No Quicksaves

[Khrissetti]

I just don't want Squad to make the mistake of making the game too easy by adding too many crutches in the career mode

I just don't want Squad to make the mistake of making the game too frustrating by removing one very good tool to protect against silly little accidents.

I'm currently building a fairly large Moho lander in orbit. It's taken me three launches and several hours thus far to build, getting there will take another couple of hours carefully making the correction burns, and getting back will take a couple more. If my ship decides to spontaneously combust after timewarp (as it's done before) or if I accidentally hit 'space' a couple of times too many because of a sudden bout of lag and I don't have a quicksave to go back to I won't be going through all that trouble again, I'm probably going to put the game down and not bother going back to it.

KSP is a game of escapism, if it becomes a tedious and endless task of checking and re-checking every little aspect of the mission I'm not going to play it - why should I when I have cost reports to produce which take the same amount of checking but get me money at the end of it?

You play the game your way and stop forcing others to do likewise.

EDIT: It's like the Mario game on the 3DS, if you die too many times on a level then you have the option of getting unlimited invulnerability to finish the level. I've died dozens of times but I still have no idea what that golden tanooki suit looks like because I didn't want to use it. Conversely, it doesn't hamper my enjoyment of the game if my little nephew does decide to use it because he wants to get to some more fun levels he can actually do.

Edited July 24, 2013 by Khrissetti

[Levelord]

Testing your designs is what sandbox is for, but a limited amount of quicksaves in career might work. It would give some safety from bugs, but not really be exploitable. A limit to a single restore per mission would work as well.Have you read the thread at all? This was brought up almost immediately: In a gamemode where budget is important, a failed launch/landing/whatever is a catastrophe and has consequences. Being able to just go lolquicksave until you succeed ruins the entire idea behind the gamemode.

I've already read the thread and the reason why you keep going the route of 'you didn't read this' is because you simply can't/won't address my individual points. I'll list it out to you in 2 points:

In a gamemode where budget is important, a failed launch/landing/whatever is a catastrophe and has consequences. Being able to just go lolquicksave until you succeed ruins the entire idea behind the gamemode.

1) The game is not multiplayer, so whatever you do in the game is a personal accomplishment. If you are concerned with lolquicksaving, then it's a personal fault you have to deal with because you can't be honest with yourself. The practical uses for quicksaves is:

* Because the physics engine causes spontaneous accidents which have no bearing on the player's skill and is at no fault of the player, but rather the limitations of the processor.

* Another use for quicksaves is for things that involve long burns that you can't realistically do (like a 2 hour burn), so you save and continue the burn some other time.

If you botch the landing or whatever and it's not caused by weird physics, then you accept it and not use the quicksave. If you lolquicksave to rewind a launch and then later complain there's no challenge, it's really just your fault. Nobody else was with you inside the game compelling you to do it other than yourself.

2) Even if the quicksaves were removed, the game's highly moddable nature means that some people who want it badly will simply mod it back into the campaign mode, or copy and reload the save files, making your suggestions completely pointless. Which means you're going to have to delve into the area of telling people what mods they are allowed/not allowed to install and asking for mods to be blacklisted from the campaign mode which doesn't fit your idea of 'challenging'.

3) You're really just concerned with how other people play their game because you simply want to have some narcissistic excuse to feel like you're accomplished by endlessly comparing yourself to others. I haven't pressed the F5 button since 0.17 but I don't go around pretending I'm in a position to tell everyone how or what to do with their game. If the game's not challenging I'll point them to the challenge subforums. If the game is too difficult, I'll point them to autopilot mods and tutorial videos to learn from. I don't ask for devs to remove optional features in a game where people can easily just ignore it if they are truly concerned with challenging themselves.

[satcharna]

1) The game is not multiplayer, so whatever you do in the game is a personal accomplishment. If you are concerned with lolquicksaving, then it's a personal fault you have to deal with because you can't be honest with yourself. The practical uses for quicksaves is:

* Because the physics engine causes spontaneous accidents which have no bearing on the player's skill and is at no fault of the player, but rather the limitations of the processor.

* Another use for quicksaves is for things that involve long burns that you can't realistically do (like a 2 hour burn), so you save and continue the burn some other time.

If you botch the landing or whatever and it's not caused by weird physics, then you accept it and not use the quicksave. If you lolquicksave to rewind a launch and then later complain there's no challenge, it's really just your fault. Nobody else was with you inside the game compelling you to do it other than yourself.

You cannot use the fact that the game doesn't have a multiplayer mode as an excuse here. People will and do compare themselves to others either way, you can quickly confirm this by looking at the banners people have in their signatures, and the fact that there have been multiple arguments about whether mods should be allowed for such banners. It's not official multiplayer, but it exists, and always will.

2) Even if the quicksaves were removed, the game's highly moddable nature means that some people who want it badly will simply mod it back into the campaign mode, or copy and reload the save files, making your suggestions completely pointless. Which means you're going to have to delve into the area of telling people what mods they are allowed/not allowed to install and asking for mods to be blacklisted from the campaign mode which doesn't fit your idea of 'challenging'.

This is true, and unfortunately there's no easy solution to it.

3) You're really just concerned with how other people play their game because you simply want to have some narcissistic excuse to feel like you're accomplished by endlessly comparing yourself to others. I haven't pressed the F5 button since 0.17 but I don't go around pretending I'm in a position to tell everyone how or what to do with their game. If the game's not challenging I'll point them to the challenge subforums. If the game is too difficult, I'll point them to autopilot mods and tutorial videos to learn from. I don't ask for devs to remove optional features in a game where people can easily just ignore it if they are truly concerned with challenging themselves.

Calling me narcissistic is 1) Not true, and 2) Not helping this discussion.

Either way, I've gotten confirmation from official sources: Career will have multiple difficulty levels, and quicksave will be disabled on the highest difficulty.

Which means that I'm done with this discussion. It's been a pleasure.

[Levelord]

Either way, I've gotten confirmation from official sources: Career will have multiple difficulty levels, and quicksave will be disabled on the highest difficulty.

Which means that I'm done with this discussion. It's been a pleasure.

Actually I'm very pleased with the multiple difficulty settings with quicksave removed on the highest difficulty, rather than having it across the board. It's a good compromise that I support.

Thanks for engaging in the discussion with me. Sorry for calling you a narcissist, I was under the impression that was what your motivations were, which usually tends to be the case with other people.

[Sma]

I'm going to actually use quicksave more. The improvements made in 0.21 (ASAS, etc.) make manual flying more user-friendly so I'm going to MechJeb-less for a while and rediscover the universe manually. I don't have unlimited time, so those quicksaves are going to be necessary.

More power to you! I don't know that I'm going to use quicksave more, likely just the same, but in my opinion, if Scott Manley uses it...theres nothing wrong with it LOL.

And congrats on breaking your MechJeb habit. I haven't used it yet, not sure if i plan on it either, unless there comes a point where I'm launching the same thing over and over again and I don't want to bother doing it manually each time. Was watching someone new to the game trying to use it though and it does look a little fun.

What about having a limited amount of quicksaves in career mode?

And if you ask, I only use quicksaves when trying something that will likely result in a "blooper reel" situation (before doing something that has a high chance of ruining anything of my stuff in orbit) or before doing a very difficult task (case in point: landing on Tylo)

THis is an interesting idea, and while it maybe complicating things further, i just saw someone mention that career mode will have multiple difficulty levels with the hardest one not having quicksave at all. If that's the case, I wonder if they'll think about maybe limiting the medium level to a certain amount of quicksaves, or perhaps making it so that you have to accomplish certain goals (not necessarily completing a mission) before you can use, or earn quicksaves.

As far as using bugs and glitches as a reason to use QS, for now that works, but I would hope that when career mode is out, especially after its been out for a while, that most if not all of the common bugs have been squashed.

[boxman]

It's not that we lack the discipline to not use it, it's that we want the game to impose challenges on us, to have a set of rules to play by. Sure, you could make a Mario game without enemies, and tell us to just pretend that there are enemies around if we want a challenge, but it wouldn't be a good game. You could make a GTA game without the police, and tell us to pretend that some NPCs are police if we want a challenge, but it wouldn't be a good game. Every good game has a set of rules and built-in challenges, including most simulators. All we want is for Kerbal to also have rules and challenges. Sure, nothing should be too challenging, but a career mode without quicksaves isn't too challenging, simply because we have a sandbox mode to experiment and learn in, which clearly should still keep quicksave around.

Part of what makes modern games so simple and dull is that we can save whenever we want to, and how often we feel like. Sure, you'll beat the game easier and quicker if you can simply make a quicksave after every enemy, but it removes all the feeling of defeat you get from dying just before the boss of the level, and the feeling of accomplishment when you finally figure out the strategy.

Sandbox mode is for testing, learning and goofing around in, and career is for challenging us to manage a successful space programme on a limited budget in as realistic a setting as possible.

How can you compare it to no enemies?? It is completely voluntarily to use it. Why should not people be able to choose how to play the game? If people wants to cheat using quicksaves then just let them do it. And again even though I dont cheat using quicksaves, i still use it in case of those game breaking bugs which has been mentioned several times in this thread.

Just play the damn game without quicksaves and it wont affect you at all. Removing the quicksave feature will on other hand affect loads of people who might want to use it.

Also imagine the whining we will have on these forums if someones spacestation just vanishes due to a bug when it could have been prevented by the quicksave feature.

I have myself experienced this bug several times. I had one rover just vanish into thin air when i got a few hundred meters away from it, had a whole colony just blow into pieces and had my moon station just vanishing like the rover.

Edited July 24, 2013 by boxman

[Titler]

Either way, I've gotten confirmation from official sources: Career will have multiple difficulty levels, and quicksave will be disabled on the highest difficulty.

Which means that I'm done with this discussion. It's been a pleasure.

So let's say, on "Normal" difficulty, the Career will have Quicksaves? I thought by your arbitrary definitions that's what Sandbox not Career mode was for? So in fact, Squad does not agree with you? Of course, your line of argument would be that only the hardest setting is the most realistic; however, we can always think of adding harder things still... such as actually doing the job in real life. Which you will never, ever do; you, like all of us, simply don't have the physical and social and scientific skills to do so. Armstrong et all were 1 in 300 million. KSP in the meantime is a "crutch" for the other 300 million minus 1. And that includes you, until the point you have to play KSP under a 9g load whilst running the risk of being killed for real in a huge fireball.

So just enjoy your "crutch", satcharna. And let everyone else enjoy theirs. And you'll find dropping the "Stop Having Fun Guys!" attitude will transfer into all sorts of other areas too, and make you so much more skilled at all the other crutch simulations people spend their day to day existence in too.

[satcharna]

So let's say, on "Normal" difficulty, the Career will have Quicksaves? I thought by your arbitrary definitions that's what Sandbox not Career mode was for? So in fact, Squad does not agree with you? Of course, your line of argument would be that only the hardest setting is the most realistic; however, we can always think of adding harder things still... such as actually doing the job in real life. Which you will never, ever do; you, like all of us, simply don't have the physical and social and scientific skills to do so. Armstrong et all were 1 in 300 million. KSP in the meantime is a "crutch" for the other 300 million minus 1. And that includes you, until the point you have to play KSP under a 9g load whilst running the risk of being killed for real in a huge fireball.

So just enjoy your "crutch", satcharna. And let everyone else enjoy theirs. And you'll find dropping the "Stop Having Fun Guys!" attitude will transfer into all sorts of other areas too, and make you so much more skilled at all the other crutch simulations people spend their day to day existence in too.

I'm not happy that quicksaves are in career at all, no, but I'm content with the fact that hard mode, the "proper" mode, is going to be without it. I would have been content with leaving it at that, but your post was just too aggressive. What's wrong, someone sneak in and murder your puppy while you were preparing your morning cuppa?

You're right, I would absolutely love to go to space in real life, but as you say, I'm not going to be able to. I don't have the physique (my bones would literally shatter if I get close to takeoff acceleration)and I don't have the proper contacts to get recommended to a space programme. Scientific skills I could probably manage, as long as the experiments in question have to do with quantum electrodynamics and the like, as those are fields that I actually do study. Bringing up the moon landings is a bad example, the personnel involved in those were literally pilots that received a quick course in how to use equipment. They couldn't and didn't interpret any of the scientific data they received. A better comparison would be payload specialists for space stations.

So you're right, KSP is a sort of outlet for me, a way that I can have fun with realistic spacecraft in realistic situations.

Why should that stop it from being as realistic as possible? KSP isn't a "direct-action" simulator like a flight simulator, but if it was, I'd certainly want to try playing it inside a centrifuge while sitting on top of a bomb that detonates when a random number generator hits 0, while checking a literal wall of instruments in front of me, with mission control chattering over the radio. Wouldn't anyone?

But like I said, I'm content with the hardest difficulty not offering quicksaves, and frankly I couldn't care less what they add to the lower difficulties as I won't be considering them part of the proper game, but rather a learning tool for people to prepare for the real career mode. Contrary to what you may have deluded yourself into thinking, I don't have a "Stop Having Fun Guys!" attitude, and you certainly don't get to have any say on what I do with my life, seeing as how you have no bloody idea of what my life is like.

Now, I'm off to enjoy a book and some chocolate. Do try and calm down.

[HeadHunter67]

you certainly don't get to have any say on what I do with my life.

If I may make an observation, this is essentially no different than what others have tried to tell you about how you feel their gameplay experience should be - as we have seen in this thread and your former sig.

[Levelord]

I'm not happy that quicksaves are in career at all, no, but I'm content with the fact that hard mode, the "proper" mode, is going to be without it.

But like I said, I'm content with the hardest difficulty not offering quicksaves, and frankly I couldn't care less what they add to the lower difficulties as I won't be considering them part of the proper game

There is no such thing as a 'proper' mode. It's likely 'proper' for you when you play on your own, but it's not something you can use to judge other people's play style. Please don't make me regret making that sincere apology about calling you a narcissist.

So you're right, KSP is a sort of outlet for me, a way that I can have fun with realistic spacecraft in realistic situations.

Why should that stop it from being as realistic as possible? KSP isn't a "direct-action" simulator like a flight simulator, but if it was, I'd certainly want to try playing it inside a centrifuge while sitting on top of a bomb that detonates when a random number generator hits 0, while checking a literal wall of instruments in front of me, with mission control chattering over the radio. Wouldn't anyone?

Depends. Would you play a game where the physics time warp was completely disabled and you had to wait for orbital transfers without it? That's realistic.

[sjwt]

I think all that needs to be said has been said in this thread and others like it,

Please remember that KSP is at the moment a sandbox game and arguing over how to play it is like measuring the coastline, the closer you look the longer it gets.