Subtle change to the Quicksave mechanic

[pandaman]

A suggestion for a changes in how the Quicksave / Quickload (f5/f9) system works.

The main focus of the idea is change the 'Disable Quicksave' difficuly setting to 'Disable Quickload'.  A subtle change but it means that quicksave always works so it still offers the game crash protection it was designed for, without losing the hardcore 'no quicksave' option.

When f5 is pressed it quicksaves as now, but tags it with a date and time or sequential number, or both, probably with a limit as to how many before it replaces the oldest.

F9 loads the latest quicksave automatically as now, or it could open a menu to select which one (to protect against realising you f5'd two second too late).  If the No Quickload option is is enabled then it just won't work, as you would expect.

Currently on game start up it loads the game as it was when it was closed, and if f9 is pressed then you can lose a lot of game progress. So I suggest adding the 'close game' save to the list of quicksave games rather than storing it seperately, so it can still be retrieved if f9 wrecks it for you.  If the No Quickload option is used then it just uses the latest save on the list on startup and (as long as you use f5) you don't lose progress if you didn't get chance to close the game properly.

 

[monstah]

No "terrible" in the title? Topic must be fake.

Heh, no, seriously. Kudos for approaching this subject with an actual (sane) proposal instead of just a complaint.

I like the core idea; I just don't think multiple dated saves are needed. But still having crash protection even on a hardcore game is awesome! If I'm not mistaken, f5 overwrites your autosave, too. If that's the case, you don't even need to change the load process for hardcore games: if the game crashes, you reboot it and it will load the autosave.

The problem with f9 is another one and should be addressed separately, although every thread on the subject becomes aggressive.  I think I have a possible solution to that one, and I'll probably make a topic for it in the same spirit as this one. I'll just wait till I get home and check out the save folder structure. Nah, never mind that. You're proposing changes to the Quicksave mechanic, and Quickload is the other side of it, I'll just say it here.

I believe all the grief would be gone if, by pressing f9, the game overwrote autosave.sfs before loading quicksave.sfs, and not the other way around. That way, if you find out you loaded a two-month-old save, you simply hit alt-f9 and load autosave.sfs (which will work as a quicksave of sorts in this situation, taking you back to the moment just before you hit f9).

You still live with whatever failure led you to hit f9 in the first place, but at least you don't lose who knows how much time on your save. Plus, it all relies on already-in-place stock mechanics; the only change is the order that autosave is written and quicksave read.

Edited December 30, 2015 by monstah

[pandaman]

Thanks, I'm not familiar with how the current system works under the hood. 

But yes,  a single 'saved games' file seems a logical  solution.  By keeping a few (maybe 5? 10 max) that can be identified, by time or whatever, then it gives a bit extra backup in case one gets corrupted, or just got saved 'too late' or at what turns out later to be an 'inconvenient time', without storing a lot of unneeded data.