Save in Combat

[Surrealistik]

I have to disagree. If you can do something, there will always be some temptation to go ahead and do it. I like the fact that you can't save during a mission, yet I would probably do it if I could, being fully aware that it's not as much fun if I do!

On the higher difficult levels (the highest one in particular), the absence of battlescape saves isn't beneficial to the experience and funfactor so much as blatantly detrimental. This is because it takes signifigantly more time to make any sort of progress *without* losing soldiers as you are forced to play extremely conservatively. Even then, success is hardly guaranteed given that the AI seems to "cheat" and is aware of the disposition and location of your forces at all times.

On occasion, I've spent somewhere in the vincinity of half an hour on a mission (usually when there's a large contingent of aliens) only to be thwarted by a single soldier death, because X/Y camping alien knows Z trooper is approaching, realizes he has the TU to reach and Kerrblade him, and has the HP/Armour to effortlessly tank the rest of my team's reaction fire (incredibly, even when they're all equipped with plasma rifles). You might ask, what about grenades? It takes 4 of them in close proximity (at least) to kill armoured aliens on max difficulty, and I didn't know exactly where he was in order to direct them. Case in point, even when demonstrating every precaution imaginable, I still ended up losing approximately thirty minutes of my time. This is of course but one example. There are other occasions in which freak incidents such as a particularily deviant grenade or missile caused me to lose tens of minutes repeatedly. Obviously this can hardly be considered "fun" or "entertaining".

Perhaps as a compromise, an "ironman" mode option can be made availible at the creation a new game. Once selected, it cannot be changed later, permitting only log-out saves, so those who wish to enjoy that kind of experience, but do not have the discipline to given the availibility of a save option, can, while it isn't imposed on the rest of the playerbase.

[Voller]

I guess an "extra hard" tick box could be an option. If enabled, it means you can't save (or only somehow limited) irrespective of the difficulty level you choose. That way you can play on "easy" without being allowed to save, but if you want to you can still play on "superhuman" and save as often as you like.

I hear what you're saying about the AI being good enough as it is and not being allowed to save taking the fun away. I have to admit, I didn't think this through. Also I don't consider myself a hard core gamer who'd want to give himself an extra kick by playing it on the highest difficulty without saving, but I'd certainly would like to try that on medium. So if there's a way of customising the difficulty level, that could be quite neat!

[Wanderer]

On the higher difficult levels (the highest one in particular), the absence of battlescape saves isn't beneficial to the experience and funfactor so much as blatantly detrimental. This is because it takes signifigantly more time to make any sort of progress *without* losing soldiers as you are forced to play extremely conservatively. Even then, success is hardly guaranteed given that the AI seems to "cheat" and is aware of the disposition and location of your forces at all times.

Sorry, but this specifically is the 'wrong' reason for battlescape saves.  If you can't handle the heat and loss of troops, play a lighter level of AI.

I'd like to see a battlescape save because I've played a map for an hour or longer, taking my time, using tight strategies.  My guys die, oh well.  I think I replace everyone at least twice by the time I hit the end of the tech tree on standard, never mind harder levels.

In the end you play your game, I'll play mine.  You want a 'godmode', called battlescape saves.  I want something that when the girl shows up in the lingerie I close the computer.  Now. ... without losing what I was doing.  

Same result, battlescape saves.  I guess I just can't see the challenge of reloading the game over and over as you slowly detect each alien.  If they're pounding the dirt out of me (and I'm not enjoying the challenge), I'd drop down an AI level.

[Surrealistik]

In the end you play your game, I'll play mine. You want a 'godmode', called battlescape saves. I want something that when the girl shows up in the lingerie I close the computer. Now.  ... without losing what I was doing.

Same result, battlescape saves. I guess I just can't see the challenge of reloading the game over and over as you slowly detect each alien. If they're pounding the dirt out of me (and I'm not enjoying the challenge), I'd drop down an AI level.

It's not that they're "pounding the dirt" out of me, so much as that one or two freak incidents, or unlucky occurances can be almost expected to happen per engagement, regardless of my precautions and systemic approach. I don't want a "godmode". I am willing to accept the consequences of my mistakes. I want a safeguard against random misfortune. It is not fun to have your well laid plans executed over the course of tens of minutes to be suddenly defeated by no fault of your own via a misfiring plasma grenade, an alien that inexplicably survives your entire squad's reaction fire against all odds to the contrary, or even a misclick at times.

[leany]

Hi, i also think the developner should make it possible that everyone can save within a battle. Everyone can use saving or not if he or she dont want to save. But it really should be possible. Not everyone is just a Iron man. When i come home from work i just want to play a few minutes and not always a whole battle. So PLEASE make it possible to save within a battle. If there are someone who will save every minute, why not? If that is their way of having fun when they are playing AI. PLEASE think about it. Everyone should have been fun when playing AI. It is really a fantastic game. I played Terror from the deep an apocalypse and now AI. PLEASE make this whish of many possible!


OR WHAT I PREFER: An Autosave during Battle. On Easy: all 5 minutes; On Normal: all 10 minutes .... Perhaps this should be a solution

[Tonsilgon]

Hi,

I rarely have time to play for more than 1 hour because I have a wife and daughter. So I simply do not have the time to try a mission a hundred times, just because I loose half of my staff...
I play to relax and: Yes, I save and load often because I love to play a mission "clean" without casualties in my team.

I tried UFO AI, but without savegames in combat I will probably wait for UFO-Extraterrestrials.

Just a word to the developers. When I was a student 10 years ago, I also could play a single game for 12 hours a day. And I did with the original UFO as well as with TFTD. But you cannot be a hardcore-gamer and a good father and husband at the same time.
So get down from your hardcore-gamer-attitude and give people who just don't have time or just like to play another style a savegame in combat.

[Varil]

I think the best option would be an autosave which overwrites itself every turn. That'd be useful for dealing with both crashes and needing to leave mid-battle.

I also feel the imposed Iron-man, in general, isn't a very good idea. You say "If the option is there there'll always be the temptation" but I say that if you can't resist the option to reload, then you simply aren't up to ironman play. Big deal. It's a game, if you don't *want* to play it ironman, then why bother trying in the first place? Enforced ironman doesn't help the people who want to play that way in the first place, and it isn't doing anything but frustrating the people who don't want to play that way.

[Alex]

Are there any technical issues with saving during combat, from a programming perspective how much extra work would it be (considering all the other priorities at the moment)

[breversa]

I think the best option would be an autosave which overwrites itself every turn. That'd be useful for dealing with both crashes and needing to leave mid-battle..

I support this idea (= save gets deleted after being loaded), which would make save-scumming impossible (unless you make manual backup copies of your combat savegames...) while at the same time allowing to resume after a crash... or dinner. :wink:

However, autosaving every turn seems a bit overkill (every n turns then ? ); so a manual save option may be enough.

[Skylinux]

I like the inability for manual saves as well, I know if it is there I would eventually use it in a very tough situation. Since there is no option, this game has a more intense feeling then other  games. LOVE IT.

BUT,  maybe an auto save function could be added which will save every 20 turns or so to make crashes less painful. Using rotating file names would prevent the problem GalCiv II has which sometimes  crashes on save and kills the old save game.

[inquisiteur2]

I am totally against the save feature, it will wipe out all the challenge from the game.

[Mattn]

to make a long discussion short - we made this design decision a long time ago - there will be no mid-game saving (at least not done by this team)

but it's open source - so implement whatever you like and submit a patch to our patch tracker

[wz]

Well... I think number of slots to save game in the middle of the battle can be function of level:
{...}
 I think this scheme is fair enough.

I suggest save in combat (all possible slot or addition slots) to make paid. Cost can be depending of level:

 Very easy -- 100000
 Easy -- 300000
 Standard -- 999999.99 
 Hard, Very Hard - unavailable.

It is possible to be save also for WebMoney (and donate this money for this project  ) but then without an Internet in game it will be impossible to play.

[SpaceWombat]

I think this paying for savegames sounds utterly artificial to me.
I support Winter's idea of limited combat save slots (they could be decreasing with higher difficulty levels).
Since this is a matter of difficulty balance I say yes, devs should should carefully handle this no matter whether the players want to choose everything themselves. The game experience depends on how the game is designed not by what features I use.
If it is a feature of the game it is not a cheat and I will say "that was too easy" instead of "if I had not used feature xy it would have been more fun".
On higher difficulty levels you have to get used to losses on the battlefield and I do not like games which tend to reward people who have a freaky habit of "perfect play just because it is possible".
Implement a cheat code for stats and money if you like but at some point it must be the same game experience for all players.

For people who have problems with unstable power supply or urgent interruptions the limited quicksave option or something like this would be nice.
But please do not adopt the difficulty levels to people who like to save and load every 10 secs. (You would have to make it harder to let it still be a challenge for those and therefore make it nearly impossible or luck dependant for the "normal" player imho.)

[Sacrusha]

Thread necromancy at work.

Because of the involved change of difficulty and the loss of fun (perfect win is possible, so it becomes a goal, so some feel they have to save/load all the time [including me]), it was decided long ago to not implement this. Ways to allow a "save and quit" were also discussed and will very likely be accepted if anyone codes such a feature.