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Ultra Realism Possibilities?


obscurus

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I wonder if ghosters would accept the "single save on exit". Sounds not so bad. Because currently they try to find a save spot and put Garret there while they are doing whatever a taffer is doing when is not taffing. :)

Of course the single save would still be saver then choosing the wrong "save" spot on the map for idling away the time. :)

Gerhard

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I still don't like them though, cause then those certain points become save zones and players may think of only getting between them, and not pay attention in between.

so if you take that concept right to being able to save all the time, then the player is only tihnking about the small spans of time inbetween the very frequent times they save, so that's worse, and not a problem inherent with save points.

 

Its a GOOD thing taht they focus on the points in tbetween, because the level designer will force them to experience those bits the way they were meant to be, rather than in mini, disjointed experiences caused by saving too frequently.

 

Those two descriptions about savaholics describe me perfectly. I personally prefer the game designer to limit saves for me, as otherwise I tend to feel like I should be playing perfectly, and I'll just reload as soon as I get any damage or anybody sees me or I waste a single peice of equipment. I find it more tedius and less immersive/fun to play games where I can save anywhere, at any time.

That's pretty much it.

When the FM author controls where and when you can save, you get the idea of how hard it's supposed to be in which area.

With unlimited saves, anything can become easy. You effectively control the difficulty level!

 

I think it adds hugely to gameplay if like in RL, you know that a fatal slipup will mean losing everything you have done (wouldn't it be nice to have quicksaves in RL, and every time you made an embarrasing faux pas you could just hit reload..), you play the game in a completely different way - more cautiously and conservatively, the way a thief should be. Well that's my opinon, anyway...
Totally my point, everytime I bring this topic up :) You find ways of doing things you wouldn't have realised before, and the exhilleration of acheiving things that way is much more rewarding.

 

 

 

 

 

Buuuut as you guys can see, I don't get much support from the team on this topid :)

What I really want is for this to be an optional feature, that can be turned on or off by the player. The FM author just provides the additional "save point" (or whatever) info, and if the option is turned off, its not used, you can save whenever you want.

 

But I would eagerly leave it on, getting much more excitement playing a level the way the FM author intended :)

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Adding save points is quite a different thing than adding limited saves. Limited saves are easy to do. We just have to set a value and on each save we count it down until it reaches zero. Having save points is quite different though, because the FM author must provide an save location and the code must check this all the time against the player position and when reached, does an automatic save. Quite a different approach. So I don't really think we will add save point support because it is extra work, doesn't fit in with the environment and has not a high priority on our list anway.

Gerhard

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so if you take that concept right to being able to save all the time, then the player is only tihnking about the small spans of time inbetween the very frequent times they save, so that's worse, and not a problem inherent with save points.

 

Its a GOOD thing taht they focus on the points in between, because the level designer will force them to experience those bits the way they were meant to be, rather than in mini, disjointed experiences caused by saving too frequently.

 

If you can save whenever you want, you shouldn't be thinking about it at all.

 

Making save points is analogous to making save zones, which is akin to load zones. Levels should not be designing around a system mechanic. The disjointed experience caused from that breaks the level up, instead of looking at it as a whole. At least my intention is to create entire levels with no seperate 'bits'.

Loose BOWELS are the first sign of THE CHOLERA MORBUS!
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Yeah well I'd be happy with limited saves, or a save tally with a par.

I don't want you to feel that you are settling for a lesser save mechanic solution when it comes to my FM's. I just worry that when players hit the save button that it tells them that they cannot save, and the frustration that comes with it. And they wouldn't know the save points beforehand.

 

It's kinda moot for us anyways since we have no trouble Expert ghosting and only save when we need to leave the computer/program.

Loose BOWELS are the first sign of THE CHOLERA MORBUS!
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What about having a save every time an objective is completed? That way you don't have to worry about non-linear level design....

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That could be a really hard core option for a player to enable :) If an FM author wanted to support this option, they would just have to make sure the objectives are reasonably spaced apart, or possible to acheive the objectives in reasonably spaced apart times. I could imagine myself timing the completion of something easy, say get all loot, for just before I start a hard bit.

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Yeah, it could be a bitch if there is only one objective, and it takes six hours to reach it... :lol: But hopefully FM authors have the sense to balance things like this out (assuming they are implemented, of course). A really large, hard map should have more save points, or more objectives (with save on completion) than a small, easy one.

 

I personally like checkpoints, especially if they are done in a way that you don't notice when a checkpoint has been reached - in some games a small drop in framerate and an inconspicuous messages is the only clue you have that an autosave has occured. I would be really happy with not telling the player at all that the game has been saved, keep 'em on their toes I say! I think it is a good thing to give players the message, one way or another, that saving constantly is the same as using god mode or unlimited ammo, and is a form of cheating, and I think the default game setting for FMs should be for restricted saving only (and players have to go to some effort to unlock unlimited saves)...

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Saving constantly is not the same as god mode. Because the player still has to actively do his actions in order to get along. In God mode this is no longer true, because he simply doesn't need to care.

 

I did some cheats for C64 games because they were to hard. I usualy only did the unlimited live feature because this requires me still to play the full game, only without restarting every five lives. While when I would createa god mode it owuld be quite different to play, because the gameplay can be totally ignored, which is not true for unlimited lives (or unlimited saves which is basically the same).

Gerhard

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I still don't understand why people can't just enforce their own save discipline and let other people do what they want.

 

It's a single player game that you play the way you want. Who cares if someone else quicksaves and quickloads all the time and uses it to "cheat?" Why care any more about that than someone who hacks the def files to give themself 5000 health and 99999 fire arrows, then goes around killing everyone? It has the same effect on you, that is, none.

 

If you're worried that people will post up screenshots of "perfect" games while in reality it took them a bunch of loads to do that, that's why I suggested putting up number of saves/loads in the stats screen.

 

T1-2 had unlimited saves, yet somehow the style of Ironman was popularized, and people played it.

 

Savaholics, like any *holics, are not going to be "cured" by strict rules imposed by the game. The healing begins with yourself! :) They're only going to be cured when they themselves realise that saving and loading all the time is much less immersive than just playing through the game. I'd rather spend time making the game more immersive and fun, and make people wonder what's going to happen next so that they will actually think twice about breaking from the game to load a save. The alternative is spending a lot of effort on preventing people from loading saves while other gameplay elements suffer.

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Sparhawk, it's not the same, but it's like it. If you play back the game that a frequent saver has made, as one long movie, you would have a movie of a god-like player, dodging every bullet perfectly and not wasting a single bullet of ammo.

 

It's not god mode, but its god-like. There is no way you could play that way without saving so frequently, so, it's like cheating. And it's a cheat you have to disipline yourself not to use.

 

 

Ishtvan, this isn't about making other people play leet like us. This is purely for our benifit as a player who likes a challenge, and doesn't feel challenged if he can make up the rules as he goes along.

Edited by Domarius
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as a player who likes a challenge, and doesn't feel challenged if he can make up the rules as he goes along.

 

I like a challenge. I haven't killed anyone since my first playthrough of T2 when I got mad at the Mechanists in Trail of Blood and decided to switch from hard to expert simply so I could kill every single one of them. I've played thru T2X without KO'ing anyone so far. There is no coded in limitation that stops me from doing these things. I make up the rules, I follow the rules, it's a challenge, it's fun. How is that any different from telling yourself "I'm only going to save twice on this entire mission," and then following that rule?

 

We can make killing and even KO'ing have realistic consequences in order to make the game more immersive and challenging. But we can't really have realistic consequences for saving, because saving is not realistic. Saving and loading are an abstract system that exists outside of the rest of the game that's trying to simulate life.

 

Saves are not just for when you screw up either. A lot of the time in T2, AI get stuck on a wall or turning in circles, and the only way I've found to fix it and make the AI go back to their intended patrol paths is to save and load right then. It would be very frustrating if I couldn't do that.

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How is that any different from telling yourself "I'm only going to save twice on this entire mission," and then following that rule?

For this simple reason - you have no idea if that's possible or not.

 

But if the FM designer designs the level at a certain level of difficulty to be completed with the number of saves or the save points they placed, its no different than placing guards or putting secret caches of ammo at key points.

 

You as a player will KNOW its possible to complete it that way, you just have to work out how.

 

And that's where you start finding cool ways of doing things that the FM author may be encouraging you to find.

 

 

As for getting away from game bugs, we don't have the buggy DarkEngine to worry about. Doom 3 is a lot more stable.

 

 

It's annoying that you guys are treating this like some dumb inherently flawed idea that needs to be shot down - the fact that more than a few people are interested in it should show that like iron man or ghosting play styles, this is yet another thing that a faction of thief players are interested in.

Edited by Domarius
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I'll go for save points, if it's a choice between that and unlinmted saves. It's just too damn easy to hit that quicksave key, or even escape and save game. We should at least make it really annoying for the player to have to save a game, like he has to quit the game, go through 2 or three menus and answer some general knowledge questions correctly in order to be able to save.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

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Sparhawk, it's not the same, but it's like it.  If you play back the game that a frequent saver has made, as one long movie, you would have a movie of a god-like player, dodging every bullet perfectly and not wasting a single bullet of ammo.

 

We are not considering the game from a hypothetical point of view, but from the player experience. And from this point of view unlimited saves are NOT the same as god mode. You can easily try this out yourselve. Play D3 with god mode without saving and then play it with normal mode but save as often as you think it fit. The difference is. In god mode you can absolutely disregard the gameplay. You can jump into pits where you would get killed, you can stay in a corner and let yourself be beaten by monsters as long as you like. If you play with unlimited saves you still have to beat the monsters. If there is no time for saving because there are to many monsters at a given point in time, you have to try to get through them until you can save again, and this makes a big difference, because you are still playing the game. Regarding it from a metaposition where you would watch the game as a movie is a purely hypothetical speculation.

 

It's not god mode, but its god-like.  There is no way you could play that way without saving so frequently, so, it's like cheating.  And it's a cheat you have to disipline yourself not to use.

 

You are making up a strawman argument and consequently use this to prove the point in a chain of logic deductions. The problem is: A deduction is wrong if it's assumption is wrong. :)

 

Ishtvan, this isn't about making other people play leet like us.  This is purely for our benifit as a player who likes a challenge, and doesn't feel challenged if he can make up the rules as he goes along.

 

It's about fun. For me a game is no longer fun if I'm forced to play as somebody else wants me to. You don't know anything about my environment, so you can not even begin to decide for me how *I* should play the game as seen from your point of view. I still enjoy the game with unlimited saves because I may have other opinions what "fun" entails, then you or Oddity or anybody else has.

Gerhard

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Don't get all phylosphical in the face of someone's gameplay suggestion. It's not the right or wrong way to play, its the way WE want to play.

Not *WE* it's *YOU* which includes some or many of other players but NOT all, so WE is not appropriate because this would include ME as well, where I object to.

Gerhard

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But if the FM designer designs the level at a certain level of difficulty to be completed with the number of saves or the save points they placed, its no different than placing guards or putting secret caches of ammo at key points.

 

If an FM is designed in such a way that it relies on savepoints then there is something wrong with the design of the mission. As Ishtvan said. Saving is an abstract concept, a metconcept outside the realm of the game itself. Therefore it should have no consequence for the mission if I save once or one hundred times. There are no mapchanges to a map based on the number of saves either, so how should an FM designer map a level with saving in mind? This is a purely ridiculous argument.

 

You as a player will KNOW its possible to complete it that way, you just have to work out how.

 

When I start a map I should have no idea how I have to solve the mission apart from fulfilling the obejctives. This would require at least a second replay.

 

As for getting away from game bugs, we don't have the buggy DarkEngine to worry about.  Doom 3 is a lot more stable.

 

It's not. When I played the game it ALWAYS crashed every second time I loaded a map. Not realistic you say? When I leave a map and enter the next one it loads a map. Every second time it crashed. I played on god mode anyway, so the first loading is for loading the initial map when I start to play, and this means that on EACH mapchange, I had to save before I pressed the button (once I realised this problem) because otherwise I would have to replay the previous map as well. And I could have NEVER entered even the seocnd level because this already requires a mapload. Autosaving also doesn't solve this, because the autosave is done when the next map is loaded and you start playing it. :)

 

It's annoying that you guys are treating this like some dumb inherently flawed idea that needs to be shot down - the fact that more than a few people are interested in it should show that like iron man or ghosting play styles, this is yet another thing that a faction of thief players are interested in.

 

Yes. That's why we provide an OPTIONAL limitation to saves for those people who want it. It's more annyoing if you try to force it on everybody else just because of those few, when we already agreed to implement a way to satsify both.

Gerhard

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Yay for spar and his multiple posting and semantic debates.

 

Saving frequently, at any point, makes the game drastically easier. You can't deny this.

 

By WE I mean me and the people like me, concerning the saving issue.

 

And for christ's sake, stop saying I'm forcing people to play my way. How many times did I mention "option" and "optional"?

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There seems to be enough people interested in limting saves somehow, to warrant discussing ways of doing so, for future versions of the mod.

 

In my opinion, debating wether the concept itself is inherently right or wrong is as un-fair to a portion of thief players as putting ghosting or ironman playstyles in the firing line.

 

I would like to see a simple version somewhere along the line, to start with, like just having the saves and/or loads total at the end, and the FM author can also specify a "par" for the amount of saves and/or loads, as a guide figure of what you should need to complete it.

 

Then sometime in the far future, I don't know when or how, maybe consider something more intricate, like some of the ideas brought up in this thread.

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There seems to be enough people interested in limting saves somehow, to warrant discussing ways of doing so, for future versions of the mod.

 

GEEZ! I can't believe it. WE ALREADY SAID WE PROVIDE SUPPORT FOR LIMITED SAVES. In fact we already decided to support this a long time ago, so why is there need for an ongoing discussion if we ALREADY decided this????

Gerhard

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