I personally favor saving at all times, places, and circumstances, whenver the player wants.
And to be honest, this is a single-player game. What people do in the privacy of their own single–player games is nobody’s business but their own. If people want to save whenver they want, let them. If you don’t, then don’t. But don’t impose your views on other people just to make yourself feel superior.
The gamification idea is very interesting at all but it could be a bit frustrating for casual gamer. And i think one target of this game is to reach the biggest possible amount of gruops. That’s why i choosed the Anywhere + Autosave.
Dark Souls/Mount & Blade’s system (everything is autosaved, only one save file) is ideal in my opinion, as it makes me care about what happens in the game.
I see a lot of people talking about loss of progress being a negative of autosave only. This makes little sense seeing as the game would also be autosaved upon quitting.
[quote=“RoyBread, post:99, topic:23965”]
I see a lot of people talking about loss of progress being a negative of autosave only. This makes little sense seeing as the game would also be autosaved upon quitting.[/quote]
IMHO, the argument against autosave-only makes a lot of sense if the game has a main storyline with much of the content built around it. In such cases, all roads eventually lead to the same main story encounters. Thus, if you die in one of these and can’t save immediately beforehand, you definitely lose some amount of progress, either to the very beginning (only 1 autosave file) or to some arbitrary checkpoint not of your own choosing. Either way, you’re forced into repeating stuff you’ve already done to get back to the point you died, which you have to pass to see anything new. And the harder that encounter is, the more likely you are to die, so the more repetition you have to do.
The problem with such repetition is that it negatively impacts the player’s attachment to the game. Instead of everything being new and different all the way through, now much of the player’s experience is been-there-done-that mechanical grinding. Thus, the fun quotient decreases. Furthermore, no matter how much somebody might like the game, he will only want to play it more or less exclusively for some finite period of time before burning out on it and needing a break. The more repetition he has to do, the sooner this will happen, leading many folks abandoning the game prior to finishing it.
Even worse IMHO, this repetition destroys the game’s replay value by consuming it all on the 1st play-through. The more of the game the player has to repeat after death, and the more often he has to do this, the more he memorizes the content, and the more options he will try along the way in hopes of improving his odds in the main encounter that keeps killing him. Thus, when (or if) he ever finishes the game, he will see little reason ever to play it again because he already has, many times, and can quote every line of NPC dialog from start to finish.
Thus, I think devs do themselves a disservice by putting harsh limits on saves. They put a lot of work into the whole thing, much of which will go unappreciated by many players due to the grindy repetition. Further, the player base will have a high turnover due to the 1-and-done nature of gameplay, instead of being composed of longterm, highly devoted fans.
This can all be avoided by letting players save whenever they want to. Those who don’t want to take advantage of this feature have the freedom to ignore it, while it’s available for those who’d rather have it. Thus, everybody is happy and the game and its community prosper.
Well unlimited saves can also discourage repetition in some cases, e.g. I try conversation option 1, observe the outcome, reload, try conversation option 2, observe… More free save system allows to abuse this a lot more.
But I agree with you that this is not a real issue, or atleast it shouldn´t be solved by limiting saves. Best way to ensure replayability is that your decisions have much more long term impact. Thats exactly the reason why I played most favorite games of all time (Gothic2, Witcher2 and Mass Effect 2 - should I hope for KCD2) atleast three or even four times. These games have in common that every decision you take has some short term effect, but also (usually very major) long term effect, and only way to see the different outcome is to start again and try another options and choices.
For example: Your role in city in Gothic2 - guards, dragonslayer, mage influenced almost EVERYTHING, like 80% of conversations changed depending on your role, incredible even by today standards. Had to play Gothic 2 six times, one for each role in original game, and once for each role with datadisk, it was that awesome.
Witcher 2 - end of ACT1 and siding with Iorweth of Roche - changed whole act 2 completely, quests, story, characters, loot… amazing. Did four takes on W2, tried both sides, and when enhanced edition came out, tried them again smiley
Mass Effect 2 - well… you know, its mass effect, everything seemed really important, and you always felt like your choice really matters. Thats why I played ME2 six times, and ME3 only once hehe.
So if the game can achieve atleast half of what these games could deliver in this area, I think that it doesn´t really matter what save system is implemented, and in that case unlimited saves will upset smallest amount of people.
You know your argument about repetition is valid only with assumption that autosave system will be “badly” designed.
If autosaves would be well timed and would be triggered by some actions (e.g. entering city, forrest, enemy vinicity etc.) There could be little difference between autosave and classic saving options.
But then again. I believe that ideally @warhorse does not want us to have several shots at every fight or difficulty we face.
I believe that main idea is having that one shot like in real life.
It is common knowledge that the game will include “encounter quests” like in Red dead redemption.
So you could find a bandit with a chest full of treasure. Now if you know that you can try infinite times till you kill him and took is treasure, there is little excitement behind it. (And lot of repetition).
But if you have only one shot (because after autosave load you may not encounter him again) the game has suddenly completely different feel.
@ProkyBrambora:
Autosave systems are IMHO always “badly” designed. They are a mechanical things that work in some standard, one-size-fits all way. As such, they’re never good fits for most situations. Further, the fewer times autosaves happen (as in based on widely separated checkpoints), the more progress is lost between them. OTOH, the more frequent the autosaves, the more computer assets are tied up dealing with the save file instead of running the game itself.
I also believe that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to make an autosave system “well-timed” in a “living world” type setting where NPCs are all doing their own things all the time. It’s relatively easy if the NPCs only “exist” when interacting with the player, but when they’re all running around interacting with each other constantly, there’s no way to predict when and where “good” places to autosave with them might be.
In development right now is a “low fantasy/realistic” game called Sui Generis and its prequel/tech demo Exanima. This game claims to have an up-to-the-second autosave and that’s all. Normally, I wouldn’t play such a game, no matter how good the rest of it was, because of this (you can no doubt tell I’m fundamentally opposed to not allowing players to save at will :D) . However, in this case, your character can come back from the dead, which makes him unique in the game world and a lot of the story is built around this ability. This is intriguing enough for me to enjoy this game. But KCD is set in the same world we live in, where permadeath always applies. So this system won’t work for it.
I could imagine a system where you would have:
autosaves determined by progress through specific gameplay points
player-determined saves that would be bound with Henry taking a short rest, available at specific places (by fireplaces located around the game + the game might possibly enable you to learn to create temporary fireplaces, if you bring some necessary items with you…)
a limited amount of quicksaves that would replenish by resting
The exact amount of save slots available for each save variant would be determined by the pre-selected difficulty setting. One may enable a number of slots for each type (Easy), another only one slot for each (Normal) and some harder difficulties might merge the autosave and the player-determined save into one save file (Hard) and possibly even exclude the quicksave function altogether (Medieval)…
How about that?
It’s a single player game. If you don’t want infinite tries, then don’t give yourself that option. However, don’t vote to take that option from others.
There needs to be an option when you start a game to play the way you like. (save anytime, auto save only, only save when logging out, etc.)
Regardless of the chosen system, I think there should be an OK/CANCEL dialog when you select the New Game option. I’ve now accidentally clicked it 3 time, restarting my game, while adjusting settings in the main ESC menu.
I went for auto saves only. I don’t mind any of the 3 but I don’t think you would need to save more often than every 10mins or so. I wouldn’t want it to be too easy. The challenge would be fun
People have a life, you can’t force them to loose (and repeat) several minutes of gameplay.
I think a lot of you are completely missing the point of this.
I agree it should be an option you choose when you start the game.
So right there, everyone against it should back out of the discussion as you have nothing to offer (not to sound harsh, but, let’s be honest, you no longer have an opinion to offer since you’re against it! 
If it’s an OPTION, let the people who want to discuss the particulars of this option. Those who are against it just muddle the discussion. That’s my honest opinion, not trying to sound rude!)
The REASONING behind having something like this implemented is because it puts more weight behind the decisions you make and how you approach things. Most people, when given an opportunity will save whenever they can, as often as they can, especially before making big decisions, choices, etc…
BUT, these same people, if given the option, would prefer if they COULDN’T save whenever they wanted, because they WANT the game to force them to be more strategic, more tactful, more mindful of the decisions and choices they make. Essentially, certain situations where you may approach something gun’s blazing (so to speak), if you knew your choices held more weight, you might plan or strategize your decision making a lot more, because you were well aware of the greater consequences. You might approach things with much more caution, etc. etc.
Basically, the game is forcing you to play more “realistic”, instead of playing careless, unnecessarily fearless, etc. Some people want this option because they would normally not be disciplined on their own. That’s why the developers should consider implementing it. Don’t underestimate the lack of discipline gamers have. So many will cheat, exploit any flaw in a game, etc., to get a leg ahead, but A LOT of these same people wish there were measures in place so they weren’t tempted to do so.
Pengman19, With all due respect, screw that noise.
YOU may like that option. So, play the way YOU want. It’s a single player game. We all get to play the way WE want to play.
Don’t give me any B.S. about other player’s lack of discipline. Give me a fragging break.
I want the option to save when I want. I have a hectic life and need to save on the fly. I don’t want to be bound by your playstyle.
If you lack the will to set a simple option before you play your game, that is on you. Seek help and leave the rest of us out of your life choices.
Thank you.
As someone has already mentioned earlier on.
Give options.
Easy: save where and whenever you want.
Medium: auto saves at parts where you might fail and die etc (or every 30 mins).
Hard: treat it like real life, if you die you lose everything and start again.
Just gives a bit of variety.
Frak, I think you missed what I said. One of the very first things I said was that it should be an OPTION you select when you first start. Please re-read my original post. OF COURSE it should be an option. My original post was reiterating the fact that HOW this option should be implemented should be left to discussed by those who would utilize this option, because everything else is noise.
Pen, I guess “it” was not clear to me. The way the rest of your post went, I thought you meant “it” should be the no save option.
Cool beans. It’s all good. 
when the continue option will be fixed? Next alpha patch?
Yeah, it’s all good. No one should be forced to play that way, but there are certain people who like the challenge of the GAME forcing them to play a certain way (if they selected that option at the beginning of their campaign).
The thing is that devs are trying to make the player to live with his mistakes.
Because the game is supposed to be realistic but if you save/load every time you are not completely satissfied with the result, the work they are putting into the realism is waste of energy.
