Saving game & replacing units

[BTAxis]

Because with all due respect, but whether or not someone wants to save in mid-mission is not your concern. You have absolutely no right to tell people how they should or should not play the game, within it's own limitations.

Deciding not to add an easy-to-implement feature is your right as the makers, but trying to explain objections to that away with 'we don't want people to play the game using it' is not a good excuse.

Well, it kind of depends on how you look at it. You have a point when you say it's not good to push the player into a box when it comes to playing the game. However, every game imposes SOME restrictions on the player in order to make it more of a challenge. In Tetris, you don't get to pick what blocks you get or how fast they fall. In Quake, you have a limited amount of health. In Civilization, you can't build an unlimited amount of units. They're not meant to screw the player over, they're simply part of what makes the game the game. And that's the philosophy behind this save feature too. The lack of in-mission saving is meant to heighten the tension during battle by making it less easy to go back and prevent that casualty. Some people perceive it this way. Others don't.

So yeah 'do we like it?' is the LAST thing you should considder when designing a game. The first thing you should ask yourself for every feature is a ratio of 'do people want it?'  to 'how hard is it to implement?', with the in or out of the feature being determined by whether enough people want it to justify the time you have to spend on it.

Now with this I can't agree. Game design has never been a matter of democracy. Suppose 51% wants feature A and 49% doesn't want it. That would mean we'd have to implement it, wouldn't it? Now suppose some more people arrive at the boards who don't want feature A, bringing the amount of people who don't want it to 51%. Crikey, now we have to remove the feature again until some more people want it!

No. That's not how it works. How it works is, developers make a game. If the developers are being paid for their work by a publisher, they usually have to listen to the wishes of the publisher, who in turn believes it's representing the wishes of the end user (which, as it turns out, is not usually the case). But we're not getting paid, we do this for fun, and with no interest other than to make a fun game. And our definition of "fun" is not dictated by "the players". It's dictated by ourselves. That's not to say we don't listen to people on the forums - if someone suggests something we think is a good idea, we'll adopt it. But ultimately, the decision is ours. As for the end user, for any feature (or lack thereof) that you don't like goes: you have three choices. Play it, don't play it, and change the game so it's so you want it.

[inquisiteur2]

makes sense.

[mattcaron]

Firstly, I'd like to add my voice to the chorus of folks requesting an in-battlescape save feature. Us old guys with families, hot wives, etc. can't sit and play forever, nor can we let it just sit paused forever either. Since I've weighed in, I won't belabor the point.

However, I did want to add:

you have three choices. Play it, don't play it, and change the game so it's so you want it.

True, but misleading. Even if I were to implement such a feature, it has been repeatedly stated in this thread that the core devs will NOT include such a patch into their mainline.

I can see not implementing a feature, but to not allow other people to do it? That's just lame.

[Sir DOC]

I can see not implementing a feature, but to not allow other people to do it? That's just lame.

I'll tell you what is just lame: using your first post here to bash the developers of the game.

Hopefully none will listen to your moaning and they will continue developing this wonderful game.

[mattcaron]

Considering that this feature is a must-have and I'm not playing the game or beta testing it because it is unplayable without it, it doesn't matter much.

[XaverXN]

Whoever claims the game is unplayable like this has not given the current system a chance.
With the amount of monsters, level size and soldiers replaceable we now have this is totally fine, and if this changes in the future our great devs will sure find a way to make up, like one autosave when half the aliens are killed or so.

[mattcaron]

I played the game for an hour. 15 mins to set up a base, 45 mins to run a tactical mission. This exceeded the "I need to be able to save my game every 15 mins of wall clock time because that is the maximum limit on the amount of time I can allow to elapse between when I am asked to do something and say "give me 5 minutes to save my game". 45 minutes exceeds this margin by 200%. Ergo, the game is unplayable.

Like I said, some of us have lives, families, etc. and grab our gaming time when we can. Game designers need to understand that if they want us to play their games. That said, if no one cares if folks like me play this game, that's fine. It doesn't hurt my feelings any.

[XaverXN]

Stop saying you have a life and family, we all have. That just sounds offensive. Some of us even dedicate every free minute to develop this game.

OK, if you absolutely must be able to save the game within 15 mins AND are a slow player (tactical mission takes me ~10 mins) AND cannot leave UFO running until you get back (windowed/minimized) then this game is probably really not for you. But frankly, I think you are the only one here that matches all the three problems at once ...

[Agrajag]

I don't see a reason for being able to save during tactical missions; The missions are quite shot, search and destroy, all done in max 15 minuttes. And if you save before entering a tactical mission, it is not much you loose if you exit the game (if anything). Whatever you do in a mission, it is not so very important that you can't have it undone

I think playing the game is actually more fun if not saving after even the slightest progress

[sirg]

After playing alot with 2.2 I can say that I liked the fact that there was no save game feature, because it made things interesting on the smaller and easier maps.

Here is what I think -

Ironman mode is great for the smaller and easier maps, because it makes them thrilling, unlike the simple crashsite missions from X-COM (which were very boring after a while, because you could save all the time).

Even this concept is great for the simpler missions, you can't keep it for the longer and harder missions (which I hope you are planning) because, as many people stated before, it gets quite hardcore. Imagine doing the cruiseship in Terror From The Deep on Ironman mode.

My suggestion is to enable some checkpoints on the larger and more difficult maps, which would enable the player to go back to that position, like in a platform game. Reaching the checkpoint before someone dies could be an extra challenge, and you can play with that too.

I'm saying this because as the game is designed right now, it's really hard or even impossible to play it on ironman (ie if half of your best squad dies, then that's it and you'll have to deal with it), because there are so few replacements and all of them are below average.
Then, if you really want to keep the ironman feature, you should provide much more soldiers and better than average skilled.
As many others said, and I agree with them, it's quite unrealistic for a top military organization to rely on a bunch of average GIs. There is hard to find one that has at least one proficient skill in the recruiting window, and even that one has poor accuracy or mediocre TUs....

Besides, I think that most players would like to make a squad of "heroes" and go with that squad until the end of the game. I remember some of my 1st top squad names, like Arthur Parker, or the two Iakubiks I had... and I'm sure that many can relate to this. I haven't abused of the save game feature, but it was useful mostly when something really stupid happened which killed 2 ppl or more, like a bug.

[Sacrusha]

ie if half of your best squad dies, then that's it and you'll have to deal with it

That is the intention, as far as I know. Since the more experianced soldiers are not that much stronger, every mission can be won with 8 recruits. This holds for every difficulty setting.

[sirg]

LOL !? where is the fun of building an experienced squad, selecting the best soldiers, improving each other through missions on certain skills, "training" specialists from average soldiers, etc etc?

This isn't a RTS game, and as you have put it (as being intended), it's a major flaw of any TBS game!

1st ) You don't get enough new soldiers to replace the experienced ones as they die "realistically" during the missions

2nd) The replacements are crap

3rd) Improving a soldier stats takes to much time because they die to easy

4th) Aliens cheat, by sniping your soldiers from ridiculous long ranges, and you'll never get a soldier with that kind of superhuman stats unless  you cheat...

and this brings us to the topic where some people chose to cheat by editing the saved game (buffing soldiers' stats, changing weapons' specs, etc) in order to have fun, because it's frustrating to play a mission for 40 mins and lose your best sniper because of a bug (like an alien shoting your soldier through a truck or hill), then go back retry it and waste more time, because the game isn't well balanced at the moment.

EDIT - and more experienced soldiers aren't stronger but much more effective, having more TUs, and better skills, which mean more damage/shot

[lama]

Being quite a newb to ufo:ai, starting my adventure with the 2.2 release on standard difficulty setting ("first time with a challenge", if I remember correctly) I must say I wouldn't like to see save option during missions. In fact it is quite easy to figure out right tactics not to loose your men, and later on with proper equipment I can let my outfit act reckless most of the time, and surprisingly they usually survive (or I retry ).

Adding a possibility to save during ground combat would (at least for me) take away all the fun and destroyed this special thrill of excitement, stronger with every turn ended.

And hello forums

[sirg]

Well probably you haven't played for long either.. as missions get more and more difficult.

[lama]

Well probably you haven't played for long either..

It's only 30, so probably not, maybe I should've stated that in previous post. Had no idea difficulty factor changes