Player Controlled Saves


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Hi there,

I've been playing Don't Starve for awhile and really love the game; but, I feel like it could use a few more improvements (which makes sense since it's still in BETA and the creators are still shaping the game).

The main thing right now that I feel like should be added to the game is a save function controlled by the player. I mentioned this already on Twitter and rethought how it could work. When a player wants to quit out of the game via the ESC key menu (ESC key -> Main Menu), when they're asked if they really want to quit, it'll save where they are in the game. That way players can take a break whenever they want without waiting for dawn/dusk.

I understand there may be ways to exploit this feature but I feel like it should exist in some form. @CoreyRollins on Twitter mentioned something about making a save a build-able item and that could work but I wish there was some way to brain storm a way to keep players honest with instant-saves without lagging out the game with background saving.

One thought I had was, once a player logs back into their self-saved game, that save is deleted; and, if they quit the game without waiting for dusk/dawn or self saving, they go all the way back to their last automatic save (aka dusk/dawn). It could work but it's definitely something that needs to be looked at and maybe tested.

Anyway, I'll be sure to keep playing the game and giving some feedback. It's seriously a fun game and I look forward to it being launched in it Gold form.

~MegHartie

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Bed rolls if it's night time. And if it's half way through the day, wait 5 minutes. Easy peasy. :p

EDIT: Also, mandrakes when cooked make you skip the entire day until morning, so you have that too.

Edited by Aimay
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I personally dont think this is necessary, but to get into mechanics to avoid abuse of this system: There could be a timer of lets say 10 seconds b4 the game actually quits and saves. This would allow u to avoid things like combat logging.

How does combat logging work? Well now it is only possible to achieve with the proper timing. For example: If a beefalo is attacking u and exactly at dusk he is as far away from u as possible (right after an attack he stands still for a bit while the player keeps running), so when hes about to resume the chase, quitting the game and reloading it resets the aggro for some reason. If hes close to u, it doesnt tho. Found this out on accident. Never managed to reproduce it. The timing is really really close.

An instant save+quit function allows u to abuse this mechanic.

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A quick save on quit would be a good feature. I'm against multiple saves, but if it's only for when you want to quit I don't see the harm. after all, it's no different than the auto-save. If you were in trouble already at that point then you'll still be in trouble when you return.

On a side note, we would need to fix the issue with aggro reseting before this could be implemented (as NeedPants pointed out).

Edited by mobius187
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I'd rather include a mechanic that automatically saves the game every time you exit out as that semi prevents the "exploit" of exploring in various directions all on the same day via exiting out and reloading your last save until you can make a "perfect" run for that day. It doesn't completely fix the issue as players in a pinch can still X out or Alt-f4 out and avoid the save, but it does make things easier on a person who is playing the game legitimately and simply has to run off to work, or to the store before "evening" and the autosave.

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I'd like to see a function for a more than one user on the same account.

As it is, if my wife or kids want to play, they have to overwrite my save.

Allowing multiple game slots (3 or 4?) could let more than one user play the game.

(Playing on Steam BTW)

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Yes I totally agree with multiple game saves on one account. I don't mind the morning-evening save timer. But I showed the game to my son and he instantly loved it, but I don't want my 100+ day survival game to be at the mercy of my 6 year old boy. Not that I don't trust him ofcourse :-|

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I'd rather include a mechanic that automatically saves the game every time you exit out as that semi prevents the "exploit" of exploring in various directions all on the same day via exiting out and reloading your last save until you can make a "perfect" run for that day. It doesn't completely fix the issue as players in a pinch can still X out or Alt-f4 out and avoid the save, but it does make things easier on a person who is playing the game legitimately and simply has to run off to work, or to the store before "evening" and the autosave.

This is why the quicksave on exit works, that is if scripted AI didn't reset on a reload. Basically if you wanted to quit you simply exited the game and it saved exactly where you were so when you returned to the game you would be right back at that spot. Unlock saved games that you load if you played around and made a mistake you couldn't reload the quicksave. Think of it like Minecraft... even if the game breaks (or there's a power failure) when you start the game you would be right back to the exact spot you were when the game was cut short.

I'd like to see a function for a more than one user on the same account.

I know this suggestion was made fairly often. The key point was that each save was a different game, rather than multiple saves within the same game. The only issue I could see here was whether Klei wanted to market their game to multiple players on the same account... or whether they wanted each user to buy their own key.

The same is true for my suggestion, which was to allow each character their own save slot, so you could play Wilson for a while, and then switch over to play Willow, and so on. Again, that would let multiple users play, one for every character, and I'm just not sure whether Klei wants that as an option.

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