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Author Topic: Saving game & replacing units  (Read 36884 times)

daeghran

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Saving game & replacing units
« Reply #15 on: December 24, 2006, 09:39:55 pm »
Quote from: "Czert"
Simply, put in-mission saving, but limit it to e.q only 3 saves per mission . This helps in emergency cases and to aviod frustration when you lost 3 peoples to last alien in 2 minutes, when you played current mission for 45 minutes and replying mission can only lead to more frustration.


I second this whole-heartedly!!!

btw, Great game.

Derrida

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Saves are absolutely necessary
« Reply #16 on: July 23, 2007, 12:49:27 pm »
Players really need saves in ground combat. I just picked up your game for the first time an hour ago, and while some of the elements are unpolished (player models look silly, controls are confusing) or incomplete (hire/fire screen needs to list expenses), the game is still a tremendous achievement. But to actually deny players a vital feature just because you don't like it when they use it to make single player games too easy is really petty. Dialing the difficulty down to Easy makes the game really easy too - are you going to disable that in future versions?

My first time out, my soldiers wandered into gunfire because I couldn't understand the controls and couldn't tell civilians from aliens. I was really upset to find that I couldn't save, load, or undo what had just happened, so, assuming an unfamiliarity with the game, I came here to find out how to save. Now I see that you've crippled a decent game intentionally because of a dislike for the way certain people play by themselves. What if I want to exit from a battle to talk to someone on Google Chat, change the music in my mp3 player, or free up some CPU cycles? I can't do that because I might abuse the save feature?

And in fact, what if I do "abuse" the save feature to make a perfect mission? How does that hurt your enjoyment of my enjoyment of your game? UFOAI is a strategy game - how can I improve my gameplay without being able to correct my mistakes?

X-Com is over a decade old, but as long as your gameplay is so seriously crippled, I may as well play it instead. I wanted to recommend this game to my friends, but now I can't do that, because they'll react the exact same way I am. Think about the effect on other fans, too - If you implement mid-mission saving, all of us who like it will use it, and those of us who object to it like you do won't use it. You could only benefit from re-implementing this feature.

Come on, guys - You've got a pretty HUD icon for save/load, put it to some good use.

Offline Zenerka

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Re: Saves are absolutely necessary
« Reply #17 on: July 23, 2007, 01:37:45 pm »
Quote from: "Derrida"
But to actually deny players a vital feature just because you don't like it when they use it to make single player games too easy is really petty.

We do not deny anything. We are just not going to neither code that nor include any patch regarding this into official release.
This is open source game, so if anyone wants such feature, he can prepare a patch and use it.

Derrida

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Re: Saves are absolutely necessary
« Reply #18 on: July 23, 2007, 02:53:39 pm »
Quote from: "Zenerka"
We do not deny anything. We are just not going to neither code that nor include any patch regarding this into official release.
This is open source game, so if anyone wants such feature, he can prepare a patch and use it.
Oh, absolutely. You have every right to shoot your game in the foot, I just think that you would appeal to players if you didn't. I do assume you want players and that you're not doing this purely for yourselves. Competition is stiff in your field, and this is something that could put you ahead of it.

Yes, someone could maintain a competing version of this game, re-coding the patch each time you updated your source.

inquisiteur2

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Saving game & replacing units
« Reply #19 on: July 24, 2007, 10:11:30 pm »
Well, personally I think its way better to not adopt the kill once save once tactic.

When save option is possible in tactical mission, even after restraining myself I end saving each time I move my soldier and at the end there is no more any challenge in the game.

That's being said, I dont think it would be a wrong idea to allow a one time save during tactical mission. 3 times its already huge, there isnt more than 8 aliens in a mission, you dont want to save each time you kill 2 aliens do you ?

Offline BTAxis

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Saving game & replacing units
« Reply #20 on: July 25, 2007, 01:13:28 pm »
Iron man mode. Nuff said.

OneUp

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Saving game & replacing units
« Reply #21 on: July 31, 2007, 06:49:28 pm »
If it's not too much trouble, maybe you could add a code that compiles how many times you save your game to determine end game outcome? I.e., you don't get the best ending if you saved 5,500 times in-mission. Out of mission saves probably shouldn't count, but maybe they should.

Offline BTAxis

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Saving game & replacing units
« Reply #22 on: July 31, 2007, 07:30:32 pm »
We don't HAVE in-mission saving. And Zenerka already said nobody on the team is going to code it nor include a patch for it in the official release. It's a design decision that has been made, and there will be no compromises.

OneUp

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Saving game & replacing units
« Reply #23 on: July 31, 2007, 08:00:13 pm »
That's a little defensive there Sarge... I thought the point of the forum was for people to add their input and suggestions, regardless of what the devs decided was gospel or not. Consider that maybe someone will have an idea that really makes sense and maybe, just maybe one of the devs will decide that they really like the idea and change their minds. ;)

Offline BTAxis

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Saving game & replacing units
« Reply #24 on: July 31, 2007, 10:12:37 pm »
Yeah, but this happens to be one point about which they've already made up their minds. The thing is that sometimes you just have to go with the plan rather then jump at a new idea, even if it's a good idea. Jumping at ideas is how you get feature creep. I'm not saying that mid-mission saving would be feature creep (as my earlier post in this thread suggests, I'm all for iron-man style saving), but you have to make a decision at some point. For almost every feature, both existing and imaginable, goes that some people will want it and others will not. If you're going to change your design decisions based on a convincing speech, then you'll end up changing stuff around every few days. So what I'm saying is, this particular issue is pretty much beyond debate.

Offline garthos

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Re: Saving game & replacing units
« Reply #25 on: August 26, 2007, 11:44:45 am »
I'm with the developers on this one and tend to favour less of a save game feature. Infact I would like to see the replay battle option be tuned down some. I also think the battles would deliver better gaming experience with more casualties sustained.

I'm also more likely to replay the game again if I was beaten or financially ruined where I'm left to consider I think I could do a better job a second time around and are left with that yearning to see how the game unfolds.

As a big fan of turn based strategy games, I'm in favour of the player losing again and again until they they improve there strategy. (I certainly wouldnt have played the number of hours I have in the civilization series if it wasnt for getting my ass kicked).

I understand the argument of frustration of replaying the same level, but don't agree with a save game option as a solution. This would impact negatively on the game play experience of each battle. Loss of fear and amphosphere.

I also feel that losses need to be sustained to apply pressure on the other strategic elements of the game, geoscape management etc.

Punkiee

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Re: Saving game & replacing units
« Reply #26 on: August 27, 2007, 10:37:30 pm »
While I would prefer a save feature and optional iron man, I fear the developers decided already against. But what about an autosave evertime you exit battle which gets deleted after loading? I don't think any sane person would abuse this consequently by copying the file.

Well, i would edit the code to make such a copy automatically for me :P
I dito that both systems could be used simultaneously.

Offline Mattn

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Re: Saving game & replacing units
« Reply #27 on: August 28, 2007, 09:14:33 am »
there will be an autosave feature before you enter a battle.

Offline poldy

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Re: Saving game & replacing units
« Reply #28 on: August 29, 2007, 02:35:51 pm »
Ok, after reading the previous posts I couldn't help myself from commenting on it. Especially the argument about "the original":

The original UFO had in-mission-saving, yes. (And I used it heavily :)

BUT on the other side the missions were much longer, more aliens, more soldiers (especially with the bigger dropship, ~26 wasn't it?) In Terror from the Deep the missions were  even more time consuming: very large and complex maps AND most missions had even 2 maps. - Just remembering the missions on the cruise-ship where you had difficulties just finding the aliens, the save-function was a must after playing for an hour. (BTW I hated that about Terror from the Deep.) I don't want to talk about the titles after TftD, they had maps that really took the fun out of the game.

UFO:AI strayed from the path of "the original" already when the team size was capped at 8 members. The whole game is made around smaller, faster missions. I understand the argument of the "pro-in-mission-save-faction", they want a more original-like UFO:AI and in-mission-saving is only one point of that. But UFO:AI is not the original in high resolution. It is a game of it's own. Some people think that is good others do not - that is ok.

So my oppinion is, that the devs should make it easier to mod the game. In the long run even split the project into an engine- and a game-part like other projects have done. So the argument of the devs "do it yourself" is more realistic than now. In the mean time I have no problem with a missing in-mission-save.

- Poldy




Offline Robrecht

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Re: Saving game & replacing units
« Reply #29 on: August 30, 2007, 01:38:16 am »
I have to agree with Derrida...

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.

There's more reasons to save during a mission than just perfect-scoring yourself through...

Let's say for instance (and this is a very dramatic example) I'm playing the very last mission of the game's story.. I'm almost through and I've killed all the aliens except one and all of a sudden I get a call from the hospital telling me my mother was in a serious accident and her situation is life-threatening and I should go over there as soon as I can. With your current system this means I have to either: a. quit the game and start all over again or b. leave my computer running UFO:AI for however long it takes me to get to the hospital, see whether my mother is ok or not and eventually get back.

Now in my example above, whether I finish the mission or not is no longer a real concern as my mother is dieing and for all I care the computer and UFO:AI can go screw themselves. But in less dramatic situations (for instance: I get an unexpected visitor or there's a thunderstorm and the power could go out at any minute) I'm pretty much screwed...

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.

But that's just my advice and opinion, not an attempt to convince you of anything. Do with it what you want.(The advice/opinion, not the post, so don't delete it and use 'you said do with it what you want' as an excuse).