takes away from the gaming experience and lowers the stakes.

But again, most of those save condition I described in the first post are for making sure no progress is lost if the game crashes. And, to be frank, I don't believe that they are too frequent. For example, starting a fire or finding a new location isn't something you do that often. (saving every time you open the inventory is definitely an overkill, though)

But you want to add in a whole bunch of instances where autosaves are triggered on the premise that it's to prevent lost progress if a crash occurs... but the frequency of autosaves can CAUSE additional crashes.  It still does not prevent a player from exiting the game without saving between those autosaves.. so rather than forfeiting the progress they made from their last sleep or the last time they passed time or the last time they entered a building to save their character from an attack, they are only forfeiting maybe the last 5 minutes (or 30 minutes of gameplay)... which, ironically, might encourage those players to do the exit rather than suffer the attack since less time is at risk.  You're setting up a catch 22 that compromises game stability... just because you're assuming "others" can't take responsibility for making their own manual saves when (and only when) it is appropriate to do so.  When I manually save... I'm accepting that, should the game crash, I will be going back to the point of my last manual save... rather than expect the game dev to cover me with frequent autosaves in the event of the game crashing.

ETA:  Asking the question... making an auto exit save optional (without allowing the player to save BEFORE exiting) still does not circumvent the issue of file corruption occurring during an exit save because the game is trying to upload to the cloud while also trying to save on the console... which seems to be an issue for me because of my slow internet.

Edited May 20, 2022 by UpUpAway95

[UpUpAway95]

Adding another point to the OP:  You say you don't think it will be too frequent, but the devil is in the details here.  You specifically single out "failure to start a fire."  Do you tend to exit and reload whenever a match fails?  Yet, you apparently believe others do... and if that holds true... what about reloads whenever mending clothing fails or if you miss that bow or rifle shot on that deer?  If HL adds an immediate autosave to prevent such reloads whenever any attempted action fails... how frequent are those autosaves going to wind up being after all?  Is the added policing to catch a few people who are that intent on reloading/save scumming worth exposing the game to additional crashes and corruption issues?  I think not.  Let them reload if they want to regardless of whether it hampers their experience or not.  It's a single-player game.  Their gaming experience is not yours to forcibly control for them.  What they do to themselves they do to themselves.

Edited May 20, 2022 by UpUpAway95

[Leeanda]

Doesn't it save when entering a new region already?   Can't say I've noticed 😁.  

On another point ,I get why it saves after a mauling/stomping but sprains??  They're hardly life threatening unless you ignore it and get continuous ones on top of if.  

 

On a slightly different note ,isn't there a better ,nicer phrase than "save scumming"?

 

Edited May 21, 2022 by Leeanda

[Ghurcb]

1 hour ago, Leeanda said:

On a slightly different note ,isn't there a better ,nicer phrase than "save scumming"?

Alt+F4ing?

1 hour ago, Leeanda said:

On another point ,I get why it saves after a mauling/stomping but sprains??  They're hardly life threatening unless you ignore it and get continuous ones on top of if.  

After reading 20+ replies telling me how wrong I am, yeah, there's no need to prevent people from undoing something THAT insignificant. 
And no, @UpUpAway95, I don't quit the game after failing to start a fire. In fact, I believe the success chance is too high right now. I'd prefer if it was ~20% lower.

I don't know what's the deal with fallout 4 and corrupted saves, but if Hinterland can implement a "Do you want to save your progress before exiting" without destroying 500 day interloper runs, I think they should do that. Skipping an hour to make a save to me feels unnecessarily forced. In TLD time is an important recourse, and wasting it like this won't help your survival.

[Leeanda]

10 minutes ago, Ghurcb said:

Alt+F4ing?

After reading 20+ replies telling me how wrong I am, yeah, there's no need to prevent people from undoing something THAT insignificant. 
And no, @UpUpAway95, I don't quit the game after failing to start a fire. In fact, I believe the success chance is too high right now. I'd prefer if it was ~20% lower.

I don't know what's the deal with fallout 4 and corrupted saves, but if Hinterland can implement a "Do you want to save your progress before exiting" without destroying 500 day interloper runs, I think they should do that. Skipping an hour to make a save to me feels unnecessarily forced. In TLD time is an important recourse, and wasting it like this won't help your survival.

Well that's definitely nicer even if it only applies to PC. So suits me🙂. 

I wouldn't take it personally,I've written a few posts that got no response. It just means that you've picked a topic that people are interested in🙂. Sprains are one of my pet peeves though.  

[UpUpAway95]

4 hours ago, Ghurcb said:

Alt+F4ing?

After reading 20+ replies telling me how wrong I am, yeah, there's no need to prevent people from undoing something THAT insignificant. 
And no, @UpUpAway95, I don't quit the game after failing to start a fire. In fact, I believe the success chance is too high right now. I'd prefer if it was ~20% lower.

I don't know what's the deal with fallout 4 and corrupted saves, but if Hinterland can implement a "Do you want to save your progress before exiting" without destroying 500 day interloper runs, I think they should do that. Skipping an hour to make a save to me feels unnecessarily forced. In TLD time is an important recourse, and wasting it like this won't help your survival.

Why then did you specify in your list that the game should autosave every time the player fails to start a fire?... and what does that even have to do with your belief here that the chance rate of starting a fire is too high?  My point was that going after all the various opportunities for people to reload after a failure would definitely create a situation where the game is almost constantly autosaving... countering your stated belief that the autosave philosophy in your proposal would not generate autosaves that would be too frequent.  If you're just singling out fire starting failures.... my question is why only that specific one and not the other failed opportunities where people might be tempted to reload to try again? 

Again, I just don't think it's worth trying to stop that sort of behavior.  It's none of my business whether someone else is ruining their own gaming experience by save scumming in a single-player game.  I'm responsible only for my own gaming experience... and I'd rather accept that responsibility by being able to make manual saves.  If I forget to save and lose a lot of progress if the game crashes, I'm OK with that because it would be my own fault... not the fault of the game making an autosave at a bad moment.

So, if as you say, your focus is on game crashes and not save scumming...Why not just propose the game autosave at regular 30-minute intervals where, if the game crashes, the player would not ever lose more that 30-minutes of gameplay?  Why toss in fire failures at all?

It's not just a matter of HL's programming... increasing the frequency of autosaves (regardless of the reason) increases the chances of an autosave occurring at a bad time.  Games stutter when they  are autosaving... it's just a fact (mentioned by others before me in this thread).  FO4 is simply one example of many games that have autosave problems.

Also, as I stated above... asking the question "do you want to save while exiting" is fine... It doesn't address the specific issue I have of a slow internet trying to save the game to the console while also trying to upload the game to the cloud.  Allowing me to manually save BEFORE initiating the exit of the game enables me to separate those two actions so they occur one at time.  I get fewer corrupt files. 

For example, Minecraft Xbox 360 edition gave the player manual saving ability and then also an option to exit either with saving or without.  Minecraft Bedrock, on the other hand, does not have a manual save option and autosaves on exit (locking in ALL forward progress because you cannot exit the game without saving)... and I've had corrupted file saves occur in that game as well as FO4 (which allows for manual saves but in it's default will try to save at 5-minute intervals and whenever entering combat and whenever entering a building and... etc. etc.)  FO4 is a game that, if the player uses those defaults, has a LOT of problems with corrupted file saves.  One of the first things recommended to me by other players was to turn off all those autosave "features" and take responsibility for manually saving the game.  It was good advice and  definitely lowered the rate of corrupted files significantly. 

In Survival mode, the game saves completely differently... you can only save by sleeping and the game has 3 saves that it rotates through with each sleep.  It does not autosave while you're playing.  It will auto exitsave if you let it (but I tend to avoid it since it's the exitsaves that seem to cause corruption issues in Survival).  I have lost significant progress as a result, but I'm OK with that since I'm making that decision to disallow the exitsaves... and I prefer losing progress to losing everything due to a corrupted exitsave.

If HL goes the route of increasing the frequency of autosaves, then I HOPE they can see their way to giving me the option to turn them off and manually save when I deem it appropriate to do so (and let me also assume responsibility for the quality of my own gaming experience).  I honestly don't care whether or not anyone else saves scums or does whatever in their own single-player games.  I want to be able to just tend to my own gaming experience myself... and corrupted file saves is most likely to destroy my gaming experience... not some Joe I don't even know save scumming in his game.

Edited May 21, 2022 by UpUpAway95

[Pencil]

The game does a good job of making saving easy but makes "Alt+F4ing" slightly difficult. If you are out hunting, you miss your shot, and you want to reload your last save, you might have to go clear back to in-game hours ago when you first woke up at your base, which is far away from where you're hunting. You could pass time an hour to save at the hunting spot, but you are having to sacrifice time, calories, and potentially warmth if it's cold. 

If the game needed more ways to save the game, what if the game saved when a blizzard starts? That is, if we are trying to prevent people from reloading their last save. But ruining other people's enjoyment by forcing them a save when they want to go back on a single player game may not be the best decision. If they are playing this for the enjoyment, let them reload their last save instead of rage quit the game. 

I suggest a hardcore mode and a forgiving mode. Would this be difficult to implement this far into production? Probably, but it's an idea. Hardcore mode would be as it is now; autosaves on afflictions and maulings, and permadeath. Forging mode would allow save-anywhere and possibly disable permadeath, though I know that The Long Dark's way of doing things has always been permadeath (except for Wintermute). I suppose I'm suggesting a survival mode that is basically Wintermute without the missions and without boundaries. 

Sorry, I hope you don't mind me making a suggestion on your discussion. 

[Kranium]

Autosaving after I get glitch-stuck in terrain, golly gee that sounds like fun.