Auto save or Manual Save?

[Arytom]

Auto save or Manual Save?

When it comes to playing a game how do you like to save because there are games that auto save in certain parts or have checkpoints which is a pain in the ass to get to if you want to take a break? Like for instance i was playing diablo and i had to start a part all over again because i did not make it to a certain part even with the auto save you still can get screwed. Games like Skyrim, Dragon's Dogma i liked the way they saved you don't have to worry about loosing much with those games. Have you ever had this problem before?

 

[227]

You might as well be asking people to choose between cancer and erotic massages.

Checkpoints are awful. Having to alt-tab out of a game and make a 7zip archive of the save folder to be able to revisit certain parts of a game is awful. The lack of control over when you're able to walk away from a game without losing progress is awful. The fact that even many low-budget games are capable of implementing manual/quicksaves while many major releases still use checkpoints is awful.

When the revolution comes, the checkpoint people will burn first and I'll make s'mores over their ashes.

 

[dragonbird]

What tutu said, except for the first sentence.

I don't like having to play for an extra 10 minutes after dinner's ready just to get to the next checkpoint.
If my character dies, I don't want to have to go through 15 minutes of replay to catch up. Because the games with checkpoints also seem to be the ones where replaying a segment feels more like punishment than an exciting challenge.
If I want to experiment with something, I don't want to have to backup the folder first.

 

[Arytom]

What tutu said, except for the first sentence.

I don't like having to play for an extra 10 minutes after dinner's ready just to get to the next checkpoint.
If my character dies, I don't want to have to go through 15 minutes of replay to catch up. Because the games with checkpoints also seem to be the ones where replaying a segment feels more like punishment than an exciting challenge.
If I want to experiment with something, I don't want to have to backup the folder first.

I could not agree more with you Drag.

 

[Suhiira]

If you have a manual save option as well as checkpoints/autosaves I'm happy.
But you NEED both.
Having JUST checkpoints/autosaves sux.

 

[blank_redge]

Checkpoints don't seem too terrible in fast, run-and-gun type games; I like the checkpoint feature in Borderlands / Borderlands 2. Though, it's less "checkpoint" and more "last auto save / spawn point you passed by."

I like how GTA V implements saving; you can have auto-save on, where it saves after storyline critical plot-points, and you can also manually save at any time in gameplay.

 

[Arytom]

So true grand theft auto is a fine example of how a game should be when it comes to saving.

 

[ReptilePZ]

Yep, auto and manual saves is how I like it - most games offer this. I have the habit of pressing that F5 button... a lot. I hate losing progress.

 

[Arytom]

Yep, auto and manual saves is how I like it - most games offer this. I have the habit of pressing that F5 button... a lot. I hate losing progress.

The one game that surprised me was bound by flame, which was a low budget game but offered a good saving system. I forget the games i played that had poorly placed checkpoints and or no Auto save.

 

[Calistarius]

Hello... my name is Michael... and I am a saveoholic.

It all started back in 1997, I had found Final Fantasy VII... and I had played the game for somewhere around 90 hours over 2-3 weeks time. I had goten so far that I was about to decent into the final area, and the final boss... I was probably at most 2-3 hours away I think from finishing the game. So one day I came home, and was met by my mother in the door, who told me "Please don't kill your sister." And I was all like "Whaat?" And she told me that my sister had somehow managed to erase my entire Playstation one save card (which I don't even know how she did in one single click... because you had to erase every single file one by one)... I was all like "I see... it... happends...", and I basicly just bottled it up. So I set out and restarted the entire thing, and I also thought "well... then I could try and do everything... find every single little secret, and kill all monsters, etc"... so I set out to do that. So after maybe 2-3 weeks I had once again reached 90 hours, and once again I was at the same location as I had been the last time befor my sister erased by savecard.

Then one of my friends has of course heard about the game from me for the past 4-6 weeks now, how much I loved it and all... so he suddenly asked me "Hey, Micke... could I maybe borrow your Playstation, and Final Fantasy VII... I would really love to try it...". At first I am hesitent... but decide that it's fine, he could borrow it, because I had started to become a bit burned out on the game anyway... so a little rest for some time could not hurt. I lend him the stuff, and I go about reading some fantasy books for the following few days. I return maybe 2-3 days later to where he lives, to check up and see how it is going, what he thinks and all that. The first thing he says to me though is "Micke... I know what you told me that your sister managed to do... and I am really sorry... but... I accidentally... saved over your save file of FFVII..." I take a deep breath, and calmly and slowly breath out, and go "It's ok... these things happens... don't worry about it..." keeping what ever annoyance I might feel in.

Eventually I get my PS and game back, and I once again set out to play that entire damn thing again... it took me another 70 hours, over something like 3-4 months time (due to being very burned out on it) befor I finally got to see the fraking ending of the game for the first time. I mean I love FFVII, it is probably my favorit game of all time, a lot due to nostalgia sure, but still, somewhere around 4-6 months tofinish the freakin game due to other people! It's a game that changed my gaming habbits compleatly, from playing maybe an hour at most a day, to being able to play from the moment I woke up, to the moment I went to sleep. But, it is also the game (of course the other people had a hand in it as well) that gave me the habbit of saving... a lot... and in multiple savefiles. Some games I play will have really complex saving systems that I use. For Final Fantasy games (and other simmilar types of games like Suikoden etc) I adopted the saving ruitine of always maintaining atleast 2 savefiles, where I would save on both when I was about to stop playing... just in case someone where to accidentally save over one of them. But my saving ruitines can be more complex then that... a lot more.

Like UFO: Enemy Unknown (XCOM: Defence for you Americans)... that game probably have my most complex saving system ever. In that game I will have 1 final save", usually called "00", that I save on as the last save befor I stop playing for the day (often I have already saved on another of my other saves files, befor I save on this one... just to be safe), I would also use it sometimes as a temporary save if I was in the middle of playing but was uncertain if I wanted to keep the current outcome or not. Then I would have 2-3 "Geoscape" save files where I only save on every now and then as time goes by on the Geoscape. I would also maintain 1 save file called "Befor Mission" that I saved on befor entering a mission, and 1 called "After Mission" which I of course saved on just after returning to the Geoscape after a mission. Then of course I have numerous saves when I am on a mission. 1 called "Start of Mission", which I maintained just in case I halfway through a battle felt it went just to bad to not start over the mission. 1 called "Start of Turn" which I would save on as soon as my new turn started, and then 1 called "End of Turn" which I would save on befor I ended my current turn. And on top of that I would maintain something like 5 or so "Turn" savefiles which I would save on subsequently every time I would do a minor save within the current turn... like if I am about to open a door or something... or take a very critical shot that I have to succede with or something. I have had games of UFO: Enemy Unknown where I would save between every single shot, every single time.

Then of course that whole thing with "Quick save" and "Quick load" was invented... which just made it even worse for me. No idea how many hours I have spent on replaying the same few seconds in a huge amount of games due to having quicksaved befor something... doing that thing and failing at it... so quickloading... and doing it again... and again... and again... no matter how small of a chance I had in doing so (even 1% chances... in the new Xcom for example) until I succeded.

Hello... my name is Micke... I also have a pretty severe case of being a save scummer-oholic...

 

[blank_redge]

Ha. Yeah; admittedly, I've gamed the system before, reloading earlier saves. Biggest offense was with Fallout 3, when passing a skill-check was a percentage, rather than the Pass / Fail of New Vegas.

 

[227]

Original Sin has the best save system I've seen. It autosaves, allows manual saves, and lets you quicksave. You can choose how many quicksaves and autosaves it keeps before overwriting the oldest ones, so even insane people like me who quicksave every few steps can return to a point 5-10 quicksaves earlier without cluttering the save folder. Games like Bloodlines, on the other hand, have quicksaves that aren't overwritten, so I'd have to go through the folder and delete a ton of them whenever I finished to keep from having hundreds of superfluous save files. Witcher 2 sucks in the opposite way by having only one quicksave file, so a badly-timed crash can corrupt it, sending you back to your last manual or auto save.

It blows me away that save systems like the one in D:OS are as rare as they are.

What tutu said, except for the first sentence.

But you're fine with the last sentence? Human s'mores for everyone! Viva la revolución!

 

[dragonbird]

But you're fine with the last sentence? Human s'mores for everyone! Viva la revolución!

Sure, I like s'mores. I'll even provide a flamethrower if you need it.

 

[Calistarius]

Original Sin has the best save system I've seen. It autosaves, allows manual saves, and lets you quicksave. You can choose how many quicksaves and autosaves it keeps before overwriting the oldest ones, so even insane people like me who quicksave every few steps can return to a point 5-10 quicksaves earlier without cluttering the save folder. Games like Bloodlines, on the other hand, have quicksaves that aren't overwritten, so I'd have to go through the folder and delete a ton of them whenever I finished to keep from having hundreds of superfluous save files. Witcher 2 sucks in the opposite way by having only one quicksave file, so a badly-timed crash can corrupt it, sending you back to your last manual or auto save.

It blows me away that save systems like the one in D:OS are as rare as they are.

Yeah D:OS does have a good saving system. I have seen simmilar kinds befor, but as you say they are rare. My amount of autosaves and quicksave numbers that I have set for D:OS is somewhat small though. I have 6 manual saves I use, called 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05 (I have started naming saves this way in the last handful of years in games that allow naming, instead of the name of character plus number or something, since I rarely maintain several playthroughs at the same time anyway, if I do start a new character I will make a "final" named manual save for the previous character, just in case I want to return to it). I have 3 autosave slots, because they happend pretty seldomly anyway. And finally I have 8 quicksave slots, because if I had 9 I would have to scroll to see the oldest save.

That is actually pretty common for me. How many save files I keep depends on how many save files the game allowes you to see on one single "page"... for some reason I don't like to have to scroll, or click "next page" in the few games that do it that way. I want all my saves to be visible in one single view with out having to scroll down. So if a game only allows 3 saves to be seen at one time, I have 3 saves... if a game allowes you to see 30 saves at the same time, I will most likely have 30 savefiles.

The only exception to this rule is if I am either keeping a specific save due to possibly not being able to get back to a location once you leave it (like for Example Lothering in Dragon Age Origins just in case I forgot to do something there and have not goten far enough into the game that it would be to long to go back to it... or my save file that I have in Skyrim that I took just between getting of the wagon but befor you get to create your character, so I do not have to constantly watch the entire wagon ride each time I start a new character), or just befor a specific gamechanging choice or something, and of course if I am keeping an old save of a previous character/playthrough, or something else simmilar to this. Then I do not mind if I would have to scroll, as long as I do not have to scroll to see all my curent playthroughs saves.

 

[LexAnarchy]

Why not both?

 

[Žymantūnas]

I wouldn't mind autosaves if they put character profiles like Dragon age or Mass effect, you can quicksave/save as much as you like if you don't fock up other saves.

 

[Arytom]

Why not both?

I imagin Cyberpunk 2077 with have both if not i would prefer manual because auto save is not always best.

 

[MohawkJon_1311.866]

Six of one, half dozen of the other.
My only mistake is that I rarely manually save. I have drank myself stupid on a few occasions due to 3-4 hour sessions of Fallout 3 and not saving.....
I would like to have some auto saves like after plot points and before/after major boss battles. Cause at least then you have the , "At least I don't have to do that again," moment. I Hate having a game where I don't know when or where it's saving and you have to assume that your progress is saved.
I'd like to have the choice.

 

[Unkindled]

I prefer having both. One to make damn well sure I've saved. That being manual. And the next to cover my ass when I forget.

Games like Dishonored, it's a godsend. Skyrim too, except when the damn autosave freezes the game and I turn it off out of tediousness. I save very frequently on that game anyway. Dishonored especially. Fallout too.

 

[Lolssi83.811]

I chose 2nd option even though I don't really need auto. Sometimes it can save extra hassle but usually manual is enough.

And doesn't GTA send you to safe house and beginning of the mission when you load?